Have you ever had the moment where you say something, and immediately after you say it, it happens? And someone says you "Spoke too soon"? Well, that happened to me, except it was more like, you "Blogged too soon", because the day I posted my entry 'My First Car Crash', that day I got a letter from AAMI, saying that after reviewing their customer's (short, old man) record of events, they determined that I was the one at fault and should pay for the damages caused to their customer's vehicle, I had to respond within 15 days.
Now, I started to freak out a little, not because I had posted up a blog that day proclaiming everything was fine, but because I had a letter saying I was at fault and I now needed to PAY money for damages. This did not sit well with me, nor with my dad when I told him, and he said he would take care of it, but because he was so busy, this didn't happen. It was my problem anyhow, and I unconsciously forgot about it until I received a telephone call from AAMI asking what I was going to do about it, and I said "I don't think it was my fault" and they told me to "lodge a claim with your insurance company", so the next day we went to see GIO and explained our situation, and being third party, it'd be useless to lodge a claim to begin with unless I wanted to throw money around like I had won the lottery. GIO told us to dispute it with AAMI directly, so that day I went home, called AAMI and told them they were wrong and I was right, well something along those lines. They asked for my version of events and after trying to explain what had happened the guy told me to send/fax a letter with what happened in writing, because he couldn't understand me (it's either an indian/chinese thing, or I just couldn't express myself clearly enough). I opted to email instead, because it makes my life easier, so I got an email for AAMI and then went on to type out my version of events, and because I knew I was not totally at fault, I wanted to now stick it to the old, short man and came up with this as my accident report...
Picture one depicts my car, in red waiting at the red light, I had just left church, the building on the right.
I wanted to change onto the left lane, in order to turn left.
To avoid hitting the car in front of me, I decided to reverse, and checked that there were no cars behind me before doing so. 
Picture two shows Mr. XXX’s car, turning into the street at the bottom of the screen. The lights were still red for me, and I was beginning to change lanes, having determined it was safe to do so.
Picture three shows what happened. Mr. XXX, having just turned into the road, went ahead to do a U-Turn. At this time, having seen no cars behind me, I changed gears to Reverse, eased my foot off the accelerator to allow the car to reverse on its own, and just as I began to reverse, Mr. XXX quickly did his U-Turn, running into the back of my vehicle.
The police came and having determined that both cars were drivable and no one was hurt, had us move our vehicles. Mr. XXX went to move his vehicle by attempting to complete the U-turn, which would not have been a full u-turn as his vehicle was too close to mine to begin with, in the initial u-turn and he risked hitting my car again before the police officer told him to stop, and reverse his car to allow ample room to clear my car. This shows that Mr. XXX’s u-turn was done hastily without allowing enough room for himself to do a complete u-turn to begin with, whether or not my car reversed or not. Impressive and convincing yeah? I'd say so, and thought they would too. But after a week I received no reply, and got impatient so I called them again to ask what was up. Turns out they had gotten the email, but the guy just hasn't checked it yet...well thats great. They said they would check it and call back in an hour. An hour passed and I received no call, a day passed and I received no call, a week passed and while getting changed I received a call, so I wasn't exactly ready for it.
The moment of truth had arrived, AAMI had checked my accident report, and lo and behold they declared the whole accident an EPO! Whats an EPO you ask? That's what I asked! And he said it's when Each Customer Pays For Their Own Vehicle Damage! I couldn't help but crack a smile and do a fist pump as I heard those words, and just to make sure I said,
"So I don't need to pay for your customer's damages at all right?"
"Yes, that is correct"
"Okay then, that's fine" (It was more than fine)
It was more than fine because had they somehow determined that I was at a complete fault I would have needed to pay a total of $1433.54, and where I was going to get those 4 cents, I had no idea so I was very pleased with the result. The old, short man however? He'll have to find his own 4 cents to pay for his damages, and hopefully I won't need to see him again. I'll just leave my car as it is, and wait for the next person to hit me, but next time it'll be their complete fault, and I'll be the one chasing them for money.
But I shouldn't get ahead of myself like this, for all I know, I could've blogged too soon again...
On Thursday 26th June, 2008, five months after Japan and three months after America, we finally received the very long awaited Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii.
It was out for a pretty good price of $80 at most stores, but for me, I needed it cheaper and fortunately JB Hi-Fi heard my call and offered a deal where you trade in 2 games and get Smash Bros for free. All I needed were two games, and the first came in the form of a deal courtesy of Toys 'R' Us, who had a deal where you buy one of their selected games and you receive WarioWare for free, so I bought Zak & Wiki and got WarioWare for free, that was one game down. The second came in the week leading up to the release of Smash Bros, with all these financial sales, games would be cheap, and they sure were, Big W's sale had some Tamagotchi game for $30, the second game had been bought.
On the way to the shops
I like how I didn't even play Tamagotchi at I, I thought about it but decided not to, partly because it was Tamagotchi, and mainly because I had an assignment to work on.
But Thursday came and off I went to JB HiFi, took the game off the shelf and proceeded to trade in my two games costing $30 for a game costing $80.
