Yes non-nerds I actually meant to spell “the” t-e-h as you see it appearing in the title of this the final entry in my “No Internet Diary”. I wont go into teh anymore, other than to say it’s a common typo because of the QWERTY keyboard layout and it’s quite commonly recognised amongst script kiddies and l33t alike as meaning “the”. There, didn’t that clear everything up?

On to more relevant writings.. in the covered words of Dannii Minogue “This is it, this is the real thing!” <insert small cameo by Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon here> I once again have a functioning ADSL2+ connection available to my home twenty four hours a day… seven days a week… three hundred and sixty five days a year… bitches. Well unless its a leap year and then it’s three hundred and sixty six, but lets not mince our Julian and Gregorian calendars here shall we; the point is I HAVE TEH INTERNETS! w00t!

It just goes to show that running away from your problems to another city and ignoring them can once again save the day making everything happy and fun for your return. Males rejoice for I have proven said theory of ignorance for all to reference in future court proceedings. QED mo-fo’s… Q-E-D. Returning from Adelaide today I waltzed through my apartment door at around 9pm after the usual cab ride home where I fool heatedly mention I work in IT and then spend the next twenty minutes back peddling because my fellow Indian brother who’s driving the taxi just happens to be an IT graduate who can’t find work. Saturated market people, saturated! Anyway, once inside I dare not drop the 10kg of dead weight that is my luggage because according to this fancy little notification I got via SMS yesterday the DSL light on my modem should be winking at me faster than some dude with an unfortunate twitch that causes him/she to blink rapidly and not at all like an equally unfortunate person who doesn’t blink at all and uses fake tears to lubricate their eyeballs. Luckily for me the modem didn’t need any fake tears because she was flashing away like old “Twitchy”! Oh, yeah!

At this point I reluctantly resided to the fact that I would indeed need to drop my luggage if only to get my laptop out and confirm Twitchy’s (I’ve decided to call my modem “Twitchy” as of this moment) status of connection, not to mention catch up on the copious amount of useless information I need fill my mind with that the Internet has to offer and satisfy that heroin like addiction.

“Cook us up a hit will you Rent” I said to Twitchy, who was now resembling Ewan McGregor from Trainspotting.

The warm glow of my laptop’s LCD screen bloomed to life in only the way an Apple computer can do sending warm fuzzy feelings of love and joy through my body putting the sun’s ever so overrated Vitamin D bullshit to shame. Ahhhh, artificial light, how you keep my Indian skin so pale, if only Michael Jackson had thought of you before all that wasted skin bleaching. As the various elements of my startup process began to appear after taking a nap for the short flight home all eyes were on the top right hand corner of the screen, watching; waiting, breathless as the currently grey icon that represented my home’s wi-fi connection should turn to a solid black indicating a valid connection. Come on, come on… why do things always take so freakin’ long when you’re watching them?!?! And then it happened, ladies and gentleman we have lift-off! Quick, quick, go nuts, before your brain explodes with the possibilities of what you can do out there on the “World Wide Web (of crap)”.

Two minutes later….

In the same way you can imagine your male partner spent after a hard, rigourous, yet extremely unfulfilling sexual encounter sucking back a cigarette in bed and glancing over to say “Was it good for you?” I was once again spent and bored. Over two weeks of pent up frustration and Internet withdrawal and just like that it was all over in mere seconds and there’s nothing left but an empty feeling in my stomach and the question of my commitment issues. I mean I really like you Internet, when you were gone you were all I could think about, but now you’re back… well… I don’t know if this is going to work… Hang on what on Earth am I talking about I love you Internet, don’t ever leave me again OK? I said OK damn it!

Well that’s it, my Internet is back in all of it’s ADSL2+ 24kbps glory. My phone still wont accept incoming calls but frankly that’s a good thing because the only people that call it are telemarketers. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out if I do nothing proactive about it and if it doesn’t I can claim my phone line hasn’t worked for ages and get compensation. We live in a great land.

