Party Games 21/55 Derryn Hinch's Justice Party

Derryn Hinch's Justice Party is another new party this election. Hopefully it will be better than some other parties that have included the founders name in the party name.

As the name suggests, the founder is Derryn Hinch and the party's main aims are focused on changes to the justice system. These changes can be summarised as they want it to be tougher. Tougher sentences, tougher to get bail, tougher to get parole, and a publicly accessible register of sex offenders. They use some extremely tragic events as their reason for wanting these changes, but I get the impression that just as we have a tendency to overreact to rare acts of terrorism, here we have a case of overreaction to rare and tragic violent crimes. I suspect I've read too much Bruce Schneier not to see the parallels and immediately start looking to see what is cosmetic toughness and what might be effective, and mainly seeing the former.

They say that the justice system is too easy on criminals in general, sentences are too short, and so on. As a counterpoint to this I would offer a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology of juror that found that generally jurors overestimated crime levels and suggested sentences less severe than those imposed by the judges in the cases they were involved in, which would suggest that judges aren't more lenient than society in general. I do find merit in their calls for stricter enforcement of parole and bail conditions while the person is out on parole/bail.

I was pleasantly surprised that part of their common sense platform was support for marriage equality including prefering a parliamentry vote to a plebiscite, and support for euthanasia. These don't usually pair with the tough on crime crowd.

Party Games 20/55 Democratic Labour Party

The Democratic Labour Party with its convoluted history is an odd beast. A socially conservative, pro worker party with its stronghold in Victoria, it lost its only federal Senator in 2014 when John Madigan quit the party on less than good terms. And while John has his own party now, the DLP are hoping they can get his seat back for someone still on the team.

Policy wise they're still strongly pro-life and against marriage equality, a result of their Catholic origins (even if their twitter tried to deny this to me last election). They're still pretty good on worker rights, a result of their ALP origins. They still support fusion power. Miscellanious policies that appealled to me are setting up centrelink counters at universities, reestablishing an upper house in QLD, a sensible bushfire plan, and their support for fusion power. Things that make me concerned they've not thought things through is having leave entitlements transfer to new employers (will the old employer give a bunch of cash to the new employer?, will all the leave be paid at the new pay rate (for good or bad)? Will everyone be entitled to long service leave just for working 10 years? (that last one might not be such a bad thing)), their plan for a development bank that gets it's money from ..., and their support of fusion power.

Another interesting point to note is that their policy page on asylum seekers currently has in bright red at the top This policy is currently under review. Given that the timing of this election isn't that much of a surprise (it had to happen some time this year), I'd have thought some time before now would have been a good time to finalise the current iteration of policy development. But that's just me.

Party Games 19/55 CountryMinded

CountryMinded are another party trying to fill the niche of being a better rural party than the Nationals. Not being part of the Coalition does allow them to take a few policy stances that are an almost equal mix between rational & sensible and overly protectionist of rural Australia. Among the former are an acceptance of climate change and the accompanying support for carbon pricing and more renewable energy as well as strong support for mental health services. The latter include wanting payroll tax eliminated with no suggestion as to how states will replace this revenue, protectionist trade policies, and that native vegetation is best managed by letting farmers farm as they see fit.

This last item highlights a trend that becomes apparent after a thorough read of the policies. They can all be boiled down to farmers come first. Why do they want small business to have better support? Because 90% of farms are small businesses. Who's best able to plan sustainable land management? Farmers. Who deserves more support from government in times of disaster? Farmers. Who don't we have policies for? Cityfolk.

Now this is not to deny that agriculture is an important industry, nor to suggest that farmers deserve no help from the society and the government. But, one of humanities greatest achievements is having over the last 10,000 years gone from having 100% of the population involved in hopefully producing the food needed for everyone to only 2% or so feeding everyone. And while the huge gains in productivity of food producers over that time is a foundation block of modern society, it's not the only one and to treat it as such risks neglecting other factors important for society. Without engineers developing refrigeration, all that food goes to waste. Without transportation, all that food goes to waste. Without pest controls developed by chemists, all that food goes to waste. Without environmental scientists studying climate change, all that food might stop growing. The list goes on. "Is it good for farmers?" can be an important question for judging policy, but it shouldn't be the only one.

So farmers and assorted country folk will like these guys, but this city slicker is not of their target demographic.

Party Games 18/55 Consumer Rights & No Tolls

The Consumer Rights & No Tolls party has just a few policies, and their site makes it look more like their upset about being stung with a fine for not paying their tolls one time too many than a serious attempt at policy formulation. This impression is not improved when their sole health related policy is that people who choose not to vaccinate their children should not be demonised and that there is no scientific consensus on the matter. Another of their thought bubbles is more referendums to encourage democracy, but this suggests that they don't quite grasp that a referendum is a vote to amend the constitution (and hence why the proposed vote on gay marriage is a plebiscite, not a referendum) and that Australia has historically not voted positively for matters put to referendum.

Unfortunately these are not balanced out by their other policies are things I like. No cuts to the ABC and SBS, encouraging more motorbike and public transport use, and not selling off public assets are good ideas, but not enough to make me inclined to vote for them.

Party Games 17/55 Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

The Citizen's Electoral Council of Australia brings to the fore one of the challenges of going through all the parties again this election, which is that the parties haven't changed much over the last 3 years. In this case, the CEC continue to be economic nutjobs who haven't noticed that Australia made it through the global financial crisis reasonably well, that climate change is an actual thing, and that if Prince Charles is secretly controlling the world, he's a better actor than Leonardo DiCaprio, Judy Dench, Gary Oldman, and Patrick Stewart combined.

There's no new policies (indeed one even says to contact the treasurer Wayne Swan to encourage him to implement the policy) although I did find one section I hadn't read through last time extolling the evils of video games, so I guess I now have even less reason to vote for them.

Party Games 16/55 Christian Democratic Party

The Christian Democratic Party continue to be own of the stronger Christian parties out there, with a very strict and dogmatic approach to policy. They feel that government should be under the authority of God and to serve his purposes. This is something I disagree with.

As a strongly Christian party, there's not many surprises policy wise. They want more God in government, they want no changes to the definition of marriage, mandatory internet filtering, funding for Christian universities, harsher penalties for crime, zero-tolerance for drugs, anti-abortion. Their view on the environment is that God gave it to us so it can't get that bad. They have also joined the anti-halal bandwagon and the anti-ABC bandwagon.

While that's more than enough for them to lose my vote, there are a few things they want that I agree with. They want limits on gambling and poker machines, protecting penalty rates, and giving farmers tax benefits for investing in drought preparedness.

Party Games 15/55 Bullet Train for Australia

Bullet Train for Australia continues to advocate for a fast train system between Brisbane and Melbourne for Australia, which I feel is a good thing having experienced fast trains in Japan and Korea, but in the days of sub $100 flights it's going to face an uphill battle.

They have moved on slightly from their former commitment of abstaining on non fast train matters with a candidates pledge to also support campaign finance reform, action on climate change, support for marriage equality, support for euthanasia, and limiting poker machines. They haven't quite committed to calling these policies though, more just things our guys will vote on.

Party Games 14/55 Australian Sex Party

The Australian Sex Party continues to have a strong set of civil rights based policies. They're pro pretty much anything related to sex, so marriage equality, sex education, LGTBIQ rights, better protections for sex workers, less censorship, a secular state, and more are still in their policy mix.

Since the last election they have added policies in areas I felt they were lacking in, so on the environmental front they are for protecting the reef to the tune of $250 million, a ban on fracking, and support for renewable & nuclear power. On the immigration front they're for closing down off shore processing of asylum seekers.

