Aria's musings

Fandomedia - Fun fun fun!

2005-11-22T23:59:00.000+08:00

Ahh, what a fun weekend. A bouncy Ju, lots of people to chat to, some silly games played and lots and lots of laughter.

There was a general feeling of relaxation, and while the panels I went to were fun, there wasn't any feeling of trying to fit too much in. You could chill out, buy a book or two, play games, (Go Twonky! Go Twonky!) or compare hair lengths. shrydar, Kae_dash, and Anysia (from left to right) had a little impromtu competition, I think you're right shrydar, anysia's in the lead.

Generous mealbreaks took the stress out of lunch & dinnertime and there were plenty of places to get food nearby. A group of us tried the 9 Marys indian place just opposite Matsuri and enjoyed it thoroughly. Kashmiri naan is nice.

Thanks Ju. Hungry for next year's already :)

Meme time.

2005-10-08T23:20:00.000+08:00

You're Most Like The Season Autumn ...

You're warm, and the most approachable. You have
that gentle prescence about you. People can
relate to you, and find you easy company.
However it's likely you've been hurt in the
past and it has left you scarred so things can
become rather chilly with you at times. Being
the third Season in, you're mature, trustworthy
and loyal to your friends but prone to
depression and negative thinking.

Well done... You're the shy and sensitive season :)

?? Which Season Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmm. Actually that seems pretty close to me. (Though YPMD)

Back in the dome

2005-09-25T14:40:00.000+08:00

I had my first star viewing night of the season last night (my volunteer work up at the Perth Observatory), and unlike the first viewing night of the season where I was not rostered on (Friday night) it was lovely and clear. I got to show the lovely jewel box open cluster, to demonstrate what a boring (if blinding) telescope object Venus is. Most interesting thing about it is that it has phases. Then it was on to the 2nd tour and alpha centauri (headlights!) and the tarantula nebula.

Not too cold (only 8.9C I think) and not too windy, which is good because one of the scopes is outside until probably Christmas.

I think my next night is the 8th which hopefully will have some moon available.

Oooooh Shiny!

2005-09-20T16:34:00.000+08:00

I now have my shiny new car. Power steering, CD/MP3 player, and shiny lilac blue.

New shiny car - Any day now...

2005-09-19T11:05:00.000+08:00

After over a decade's loyal service, it has reached the time to trade my little red hyundai C-chan in for a newer car. In fact an actual new car. Which I should be getting sometime this week. Any day now... Soon...

It's a shame I can't transfer over the Swancon 2000 bumper sticker though.

For various reasons, mostly sensible ones to do with good fuel economy, 5 year warranties and low insurance rates I've gotten a Hyundai Getz (5 door for ease of transporting passengers). For my magpie Shiny! nature I have gotten it in metallic lilac blue.

I am looking forward to power steering, for while my continued attendance at the gym (Yep, still going) is helping my muscles, C-chan is a pain to turn around in a tight curve.

Arrrrh, it be talk like a Pirates day! Arrrrr!

2005-09-19T10:59:00.000+08:00

My pirate name is:

Dirty Anne Bonney

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

And that's with answering daily to the washing question...

Busy busy busy

2005-08-05T12:46:00.000+08:00

It's been a busy few weeks of late. First of all of course it's the start of semester with all the chaos that that implies for us folks trying to get the material ready and the students informed. But it's also been busy on the social and home fronts.

Social:
Well, I kinda blew the entertainment budget the last few weeks, along with a couple of movies, (Swancon Fantastic 4 screening & the FTI screening of Labyrinth) I also got to go to Inside the TARDIS and also to Cirque du Soleil's Quidam, both of which I enjoyed immensely, Katy, Colin & Sylvester were very entertaining, and even if you weren't a Dr Who fan I think you would have enjoyed the evening and as for Quidam, well, it was my first Cirq du Soleil and I have to say I was very impressed, both with the skill shown, the music and the sheer number of things going on at once, it felt like a cross between circus & opera.

I picked up Anna, Art et al. from the airport at the weekend, their flight getting in at 5:50am, but amazingly enough I managed to wake up and drive to the airport arriving there only a few minutes before they came out the door (though long enough for the gouging parking rates there to kick in). They're fine, had a good time and came back with many books. I think they're mostly over jet lag now if you want to touch bases.

Home:
On the good side, I have curtains! I've been living with some nice wooden blinds up till now, but the sides of the window still seemed a bit stark. So when my mum called to let me know that she'd spotted some curtains on special that looked as though they matched, we decided to get two sets and put them up in front of the balcony door too, (actually they turned out to be even more on special when they got to the till :) Yay for scottish mothers with an eye for a bargain)
It took a little while longer to get the curtain poles (plain black from bunnings) and put them up, but they're up and looking pretty spiffy. Makes the room much more cosy at night and softens the windows/door a bit during the day.

On the downside I had to get new taps as about a week ago my hot water tap stopped gripping its shaft (luckily after I'd turned it off) and I was without hot water in the shower for 2 days :o, until I had time to get a plumber, so I now have a new set of taps and hot showers again. :D

That's all for now as I have to go find a cow to take a photo of. (I also finally succumbed and bought myself a digital camera so I can now take multiple photos with the hope of getting a good one without paying extra for processing)

They're off to the wilds...

