Monday, March 21, 2011

For the love of Gadget

I have to admit that I have a secret nerdy love of gadgets. Yes, I was one of those annoying people who had to test out every single feature on each phone upgrade. Imagine my joy in my iphone when not only could I spend ages mucking around with all the standard features, I could download all sorts of pointless apps to annoy everyone around me with.
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I have been secretly coveting a kindle in order to combine my love of gadgets with my love of books. Then apple went and released the ipad and my desire was changed to wanting an ipad. Now I will spend the next four years with my face pressed up against the metaphorical shop window as I admire the ipad from afar.




Saturday, March 19, 2011

A little bit Borgo

When I first moved to the gloriously unkempt neighbourhood of Moulden, I likened it to the village of Bistritz in Count Dracula. During the day everything is fine, and there are kids playing in the street, people gardening, the usual suburban scene. After sunset however, you would think you were in a carriage drawn by skeleton horses racing the sun through Borgo Pass. There is the slight panic at sunset to get home and lock the gates. I haven't gone so far as to hang up garlic and throw horse shoes at passer bys.
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The point of this, is that yesterday the street was all lovely and quiet- a bit like this...
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At about 3 in the morning, approximately the time it takes to drunkenly stumble down the hill after the pubs close, the street looked more like this....
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Yes, there was a drunken group of idiots punching on in the street. The police arrived, and for an hour my bedroom was like a silent rave party with occasional muffled expletives. Then they all buggered off leaving me surprisingly wide awake. I used this time to imagine that if I could have one magical superpower it would be to teleport those bogans who ruined my night into remote areas of... say... the Sahara desert. As my inability to sleep continued, the places became more lethal such as a small air bubble in a deep sea cave or perhaps even Pluto.
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So I lay there all morning looking like this...
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(Original image link)

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While the tough guard dog and stoic husband slept soundly next to me. I tried to nudge them both 'accidentally' awake, but those two could sleep through an alien abduction of the type in the X-files that includes shaking walls, bright white lights and Moulder in the corner shouting "SAAAAAAMMMMMAAAANTHAAAAA!". In the end I fell back asleep as the sun was coming up and therefore the terror of night time in Bistritz became (once again) the benign suburban bliss of Moulden.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Stop stomping on my fluffy pink clouds of happiness

I have been having a merry time floating along on fluffy pink clouds of happiness. I don't have to think about work, or having to achieve anything much more than waking up sometime through the day and feeding myself. After the turmoil of the last few days, it is bliss.

That is, until the real estate agent in Gove decides they want to come stomping into my happy pink cloud and ruin everything. I keep getting random calls, "courtesy calls" as they like to call them (more like "bloody-stupid-notices-of-impending-invasion-of-privacy calls") stating they just need to: 1) pop by to see what sort of condition the unit is in; 2) pop by to check on the air conditioning unit; 3) pop by to have this months staff party since we know you are out of town and your flat is still furnished.

There is no point in telling them not to. They cheerily respond that they don't mind and they have a key and can let themselves in. I have told them in the past that I have a vicious dog that will bite their leg off and beat them with it if they try to enter my home while I am not there- and that slowed down the cheery courtesy calls telling me they are letting themselves into the unit (while hearing in the background the turning of a key in the lock and the characteristic squeek of my front door).

Now they know Jack isn't there (and ignoring the fact he generally hides behind the couch and lets me deal with any newcomers to the unit- tough guard dog eh?), they are brimming over with enthusiasm to wander in and out of my home whenever they are in the neighbourhood. I think I will have to remind them of a little thing called the Residential Tenancies Act. Stupid real estate agents!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Leaving home

Despite finishing work last week, I still ended up going in for a few more days to finish off all my 'unfinished business'. I can see now why ghosts hang around for so long. They are probably still catching up on all the missed calls for stupid things like documents that are freely available on a shared drive in a folder of the same name... urgh!

I got a lift home with some of the guys from work and was momentarily stunned to be told "don't worry about being stupid, its not your fault you're a girl'. I was instantly flung back to primary school and experienced those few seconds before knocking a pompous little ass to the ground. Instead I smiled and politely said "that's okay, I think you're a dickhead" and continued talking to someone else.

I was later told the suave gentleman is single and expressed my complete lack of surprise. In fact my exact words were; "well if he uses the chat up line 'hey you stupid chick, wanna go out' I can't imagine why he isn't prying off all the girls with a stick".

I think its good I'm leaving Gove and never got too involved with the local wild life. What a charmer!

So after I was dropped off, I was greeted with the above image. These are guys who work at the refinery and therefore should know all about the importance of safety. Its clear though that safety is something that happens to someone else. I stood in absolute wonder and thought "geeze I hope the balcony holds and we don't end up with old mate on the ground squished under a set of shelves, a balcony rail and two rather surprised dinguses".

Of course it was great that old mate on the ground was manoeuvring the shelves by dangling off a rope- clearly they had thought this through. I hung around waiting for something exciting to happen. All that happened was that the shelves got stuck a few times on the middle balcony and there were lots of pointless directions shouted that didn't actually result in a tangible improvement in the situation.

Ah Gove! I will miss your shear craziness!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Self-inflicted insomnia

I had plans to write something brilliant this evening, but now feel like I have a head filled with marshmallow and have completely forgotten what the brilliant thing is. I blame my lapse in drinking a caffeinated drink just before bedtime last night and bouncing around for five hours afterwards unable to even consider going to sleep. So now I am sleep deprived and am having troubles just thinking of basic words more than two syllables long. The worst part is that it is all self inflicted. I know I don't cope too well with caffeine, why on earth did I drink a cup of strong black tea right before bed?
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Ah yes, yesterday was magazine day and I was busy getting all excited about the catalogues* I get individually posted out to me** (because I am unlucky enough not to have a real mail box that gets stuffed full of junk mail. How stupid, you spend ages trying to prevent an influx of crap into your letterbox when you have one, but when it does stop there is some sort of strange withdrawal)- and you have to have a cup of tea while reading through one, its just part of the experience. Anyway, I have found a whole new list of things I wanna get... the Fjord Ponies for example.
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*The link is to the electronic version of the catalogue. Be prepared if you click on it, the scrunchy page turning sound effect nearly made me jump through the roof... then I turned the speakers down
**Actually its only one catalogue, but for some reason I receive three copies each time. Perhaps they are for swapsies... Does anyone want one?

Monday, March 7, 2011

Owl cross stitch chart

I have been meaning to post this for a while now. In the lead up to Christmas I went completely irresponsibly Christmassy and even bought a nasty plastic Christmas tree that scared my budgies. I am sure a lot of the festivities seemed like crazy monkey games to them, but I loved it. Only I didn't have enough stuff to hang off it (sure, if I put too much on the tree was in danger of either toppling over because only 1/3 of it was visible in the corner or the branches would fall off)- so I made some ornaments.
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One of my favourites is this little owlie that I saw somewhere while looking at pictures on google pictures and thought 'I could make that... or at least something that looks like that if you squint and take 10 steps back from it'. So now here it is, the results of my googling and stitching combined to share... perhaps a bit late for Christmas, maybe it could be an Easter owl, or an ANZACC day owl or something...
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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Procrastination butterflies


I have had a black work pattern that I have been wanting to stitch for ages. Today I had a suitably horrible task (cleaning the oven of terror) that made procrastination possible and I was able to stitch up this butterfly.
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Now I have grand plans of one day doing the whole sampler that has 16 variations of the same butterfly or the really really big one. Perhaps if the oven at the new place is horrific enough, I will be able to get the whole lot done fairly soon...
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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Capital letters are always the best way of dealing with things you don't have a good answer for


After a few goes, I made some Teeny Tiny Crochet Flowers. I did some housework too, but that isn't worth taking a photo (or even capital letters). I think I will try a few different types of flowers and see which ones look best. These ones are from blue girl xo and seemed to work out okay. I ended up using a 1.5mm crochet hook and some Perle 8 cotton. Now all I have to do is Take a Decent Photo of Them...

Friday, March 4, 2011

My next project


I have been inspired for a quick new project I saw while googling randomly. This is a picture of a flower chain that I want to turn into a necklace. I am not sure a cotton necklace is a good idea in the sweaty tropics, but they are pretty nice looking.
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I have found a few tutorials for some easy looking flowers at How to Crochet a Flower and the adventures of bluegirl. I think if I use a fine crochet cotton or a perle cotton and the smallest hook I have, and I will hopefully be able to make something that looks like the photo. I am thinking this will be a nice distraction from cleaning the oven this weekend...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Humble cake

I feel a bit like an ass at the moment. I was feeling pretty crappy at being told there would be no cake and not even getting an invite to my own farewell party. Hurumph! It was a bit of a surprise to find an enormous cake, covered in chocolate cream, and even a present at the farewell party. It just goes to show that it is best not to expect anything and to be happy with whatever turns out.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Its my party and I'll have cake if I want to

Its my last official day at work tomorrow and I am really looking forward to some time off. The last few months have been crazy busy and I feel slightly like I have fallen through a mirror and I am wandering around trying to play croquet with an emu (I am in Australia after all).

We are having a farewell lunch tomorrow, and I have already been gruffly told that there won't be any cake (they really know how to make you feel welcome). I thought to hell with it, I want cake so I'm taking a cake.

People generally like the cinnamon tea cake I make (thanks Carla and your Ag Show winning recipes), so I made one this evening and I'll take it along tomorrow. I like it, its not a big ostentatious cream filled monstrosity (and its rustic because I am too lazy to carefully fold the baking paper into the tin).

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Hurrah for the back yard


With the prospect of a yard again (even if its so small a ferret would feel cramped in it), I wanna puppy (or should I say puppeeeeeee). I don't mind that they chew the crap out of everything and poop all over the place. I will try to be sensible and wait a couple of days after I start my new job to see how much time I actually have (probably won't be much with the change to a 10hr day. That leaves 14hrs when I am not at work, sure for most of that I am just lying around the place with my eyes shut but that's not the point- I wanna puppeeee).