I still think the party could make more of a contribution if they had a less suggestive name, but a rose by any other name still has good policies.

Party Games 13/55 Australian Progressives

The Australian Progressives seems like a generic left wing party. They have the standard checklist of policies; marriage equality, an emissions trading scheme, greater parental leave, more medicare funding, Gonski funding, closing down offshore processing of asylum seekers, and so on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they don't really have anything that makes them stand out as a party policy wise.

One thing I did like was that they're starting to expand their policies with explanatory notes, sources and a version history. It's not unique (the Pirate Party has their policies on a wiki), but it's nice to see they've done their homework and don't consider policies as ordained from on high. They've only got a small subset of their policies expanded upon this way, so I look forward to them adding more.

They'll probably end up slightly above the middle of the pack, but don't stand out among the other parties.

Party Games 12/55 Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party

In looking at the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party I need to start with a mea culpa. When I first heard they had gotten a senator elected and learned who he was, I was quick to write off Ricky Muir. I saw the kangaroo poo flinging videos that emerged and worried what sort of bogan had been elected. But Ricky Muir went into the job with a seriousness that I had not expected and has done a great job for his state and Australia, and I hope he gets reelected. The party is certainly betting on him by using his likeness in their logo.

The party itself has stuck to pretty much the same set of policies, advocating for better roads, better driver education, and support for the motoring industry. There's not much more new from last time around.

Party Games 11/55 Australian Liberty Alliance

The Australian Liberty Alliance is focused on one thing. Stopping the Islamisation of Australia. This seems at odds of their claim to be about liberty. One of the points in their plan to stop the Islamisation of Australia is to make religions submit to a required doctrine of accepting Australian law as supreme over religious beliefs. This would cover all religions if they wanted to keep tax exempt status, not just Islam. The government imposing religious doctrine does not exactly match my idea of liberty, and I'm an atheist who isn't keen on religion. I'm not sure how some of the more religiously fervent members of the public would like this. Other parts of the plan include prohibiting anyone from muslim countries for 10 years. They're also kind of freaked out about Islamic finance.

In other areas they appear a standard right wing party proposing smaller government, more defense spending, in denial about climate change, opposed to gay marriage, making it tougher to be on unemployment benefits, cutting back the services provided by the ABC & SBS, and so on.

The one positive policy they have is making sure everyone has a certain minimal level of internet access, as at this point in time I feel internet access is at the point of being a utility like electricity, not a luxury.

In summary, the Australian Liberty Alliance is another edition to Australia's collection of right-wing parties.

Party Games 10/55 Australian Equality Party (Marriage)

The Australian Equality Party (Marriage), despite it's slightly clunky name, is another single issue party, this time with a focus on achieving equality for Australia's LGBTIQ population. They have a pretty comprehensive set of changes they would like to see, starting with marriage equality, and adding anti-discrimination protection, updating legal documentation requirements to be accepting of wider ranger of gender identities, better provision of health care for the LGBTIQ community, and related issues.

The name does seem a bit clunky, with marriage tacked on in brackets at the end, but as the expansion of the LGBTIQ acronym over time has shown the relevant community is ok with this sort of clunkyness. I think they've added it just to make it a bit clearer what sort of equality they are advocating as otherwise Australian Equality just by itself makes it hard to judge what they're for when completing a ballot paper with only the party name to go on.

In terms of diversity of policy areas the Australian Equity Party (Marriage) has about the same range as the Australian Cyclists Party, but the areas they've chosen let me know that they're a closer match to my values.

Party Games 9/55 Australian Defense Veterans Party

The Australian Defense Veterans Party initially looked like it was going to be another single topic party, but they have put together a pretty broad range of policies. They also have broadened their definition of veteran, including not just former military members but also including emergency services such as the police, ambulance and fire brigade. In the field of veterans affairs, the party is for providing a lot more benefits and support for veterans, as well as better pay and conditions for people currently in the military and emergency services.

Their energy policies are pretty good overall. It's a bad sign of the times that I get excited by a party that says they accept the scientific consensus that climate change is a real thing, but that's the state of affairs. I disagree with them on nuclear power, but that was about it.

One area I'm concerned about is their rather strong support for the security aparatus and very strict stance on national security. Given the strengthening of powers and reduction in oversight granted to such agencies over the last decade and a bit, as well as revelations about the extent of programs from whistleblowers, I'm not comfortable with letting them go full steam ahead however they want.

Overall, a better set of policies than I expected, and my first pleasant surprise of the process so far.

Party Games 8/55 Australian Cyclists Party

With the Australian Cyclist Party we have another single issue party. Their cause de jour, improving cycling access. They want better standards for bike lanes, a review of mandatory helmet laws with the aim of making helmet use optional for adults, more bike trails built away from roads for recreational use, better education of cyclists and drivers, and a review of penalties for aggresive driving towards cyclists and motorbike riders (this last one definitely peaked my interest.)

Overall their ideas are pretty good, and I'd be happy to seem them implemented, but I wonder if they really needed to go to the effort of becoming a political party rather than an interest group advocating for the changes they want.

Party Games 7/55 Australian Country Party

The Australia Country Party is setting itself up as an alternative to the Nationals as party for the rural areas. It's policy areas primarily focus on better support for rural areas, and protectionist trade policies. The former I can support, the latter I can not.

An example of their protectionist trade policies is their plan to introduce government price controls for agricultural products, and that this price should higher than the international market price. What this is saying is that all Australians should pay more for their food so that farmers can have more money. Now, while I can understand the frustration farmers may feel with market conditions, for example the recent brouhaha about milk prices¹, I don't think government legislated price controls are an appropriate response. I would support stronger powers for the ACCC to investigate and punish companies that are found to be abusing their market power.

Another item that concerns me is their proposed changes to the constituiton. They are seeking to repeal sections 25 & 51 and add recognition of indigenous peoples. Their motivations for this are positive, but they show some misunderstanding of the constitution. They say that they want to repeal section 25 because it allows states to exclude people from voting based on race. This is not the case. Section 25 reads "For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted." This does not permit the states to exclude people based on race. What this does is create a consequence for the states if they under their constitution and laws exclude a person from voting based on their race. If they do, they will have fewer representatives in the federal parliament because the people they exclude won't be included in their counted population when working out how many representatives each state is entitled to. Now as it stands I don't think any states do or are likely to in the future exclude people from voting on the basis of race, so losing this section won't make much of an impact, but I would like my legislators and political parties to have a better comprehension of the constitution than a call centre phone monkey with a science degree.

 Tax policy is another area of concern. They want to make it so tobacco tax revenue can only be used for health related matters, which ignores the overall fungibility of money.  They also want to give seasonal workers a much higher tax free threshold, but this I fear would just mean the employers of seasonal workers will reduce the before tax rates they pay so they see the benefits instead of the workers.

 Overall, this is a party that farmers and their associates will like, but for a city slicker like myself they're not bringing much to the table (and to be fair, I'm not the demographic they're looking to represent).

1) In relation to the recent cases of milk companies retroactively cutting the prices they pay farmers I have three main thoughts. First, I can appreciate the anger of the farmers being told this (if my work told me they were cutting my pay by 10% as of 6 months ago, I wouldn't be very pleased either), second, I'm not sure I like that such clauses are allowable under contract law, and third, I'm not that sympathetic to people complaining about the terms of a contract they signed and agreed to some time ago because now the terms don't suit them as much. If they were complaining about unfair terms in a new contract they were being presented with, I could get behind that, but after agreeing to a contract, it's harder to make the case.