2005-06-18T22:56:00.000+08:00

Well, I dropped Anna et al off at the airport last night so as far as I know they are now winging their way off to the land of the Maple Tree, via Tokyo and Seattle.

Fudge factors in planning the evening proved to be so accurately calculated as for us to arrive at the airport almost exactly at the time they needed to be there with all packing done and one awake and 2 sleepy kids.

Here's hoping their sanity survives the various plane trips intact.

After the spill...

2005-05-19T15:54:00.000+08:00

Apparently the best guess for what the problem was yesterday was probably ether and benzyl bromide having been poured down a sink, which apparently when water was added caused noxious fumes to come out of most nearby plugholes.

I must admit that I think the evacuation could have gone better, no sirens, noone securing unlocked/open doorways.

Still, I'm alive, not feeling poisoned and I did get to badminton after all. Now I have to get back to my marking.

My hands are blue...

2005-05-18T17:26:00.000+08:00

Definitely blue. Mostly on the fingertips where the dye from the document folder I was using to shield my head came off on my hands.

Why didn't I use my umbrella? Because that's up in my office. Which I can't get into. Because there was some sort of chemical spill today and the whole building got evacuated.

I only had the folder because I was using that to cut down the rain getting on the stuff that I was taking to the tutorial I had to give this afternoon (in a different building), which a grand total of 2 students attended. It's not even as if they've had me as a tutor before!

In any case, after the tutorial I wandered back to see if the building was still sealed (it was, though a couple of doors needed telling) told security about the recalcitrant doors, wondered what to do next (my shorts etc. for badminton being with said umbrella) and decided to go home until badminton time. So I squidged through the car park to my car, staining my hands blue (with a brief lift from a colleague at the last) and I am now sitting in the warm, listening to the rain and contemplating actually having dinner before badminton.

spamusement

2005-04-07T12:18:00.000+08:00

Sick of spam? Here's a little site that is making it more fun by drawing cartoons based on common spam subjects.

spamusement.com, those at the Hen's panel may be interested in the mighty cucumber, while the 'your document is silly' one is best read aloud. And for the sesame street fan, you can't go past Bert don't sleep yet

I will get my con report up soon, I promise.

Guess I'm not that girly

2005-03-31T08:35:00.000+08:00

Your Brain is 53.33% Female, 46.67% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female
You are both sensitive and savvy
Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed
But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Not really surprising, I'm not sure what I may have been described as, but I don't think feminine was ever a word applied to me.

Con report later, I've been doing my morning email check and I should really get dressed for work.

That long? Really?

2005-03-20T23:38:00.000+08:00

My it has been a long time since my last blog. Whoops.
What can I say? It's been a busy time.

I have been managing to keep up my exercise regime. 3 days per week at the gym and so far not missed one, (well one I did on a sunday instead of saturday due to confusion about opening times, but it got done)

I think I'm feeling better for it. Certainly in terms of being proud of myself for sticking to it. There appear to be some indications that it's helping me motivate myself to do other things too.

My swimming continues, I've reached 100 laps of my little (~10m) pool and am maintaining at that, at least until the pool temperature at 6:30am is too cold to contemplate.

I may not be able to substitute biking for swimming however as some vandals got into my strata complex this week past and along with the breaking into cars, spraypainting cars etc. also appear to have made off with the bikes in the bike storage area, including mine. The police apparently found a bike nearby, but so far no information on whether it is mine, and in any case forensics would have first dibs. (We were't the only place they hit that night. Just the wrong time for the gate to have broken).
Hope they catch them.

Went to Lyn's Tupperware briday shower this week, managed to survive the silly game and spent far too much money on tupperware. Oh well. Then went to Lee & Lyn's 80's pre-wedding bash on the Saturday. Poor Connor is teething, cute though.

Of course this did mean that I slept in this morning given that I didn't get home till 1amish, so I decided that rather than burn my skin I'd do an evening swim instead, and the water was nicely warm, and I didn't have to get blinded by the sun. Possibile substitute for morning swim, but not always home at that hour.

Spent the evening preparing a book about the ANZACs to go into the ANZAC day queue at Distributed Proofreader's. 1 down. 3 to go.

Still going...

2005-02-08T13:43:00.000+08:00

My efforts to get fitter by getting up early and swimming are still going! Though I did sleep in until 7am on Saturday and Sunday.

I've got a nice little dresser for under my lounge window for putting stuff in and on, so happy with that.

On the downside the bad noise coming from my car was apparently my right wheel brake trying to tell me that there isn't much left in it so I'll have to get that fixed. And the first I could get in was on Wednesday so I missed the thing I wanted to go to on Monday night :(.

Given that I lost the arial at Genghiscon, so have very little ability to listen to things in the car now apart from the grinding brakes, I'm seriously considering getting a new car. I have had this one a decade now, and it wasn't new when I got it.

Good thing I joined the gym, as I won't be able to use turning corners to keep my arm muscles up once I get power steering.

My new regime...

2005-02-02T16:20:00.000+08:00

Well, I had an absolute blast at Genghiscon, got my mind fried by MST3K, had a go at archery, played some games I hadn't played in ages, played some more games I hadn't played at all (I never got to be a werewolf though). Attended some fun panels. Was exposed to the weirdest 'reality tv' show I have ever come across. Drawn Together - following a number of different cartoon characters sharing a house. That only begins to describe its oddness.

