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2012 Year in Review

So 2012.

The year started with us in Sydney with Stu's friend Kore who was visiting from the USA. We saw the Sydney fireworks on New Year's Eve, then came home. Went to River Island with her and D&Y and had another week off just hanging around Canberra.

This year saw us have our biggest ever trips away from home. Stu had decided to take some long service leave and spent three months in Japan - two and a bit of those studying Japanese, and some travel at the end. So when the parents said they were going to the Middle East I decided I would go too. I spent two weeks with them on a tour round Israel and Jordan, then we appended that with ten days in Egypt. I still had a couple of weeks to fill in before I was planning to meet up with Stu, so took myself off to London and then wandered across the top of Europe from Paris to Copenhagen via Brussels, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Billund. Finally I flew across to Japan and after a couple of days around Osaka had some time in Hokkaido. It was an epic trip and I saw some amazing stuff! I was quite nervous in the lead up to the trip that I'd get sick or something would happen and it would all fall apart. But fortunately nothing went wrong. In fact probably the only "disaster" of the whole trip was an airline going out of business while I was on my trip, costing me several hours out of my day in Copenhagen because I had to bus/train it there from Billund instead of fly.

In other travel news, we went to Dave's coast house in July and December, and visited Chay and David in Queensland in August. Finished off December with Boxing Day in Sydney, then a couple of days in the Hunter Valley.

I got my UK trip photos blogged - finishing up two years after the trip.

At work I came to the realisation that I like doing documentation. Tragic I know ;) As always a pretty busy year, although things did let up a bit for me after the trip, as we had several new people getting up to speed so we were able to spread the workload out a bit. So the latter part of the year gave me some time to do my other favourite thing - tidying! The year finished with a massive downer though, with one of our team members refusing to do oncall anymore and thereby increasing the work load for the rest of us. It's been causing me all sorts of stress/anxiety :(

Otherwise my health had a pretty good year, just a couple of short colds (got a flu vaccination which possibly helped).

We had a very social year this year, visiting, being visited and going out with lots of people. There were several games nights at Mishi's in February, March, April and July, although somehow Stu never managed to meet Lana. From Stu's work, we saw Josh and Ally a few times, Gaelian and Stephanie, Tristan, and Kirily. From my work there were a few bbqs at Chris', a Japanese feast at Doc's, a couple of dinners with Tony and Heather (that Stu missed for one reason or another) and some movie/singstar nights with a big group in January and October, and one with just Doc. Nat and Andrew came over a few times, including a hanami party. We saw Damien and Amanda a few times - for a birthday lunch (that Stu missed because he was in Japan), a Christmas dinner party, and a war games day. There were meetups with internet friends - we went out with Fiona and Chrispycon a few times, and Stu's friend Gene came to visit. From Sydney, we had beer with Luc, had the parents come down to stay for a weekend, although Stu wasn't feeling very well so we didn't spend much time with them, and Peter came to stay with us for a month while on a short term contract. Hao also came for a conference and we had a good catchup. David came to stay a few times, and Yvonne came once as well. All of that socialising meant we didn't have DC over as often, so the Buffy and Angel watching suffered somewhat.

With the fish, a fairly quiet year. We let the numbers dwindle down before we went away, as we wanted to minimise the number of tanks for Doc to have to look after while we were away. While we were away my last remaining original fish died - my ten year old angel. I gave that tank a thorough cleaning and got some danios for it. I also got five baby angels, but all but one of them died within a week :( So at the moment there's the "angel" tank with danios and an angel, the two foot with a couple of guppies and the remaining black neon tetras, and maybe a catfish or three we got from Chay and David, the four foot with duboisi, multis, a leleupi and a j.transcriptus (the big catfish died Christmas eve) and the "krib" tank downstairs with the three remaining kribs and a golden panchax killifish.

Not much happened on the Lego front this year (apart from visiting *two* Legolands on my holiday). Neil and I went to the annual Brick Expo, this time getting tickets to the VIP dinner. That was a lot of fun, and got to see all the Lego displays without crowds.

