Jeremy

[james_dean]

You shred Kester? Sweet I tried getting my bro into it but he's a bum. would love to hear what you're hitting

[C-Fan]

. I'm massively unfit, but I'm thinking if things are going badly I'll get Jeremy to take over my place for the second half.

For those that don't know, Kester is Jeremy's identical twin brother. Devious...

[Jeremy]

This is definitely a vindictive and childish thing to do but I'm really sick of the vindictiveness and childishness of somebody else and I figure that doing this can't hurt people's impression of me any more than having somebody constantly attacking me anyway.

Hey Ken,

The money apparantly bounced because I needed your girlfriends
address. Don't worry! I've looked into the options more and have
done a Western Union transfer - which is what we should have done in
the first place. This wasn't suggested to me before I don't know why.

You need to go to any Western Union agency and tell them you have
money waiting and give them your I.D. and they will give you the money
in cash. I was charged about $400 total in expences due to the
bounce, the second transfer and having to withdraw over $3000 in cash
on the spot so I've split the fees in half so you should be getting
exactly $3000 au in Japanese yen.

You should be able to pick the money up right now!

I will call you to let you know this too if you do not respond to this
email in about 2 minutes.

Let me know if you have any problems,

Jeremy

Hey Jeremy.

1. Received the money. Thank you for making the effort to get it to me while I am in Japan. Thank you for organizing my trip to Australia. I want you to know that I realize that several of the snags we encountered were beyond your control.

2. Regarding electronic transfers. I don`t know what`s wrong with your bank, but instant electronic transfters do exist. I completed them successfully from Japan to America on 3 occasions (April 11th 2005, May 17th 2005, and July 19th 2005). In every case the money arrived instantly. Guido`s girlfriend Marissa, whose parents live in Melbourne, do instant electronic transfers regularly to Portugal. An electronic transfer is expensive (between 30 and 50 Aus $) but is instant. I don`t know who you talked to, but I have done them myself, so they are definitely not impossible. The advantage of an elecroic transfer over Western Union, is that you don`t have to walk on the street carrying massive amounts of money, nor do you have to wait at the WU office (I had to wait over 90 minutes, plus 40 minutes riding trains). You also get a better exchange rate. The rate that I had to accept at Western Union meant I received a good $70 AUS less than the going rate.

3.
>. I was charged about $400 total in expences due to the
bounce, the second transfer and having to withdraw over $3000 in cash
on the spot so I've split the fees in half so you should be getting
exactly $3000 au in Japanese yen.

Sorry to hear you incurred costs. I still don`t understand why your bank can`t/doesn`t do electronic transfers, since that would have been the fastest and cheapest option by far. Had I signed a contract which promised me 3200 AUSD, any costs incurred getting me the money would not be my responsibility. Instead, I shook your hands agreeing to 3200 AUSD. It really sucks that you couldn`t get the transfers, and that sending me my payment cost you $400. Still, I feel that that money isn`t my responsibility, and I should have received $200 more. . I agreed (not in writing) to provide my services for $3200 AUS. I received $3000 AUS. I did everything requested of me, including giving you all the bank info you requested. I don`t want to dwell on this, but I felt the need to point it out. Ultimately, since I didn`t sign a contract and we only had a verbal understanding, it is a moot point. But in terms of ethics, I shook your hand for an agreed amount, and didn`t receive it. Any costs incurred in paying me shouldn`t be my responsibility.

4.
It was unfortunate that things with TMS worked out the way they did. And I still feel like due to unfortunate circumstances things aren`t as good between us as they could be. I think the biggest disappointment for me was constantly getting one impression of how things would work out, and then finding out otherwise. If I had known from the start that I`d get $3000 AUS for 1 month of my time, I`d probably be fine with that. Instead, the timetable was in constant flux, pay wasn`t ever guaranteed, the weather shat on us one weekend, and even up til today I wasn`t sure how much I was getting paid, and when. Part of this was definitely my fault, for not signing a contract. I just figured I`d give you and the campaign the benefit of the doubt, but money is trouble, and we hit a lot of snags. I also want to stress again that I enjoyed most of my trip. I hope that fact, and my gratitude for your organizing me coming down, don`t get lost in everything else. Mostly I want to thank you for your efforts in promoting footbag in Australia.

