FQ1: If you could own any item from any movie, what would you take and why?
A teleporter, as in Star Trek. The little personal air carts like in The Incredibles would be cool. An invisibility cloak like in Harry Potter would be lots of fun, and the Delorean time machine from Back to the Future would be unreal.

FQ2: If you could become any character from any movie, who would it be and why?
Sticking to girl characters (I mean, I should have been a boy, but I still think like a female).. well Supergirl would mean I could fly, my greatest ever wish. I'm very similar to Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (good at school work), and being able to do magic would be, well, magical. If I was Sarah from Labyrinth, I'd fear Jareth, love him, do anything he said, and he would be my *slave* ;) .. or I could be Beverly Crusher and live in the Star Trek world and get Jean-Luc Picard.

FQ3: If you could visit any location from any movie, where would it be and why?
Being in the Matrix, or on an Enterprise holodeck where I could live out any fantasy I wanted would be a lot of fun. And Jurassic Park would be awesome. In terms of real-life locations, I really want to do a Sound of Music tour in Austria, and doing a helicopter tour around Queenstown New Zealand (cf Lord of the Rings) would be spectacular.

FQ MOVIE MASH-UP: Combine some items, characters, and locations from different movies to create an entirely new film! What would you call it and what would it be about?
meh, I give up, it took me all night just to do the rest of the questions!

FQ1: Who is an actor or director you trust to always make a good film? What is it about their previous works that make you trust them?
Probably Steven Spielberg. The odd film of his doesn't hold my interest (like Amistad which I'm struggling to get through on video), but for the most part I love his films.

FQ2: Where is a place you trust to always make a good food? What is it about their previous culinary creations that make you trust them?
I dunno. Maybe Tum's Thai in Randwick. Always good food. Although the silly thing is for most of my life I couldn't eat spicy food. A couple of years ago I thoguht I should start building up my tolerance. Red curries are now no problem. So slowly getting there.

FQ3: What's a company you trust to always make a good product? What is it about their previous stuff that make you trust them?
3M makes lots of cool crap. Maybe Sony too.

FQ YOU: What is something you do so well that people can absolutely trust you with it? What's something that people should never trust you with?
Trust me with? pfft. I dunno, people seem to trust me with fish for some reason. um.
And people shouldn't trust me with fast cars. Well, WRXes at least.. shrug..

If you had the choice, you would you be able to fly, or be invisible? They were discussing this on the radio this afternoon. I'd take being able to fly any day. Yes it would be very cool to be invisible, but there are still plenty of ways for people to detect you, and it's effectiveness would be diminished. I'd love more than just about anything to be able to fly. I've spent many hours over the years fantasizing about it.

Ordered a new phone today. I've had my little 8210 for over four and a half years. But the battery life frustrates me, even after we replaced its battery a while back. Ordered two others for two other people also. Getting a 6100. The prerequisites: decent battery life/talk time, and tri-band. Speaker phone also useful. So anyway. Should hopefully get that in a few days.

Had a very cool dream about Dave last night. We'd gone to visit him.. my parents were there though.. doh.. heh. Silly thing is, after all this time, I've never really had any dreams about Jason Isaacs. I used to have David Bowie dreams all the time years ago.

Stolen shamlessly from SMH, although I'm quite sure they weren't the first to use it..

There is meta-whingeing and there is micro-whingeing, and it seems to me that most of the frustration reported to Heckler falls into the latter category. I would like to complain about the low standard of whingeing and move to the new level where we can complain about the essential nature of life itself.

The key problem with the human condition is that it ends badly - we die. If you're not a believer, there's not that much to look forward to.

What can we do about it? It's obvious, really. Simply reverse the cycle of life and die first. That gets a somewhat risky and uncertain experience out of the way and, as any good Buddhist will tell you, an awareness of the reality of death contributes to objectivity and inner harmony.

A key religious issue is overcome. We can't be sent to hell because we haven't had time to do anything wrong yet. The only downside is that we may have to wear the cost of the funeral.

Now we are old. We live in a retirement village where our every need is supplied. During this time our health improves, as does our temperament. Soon we are kicked out of the retirement village because we are too young; we spend time on a golf course; we are given a gold watch and sent to work where we can actually use it.

Those of us of a certain age know that a prosthesis is never quite as good as the real thing. With the reverse lifecycle model, as the years pass we get the opportunity to thoughtfully dispose of various prosthetic items we no longer need such as dentures, hearing aids and spectacles.

We work for 40 years; growing younger and younger each year and forced to accept less and less responsibility until eventually we become far too immature for gainful employment.

In relationships, we start with a messy divorce but things gradually improve. We soon find ourselves enjoying a large house, three cars, a compliant companion and even, briefly, some passion.

During this time, irritating, expensive teenage offspring become cheaper, better behaved, eventually cute and finally not at all.

Education begins with a degree and a huge debt that progressively reduces, terminating at the end of three years of fun. We party and drink lots of alcohol - an ideal preparation for sexual experimentation. How much better our first sex would be if only we had been more experienced.

Life goes on, and just when it seemed it couldn't get any better than this, we enter our school years, where we spend more and more time playing and less time learning until it's all play and we get to sing silly songs.

Our parents start to dote on us. They lavish more and more attention on us until it is eventually time for us to return to the womb.

Where does it all end? Well after nine blissful months floating, there's a fair chance we could finish our lives in one gigantic orgasm. And at last life makes some kind of sense.

I normally have a thing for older men, but occasionally someone a little younger comes along that does it for me. Like Jude Law. He's *hot as*. First noticed him in AI. He was on telly tonight in The Talented Mr Ripley.

Of course now I've found this big pic of him I'll have to do an extended entry.. heh.

My new favourite meal is roast chicken. It goes something like this:
* put a Steggles marinated tender chicken in a baking dish in the oven
* come back three hours later
* enjoy!

That's seriously all you need to do, other than make some gravy to go on top.
I've done three of them in the past couple of months, and every time they've turned out deliciously tender.

hrm. entry still not long enough.

This would be, if I were a writer, I'd fill in the blanks of my boring life with some witty comment on the world.

But alas, I really have nothing to say.

Thanks to Fiona.. a new version of the Friday Five...

1. What blood group are you?
O+

2. Do you give blood? Why/why not?
No. I did it twice, and both times I was quite sick after. A pint of blood out of me is a higher proportion of my blood volume than it is for other people (another reason it sux being little)

3. Are you listed as an organ doner? Again, why/why not?
Yep. All our family are. We don't need our organs if we're dead, and if someone's life is saved because of them then all the better.

4. Would you donate an organ or other part of your body (eg bone marrow) while still alive?
Perhaps. Although bone marrow donating is pretty traumatic I've heard. But if was going to save someone's life I probably would.

5. Would you consider leaving your body to medical science? Or maybe just parts of your body?
No .. don't like the idea of first year med students chopping me up. Silly I know.

So tonight I had a slide night for my usa photos. I was originally intending to do this on two nights so that people could choose the night they were free. However a decent chunk of people didn't rsvp, either because they never received my emails or smses or who knows what. I won't go into how bitter/upset/depressed that all made me, think it's safer not to go there.

Of those that did decide to come, they all came tonight. In the end ten people came! It was actually rather crowded in here!

I also couldn't get a data projector from work, the boss has decided the new policy is no lending (ok, so the last time I asked was about five years ago). Was thinking it was going to be a disaster having to crowd around my monitor. However then I remembered that Luke has one, and so asked if he could bring it with him, which fortunately he did.

We had to fuss about a bit trying to get the thing to work with my puta - it only wanted to play in widescreen modes which my video card doesn't support, until someone figured out how to change the data projector from widescreen to 4:3 mode. yay. So we could go ahead after all :)

Just after we started, Fi asked if there was a soundtrack, to which I said "yes" and got up to start the cds which I'd gotten in america - Azkaban, Peter Pan and Chamber of Secrets soundtracks which we listened to a lot of while we were away. They were all lined up, just had to press play. It was funny actually, they were almost perfectly timed, and finished basically on the second last slide. Very cool.

Took just over three hours to get through 1800 photos. Probably would have gone faster with fewer people, as there was much digressing. We also had an intermission in the middle to get more drinks/food etc. I think everyone that came enjoyed it. I hope so anyway.

I should definitely make up some slides for a title page, an intermission slide, and a "the end" slide. But then again not sure how likely I am to do this again. As far as I know, only two or three other people I know in real life are interested in seeing these pics.

Anyways, now I have to put this place back together again and generally clean up. Tomorrow.

Or so the Cold Chisel song goes.

Not going to work tomorrow, it's too much of a depressing thought having to face *him*. And I don't have my car, so it'd be all too hard anyway. Debating whether I ever want to have lunch with them again, since neither of them like me very it much it seems. I mean what's the point of spending time with people that don't like you? The problem is I hate eating lunch alone, and I'd probably just feel more bitter that they're having lunch without me.

I was thinking I should just not tell them and just not show up .. make them think my parachute didn't open.. heh

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
   Met someone whose blog I read
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   This year I made up a Bible reading plan that I managed to stick to, for the first time ever. I read the entire New Testament and a third of the Old Testament. For next year I'll be continuing my effort to be more relaxed and happy
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
   Yep, Jodi at work
4. Did anyone close to you die?
   No
5. What countries did you visit?
   USA and Canada
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
   A boyfriend
7. What date(s) from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   Probably the 16th May, which was when we left for the USA (the day is also the anniversary of when I settled this place, and my friends got married, and I hooked up with Vic, and my brother moved into his place).
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
   Probably switching over to w2k3/active directory
9. What was your biggest failure?
   File server disaster, with a corrupted file system and hours of down time
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
    I got sick twice, once probably from some old cheese, not sure about the other time. No flus which was awesome. Only real injury was a snowboarder wiping me out at the snow
11. What was the best thing you bought?
    My Sony DSC-F828 camera
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
    um..
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
    Probably my father's
14. Where did most of your money go?
    On the trip to the USA
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    Probably the trip to the USA :)
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
    Double Trouble
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    Happier or Sadder? - happier I think
    Thinner or Fatter? - much the same, maybe slightly fatter
    Richer or Poorer? - much the same, the trip to the USA kept me fairly even
    