Food was great! They kept feeding us! Lots of snacks and drinks to buy for those that needed them (tea & coffee gratis), but those who were staying over (nice big rooms by the way) got breakfast thrown in, including cooked breakfast, which was a ante up from last year. So, we fortified ourselves at breakfast and what with the jaffa pies on friday night, the BBQ on saturday night and the Grant Stone morning tea (with scones) on saturday morning, I only went out for food once.

The only downside to the breakfast was that the cooked stuff was only available between 7am and 8:30am, so I found myself waking up at 6am (before my alarm went off) and figured I might as well get up and ready and off for food. On the sunday morning I finished the short short story competition entry I'd started the previous night between 6:30am and 7am. Normally I'd expect to be a zombie if awake at this hour, but I felt amazingly cheerful. The really odd thing is, I've kept it up. The last 3 days since I got home, I've been waking up at 6am, going for a swim and getting some other things done before work. Now if only the tv channels can be persuaded not to put things on against each other late night I might become a morning person.

Oh, and I came 2nd in the short short story competition. (And no, there weren't only 3 entries).

Duty done.

2005-01-27T14:26:00.000+08:00

Thus ends my first real encounter with the jury service system. One very early morning, one merely early morning, three courtrooms, but no actual jurying.
Even if I had tried to follow the various bits of advice on what to wear/what not to wear/how to act if I wanted/did not want to be on the jury, it would have ended up moot as I didn't get pulled out of the box. Didn't even find out if I would be challenged.

Maybe some other time it would be interesting to actually be part of a jury, I think my boss is happy that I'm back at work, what with all the work that usually needs to be done before semester starts.

Speaking of which, I should probably get back to that.

FTL selling books?

2005-01-14T11:29:00.000+08:00

Ran into Grant Stone at lunch yesterday, apparently, on top of his busy radio show, working as a librarian at Murdoch, etc. etc., he's turned Faster Than Light into a resource centre, of lots of things Australian and Fannish, and apparently recently also added an online bookstore to the melange. (After some futile googling I eventually gave up and tried the obvious http://www.fasterthanlight.com.au/

Wonder if it's making his office more or less crowded?

Don't have time to look through it much today though, it's nose to grindstone time as I got some other news yesterday. I'm summoned to Jury Duty. Oh joy, they do seem to know when you're busiest don't they. So I've got one more week to get the critical stuff done and then I have to report for JD on the 24th. I'm not sure if I'm decisive enough for jury duty, but to be honest the least appealing part so far is that I have to be there at 8:15am. Not a morning person me.

Back to grindstone.

To see ourselves as others see us...

2005-01-09T19:10:00.000+08:00

Gotten from Callisto's LJ.
The idea is, to go down this list and pick ONE from each pair that you think describes me the best. Then copy this and post it in your own journal to see how your friends view you.

dominant or submissive
logical or intuitive
social or loner
kinky or vanilla
cute or sophisticated
kitten or puppy
warm flannel sheets or sleek satin
leader or follower
quiet or talkative
spontaneous or planned

Into the new year

2005-01-09T18:30:00.000+08:00

Back at work, though only a short week, (Thursday & Friday) and I'm in the nice position of having some stuff to do, though not too much, though this could change at any time as my immediate boss has found a new position elsewhere with less stress, which means we now have to figure out who will do the stuff he used to do. Still, my job is safe for the next 2 years so with a bit of luck that will be my mortgage and I'll be more relaxed.

New year was quiet, but pleasant, since then I've caught up with housework, evicted a fairly large black spider that had been hanging around my christmas decorations (taken down) and then decided to move into my couch and caught up with some people at Bec's Oriel's thingy.

No I haven't made any resolutions. Apart from my continuing one to get a bit fitter. Still waiting on pool to be reopened.

Relaxed...

2004-12-26T23:52:00.000+08:00

Had a very nice family Christmas, sitting, chatting, eating nice food, not having any arguments (though did get thoroughly beat by a 7 year old in his new air hockey game)

Got a nice heap of books waiting to be read, and amazingly enough haven't read one yet. Yesterday was too busy chatting, then finishing off Hogfather which I seem to be making a tradition of reading every Christmastime. Then today I went up to Fe's traditional Boxing Day drop in, and had a very pleasant day there... Then it was home, make and eat dinner (after a little AC) and watch Carnivàle, which is proving interesting enough to keep watching at least for now... Then a little Robo Rally and proofing before bed.

Tomorrow I have to figure out what I am making for the pot luck dinner at MSM's double feature. Got some ideas so not stressing too much, especially as I suspect my local Dewson's will be open.

So much for swimming...

2004-12-21T15:00:00.000+08:00

Apparently the pool in my complex needs some work on it (making sure it's all healthy to swim in) and when I went for my swim this morning the gate had again been chained shut. Not sure whether to go find a local rec centre which has a pool, use my parents, or find another form of exercise... I'm planning on walking to the shops and library when it gets a bit cooler, so that will help a little but it doesn't give my arms the workout swimming does, maybe I'll get some weights or something in the January sales, or *gasp* join a gym.

I'm not sure that the gym will give me the flexibility of time that I want though, plus there's the fees, the travelling to and fro...

Early Resolutions?