Party Games 6/55 Australian Christians

The Australian Christians don't seem to have changed much since I read up on them in 2013. In fact I think I recognise some of the images that they have on their policy page from last time. The only change I noticed was in their energy policy where they say they're glad to have seen the carbon tax removed.

Thus much of what I said last time still applies. Their environmental policy seem designed to sound nice but commit to little, they still don't realise that a secular government embracing one religion does in fact exclude other religions, they're still pro censorship and filtering the internet, and most importantly they're still not making a case as to why a non-Christian should accept Bible based policies.

That's not to say they don't have some policies I agree with, even if we don't agree on the reasons why these are good ideas. They support funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and they also support investing in public transport.

Party Games 5/55 Australian Antipaedophile Party

Edit: So it turns out that they've just moved their site. I just wrote down their old site when I was compiling my list of parties a few weeks ago.

As the Australian Antipaedophile Party's name would suggest, they are against paedophiles/child sex abusers (the party uses the terms interchangably, but the Australian Institute of Criminology makes a distinction between the two). They say the problem is much larger than people realise, citing different figures in different places, the highest of which is that one in three child experiences sexual abuse. They don't cite sources for these figures, but some rather unpleasant reading online suggests that this is an upper figure and there is a fair range of uncertainty (this summary from the Australian Insititute of Criminology gives ranges of 3-29% of boys and 7-36% of girls which even at the low end is higher than I would have thought or am comfortable with). Their proposals to deal with this issue are longer sentences for convicted offenders with less flexibility for judges in sentencing and making prosecution of offenders easier (there's not much detail on how they would achieve this though). An acknowledgement of the uncertainty in these statistics would make me feel more like they've done their research rather than trying to scare people, and make it less confusing when they seem to contradict themselves on figures.

They also feel that the Family Courts are protecting sexual abusers and helping them avoid prosecution (I'm not sure how since Family Courts are not criminal courts) and the party feels that everyone involved in the family court system are letting children down, from judges, to lawyers, to court reporters, and others and want a royal commission into the system.

They straight up say that they haven't planned any positions on matters outside of their focus area, so it's hard to say which way they'd lean on other matters, and makes voting for them a bit of a coin toss.

Trying to verify some of the claims they make in terms of statistics and such did lead me to some rather less than pleasant reading.

Party Games 4/55 Australia First Party

The Australia First Party. Where to begin? They haven't changed much from 2013. They still want Australia for Australians, a strict adherence to a Christian and European only policy, their policy on marriage equality is "Say no to deviancy," and banning multiculturalism.

Now as someone who enjoys Japanese food, American TV, German board games, English literature, Turkish Delight, middle eastern kebabs, a good Indian curry, and more, banning multiculturalism seems like a bad idea to me. I think inviting others to join us in Australia and contribute things from their homelands to our combined culture makes us better. This is not an attitude the Australia First Party agrees with. In fact, they are for limiting Australia to their narrow vision of what it is to be Australian.

Their citizenship/immigration policy is a prime example of this. They would simplify the existing visa system to three classes - 1: Foreign visitor, 2: Temporary resident, and 3: Naturalized citizen. In implementing this system they'd deport everyone currently here under existing visas, revoke citizenship of most naturalized Australians and make them reapply, withdraw from existing treaties regarding accepting refugees, pretty much refuse to accept any refugees at all, instead sending them straight back to the coutry they came from and billing that country (kind of like Trump getting Mexico to pay for the wall). Their guidelines for becoming a citizen are very strict, and even once you become a naturalized citizen, it can be instantly revoked for numerous reasons. One odd point that stuck out to me was that it would be illegal for a naturalized citizen to carry or own a firearm, while elsewhere on their site they say that ownership of firearms is a constitutional right.

It would be petty of me to point out the numerous 404 errors and links inviting me to log in so I could edit the pages, but I spent so much time looking for something positive to say I feel I've earnt a little pettiness. The one positive thing I found was that thanks to some of their conspiracy theory beliefs, they acknowledge their not going to get into parliament and only run candidates for the publicity.

One final note, while I've included their proposed party logo to be used on ballots, unlike other parties I've done this for, they currently haven't had theirs approved by the AEC due to the objections of a number of groups to the group using the Eureka flag as their logo.

Party Games 3/55 Animal Justice Party

The Animal Justice Party doesn't seem to have changed much since last election. They still want to eliminate any human use of animals, including transitioning everyone to a plant based diet (they don't seem brave enough to say vegetarian). They still only have animal related policies, some of which I do agree with such as eliminating greyhound racing (given the revelations of mistreatment of animals within the greyhound racing industry it's an easier sell this time around), but others such as opposition to all animal experimentation, and an insistence that omnivorous animals don't need to eat at least some other animals to meet all their nutritional needs don't get my support. Their lack of policies in other areas and their continuing to remind me of PETA in their animal first rhetoric means I don't see much for me from the Animal Justice Party.

Party Games 2/55 21st Century Australia Party

This is going to be a short entry. While the 21st Century Australia Party is a current registered party, they appear to have no candidates this election and their last media release was about their plans to take part in the 2013 WA senate re-election after they couldn't get their act together to get registered in time to have candidates in the main 2013 election. Also, all of their policy pages haven't been updated since the 2013 election.

That means I'm not going into too much depth as to their notion to eliminate the states (given Australia's reluctance to pass measures at referendum their timeline is horrendously optimistic), or their plan to take the budget power away from parliament and establish an independent board similar to the Reserve Bank to do the budget instead, or the fact that the entire party seems to be a vanity project for the founder (although he didn't name it after himself like Clive Palmer did). Nor will I detail why I dislike their plan for online direct democracy for major issues and leaving elected parliamentarians to deal with only minor issues, or their constant comparison of running a government to running a business, or how out of date their remarks about the carbon tax are.

Perhaps it might have been easier to have gone back and renumbered earlier posts to be a 54 part series, but I've already read through their website and don't want that effort to go entirely to waste.

Party Games 1/55 - #Sustainable Australia

First up, because they included a hashtag in their official party name, is #Sustainable Australia. Last election they were the Australian Sustainable Population Party. Since then they seem to have mellowed out a bit on the strictness of how little population growth they want, or at least haven't listed any specific population targets this time round, and that was the main criticism I had of them last time round.

Their current plans to restrict population growth include reducing immigration from the current rate of around 200,000 people per year to 70,000 people per year (which includes an intake of 14,000 refugees per year), and reducing family and child benefits for third and subsequent children in a family. This is a lot more reasonable than their proposed targets at the last election.

Their other policy plans are a mixed case of hits and misses for me. Hits include ideas such as 10 year sunset clauses on national security legislation, treating drug abuse primarily as a health issue, getting the ATO to help small business by bundling super contributions with employees taxes and the ATO sending it on to the relevant super fund, and including human and worker rights as a key part in trade deals with other nations. Their energy policies overall are pretty good as well.

I'm not sold however on citizen initiated plebicisites, removing the minimum vote threshold to receive electoral funding (that is a rather self-interested policy), supporting a plebiscite on marriage equality (even if they expect it to have a yes result), and their plans to get multinationals to pay more tax need more rigour.

Overall I think they're doing a better job this time around, and they've moved closer to what I'm looking for in a party and their positions, but not quite enough to get a vote close to the top, but will likely be above at least one of the majors this time round.

Party Games 2016 - Prelude

It's 16 days to the next federal election and I've decided to once again embrace the mass of information that all the parties put out there. And once again, I've left it later than perhaps may be wise to do so, but that's the way it is.

