| Mmm, blatant thievery |
[Jun. 3rd, 2008|12:04 pm] |
Enthusiasts of Linux will be familiar with Mr Tux, here:
So I was a both surprised and more than a little disgruntled to find that there is now an instant scratch-it featuring penguins who look just a little too similar:
(Bigger Image)
You can't really see it in the scan, but they even have the same little shadows on his rather pudgy chest feathers. As he's not copyrighted afaik, I don't think there's much can be done about it though. (I didn't even win any money!) |
|
|
| abandonment and chemistry |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|09:29 pm] |
I was walking home from uni yesterday when I saw some papers scattered on the path, ruined by the rain from the night before, and among them was this envelope, torn open. I picked it up as much because I'd love to know how it got there, as because it was a nice design.
In other news... Supanova was great fun (we dressed up as a Final Fantasy party; I was a Red Mage) and resulted in copious nerdy loot. Photos maybe later. Today was a gloriously straightforward cell bio exam (36 multiple choice questions). Before that, three hours of titration.
|
|
|
| Hello. |
[Mar. 8th, 2008|08:58 am] |
Internet + home: whoo!
Uni is plodding along ok, except for the impenetrable boredom that is chemistry; half the class are nutrition students who have never done chem before. Out last lecture was about ions. Guh. So I've been reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning again, though if I'm reading pocket penguins, the Primo Levi one would be more appropriate (it contains 3 short stories about being a chemist).
We went to Phantom of the Opera, it was pretty good.
Walking seems to be something I do a lot of; I still haven't got my licence, and we don't have a car, and often I decide that it is in fact easier not to take public transport because I hate waiting around. Besides, I enjoy walking, as I've mentioned before: it's like forced relaxation, you don't have to do anything until you get where you're going, so you can just look at things (and I like just looking).
Work is frustrating me; I wish they'd give me more shifts so I can actually earn some decent money, but at the same time, I'd rather have the time off so I don't have to think about doing uni work any time I'm not working, and I'm not too keen on obligatory social interaction. Also all the washing up/handwashing has given me eczema.
Apparently I might have a camera soon! Expect lots of photos of food and random things I thought were pretty.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2008|11:28 am] |
Whoo, I return! Still waiting for the connection of my sweet sweet Internode (yes, that is a plan for business applications, shh I like the internet), but for now, libraryin'! Uni has begun with the joys of monday morning maths and ridiculous, contradictory timetabling. On the other hand, it's air-conditioned in here, which just about placates any possible woe. Also the candy shop sells sour jellies shaped like geckoes. I promise photos.
Our flat is tiny, noisy, ridiculously convenient and crammed with stuff. Work is a full 20 seconds walk from my door, which is both awesome and horrifying. (Work is at a 24 hour convenience store/Popular Sandwich Bar. Most of my coworkers are good fun and also students). Uni is 25 minutes away over a footbridge, yay for awesome river views every morning. Chemistry looms threateningly.
Anyway, further updatin' when I actually get the interwebs. Soon, I hope.
|
|
|
| Shameless Present-Fishing |
[Dec. 16th, 2007|07:06 pm] |
Christmas approaches, etc, and since I am at my wits' end as to what to get some people, I guess some people might be at their wits' end regarding me, so here's my Amazon Wish List, hurrah. Books are always good.
|
|
|
| Hello again |
[Dec. 9th, 2007|11:04 am] |
Yeah, novel-writing kind of ate my blog. Sorry about that.
Things going on... nothing much. Various annoying machinations to do with moving out. It's about as fun as rolling down a mountain of thumbtacks. On the other hand, my brother has arrived, bearing laptops, Fedora 8 is out and so is the sun, Harvey Birdman is excellent, staff Christmas party wasn't altogether unpleasant, I have gigantic knitting needles and there are only two weeks of work to go.