2004-12-19T23:33:00.000+08:00

Never been one for new year resolutions myself, couldn't even keep up a diary (bit surprised I'm still blogging, however sporadically)... But with some time to spare while I'm on leave I'm attempting to keep a little fitter. So far I've managed to have a swim every morning for the past 4 days and I'm planning to keep it up at least until I go back to work, then it will depend on whether I can get up early on whether I keep doing morning swims, or possibly swap to evening ones.
Extending the amount a little every day so as not to overdo things at the start.

World police

2004-12-15T22:57:00.000+08:00

After afternoon shopping, went with a group of the MnatM lot to see Team America: World Police. I must admit I went into it with a bit of trepidation, as I'm not really a South Park fan, and for the most part I had the same trouble with it as I do with south park, the crude sense of humour these guys have in general does not resonate with me. However there were some genuinely funny moments (eg. the entering the tavern scene and the montage song), so seeing it once was OK, but it's not on my list of movies to rewatch.

Through the maze.

2004-12-15T22:42:00.000+08:00

Well, yesterday a group of us, (consisting of 3 adults who have recently each bought and moved into a house, a 7 year old, a (nearly) 4 year old and and 8 month old - said kidlets belonging to one of aforesaid adults - and me) made what is possibly turning into a traditional pre-Xmas trip to Ikea. This is the 2nd time. One more time and it will become entrenched.

It's a dangerous place, even if you are resistant to the furniture, there are lots of odds and ends that catch the eye as you wend your way around the maze of the store, designed of course so that you go past everything. Unless of course you are so much an Ikea addict as to know some of the secret shortcuts. I was lucky to get out spending under $50, but not all my companions were so restrained. (At that I'm still wondering if I should have grabbed one of the blue star lamps, it was so cute.)

Then most of us also continued round the corner to a little educational toy store, which providentally is moving and hence was having a 20% off all stock sale...

A little wandering around Kmart this afternoon has mostly finished off my Xmas shopping for kidlets (which is fairly significant this year, my normal social crowd is not quite 50% young children, but it's not off by that much.)

So I am in the enviable position of having finished the main part of my Christmas shopping and still have 9 days to go to decide whether to get more personalised presents for extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins etc.) or to fall back on confectionary. It's hard to know what to buy for people you see only a few times a year.

Tomorrow will probably be spent wrapping presents and writing cards and putting said presents, at least temporarily, under (well around) my little fiber optic christmas tree which I dragged out earlier today.

I see a break in the distance.

2004-11-29T23:22:00.000+08:00

Well, had a fun birthday. I just worked out that of the babies being kept track of on the gossip blog, 3 out of 14 share my birthday. Now that's a statistical anomaly and a half.

Only down point was discovering that apparently the pool in my strata complex is a no go zone. (a chain and padlock gives that impression) Not sure why, will have to investigate.

Now if I can survive this week at work I will be getting a nice long break, 3 weeks of annual leave plus the Xmas break. Yay!

Time for some sleep so I can survive the rest of the week. :)

2^5 party.

2004-11-19T01:22:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm going up another binary digit, and so I'm having a birthday gathering at my place.

When: Saturday 27th November, Any time after 2pm. Drop in when you can.
Where: My place, contact me for details if you don't know where it is.
What: Fairly casual, I've got some games (settlers, fluxx, roborally, set), feel free to bring some more. There's a nice stretch of lawn if people want to bring outdoor type games. (and the weather is nice) Oh and there's a pool if you want to bring your bathers.

I'll be providing nibbles and soft drinks, for the harder stuff it's byo. Pizza or similar will be ordered around dinner time.

Murphy's law quantified!

2004-10-25T11:33:00.000+08:00

Mathematicians have now come up with a rule for predicting the law of “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". They say the formula allows people to calculate the chances of Murphy’s law (or Sod’s law as it is also know) - and to even try and beat the bad luck.

Try the Murphy's Law Calculator out for yourself.

Productive day

2004-10-24T11:30:00.000+08:00

Well, yesterday was a productive day, I managed to finally get the spot of spring cleaning done that I've been meaning to do for ages, so apart from the pile of ironing (4 loads) and a spot of filing, and the breakfast dishes, I have a clean and tidy house. Yay!

Then it was off out to Kylie's board games night, which in point of fact seemed involve mostly card games for me, Set, Munchkin, Chronology. Chicken Satay pizza is yum!

I only got distracted a couple of times by Robo Runner, an online game similar to Robo Rally. And got 5 pages of Proofing in too, (Virgil's Ænid done as scots verse. Does your mind boggle? Mine did.)

Off to D & F's for more gaming today so should get myself ready.

Inner Squirrel

2004-10-20T16:12:00.000+08:00

Elaine Walker from this day forward you will also be known as:
Fluffy Out of Their Tree

What's your Inner Squirrel?

It's just so me!

DP5000

2004-10-10T22:08:00.000+08:00

Distributed Proofreaders has reached its 5000th ebook posted to Project Gutenberg. That makes us the largest single contributor to the online ebook provider.

We commemorated this occasion with a 50 book submission in one day.
If you would like, you can see the list of celebration projects.

Why not join us and proof a page or two? Saving History - One page at a time

Blogette

2004-09-30T23:44:00.000+08:00

Just a quick entry tonight, as I've got to get myself organised in the morning.

Did my first tour at the observatory for this season a week or so back, was a good night, though we did have a bit of trouble with high humidity and dew making the tarantula nebula look more like a faint smudge, still with the aid of that wonderful piece of equipment, the hairdryer, the telescope was de-dewed and the tarantula seen in well, as glorious as it gets to the naked eye. Alas that nebulas are one of the things that really look better in photographs than through a scope, if you want to see the colour anyway.

