Everything I say is STILL being <> bananas.

EPISODE 200: THE VERY END OF CJ CURRY

So, folks, this is it. I'm about to finish my undergraduate degree, barring any ridiculously unforeseen Honours acceptances. As such, this is the last episode of the CJ Curry Experience. Ever. That's it. Finis. Finito. Over. Done. Insert other adjectives here.

I've already done a look back at my college life, ten introductions, a million references to aeroplanes, and just as many retcons. For now, I'm just going to say what I'm thinking as I finish this blog for good.

I started this blog as a channel for my ridiculosity, the stupid stuff that ran through my head but I never actually said out loud. Something to do in first year of uni that wasn't homework, hanging out with my friends at college, or waiting for an instant message for four hours. Something free that conserved my money, and was also an outlet for all my crazy.

Thankfully, this blog has served that last purpose quite admirably. I say "thankfully" because it most likely kept a semblance of sanity around me. Possibly. I can't say how much I needed this blog at times, particularly in 2012 (which was decidedly NOT the Year Of The CJ, like I thought it would be). But as of next month, I will have erased all traces that I was ever here in Bundoora, and I'll have moved on. Time for me to begin something different, kickstart a new chapter of my existence.

Seems that this blog has seen almost everything under the sun, short of my subconscious. Most seasons have included a news post, an Engrish post, a couple of other serious posts, and many references to aeroplanes, bicycles and cheese. The evolution of this blog is a good example of how I've evolved as a person (I stop short of saying "matured" because I'm still not quite sure if that has happened). More importantly, it's the longest project I've kept up, and the longest almost-purely-textual account of my life ever.

Two things are worth mentioning here. One is Charles Schulz' statement, through Charlie Brown's mouth: "Security is sleeping in the backseat of the car when you’re a little kid, and you’ve been somewhere with your mom and dad… and it's night time. You’re riding in the car and you can sleep in the back seat and you don’t have to worry about anything. Your mom and dad are in the front seat and they’re doing all the worrying. They take of care of everything... But it doesn’t last. It doesn’t last. Suddenly, it’s over – and you don’t get to sleep in the back seat of the car anymore."

Another is this picture feels-trip here.

I want to share some numbers with you. Numbers tell a thousand words.

• 704 - the number of geocaches I have found in a few short months.
• 11,283 - the number of songs in my music library.
• 55 ± 5 - the number of owls I have amassed.
• 365 - the number of days I kept up my 365 project.
• 50 ± 5 - the number of T-shirts I own.
• 600 ± 15 - the number of days of class I have had since the beginning.
• 11 - the number of Nightwalks mixed, ready and waiting.
• 35 - the number of exams I have had at uni.
• 1372 - the number of days I was a college student.
• 200 - the number of times we have visited Curryland.

Finally, I wish to share a few thoughts and memories from my fairytale:

• My first room at college, and being told "welcome home".
• My first O Week, and easily my best.
• Watching the Ashes until stupid o'clock and only missing out on a handful of deliveries.
• Slightly drunk escapades throughout my first year.
• The award that decided my entire future at college.
• Nazi Zombies and Mario Kart in my second room.
• Mixing music together and forming a tight community with 12C.
• The award that kickstarted my self-esteem, ego, and arrogance (albeit controlled, limited, and with a huge clock hung on it).
• That one Thursday that things fell apart, and were glued back together almost instantly.
• A day in high summer when I answered over 70 lockout calls.
• Summer at college, with friends and Wii gaming in the flat and working at Menzies.
• My first custom-built PC, and Borderlands and lots of it.
• Many many times with my Study Support crews - all three of them.
• Masterchef. So much amazingness.
• Constant cricket.
• The wisdom teeth snafu.
• Isidore.
• Heaps of time spent on the hill, especially in summer.
• The disappointment that probably eventually meant more to me than a hundred acceptances.
• A second summer in the flat, and Big Day Out in the meantime.
• Summer nights spent being generally awesome.
• Late nights in the company of people who inadvertently taught me so much about myself and my green hair.
• That winter spent with so much of my own mind.
• Extra Life and all its glory.
• Finally leaving behind an empty room.
• Settling in Bundoora.
• Spending one final summer holiday geocaching and volunteering and going out all night. Getting that lifestyle of "That's another night gone, gonna head on home, and we'll do it all again tomorrow" in the meantime.
• Blue hair and an unexpected consequence thereof.
• Final year project and finally securing myself where I wanted to be, only to have it crash in on me in just thirteen days.
• A mystery very happily solved, and another Extra Life survived intact.
• And now... moving out again. Gypsy blood is in me, I swear.