Weather is as evocative of memories to me as smells are; this morning I woke up (at the ungodly hour of 6pm, considering I got home past midnight) and went into the kitchen; it was already warm and the sun was on the rare angle at which it actually reaches inside, so it was oddly bright. Instantly I was transported to our Brisbane uni tour at the end of school, and then holidaying up there with Jarrah last year, and unable to believe that it *was* last year; the warmth and the smell of fruit somehow took me back to reading in the botanic gardens, the books and music I bought, the traffic, the upper floors of QUT's library where we found an entire book on the biology of penguins (and I instantly felt like when I finally got to uni (which I guess I thought might still happen soon), it would be brilliant).
|
|
|
| NANOWRIMO VICTORY POST. HURRAH. |
[Nov. 30th, 2007|11:16 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | nnwm | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (neddy) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | I Feel Fantastic//Jonanthan Coulton | ] |
Wow.
I just wrote my 50,066th word and with that, won NaNoWriMo 2007. I am completely incredulous and don't believe for a second that this actually happened.
Most irritating: didn't figure out my plot until 2/3 of the way in, so it isn't properly resolved at word # 50,000 - there is at least 10k of plot to go, and probably about as much could be cut out of the beginning when I was just waffling for word count. Oh well. That's for later. I'm now going to ignore the damn thing for as long as I can. Oh, and SLEEP. And watch Boston Legal.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Nov. 2nd, 2007|05:44 pm] |
I just typed about 1200 words in 45 minutes. Epic! I need more plot points; there are vague ideas in my head about where this is going, but no clear knowledge as to how it gets there (aka the middle 30k words, which are the tricksy ones.)
So, who wants to throw random ideas at me for things that could happen? No, no context for you. I want pure action. I'm thinking something like "have your MC get into a bar fight with their ex-partner of 20 years ago". Well, not really about bar fights, but you know what I mean. Events, not exposition (that's for me to do, as long-windedly as possible :P).
|
|
|
| what if I say I'm not like the others |
[Sep. 10th, 2007|02:16 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (neddy) | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Halcyon & On & On//Orbital | ] |
My coriander has sprouted, little pairs of tiny leaves after the rain. I'm planting it in batches, so it doesn't all go to seed at once. Might put some more tomatoes in as well, now it's getting warmer. Despite my job, and all that, there is still quite a lot to like; the walking to and from work is usually graced by something pretty or interesting (or pretty interesting) at least every few days; I can watch the fat pidgeons huddled up to each other out of my window; at this time of the morning, all is peace and calm, a pleasant bit of personal space which I desperately crave, considering the prospect of a week of work.
I still wish I had more time, though - more for reading, for just sitting about under trees and looking at clouds; for doing pleasant things without feeling somehow obliged to do them because I have been at work so much, so that even pleasant things become a chore.
Writing in scribbles; cooking while doing other things at the same time; little snatches of this and that are starting to grate a little. I am not cut out for this full-time tedium, at least not yet. Just a few more months, I hope, I hope.
|
|
|
| Dave Eggers |
[Sep. 6th, 2007|08:07 pm] |
... is awesome.
This is amazingly the first I have read of him: a little collection of "short short stories" published as part of Penguin's 70-year-anniversary Pocket Edtitions. $3 or so at the local book warehouse, called, appropriately, The Book Warehouse. And there is so much awesome in these 24 little snippet-stories that it embarrasses entire novels.
You can read some of his short short stories, some of which are in the book, here.
This is one of my favourites from the book.
Enjoy! What have you all been reading?
|
|
|
| NNWM 2007 |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|11:28 am] |
So I have been planning my National Novel Writing Month 2007 effort (and furtively writing notes on it at work, thankyou Alt+Tab). This year looks promising: previously I've had school all day and school stuff to do all night (regardless of whether that largely consisted of drawing in the margins and playing minesweeper, it was still time-consuming); but now I have work all day but no concrete stuff to do all night. Of course there are always things to get done, including various projects I'm working on, but none of them are due next Monday, and besides, it's only for a month. So I should be able to set aside chunks of time.