Again, I just want to reiterate that I don`t want things to be contentious between us. That said, I had to make my views regarding the Western Union situation known. I only ask that you try and look at the situation in the abstract, as objectively as possible. Thank you again for your efforts to pay me while I`m in Japan, and thank you for organizing my trip. I hope we can shred again together sometime soon.

Best wishes,
Ken

Glad to hear you recieved the money.

I am absolutely convinced from the people I've spoken to - who are
experts and from doing it before that bank electronic telegram
transfers are not instant but take up to 48 hours - this is why
Western Union exists and why they can afford to charge so much and
still have a business - if people were going to save $150 and have a
more convienient transfer taking the same amount of time why would
they use Western Union or other international money agencies.

Regarding contracts and verbal agreements - I'm pretty sure we never
agreed to any date of payment and any contract you made would have
been with Nestle or TMS and not with me. Had I been forced to pay
$400 to get the money to you I would have posted it to you which would
have cost me nothing - I was under the impression you wanted it
immediatly and made the call to go with which may have meant you'd get
less money and I'd have to pay money out of my pocket but I think was
definitely the best option for you. Had you mentioned that you needed
the money in such a quick time earlier than 3 working days before you
left that would have been possible - I definitely mentioned a number
of times that I'd do an e.t transfer into a bank account if we got
paid after you left and it wasn't until there were 3 days left that
you said this was a problem. There were 4 transfers of money that
needed to be made - Nestle to TMS to Me to You so 3 days was
definitely too short a period of time and it was your responsibility
not mine. I agreed - or at least Nestle agreed - to pay you $3200
Australian and had you not had time limits on when you needed the
money this would have definitely happened. I was not getting paid for
any of the work I've put into this and I think you're asking way too
much when you expect me to pay $400 because you didn't make it clear
when you wanted the money until such a late date.

Anyway things have worked out and I'm glad that's happened - it's
certainly pointless to debate any of this. I resent your attitude a
bit - especially since I basically gave up about $2000 so that you
could make the trip - Nestle were going to pay me $400 per demo to do
the same amount of demos as I ended up doing. If you have problems
with the money arrangements I think I did everything I could to make
sure things worked out and the problems that occured were really your
problems since you were the only person who would have been negatively
effected by them and certainly I don't appreciate getting any of the
blame for them.

Anyway lets put this matter behind us - there were problems and in
future campaigns I've learnt enough that those definitely won't be
these problems again. In fact I already have another promotion
completely lined up and will be picking up the cheque for it the day
after I finish and it's all sorted so having these problems definitely
has had some positve outcomes as well in terms of learning and
improving these promotions in the future.

In other news I hit 26 unique tripless today into butterfly>blurry
whirl>blurry drop - shred 30 score of 230 (not counting the 0 add
contact at the end) so I think I should be able to get 250 very soon.

I've also played 6 games of chess at Franklin Square and won every single one

I'm not sure if I'll go to worlds or not - I've already spent most of
my Nestle money paying off debts although I'll earn another $2000 in
January and I'm going to buy an expensive video camera before anything
else but since Australia will be in the world cup soccer it's about a
40% chance I guess. Otherwise I'm sure we'll kick again sometime.

The story is that Ken came to Australia to do a series of demos for Nestle. When he left he need the money urgently. I transferred the money following the directions of my financial advisor who is an expert while I am not. The transfer bounced and Ken apparently needed the money immediately. I ran all around town - including walking literally from one side of the city to the other with $3000 cash in my hands in order to pay him. We then had the above short email dispute. While as I say in my email, I was a little resentful at his attitude - I still had every desire to be his friend and to continue to stay in touch.

Ken was my second hero in footbag after Ryan Mulroney. After I had been playing footbag for a short period of time Yacine Merzouk sent me a free copy of Overground - something which definitely had a huge influence on my life. Overground was my first real footbag video and in those days the only footage I'd seen apart from that was short clips from footbag.org and competition footage. Ken was definitely my favourite player watching that and I was very excited meeting him. I felt like we got on well and had a fun time together.

