January 2009 Archives

To be honest, I thought it'd be really hard changing my name.  I mean I'd had my old name for *thirty-five years* !!!

But it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be.  Admittedly sometimes I do start to type my old name by accident sometimes, but not that often.

From someone who thought they would *never* get married, this is a very cool thing....

Something in one of Neil's recent posts prompted me to write an entry on my television appearances.

Romper Room, 1979
Yes, I was on Romper Room when I was in Kindergarden (or first class, not 100% sure).  Unfortunately they were running late and the studios were hot, so I fell asleep.  When I woke up I was incredibly shy (as I always was whenever I woke up after a day sleep) so when I was on tv I was so quiet you couldn't actually hear anything I said.  Oops!  This was the days before we had a VCR, so apart from seeing it on tv thirty years ago, I've not seen it since.

Burgo's Catch Phrase, 2002
This was for their second run of the show.  My friend James managed to get on both seasons, winning the car the second time he was on.  I wasn't so lucky, having really bad eyesight and not being able to see the monitor properly.  Anyway, the girl that won that night went on to win the car as well, so that was ok by me that I'd lost to a champ lol. 

Good News Week, 2000
I was in the audience for the first episode that Wendie Malick was in.  So I was in various shots of the audience.  But got extended coverage when they did a piece with Flacco and the Sandman that I happened to be right behind.  I might get it YouTubed at some point.

Bushfire News Coverage, 1994-1996
When bushfires destroyed half our suburb and our church, I was seen in a couple of news stories about our church.  One was when we were having services in the grounds of the church, another up at St Clements, and then another when our church reopened on April 28 1996 (the same day as the Port Arthur massacre).

I was also in the audience for all of James' Catch Phrase recordings, and for an episode of Hey Dad in 1991, but you didn't see me for those :)

I think that's all.  So yeah, I've had my 15 minutes of fame :)

I finished reading the book of Star Trek: The Motion Picture this week, so tonight we watched the movie.  I quite enjoyed the book actually.  And the movie wasn't as slow and boring as I remember seeing it last time - I must be getting old! ;)

I always thought it was cool how Vejur was actually an old Earth Voyager probe.  The graphics looked only slightly cheesy by today's standards, but I suppose in their day they would have been fantastical.

Two commentaries and a stack of special features on the dvds.. hrmmm..

Very hot today.  Not that I noticed it much being in air-conditioned comfort all day and all ;)

Of course the first thing we did when we got home was go for a swim.  As you do ;)

Apart from that, really nothing exciting today :)

So Stu had his book club here tonight.  I mostly stayed out of the way, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

It did mean that last night and tonight involved lots of cleaning, so the house is pretty tidy now :)

And it was so hot today and we still all sweaty after everyone left, that of course we just jumped in the pool :)  Was awfully refreshing :)

Finished the book of Star Trek: The Motion Picture today, so will have to watch the movie this weekend!

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to plan out much of the work for the next couple of months.  It's going to be crazy, with several projects all running at once.  I keep telling them I can only juggle three balls at once.. (although even that is pushing it :/ )

I've updated my Sydney trip entries with photos.. so please reload my index page if you care enough to look at them :)

Today was quite relaxed.  Slept in a bit, just generally hung around.  Started playing Roborally until Ralph and Ali and the kids came over.  Played a bit of eco Fluxx and then had lunch (leftover lamb roast and potato with cheese on a roll). 

After lunch finally left Sydney and dropped in to visit David and Yvonne.  Saw some random photos from their Romania holiday and the Unanderra derailment.  So that was all very pleasant.

Then finally came home, getting home just on dinner time.  Used a big pile of Lizzi's tomatoes for a pasta sauce, was very nice.

And so that was my weekend.  It turned out to be a very nice, if very hot and humid weekend.  I don't think Stu could have dealt with it - it was people the entire time.  And not his people (his people are more ok than my people).  But anyway.

As per usual I don't want to go to work tomorrow...

Yesterday very early my alarm went off and I had to try and remember why I'd set it for such an outrageous hour (7am).  Then I remembered I was planning to go to church - on the complete other side of the city (about 70km away).  So trundled off and made it in about an hour and five minutes, which was a pretty good run all things considered.  Church was actually quite good, and the minister they have at my parents' church is enthusiastic.  Thinking we should probably go more regularly in Canberra :/

Dad and I wandered up the computer fair, but it was very small, maybe 1/4 - 1/3 the size of the one in Epic (although Dad did say it's usually a bit bigger, but even so there wasn't much there).  I would have bought another usb hub, except after being screwed over last time by the place in epic (I paid $12 for it but it basically doesn't work) I decided I'll get an actual name brand one instead of a dodgy brothers no-name special.  I did get a toy though which I hope will work.