Also pleasing is that my work involves checking my email about 1000 times a day, so I can send off bits to myself at home all day. No icky transcribing from handwriting, which is such a waste of time (at school I would write through class and have to type it all up at night). So this year looks like it might be a winning one. Now I just need to think out the novel itself some more (I'm a ruthless, chapter-by-chapter planner; I need that security of having worked out my patterns and causes and character traits before I can start writing comfortably).
|
|
|
| the night sky is peeling back her sheets; the linen is lavender |
[Aug. 28th, 2007|05:31 pm] |
I just went for a short run, which was nice - I haven't for ages. Now I am going to sit down and write some letters, I think. It is all nice outside - still nice and cool morning and evening, but warm in the middle of the day (a bit too warm, if you ask me - but never mind). The rain has brought on greenery everywhere, sprouting from the edges of the brickwork, casting a bright green mist over dead-looking trees, little white buds on the kumquat tree.
I've had a few days off from flu, which has only made me want to take more time off and really do some things - I guess basically I need this job to get to uni and it is then that I feel like my life can properly take a running jump into the blue, but I'm too impatient; I want life to start already - it's frustrating being an alive person whose bits of really feeling alive just come in snatches.
To console myself I've planted some coriander (should sprout in about 3 weeks) and tomatoes. Now just so long as I remember to water them...
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 22nd, 2007|07:13 pm] |
It's still raining beautifully; this morning was especially cold and windy, dark and rainy; delightfully film noir. ("Delightfully" is hardly the word, considering puddles of drowned worms and the truck that thundered past through a puddle, spraying my legs with water. Euphoria is about the closest I think I can get to it?) Unfortunately, where I live is far too lame and suburban for the likes of Philip Marlowe and a young Orson Welles being a morally ambiguous Viennese racketeer. Instead I can just watch the overfed pigeons perched on the roof opposite my window as they squabble and push each other off.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|01:44 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  apathetic | ] |
The best thing about the slow turning into spring is that everything starts to smell wonderful; rain and wattle blossoming and magnolia trees and things generally growing all over the place. It's not the cold of winter that I mind, or the dark; it's the dryness and the stillness and the lack of birds.
|
|
|
| lunchbreak |
[Aug. 3rd, 2007|11:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (neddy) | ] |
| [ | music |
| | song of the sea//Tunng | ] |
I unbuttoned my shirt and knotted it and lay resting on my elbows so the grass scratched at my belly, and I dangled my unshod feet in the air like antennae to detect the breeze... it was warm this afternoon, too hot for August by far, and smelled like school lunchtimes. Smoke was draped all over the valley and I heard three fire trucks scream north on the highway; it was that sort of an afternoon.
Back at the office, everyone was listless, sleepy, barefoot, vague and stuffing themselves with lollies to stay awake. It was the perfect day for after the races, a long slow hot Friday, and nobody suspected a thing.
|
|
|
| Necessary Information |
[Jul. 29th, 2007|06:35 pm] |
I forgot to go into this earlier: server outage (probably hardware) is causing my website to be unavoidably down for quite some time while we work on refurbishments/replacements/whatever dark purposes we intend to implement. This is hardly a crushing announcement, obviously, because it's not as though I maintain a lot of traffic, and it's actually useful because it has spurred me to get on with my redesign while the opportunity presents itself. So soon after everything gets restored, I should have a shiny new site and also possibly a new domain, because we're working on that anyway.
|
|
|
| Food & Happiness |
[Jul. 28th, 2007|03:54 pm] |
Today I bought organic leaf tea from Ceylon, which sounds like such a magical place, full of hills and tea and birds. And it certainly tastes as good; I have a whole teapotfull, all for moi. Other food highlights of the day include crunchy bread with apricot jam, and also some guilty chocolate.
I went to op shops this morning; I was late so not much was open, but I did get a book about Islands (in literature: it's all extracts and prettiness), and also Pascal's Pensées - although my dad tells me that it's not a very good translation (he prefers his own :P) but I haven't had much of a look at it myself yet.
Other than that, not much is doing. I am knitting, and last night we went to the gallery opening, where there were tasty wine, good pictures, and lots of my old teachers (including my mother - so basically they all decided to go the gallery instead of their usual annual cocktail party which was on that night - I approve of their priorities!). That is all. Have a wonderful day.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 25th, 2007|02:56 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Paper Aeroplane//Angus & Julia Stone | ] |
I was lying there listening to music last night and suddenly became aware of you out there - any one of my physically absent friends - doing the same thing. It wasn't so far to another human being after all. When people lament that the Internet has made the world a too much smaller place, I am secretly happy, because the world is of course the same size as it ever was; the only things that are closer together are people. And I am all in favour of that.