I've been doing a lot of jigsaws recently, and I did the second section of the 24000 piece one.

New toys I bought this year included a new computer (the previous one was five years old) and an iPhone 5 (Optus data is worse on it than the 3GS but otherwise it's a pretty cool phone). Had many long hours of stress fighting with iTunes - moving to a new computer, getting the iOS updated on the old phone and moving to the new phone). I also stockpiled some Buckyballs before they were banned for sale in Australia and got the London Olympics for the wii (not as good as the original). For the house we bought a purple "comfy" chair for Stu for the study, a new lounge suite and a buffet to match the dining table, and a new printer.

We're still eating out quite a lot, and I've become one of those annoying food photographers. Our favourites are still Black Pepper for weekend brunches, and the Dumpling Inn. Other places we went to this year included Sammy's, Gus', Happy's, Alice's, Ardeche (ourselves and for Noah's birthday), Mork's (with Tony, Heather and Jess, and also with Damien and Amanda), Café Essen, Asia Café, Bella Vista (don't get there as often as we'd like, but did go with work and James and George and the kids), Ginger and Spice (for Annie's birthday), As Nature Intended, Kimchi and Zierholz Fyshwick. With work people there were also visits to Zierholz UC, Samiuz, Bolly Buds, 2 Yummy, Guzman Y Gomez, Chong Co and Mad Mex. We also got into a semi-regular habit of going for drinks after work on a Friday, at such places as Ha Ha Bar, The Lighthouse and the Labor Club.

I didn't do as much dessert creating this year, but did attempt a blueberry cheesecake, chocolate oranges, and a pretty spectacular layered cherry pavlova (twice!). Also made hollandaise sauce for the first time.

Shows seen:
Fiddler on the Roof
1927
ACO

Movies seen:
Tintin
Arrietty
Hugo
Excalibur
Prometheus
Brave
Skyfall

Books read:
War of the Worlds
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(can't remember if I read any more books - didn't read many because of not getting the bus as much in the mornings, and taking a shorter bus in the afternoons and walking)

Other bits and pieces:

Blogged less - less to say during the week
UK photo sorting/blogging
Problems with a fish tank heater tripping the circuit breakers
Back fence latch ripped off by persons unknown
Enjoyed the new donut sculpture in Civic
Watched the new Cotter Dam overflow
Ran a trivia night at work that was "the best organised trivia night ever" (according to a couple of people)
Canberra Airport open day
Got annoyed at a major ramp up in comment spam
DC's dog Benny died
Poultry show at EPIC
Skiing - with Steve in July and twice with Peter in August
Whiskey night
Started getting veggie boxes from Aussie Farmers Direct
Moving Feast Winery tour at Murrambateman with Tony and family
Did a bit of recording of VHS tapes to DVD
Fought with the overgrown garden
Nara Candle Festival
Halloween party at Chris'
Neighbour's goat died
Saw and got some great photos of the solar eclipse
Turned off my PIII 866 computer which had been running for most of eleven years
Exercise bike broke
Go Karting for a work Christmas party
Drinks and pizza at boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' place
Joined a small social club, went to their Christmas party
Sold my iPhone 3GS to Heather
Christmas afternoon tea at Scott and Kerry's

Ended the year with a pool party with Nat and Andrew and Steve over for swimming, dinner and games.

Skyfall

Friday night we went along to see Skyfall.

I really enjoyed it.

It's well paced, action packed, plenty of good chases and explosions.

And a few cool nods to earlier movies.

Definitely one of the better James Bond's of recent years!

Hallows

Watched Deathly Hallows Part 1 with the sweetie tonight - probably actually the first time I'd seen it since seeing it at the movies a couple of years ago.

Prior to that - got off the bus to find the neighbour's dogs roaming the street, and goat poo all over the front steps and a decimated climbing rose bush. Neighbour thinks someone's come in and left *both* gates open. A little scary! She's been broken into before, wonder if someone had tried again.

Prior to that - drinkies at the Pot Belly with Neil and Chris B and Simon.

Prior to that - ok day at work, doing bits and pieces.

Prior to that - recovering from the cold I had. Nearly better. This is a good thing.

Super Tired

Yesterday something I ate (probably the salad I had with dinner) didn't agree with me and I was lying awake in bed for hours feeling completely uncomfortable :(

Of course that made today even more miserable than it would have been even *with* enough sleep.

*sigh*

Two years ago today we went to Stonehenge, Longleat Maze and Lacock - the old abbey used in the first two Harry Potter movies, and a house in the town was James and Lily's house.

Down

Not a good day. Week really. Nonsense that started Monday continued today. Fortunately nothing I've done, which is always nice. Until they find something. Which they probably will.

Saddened this afternoon to hear about the death of a guy at work from cancer. Even though I barely knew him - I think I'd talked to him all of twice and played with his iPad once.

Two years ago today we travelled from Bangor in Wales to Salisbury in England. This was a much better day, starting at Llanfair in the rain, seeing the super cool Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Iron Bridge, and Gloucester Cathedral. This was one of the more beautiful cathedrals we went to, and of course featured heavily in the first two Harry Potter movies.

Other than that..

Apart from the games night on Saturday night (only ended up playing one game - Ticket to Ride, which I won, and didn't end up getting to play Carcassonne at all), and going to Annie's to see the family on Sunday for a roast chicken lunch, I didn't leave the house at all. Best kind of weekend really. Watched a couple of epic movies (The Ten Commandments and Lawrence of Arabia), organised, tidied, and cleaned.

I disturbed a colony of ants today. I was moving a planter box, but they'd setup shop underneath it. So they spent the next little while grabbing all their eggs to take them underground!

Dusting off the cobwebs..

Whoops.. haven't posted since last Tuesday.. yipes...

Pretty uneventful week. I think. I think I was pretty busy at work. I counted up my todo list and realised I'm in the middle of thirteen different projects at the moment. Yikes.

This weekend I had a relatively productive Saturday. Well sort of. Did a few days of UK photo sorting. And a bit of cleaning. And some work. And mostly cleared news feeds. But mostly jigsaw.

Saturday night we went to Mishi's for our semi-regular catchup/games night, which was lovely as always. First we played Pass the Popcorn (Thrills and Chills Edition). Which would have been more fun as the regular edition. I don't know enough about "scary" movies. Then we played Way Back When in History, which was an American history board game where you answer questions and move your way around the board. Most of the questions were completely basic, but a few things we'd never heard of. I think Stu and I won in the end. It wasn't very well thought through in terms of game play (well maybe it was, but the instructions certainly didn't help). Like it said if you land on someone's token move to the next available space. But there were some spaces that were "go back one space". But if someone was there you would end up in an infinite loop. Silly.

Today was pretty much just jigsaw all morning. And went and saw Excalibur at the Film and Sound archives (which I quite enjoyed, despite a faded and dirty print). And went to Dumpling Inn for dinner. And did our food shopping. Might have gone to the multicultural festival but Stu was not up for crowds of people.

So this is the jigsaw. Nearly finished. Maybe a couple of hundred pieces left. Should knock it over tomorrow. Then can get back to regularly scheduled programming..

I'll tell you why movie revenue is dropping...

So I read this article the other day, and Dave2 commented on it as well. After buying tickets last night for Tintin, I thought I'd put in my $0.02 worth.

1. The absence of a must-see mass-market movie..

Does Harry Potter count? Final instalment and all that. In fact it was the only movie I even saw at a cinema last year.

2. Ticket prices are too high..

This is my biggest gripe. Case in point: Last night I got tickets for the sweetie and me to go see Tintin this week. $41 for the two of us. Forty one freaking dollars! That's ridiculous! That's nearly three times the cost of getting it on DVD in a few months time. We have a nice TV, we'd be better off just waiting.