Had lunch at the parents' and we watched the rivers episode of Planet Earth on blu-ray.  Very pretty!

Next headed off to Luc and Lizzi's for "afternoon tea" (if a small glass of oj counts as that) and had a look at their back yard, which is now a back yard again after having been a rubble pile for so long.  And they have the most spectacular sunflowers - the heads of the things are probably 40cm across, and the trunks maybe 7-8cm thick!  /me wanna grow sunflowers at home, although I've probably left it a little late for this season.  Really need to get rainwater tanks installed too....

Left there and went and drove past my old house, then went to the airport to watch the planes for a while.  On the way there I noticed a Singapore Airlines A380 at the terminal and wondered how long it would be til it left.  Well there were actually a bunch of plane spotters there (with scanners and everything), and they said not that long.  So waited and sure enough, off it went!!  So this time got to document the fact that I'd seen an A380 flying! :)  Very excitement-making :)

Then headed off to Alan and Marylon's for dinner, drank some wine and had a very nice time.  James drove my car back here afterwards.

And so ended Sunday..

Yesterday morning was pretty slow.  Slept in, washed my hair, read some news feeds etc. 

A bit before lunch headed into Hornsby where I met up with Daniel and Fee for lunch.  Wandered around til we found a cafe (Blu) and got lunch there.  I had a melt which wasn't bad, but probably not worth $13.  So chatted for a while and then wandered around the games shops in the shopping centre.  All in all a very pleasant couple of hours.

Then headed down to Rhodes where I fought the hordes trying to find parking :(  (This after not paying attention to my own golden rule - never go to Rhodes/Ikea on a weekend!!).  Seriously, parking at Rhodes shopping centre SUX!!!!  There's just too many people going there and not enough parking.  I don't know what on earth possessed Ikea to shut down their other Sydney stores, but I'm sure it's a dumb decision.  I didn't even consider buying anything because it was just too hot and stressful to even think about getting anything back to the car.  My poor little car was overheating too, which meant I couldn't have the aircon on while looking for parking.  *sigh*

Anyways, headed back to J&G's and jumped in their pool (which was 32C! eep!).  Still, it was still nice to clean off somewhat.

George cooked a very nomm roast dinner, and later we watched Mythbusters and then played Carcassonne (Ark of the Covenant edition (which I won by like 39 points or something)) and a few games of Fluxx.  I quite like Fluxx it's a fun game and you don't get too hung up about winning strategies (because the goal of the game keeps changing).  You win pretty much by luck only, which makes it just kinda fun.

Didn't sleep quite as well last night, but not too badly.

So yesterday I got ready then hopped in the car and drove to Sydney.  Stopping once for petrol and once for morning tea and a toiley break at Maccas in Goulburn.  Passed a sneaky speed camera trap parked in bushes just over a rise.  Checked my speed and it was pretty much exactly 110, phew :)

Got to my old work at lunch time to find they had already wandered up the road without me :(  But at least they hadn't ordered.  Got a caesar salad thinking it'd be lighter than my usual chicken kiev but it still filled me up heaps!!  Wandered back to the office to discover really not much as changed.  Stuff that's been in the same places for years was all still there!  The server room was pretty much unchanged.  More clutter in there, a few new servers, and a few servers that had been turned off.  The biggest change was all the new people heh.  Stacks of new people there, scary.



Hung around there for a bit, then wandered out to Paramatta to see the new cia offices.  Pretty swishy!  Although parking there sucks :( 



Left with Kirk and we wandered back to Ric's place.  Had a beer there before going for a walk to the Italian Forum, going to Caesars for dinner. 



I had a mushroom pasta thing (pappardelle alla funghi or something) which was quite yummy, but unfortunately I was still full from lunch, so didn't feel like eating it :(  Ric got a marinara and Kirk got a meat platter.  Was all pretty good.  Stayed chatting for a while before we wandered back to Ric's and then I left.





Survived the Warringah Expressway (I really hate that bit of road, you never know what lane to be in and constantly have to change lanes to keep on going straight ahead :( ), and arrived at James and George's a bit before midnight.  Chatted for a bit before collapsing into bed.  Can't believe how solidly I slept - closed my eyes and it was night, opened them and it was morning.  Have no memories of being awake in the night at all.  Pretty cool :)

The '/" key on this laptop is broken - very distressing!! :(

Don't know what time I woke up this morning but it was probably before 4am.  This after not having gotten to sleep til after midnight :/ 

Of course once I woke up I started thinking about going back to sleep because I knew I was going to have a very long and busy day and so I needed to get as much sleep as possible.