I wish to thank everyone involved in this five-year project. I may return to blogging in some form or another... but CJ Curry is retiring. I wish him well, on his island paradise of Curryland - no doubt he's sitting on a deckchair by the beach drinking freshly squeezed orange juice out of a tall glass with ice and one of those cute little tropical umbrellas at sunset on a 28° day. Lucky fucker.

---

uh oh it's time to go, count down the hours slow

how many times did i say 'this will never end'

i walked the road with you, still feels like it's brand new

and every moment that we shared, laugh or cry, i was there

my friends, i have to say our paths will surely drift away

but i live for the here and now, and i know i need to thank you

for every joke you've told, a warm smile when the weather's cold

and any time i needed anything, you were always here

and now i stand here watching the clothes grow small on you

i stand in line and wait for the world to follow true

they say all things come to pass, and old friendships turn to dust

and while we've had some fun...

i say the best is yet to come.

--From a seemingly forgotten tune called Don't Make This The End, by a seemingly forgotten band called Return From Switzerland

---

Goodbye.

Ease yourselves.

EPISODE 199: THE 199TH EPISODE THAT EVER EXISTED

raiiiiiiisin toast.

Poor you. You're struggling with the concept that I actually exist. Well, I can prove it - I am not a chair, so hence I exist. Does that satisfy you? No? Well, sad then.

Poor you. You're either alone or missing someone at the moment. Well, you're doing better than Leno - poor Leno. Does that make you feel better? No? Well, I'm doing a bad job.

So the most interesting thing to happen of late is that I was kicked and banned from a Facebook group. The kick was done by the admins, the ban is self-imposed. I'm not even sorry - if you could have everything you want, would you want it all of the time? (in one case, the answer is YES - lookin' at one particularly eternally scruffy person here)

A sign of my social calendar's explosiveness: I had to turn down a cricket game.

Ah crap. Trentemøller has infected my playlist again with the "for a while I seemed to fit but time is up" ideal, which I have heard too much lately. Bee arr bee.



Right. Now I'm back. And I'm bad. Within certain sensible preset parameters, of course. Now, where were we?

...

erm.

I've forgotten.

Albatrosses, beavers, and chess?
Alkalines, baskets, and clocks?
Androids, buckets, and cinderblocks?
Aeroplanes, bicycles, and cheese?
Aardvarks, blisters, and cryogenics?

Actually, I think it was the second-last one.

Or maybe it was Nash equilibria. I don't know. Maybe. Let's all develop amanæmonesia and find out - but don't mistake it for magic.

I have a much bigger WHAT streak in me than I imagined?! ...Excuse me while I process that information with some bourbon.

If pieces of bread are shoes, does that make them loafers?

Also, WHY THE FUCK DOES 30% OF MY AUDIENCE STILL USE INTERNET EXPLORER?!

Drop it like it's slightly warm.

EPISODE 198: IF I WANTED GRASS-FLAVOURED WAFFLES, I WOULD HAVE ASKED FOR THEM!

One Wizz Fizz high later and I am struggling to keep track of myself as a human being. Are we all cool if I treat myself as a sea-based bat for a while? Yes? Good. Now, we -- wait, what? Some chump up the back is NOT cool with that? ...What do you mean, he's a bricklayer? ...Well, I don't care if he's the Queen of Australia, this blog does not tolerate bricklayer dissidents. GET HIM OUT OF HERE. ...Right. Sorted. I am now a sea bat.

Untangled my heart.

When I shine, I shine. When I burn, I burn. When I fall, I collapse. Let's not do any collapsing for a while. Sea bats don't deal well with collapsation. Not only that, but when a fire is burning, I'm all in favour of keeping that fire burning.