This election will be the first double dissolution election I get to vote in, but thanks to the changes to voting for the senate we aren't seeing quite as many people nominating this year (but there's still a bunch). It's still the place the minor parties have the best chance at a seat though, and where they focus most of their efforts (with a few exceptions).

In addition to the party reviews, I had thought to do a check of how well the Coalition had kept it's election promises, but the ABC have done a much better job with their Promise Checker, so check that out instead. Alas the Fact Checker unit of the ABC is being cut due to the ABC's reduced budget (one of the broken promises), but hopefully the news section will pick up the slack.

So this is the start of the 55 part series of Party Games for 2016.

Party Games - QLD Accountability Edition

As most Queenslanders should know tomorrow is the state election. I've not gone crazy reviewing all the parties like the last federal election partly because I'm still a bit burnt out and partly because there's only 7 and that's not as impressive. But while I was thinking about this I found the LNP's proposed policies and costings from last election and became curious as to how much of what they said they'd do they actually did. This was a list that when combined totalled 84 separate items, which is more in line with the huge and daunting task that the Party Games posts are.

Now, I haven't managed to check up on everything, and with the election tomorrow I'm going to go through what I have done. If anyone can fill in gaps I'll happily include updates.

The first commitment the LNP made was to improve the overall budget position and get the net operating balance into surplus for 2014-2015. The 2013-2014 Budget Papers show that they have not achieved the improvements to the net operating balance that they had planned for, although they are still forecasting a positive net operating balance for 2014-2015, although one that is about a third of that promised during the 2012 campaign. Some of the causes for the lack of improvement in the budget position are damage done to the state by natural disasters such as cyclone Yasi and the south Queensland floods, reduced GST revenue from the federal government, reduced revenue from mining royalties (although if you're predicting revenue at a time of record high coal prices, shouldn't you factor in the likelihood that the price will drop?). I'm actually surprised they've come as close as they have.

Next were their 8 steps for cutting waste and inefficiency. The first of these was to cut advertising, travel, and consulting fees by 20%. The QLD Government Data website was helpful for this, although not as much as I'd have liked. Of the three, only advertising was presented as a collected whole across the government in a single source, for travel and consulting costs each department had their own separate file. Looking at advertising costs over the period of the Newman shows that while 2012-2013 was a big drop from 2011-2012 ($14.5 million vs $30.3 million), this was reversed in 2013-2014 when advertising jumped up to $36.8 million. Even averaging over the 2 years this doesn't reach the planned 20% cut (It's about $3 million over). I didn't have time to collate figures across all the departments for the others but I'm going to call this one a good start but they didn't keep it up.

Second was to abolish a number of state based environmental programs on the basis that the federal carbon tax made them redundant. This was carried out, but I'm very tempted to ask if there's any they think should be brought back now that the carbon tax is gone.

Third was sustainable public sector growth. This was initially done through major cuts to the public service, In the last year it has started growing again, but at about the average rate of the last 10 years including the major cuts. (Public Service Workforce Characteristics 2013/14)

Fourth was using additional GST revenue to pay down existing debt, as opposed to using it to do things as Labor was proposing at the time. This didn't happen, mainly because the GST revenue never actually came through.

Fifth was to increase the base penalty unit from $100 to $110. This was easily done by changing one line of the relevant act. I was initially a bit skeptical that this would bring in an extra $29.6 million a year but fines revenue is about $300 million a year so bumping it up 10% would be about that.

Sixth is imposing fees on defendants found guilty in criminal cases. This has been implemented.

Seventh was better collection of outstanding fines in the SPER system, including outsourcing to collections agencies. Looking at the figures SPER release, there has not been any major reduction in the amounts outstanding over the last few years.

Eighth was to stop acquiring land for the Cross River Rail project until the planning and funding was further developed and finalised. I wasn't able to verify this but I'm going to assume it was pretty easy to not make any further land purchases.

So of these 5 were achieved, 3 weren't, although I will concede one of those three as a victim to changing circumstance.

The bulk of the proposals, and where I couldn't get close to being comprehensive was the 75 point plan to build a 4 pillar economy. Of the 21 items I could find an answer to the only one not done was the proposed expansion of the payroll tax exemption from $1 million to $1.6 million. The first increment to $1.1 million was done in 2012, but further increases have been put off for the moment. Among the things promised and delivered including 2 new helicopters for the police, a new SES headquarters in cairns, smaller public transport fare rises (but it's still pricey), opening a new high school at Highfields, $10 million in scholarships for women studying in STEM field. Additionally, a number of the items were along the lines of "We'll spend foobar dept money doing foobar stuff" which is vague enough that you'll get a pass no matter what.

Overall, I have to conclude that the LNP government has for the most part done the things it said it would. Where it hasn't, there have usually been changed circumstances that a reasonable person would expect changes to plans to be made (for example Cyclone Yasi and the South Queensland floods made a huge dint in the plan to get the budget back to surplus, as did reductions in revenue from various sources). I may not like all the things they've done, but they've done a much better job than their federal colleagues at doing what they said they'd do.

BTN 2.0 15/52

So closer to when I'm meant to do this.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$97.55
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Weight: 95 kg

Life
Bike riding: 389 km
Books read: 1
Look Who's Back. Hitler reappearing in modern day Germany and gets mistaken for an Ali G type character actor makes for an amusing book.
Movies see: 1
Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Enjoyable film. I will have to go back and rewatch the last few episodes of Agents of Shield as the events there now make some more sense given the context, although it does raise some questions as to what exactly their plan for season 2 is.
Games played: 4. 2x Hanabi, 1x Lords of Waterdeep, and some online poker.

BTN 2.0 14/52

A very late posting. Life is feeling a bit shit of late, and sometimes this project feels more like a cataloging of failures than a measuring of progress and so contributing to that feeling of life being shit. Anyway, better late than never.

Wealth
Net Cash: $0.60
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Weight: 95 kg

Life
Bike Riding: 452 km

That's all I've got.

BTN 2.0 13/52

Of late I've been feeling really shit about life in general. It shows up in the stats.

Wealth
Net cash: -$58.06
back buying lunch, and splashing out on a trackpad since I've been missing one since I upgraded my computer.
Jobs applied for: 0
Rejections received: 1
I heard back from the Senate about the reseach officer position. It was not a positive response.

Health
Calories: ?
I didn't track anything at all last week. It would have been a very high number
Weight: 96 kg
Fitocracy points: 0

Life
Bike riding: 329 km
Books read: 0
Games played: 1. My 100% win rate at Manhattan Project has dropped to 66.6%

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	20%
Tues	0%
Wed	0%
Thur	0%
Fri	%
Sat	10%
Sun	0%

BTN 2.0 12/52

Wealth
Net Cash: $249.90
Jobs Applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: -1422 Calories
Taking lunch to work seems to have helped with the diet as well as the cash flow
Weight: 94 kg
Fitocracy points: 496

Life
Bike riding: 354 km
Books read: 0
Movies seen: 1
I saw 300: Rise of an Empire. Visually impressive, but even with my limited knowledge of history I found the claims they were fighting for freedom and democracy a bit over the top, when you consider Athenian democracy didn't quite match the ideals they were espousing (Athens was good for its day, but still treated women as non entities and slaves were a key part of the economy, and Sparta never had a navy to come riding to the rescue in).
Games played: 4 1 online game of Lords of Waterdeep and 3 games of Race for the Galaxy

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	30%
Tues	56%
Wed	56%
Thur	44%
Fri	44%
Sat	40%
Sun	30%

BTN 2.0 11/52

I really don't know what to say about last week.