After the short email dispute not only did he not email me back at all but he constantly and still continues to try and score points off me at every opportunity. It's come clear we will never be friends nor even respect each other. This obviously saddens me but there seems to be nothing I can do about it. At first I thought he was just a bit bitter and I tried to be friendly but if he's kept it his vindictiveness for more than year, it seems likely that it will continue.

I may not post on the forum more than once a month and I may have a lot of problems with the forum but I wanted to give my side of the story and ask Ken, publicly in my blog, that I would appreciate it if he could just not say anything about me at all, if all he has to say is his hate talk.

He doesn't have to listen to me of course. In all honesty his attitude towards me was one of the reasons I don't post here any more. I just think his constant point scoring and snide remarks are old and tiresome and do him as much credit as they do me.

I worked harder on those Nestle demos than on anything else in my life. I went 6 weeks getting less than 5 hours sleep a day ever day apart from the weekends. I made some mistakes and indeed I am far from a perfect person but I tried my best and to be so ungrateful for the effort I put in as to go out of your way to discredit me makes me both sad and angry. I've been as honest and as forthcoming as I possibly could have been. Ken can react however he sees fit.


I just thought I'd add that I'm still in contact with the Nestle people and there is a very good chance that there will be another such campaign in the next couple of years which we will be more heavily involved with. Obviously I've learnt from my mistakes and will do a much better job but I also see it as a credit to my efforts that Nestle are prepared to commit another $100,000 to another promotion involving footbag. Whatever mistakes I made, the main aim I had was to create a lasting relationship between Nestle and ausfootbag and I have definitely achieved that.

edit: just thought I'd spend this rare time posting in my blog to brag and mention that I made just over $162 busking on Saturday ($125 USD). I spend the time I used to spend on modified actually playing footbag these days That's my busking record by the way and more than double what I made the week before although I played for a bit longer - That $162 was in about 90 minutes.

[Just call me hagesy]

Props to you. It would be great to see you shred live again.

[Jeremy]

Felt like I might as well write a little blog post. My posting on modified seems to be slowly increasing. I've really lost a lot of excitement about blogs since I introduced them to modified, I think because I've learnt that I have to keep so much stuff to myself or I get in trouble, so I can't express how I feel about a lot of stuff. Also they have began to feel like another way people are just competing and trying to one up each other. Sometimes it feels like every post I read here is just people trying to get the most props from the readers. Maybe that's just my perception. Who knows?

So I've been working lots. I got a promotion at work, which is good, and I'm now earning twice as much money as before. I also really enjoy my work at the moment - team leader for outbound membership liaison for a very large environmental charity (I don't like saying which one because, very related to what I've said earlier in this post, I'm worried that people will think that my opinions have any connection to my work). I really like the people I work with too. My brother works there too, and has moved nearby into the city, which is very good because I get to seem a lot more, and also more importantly I get to see Adelaide a lot, which is awesome. I think I'm definitely going to have kids when I'm older, although a lot older. I've also got a new job writing bar reviews. They only have to be 200 words and I don't get paid that much, but it's a pretty sweet job anyway.

The last few days have been very crazy. After work on Thursday I went to the local bar and played pool with two of my workmates - Ben and Nathan (I'm trying to play as much as I can so I can get better). Then two friends - Tom and Garry - who I don't see very often came around and we got smashed. One guy went home with some chick and the rest of us went back to one of the other guys house and got wasted watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on a big projector. I got home at 4:30 am.

Friday started with me being woken by a call from Tom - one of the best classical guitar players in the world. Tom has just come third in an international event in New Zealand where he won about $2000 USD as well as getting to gig with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. Of course getting to play with them pays a great deal more than the prize money from the comp. Tom regularly gets all expenses paid trips around the world - like last year when he was paid about $15000 USD for a 2 week tour of Japan (plus all expenses). Of course this is just an indication of what you can achieve when you spend 6 hours every day playing guitar for your whole life. Anyway I don't get to see him much but he's one of my best friends.