Of course this meant not getting back to sleep at all :(

Anyways, so it was a bit of a frantic day, but I did finally achieve what I wanted to, even if it was a bit rushed and lame...

It ended up being a 13 hour day.. not fun.. and still didn't get anywhere near enough done :(

And then I get home very late and just want to go to bed.  But instead I compiled some photos...

A water lily at Nat and Andrew's..



La Trappe Quadrupel beer that Stu got the other week.  It was really nice.



The salad and lasagna the Nattos made on Sunday..





And finally, sunrise this morning..

/me no wanna go to work tomorrow :(
Too much to do, too little time, too many distractions.
Anticipating a twelve hour day tomorrow :(

It was too still tonight for the house too cool down much :(

Didn't get much Japan research done (not helped by Google Maps keeping timing out), but I did manage to tidy up some, and pay some bills.

Work is going to get crazier (if such a thing were possible) before it gets any better... altho if I can make a couple of big deadlines I'll be able to go to Japan on a clear conscience...

Had our first Japan planning meeting today.  Not a great deal was planned, but we did get a few suggestions, some discussion about dates etc, and the beginnings of a Google maps collaboration so we can all start making down things we want to see.  The idea being that we can go off and do research on what sorts of things we want to see, then have another meeting in a couple of weeks to nut out an itinerary.

Following that, we had a spectacular lasagna made by the Nats and a yummy blueberry danish for dessert.  And some Wii bowling :)

Aside note: Scott, Kerry and Jake came over and we watched Wall-E, which was a cool movie, quite enjoyed it.

Had a relatively slow morning, but did get a few things done on the todo list. Rage had an 80s day (and a good chunk of them being Singstar songs) which was quite amusing.

After lunch we went to Mitchell to get a bale of hay and drop off some fluoros at the Resource Management Centre. Stopped in to the junk shed and came home with a couple of jigsaws and a few books - oops :)

Went to Scott and Kerry's for dinner (Kerry made a great vegetarian curry) and then watched Rendition. It was a bit disjointed and hard to follow at the beginning but picked up and was quite thought provoking. It's the sort of movie you kinda need to watch twice to pick up on everything that's going on.

Quite tired now...

We watched most of Peter Jackson's King Kong tonight.

It started off well enough, but the first dinosaur chase scene was off the scales "yeah right" which put me off a bit.

Didn't get to see the end because the tape was faulty.  Will have to watch the end again next time it's on telly...

My Dad always used to say any landing you could walk away from was a good one..

This story is fricken awesome!!

Why do I keep finding out about people who have died from Dave...?

• Crap day at work
• Slightly drunk
• Very full
• Very tired
• On-call
  

Sorry is that too boring an entry...?

It was hot yesterday.  It was hot all night.  It was hot all day.

Didn't notice much today until I left the office and got home.  Then sweltered all night :/

Was meant to be going ice skating tonight, but somebody piked which led to a chain of cancellations, so was going to be like two people left going.  So didn't go.

Here's a few more from 2007..

The Hogwarts logo mosaic in pieces.  If anyone actually cares I'll publish the counts of all the pieces I used..



A spider that terrorised me by just being..

I found this photo of mushrooms in my "to be uploaded" folder for my blog.  And couldn't remember taking it, or what the "front" could be - as we don't have bark like that out the front of here.  So was looking through December photos trying to find it.

Then realised it was December 2007.

Ooops!

The next book I started reading after the death of Michael Crichton was "Sphere" which I picked up at the book fair.  It was ok, but not his greatest book.  I reckon he should have maybe explored more of what they could do with the power if they'd been given a chance to try and control it.  That could have been interesting.  But anyway.  

It has to be said that Jeremy Irons is damned hot in Die Hard with a Vengeance (as mentioned previously :) )

Got all the Christmas decorations finally put away this morning.  Then a Bunnings run and shopping.  Then some gardening, but not getting much done on my todo list :/

And that was about it for the day.  Boring really...

My LED fairy lights have to be the prettiest things in the Universe...

After having lost two of the blue leds in the great fire-lighting-light-melting escapade of 2008 :(  pulled apart melted sockets today and rearranged the bulbs for a better lighted set next year (need some electrical tape tho - David can you help? :) ).  Everytime I walked past them all on the floor tonight I got very excited :)

Will be putting them away til next November tomorrow - very sad making!