Wealth
Net Cash: $239.30
Not sure what I did so well last week.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 1608 Calories
Weight: 04 kg
Fitocracy points: 0
Bouts of incapacitating despair: 2
It was not a fun weekend

Life
Bike riding: 388 km
Books read: 1
I've reread Harry Potter and the Methods or Rationality which I figure is long enough to count as a book.
Games played: 5. 4x Pairs, 1x The Speicherstadt. Both were new games.

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	40%
Tues	44%
Wed	44%
Thur	44%
Fri	44%
Sat	20%
Sun	40%

Tshirts

10/3/14	DAAS Club from my first year in uni
11/3/14	Lions
12/3/14	grey long sleeved shirt bought in Korea
13/3/14	I'm in PAIN Vice-Presidential shirt (foreshadowing)
14/3/14	2nd grey long sleeved shirt bought in Korea

I've now run out of tshirts that meet my standards of structural integrity, lack of stains, and desire to be seen in public wearing. Thus the tshirt posting will now end. I'm going to do some sort of cull of my collection, as I think the fact that I got to the middle of March without doubling up suggests I have more tshirts than I really need (by way of contrast, I have 2 pairs of jeans)

BTN 2.0 10/52

A week with a major outlier.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$1394.53
My old computer's decline reached the point of no return, so I forked out for a new computer. I got a Mac Mini and a decent sized flat screen monitor. And rather than max out my credit card doing so, I did something I never thought I'd do and got a GE creditline account and put the computer on an interest free loan (although there will still be some monthly charges). The reason I didn't think I'd ever do that is that I used to work for GE and saw some of the strife people got into with the things, and that I dislike easy credit. I also note that they've really loosened their lending criteria. When I was there to be approved for more than $2600 you needed to provide them with some proof of your residence (a bill or bank statement), and for more than $4300 you needed to show some payslips. I got approved for a limit of $7000 no questions asked. Once I receive the documentation I will be looking to get that limit reduced (when putting in the application I was worried I wouldn't get approved for the $1100 or so I needed for the computer I wanted, so I guess someone else thinks my financial situation is better than I do). Sensibly I didn't do what I saw so many people do while working there when they got approved which was to spend more than they planned to just because the option was there.

Jobs Applied for: 0

Health:
Net Calories: 392 Calories
Weight: 95 kg
Fitocracy points: 210

Life
Bike riding: 402 km
Books read: 1
I finished Mirror of Her Dreams at last
Games played: 13 Magic: The Gathering x8, Hannibal, Dominion x2, Go First Dice, The Speicherstadt

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	60%
Tues	33%
Wed	33%
Thur	44%
Fri	56%
Sat	40%
Sun	50%

Tshirts

3/3/14	Perth Observatory shirt, gift from my aunt
4/3/14	Hobbiton shirt, souvenir from Mum's New Zealand trip
5/3/14	German Army shirt, bought to be part of a halloween costume
6/3/14	Venezia, bought in Venice in 2003
7/3/14	Dangerous Words and later Universitat Firenze
8/3/14	Dracula shirt, bought in Romania during my Eurotrip
9/3/14	Bungle Bungle shirt, possibly a gift from my aunt

BTN 2.0 9/52

A bit better week than normal all round.

Wealth
Net Cash: $29.69
I was expecting this to be higher due to the amount of overtime I did last week, but then I went and paid for my flights for bordercon and there it went.
Jobs applied for: 2
I got motivated early in the week, unfortunately it didn't stick.

Health
Net Calories: 314 Calories
Helped by the weekend where I ate less and did some serious exercise.
Weight: 94 kg
Fitocracy points: 1227
Fitocracy level: 18
It's been quite a while since I leveled up.

Life
Bike riding: 431 km
Books read: 0
about a hundred pages of The Mirror of Her Dreams to go
Games played: 8. 1x Glory to Rome, 2x Civilization + expansions (I'm now on a 4 game winning streak of Civ) 5x Magic: The Gathering

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	100%
Tues	89%
Wed	78%
Thur	56%
Fri	67%
Sat	60%
Sun	60%

Tshirts

24/2/14	Socrates quote, bought in Athens
25/2/14	Fremantle Prison Musuem, gift from my aunt
26/2/14	Blue Sun, a must for Firefly fans
27/2/14	Checkered shirt, feels very country to me
28/2/14	Generic plain dark blue shirt
1/3/14	Dragons and Flowers red Hawaiian shirt, bought while at uni
2/3/14	High School senior year shirt, which still fits

BTN 2.0 8/52

A lot of work this week means I didn't do all the other stuff I'm trying to do. At least the bank account will be happy.

Wealth
Net Cash: $468.72
Overtime + monthly bonus - bike seat repair made for a pretty good result.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 5344 Calories
Very bad. I shouldn't eat entire chocolate blocks as a snack
Weight: 95 kg
Fitocracy points: 373

Life
Bike Riding: 332 km
Books read: 1
I finished The Mirror of Her Dreams, and am now onto A Man Rides Through
Games played: 4. Glory to Rome, Lords of Waterdeep, Hanabi (with the deluxe tiles), and Kardinal and Konig

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	50%
Tues	44%
Wed	67%
Thur	44%
Fri	44%
Sat	70%
Sun	50%

Tshirts

17/2/14	llama hats, souvenir from my grandmother
18/2/14	Buffy the Vampire Slayer, bought while at uni
19/2/14	I'm in PAIN, UQ physics club tshirt
20/2/14	Tintin in Tibet, souvenir from my sister
21/2/14	SPQR, bought in Rome during my eurotrip
22/2/14	Plain grey shirt, uncertain providence
23/2/14	New York City, souvenir from my sister

BTN 2.0 7/52

An overall good week, but efforts in some areas meant others weren't done

Wealth
Net Cash: $226.45
A bit of overtime last week, but once again work messed up my payslip. I only got paid for 3 out of 4 hours of overtime I did last Sunday because while I did 12 hours I'm only meant to be able to work up to 11 hours of work in a day so I couldn't have worked that last hour and didn't need to be paid for it. It should be in my pay for this week.
Jobs applied for: 0
This is one of the areas I didn't do anything in this week.

Health
Calories: 3438 Calories over target
Weight: 94 kg
The previous two items are quite likely related
Fitocracy points: 1891
Strength training unfortunately doesn't burn much in the way of calories

Life
Bike Riding: 497 km
Hit a nice round number with the odometer reading 90,000 km when I checked after getting home tonight. The odometer reading when I got the bike was 46,465 km so I've almost got the majority of the riding on it now. Give it another month or so and I'll be there.
Books read: 0
Mordant's need obviously isn't as engaging as I remember it being when I read it back in high school.
Games played: 14. 1x To Court the King, 2x 7 Wonders, 1x Shadow Hunters, 4x Magic: The Gathering, 4x Race for the Galaxy (two with the original expansions, 2 with the Alien Artifacts expansion), 2x The Manhattan Project
Movies watched: 1 Robocop
One of the really strong points of the original I felt was the reclaiming of Robocop's humanity, in that neither Murphy nor his friends or family knew that he was Robocop and this rediscovery was the core journey of the movie. In the new one everyone is aware it's Alex Murphy, including Murphy, which removes that whole emotional arc of the movie and just leaves you with working stiff gets screwed over by corporate scumbags, which isn't enough to hold a movie by itself.