I met up with him and the girl he'd stayed the night with (but apparently not slept with, or to be more accurate, slept in the same bed but not slept with...). I did a little footbag demo and then we played a couple of games of chess. Inexplicably Tom preferred to go black and then opened with 1. e4 kf6. I don't know why because the obvious move is 2. e5 which leads to no good options for white. As it was, I chose to attack his piece around the board until I took it, and then won the game. He defended his defence so much that he used the same defence in the next game (and lost). We then joined a random circle kicking circle and had a little kick (not many tricks). Then Kester arrived to take me to indoor cricket.

Indoor cricket is a silly game, but cricket is fun and so I've played the last few games. I had a good game, with a few catches and run outs. Kester and I bowled in a partnership and did very well. The batters scored 9 runs off us, as opposed to 39 and 40 off the other bowling partnerships respectively. I even managed to bowl one of the batters - which is cool. We batted not so well. Mainly because I keep batting like it's real cricket, which meant smashing the ball through "gaps" only to have it bounce off the netting and get caught. I don't think we batted that badly, but our result was not so good.

Anyway we then headed back to Kester's place, picking up Tom on the way. Emma and Adelaide were away for the night so Kester called around some guys for poker. We ended up playing with Ben, Tom, Kester, Jonno and myself at $5 each. $20 for the win and $5 for second. It was a pretty fun game, and I ended up winning too, so that was good. Ben and Jonno left but Garry came around and we stayed up till about 4am talking about life, the universe and everything (and drinking). I slept on a beanbag.

Saturday we headed off to a bbq with Kester's debating friends. First we had to drop off Garry's mobile phone at his house, since he'd left it at Kesters. We managed to convince Garry to come to the bbq and also Kester left his mobile at Garry's house.

The bbq was a lot of fun. We played poker and cricket. I managed to get my money back from poker. Later we went to Kester's house and Tom and I spun fire staff - which was fun. My skills are definitely improving. Later Tom, Pat, Fran and I went out, later met by Simon and Hannah. We went to this new place called Prolley - which was good but everybody talked about debating stuff, which I guess is as interesting as talking about footbag around 1 non footbagger. I did get on with Fran really well, and maybe could have picked up with her, but was actually too worried about what Kester would think (since he knows her a lot better than I do). Silly, especially since Kester rang me today asking if I did pick up with her and then was disappointed to hear that I didn't. Maybe next time. Instead, I got bored of listening to discussion of UNYA and left to meet up with Tom and Rani at Iso bar - which I hate, but was actually a lot more fun dancing to songs that should have remained in the 90s. I ended up getting home at 4:30 am.

So I've had not much sleep over the last few days and far too much alcohol and other stuff. Still it's been a lot of fun. I haven't played any real footbag in that time, apart from a few demos but I'm in good shape and playing well when I do.

That's about all I have to say. Just felt like doing a bit of write up, maybe just to work out what's happened this week as much as anything else.

[james_dean]

Sounds like an awesome weekend

Dancing to crap dance music is so much fun







But not as fun as dancing to f*ckin awesome dance music!!

[Jeremy]

Deserves a post.

I have worked the 18 out of the last 20 days. Earnt about $1000 this week, although would love a day off.

Anyway, in celebration of that fact that the crisis is pretty much over, the other manager and I went out to our local and played pool. My brother eventually showed up and I won 2 our of 3 games. Actually I've been schooling my pool hard, and I smashed Kester - sinking all 8 in 4 shots.

During this time, I managed to get both stoned and drunk.

Oh I should mention, although I've been earning a lot, I've also been paying off a lot of bills, and ended up with all my food for the fortnight, but absolutely no money. Although around $1800 coming in next week.

Anyway we went along to my brothers nerdy poker nights (I say nerdy because they're all made up of nerds - not because poker is nerdy). There were 11 of us playing and it included the Catholic girl I made cry, and another girl who I have a strong dislike for, over a number of issues. Anyway I proceeded, after my brother put in for me, to get even more stoned, through a whitey, vomit all over the toilet, come down and play another hand or two, fall asleep on the couch, wake up still in the game, and then go on, from short stack - to overall winner .

I think when you can win poker, fall asleep and vomit all over the floor in the one night, that's pretty much nirvana.

So it's nice to have some money to last me until Saturday now too.