There are a few people I’d like to thank that have held my hand throughout this journey of hardship and self awakening but it’s now after 1 in the morning so instead I’m going to put a picture of Mary Louise Parker and the cast of Weeds here and thank her for being a great actress and having a fantastic TV show. Thank you Mary Louise.

Until next time faithful readers, adieu.

Faced the with eternal boredom that is my life without an Internet connection and the possible life threatening eating habits that it has produced there was nothing left to do but the same thing any male does when faced with a tough problem in their life…. you ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and normally there’s a woman around to fix it for you and you can go back to life as it was before hand. For me whilst there may not be a woman in my life per-say there was one in Adelaide that was getting married this weekend and where there’s another city with a blood relative there’s an Internet connection.

Lets face it, the wedding is really just a convenient excuse for me to jump on a plane when we all know I’m really only going so I can log on to the scourge that is Facebook and piss & moan about all these retard applications people feel they must spam me with, but that’s another story. I’m not here to squabble over my true intentions behind travelling seven hundred kilometres to another state, besides I wouldn’t want to hurt the bride and groom’s feelings. I’m just a caring guy like that, always thinking of others and my email being downloaded in less than two hours as I’m currently experiencing in dial-up world. Fuck it’s shit house. Did I swear? Oops, sorry kids. Fuck I think I’ve already used that joke, I can’t be bothered checking my previous posts, sorry.

So anyway, another trip back to Adelaide, my Dad, bro & sis live there, another glorious plane ride on the Virgin Blue bus and a couple of days working out of the Adelaide office to avoid the further drain on my already suffering annual leave allowance (currently sitting at negative six days… boooo!). Adelaide’s a nice city, anyone that’s coming to Australia shouldn’t listen to the general population of the world because it’s not a complete shit-hole. Even that’s probably a bit harsh, it’s actually quite a beautiful city, lots of trees, parks, churches, etc. It’s just if you wanted to do anything besides look at trees and visit churches that you might start to find the attractions of fair Adelaide a tad dull. Hell don’t try and get a drink on a weeknight after 8pm, you’ll have to go to the Casino and… well…. let’s just say it’s not pretty. Enough of the Adelaide bashing, it’s an OK place, and this being my sixteenth trip back there this calendar year I should probably come clean and admit to enjoying it there, even if it’s only for my family and friends.

(It’s OK, the place wasn’t on fire… I swear!)

Adelaide aside, I was here for a wedding, well I think I was… I did land and start up Azureus but I was at least making it look like I was going to a wedding by carrying a suit with me. It was on Saturday, thankfully the scorching heat that I’d just had the pleasure of being baked by for the last two days had somewhat subsided for the auspicious occasion by dropping to a light 29 degrees (Celsius). I wasn’t exactly sure about the wedding, I didn’t really know anyone, the bride I hadn’t seen face to face for about four years and I’d never met the groom before, I was honoured to get the invite don’t get me wrong but if it wasn’t for my old friend from school (lets call her Mary Louise, not because that’s her name or I’m wanting to conceal her identity, I just think Mary Louise Parker from Weeds is hot) coming along as my date I would’ve just sat there like an idiot looking more like an idiot than normal.

Driving to the reception Mary Louise and I decided that seeing how no one would have any idea who either of us were we’d take on new identities for the evening. She, Mary Louise, would be “in the entertainment industry” and I would play her most recent “director”. Yes, yes I’m sure you can figure out where this is going…. Should anyone probe further her so called “entertainment” employment may have been linked to certain “adult” forms of entertainment. Yes it’s childish and yes I’m quite clearly overusing “quoted words” but I’m trying to see how many times I can use them in one paragraph, don’t “freak out man”.

Arriving at the reception hall, navigating our way through the family introductions and looking stupid by not knowing who anyone is and who I was meant to kiss and hug (it was an Italian sorta wedding) we found our table and name tagged seats.

“Hey Raj.” came a voice and then an extended hand.