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	70%
Tues	67%
Wed	56%
Thur	44%
Fri	56%
Sat	60%
Sun	40%

Tshirts

10/2/14	Optimus Prime bought during my first trip in Melbourne due to a cancelled flight
11/2/14	Bright Orange Hawaiian shirt bought from Lowes during my uni days
12/2/14	Mehmet the Conquerer, bought in Istanbul during my Eurotrip
13/2/14	Fresh Jive, unknown providence
14/2/14	Geek and Sundry, a cool youtube channel run by Felicia Day
15/2/14	Science It Works, Bitches! number 2
16/2/14	JPho 2002 from when I was a volunteer tutor for the Junior Physics Olympiad program at UQ

BTN 2.0 6/52

A less than good week.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$433.72
$520 for new tyres and brakes on the bike were a big ticket item. I did some overtime during the week, so next week should be well into the black.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 837 Calories
I thought it would be higher
Weight: 92 kg
Fitocracy points: 0

Life
Bike riding: 601 km
regular commuting plus rides on both days off make for a hefty total
Books read: 0
Still working through Mirror of her Dreams
Games played: 14. 10x Magic: The Gathering, 3x Eminent Domain with expansion, 1x Lords of Waterdeep
Funerals attended: 1
A friend from university lost her battle with cancer early in the week

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	67%
Tues	56%
Wed	22%
Thur	11%
Fri	44%
Sat	60%
Sun	40%

Tshirts

3/2/14	Chile, souvenir from Mum's recent cruise
4/2/14	My second PAXAUS enforcer shirt
5/2/14	Mother of Dragons from Teefury
6/2/14	Vitruvian Homer, bought in Pisa during my eurotrip
7/2/14	Fiat Lux, bought in DC in 2002
8/2/14	Maroon dress shirt, bought for work in Japan
9/2/14	Man/Nature Yin/Yang, souvenir from Mum's first Canada trip

BTN 2.0 5/52

Not too much detail this week

Wealth
Net Cash: -$60.02
Splurged a little on a Magic: The Gathering pre release event, but had fun so worth it.
Jobs Applied For: 0

Health
Weight: 93 kg
Net Calories: 606 Calories
A big cut in intake, helped by a few lean days.
Fitocracy points: 0

Life
Bike Riding: 397 km
Books read: 0
Working my way through The Mirror of her Dreams
Games played: 12. 10 x Magic, 1x Small World, 1x Lords of Waterdeep

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	44%
Tues	56%
Wed	75%
Thur	50%
Fri	50%
Sat	78%
Sun	78%

Tshirts

27/1/14	Black Cat, bought in Paris during my Eurotrip
28/1/14	Transformers logo
29/1/14	Turkish Flag, a souvenir from my aunt's trip there
30/1/14	Kalishnakov, bought in Moscow during my Eurotrip
31/1/14	Lightning Bolt City, Xmas gift from my sister
1/2/14	Moon Dragon, bought in Okinawa
2/2/14	More Transformers

BTN 2.0 4/52

A modest week.

Wealth
Net Cash: $66.46
I'd like to say that work stuffing up my paycheck made a difference, but because they've not increased the rate I get for when I handle the outbound stuff in line with the base pay rate, the stuff up they made only cost me 60 cents. But since it's the third stuff up in 2 months, I hassled them to fix it up anyway.
Jobs applied for: 1
I'm managing to be a bit more consistent, which is good. Lets see if I can keep it up.

Health
Net Calories: 3446 Calories
Weight: 94kg
Down a little. This peaked at over 97 when I gave blood on Thursday, but that was probably a short term thing based on the fact I'd drunk about 1.5L of water in the hours before hand.
Fitocracy points: 56

Life
Bike riding: 371 km
Books read: 1 What Money Can't Buy
Games played: 0

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	78%
Tues	56%
Wed	75%
Thur	50%
Fri	63%
Sat	38%
Sun	56%

Tshirts

Jan 20	Space Pandas, Xmas gift from my sister
Jan 21	The Day Planner from Teefury
Jan 22	PaxAus Enforcer shirt
Jan 23	The Bugle, gift from my sister, (You should listen to The Bugle)
Jan 24	Plain grey, unknown origin
Jan 25	Mr Deity, a cool web series
Jan 26	Vitruvian Man, bought in Florence

BTN 2.0 3/52

This week was a bit off. A different schedule at work messed up some of the routines I'd been getting into. I'm back on stupid early starts next week so should do better.

Wealth
Net Cash: $309.94
Monthly bonus and some frugal living.
Jobs applied for: 0
Still working on the application for the Senate job I mentioned last week. It closes on Wednesday. May I just say I hate selection criteria.

Health
Weight: 95kg
Calories: 4145 Calories
These two together make sense. Too many big lunches.
Fitocracy points: 10
It was too dark when I got home for the after work dog walks.

Life
Bike riding: 372km
Books read: I finished Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett's most recently novel. While reading it I realised just how much Pratchett's style and the types of stories he tells has changed over the years.  I also finished The Algebraist by Iain M Banks, which I interrupted to read Raising Steam. I'm now reading What Money Can't Buy.
Games played: 4. 2x Lords of Waterdeep online, and 2x Civilization with the latest expansion Warfare and Wisdom. I won both games of Civ, which was my first victories in 7 plays (I thought I'd played it more than that. Maybe it seems like more because it takes so long). Both games were very close, with multiple people capable of meeting their victory condition in the final turn and turn order and game phase order worked in my favor.

Simplegoal Summary

Mon	78%
Tues	44%
Wed	50%
Thur	50%
Fri	50%
Sat	50%
Sun	67%

Tshirts

Jan 13	Plain Green, bought after an motorbike accident so I had something to wear home
Jan 14	Dark Grey, left behind by the previous tenant of my flat in South Korea
Jan 15	Captain Hammer
Jan 16	Spicks and Specks Finale Tour, bought at a live show in Brisbane
Jan 17	Free Sushi, a christmas present from my sister in 2012
Jan 18	11th of Hearts from Teefury
Jan 19	Stayed at home in my pajamas all day so no shirt

BTN 2.0 2/52

A better week in most regards this week.

Wealth
Net Wealth: $125.98
A boost from getting paid money owed from last weeks pay was partly cancelled by splurging on a few items
Jobs applied for: 1
Graduate Data Scientist for a company that specializes in property valuation. I'm currently working on applying for a Research Officer position for the Australian Senate which looks quite interesting. I'll aim to complete the application by the end of next week as applications close on the 22nd.

Health
Weight: 92 kg
Net Calories: 3609 Calories
I ate more than last week and still lost weight. Not quite sure how that works
Fitocracy points: 239
still just walking the dog and one longer walk to the local shops

Life
Bike riding: 430 km
Books read: 0
I got part way through the Algebraist and then I bought the new Terry Pratchett novel Raising Steam and am churning through that.
Games played: 2 Age of Industry on the USSR map and one online game of Lords of Waterdeep (a very tight game. 4th place (myself) was only 5 points behind the person who won).
Bones painting: Not enough worth photographing.

Simplegoal summary

Mon	67%
Tues	78%
Wed	75%
Thur	50%
Fri	63%
Sat	63%
Sun	78%

Tshirts

Jan 6	SG1
Jan 7	Banff Wars a souvenir from my mother
Jan 8	Inspector Spacetime my first Teefury shirt
Jan 9	Star Wars photobooth a gift from my sister
Jan 10	Optimus Prime playing with himself from Teefury
Jan 11	headphones a gift from my aunt
Jan 12	Kansai Osaka bought back in Australia, not while I lived there

BTN 2.0 1/52

With the new year I have decided I'm going to keep doing my weekly write ups, and will endeavour to eliminate some of the slackness that had crept in over the later months of 2013. One new tool I'll be using for this is simplegoal.net which is a tool that lets you set up a questionnaire for each day for you to keep track of what you've done each day. I've set up between 7 and 10 things each day that I'll be trying to do (mostly easy things like keeping track of what I spend, spend some time reading, apply for a job, etc).