Met some of Chris's other waifs and strays last night. A good time was had by all, much food was eaten including the pineapple turnips, and all bouts were taken outside, except the armwrestling.

Nifty

2004-09-15T15:22:00.000+08:00

Yay, the set daily puzzle now has a nifty feature that keeps the sets you have already found as small images in the webpage itself, rather than you having to look at a popup which went away as soon as you started back on the main webpage, saves a lot of 'no, I already got that one' stuff.

Ho hum, install install install

2004-09-15T15:06:00.000+08:00

After my work computer died a few months back I finally have the replacement (instead of the temporary replacement) and yet again am trying to locate and reinstall all the software I need.

Luckily it has happened on a fairly quiet day and there's no urgent jobs requiring me to have the computer working.

I've been sharing my place for a few days now as Chris needed a place to stay between her housesitting stint and the shared household she's moving into at the weekend. Which should give her some breathing space for looking for a new place to buy. So far we've managed to avoid getting on each others nerves, though I'm not sure how much of that is due to the little time actually spent there while not sleeping.

It's baaaad...

2004-09-11T23:03:00.000+08:00

Someone gave me a URL for a review of one of those self-published/vanity press books. I really, really pity the reviewer and am awed by their sacrifice and endurance that enabled them to finish the book to review it. Not to mention the pain of typing in (exactly) some of the passages.

I encourage you to read the review, but whatever you do, don't read 'Night Travels of the Elven Vampire'.

Oh the strawberry scented elegance! Oh the red onions!

(See, I do too blog occasionally)

To-to-ro Totoro!

2004-09-11T22:32:00.000+08:00

Ahh, an interesting day. My usual Scottish Gaelic study (Hallo a h-uile duine!) then off to Splanky's for a party where I failed to invest in any lingerie. My scottish training and upbringing makes it hard for me to buy expensive things that I can't see me getting any use out of. And I'm not sure what I'd wear hot pink under.

Then it was off to FTI to at least see ONE movie in the Miyazaki Showcase while it was on. (I really wanted to see Laputa again but it seems deliberately scheduled against all my other activities. :( Perhaps I shall just buy the DVD. I think, yep, it and Kiki's Delivery Service are out in October.
I can wait.)

So, in case my subtle use of the title has escaped you, ;) I had a lovely evening watching My Neighbour Totoro. It's been quite some while since I saw this one and I fell in love with it again. If people tell you that anime's just violence and X rated stuff, show them Totoro, heck show them any Miyazaki movie (subtitled for preference provided said people are literate).

Surviving the /.ing

2004-08-29T14:42:00.000+08:00

Distributed Proofreaders (of which I may have gushed earlier) has recently posted its 5000th project to Project Gutenberg (not individual unique item mind you, some books/works were split for various reasons but we're getting close to 5000 of them too). This got mentioned on /. thus prompting the 3rd slashdot wave to enter DP. As I've now been at this for quite some time now (I only recently realised it's over a year) I do some mentoring giving feedback to people doing their first proofing pages, and over the last 4 or 5 days it's been on the almost frantic side trying to keep up and give feedback in a timely fashion so as to keep people interested.

So much is easily lost or discarded in today's world that the goal of DP - Preserving History, one page at a time - really resonated with me. It's interesting in any case, as you never know what people are going to find to make projects, from victorian pot-boilers, to treatises on gunpowder, to Chaucer poetry, and stuff still written in Englifh :) There's usually something there that is interesting to read as well as proof. Although that part of me that likes a challenge has been known to proof (if not understand) latin poetry, english grammar texts, and one that boggled even me, Virgil's Aenid translated into Scots verse (and I'm talking broad scots here)

Ah well, back to mentoring.

Back to IE

2004-08-16T18:59:00.000+08:00

Now Opera won't even log in properly with blogger. Oh well.

I hadn't realised before, but several people have told me in the past week or so that yes, you can crack a rib coughing. I'm beginning to believe them. I initially thought it was just a strained muscle but this is really hanging on and doesn't quite feel the same as a muscle.

It only hurts when I laugh. Or cough, or sneeze, or move. Luckily it's only for movements that affect my upper body so my typing is unaffected.

Might watch some of my season 2 Press Gang DVD tonight since there's nothing remotely watchable on now that sport has taken over the TV. I mean yes I agree that ideally the Olympics is a worthy thing, but of late all the technological 'aids' and drug scandals and so forth just seems to take the point out of it. And since I'm not a big sports watcher I think I'll skip it.

Coff Coff

2004-08-03T16:08:00.000+08:00

I finally succumbed. I couldn't take it any more and got some cough mixture. Hopefully it will work enough to allow me to get to sleep. While my rises this week are not so early as they were last week I still have relatively early starts and need all the sleep I can get. At least my voice is coming back. I had to jot some of the answers for the quiz night on my phone's jotter app to show D who was writing them down. The next day I had barely a whisper left. Still, getting stronger now.

Thanks Pam, we had a blast at the quiz night, to be honest, winning was quite a suprise, we didn't think we had done that well on the Hensonia. Of course if my head had been clear the answer to the british actor question would have been obvious. Doh.

Working from home today. The urgent stuff is done and I'm going to start on dinner so that the flavours get a chance to mingle.

