So when I left you on Sunday night I was frustrated at the whole experience I'd had with Qantas that afternoon.  In the end my booking hadn't gone through properly because of a problem with my credit card (I never use it, in fact I don't think I'd used this one since activating it, so wasn't really surprised).  On Monday I tested the credit card worked (it did) so in the afternoon I called Qantas.  Where I got in a queue that said I would be on hold for THREE HOURS.

!!!!!!!

Are you freaking kidding me?  Most companies have different queues for sales and support.  Sales *want* your business and so put on more staff to handle the calls.  Not so Qantas.  So I complained on twitter.  As you do.  There was a bit of back and forth during the afternoon, and they said they'd call to try again with the credit card.  Which they did - while I was in the other room having dinner and watching Brooklyn 99, so didn't hear the phone.  

While I was waiting again, I got onto Emirates' site. I put through the same itinerary, which 1) actually seemed to let me do (I got all the way up to the payment page), 2) had a much better connection to Singapore, giving us a few extra hours there, and 3) was THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER.  I asked Qantas if we could please cancel.  I was too upset/stressed from the whole thing to concentrate on anything much, so I went and cleaned the kitchen.  Of course as soon as I left the room Qantas called again.  Sigh.  But confirmed my wish to cancel the booking and eventually they did.

On Tuesday I put the whole booking through Emirates.  I still had issues with the credit card (the two-factor code wouldn't come through to my phone), so I just used a different card.  And that was that.  Done.  

Although Emirates do price gouge with seat selection - $20-$30 for regular seats, $120 for the little pair of two at the back of the plain, who even knows how much for exit row seats.  There goes that saving...

So Qantas had three lost opportunities to get my money.  If their multi city flights were actually usable I would have booked on the spot, using whichever credit card had worked.  If their booking management system had actually made a provision to "pay now" and let me pay online, I would have.  If they didn't make me wait THREE HOURS in a phone queue I would have done it over the phone.

Qantas really need to lift their game if they want to stay competitive in 2019.

Sigh.

Monday morning I cleared a massive backlogs of tickets due to me being away on Friday for the funeral.  Started to panic at the sheer volume of work facing me for the week.  And I couldn't get anything done on Monday afternoon due to nonstop interruptions.  Every one of them tore my concentration away so the *one thing* I was trying to do I couldn't get done.  In the end I managed to get it done between 5pm and 6pm when everyone else had gone away.

Tuesday not *quite* so busy, but did get stuff done.

Wednesday I was in race condition mode.  That is, too many high priority tasks competing, which meant I actually didn't get anything meaningful done at all in the morning.  Sigh.  So did some stuff for Henrch, and then Shane saved me by pushing back on the people that haven't done their docos :)

Also on Wednesday I had just stood up and was looking out the window and saw a Tarago back into a car in the car park, bumping it so I saw it move.. and then it drove away.  I grabbed my camera and took some pics.  And then went and left a note :)  I did get a call from the police asking for the photos, but no word of thanks or even acknowledgement from the owner of the car that was hit.

Aldi proved themselves once again to be a bunch of scammers.  Neil saw an ad for some scotch that he thought he'd get for the bar.  So we had a look at lunch.  But not only was there none of that scotch to be seen, but there wasn't even an empty spot on the shelf for it.  There was no price tag at all for that scotch.  Which clearly meant they never had it for sale at all.  SCAMMERS!

And then on Friday Dan's tried to charge me $14.99 for a bottle of Henkell.  I knew when I saw the price tag there was going to be trouble, so I took a photo of it, and got it for the cheaper price ;)  

When we got home on Thursday night I was in the family room doing up my hair and talking to the sweetie when I heard something and saw something move out of the corner of my eye.  One of Chrissie's clown loaches was flopping on the top of the book case next to the tank.  It must have been startled when we got home, but it had somehow managed to get out between the loosish lid and the tank wall (might have to weight it down heh).  Grabbed the fish and plonked it back in, and it's been fine ever since.  It was lucky I saw it too, I don't normally linger at that spot for very long, it would have been just as likely for me not to even have noticed til the next day.

I really wanted to have a random day off on Friday but there was just too much work all week.  I think I closed something like 30 tickets which is *huge*.  I did manage to leave at 4pm tho.  Started watching Friends with Benefits until the sweetie got home, then we watched For Your Eyes Only.  I haven't seen most of the early James Bonds in probably twenty years or more - when Dad used to put them on while I was still living at home.  But with the early ones I could still remember bits and pieces and even the odd lines of script and one-liners.  But I have no memories at all of For Your Eyes Only, except for dropping the dude down the chimney at the beginning. 

Saturday morning was the usual house work type stuff.  Not too much in the afternoon.  Finished watching Friends with Benefits.  Silly and predictable, but hey, New York.  Watched Jackie with the sweetie.  It wasn't bad, but had a very disjointed filming style.

Today was Lego picking, trivia night planning, photo culling, lunch out and food shopping, more of the same in the afternoon.  Watched Parenthood before dinner and finished after. Roasted a stack of veggies for dinner and watched some Veronica Mars.

And blogged.

Another show I had to squeeze in when I had free time was ABC's Back in Time for Dinner (which I mentioned earlier: I especially liked the 80s and 90s episodes for the fun memories but was also pretty cool to see all the stuff they dug up for furnishing and decorating their house for the earlier decades).  But because I'm obsessive that way, I tried to find their house on Google maps.  I had a pretty good idea it was in the St George area, based on their visits to Carss Park, Brighton Le Sands/La Perouse and various places in Mortdale. 

This is all I really had to go on to find their house:

And I could make some guesses as to which way their house was pointed based on sun direction.  Took me most of an episode to find it.  What was funny is that when you look at it on street view there's a crowd of people outside it!

Other fun things in the show - Tupperware!  We had sooo much of this Tupperware.  In fact I still have most of it.  I was thinking there might be a market for it, so it's boxed up with thoughts of selling it on ebay...

And the Pigs and Chickens tiles featured!

Quite enjoyed the show.

So in the past week and a half..

Harry Potter movies watched: 4 - Philosopher's Stone Sunday, Chamber of Secrets Tuesday, Prisoner of Azkaban Thursday/Friday, Goblet of Fire Sunday

Other movies watched: 1 - The Great Gatsby Friday a week and a half ago - a bit over the top.

Pub lunches with EffanC: 2 - At The Lake George Hotel Saturday week ago, which would have been nice except the piece of pork belly, which I asked specifically if it came with crackling, had SOGGY SKIN, not CRACKLING.  Stu's piece was a bit better so had some of his.  And the Lighty yesterday, in the sun which was nice.

TV series finished: 2 - Finally finished Enterprise.  The first two seasons were very episodic, while the second two seasons had longer story arcs.  And tonight finished Back in Time for Dinner.  I especially liked the 80s and 90s episodes for the fun memories but was also pretty cool to see all the stuff they dug up for furnishing and decorating their house for the earlier decades.

TV series continued: 2 - The Layover and David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities

Dinner parties hosted: 1 - had some N-gang people over for beef cheeks on Saturday night.  Cooked 1.8kg but only ended up with one container of leftovers - doh!

Exhibitions attended: 0 - Cath and I tried to see the Cartier exhibition yesterday but being the last day it was a bit crazy.  The queue stretched all the way around the gallery and it wasn't moving.  Decided to screw that.  Wandered around the Aboriginal art section and the James Turrell Skyspace and through the sculpture garden instead.

Nights woke up at 2am and never got back to sleep: 3 - Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights.  Except for maybe about half an hour between 5am and 6am.  

Days spent time crying in a stair well: 2 - Thursday and Friday.

Weeknights spent drinking instead of doing anything useful: At least 3

Tears shed: Many

Things I can do about the situation: 1 - get in at 6am every day.  Anything else would make me look like a selfish bitch.

People that like me: about 4 - see aforementioned comment about being a selfish bitch.

The other day I finished reading The Tower, by Richard Martin Stern.  I'd read this book a long time ago so my memories of it were pretty vague.  Pretty much the only details I remembered were the cause of the original fire (which really was just an aside and didn't make much difference to the rest of the story), as well as the line "And nylon melts."  

It was strange reading it post 9/11, given that the north tower features in the book.  

So I've got a new blog.  Well, subblog.

For a while I've thought about my Australian holiday blogging.  They never seemed major enough to warrant a whole new subblog like my overseas trips did.  So I embedded them into my main blog.  But now I'm scanning all mum's photos, and there's trips there that I'd like to blog, but don't want to clutter up my main blog.  So I decided to create an Australian Holidays blog.  There's already a few trips I'll probably migrate into it, and I'll also start blogging some of my childhood holidays there (well posting photos anyway, and any memories that I still have of them).

