October 2009 Archives

Fairly draining week at work.  

Skipped back and forth between winter and summer.  Still want spring dammit!

It was pretty good, although not really as good as I was expecting.  It didn't have much of a story to it, it was more just a collection of small stories/anecdotes.  Which wasn't a bad thing as such.  But I suppose after reading The Daily Coyote just wasn't what I expected.  

I suppose one thing that I was expecting was more of an account of her depression.  But it kinda skipped over it somewhat and you don't really get a sense of the depths of her despair.  You know it's there, but just don't *feel* it.  

But it was kinda cool to read some of the background to the stuff I started reading on the blog only some years later (thanks to Chay who introduced me).

So the whole front garden is going to need a lot of work if I want plant more herbs there ...

After ten years e-tax is *finally* resizable!!  Sheesh, how hard could it have been?  But as per usual, every year I get something that makes my tax complicated.  Like this year, the very trivial closing off an old mortgage and starting it up with another lender.  Blah.  

It was pretty good!

(probable spoilers below..)

Due to my own ignorance/stupidity/inattention, I missed a couple of key plot points .. like who was the kid at the beginning?  I didn't realise it was actually a girl!  (Ellie of course, but I didn't quite make the connection and was left wondering what happened to that kid, and where did his wife come from .. duuhhhhh!!)  .. and how the dogs could talk.. apparently some throwaway line about how Muntz had invented it (but how?? With what resources??)

Of course if it had been me, I'd have left the house *facing* the falls.  What's the point of being right next to them if you can't actually see them? :)

Since we saw it in 3D, we had the funky polarised glasses.  I didn't really notice while watching the movie (cause you get used to it, and the colours are so great anyway), but the colours do get diminished fairly significantly with the glasses.  During the credits I was doing comparisons with/without the glasses, and the difference was pretty huge.  Still, the 3D was pretty cool, and it'd be good to see other movies as they come out in 3D.

Squirrel!!   I totally love that line.. it reminds me of me soo much ;)

Went shopping for Jake's birthday present, and later took it over to him.  

Jake with some of his presents.

Cool Transformer, although ridiculously complicated, much more so than they ever were in the eighties

Jake's cake in progress

For dinner we had whiting fillets, and Stu did some nice veggies.

Then we watched Mythbusters, Iron Chef, and V for Vendetta.  I had no idea what the movie was about other than Natalie Portman having her head shaved, so was quite riveted.. really really good.  With all the nonsense going on in Britain (and America) these days it seemed a little too close to one possible future..

Friday night was just a quick trip out to get ice cream for dinner (I had a massively huge lunch at work).

View from the hotel balcony

The jackhammering began at 8:00am Saturday morning.  This whole piece of roof was gone by the afternoon.

Kent Brewery is no more

Brunch on Glebe Point Road

Walked up to the light rail station and caught it into Darling Harbour.  

Lombard St, Sydney

Sydney Light Rail

Wandered around a bit, then went to Sydney Wildlife World (photos in a separate entry).  

Fountain in Darling Harbour

Fountain in Darling Harbour

Ibis in Darling Harbour

After Wildlife World Stu felt like a beer, so we got beer and wedges.  It felt very much like our Europe trip.  Except a lot warmer :)

In fact the last couple of trips where we've stayed in hotels, we've been in other countries that don't speak English. So it felt really weird that hotel staff and the public actually spoke the same language as us... yeah I know, I'm strange.. 

Seagull vultures

Saw the Sun Princess docked at Darling Harbour

Wandered back to the hotel and were just in time to see the Sun Princess depart

Anzac Bridge

The Peak and Sydney buildings

For dinner we went to a sushi place on Hay St.  It was pretty good.  It's the one where you can watch them preparing the sushi and a big fish tank right in the middle.  I saw someone from work there.  Well actually, she and her friend saw me and was waving (through the fish tank), except I was expecting to see Sydney people (if anyone) and so didn't make the connection that I knew her.. heh oops.

Wandered up into the Capitol Theatre atrium thingie, where all these photo booths and claw machines were setup. That and the sushi made it just like being back in Japan for the evening. :)  Stu spent three dollars trying to get one of these dudes for Nat .. he even picked the thing up in the claw, only to have it get jammed at the top of the chute.  Rage!!