Also in completely unrelated news, I may have organised myself a free trip to Europe to play footbag. We'll have to wait and see though, I'm unsure if I'll hang around while I'm there, or just stay for the weekend. Still it should be fun.

[Senor Grommet]

You seem like a very intelligent person.

Your life sounds pretty exciting.

You seem to be making a shitload of money.

A lot of opportunities are open to you, or you are very good at creating opportunities for yourself.

If I could (technically I CAN), I would go down to AUS and study your life to learn about the decisions you make and how they affect you and other people in your life.

You are interesting.

With all of that in mind, I can't seem to understand how you and the other people on Modified were unable to get along amicably. I'm know little to nothing about the former situations, nor do I want to, but it saddens me you felt unwelcome.

Footblog posts, like most of your posts immediately above this one, are the type not reaching out to receive props from others (unless they mention the massive amount of scrilla (money) the fortunate person is bringin' in on a weekly basis

Just thought I'd share my current perceptions of you.

[Jeremy]

Thanks Jeremy, I enjoyed reading that post.

My problems with modified, I think ultimately come down to my personality rather than the forum. I am definitely somebody who needs to be in control at all times, and especially when I don't think things are going as well as they should. I guess in many ways you could call me a pessimist in that every mistake I make, I over analyse and feel bad about. I find that anything less than perfect really isn't acceptable. In many ways this helps me in life, because it drives me to succeed. I have the obsessive kind of nature that I keep working at things over and over, just to improve them by such a small degree, that nobody else notices. As an admin on this forum, I constantly felt like every attempt I was making to change this forum was failing. Not failing in the implementation - failing to get off the ground. I've definitely made a few mistakes on this forum, in terms of policy, but I also felt like the vast majority of the changes I made were good ones - the footblogs forum, the re-arranging of all the forums so that there is just one footbag moves forum, one general footbag forum and a lot less confusion about what goes in each topic, the online comps, the postcard topic (which I've rejuvenated on my new non-footbag forum). So I felt like I should have had a lot to back up my arguments for the change, but was unable to express why I felt those changes were necessary in a manner that the other people understood. We have very different perspectives about what the purpose of this forum should be, and I really felt like having myself and some of the other people trying to run the forum was actually counter-productive because our views were so different that change would be impossible. I guess I felt that all I could achieve on the forum was making myself frustrated. So giving up my adminship was a very good move, and on my new forum I've constantly refused to become a moderator because I don't want to ruin the place for me. The problem was that because I've been around this place so much, I still care what's going on, and I still have that need to be in control. I tried really hard to suppress that but I'm sure that if you read through my last 300 posts or so, you can see that I failed miserably and I began to realise that instead of changing the kind of person I am, I need to be aware of it and build off it, instead of fighting it.

I've always felt that the only really important thing this place offers is being a place for people to connect and communicate, and for a long time, even before I gave up being an admin, I felt like to a great degree the nature of many of the people on the forum was such that I found them very hard to relate to. It feels like many people on this forum are only looking for props from other people. I've even played with a couple of people on this forum who ask for props when they hit something good and you don't give them any. To me, this is completely not the reason I play footbag. One of the things I loved about footbag, as somebody who played very serious elite sport, is the way it's not about winning, or even other people. As I've matured, I've began to realise that it's really about yourself, what you can achieve, your focus and determination. Footbag is definitely my spiritual side. I can't imagine life without it, but for what it gives me personally, not for the respect from other people. That's not to say I don't appreciate it when people compliment me, but if nobody did, I would play just as much and get just as much out of it. It feels to me like a lot of people play for the attention. I love attention too, but my love of footbag is so much deeper than something that shallow.

So basically I felt, and still feel, like I'm not really part of the modified community at all. Although I have input at times, there are so few people I connect to. The vast majority have left the forum and I email occasionally.

There was a little more I wanted to say, but I have to go to work. Speaking of which, I wasn't bragging about how much I earn, I was trying to justify working the ridiculous hours I've been working. Usually I work 30 hours a week and earn a little over $600 ($500 usd). I am completely comfortable with that, and think it is the hours that make me happiest, as well as a wage that is more than enough. I love my work usually, but we've had 3 different crisis in the last few weeks and now that I'm in management, there is a lot more pressure - most of which is put on by myself - because of my drive for perfection.

[bigdirtyfoot]

I read every word. Wish you were around more but I probably talk to you roughly the same amount as if you were around... I'll talk to you soon bud.

[Jeremy]

Holy mother of Jesus, what’s that fucking awful din? What kind of child rapist would choose that song as their ringtone? Vague memories of the last night slowly emerge and I realise it’s my phone. I reach out to grab it, miss and grab something else instead, and hurl it at nearby wall where it shatters. Eventually I find the phone, and, inexplicably, answer it. I grunt something unintelligible and hear my boss respond;
“Jeremy, is that you?â€

[james_dean]

what... the?

[Jeremy]

If you can't add anything worthwhile, maybe don't bother to post?

[King Monkey]

Hey Jeremy that was awesome, i read the whole thing, with HST's voice in my head lol
Did you really wake up next to some girl?

[Jeremy]

I'm glad somebody got it And look, we're both up at 3 am too. Eerie. Really Eerie. Can't say that bit actually happened, at least not last night. The only real truth is that I my boss did call me because there were all kinds of things going wrong while I was asleep and I did come into work without breakfast and then work 10 hours straight functioning almost entirely on caffeine. It was a very crazy day and I barely had time to play footbag at all. In fact I got home, wrote that, and then slept for a few hours.

I have been writing a lot, and am having an article published in some magazine sometime soon. I don't know any of the details. Just that I started off with something like "The time of samurai's might be long gone, and the only knights around now are in movies and video games but... etc." and the editor responded telling me that there are knights like "Sir Elton John" etc. and I might need to reword that. I laughed, swore at him, then replied (via email) saying to change "Knight" to "Paladin" Anyway the point was that I'm going to endeavour to write in blog more, and genuinely write things, not like this post - but actually practice my writing skills. I think there is a very thin line between being a good writer and a wanker, and I'll try to stay on the right side of that. Of course that gonzo post was written spur of the moment - I don't think you could write real gonzo any other way.

[max]

"The time of samurai's might be long gone, and the only knights around now are in movies and video games but... etc." and the editor responded telling me that there are knights like "Sir Elton John" etc. and I might need to reword that.

He didn't say anything about the glaring grammar mistake?

[dyalander]

Hmmm, so few good editors out there, still every now and then you find a good one who offers you some really useful advice before you do to him/her what s/he did to your work - ie. cut them up into little pieces and stuff them in a box.

On an unrelated note, I'd recommend you watch factotum or Barfly, preferably factotum. And more importantly read some Bukowski. His stuff will give you a different take on the intoxicated writer.

There is indeed a fine line between good writing and wankery, and imitation is a good step towards better writing so long as it is just a step, and so long as you look to a range of sources. Good luck.

[Jeremy]

"The time of samurai's might be long gone, and the only knights around now are in movies and video games but... etc." and the editor responded telling me that there are knights like "Sir Elton John" etc. and I might need to reword that.

He didn't say anything about the glaring grammar mistake?

lol, you love apostrophes don't you Max. I was just paraphrasing there, I couldn't confirm if those were my exact words or not.

Thanks for the advice Dyalan, I actually don't want to be an "intoxicated writer" - I am just experimenting with different styles. I like HST because he's both hilarious, but also always gets to the heart of an issue.

I don't plan on writing a serious piece of work for publication anytime in the next 5 to 10 years. I think that if you're going to write anything meaningful, life experience counts for as much as skill.

[Colin]

Experience is fine, but I'll always prefer wide eyed wonder.

Also, I'd like to imagine that Sir Elton would seriously fuck you up if you questioned the legitimacy of his title.

[Jeremy]

Lazy Sloth Sacked
Sloth won't move for scientists.

Iguana to get the chop
Iguana has erection for a week. Will have penis amputed. Does not mind, as doesn't know what the word "amputation" means.

Cat in a jam
Cat tries to catch mouse in a jar. Gets head stuck. Mouse escapes.

Python swallows 11 guard dogs
lol

Boy Takes Police For Ride
Boy arrested after 35 minute chase on winding unlit roads travelling at over 150km per hour in stolen car. Cries when car stalls and is confronted by police. Is aged 10.