Check it out!

http://kazza.id.au/oz_holidays/

Eleven years ago I did one of those memes which was to list the current IMDB Top 250 movies, and highlight which ones you've seen.  The list has changed a bit since then, and I've seen more of the movies on the list (a bunch of them doing a dvd rental trial with Telstra that really didn't work out all that well, so I never took up the offer).  So here's the 2015 version, highlighted bold for the ones I've seen.  100 out of 250 this time.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. Schindler's List (1993)
7. 12 Angry Men (1957)
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
10. Fight Club (1999)
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
12. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
13. Forrest Gump (1994)
14. Inception (2010)
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
16. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
17. Goodfellas (1990)
18. The Matrix (1999)
19. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
20. Seven Samurai (1954)
21. City of God (2002)
22. Interstellar (2014)
23. Se7en (1995)
24. The Usual Suspects (1995)
25. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
26. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
27. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
28. Léon: The Professional (1994)
29. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
30. Casablanca (1942)
31. American History X (1998)
32. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
33. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
34. City Lights (1931)
35. Spirited Away (2001)
36. Psycho (1960)
37. Whiplash (2014)
38. Rear Window (1954)
39. The Intouchables (2011)
40. Modern Times (1936)
41. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
42. The Green Mile (1999)
43. Memento (2000)
44. The Pianist (2002)
45. The Departed (2006)
46. Gladiator (2000)
47. Apocalypse Now (1979)
48. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
49. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
50. Back to the Future (1985)
51. Alien (1979)
52. The Prestige (2006)
53. The Great Dictator (1940)
54. The Lion King (1994)
55. The Lives of Others (2006)
56. Cinema Paradiso (1988)
57. Django Unchained (2012)
58. The Shining (1980)
59. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
60. Paths of Glory (1957)
61. American Beauty (1999)
62. WALL·E (2008)
63. North by Northwest (1959)
64. Aliens (1986)
65. Citizen Kane (1941)
66. Vertigo (1958)
67. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
68. Amélie (2001)
69. M (1931)
70. Das Boot (1981)
71. Oldboy (2003)
72. Princess Mononoke (1997)
73. Toy Story 3 (2010)
74. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
75. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
76. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
77. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
78. Taxi Driver (1976)
79. Braveheart (1995)
80. Double Indemnity (1944)
81. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
82. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
83. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
84. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
85. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
86. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
87. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
88. The Sting (1973)
89. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
90. Amadeus (1984)
91. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
92. Snatch. (2000)
93. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
94. The Kid (1921)
95. For a Few Dollars More (1965)
96. Rashomon (1950)
97. L.A. Confidential (1997)
98. All About Eve (1950)
99. The Apartment (1960)
100. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
101. Toy Story (1995)
102. Some Like It Hot (1959)
103. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
104. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
105. A Separation (2011)
106. The Third Man (1949)
107. Yojimbo (1961)
108. Batman Begins (2005)
109. Like Stars on Earth (2007)
110. Metropolis (1927)
111. Unforgiven (1992)
112. Scarface (1983)
113. Raging Bull (1980)
114. 3 Idiots (2009)
115. Up (2009)
116. Chinatown (1974)
117. Downfall (2004)
118. The Great Escape (1963)
119. Die Hard (1988)
120. The Hunt (2012)
121. On the Waterfront (1954)
122. Heat (1995)
123. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
124. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
125. Good Will Hunting (1997)
126. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
127. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
128. The Gold Rush (1925)
129. The Seventh Seal (1957)
130. The Bandit (1996)
131. Ikiru (1952)
132. The Elephant Man (1980)
133. Ran (1985)
134. Blade Runner (1982)
135. Wild Strawberries (1957)
136. The General (1926)
137. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
138. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
139. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
140. Casin0 (1995)
141. Gone Girl (2014)
142. Gran Torino (2008)
143. Warrior (2011)
144. The Big Lebowski (1998)
145. Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
146. V for Vendetta (2005)
147. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)
148. Rebecca (1940)
149. The Deer Hunter (1978)
150. Rang De Basanti (2006)
151. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
152. A Wednesday (2008)
153. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
154. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
155. It Happened One Night (1934)
156. Fargo (1996)
157. Trainspotting (1996)
158. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
159. Gone with the Wind (1939)
160. Into the Wild (2007)
161. Rush (2013)
162. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
163. Dial M for Murder (1954)
164. The Sixth Sense (1999)
165. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
166. The Wages of Fear (1953)
167. The Thing (1982)
168. Finding Nemo (2003)
169. Incendies (2010)
170. Mary and Max (2009)
171. No Country for Old Men (2007)
172. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
173. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
174. Platoon (1986)
175. Life of Brian (1979)
176. Network (1976)
177. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
178. Touch of Evil (1958)
179. Diabolique (1955)
180. There Will Be Blood (2007)
181. Annie Hall (1977)
182. The Princess Bride (1987)
183. Stand by Me (1986)
184. Boyhood (2014)
185. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
186. Ben-Hur (1959)
187. Amores Perros (2000)
188. In the Name of the Father (1993)
189. The 400 Blows (1959)
190. Sin City (2005)
191. Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
192. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
193. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
194. Persona (1966)
195. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
196. Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
197. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
198. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
199. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
200. The Avengers (2012)
201. Gandhi (1982)
202. The Imitation Game (2014)
203. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
204. Donnie Darko (2001)
205. Strangers on a Train (1951)
206. 8½ (1963)
207. Shutter Island (2010)
208. Infernal Affairs (2002)
209. Stalker (1979)
210. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
211. Jaws (1975)
212. Before Sunrise (1995)
213. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
214. High Noon (1952)
215. Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)
216. The Terminator (1984)
217. Groundhog Day (1993)
218. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
219. Notorious (1946)
220. The King's Speech (2010)
221. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
222. Ip Man (2008)
223. Rocky (1976)
224. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
225. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
226. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
227. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
228. La Haine (1995)
229. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
230. Memories of Murder (2003)
231. Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
232. Barry Lyndon (1975)
233. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
234. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
235. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
236. The Truman Show (1998)
237. Castle in the Sky (1986)
238. La Strada (1954)
239. The Help (2011)
240. Jurassic Park (1993)
241. The Big Sleep (1946)
242. Roman Holiday (1953)
243. The Graduate (1967)
244. Papillon (1973)
245. Prisoners (2013)
246. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
247. The Hustler (1961)
248. PK (2014)
249. Akira (1988)
250. Underground (1995)