So this morning we (read: Stu) got up early and we wandered off to Nat & Andrew's (where the parking situation is very UNuserfriendly) and then off to the Farmer's Markets.  There wasn't much there this time of year (altho the chickies were still there so we said hello to them) so we didn't buy much.  Played with Natto's ocarina which was a lot of fun - really must get a couple!! and everyone else looked up ecclectic medieval instruments on YouTube.

Then took out the last batch of stuff from our storage unit (after lunch at Fortune Box).  We've had the place for so long it feels kinda weird to let it go. 

The afternoon was spent doing "housy" stuff.

Tonight we watched the second part of Tinman (with Iron Chef and Rockwiz in the middle - felt very hungry while Iron Chef was on so cooked up the last of the Christmas turkey with garlic and honey - so yummm and Rockwiz wasn't the same without Julia) over a few drinks..  But I swear it ended just too suddenly .. I was expecting Askedelia to take over the kingdom as a "good" queen and DG to go home to Kansas or wherever .. but it just stopped so suddenly - the stoopid voiceovers starting even before the credits music had started... :(

So I've had quite a lot of cointreau tonight on account of having sold out of all our cheap alcomohol... really must go have a yokult before bed......

Not sure where the Life on Mars reference came from, maybe a link to Ghost Whisperer or something.....

Just finished watching the finale of Survivor Fans vs Favourites.  I guess I was expecting Amanda to win and was a little surprised that Parvati did.  But I suppose she did more of the outwitting heh.  I wonder what would have happened if they'd had a tie.. would they have split the money..?

Wonder if we'll get the next series here anytime soon.. might have to acquire it by other means heh

I've had that in my head for a decent chunk of today thanks to Daniel G!!

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

This week we had to go to the Local because our real local was closed for the holidays.  Much beer was drunk and then we wandered off to dinner.

Next week we do lots of James Squire...

I didn't have any bourbon when Chay and David were here, so when I had some tonight the taste reminded me rather a lot of our last trip to Queensland..

Enjoy!

Taken of my tree before dismantling..

I'm going to make more of an effort to blog every day.  The last year or two I've been slack at keeping up every day.  So we'll see how I go.

Crazy hot today.  Well.. fairly hot, but very dry, so actually not so bad.  That, and I was in air-conditioned comfort all day :)  Perhaps no such luck tomorrow, depending on how much work I get done from home.  If it's too hot I might wander in heh. 

Got some Christmas decorations put away today, but spent too long fixing broken light bulbs in the fairy lights sets to actually get the tree pulled down.  Oh well. 

Actually another resolution for me should really be to manage my photos better.  Like not leaving them two weeks before even downloading them off my camera, and then having too many to sort out for the blog.  Yup, definitely a resolution for this year.. :)

Pauline and Brett came over for dinner tonight, so cooked stuffed mushrooms, potato bake, as well as potato, pumpkin, parsnip and sweet potato, a veggie roast, and Stu made a "purple" dish of red onion and beetroot with his own special marinade.

It was all quite yummy although we probably ate more than we should have :)

Wandered over to Damien and Amanda's place this arvo for games.  I was on a bit of a winning streak which was kinda freaky.  Played 10 days in the USA first, and I won two out of the three games.  Then Condotierre, which I won the first and completely crapped out in the second.  After dinner we played Carcassonne which I also won.  So that was all a bit fun.

For dinner we were going to get takeaway from the Dumpling Inn, but they weren't answering their phone, so we ended up going to Kinh Do, which was pretty good.  Well the pork and chicken were, the tofu smelt a bit like dishwater heh :)

So all in all a very pleasant afternoon/evening.

They got us a 2009 Bunny Suicide calendar too which is pretty funny :)

On the way back from shopping we heard a piece of music from Indiana Jones on Classic FM, so of course we had to watch it!! :)  Hadn't seen the Last Crusade in a very long time, and still enjoyed it and quoted lines all over the place.

Watched Iron Chef and Rockwiz afterwards.

My tongue is pink from all the numbers in Coles rasperry soft drink.

Seems like forever ago...

New Years Eve was also quite a quiet day, altho I did manage to get some "housy" stuff done during the day.  The boys pulled out the Hills Hoist and netball hoop, and I cleaned the puddle and cooked up a chicken roast.  The plan was to eat lots, drink lots and sing lots.  But after dinner there was some disagreement over what Singstar songs should be sung.  ie, David didn't want to do any Abba and I wasn't very interested in the remainder of the songs that kept coming up.  So things degenerated quickly and in a moment of grumpiness and hesitation I went to the toily (cause I really needed to go) and people got upset and stormed off and it was all a big disaster.  While they were gone, I did the washing up, and Stu suggested we watch The Living Daylights and I thought that was a good idea.  So we watched that, even tho the digital restoration of the film makes it look like it was recorded on video tape not film.  It's eerily clear and clean and not like a film movie at all.  But the been-theres at Schonnbrunn and the ferris wheel were too cool.  C&D came back and we watched the new year in with the Sydney fireworks.  I still miss Sydney :/  and then watched the end of the movie before wandering off to bed.

New Years day I woke up depressed and so it was a bit of a slow day.  We actually just sat around for quite a while just chatting and not doing much.  Got some stuff done with my blog, updating some bits and pieces with it.  Eventually it was time for C&D to leave, so we took them to the airport.  It really was nice to have them here.. They're "low maintenance" and easy to get along with. 

So we got home and I declared it beer o'clock and proceeded to make up for the previous night's lost time.  Nat and Andrew came over, and we started playing Zombies!!! while waiting for pizza to arrive.  Except we waited like an hour and it still didn't arrive.  Yet again our local Dominos stuffed up, this time claiming not to have received our internet order.  At least we did get a $17 cash back when at last our pizza did arrive.  I think I actually won the game in the end, but only because everyone else cleared a path through the zombie dogs for me!  We had Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on in the background (because the doctor is in it), and at the end I feel asleep and apparently started snoring and they all made fun of me :(  Yet another very late night...

This morning had maccas for breakfast (it was a hangover breakfast kind of a day) and went into work for a bit.  Stu had lunch with me which was lovely.  Bought a new UV filter and had ice cream with Annie & co.  Came home pretty early and had a swim and did some bits and pieces round the house.  We watched A View to a Kill at my insistance and I rather enjoyed it :)  It has the same "video" feel to it as The Living Daylights did.  Very odd. 

So that's about it.  And now for my first early night in a week :)

Well since it's the first of the year and all, thought I'd do this "First" meme I saw on Dawn's blog just today (even though it was posted a month ago) ...


1. Who was your FIRST prom date?
My first "prom" I didn't take a date too - that was our Year 10 formal.  For our year 12 formal I took my boyfriend of the time (Mark)

2. What was your FIRST alcoholic drink?

Well I'd had sips of my grandfather's beer when I was younger.  Didn't have my first full beer until I was 25, and it was a Corona.

3. What was your FIRST job?

Shop assistant at a newsagent

4. What was your FIRST car?

A bronze Ford Laser.  It was my special, but someone kidnapped and murdered it :(

5. Who was the FIRST person to text you today?
Striker

6. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
Stubie

7. Who was your FIRST grade teacher?

Miss Rees.. I didn't like her much at the time.

8. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?

New Zealand when I was a toddler

9. Who was your FIRST best friend, and are you still friends with him / her?
Donna Bonnefin.  No, she dumped me for Kerry Williams and I've only seen her once since (and that was in 1988).  I think she's a nurse somewhere..

10. Who was your FIRST kiss?

Charles Cordingly.  He was from Western Australia and I never saw him again.

11. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?

Stubie

12. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?

Got up and went to check my mail.

13. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
The Choirboys.  Our school entered a competition to have them play at our school and we won.

14. What was your FIRST tattoo or piercing?

My only piercing was my ears at the end of year 9.

15. What was the FIRST foreign country you went to?

New Zealand, but I don't remember any of it.

16. What was the FIRST movie you saw in the theater?

Don't remember, would have been something I saw as a kid.  I do remember seeing Snow White at the drive-in once when I was pretty young.

17. When was your FIRST detention?

I think the only detention I ever got was part of a class detention.

18. What was the FIRST state you lived in?

New South Wales

19. Who was the FIRST person to really break your heart?

Mark I suppose.  We broke up shortly after starting to go out, but got back together.  Was with him another year before I finally got rid of him.

20. With whom was your FIRST date?

Probably Mark I suppose.

21. What was your FIRST pet?

We had a blue budgie when I was very little.  I got another blue budgie for my seventh birthday.  His name was Bluey.

22. Who was your FIRST roommate?
Stu (I've never lived with anyone else apart from my family)

23. Who was your FIRST love?

Man, Mark is certainly getting more than his fair share of entries here :(

24. What was your FIRST screen name?

Kazza

25. When did you have your FIRST baby?

Never had one!