New blogging interface?

I usually use Opera as my browser but I'm just borrowing Andrew's desktop tonight as I can't be bothered fishing my computer out and connecting it to the network. Is it just because I'm using IE or has the blogger editing/posting interface really undergone a change? So far I like it!

Never seen a Crowe movie.

I came to the realisation tonight, on pondering whether to go see Master & Commander with the swancon crowd, that I have never seen a single Russell Crowe movie. Not one. (Checked on IMDB) Didn't see Gladiator. A beautiful mind passed me by.

I don't think I'll break this record. I found the Patrick O'Brien books interesting enough but have only read a couple.

Birthday was interesting. Had teppenyaki with parents, sister and Andrew. I enjoyed it, and Andrew definitely enjoyed the chocolate fondue we had for desert. (I knew he'd find a use for the chocolate fondue set eventually :) )

Got my own copy of Set (yay!) and the latest Pratchett, so happy there.

Went to Shig and Kiki's wedding today, it was a pleasant day (apart from the flies - I believe the celebrant said that was the third fly she'd swallowed that week) the wedding was nice, the bubbles were fun and we had a nice walk around the gardens afterwards.

The only cloud on my horizon currently is the exam marking I have to do :(. I'm about a fifth of the way through it and probably will finish that up on monday.

I know I have a job for another year and may be moving into the nice big corner office. Of course I'll have to check if the ants nest is still in there. And that will mean sorting out my current office (bleah) But oh well.

I haven't proofed for over 24 hours now and am getting a little jittery ;) maybe I'll just do a page before I go to sleep.

Absolute Rest

This is a drabble I wrote years and years ago. I figured what the heck. might as well go somewhere.

---

Professor Chron made the last connection and stood back, gazing proudly at
his newly completed time machine. He set up a video camera to record the
historic moment. The first trip, he decided, would be to the future. He
entered the mechanism and set the controls for five seconds into the future.
He thought that should be plenty of time for the camera to show the machine
missing. He reached out and flicked the switch, there was a flash of light
and a falling sensation. He flung open the door and stepped out. The Earth
rushed up to meet him.

---

To save the effort of looking it up for those who don't know, a drabble is a piece of short short fiction, exactly 100 words in length.

Not sure why I was feeling down over the weekend, company was pleasant, usually interesting and fun things to do, or read. Just feeling down. Possibly the approach of my birthday is causing the usual 'where am I going with my life' reflections to start going round my head again. I thought about that while I was riding to work, and figured out that if I don't know where I want to go, I might as well not worry about it for now and just try to enjoy being who and where I am.

Gifts for geeks

Someone (I think Simon) pointed out this niftly little gifts for geeks site. Andrew definitely liked the look of some of them but I'm not getting him the Aibo.

I'm not sure how some of them would survive shipping to here.

Looks like I'll be doing some exam marking soon :( But then I get some time off :).

Arghh..it's that time of year again. Summer tv programming. All the TV programs you're used to watching are stopping, either in a tense season finale or just stopping mid season. Probably be a couple of weeks before we find out if there's anything worth watching on (apart maybe from Dr Who since it doesn't seem to affect the ABC so much)

Post-Alien report

Well, having seen the movie I have to agree with Grant's review of it a few days back. While I never saw the original the story doesn't feel dated or hokey.
I agree that it is a good and well made movie. But now that I've seen it once, I don't think I'll watch it again. It's just not my sort of movie, horror is not my genre. I'm not feeling any urge to see the rest of the Alien movies either.
Post it up to YMMV.

Alien

Well, looks like it's finally going to happen. I'm actually going to see Alien for the first time. (OK the Director's cut but it can't be that different.) I've avoided it for so long, mostly because I'm usually just not a fan of horror movies or those designed to get your adrenaline going. I know what adrenaline does to my system when introduced too quickly, and it's not fun.

Still, I've had enough people tell me that I have to see this movie so I have succumbed to pressure and Andrew and I will be seeing it tonight. Least I'm taking someone to protect me from the nasty alien thingies.

Who knows, maybe I'll even watch the other Alien movies sometime.
Looks like there's a break in the rain so I'm going to head for my car now.

Mondays not fun

Today was unproductive, at least in terms of paid work. Slept in, failed to look at essay meant to be marking. Did a bit of html work but nothing important.

Just felt down all day (though not anything like my blue periods of last semester)

I think I need more sleep. And I probably won't even get to see Andrew tonight as he doesn't want to bring his cold to the younger members of the monday night gatherings. Wahhh.

Ok, that last sentence clearly shows that I do indeed need more sleep and I should not stay out late tonight.
Time for me to put my stuff in my bag and head home, probably via the shops as I am out of bread and milk type products.