So 2013. Busy year!

We saw in 2013 with a small pool party at our place with Nat and Andrew and also Steve for a while.

  
We did a bit of travelling this year.

In January we went up the coast to South West Rocks to a school reunion of sorts for Stu and to visit Stu's dad. We drove up and down the coast, swam, visited Trial Bay Gaol, and caught up with Fiona and Margie on the way home.

We only managed to get to the coast once this year, in May. It was somewhat of a disaster with the spa being too cold on Friday night and too hot on Saturday night and a few other things that made it all a bit unpleasant (except for during the day on Saturday which was pretty good). Almost went again later in the year but had to go to Sydney and otherwise we've just been too busy.

We went to Queensland in July for a lovely long weekend to visit Chay and David.

At the end of July we flew up to Sydney for my Dad's 70th and one of my 40th parties (see below).

In October we decided at the last minute to go to Hong Kong for a week at the end of October. It was a great week, even if a little too humid. It's the most spontaneous holiday I've ever taken. I didn't do too much planning for it, because the more I researched, the more things I found of interest to see. So I stopped researching altogether and we took it as it came.

  
At work I had a mostly good year. I started off the year cleaning and pretty much cleaned all year. I started with the knowledge base articles for our team, then moved onto the log transfer system, then the load balancers. I also rehashed an old domino database for documentation which brought back a lot of memories of my last job. For the rest of the time it mostly felt like I was the "goto" person for any and all problems that came along. We were partly restructured, but the powers that be didn't really have a clear idea of what they wanted, so things didn't change as much as we originally thought they would. I made Stu drag out his tuxedo again for the work ball which was a lot of fun.

Healthwise I felt like I was sick the whole first half of the year - with colds in January, March, April, May and June. So that was pretty horrible. Not flus though, just annoying colds. Got another one the night before we went to Hong Kong too - yay :( But have been ok otherwise.