The wires are humming and somewhere up in the sky the Google satellite steadily prowls, and somewhere someone just put a record on, and as the distances shrink, our minds can only expand...
|
|
|
| Harry Potter: strangely empty |
[Jul. 23rd, 2007|02:56 pm] |
Because we grew up with this. I didn't get to reading Philosopher's Stone until I was about 11, which would be 1999. So I was sort of two years late, but it was ok, because it meant that for a while, my school years coincided with Harry's. When I go to the movies I realise the extent to which this is a part of my life: everyone is the same age as me. I just want to keep going up to people and saying: you too! And you! You too! But now it is finally over (movies still to come, but they aren't the same). I'm going to miss staying up all night, and ranting to my friends all the next day. It was so very exciting, but now it is done.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|05:20 pm] |
Hey hey...
So, my job is dull and mind-numbing. And that is all I'm going to say, because it's a boring thing to talk about.
Pip came visiting! :D and we wandered around Bellingen and rode around town in a horse-drawn carriage. That was pretty excellent. We made lime cookies again. And it is very cold; apparently it got down to zero last night. I wish as usual that it snowed here, but of course I don't think that has ever happened, at least not since Australia was connected to Antarctica.
Other than that... not much has happened. Sorry for lack of updating, but whenever I think of something to write I forget about it, and when I remember to write things I forget what to say...
|
|
|
| Harry Potter Harry Potter Harry Potter |
[Jul. 12th, 2007|08:19 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | apathetic | ] |
...meh
If I'd liked this book more, I would have enjoyed the movie more. Or maybe less. I would at least have a more concrete opinion of it. As it was - just as a movie - it was a bit thin, felt like there could have been more in there, and more tightly edited. It lacked detail, lacked... I don't know... I couldn't seem to get very involved. Despite its length, it didn't feel like there was all that much to it. Dumbledore's Army: excellent; duels were very well done and the finale was pretty excellent. Apart from some lackluster dialogue and some stuff from the book which might have been included, there was nothing bad about it at all. It wasn't fantastic and it wasn't terrible, it was moderately satisfying.
Please can we bring back Alfonso Cuaron? (Obviously I had trivial problems with him, too, but at least I was passionate about it to some degree...)
Nonetheless I have fairly high hopes for HBP; for starters it would be hard to screw up a book with so much in it, (and so emotionally significant), and for continuers, if they mess it up, fans will go insane and tear them to shreds. Guess it doesn't matter now they're making so much money, though.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jun. 18th, 2007|06:18 pm] |
I was going to post about the first day of this job being kind of like the first day of school, except it wasn't really. It was more boring and less confusing. There was certainly the meeting-lots-of-people, and confusing instructions, and the scary tall people down the end of the hall, but nobody threw up on the carpet, and sadly, there wasn't any clag.
Instead there were several filing cabinets full of suspension files that need to be transferred into binders, with dividers and labels, and being in reverse date order, and, ergh. However I did get to leave putting-bits-of-paper-into-other-paper hell a few times - had tasty lunch with Jarrah (what happened to an hour being a Long Time?!), and got sent to the post office and various similar things. I like watching bank tellers typing in numbers super-fast, their fingers all a-flurry. Like they are making some kind of magic happen. They seem to enjoy it too.
|
|
|
| This post is about Ben Folds. |
[May. 13th, 2007|10:10 pm] |
Several reasons to make this guy your hero:
1. He made a video in which he moonlights as a pirate.
2. He made a video with his (adorable) son. In Adelaide.
3. He teamed up with two other Bens (Kweller and Lee) to make a temporary group called, you guessed it, "The Bens". And here is a very low-fi performance of them all, being very cute BFF. Can you have an indie boy-band?
|
|
|
| A Half-Mad Scientist In A Town Near You! |
[May. 13th, 2007|06:24 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | chemistry, computing, food, geek, hardware, internet, linux, rain, reading, science is golden, software, work | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (server) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Icky Thump//White Stripes | ] |
I forgot to post about donating my labour for the pure joy of nerdery working in the laboratory! It was slightly surreal. I got to wear a lab coat :) as promised, which was of course too big for me, but not comically. I also did not explode anything, nor cause any other major havoc. Most of the morning was spent getting a little used to where things are, and then in the afternoon I did a round of basic tests on water samples... easy stuff, so I guess they trusted me not to stuff it up. Doing that was quite repetitive, which is not a bad thing; I actually don't mind doing what many people think are boring jobs. All of this was actually last week; I am going again every Wednesday until they a) run out of things for me to do, or b) I get a "real" job. So, day after tomorrow I'm back again, and I'm looking forward to it a lot, which is probably a little weird.
Minutiae and Miscellany:
Cauliflower Cheese, it is tasty. Melt 1 oz butter in a saucepan and then add 1 oz flour. Stir, remove from heat, and then very gradually stir in 500ml (16 fl.oz) milk. Bring to the boil, add salt & pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Remove from heat again and stir in about 100g grated cheese. Steam or lightly boil all of a cauliflower(in chunks), rinse in cold water and put in a lightly greased oven dish. Pour sauce over and top with a bit more grated cheese. It's quite gooey, you might not want all the sauce. 180C oven for 20 minutes, or until nicely browned. Sorry about the strange mixture of metric and imperial; both my recipes and measuring instruments are kind of muddled.
I spent the entire afternoon watching youtube videos. You all know where that is. I therefore am not going to waste your time by posting some kind of "best of my afternoon list", thereby plunging you back into the endless procrastination found in the "related" list. You don't need that, I am sure. If you do, I suggest searching "Stephen Colbert" + "White and Nerdy" and just continuing from there; your efforts will not go entirely unrewarded. I wasn't aware that "adorkable" was a word, but it's a good one.
On the data recovery front, my brother called today, and hdd restoration is still in progress, but when he finally gets it to mount remotely and puts Fedora 7 on it (:D), I should be getting as a consolation an expansive 400GB. Hullo, isohunt!.
It is raining on and off very pleasantly; cookie and hot drink weather, slightly chilly, perfect. On the weekend J and I made lime cookies; recipe maybe later (they were scrumptious).
I've been reading in greedy gulps and confused, hurried nibbles; about five books at once. Still reading Catch-22 and a book about a man making a perfect clock in memory of his wife; Calvin and Hobbes; childrens' books; Thoreau (I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately...).
|
|
|
| hyperactive sloth |
[May. 10th, 2007|01:38 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (server) | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hold Me Now//Polyphonic Spree | ] |
I LOVE YOU, WEBCOMIC
I am also just about to go have a job interview, at, uh, Muffin Break. I will feel very silly. I'll tell you how it goes.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 7th, 2007|08:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | art | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (server) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Chicago///Sufjan Stevens | ] |
I've been doing volunteer work in the art gallery - helping install new paintings - and it leaves a very odd impression. I am constantly reminded of doing theatre lighting, because it all has to function well for the audience (also there is never enough space, time or funding). But I also feel very much un-alive. We handle everything with white cotton gloves, never letting paintings come in direct contact with anything - the floor, the walls, us. All these precautions taken to make the paintings immortal make me feel half-dead already; no matter how an artist might have kept his landscape stuff stacked up in a dusty garage, we would treat them like they were gold. They stand all around us, ready for eternity (or as close to it as we can manage), looking down on us, we transient short-lived insects.
It is something like being in a forest - there are trees that were born before me, and that will die after me, and though the individuals might not last as long as I will, the forest itself probably will. And so I will always feel an intruder, and belittled by time.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 26th, 2007|09:10 pm] |
Today was my first morning at the op-shop, which was really quite boring because there weren't many customers, the cash register is super easy (they don't do eftpos or credit cards), and they play crappy radio. Still, I quite enjoyed it, mostly because they color-code the clothes, so I got to put new stuff out and re-arrange things into a rainbow. That satisfied my inner-OCD-person for the day.
Went to fencing again today, and I feel like I have got worse, since my first lesson. Or maybe it's just that Colin is being less nice to me and reminding me of stuff, because I'm not a new kid any more :P. Anyway, I brought a Jarrah home with me and fed him things. And then he drove home... which worries me a little, because that road is not the safest, and it's damp and dark. Still; not as bad as B's drive up the mountain, so I guess it could be worse.
Recently, a very good thing happened: the manager of the Environmental Testing Lab emailed me to say she could in fact take me for some work experience (she's been on leave, hence the lack of reply for ages), a few days a week over the next few months. Yay, more unpaid work! Nonetheless, at least this is job-related...
PS: Borrowed Jarrah's camera, so some pretty photos soon!
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|12:49 pm] |
I just volunteered to do Thursday and Friday mornings (9-12) at an op-shop near me - and am slightly overwhelmed by the force of Nice Caring Older Ladies. I can't decide whether they are all very proper only sometimes they pretend not to be, or they are not very proper but feel they should be. In any case I don't think I could possibly stand doing it all the time, because they kind of numb the mind a little (I don't mean to be patronising; it's probably just because most of the people I know of that age are friends of my parents/teachers, who were all hippies in the 60s/70s and wear sarongs all over the place and cure politicians and have lots of books. Maybe it's culture shock, not age difference.)
In any case, at least now I can put "charity work" on my resume.
Edit: haha, one of them also told me I had to wear "longer shorts" in the shop :P. I didn't know whether to defend myself (it's freaking hot out and most of my stuff is in the wash) or pretend to be a bored, condescending teenager. Such dilemmas usually resolve themselves as "Um...ok."
|
|
|
| Cash Outflow, or, I Hate This Goddamn High-Youth-Unemployment-Rate Town |
[Apr. 18th, 2007|09:56 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | money | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (server) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Keep The Car Running//Arcade Fire | ] |
I have decided I must rename my bank account; it is no longer my place to deposit moneys, but my Finally Leaving and Escaping Everything fund (pleasantly acronym'd (acronised? acronified?) as "FLEE"). Maybe if I think of it as such I won't spend it so frivolously. And I don't even spend it that badly; I just get sudden hankerings for a cup of coffee, or a new packet of pens become necessary, and somehow these aggregated things mean that I am losing $ ridiculously rapidly. The problem with that attitude is that it leads to me not leaving the house for a week because I'm scared if I go out anywhere I will lose all my money. And it's no help when J buys me lunch, or something, because then I just feel we'll have less to spare between us, which will likely happen if we end up flat-sharing.
I need me a source of income :( |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 17th, 2007|10:04 am] |
For Sale: World's Most Useless Cat
I found this adorable.
Sydney and Melbourne nice, more later.
This is an interesting article by Salman Rushdie on the nature of free speech: we should attack arguments and not people, but this doesn't mean we should censor anything that offends. There is a necessary right to not just air opinions, but air opinions that (rudely) attack others' opinions.
"People have the fundamental right to take an argument to the point where somebody is offended by what they say. It’s no trick to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or to whose opinion you are indifferent. The defence of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can’t stand. If you can’t defend their right to say it, then you don’t believe in free speech. You only believe in free speech as long as it doesn’t get up your nose. But free speech does get up people’s noses."
|
|
|
| ...is not enough to show I care |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|09:34 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home (server) | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Eight Days A Week//The Beatles | ] |
A little way down my street there lives a wee little sausage dog, and she is so adorable I now spontaneously want a puppy.
Friday morning we fly down to Melbourne to visit some relatives (just for the weekend). Then Monday we fly back to Sydney to camp in my brother's (small) flat for a while, which will be... interesting, and my mother and I can lament out lack of shoe-purchasing resources. And then Dad is driving us back probably Friday, so I'll be back here in time for the book festival (often an excellent source of cheap (if a little old) hefty biology tomes, random literature, and quirky presents for people like Josh).
|
|
|
| my stuff my stuff oh god all my fucking stuff |
[Mar. 27th, 2007|07:53 am] |
My brother has been tinkering with my hard drive and seems to have FOUND MY STUFF. I have been doing silly dancing. Everything he describes seems to be perfectly alright, including Nausicaa and Howl's Moving Castle and Napoleon Dynamite, all of which I got very recently and so was kind of cut about losing. And he has emailed me my folder of job application stuff, and everything is there that should be there, and nothing is corrupted.