Anyway, let's see how the year started

Wealth
Net Wealth: -$62.87
This wasn't helped by the fact that work didn't pay me penalty rates for working Boxing day (with that I'd have been in the black for the week). This is the second mistake they've made with my pay in December, and while the extra money should be in next weeks pay, I will be keeping a close eye on my payslips going forward.
Jobs Applied for: 1
A Graduate Property Finance position. One advantage of Kaplan not awarding me my Postgrad Diploma until almost a year after actually completing the study is that I can legitimately say that I received my qualification in the last 12 months.

Health
Weight: 94 kg
Net Calories: 3539
This is especially bad since I didn't keep track for Monday or Tuesday. I guess that's why I'm back up at 94kg.
Fitocracy points: 505
I've taken the dog I'm dogsitting for a few walks in a nearby park.

Life
Bike riding: 404 km
Books Read: 1 Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. I've now started on a reread of The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.
Games played: 5 2x Dungeon Roll and 3x Dominion of various mixes of expansions.
Bones painting: I'm doing fine detail work on two figures (the archer and the bard), and have started on a new fighter type figure

Simplegoal summary

Mon	63%
Tues	25%
Wed	50%
Thur	50%
Fri	63%
Sat	71%
Sun	100%

Tshirts
Since one of the cornerstones of the internet is doing something mundane a lot and chronicling it, my new project for the first part of the year is that I've decided I'm not going to rewear any of my tshirts until I run out, and take a picture of the shirt and put it up on twitter (#todaystshirt) I figure I should have at least two months worth of shirts. I'll include a rundown here as well
Jan 1: Tardis Shirt a Christmas present from my Aunt
Jan 2: I Believe in Sherlock Holmes bought in Melbourne after PAXAus last year
Jan 3: Daenerys, Queen of Hearts bought at PAXAus
Jan 4: A plain grey tshirt
Jan 5: Science! It Works, Bitches from XKCD

By The Numbers Year End 2013

Well 2014 is here so I guess I should have a look and see how I went for the year.

Wealth
Net cash: $1531.46
Not a huge amount to show for one year. And this mostly represents debt reduction, not actual saving.
Jobs applied for: 32
Only two interviews, both for the same job and both times the company decided not to appoint anyone. This needs to be improved upon in 2014

Health
Weight lost: 12 kg
Fitocracy points earned: 28635
Fitocracy levels gained: 12
I stopped exercising as regularly when my treadmill broke down and then shortly after had to spend some time on crutches. I plan to increase my activity levels again. It was around this time I also stopped being as thorough keeping track of what I was eating.

Life
Bike riding: 13910 km
Mostly commuting, but it adds up
Books read: 29
Drift By Rachael Maddow was one of the most interesting I read. The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver had a lot of hype about it but lacked the substance. Y the Last Man was a good series.

Games Played: 800 plays of 89 distinct games. This is based on figures from Friendless' stats site and compensating for some double counting of expansions that are also stand alone games. The big game of the year is Ascension, racking up 470 plays. almost of all of which is played online through the iphone app. Second is Penny Arcade: The Game with 57 plays (also an iphone game). In the real world, top honours went to Magic: The Gathering with 49 plays, and then Hanabi with 23 plays (which is also coincidentally my best score in Hanabi). Third is Through the Ages, which got a large boost this year through online play. Dominion I suspect has been undercounted, as only 12 plays seems very low. Interesting new games I played this year include the aforementioned Hanabi, Twilight Struggle (a game based on the Cold War), King of Tokyo, Merchants of Venus, Vanautu, and Love Letters which I played at Bordercon, and several variants of The Resistance.

Looking back I'm most happy with how I've done health wise. I lost 12 kg and despite slacking off in the latter part of the year haven't put it back on. I'm less happy with how my finances have gone, which mainly come down to lack of success in finding a new job. I've looked for ways to apply what's worked in terms of getting me to be more healthy into getting me to be more active in job hunting. I'll keep the tracking going again for 2014 as I think I'm the better for it.

By The Numbers 52/52

Almost the end of the year. I'll do some wrap up stuff on Thursday and look back on the whole year, but we've one more week to write up.

Wealth
Net Cash: $230.83
Some Christmas cash and some timing gains from having bought lots of groceries the week before.
Jobs Applied for: 0

Health
Weight: 92kg
Calories: ?
I've been rather slack about keeping track of this. I'll try and renew my dedication to this in the new year.
Exercise: A few walks in the park with the dog

Life
Bike riding: 360 km
Books read: 0
I'm in the middle of Carpe Jugulum.
Games played: 3 The Forgotten Planet and 2x Innovation with both expansions

By The Numbers 51/52

Almost at the end of the year.

Wealth
Net Cash:-$33.06
edit: Forgot about the rent. damn.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Calories: too many
Weight: 93 kg
Exercise: A few walks in the park with the dog.

Life
Bike riding: 515km
Books read: 1
I finally finished The Signal and the Noise. It was interesting, but didn't go into as much into methodology and such as I would have liked.
Games played: 4 Glory to Rome, London x2, Age of Industry (my first win, and a close game coming down to the tie breaker splitting 1st and 2nd)
 Bones painted: 0.5 I finished the halfling I was painting, but since then I have given it as a Christmas gift to a friend (it reminded me of their character in an RPG we played together) I don't have any pictures of it finished.

By The Numbers 50/52

A quick entry since I'm running late

Wealth
Net Cash: $92.47
Jobs Applied for: 0

Health
Weight: 93 kg

Life
Bike riding: 440 km

Wow I'm getting slack. Bad me.

By The Numbers 49/52

One month left

Wealth
Net Cash: -$148.08
Christmas shopping is almost complete, and I bought some stuff for myself from ThinkGeek since they were having a sale last week. The Bag of Holding is a pretty good bag, and the chess piece ice cube trays is bound to be fun.
Jobs Applied for: 0
No comment

Health
Calories: ?
Weight: 94 kg
lack of discipline is taking its toll

Life
Bike riding: 434 km
Books read: 0
Games played: 2 online games of Lords of Waterdeep (only one properly finished, but the second one the other person quit the game while about 30 points down on their last turn of the game so I'm counting that as well)

By The Numbers 48/52

A mixed bag this week.

Wealth
Net Cash: $925.86
This is mostly a rather significant write down in my debt level. This is because the family member I owe money to has kindly said they will count some of the money I spent going to Melbourne to help my sister against what I owe. There was also some extra income from doing some overtime.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 2269 Calories
too much food
Weight: 92kg
and yet steady.

Life:
Bike riding: 368 km
Books read: 0
Games played: 3. Hanabi, Powergrid Northern Europe, and Lords of Waterdeep

By The Numbers 47/52

Only 5 weeks left to the year. Damn.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$152.54
A lower than normal paycheck due to missing a day and a half of work due to being interstate didn't help.
Jobs applied for: 0
I'm a bad human being and deserve to suffer for it.

Health
Net Calories: ?
I've been slacking off from the habit of keeping track. This is a less than good turn of events.
Weight: 91 kg
This is a better turn of events.

Life
Bike Riding: 423 km
Books read: 0
Games Played: 8. 4x Hanabi 3x Magic: The Gathering, 1x DnD. There's also been a dozen or so plays of Lords of Waterdeep against the AI on my phone, but here I'm only counting games involving humans other than myself.