“Ahhh…. hey…” I replied, with pretty much no idea of who this guy was, why he knew my name (maybe he was mental and read everyone’s name tags and was showing off) and why he expected me to shake his hand. I did anyway, but only because I’m nice (see the 2nd paragraph where I state this quite clearly already for you). How are you?”

“You’ve got no idea who I am do you?” said hand-shakey-guy.

I thought about lying here, I mean he’s basically ruining my whole porn directing career before it had started, but truth be told I couldn’t be fucked bothered. “Ahhh, no mate, sorry, no idea.”

“I went to school with you.”

I looked at Mary Louise with you-went-to-school-with-me-have-you-seen-hand-shakey-guy-before eyes. She looked back at me with don’t-look-at-me-I’ve-got-no-idea-I-do-porn eyes. OK so maybe not the “I do porn” part but that would’ve been hot.

“Did you? Really??” There were only 100 odd people in my grade at school, I was pretty sure I knew most of them.

“Yeah; I was in your sister’s grade”. Oh for fuck’s sake, you expect me to know you because you were two years below me? Actually it’s probably fair, I knew most of them too, just not this guy. Way to feel like a douche in thirty seconds. “I’m Lionel.”

“Lionel, shit sorry man, no idea but I’ll take your word for it.”

Wave bye, byes to the adult entertainment industry.

For the rest of the night Mary Louise and I pretty much forgot about anyone else that was there, mainly because we didn’t know anyone (well except Lionel now), and made fools of ourselves dancing, drinking and having a pretty good time. Put it this way, aint no way else in hell you’d get me dancing to Nutbush City Limits had there been anyone I’d actually known there!

With the wedding done and dusted the rest of my time in Adelaide was split between friend catch ups, family and work. The only other thing of any real significance was the little SMS that arrived on my phone to alert me to the fact that apparently my ADSL connection had been activated and was awaiting my digital fingers to caress its curvaceous figure… I need help. Can I fly home now please?!

It’s truly surprising what one can come up with to keep yourself occupied when you are truly bored. Tonight I was beyond boredom, in fact boredom was so far in my mind’s rear view mirror I’d crossed states, perhaps islands and was waving to it from Auckland. “Hello boredom!” So bored shitless with no desire to fire up the xBox, nothing on the idiot box and all my washing neatly folded and stored I did the only thing left to do to pass the time. I cooked, or rather I conducted a food experiment of monumental proportion!

In actual fact, to be truthful and all that, the experiment came about because of my uncanny craving for lamb chops. All day I’d been thinking about how I wanted to get chicken and chips for dinner but when it came crunch time my stomach told me otherwise.

“Listen fool” -my stomach talks like Mr. T- “You ain’t eatin’ no chicken & chips. No jibba-jabba you be eatin’ lamp chops! FOOL!”

Alright, stomach, calm down… Chops it is, doesn’t bother me I’ve got some in the freezer at home, it’s pretty much the only thing in my fridge/freezer besides one stubby of Cooper’s Pale Ale and a bunch of insulin for that pesky disease Diabetes I so thoughtlessly have. So I trotted up to the supermarket to get some fresh bread so I could the chops Aussie BBQ style with a bit of tomato sauce, maybe some potatoes and beans in there too, who knows? We’ll see how Mr. T feels about vegies later.

Back from the supermarket, or as I prefer to call it, the-slightly-less-than-super-coz-it’s-about-as-big-as-my-apartment-market, fresh bread and diabetic sauce in hand I open sesame the freezer draw and wham-o! No lamb chops. Fuckin’ crap, Mother F’er, no way in hell I’m walking fifty metres up the road again to go buy some, buzz kill a plenty. Unbelievable, I was 110% sure I had lamb chops in here, turns out it was mince and a couple of porterhouse steaks that I can’t even remember buying. Maybe one of my guests bought them when I was overseas and they felt sorry the baron waste land that is my fridge.