Do you mind if we kill some of the demons in here? They're kinda ruining the atmosphear, and a wood-splitter really ain't gonna do much at all. Or, at least, it tried. Demon-death is a bit difficult at the worst of times, and it wasn't the best of times...

I'm sorry, but when I met you you seemed decent enough, however as of right now you remind me of a poor man's guano. That needs to be repaired and fast, so the best way would be to extract head from sphincteral orifice and start being human again, and then maybe you won't be so guano-ish. ...or was that supposed to be "iguana"?

as i hear your voice it sets my heart on fire.
one look and you can take me down.

take my hand, and let it come...

Plants and ripped-on flower buds can appear without warning but at least it's a good thing because that means the bugs can be squished instead of fully eaten alive with poisons too deadly for most folks... this is gonna be a long struggle.

Surprisingly and a half I don't really have that much else to say. Great. So I'm going to fire my entire writing staff and replace them with one-third rabid mongooses, one-third paperweights that have been alive for the last 24 hours at least, and one-third people such as you. In fact, I'm looking at one rabid mongoose in particular and one human being in particular - though there are several other vacancies. If you wish to apply, take your résumé and feed it through a shredder (the original, please, no copies), then mail the strips to CJ Curry, c/o Curryland (the folks at the new folks' home know where to send it). It is best delivered by homing stork, though I will also accept packages delivered by magnetic mosquito or by a fruitbat and its orchestra.

I declare that this be amazing.

Remember remember.

EPISODE 197: HAVING A SMASHING GOOD TIME OVER HERE!

Have a cookie. HAVE A GOD DAMN COOKIE.

ten

I have accumulated so much junk on my journey through life and I won't quite know exactly just how much until it comes time to wander again. But the worst thing that could happen is that I could go crazy at seeing it and collapse into a burning screaming heap of goo. So... no loss.

nine

Choose your words carefully. Now drop them faster than you would drop the bass.

eight

...and you can see

seven

I am not being hated because I ain't queueing. Sorry made-to-break for stealing your thing, but seriously I pretty much steal almost every other little thing on this page. Well, I say "steal", I mean "liberate". OC is not my cup of tea.

six

BLAM

five

SHOESTRING.
SHOESTRING.

SHOESTRING.

four

A French person found my geocache!

three

It has come to my attention that I desperately need more funds in many different places (including places the sun doesn't shine). Desperately. If Curryland Media PLC is going to keep going then we need some donations. We accept anything above 20 euro-cents, and we only accept magnetised carrier pigeons as the delivery method. BIRD BIRD BIRD - THE BIRD IS maybe not THE WORD

two

Oops. I skipped a bit.

one

Words can be powerful little blighters, can't they? I just read some words that made me sit back and pretty much go "wow" and virtually no other words because they hit me pretty hard and made me realise just how far I've come in the last little while and how different everything is this time and how right everything is and how my life has changed so much for the better and how close I could be to hearing the one word that will mean everything and... and... and how much I already desperately want to use the same word.

zero.

Crawling away into the atmosphear.

EPISODE 196: NOW WHAT?

I think that the hat looked rather cunning. But I felt like a real ham wearing it.

Extra Life was done again, and it was extra exciting this time. I had four gamers going at it! The winner was a guy who wanted StarCraft II to run but... couldn't.

And on that note: Happy non-Halloween. It's November now.

(does it have one 'v' or two? and one 'c' or two? seems I've seen almost every variant...)

shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock shock

Should I get some sleep today, or should I stay awake?

Band in the rain. Man in the rain. Difference?

piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The wonder of it all.
The wander of it all.
The winder of it all.
and naturally, there's fruit cake for sale there too.

Summer! Summer summer summer. Days of heat on the beach, evenings sipping freshly squeezed orange juice and cocktails, and night trains back home at 4am (or, they would be if Curryland's public transport system actually worked). Summerlives kickstart again. Heading for an epic one, especially as the circumstances are different (but suitably more awesome). Come halfway through the sidewalk's going to crack but I'm thinking there's a great chance that things will be steady. As long as nothing fucks up my plans, it's gonna be one hell of a ride. I ain't looking back.

thrill me.