Yet another cold.

2004-07-27T16:59:00.000+08:00

I know it's winter, but do I have to have these blasted colds?

I can see what people are talking about with the font stuff etc. though it does indeed appear only to work with IE. Possbert says it doesn't work with Mozilla and my tests with Opera haven't showed up all this funky stuff. Heh! I say. I can do html without any silly buttons.

Being single seems to be a bit like having exams coming up. Actually being at my home at the weekends has allowed me to catch up on sorting out my study and tidying up my place. Whether this continues I don't know, but I won't have any excuses if it doesn't.

Provided I can tear myself away from my new ADSL connection that is. :)

For reasons known only to the scheduling computer, all the units which I am recording, or turning up to say 'Hi' at in the first week are either at 8:30am or 9:30am. I am not a morning person. Still, valiantly (especially with this cold - you can hear me coughing a fair way off) I have gotten up at 7am every day so far this week and struggled into work at 8:15am. There is talk of rescheduling some of the 8:30 ones to 9:30 for future weeks and I hope that's so, but it's actually quite nice coming home while it's still light.

Busy week to come, got the observatory volunteer's 'thank you' and windup night on tomorrow, then the Genghiscon quiz night on thursday - Yes Poss, I am coming.

Oh well, back to getting these lecture notes updated for the students.

Colours? Where?

2004-07-19T17:43:00.000+08:00

Well, I've done colours on blogspot before just using the usual font stuff, but people seem to be wowing about colour stuff, which I can't see. In fact my usual formatting stuff for posts appears to have gone away so I guess it's yet another thing that works with IE and not opera, will test later.

Wireless and ADSL

2004-07-13T19:49:00.000+08:00

Ahh, high speed internet connection with not many wires.

Yes, my ADSL is up and working, and so is my wireless, so I'm sitting comfortably in my lounge enjoying the fast link.

Dinner is on the stove, I have a cold, and catching up on some tv. All in all I'm better than a week ago.

First project all the way through.

2004-07-12T16:26:00.000+08:00

Well, the first project that I managed all the way through the distributed proofreaders site has been posted to the Project Gutenberg site. Yay! Of course my second project overtook it and got posted there about a week ago, but that was because the first one was a lot of poetry which took a fair amount of time to get right.

I suspect that while only the animal lovers would like project no. 1 (Voices for the Speechless) the more fannish might like Project No. 2 which was an early short story collection by H.G. Wells, The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents.

Future projects I intend to bring to the world involve an older chemistry text and something called Zarlah the Martian.

Oh, and hopefully by tomorrow I will have gotten my ADSL connection all hooked up. Yay! Yay fast connection! Yay work VPN! I got myself a relatively nifty modem. router, firewall, wireless server! Now all I have to do is get it all working.

Week off!

2004-07-05T01:10:00.000+08:00

My boss was going on leave this week, and suggested that maybe I take some time off too before the semester rush started again. But to be back for the 2 weeks before semester, which basically meant this week. Ah well, I'd hit a brief lull so without said boss to give new crises to me I'd be doing a fair bit of tedious makework, so having the time off makes sense. Need a break, and yay! Andrew's also taking this week off, by a not so strange coincidence, given that he does some work in the tertiary sector also.

I've also bitten two bullets in the past week. Applied for ADSL, just couldn't resist any more now that work has a VPN that makes it useful to get for telecommuting, and also paid off my HECS.

Just the mortgage to worry about now.

Loved Shrek 2, and for those who haven't seen it yet, remember to stay for all the credits. (My parents didn't realise this. Maybe I'll have to go see it again.)

Waiting, waiting...

2004-06-30T00:35:00.000+08:00

While I am informed that DVD releases being delayed is no unusual thing, I'm still disappointed that I have to wait 2 more weeks at least for my Press Gang S2 DVD.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to watch my Jonathan Creek box sets, or proof, or get Andrew to bring our copy of Pirates of the Caribbean (CotBP) down. (Part of my anniversary gift to us. Together 5 years now, wow!)

Or I could sort out the study, or clean the house up, or do that puzzle Anna gave me for Xmas, or, well, I'm not lacking things to do obviously :)

Fridge better!

2004-06-18T00:15:00.000+08:00

The repair guy diagnosed my fridge problems (freezer worked, fridge part barely below ambient) as 'iced up the wazoo'. Lots of digging of ice out later the fridge was left to defrost to remove the ice in places that the repairman cannot reach. Since it was off anyway, towards the end of this time I decided a clean out and up would not be a bad thing, so I now have a clean, cold, working fridge. Now all I have to do is get new stuff to put in it.

Ironing done. Washing up mostly done. House not looking unbearably untidy. Even more or less up to date with my financial records. Given my energy levels at the moment this is frankly astonishing, but I guess if I try to do things in the evening hours where my energy appears to be peaking then all is good.

Cool review by Grant of the Press Gang Season 1 DVD collection. Had already got S1, have S2 on preorder and should be winging its way over from the UK sometime soon :)

Apparently the season 1 DVD was one of Network's best selling releases this year, along with 'A very peculiar practice'.

Looking forward to Season 2. With extras!

Sleepy...

2004-06-15T14:52:00.000+08:00

Either I am very tired of late, or, more likely my work/social patterns are not matching what my body clock wants. I'm not enjoying rising for work, I get tired again mid afternoon till about 6ish, then around 8pm or so I feel more awake and can continue happily until 2am. Of course if I do so then the next morning's rise is even more unpleasant.