Then we went and saw Up in 3D.  It was pretty good, although I have to say the 3D glasses do dull the colours somewhat.

Sunday morning was relax, then head over to my parents for lunch.  Watched a slide show of all their Europe and UK photos, and they fell asleep through my Japan photos.

Then headed to Sunday Night Dinner, where I surprised most people there by coming.  No James and George tho :(  

Then commuted to work Monday morning.  

Sunday we decided to go to Tidbinbilla, as they were interested in seeing some kangaroos up close.  So off we went.

The funniest thing I didn't get a photo of was an emu being chased by an angry masked lapwing plover :)

Welcome Swallows

Various emus

Various kangaroos

A magpie

Through a gate

Some sort of ant

And then we left.  Could have spent longer there, but they needed to drive 450km.  So just had lunch in Belconnen and off they went.

Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder

Actually had a storyline in this book.  Their journey from Wisconsin to Oklahoma and their settlement there.  Silly that the TV series of the same name was actually set in Wisconsin..  Quite enjoyed this book.  Although sad for them at the end, it all seemed like such a waste of effort.  It's kinda funny too being told from the point of view of a young child.  It seems like they stop completely at random to settle where they did.  But presumably there must have been some sort of deal that they had to set up a house there.

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett

Never read any Terry Pratchett before, so DC lent me this.  I liked his sort of "silly" writing style.. but only as far as sentence structure.  The story was just too all over the place to be enjoyable.  In fact I had to go back a few times to earlier bits to figure out what was going on, and multiples times was left wondering how they got to a particular point from wherever they were last.  Bit lame.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - William Kotzwinkle

Lovely book.  Adds a whole new richness to what you know about the movie.  For the first chunk of the book it seems like the mother is the star/centre of the whole story ..!  Quite a few little differences, like dropping Lance and his story completely from the book in the movie.  One of the better movie tie-ins I've read.

Last week we decided to use a jar of Dolmio creamy mushroom pasta bake sauce we had in the pantry.  We mostly followed the recipe, except I added a lot more chicken, and bacon too :)

So this is:

* 1 jar of Dolmio Creamy Mushroom Pasta Bake sauce

* about 300g of dry pasta, cooked about 8 minutes

* 500g chicken thighs (sauteed)

* 6 or so rashers of bacon

Mixed all up, topped with lots of cheese, and baked for about half an hour.

Nommmmm!!

The leftovers didn't last very long :)

Some carrots Stu grew in the garden

And how they looked when he cooked them

Fresias in the front yard

Sunrise one morning last week

Another day, another sunrise

Completed Fish & Chips jigsaw - evil!

Mr Fixit!  Me little brother stayed last night and fixed a bunch of things around the house.  Have I ever mentioned he rocks? :)

So she and her partner are coming tonight! I found all her old letters this morning, and in a break from cleaning up the house, just read through them all.  Very cool :)

Back to it.... :)

DC and I played some Wii Sports Resort.  It's not too bad, I might get it.  Maybe if I can get a good price on it in a couple of months ;)

When Neil arrived we did a 500-piece jigsaw of a fairy that he'd brought down.  DC timed us, but we don't know if it was 1.5 hours or 2.5 hours.  Shrug.

At beer o'clock DC and I played some Mario Kart and some olympics. We stopped when I kept winning :/  Started watching Young Frankenstein. It was .. ok.. heh. Paused in middle to cook and eat dinner (pasta and herb bread).  Then jumped in the spa. It was too hot but cooled down after having the blowers on for a while. Went to bed around 12:15.

Sunday had a little bit of a sleep in. Played a few hours on the Wii. Started my "Fish and Chips" jigsaw with Neil before he went home.  The day went very fast because of daylight savings.

At beer o'clock lost three games of pool to DC so played some Wii. Pizza for dinner. More Wii. Spa til 1am.

Monday was just doing more jigsaw and wiiing.  The sun came out for a little while, and might almost have been worth going to the beach, except it clouded over and started raining again before we got around to it.  Oh well. 

Ever want to know where all the "i" info dots are on Wii Sports Resort?  We found them all :)

Run home wasn't too bad.  Lots of crazy clouds around from all the storm activity (which I'll post separately).  

Edit:  it's all about the money, why does this not surprise me: