Zzzzzzzzz . . .
I can’t believe I just slept 14 hours. It’s so disorienting waking up and realising the sun has already gone down and the 7:45 on your clock is PM rather than AM. I haven’t done that since I was at uni . . .
I’m just glad I had no real plans for Saturday.
Look Out!
See more at HeyDoofus' blog!
I can’t believe I’ve forgotten to post about this yet! Some important news from across the Tasman – dinosaurs have invaded Auckland!! Keep an eye on that site, as updates will be posted as they come to hand from our trusty reporter in the field. In fact, there’s even been some evidence of them in and around Melbourne too! I’ve seen ‘em with my own eyes!
The pubs aren't safe anymore!!
So with all this danger in the world, we need plenty of warning signs around to keep the world safe and bad things away . . . kinda like what this guy’s done:
From Engrish.com
Of course, you want to make sure people have got the right idea. Sometimes you need to exactly clarify what you mean, like in this instance:
From Engrish.com
And that’s why I love thesauruses!
It’s Friday, so why does it feel like Monday?
This week has been long. Really long. Even though I haven’t really done half the things I normally do in a normal week – hell, I haven’t even been to belly dancing once – but I’m exhausted, I’m frazzled, and it feels like it’s only just beginning. Part of it might be this murder-mystery dinner thing I’m in tomorrow night. Half of me is going “Yay! Performing again! Fun!” and the other half is dragging me down, going “I’m over it. Need. Brain. Rest.” But brain rest ain’t forthcoming at the moment, and I’m worried about money which always makes me feel worse. At least I got a free dinner courtesy of one of my work colleagues tonight – spinach and paneer curry with homemade naan . . . mmmmm . . . . so good!
— Random Aside — my computer automatically spell checks things for me in pretty much every program. If it’s spelt wrong, I get that standard red wiggly line. For some reason, English spellings of things like “realise” get a squiggly line, and standard slang like “ain’t” gets one, but I had cause to use the phrase “bridezilla” when commenting on someone’s work on Worth the other night and NO SQUIGGLY LINE. It’s not even a real word, for heaven’s sake!!
Anyway, back to normality. I’ve been looking at replacing my phone – the poor old thing is cracked right across the screen and the battery life is rapidly running down which I know from past mobiles is a really, really bad sign. Besides, on the plan I’m on, it’s not going to cost me anything to get a new handset. So I went into the store after work and had a chat to one of the guys there to see if any of the phones there would be compatible with my Mac. There’s no point in me getting a new phone with all the bells and whistles if I can’t transfer data to and from my computer. I’ve got loads of crappy, grainy photos on my phone now I can’t do anything with and there’s no point using my phone as an MP3 player if I can’t get music onto it.
The guy I spoke to was pretty clueless but sweet and tried his best to find out but with no luck. He was chattering away and mentioned Bluetooth. Ding! I never thought to use Bluetooth to get my computer and phone to talk to each other! He was really apologetic about not being able to help, but I figured this Bluetooth thing was worth a go. So I tried it when I got home and it worked! So now I can get to all those crappy, grainy photos again.
Like this one . . .
Kermit the Frog gets smashed
That’s from this New Year’s Eve at a friend’s party – most of us were having a great time, but poor Kermit was quietly drowning his sorrows in the corner.
Baby Whale needs TLC
Photo: Nick Moir, from The Age website
Anyone who knows me well – especially anyone who knew me as a little kid – knows I love whales and dolphins to bits. I had whale and dolphin books, posters, Greenpeace membership at age seven, even a cassette of whale calls I would listen to and imitate when I was a little tacker. I was completely cetacean mad. So when I read about this today, my heart absolutely broke. Just look at the little guy! Poor thing . . . and the hardest part? Knowing there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it. It’s not like finding a baby possum or something and taking it to the wildlife rescue people. You can’t just hand-raise a baby Humpback and release it in the wild again. You can’t just come up with some whale-formula and make a surrogate mother out of a sock puppet like you can with baby birds. And you know what else does me in? Knowing how distressed he must be. I can just imagine how his little whaley brain must be thinking and feeling and it really gets to me.
But I probably empathise with animals *way* too much . . .
Anyway, on another note, I came across a really cool game today which it turns out I really suck at. You watch a bunch of people reading a section of a poem and you have to guess where their accent is from. I always thought I was fairly good with accents, but I only got 28 points and some of them are really tricky. I’m interested to see how everyone else goes.
Another Week Slips Away . . .
Do you ever wish you could just press pause and make everything stop for a while? I’m having one of those moments right now. These past few months have felt like everything’s on fast forward – no chance to stop and pause before running on to the next mountain to climb. Then when I do have time to spare – like today – I just end up bludging and doing nothing when there are still plenty of things I need to do. I’m still in my PJs and it’s nearly 6pm . . .