3. The theater experience..

Well the Dodgy Dendy has always been an issue... but that's another story. Generally Australians aren't *too* bad at mobile phone usage in cinemas. I really only have issues with other cinema-goers if the angle is wrong and I get someone tall in front of me. What's actually more of a pain is the ticket buying process. In this age of allocated seating, you really need to get tickets early. Which means either buying online (additional cost and I don't know that you can use movie money) or going to the theatre days in advance. You can't just turn up at a movie theatre anymore and expect to be able to see the movie in a decent seat. Kills any thought of an impromptu "let's go to the movies".

4. Refreshment prices..

I've always avoided movie snacks on principle for this very reason. But this has *always* been the case, nothing new.

5. Competition from other forms of delivery..

Or just waiting for it to come to TV. But that rarely happens for me either. If I don't care enough to see a movie at the cinema, I'm not likely to care enough to watch it on TV either.

6. Lack of choice..

Not a big issue for me. I'm perfectly happy with a Hollywood blockbuster. I fit into the lowest common denominator crowd. The sweetie likes independent films more, but they're hard to see in Canberra. The Dendy used to be a lot more focussed on this, and while they still do have them, they really just have the popular movies most of the time.

I reckon related to lack of choice is lack of anything original from Hollywood. Weren't all the top grossing movies of last year remakes and sequels? Lame!

Another gripe of mine is 3D. I can't see the point of paying a premium to watch a movie dulled down by wearing sunglasses. Especially since most movies these days are already washed out.

But for me, I think I'm just getting old. I just don't care about movies/tv like I used to. I've barely used my dvd-recorder since I moved to Canberra. If I miss something I miss something. If I *really* want to see it, it's often online at the tv station's website. Or just a bittorrent away...

Dropping the ball

Four days into the new year and I've already missed a day blogging. Mainly because even though I've been on holidays, I've been doing jigsaws and cleaning desks and going camping and sightseeing and shopping and watching movies.. so sitting on my computer in the heat hasn't been all that appealing (especially with a few thousand photos to sort through!)

More posts to come soon ... hopefully ;)

2011 Year in Review

So the year began with a small pool party at our house, with beer, pizza, games and good friends.

We didn't travel much this year. Well, we did a bit, but no big international holidays. We did a long weekend trip to Queensland in July to visit Chay and David which is always nice. The only other flying I did was for some training for work in Melbourne. We went to Dave's coast house in February, April, June and November. Again, always great weekends away.

Did several trips to Sydney throughout the year:

In August for my birthday to see a John Williams concert and visit friends and family
In September to play tour guide to Dave2 and be a tourist in my home town
In December to repeat the tourist trip with Kore

And a few smaller trips - to Yarrangobilly Caves, Parkes for The Dish 50th Anniversary open day, and Jindabyne to see the dam spilling.

At work I actually had a good beginning of the year. We got some new staff and for a few months I had time to step back from project work and get some operational stuff done. But then Phil went away for three months and it got super busy again - doh! Had a bowling night in June where I *didn't* come last! Team Blank went to three trivia nights: we came third in April, second in August and first in November! Of course that means we need to plan the next one! Planning to have that in March next year. Had a Hollywood-themed ball in October that I was sick for and was pretty miserable the whole night.

Speaking of sickness, it was one of the worst years I've ever had. Had a cold in February, with an ear infection and conjunctivitis as well. Got pretty severe gastro from Violet in March. Another cold in May and another in August. And then two months of various colds/flus/ear/eye infections from September to November. Finally healthy at the moment, but it hasn't been a great year :(

Didn't see as much of Nat and Andrew this year. The default activity for Saturday nights was watching Buffy and Angel with DaveC, so it took energy to do anything different, hence it didn't happen very often. We did have a couple of Singstar/video/games nights though.

Not a lot has changed on the fish front. We (I) made a rule some time back that we wouldn't buy any new fish until after Stu's Japan trip next year. So numbers have been slowly dwindling there. We had another heat wave that required regular dumpings of ice to keep tank temperatures down.

Although we had a couple of record lows in winter, the days were generally warmer, and the pool only froze over a couple of times.