Either I have to try to get earlier nights and force my body clock to accomodate, or if that doesn't work try to find another reason for my tiredness.

Oh well, with luck the guy coming to look at my fridge tomorrow will fix it and I will be able to store perishables in the fridge part again.

I get Monday off!!!

2004-06-04T16:13:00.000+08:00

The uni this year seemed to have trouble deciding which public holidays the uni was open or closed for. Each subsequent email confusing me further, however today's email left no room for confusion. The uni is closed on Monday and I get to stay home! (Yay!)

Of course this means I'll probably spend some of the day doing those little jobs I never have time to do otherwise, but I might have my Nanna over to visit which would be good.

Now if only this persistent mild headache would go away.

Andrew is a happy happy camper. His new monitor has arrived and he is still basking in the glow of new geek toy ownership. And of course increased productivity :)

I hab a code

2004-05-29T21:44:00.000+08:00

Yep, the lurgi has gotten me, so far I'm not stuffed up, just a slight sore throat and a bit of a drip but still trying to stay away from people with fragile immune systems.

Been proofing some old roman philosophers, they had some very odd ideas is all I can say really.
I can now transliterate greek fairly quickly with only minimal recourse to a transliteration table.

So I'm proofing, a nice sedentary task, trying to get enough liquids and trying to keep warm. (laptops make good lapwarmers)

Watched a UK new series on friday called Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin (Maddy from the first few seasons of Jonathan Creek) liked it so far. Nice characters. Brits do quirky well. Definitely want to watch pt 2.

One of Andrew's sisters has reported in her alive and wellness from Paris, lucky girl is having a nice round the world trip. Settlers won't be the same without her here. We might win occasionally.

Time for more fluid intake. :)

Smile time.

2004-05-25T10:23:00.000+08:00

Saw that episode of Angel this week. What can I say? (Probably not too much in case some people haven't seen it. I know I wish I'd had less spoilers going in)

I know it has probably changed the way I will see any edutainment program in the future. A classic, classic episode.

Awake but not glad to be....

2004-05-19T15:53:00.000+08:00

I do seem to have managed it this week. I've been actually waking up, and more importantly, getting up when my alarm goes off. Of course this has been aided by the use of my mobile phone as an alarm. It wasn't that useful when it was on my bedside table, but now that I've got it on the other side of the room it seems to be working much better. Once I'm up and moving I can generally keep going. I do have an actual alarm clock over there that beeps just before the phone, but it stops eventually. The phone pauses briefly and then starts beeping again until I can't stand the noise any longer.

Now if I can only feel awake I will be happy. Well, happier.

Monday blues

2004-05-16T23:30:00.000+08:00

Well it's still Sunday night but I'm not exactly jumping for joy at going back to work. I don't know if it's the weather or what but I've been having more and more trouble getting up in the mornings.

Hopefully it's just the weather. Must remember to upload the changes I made to the work I was doing to the server before I go in tomorrow.

Well it's getting late and I still have a half hour drive before I can collapse into my bed so just a short post tonight.

Getting my blog to match the rest of my color scheme.

2004-05-15T21:42:00.000+08:00

Well, I have a Jarrah coffee table (It does look nice.) Wine coloured sofas, wine coloured rug, wine coloured glasses (spectacles) and so I thought with the recent trend in revamping of blogs I'd try to get my blog to match a bit. May do a bit of tweaking still but I quite like the look so far. (Glad I remembered to save my previous template before picking a new one. Managed to get my sidebar back in fairly short order.)

Went to book club this week, (though I should really have read the book I guess) and was a little taken aback by the number of children there were. The adults did outnumber them, just. Bryn is out of PMH and seems to be doing well and Fe and Shay were making their first social appearance with little Aeryn Connor.

Van Helsing

2004-05-05T21:14:00.000+08:00

Oh dear, you know a film isn't doing well when a monk (sorry friar) and a corset can steal the show!

New look

2004-05-04T11:28:00.000+08:00

Well, I've got new glasses (wine coloured frames, ie a nice slightly purple red) and am getting used to them. I also went furniture shopping on saturday and bought my last 'big' piece of furniture for my place. A nice jarrah coffee table with a smoked glass top inset which I think will look very nice next to my sofas and on my rug.

My bruise is now mostly yellow with a blue/black/purple surround so I'm hoping that will be mostly cleared up in another week. The arm scrape is similarly healing. The tooth I'll just have to wait and see according to the dentist, so no hard foods for me for the next few weeks.

In an attempt not to lose one of my few forms of exercise I got back on my bike today and rode in. So far so good but I've still 'the hill' to face this evening.

It's a bit early to say, but from looking at a couple of pics of Fe and Shay's new bub, he looks like he's taking after his dad.

For those interested in Astronomy the Perth Observatory is trialing a new sky camera that will take pictures of the sky at night from perth observatory.

Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics: semiconductor physics, Edge Emitting Lasers and VCSELs

2004-04-30T09:58:00.000+08:00

Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics: semiconductor physics, Edge Emitting Lasers and VCSELs

The mind boggles. It actually is a site on semiconductor physics, from the basics of semiconductors up to lasers, crystal growth, photolithography and much more.

There are also some pictures of Britney dotted around the site.