Downside: need new 200GB hdd as well as new dvd burner and new printer (I. Hate. Printers.) - feh. I can deal with hardware screw-ups. There is no downside: I have my fucking stuff back!! I cannot describe how unsettling and empty and desperate a feeling it was to lose it. That stuff, to some (and worrying) extent, was me. It must never never happen again (moar backups!)
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Mar. 9th, 2007|12:55 pm] |
arghhh. Apprenticeship is for 3 years, so I can't take it. Must, absolutely must before I go crazy, get out of here next year. So no horology for me :(.
Oh, wow.
And it is screeening in Melbourne in July! But that is too far away for me (I will be in Melbourne at Easter, but it is unlikely I will be there again... *grumble*.
Wait, it says dates for Sydney and Brisbane coming soon. Whoo!
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Mar. 8th, 2007|05:37 pm] |
I applied for a job/apprenticeship at the Watch/Clock repair place; they called me up for an interview. The job involves going to Sydney for classes, and of course I can stay with Leigh, but I'm not sure how often I'd have to go down, or even how long the course goes for (stupid TAFE websites). But anyway, I wouldn't mind being a horologist (which is also an awesome word). In fact this is like the ideal job for me - I get to spend all day playing with tiny shiny pretty things and taking them apart to see how they work. It's like hacking, but with clocks. Plus the shop is cold, quiet, and really close by. Whee!
Eurgh, having said that, I will probably say something totally dimwitted in the interview.
|
|
|
| in the grey branches nest icy shadowlings |
[Mar. 6th, 2007|11:29 pm] |
It's cold here, in my toes and hands. It's turning into autumn in quick bursts - you notice it hanging the washing out, a damp cool breeze; it's in the draught under the door; it's around the edges of your sleeves. This makes me happy; I stayed at J's last night and the valley filled up with fog and misty rain, everything very green but subdued by the cloudiness. Rain here is rarely sharp, cold, blue stuff, it's greyish and humid and mild. It's not steady and dull either, but comes in torrents and drenches, keeping you on your toes. In some places the thrashing branches of the pine tree against my window would be an urge to stay in and put the kettle on again, but though I am all in favour of kettles, I'm more likely tempted to go outside and stand in the wet leaves that are flying around. Get a scarf and put another jacket on; the weather wants you to come out and play.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 24th, 2007|11:20 pm] |
Did manage to go to the second night of Flickerfest, also v.g., reviews to come etc.
THIS is awesome.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 24th, 2007|06:44 am] |
the world outside: cold. new. those distant early morning traffic noises.
the world inside: waiting, wanting, waiting, wanting.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|10:08 pm] |
Just got home from the film festival; was very, very good (reviewing later)
Meanwhile, as we drove home there was a huge quarter-moon, huge, low in the sky, and we passed a man with a plastic bag, walking steadily but so slowly, looking down, walking home. He seemed not to want to go home, but he wasn't enjoying the night sky or the cool air either, just one whole manful of unwanting... I would have liked to tap him on the shoulder, and point at the yellow moon.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|11:36 am] |
This morning I went out for milk; the sky was incredibly blue, and though only 9am, it was already too hot for my jeans... tiny children are being dropped off to school, threesomes and foursomes of galahs and white herons flap about, clusters of delicate white mushrooms pop up around my feet. An ancient, ancient Holden struggles to start, right next to a gleaming Mercedes. The creek is filled to bursting with greenery so you can barely see the water; the primary school seems to give off a smell of crayons and paint into the very air. Suddenly, I am delighted to be here and not somewhere else - not here in Coffs Harbour, where my friends aren't, where I can't get a job or drool in an extensive library, but here in a small-city street in the summer, where everything alive seems to glow, you can always hear the birds and I am walking, just walking, doing nothing else at all.