A save of $50 later and I now own the best multiplayer fighting game on the Wii!
In my very...skinny handsI'd tell you how fun it is and stuff but I can't be bothered and would rather use the time to play games. I just wonder if I'm any good at it like I was with the Gamecube version tagged Melee.
Guess I'll find out soon enough...
In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, grading works differently compared to other martial arts, where you start at white belt, grade to yellow, then red, then blue, then pink, then brown, then rainbow, then black, then grey, back to white, then...you get the point. We just have 5 colours to remember, starting with white, then blue, then purple, brown and lastly black. The easiest way to remember this order is to just remember from white to blue, and then imagine what blue would look like when bruised (it becomes purple), then imagine what purple looks like dirty (it gets brown), and lastly, black naturally comes after brown (how it comes naturally don't ask, its just how the world of colours work).
At SPMA (Sinonic Perosh Martial Arts), we have grading every 3 months, in March, June, September and December. So having just started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in January, I have now been through two gradings, one in March, and one, most recently in June. The way our gradings work are, throughout the course of our training, we learn moves, or techniques, whichever description floats your boat, and in the grading we have to show our instructors that we know our techniques.
Below is a picture that shows how it all works.
Six years to go!
So to earn your first blue stripe, you have to show five techniques, which was quite easy, though, at the time, what wasn't easy for me was getting to class on time. During that time, I was undergoing training for my job at Datacom, and everything was fine, because I thought we were getting off training early, because it was our last day. Unfortunately, we didn't finish early, and when you drive back from North Ryde, through 5:30pm traffic, you know you're going to be late, and I was, which I was not happy with, because I didn't want to miss out on grading. Fortunately there was a make-up grading, the following Friday, which I went to, but was also late to because it was at their Concord gym, and I got lost on the way there. So being late, twice, made for a very unhappy instructor who you knew could beat the snot out of you, instead he made me do burpies, which is basically an exercise where you're in a standing position, then drop to the ground in a push up position, do a push up, then jump back up into your standing position before going down again for another burpie. Suffice to say, I had to do around 300 of these, and most people after the first 50 are already dead, but I had to keep doing them, because I was late. In truth, I did around 200+, I skipped out on a few. So with that in mind, I didn't want to be late for my next grading.
And I wasn't, I got there on time, which, as a joke, the instructors found suprising. And this time, instead of five techniques, we had fifteen new techniques to show, fortunately, they were called out for us one by one to do, and fortunately again, I was able to partner up with my brother to do them, which made things easier. And twenty techniques later, I had earnt my second blue stripe which, as I earn more, will get absorbed into my white belt, turning it into a blue belt!
Next grading is in September and we have to show 35 techniques (20+15 new) in under 10 minutes all off the top of our head, and with the semester off, I should have a lot more time to practice and get better, in time for the competitions coming up too. I wonder how I'll stack up compared to others in a real competitive environment. First round loss coming soon?
Hey, how's it going? I'm feeling a bit random today and while trawling through the internet webs, I got entangled in webpage known as Facebook and while looking through photos as one does on Facebook because people are always posting photos and I came across a photo of what seemed like a compilation of faces, belonging to the same person and I was like "aw yeah, same face", but then did a double take and woosh "they're all different facial expressions!". So this blog is going to be about the double take, and what I can think of to write about it...
Little Lisa's Lots of Looks
So what is a double take? According to some description on the ever helpful internets...
"A double take is a rapid or surprised second look, either literal or figurative, at a person or situation whose significance had not been completely grasped at first"
I find the double take quite fascinating, not only because I'm trying to come off as interesting and mindful of what I'm saying but also because the literal second turn is funny to see when someone does do a double take, moreso when their neck hurts.
When you do a double take, what you see the first time turns out totally different from what it was, whether its a good thing or a bad thing, bad like you drive down the road, see something on the side, "oh, a paper bag", but then you do a double take and it turns out to be road kill, or you're walking, you see a person with long flowing hair, do a double take and its a guy. Or you're eating ice cream in a silly ice cream race, look down to scoop, and it looks like you're winning, double take and it's still more than half way full, you're going to lose!
Or good like, you're sitting at the computer, you're feeling thirsty, you look at your cup, see that it's empty, double take and there's still a bit of water left, saving you from getting up to get more water, disrupting your chat/gaming/watching/resting session. Or you're in bed, trying to fall asleep and you look over, and see a ghost! Double take and its just your white shirt with the picture of a ghost on it that you happen to leave hanging on the stand in a precarious, ghostly position. Or you take a look at your burger, it says Double Cheeseburger, do a double take and noticed the T written on the wrapping denoting Triple Cheeseburger. Or you go shopping, see something nice (clothes, shoes, game, dvd, cd) and notice the expensive price, double take and it's been slashed down to half price!
Or funny like, you glance at her teeth, double take and there's some spinach or green herb or seaweed in her teeth, and from then on its no longer a double take, its a try not to stare take (but I of course, would let her know).
