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This category 4 hurricane (max sustained wind 140mph) has a few people in Florida a bit worried… including myself. 

Was fantastic, well for the most part anyway. Saturday night was an absolute blinder and I’m still trying to figure out what went on there. Luckily I was with a group of friends the whole time and they took good care of me. We headed off to Key West at about 7am in the morning. Our first stop was for a canoeing trip and then snorkelling. The canoeing trip lasted for about an hour and was heaps relaxing. I must point out that from Key Largo to Key West there are no natural beaches. It’s all mangroves, so that’s what we were canoeing through. ...

I’ve uploaded a selection of photos that were taken at our visit to the Everglades, a national park located on the southern tip of Florida. See them here.

I came very, very close to being done in by a fraud on ebay. My undying want of a digital SLR camera was nearly the undoing of me, and I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Luckily I stopped any transactions that could have gone through to this guy but what is left are some interesting e-mails between him and some of the other potential buyers on Ebay I have been corresponding with. Here is one such e-mail thread: ...

Freaking hell, I remember the ads with that stupid Pelican. Slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen and slap on a hat. Do you think I paid any attention to that at all? No! I didn’t wear sunscreen, or a hat, or a shirt when I was at the waterparks on the weekend. My back and shoulders are the most burnt I think they’ve ever been. I am an idiot. I deserve this. Thank *God* for Aloe Vera gel though. ...

I went to Disneyworld on the weekend with a few friends, and “this is insane!” was pretty much the only comment that was ever coming out of my mouth. I have to say, we absolutely fluked the whole weekend. I don’t think we could have planned it better. There were the hugest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen each afternoon, but if you waited through them you pretty much could go on any ride with little waiting time. Awesome. ...

I went to a Jamaican diner today for lunch. The whole place probably wouldn’t have been more than say 7x10 metres in size. It was very, very simple but I liked it. The thing I found appealing about it initially were the speakers they had that made up some sort of divider. No kidding, there were 2 massive speaker cabinets with *at least* an 18-inch driver in each of them, plus another 4 speaker cabinets that had a couple of 12-inch drivers per cabinet. They must have some bloody massive Rastafarian parties there! The place doubled as a small (very small) convenience store, and I saw that up on a shelf next to the ovaltine and other crappy substitutes for milo was, in fact, a few tins of milo itself. The heavens opened, choirs sang, so I bought some. I’m the happiest Aussie alive I reckon. *tear. ...

and none of my music, and no computer, and 1/2 of my clothes. It was actually a blind, dumb-arse mistake of mine to put my music CDs in the wrong suitcase, but oh well. Originally though my air shipment was supposed to arrive a few days after I did (it is an air shipment after all) so I wasn’t really that worried. However, that isn’t the case as I’ve been here for nearly 2 1/2 weeks and I ain’t seen anything yet. Yeah, whinge whinge whinge, I know :-) Supposedly it’s in customs at Miami airport still… those buggers are playing my guitar (good luck it’s left-handed), wearing my clothes (good luck that’s mostly my winter stuff) and listening to my CDs (yeah, um, good luck). ...

I was waiting on some pictures from somebody else’s camera before writing this update, but due to technical difficulties, that’ll have to wait! Friday night I didn’t have anything planned. I was sitting home, absolutely buggered from the week and I nearly went to bed. Note that I said nearly. There is a switch in my brain that comes into effect on the start of the weekend. It says “Don’t stay home on a Friday or Saturday night by yourself you friggin loser or I’ll give you nightmares and make your sleep general hell”. I payed heed to that switch, so I called up some friends and met them at Delray Beach. It’s half-way to Palm Beach and I found it was a pretty nice place to go to. Beers were a flowing everywhere when I arrived at the pub, so I joined in. A couple of hours later we moved on to somewhere else and I had a couple of Jagermeisters. That’s because they didn’t have any Absinthe (it’s prohibited) or Chartreuse. So after all that I couldn’t drive anywhere and I had to get a lift back to my apartment, which was ok since the people I was out with were staying in a hotel not far from me. The problem is I had parked my car next to the beach in a pay-zone, and I was worried I would get a fine the next day… ...

This is all a bit surreal as I write this, but Saturday night (at line dancing of all places) I was asked if I wanted to try out for a pilot of a reality show. I thought I may as well check it out first and so I called up the production company involved. The deal is a printing company who were funding/creating the show were looking to cast a white, single, heterosexual male. They couldn’t tell me much more than that because of the non-disclosure agreement. The thing is I couldn’t take the opportunity due to the Visa conditions that I’m over here on. Bugger, eh? ...