It's been nearly a month since my last Cairns Capers and it's only now that enough has happened to warrant another one.

I've come to the realisation that as a sociopathic athiest who's only friends in Cairns are buddists and shintoists Easter means very little to me. Working from home I don't even have the holiday to look forward to. I haven't bought or received a single egg and I had chili con carne for lunch. The only thing Easter means is that it's harder to buy a bottle of vodka. Luckily I bought one yesterday and I still have several movies on DVD that I haven't seen yet, so my Easter weekend won't be a total waste.

I've been quite busy at Uni. I am now a part time student of IT. I'm doing Portable Programming and Multimedia. One subject is hard and challenging the other is fun and easy. My Multimedia project, as you would probably suspect, is going to be all about me. I'd rather do something I can stick on my www.travisyates.com.au website than a pretend project about fishing in Cairns. Hopefully I'll be able to make a little program you can stick on the web that is interactive and will have animation as well as video of my old stand up routine. I'm also looking to put in a psuedo Artificial Intelligence component.

How people find time to work and study or study full time I'm buggered if I know.

I've also been tutoring Nhu in her Statistics subject for her Accounting course. Apparently I have been very helpful and she has been very appreciative. Who would have thought my stats degree would be of any benefit. Though it has taken over 10 years to finally pay off.

The big news in Cairns was the seige. No doubt you haven't heard of it. A crazed gunman walked into a politician's office (while the politician himself was off at a meeting in Port Douglas) and held his secretary hostage for 3 hours. He obviously hadn't done his homework. I hadn't been into town for a while but I just happened to wander in that day to buy an icecream as all the drama was unfolding. I was one of the (as I heard the police say on the radio) dickheads endangering himself to try and get a photo. So here it is. If you click on it and get the bigger picture you can see a guy in a police outfit and a local cameraman. Maybe there's a career for me as a Paparazzi.

Many of the streets in central Cairns were blocked off so I couldn't get to the icecream shop. But I managed to amuse myself for at least an 2 hours watching a solitary short policewoman trying to stop dozens of German Backpackers, Japanese English language students, Aussie bogans and various other tourists arriving from all directions from crossing the road. When it was all over I got a 2 scoop boysenberry and cookies and cream cone.

The next big drama was the Tsunami scare. The locals up here in Cairns get a mild Tsunami warning and they go to water. I think if the Tsunami tele-movie hadn't been on TV only last week people wouldn't have worried so much. But as it was they all jumped in their cars and drove up the mountain to the tourist village of Kuranda. I'd heard on the local news that Kuranda was suffering from a slow tourist season, then the very next week there's a Tsunami scare and the place is packed. Coincidence..?

The first I heard of the Tsunami was when Nhu woke me up with a phone call at about 9:15am. By that time I thought well there's only half an hour until it gets here, might as well put on a load of washing. After my flat is on the second floor and I'm a few streets back from the coast.

So if there's no tsunami, tornado, terrorist bombing or bubonic plague here in Cairns you might not hear from me for another month. Hope you're all doing well and having a great Easter weekend.