By The Numbers 45&46/52

A combined post this time. Last weeks post was missed as I had to travel interstate for 5 days due to a family emergency. Most figures will be for the fortnight rather than the week and some will be missing as I had other concerns than keeping track of things while I was away.

Wealth
Net cash: -$873.30
Plane tickets, hotels and meals are the major contributors. I also had to renew my drivers license this week, which was another $150 (I recall only having to pay $55 last time I renewed it 5 years ago).
Jobs applied for: 0
I need more chiding it appears.

Health
Net Calories: good question
Weight: 93kg
creeping back up.
Fitocracy points: 0
I probably could have claimed some for all the walking around Melbourne I did running errands.

Life
Bike Riding: 669 km
Books read: 1 Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543 a kickstarted SMBC collection that arrived two weeks ago. Still making my way through The Signal and the Noise.
Games played: 19. Through the Ages online, Dominion, 7 Wonders, One Night Ultimate Werewolf x4, Magic: The Gathering x12
Bones: No painting worth mentioning.

By The Numbers 44/52

Another week closer to the end of the year.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$269.30
The Bones II Kickstarter was about tad over $160, I bought a bunch of paint to use on Bones I, and with late shifts I've been spending too much on takeaway food.
Jobs Applied for: 1
Thanks to the friend who chided me on my lack of effort in this area. External pressure seems to be much more effective in this area than internal pressure.

Health
Net Calories: 3642 Calories
That's a lot of extra calories
Weight: 92 kg
And I'm down a kilo. Imagine how much better I'd have done if I'd not eaten so much.
Fitocracy points: 0
Fitocracy claim to have fixed the issues with their apps. I'll see if that is so.

Life
Books read: 0
Movies seen: 1
Thor 2. Enjoyable, nothing too deep, and while it was interesting to see Loki being his own worst enemy while imprisoned, if you're going to imprison Loki you don't do it by putting him in a white room, you do it by binding him under the earth with his own entrails with a serpent dripping venom into his face.

Games played: 10
2x Rheinlander, 5x Hanabi (including two games with a final score of 24 out of a possible 25), 2 x Cards Against Humanity (very fun, will play again), and 1x Bootleggers
Bones painted: 0 completed. Still working on my ranger, and I've started two more (a bard and a halfling)

By The Numbers 43/52

A bit late this time round.

Wealth
Net Cash: $55.19
Thanks to time zones I can put the Bones II kickstarter in next weeks accounts.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 1504 Calories
Pizza on the weekend was a bad idea. The rest of the week had been pretty good.
Weight: 92.8kg
I got a more accurate figure this week as I gave blood today and they checked my weight.
Fitocracy points: 304
Fitocracy is having some major issues with their recent updated version, but that's still no excuse for me not exercising as much.

Life
Books read: 0
I did pick up The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver which looks to be an interesting read.
Games played: 6 Flowerfall, 7 Wonders, 2x Hanabi (including my first loss), Ricochet Robots, and The Resistance: Avalon
Bones painted: 0 (I undercoated 2 and bought some more paint. I've now spent more on paint than on the figures themselves)

By The Numbers 42/52

A better week in pretty much every way. I can walk again.

Wealth
Net Cash: $332.42
About half the surplus is from my monthly bonus, the other is from the fact I bought a lot of groceries late last week and didn't need to buy any this week.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: -1732 Calories
Yay, under my target
Weight: 92 kg
Fitocracy points: 200
Fitocracy level: 17

Life
Books read: 1
I finished Against a Dark Background
Games played: 8. Glen More, Roll Through the Ages, and 6 games of Magic: The Gathering
Bike riding: 162km
Since I can walk, I can ride again as well.
Bones painted: 1/3
I'm still working on my elven ranger. No pics as until it's done.

By The Numbers 41/52

Wealth
Net Cash: -$1.90
Too much snacking and buying lunch at work.
Jobs applied for: 0

Health
Net Calories: 1477 Calories
Weight: 93 kg
Fitocracy points: 235
I did some seated exercises with the dumbbells.

Life
Books read: 0
Still working my way through Against a Dark Background
Games Played: 1 To Court the King
Bones painted: about 1
I finished up the skeleton guy from last week, and have no started on an elven ranger which I've been using for DnD

The Tragedy of Klothan the Traitorous, formerly Klothan Demonsbane

Klothan was born in one of the temple cities on the Plains of Lamora. The plagues took his family when he was quite young, as they did many others, and he was raised in one of the temples among the other orphans. As he grew his strength of arms was matched on by the strength of his faith. It was natural that he would become a champion of good, using his strength and faith to defend against the forces of evil.

Klothan fought in the first demonic incursion that occurred in the city of Sateda, hunted down several demon worshiping cults, in one case defeating the demon they had summoned in single combat.

In light of this, when the girl prophecised to be the next high priestess of Charol, the Goddess of Mercym was kidnapped by demon worshipers, Klothan was the one chosen to find and rescue her. Klothan tracked down the cultists, but by the time he entered their lair, the ritual had already begun. Though he wreaked havoc on the cultists, he could not defeat the demon they had summoned. After a duel that lasted hours and seeing no other way of accomplishing his mission, he made a deal with the demon, his life and soul for the girl's. The demon agreed and Klothan's life was ended.

Klothan expected that he would experience an eternity of physical and mental torture in one of the hells, but the demons were more creative in his torture than he could have expected. He was conscripted as a general into the demons' army, leading the forces he had once so fiercely fought against. Sateda was razed, the Plains of Lamora tormented, but the worst was to come a number of years later, when Klothan was ordered by the demons to assassinate the girl he had given his soul to save the night before she was to be elevated to the rank of High Priestess.

By The Numbers 40/52

No comment this week.

Wealth
Net Cash: -$72.36
Jobs Applied for: 0
Jobs applied for at my current work two months ago that they finally decided they can't actually appoint anyone to for business reasons after advertising and interviewing people for the role for the second time in 5 months: 1

Health
Net Calories: 1680 Calories
Not much by exercise and a lack of sleep has led to extra snacking (a sugar rush is a short term solution but I can't just spend 45 minutes on a treadmill at home to work it off anymore)
Weight: 92 kg
Go figure
Fitocracy points: 0
Crutches still in use: 2
Another check up at the hospital this week. They said I can put some more weight on my right leg (about half my weight) and I got new rubber caps for the bottom of the crutches which were rather worn out (I think I do a fair bit more walking than the average person on crutches).

Life
Books read: 0
I'm in the middle of reading Against a Dark Background.
Games Played: 2 Hacienda and To Court the King, both online
Bones Painted: 2/3
I decided to move up from furniture and paint an actual figure. I chose this guy because I don't have any flesh tone paints yet and since his head is a skull it avoids the whole issue of flesh tones, and I'd liked how the skulls on the previous two pieces turned out. I still have a bit of detail work and tidying up to do, but I think it's coming along well. I'm also really impressed at the quality of the pictures my phone takes.

By the Numbers 39/52

Better late than never

Wealth
Net Cash: $116.05
An improvement on the last few weeks.
Job Applications: 0

Health
Net Calories : 1701 Calories
An Enterprising excess of Calories
Fitocracy Points: 0
Weight: 93 kg

Life
Books read: 1 The Complete Yes, Prime Minister
Games played: 2 an online game of The Hanging Gardens and a session of DnD
Bones painted: 1 A treasure chest. I will probably come back to this one to do a wash to bring out the coins, and redo the metal bands in a brass rather than the current metally brown I got by mixing brown and silver.