Everything around fell right into my head leaving me struggling to find something to do with it - some way to make it permanent or to make its value apparent. I was writing in my mind, taking notes, wondering if I could relate it in my blog, but now I am trying I seem to have left something out even though I know I have left nothing out, bar the fact that I am no longer submerged in that perfect fragment of morning, and it is gone.
|
|
|
| Lineup for the Flickerfest International Short Film Festival |
[Feb. 22nd, 2007|08:15 pm] |
International Program 1 (the one I'm seeing tomorrow)
'Tragic Story With A Happy Ending (Historia Tragica Com Final Feliz)' (Portugal, Canada, France) sounds very promising:
Some people are different against their will. Their only wish is to be equal to others, deliciously mixing with the crowds. There are people spending their lives fighting to achieve this, denying or hiding their differences...
'Sniffer' (Norway), by description only, seems to verge on the ridiculous but could be very good:
In a society where everyone has the ability to fly, the citizens anchor themselves to the ground via "gravitation boots". Devoid of sunlight and the open sky, the members of society go about their routine without any hope of personal gratification. One day, however, a man decides he has had enough attempt to challenge the status quo. He quits his job, loosens his bindings, and literally takes off.
'Pen-pusher' (French) has a synopsis of intriguing brevity:
An unexpected spark of hope in the ordinary grey Paris metro.
Likewise 'Booth Story' (Australia):
A story of loneliness in an underground car park and one small miracle.
...or at least, it would be intriguingly brief if it were not for the fact that I have already read reviews of it, and encouragin ones at that. It apparently features wonderfully precise camarawork, only one human actor, and a duck (or rather 8 ducks, substituted at different ages for different scenes). Any film in which the ducks outnumber the human actors has got to be interesting.
'It's in the Air' (France) - I can't actually decipher this synopsis, so it makes me want to see it all the more:
An unusual run between a messenger and a song.
Altogether, these (and others) make up 100 minutes, a good chunk of time to immerse myself in something distracting that isn't my printer breaking down or another damn webcomic (I am not insulting webcomics here, merely the degree of tedium in my life that compels me to read webcomic archives for a large portion of the day).
Reviews, therefore, probably to follow.
International Program 2 (Saturday night, vague chance I might go to it as well)
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|06:25 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | loss | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Six Months In A Leaky Boat//Little Birdy | ] |
Lost most of my documents from my PC completely inexplicably, accompanied by some seemingly random permissions problems. Not only have I lost so much, none of it makes sense. The problems are too complex for me to have done by accident, too clean and regular for hardware OR software problems (besides, running very stable releases) and cracking is just out of the question. So wtf?, and also, somewhat devastated: lots of music (though not all), all my photots, writing (NNWM!! Major works!), artworks, resume, various useful stuff, every essay since c. 2001.
Must. Back. Up. More. Often. (The last one is, with horrible irony, from 2006 only days from now)
Thank goodness for the internet, keeping some stability in my falling-apartness. My f-list is still here, thousnds of archived emails, if I need to download Azureus again there it is; if I need to find something out, it is out there somewhere. Thankyou internet. Please don't go the way of my hard drive.
At least my room still smells like roses (thankyou, lovely Valentine's Day people, you made me dreadfully happy).
It's raining very softly, which is nice (and it smells good). The air has cooled, too, so it's like autumn rain. There are two times of year that I always think are my favourite: early autumn changing into a very short lull before real winter (damp, cool, scarf-wearing, tea-drinking, sweet-smelling) and the very first few days which feel like summer and something in the air instantly makes me think of primary school and climbing trees. I can never decide between them; right now I would of course choose autumn as my favourite, but in spring, the opposite. Thankfully I am not so contrary as to prefer spring in autumn and autumn in spring, although I wouldn't put it past me.
very lonely.
|
|
|
| Little Birdy - Hollywood |
[Feb. 16th, 2007|08:14 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | still a housewife, empty | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Please Don't Lay Me Down//Little Birdy | ] |
I think this is probably my favourite album of 2007 and I have only listened to 4 songs and it is only February. So much new music coming out, eep. I guess at least I have the time to listen to it? :S
|
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
master_gopher's journal
nerdy
okay
busy
pleased
sleepy
complacent
bored
peaceful
enthralled
cold
blah
jubilant
sad