Or you grab a piece of tissue from the table, take a glance, wipe your mouth, double take and it turns out it had been used before, for blowing someones nose...I guess that one can be bad too...
Or the usual or expected nothing double take, you look out the window, see a dog with the head of a horse, do a double take expecting something else but it's still a dog with the head of a horse. Or you order a Triple Cheeseburger, but when you look at the wrapping it says Double Cheesebuger, double take and nothing changes, so you go and return it for a triple cheeseburger only to return to the table and find out the other burger you ordered was your triple cheeseburger, saving you $1 and netting you two triple cheeseburgers.
Sometimes a double take feels like magic, things are not what they seem and I guess thats what I like about the double take. Next time, take quick glances to give yourself more magical double take moments, though don't do it too much, you might get dizzy and do yourself a double take to the floor!
So what are you experiences of double takes? Not in the movie sense of take 1, take 2 or the food freebies sense of you can take one but you can't take two pieces, but the kind that happens with situations, people and your eyeballs. One day, I want to go for the triple take, that'll make people do a double take at me as I do the triple take at them, making it a pentagonal take? Might want to do a double take at that sentence...
On Sunday, 18th of May 2008 at around 3:30pm, I crashed my car...
Well, it was more like he crashed into me, it was a bit confusing at the time but I'll try and explain it as best as I can, because I would like to read about it too...
So once again, another week at church, another week trying to work out what to do after music practice, and we decided on going to the shops known as Liverpool Westfield for some shopping, so I got into my automobile, as I do when I want to travel from place to place and I drove out onto Cumberland St to turn onto Cabramatta Rd eventually, however I was on the right lane at the time, and wanted to get onto the left lane so that I could turn left, to eventually get to Liverpool. So I did what one would normally do, checked my rear view mirror for any cars behind me, and after confirming no cars in sight I reversed, and after reversing what seemed like less than half a metre, *CRUMPLE*!! (I heard crumple, not crash). I froze, and thought "What in the world did I hit? There was no car behind me!", I checked my side mirror and saw a car, well the back half of a car. It was perpendicular to mine. I drove forward after the *crumple* as one would, and after seeing the car, thought of driving off but decided against it, for it would be a stupid thing to do but mainly because there was a red light preventing me from doing so.
I also thought that since I essentially backed into a car, and all I could see was the back half in my mirror, the front half must've been hit, so I was like "Dang, did I crush the guy?", but he got out of the car to assess the damage and said something to me, confirming I didn't kill someone, I said to him, "Are you okay?" to which he replied "Yu hit me", in his chinese accent, to which I replied with a "Yeahhhhhh...sorry about that.", partially hoping that he wouldn't mind for some reason, but he did, and after showing me his little dent in his car door asked for my license details. Being the noob that I was I wasn't sure what to do in a car crash situation, but fortunately the guys from church were still around and helped me through the process.
"Make sure you get his details too.", sound advice I'd say, so I did. After exchanging details, I wasn't sure what was next, he was adamant that it was my fault, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what insurance thing I was with either, but later found out it was GIO and not AAMI like I thought it was. It also didn't help that people from church just kept coming out to see what was going on, though after a while it got amusing, our minister coming out was the icing on the cake.
We ended up calling the police, just to make the situation more official feeling or something, and soon enough he came in his unmarked car, dressed in unmarked clothing, looking all undercover like. He called the drivers, listened to the old man's explanation while I watched on calmly and then asked if any of us were hurt (nope) and if the vehicles were drivable (they were), then said he didn't care whose fault it was, and told us to work it out with our insurance companies. While he relatively did nothing, he helped move things along. Like the fact that the guy's car was still making a T shape with mine, in the middle of the road, disrupting traffic. So we moved our cars, and he drove off, and I hung around to check things out.
Turned out the reason I didn't see the guys car when reversing is because his car wasn't there to begin with, he was on the other side of the road and decided to do an impromptu U-Turn, right into the back of my 4WD, and it didn't help his case that his U-turn was a 3-point turn because he wouldn't have made it all the way the first time, so that was quite annoying that he insisted it was my fault, but I suppose in cases like this it happens.
We told our insurance company what happened and they said it was his fault, we had 3rd party insurance anyway so our insurance wouldn't have covered us either way. So in the end I was pretty meh about the whole situation, we didn't need to pay anything for his damage, and our damage was too minimal to even bother getting it fixed at the moment. I'm sure those of you who have seen my car haven't noticed any major damage. Him on the other hand, just a small dent, though what looked small to me may have been huge to him. Oh, and did I mention he was short? I didn't register it in my mind at the time but only after when someone mentioned it did I notice.
So thats how my first crash came about, not as flashy as you might've thought, but I prefer my crashes this way, that or a clear fault in the other driver and not me, my previous incidents have been with stationary things like trees, walls or parked cars, so finally hitting a live car turned things up a notch, but not by that much as yet. But to end, here are some pictures I took with my phone of the aftermath, to help you understand how awesome a driver I am!
Fail at u-turning. Notice all the churchies looking on.
Short chinese man and his son/nephew(?) blocking the road with his car.