Well, I haven’t *entirely* been bludging. I caught up with all the posting and reading I had to do with the 30 days of Text (I’ll post my better entries on here soon), reorganised my Short Stories page to make it a little easier to browse, washed some dishes . . . and yeah, a lot of sleeping in. There probably would have been more sleeping in if it weren’t for my neighbour’s kid yelling upstairs, but I didn’t get out of bed before midday so that was alright.
I had some bad news this week – they’re jacking my rent up $90 a month. Just reading that letter I saw a bunch of things dissolve before my eyes: more bellydancing gear, CDs and books I’ve wanted, decent groceries rather than buying the no-name cheaparse stuff all the time . . . don’t get me wrong, some of that stuff is just as good as other things but other things like muesli and tinned beans are really horrible. *sigh* but when you compare the generic brand at $2.25 to next cheapest at $4.00 for a bag of muesli, you know which one you’re going to buy. Oh well, at least I’ve pretty much got the run of birthdays out of the way; there’s always a slight respite between now and when Christmas comes around . . . They say I can appeal against the decision and launch an investigation into the rent rise, but I looked at all the other one-bedroom flats around my area and surrounding suburbs for rent and they’re all $50 a week more than what they want me to pay so I’m worried that if they investigate it I’ll end up paying more again, and I really can’t afford to do that. Even crappy student accommodation is going for the rate I’m paying now, and that’s just obscene – and I thought things were bad when I was at uni!
On an unrelated note, I went to the football yesterday, for the second time in my life. I had managed to get through 24 years of my life before ever going to a game – having always rejected sport ideologically - but last year for Mothers’ Day the Crows were playing in Melbourne so Mum and my aunt decided that as die-hard fans, that was what they wanted to do. So this year for my sister’s birthday, she decided she wanted to go for her birthday and being the good older sister that I am, I went. And let me just say, I had NO IDEA what was going on. As long as lil’ sis pointed out in which direction our goals were, I did alright, and I even managed a “hey, kick it to that guy!” every now and again. I just went by the theory that if the Adelaide cheer squad started going nuts and cheering, the if Crows Grannies got on their feet waving their scarves (it seems a large proportion of Crows supporters are over the age of 65 and knit their own scarves, which is just adorable) and if Mum was smiling and clapping, it was a good thing (my Mum’s hilarious at the football, she gets really excited and cheers and whoops).
But still, there’s a sly little part of me that still loves to see a South Australian team kick the crap out of a Victorian team. Sure, I’ve lived in Melbourne more years of my life than any other place and out of all the cities in Australia I probably wouldn’t live anywhere else, but inside I’m still South Australian even if I have lost touch with the place. It really pisses me off when the foreign comedians come down here for the comedy festival and make Adelaide jokes . . . sure, they’re often true, but really, unless you’re from there you have no clue, you’re just parroting what others have told you to get some regional laughs and seem cool. Having had the piss taken out of me for the way I say things like “cloud”, “cicada” and “castle” all throughout school, I defend the right to enjoy a little one-up-manship every now and again 
But oh well, I probably ought to get out of my PJs and head to the laundromat – I can’t see myself getting another chance to wash my clothes during the week as it’s likely to be just as busy as the last few *sigh*
Snow!
I’ve got a load of shorts to post from this Thirty Days of Text, but I’ll get to that eventually. Really, I should be writing right now, but something far more exciting happened today so that will have to wait.
I saw snow.
Real snow, too. Not sleet, not hail (well, we saw hail too), but real snow. It’s been about fourteen years since I saw any snow, so for me this was pretty damn exciting.
I stayed over at my parents’ place this weekend as we were going out for Dad’s birthday for lunch today. Skyhigh, Mt. Dandenong. Window-seat, fantastic views of Melbourne, and they do veggo and gluten-free so the whole family is covered. As far as lunch with my family goes, this is a pretty safe bet. We check the weather before we leave, it looks freakin’ cold, so we all put our scarves and our gloves on and head out in Dad’s 4WD.
So we’re driving up the twists and turns, and not long past The Basin, Mum starts going “Look over there! Look over there!” Sure enough, there was a big blob of snow. Then there were a few more blobs. Then the fern trees were covered in the white stuff. People were stopped at the side of the road, taking pictures of it. The further up we went, the more snow was falling, the whiter everything was. People were making snowmen and kids were running around chucking snowballs at each other. Everything looked like a Christmas card – there is no other way to describe it.
(for those not from Melbourne, the Mt. Dandenong area is cold-climate rainforest, but there are plenty of old homesteads, a lot of them in a sort of Tudor or old German style, and there are plenty of non-native trees around. Very much Christmas card territory when covered in snow)
And you know what? To me, it was magical. Snow is such a novelty and I love winter so much, it was so beautiful with all the snow on the ferns and the bare branches of the deciduous trees amongst the eucalypts. Sadly, none of us brought cameras so I have no photo evidence to show for it and I’m having trouble finding any photos online, but for a brief window of an hour before the sun came out and melted it all away, I finally got to see real snow again.
I love winter 