  
We had a super busy social year this year. In fact it was so busy that we went from May to September without having a free Saturday night. As a consequence our Buffy and Angel watching was almost non-existent. There were plenty of visits to/from Annie and Potty and the families. Various people came over for dinner and/or swims at the beginning of the year. Nat and Andrew came over a few times, as well as Andrew by himself when Nat was travelling. There were various after works drinks with my colleagues and Stu's and family and friends. Various Singstar/Mario Kart nights were had. Several BBQs at @CLBradley's. Several games nights at Mishi's. Had a video night at our place with work people. We visited people for lunches/dinners such as Matt and Helen, Andrew and Jen, Chris and Geoff, Josh and Ally, Windy and Nanette etc. We saw Daniel and Fi a few times when they came down. Several people came to stay including David and Yvonne, Ken and Jeanine, Fiona a couple of times and Stu's old school friend Tom. I met up with @StuartCRyan a few times in Sydney (we met in real life for the first time at my birthday). I also went to visit David in Junee.

Speaking of birthdays, I turned forty this year. To celebrate I had *three* great parties - one in Sydney, a big one at home the Saturday before my birthday, then a big lunch at work on my birthday followed by a nice dinner and seeing Phantom of the Opera. I was certainly in a different place mentally for my fortieth. During the whole run-up to my thirtieth I was very depressed, and my actual birthday was pretty meh. Such a different story this year though.

  
In sadder news, my Nana died of old age earlier in the year. And then I found out at the funeral that I have another cousin that I'd never heard about before!

Also in sad news, my father got diagnosed with a brain tumour in March. He had surgery immediately (and they had to cancel a holiday to New Zealand), followed by chemo and radiotherapy. Unfortunately it didn't really help, and he was hospitalised in July because he kept falling over and wasn't able to walk properly. He's been getting progressively worse and has been in a nursing home since September. In August I started going up to Sydney fairly regularly to see Dad and help Mum with the mammoth task of clearing out the garage and workshop. We've mostly been sorting things so far as I don't want to get rid of things until Dad goes. Fortunately I've been able to work out of the Sydney office so not having to take leave at the moment.

  
We've been enjoying a lot of visits to our little social club. We camped there over the Australia day long weekend, and the new tent survived a storm and massive downpour fairly well. But then a caravan came up for sale, so we bought it! We went to most of the club nights during the year, and plenty of other times as well. It's Stu's little get-away-from-the-world place and he thoroughly enjoys it.

With work people or the sweetie, tried out a few new restaurants. Continued going to Black Pepper for brunches and also Pulp Kitchen a few times. Went to Dumpling Inn a few times and Bella Vista as well. Didn't try too many desserts this year, although did make a Mars Bar slice and a peppermint rocky road, as well as an apple crumble and caramel slice that we tried at the club.

  
We bought another four baby angels for the angel tank. One died but the other three survived, so now have four angels and about seven danios in that tank. We got a lovely little betta for the macquarium, but he never thrived and died in six weeks. So thinking I'll probably give the macquarium away. The four foot still has a school of duboisis, two multies, a lelupi and a J.transcriptus. There's three multis downstairs, but after breeding once, the single baby I saw disappeared and haven't seen any since. There's still three or four quite old kribs downstairs as well.

Not much Lego action this year. I did get a cute little plane from Fiona, and a small City set from Ric for my birthday. I went with Nat and Andrew to Brick Expo, but was very frustrated with the crowds. I dismantled the Millennium Falcon which had been out for four years! Also over the Christmas break got to sort out and build all of Jake's lego which has been fun.

I did a lot of jigsaws this year. Mostly downstairs until downstairs got too cold. Mostly little ones, but also another section of the huge "Life" puzzle. Gave up on the skies of two jigsaws because their quality was just too poor.

I celebrated my tenth blogiversary this year. To mark the occasion I upgraded to Movable Type 5. But got very frustrated with the fact that I now cannot SSH to my host. Also with Movable Type which is *very* buggy. Next year my domain is up for renewal and I'm thinking about moving my domain to a new host with a new blogging platform. But the whole idea is pretty scary, so we'll see about that...

Shows

• The only show I saw this year was The Phantom of the Opera on my birthday.

Movies
Not many movies this year either...