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
    Sleeping
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
    Complaining
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
    This year or next year? Silly question to ask for an end of year quiz
21. Who deleted question 21?
    It wasn't me I didn't do it
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
    If you count crushes on Jason Isaacs and Dave.. otherwise no
23. How many one-night stands?
    None
24. What was your favorite TV program?
    Survivor or ER
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
    No
26. What was the best book you read?
    Probably Prisoner of Azkaban, although I'd read that twice before
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
    Yvonne's keyboard
28. What did you want and get?
    A new camera
29. What did you want and not get?
    A dvd recorder
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
    Peter Pan
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    Went down to me little brother's place for lunch, then went to a dance party in town. I turned 31
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    A boyfriend
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
    Jeans and a tshirt
34. What kept you sane?
    dvds
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    Jason Isaacs
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
    The US election.. even more than our own federal election, go figure :)
37. Who did you miss?
    Dennis and JC, they don't post nearly as often as they used to :(
38. Who was the best new person you met?
    Dave!
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
    um..
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
    "Something gotta go wrong cause I'm feeling way too damn good" - story of my life - whenever I'm feeling happy something will come along to make me feel grumpy

So another year over. Another year older. I spent far too long rereading this years blog entries to get highlights and lowlights of the year. Strangely there were more highlights than lowlights. The lowlights tended to be just ordinary day-to-day rants. The only big disasters I had this year were the file server disaster, where we lost files and had daytime downtime for hours; and Faiele in Italy stole a big chunk of my money on ebay, and ebay refused to help.

At work, we upgraded our domain to windows 2003 with active directory, which we managed to acheive without too many dramas. I setup quite a few servers during the year, but my favourite was later in the year when I migrated our main production notes web server to new hardware in a total of an hour and a half from pulling out of the box to being live. We also got audited while I was overseas, and felt very happy that I'd done detailed documentation for all the servers before I left, which probably saved my boss. Lunches with Jim and John became the norm this year, as it was a lot easier to coordinate four people with Luc in our office than when he was elsewhere.

My cia work mostly dried up, after they hired Nhat to take care of Gamera. He had his trial by fire shortly after he started, having to rebuild the machine in the middle of the night when there was a multiple disk failure in the raid array. The relief of me not having to stress about the box anymore was enourmous.

My lego obsession kicked into high gear this year, with the completion of the classic space lego collection, all the Harry Potter sets, tonnes of plain bricks for making mosaics (of which I made four instructed ones and four of my own design), and later in the year getting Yoda and the Imperial Star Destroyer.

I had several fish losses during the year, but didn't really replace any. I did however get a tankful of baby kribs which was very exciting.

I saw David Bowie in concert which was phenomenal. Been waiting fourteen years for the chance, and it was very moving for me. Also saw the Lion King stage show which was fantastic. Quidam was good but not as good as Alegria.

Crushes included a massive one on Jason Isaacs, a little one on Dave, and the ongoing one on Jim. No prospects of any boyfriends tho.

Three decent trips this year - a short one at Easter to my uncle's wedding in Queensland, a six week adventure to the USA and Canada, and a three day skiing trip in September. The USA trip was amazing, probably the biggest highlight of my year. I took 3800 photos and movies on my wonderful new Sony camera, which I still haven't finished sorting out!!

The weather this year went Summer, Autumn, Autumn, skipped winter, went straight onto Summer, and now Spring.

And now I have to get ready for tonight's general partying. Happy new year to everyone!! :):)

As seen at Blogography, a saturday-8

1. if you celebrate christmas, do you have your tree up yet? if not, what's your excuse?
Yep, and it looks lovely

2. christmas is in a week ... do you have you holiday shopping done?
Pretty much. Still one person I want to get something for

3. do you take time off during the holidays, or do you work straight through?
We have a compulsory holiday between Christmas and New Years. I still sorely miss the three month holidays I used to get as a student

4. do you take a winter vacation to go skiing or do the iditarod?
mmmmm snow. Sorry we don't get snow in Sydney, even in winter

5. in your neighbourhood, are there a lot of holiday lights up?
A few. If you really want to see a lot of lights, go visit Bonnett Bay. Practically every house in the suburb is decorated. I did see on one of those lifestyle shows a couple of years ago a house in Newcastle that was just *covered* in lights. Can't remember whereabouts tho.

6. do YOU put holiday lights up? if so, are yours up this year? if not, why don't you do it?
"You can never have too many fairy lights"

7. describe the most gaudy/tacky/cheap holiday display you've seen. where was it?
I'm a huge fan of bright shiny coloured things, so you're really asking the wrong person. I did see something this year though - a front yard full of mega-sized inflatable santas etc. They look ridiculous.

8. for this holiday, mr. laura is gutting my dining room and adding on a computer room, so my house will be full of drywall dust instead of holiday house trimmings. have you had a year in which you didn't or weren't able to decorate your house for the holidays?
Never! Although I still haven't managed to get a small tree up at work - I've just been so busy :(