OK, OK, plan B… there’s steak, they’re in a chop like form, I could whack a shellacking of “Masterfoods Smokey BBQ Seasoning” all over them and pretend they’re lamb, it’d take a lot of seasoning though and I’m low on supply because of it’s constant use in The Cooking Show (Don’t worry folks, it’ll be back soon). Nix that, save the Smokey. Steak, steak…. oh you idiot… steak sandwiches! Oh hang on tomato, no cheese, no lettuce, pretty much no everything except bread and steak. Next move, cupboards and fridge door, what have we got to work with?

The entire contents of my fridge that was edible at this point in time:

• 1 egg (um, may be edible, it would be questionable)
• full cream milk (none of this skinny, soy, calcium enriched junk)
• butter (again, see milk)
• tomato sauce
• Dijon mustard (when did that get in here?)
• Dijonnaise (it’s like the mustard only mixed with a mayonnaise I presume)

So this is when my brain went a little crazy, crazy-time. What we have here is a lot of extras, accessories to a meal if you will. The multitude of condiments available to me was rather astonishing seeing that I almost never use them bar tomato sauce. I have to cook the steak, there’s no option there without that I’ll be eating bread and butter if anything, so fry pan on, steak in, lightly dusted with a bit of cracked pepper and salt for flavour enhancers. We’ll get the bread ready, butter her up, hmmm, four slices, that’ll at least make two sandwiches of steak and sauce. The rest of the steak I’ve decided is to be sacrificed to the gods of condiments that occupy the heavens of Fisher & Pykell, to be joined by the god’s messenger himself Gravox! Yeah!

With the wafting aroma of lightly charcoaled steak permeating through my kitchen I began lining up small dipping bowls of the delegated condiments for my impending culinary enjoyment. There lined up on my dining room table were four bowls with hand written labels scrawled beneath them just to make sure I didn’t get the Dijon twins mixed up even if they were different colours and consistencies, Dijon mustard, Dijonnaise, Tomato Sauce and last but not least Traditional Roast Gravy.

After gorging the two sandwiches in record time, who knew experimenting was such hard work, I divided the remaining three quarter chop into equal portions and began the taste test of champions. Here are my findings:

• Dijon Mustard – It has quite a tang to it, almost over bearing on the palette if the morsel is completely coated. Whilst the citrus like taste doesn’t take from the meat altogether I wouldn’t coat an entire portion of steak in nothing but Dijon.
• Dijoinnaise – I’m a big fan of this bad boy on pork cutlets. Unlike raw Dijon mustard it’s not quite as harsh or shocking on the senses and is more like a complimenting flavour than a competitor. Still I wouldn’t want to use this one too much, it can get a bit sickening after a while, most likely because of it’s mayo base.
• Tomato Sauce – Ketchup for you American like folk. Always a winner, love it and if you prefer BBQ sauce you can take your sugar filled shite and shove it, sugar free Tomato Sauce actually tastes better than the real stuff in my opinion. And yes I’ve had both.
• Gravy – You wouldn’t really think of this one as a condiment as such but if you make it as thick as I do you’d probably mistake it for wet cement. Beautiful, cover your meat in it, cover it I tell you! Do it!

Now whilst you might have thought, wow, four condiments, that’s zany enough, let’s go over that edge, beyond that mountain, and blow your mind with…. COMBO’S!

• Dijon & Dijonnaise – Um… it’s not exactly worth it, tastes like a harsher version of the Dijonnaise.
• Dijon & Tomato Sauce – Surprisingly refreshing. The sauce must take from the Dijon’s tang, strangely I might have that one again. Oh, nope, once was more than enough!
• Tomato Sauce & Gravy – Had this one before, it’s a delicate one to balance because too much of either can ruin the experience. I try to stick with two parts gravy, one part sauce for an even combination.
• Dijon & Gravy – One word. No.
• All Four – My head exploded! Not really, I wish (sorta), how cool would that have been!

Finally I’ll answer the question you’re all asking and no I wasn’t sick, that night or the day after. It’s not a meal I’d recommend every Joe Bloe give a shot but still it was something to pass the time. Moral of the story… don’t let your internet ever go, hold on to her and treat her well so you never have to do what I just did to keep you occupied…. EVER!