Did play with Christine's Virtual Theremin a bit, but no idea how on earth you are meant to close the thing once it's open apart from the old ALT-F4.

Party day.

Today was a day for parties.

After my regular saturday morning tussle with scottish gaelic I got back up the hill to Andrew's where his 'cousin' (someone explained the exact relationship once but it was too confusing to remember) was having an afternoon birthday tea. Lots of yummy food and cake.

Then in the evening I meandered down the hill for a while to the housewarming/belated birthday celebration for Simon and David. Tiki was showing off the new book she and Polenka (sp?) have produced. Usual fannish gathering, lots of people to talk to on many topics. Tried to clarify some gossip for the pfgb, if I've gotten it wrong hopefully someone will correct me.

The gumbo was nice, if a little bit on the spicy side.

Gossip blog

A while back a group of us were discussing the demise of the gossip pages and noticing the increase in blogging suggested a gossip blog. So, decided to give it a go. More gossipers welcome. See here for the perth fannish gossip blog.

Later the same day

Ahhh..The Doctor is my friend. (Drat..taped Dr Who on the wrong tape again That's twice in a row. Hope Andrew doesn't mind me doing some tape to taping at the weekend.) So with the cool breeze wafting through my house I am again feeling calm and cool. I got two of the assignments marked, and the other I thought about doing now, but I suspect I'm not in a good essay marking mood. I've started it and I'll finish it tomorrow. (I hate essay marking.)

However I have managed to make dinner, and for two other days it looks like. I'm now going to have a piece of my banana and pineapple cake for dessert, with a coffee. Then it's the ironing and the washing up. Depending on which I can face most. Ironing has the advantage that I bribe myself with tv while doing the ironing. Then hopefully a relatively early night if Elizabeth and Darcy don't keep me up too late. :)

Too warm

Trying to get up the energy to mark assignments. So far this is not proving easy. I might get more done if it cools down this evening.

I've been sleeping in a lot this week, I think mostly due to me staying up far too late. Have to stop doing that.
Oh well, let's see if I can find a marking pen and mark these assignments.

I baked a cake last night. I suppose now I should find someone to help me eat it :)
banana and pineapple Mmmm

TGIF

Well, poor Pamela, the weather has suddenly decided it is summer after all. A warm day with a warmer weekend to follow. Must remember swimming togs for spa-ing.

Workload, well, I seem to be getting on top of it. Though I couldn't make it to the student's presentations, just too much time out of a busy day.

Off to Simon's tonight to see some movies with the gang, the common theme of which appears to be giant imaginary rabbits (name those movies! - MSMers sssshhh)

After being so good wednesday and yesterday and riding in to work I just ran out of energy today. Must do better next week.

Saw Matrix:Revolutions on Wednesday night, 10pm screening arghhh...Well, it was better than 2, though you couldn't watch 3 without seeing 2 obviously. The perils of making one long movie and releasing it in two parts.
I couldn't find myself caring a huge deal about the characters. Dave mentioned on the unisfa list about it being like Dragonball Z and that was what part of it it brought to my mind, lots of uber people trashing the landscape with lots of power.
I liked the female mortar team though. :) and at least there wasn't a music video bit :)

No more early rises!

That's it, the last tuesday for the semester that I have to get up early. I suspect I'm going to be wiped out by the end of the week though. What with the Revolutions screening (Yeah, I found lots of reloaded boring, but what the hey, seeing the 'end' of the movie anyway) and various late nights and early mornings I'm going to be very tired by friday, so might fall asleep during the movie...whatever it is...

Got to finish putting up these lecture notes, and sometime in the next two weeks I have to put together a treasurer's report for the AIP AGM...

Lazy Sunday

Andrew's sister still not feeling so good. She went to the doctor's yesterday so she's got medication and hopefully she'll be feeling better soon.

The halloween proofing special went amazingly. Final total for the day was 18,519 pages. It's going to be hard to make this month's target with last month's amazing record.

And I personally have proofread over 1000 pages since I started. Yes ... I think it's safe to say I'm an addict.

Andrew's catching up on some stargate tapes, while I feed my proofing addiction :)

We might have a game of Settlers of Catan later.

No spooks

Well halloween passed without any spooky occurences, apart from the halloween special proofing marathon at distributed proofreaders. Aiming at 15310 pages for the day and it's looking very possible. Around 14000 already!
(Most days it's half that at best)

Had nice evening in with Andrew :) Today is his mother's birthday so likely to be fairly big family gathering. Unfortunately one of his sisters isn't feeling well. Hope she feels better soon.

This week coming looks to be very busy at work, so I may blog less because of lack of time or more, because of displacement activity :) Back to proofreading about horse diseases :)