The only new Lego this year was a few Harry Potter sets. Just trying to remember if the Toy Story 3 Lego came out this year or last year. It certainly didn't all get put away until just the other week! We went to the Lego Brick Expo in Woden which was pretty awesome. Also saw Nathan Sawaya's "Art of the Brick" exhibition in Sydney this week. And an unexpected bonus of lots of Lego displays at the Aquarium yesterday.

Only real toys this year were a new random camera, and a little Eee PC for use when travelling (and in fact I'm using it now!). I had a play with a macro lens and an L series lens. Still using my original lens though. On my phone I played with HDR and Instagram apps, as well as doing my first time lapse videos of Lego building, jigsaw building and clouds.

I had a lot of fun with origami this year - making several "phizz" balls of various sizes. Also some smaller geometric shapes (technically not origami).

I did some big jigsaws this year (and a stack of little ones). I did my 3000-piece one that I've had for years but never made. And then the first quarter of an amazing 24000 piece jigsaw! Hoping to do the next quarter early in the new year.

After the big La NiÃ±a of last summer, got to see Bendora Dam overflowing in January, as well as the aftermath of the floods at Coppins Crossing. Watched the progress of Cotter Dam and went to an open day in April (didn't go to another open day in November because it looked like they weren't preselling time slots and that didn't work very well at the first open day I went to).

In culinary adventures this year, I tried my hand at quite a few new recipes (and a few old ones). These were mostly desserts - Anzac Biscuits, Violet Crumble cheesecake slice, Apple pie, Caramel slice, Melting moments, Chocolate dipped fruit, Christmas cookies, Gingerbread. That was a lot of fun and will continue next year. Also did quite a few slow-cooked dishes, and rediscovered the simplicity of roast vegetables. Another new favourite of ours this year was okonomiyaki, thanks to Lisa. I also tried crocodile for the first time (it was a bit tough) and had my first McFeast (pretty good). Our favourite restaurants are still Black Pepper, the Dumpling Inn and Bella Vista. Tried a few new places as well including Courgette for our anniversary, Rice, Alice's and Kingsley's.

Shows seen this year:

Weird Al Yankovic
Folk Festival
Much Ado About Nothing
Jesus Christ Superstar
John Williams at the Opera House
Za Kabuki
Floriade Nightfest

Movies seen this year (at the movies):

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)

Books read this year:

Hook by Geary Gravel (and got a comment by the author!)
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Mallorean series by David Eddings
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold

Other Stuff:

Got lots of my photos onto the RiotACT
Saddened by the Queensland floods
Lots of scanning of old photos
Got a GPS and had some fun
The little brother came to stay a few times with various people in tow (or by himself)
Balloon fiesta including going up in one!
Skyfire
Walk around Government House
Saw Peter Russell-Clarke at the mall
Enjoyed the third season of Masterchef but decided not to watch the second kids series
Walked up Black Mountain again in May and went up the tower this time
Watched Amazing Race Australia
Did the Mount Majura to Mount Ainslie walk
Missed two lunar eclipses (4am the first time, clouds the second time)
Met Fiona again (x2), and Lisa and Chris
Radio silence in July when our internet went out for two weeks
Skiing in July
Trivia night for Stu's work
Geotagged UK photos, but didn't get them all online
Walked up Mount Taylor
Stu's sister bought a new house in Canberra which makes visiting somewhat easier
Hanami party in September, would have been better a week later
Two games nights at Mishi's (only played games on one of the nights)
Blog got screwed over (again) by my hosting company
Saw the Queen
Saw Air Force One come to land at Canberra
Got some cool photos of lightning

As usual I don't really make new years resolutions. I think if anything I'd still like to try and spend less time on the computer - eg two hour chunks in the evenings.

We're having a quiet party in our hotel room tonight. Just a little champagne and nibblies in our room. The thought is to watch the 9pm fireworks from the hotel pool, and maybe go out at 11pm to see the main fireworks from Lavender Bay....

Happy New Year!!