• The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey
• Star Trek - Into Darkness
• Garden of Words and Ghost in the Shell: Arise

Books

• Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
• Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
• Careful, he might hear you, by Sumner Locke Elliott
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
• A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
• I Hate You - Don't Leave Me by Jerold Kreisman and Hal Straus
• The Naked Husband by Mark D'Arbanville
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwall

Other stuff

• Had a full day at the War Memorial with Ken and Jeanine
• Had a jigsaw race with Nat
• Found my first geocache with Nat and Andrew
• Saw a Roller Derby bout
• Mum got her first mobile phone
• Had a random day off work to tidy up all the fish tank stuff in the garage
• Went for some walks around Palmerville with the sweetie
• Spotted the ISS a few times and waved to @Cmdr_Hadfield. Wasn't quite the same when he came back to earth.
• Went to the balloon fiesta on Canberra Day
• Watched the last couple of episodes and finale of House, which considering the timing with dad was pretty sad
• Took Stu's car for a drive up Mount Ainslie and got covered in lady bugs
• Our PS3 stopped playing DVD disks. Bluray is still ok though.  We considered getting a PS4 but the device isn't backwards compatible with old games.
• Went out to Captain's Flat on our fifth wedding anniversary
• Finished a cross stitch I got for Christmas in 1992
• Went up Black Mountain Tower
• Voted in ABC Classic FM's top 100 music in the movies, and most of my votes were in the top two hundred
• Did a blog for our trip to America in 1983
• Gave up reading Boing Boing, Life Hacker and Neatorama, Dooce and Dilbert
• Got extremely pissed off when Google Reader shut down. Destroyed my faith in Google.
• Looked at Comma Feed, Feedly and The Old Reader. Stuck with The Old Reader.  The Old Reader subsequently crashed from all the extra load of departing Google users, but was able to get funding to run on better hosting and has been fine ever since.
• Got more of my photos onto the RiotACT
• Cancelled Aussie Farmers Direct orders
• Had a look around Wintercon at EPIC
• Stu had a few car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• I had a LOT of car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• Saw the Skywhale
• Played through Diablo with the sweetie.  On easy mode.  Sue me.
• Did proper karaoke for the first time ever (and I've been to Japan four times!)
• Went to a Christmas Carols service at Como

So that's the end of 2013.  New Year's Eve will be spent out at the club with food and booze and friends and fairy lights and fireworks :)

Thirty years ago this month our family took a five week holiday to the USA.  It was the first of four "flying" holidays that the were the most memorable and exciting of my childhood.

So I created a blog for it :)  

I took a combination of my parents' photos and added some of my own memories.

It took me ages to scan all mum's photos at 600 dpi.  But I've decided my scanner is retarded.  Mum's photos are a bit age-coloured, but not as bad as the scans make it out.  I think its colour balance is way off, scanning way too much yellow :(  

Dad's slides were scanned thirteen years ago by Dad on a flat bed scanner that wasn't really designed for slide scanning - the pictures are very pixelated.  But when you resize them to a max 500 pixels you'd never notice and generally the colour is a lot better in those.  Unfortunately with Dad's photos, he put everything in theme and "show" order, which meant things weren't in chronological order, which made it super annoying to try and fit into the nice chronological order that my brain likes!  Spent ages and ages trying to figure out where to put his photos so they were in the right order!

And I might have spent entirely too long trying to find the *exact* locations of some of the photos.  I may as well have geotagged the whole lot and be done with it! heh

Also, Movable Type is completely retarded, and it won't save the blog to a nice chronological order of entries.  So you'll just have to start at the beginning and click your way through. If you even care.  I'm suspecting that noone apart from my brother and mother will.  The rest will end up as Google Image Search fodder.  (Not to mention the blog using the butt ugly "Rainier" theme which came with Movable Type 5.2.  I really hate it but don't have the energy to fuss with it).

If anyone cares, here it is:

http://kazza.id.au/usa_1983/1983/04/day-1---sydney-to-los-angeles.html

..Oh, and the guys and work didn't believe it was me in all the pictures - they couldn't believe I could have been so skinny as a kid!

Weekend passed by all too quickly.

Every year when Carols in the Domain come around (always the Saturday before Christmas unless Christmas is on a Sunday in which case they're eight days before - since they never compete with the Christmas Eve Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne.. moving on..), I'm reminded of the year I went to Luc and Cynthia's wedding (up Sydney Tower!!) and got to see the Carols (and fireworks) from up the tower.  It was pretty damned cool!