My what lovely colours

2004-04-28T22:36:00.000+08:00

Glasses repaired. Had a checkup and ordered new ones (Was going to anyway but this certainly got me moving in that direction.) Seeing dentist soon about a possible cracked tooth. The rest of my bruises and scrapes are turning lovely colours. I have been advised about arnica oil and am putting it to use on the bruises.

This morning when I walked by the speedbump it had some yellow warning bollards next to it. This evening as I walked by again the whole speedbump was a nice, bright, visible yellow so this shouldn't happen to anyone else.

Looks like I'll be spending a lot of time in this week, book club not on, badminton I'm too sore for. Hopefully will get to Kylie's thing on Friday night.
Time to tend my bruises before bed.

Ouch.

2004-04-26T21:26:00.000+08:00

I have come to the conclusion that I don't like speedbumps. Especially ones that have been moved. And are the same colour as the road. Halfway down a steep hill. At dusk.

It's mostly very embarassing, I haven't done that on a bike since I was a child.

I have assorted scrapes and bruises but so far the only things that seem to be broken are my glasses and my bike lamp. I'm using an old pair of glasses for now but plan to get new ones soon. Old ones may be fixable as backup, (lenses fine, but need new fishing line)

Many, many thanks to Art for the lift et al. I really didn't fancy walking home in the dark, with or without the bike.

Explosion imminent?

2004-04-23T00:21:00.000+08:00

Andrew has downloaded the new 'I, Robot' trailer, apparently interviews with the director stating how it was difficult making a movie from a short story collection, but that all of the stories were about how the 3-laws got 'bent', and he worked within that framework...

Interspersed with action shots from the movie of armies of robots killing people.

We suspect Simon may explode if he sees it.

Today I've been shifting computers at work, with the usual hassle of trying to find details for software you installed 4 years ago but are still using. More to go tomorrow, but the essential stuff is on there so far.

I even tidied up a bit tonight, my place looks like only a small bomb hit it, rather than a tactical nuke :)

I can't remember if I've got anything on this weekend, apart from movies on friday. Poor Andrew has to work Friday & Sunday nights. Friday will be the killer as he has lectures to give in the morning.

Recovering from the con :)

2004-04-14T17:06:00.000+08:00

Well, it was a good con. Lots to do, lots to see, now if only I could have all that fun and enough sleep. Oh well, catching up slowly. Only minus is that I was tired, and didn't think to watch Dr Who on Monday and my tape at home had run out already. :( Oh well.
Time for the traditional post-con pancakes!

Fuelwatch makeover

2004-04-07T16:19:00.000+08:00

Now, I don't think I'm the only one to use the FuelWatch site to see if I should fill up and where. But I must admit I was a little boggled at first by the new design. Where was the black and orange??? However a little playing around found where they'd put the standard searches etc, and a neat new feature. You can click on a map symbol and see the location of a petrol station, (If like me you're suburb challenged) but that's not all, the map shows all the petrol stations in its range, you can move around like whereis.com.au and the prices are shown on the map itself. There are maps both for today, and when tomorrow's prices are available, for tomorrow as well. I like. :)

I know that face....

2004-04-01T13:59:00.000+08:00

Dr Who and the Silurians - the current one showing on ABC at the moment appears to be stuffed full of familiar faces, early in their careers. Geoffrey Palmer, Paul Darrow, Fulton Mackay...

Given that a fair few people had parts in various Dr Who adventures, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for future occurrences.

Feeling better today, though more sleep would be welcome, think hayfever starting to subside.

Tired

2004-03-31T12:41:00.000+08:00

Whether it's hayfever, an incipient cold, or one too many late nights I'm feeling on the sleepy side of late. Hope I wake up in time for badminton. I seem to be blogging mostly on wednesdays recently, not sure why.

Still on the plus side, I've started doing content providing for distributed proofreaders, my car has been looked at and has stopped making the noise that has been worrying me for the last few weeks, and I think I'll have a nice relaxing veggie night tonight. And of course, Swancon is approaching rapidly :)
Ah well, back to work.

Whew

2004-03-17T17:37:00.000+08:00

Well, launch happened. Web site was more or less finished (tweaking to do and grabbing a few more content bits) but it looks fairly pretty. Nice to get back to the usual insanity. Feel free if you want to look at what I spent the last week sweating over, the Research Institute for Sustainable Energy website.
Very green. Appropriate for a sustainable energy centre, and appropriately enough we launched on St Patrick's day. Ah begorrah.

I've also updated my atom feed to full so my bits in the planet ucc thingy don't come out feeling truncated.
However now I'm hungry and I have badminton in just over an hour, so I'm going to go find some nice unhealthy fast food to eat before badminton.

And back to frantic

2004-03-13T15:14:00.000+08:00

Argh, after a week or so of merely being busy, it's back to frantic again as I seem to have been given the job to get a website ready for a major launch. On Wednesday. I've been at it most of the week and provided I get given content for the remaining pages it should be working by the deadline. Just don't ask me about domain names. They are not my problem!

Went to the UCC fresher welcome yesterday evening. Usual crush, especially around the corner where they were doing the PGP signings. Lots of pizza, those with the chicken fingers were interesting.

Doing a little post proofing on my 4th Mirror in the couple of hours lull time I have left before doing my volunteering up at the observatory. Then tomorrow it's the Swancon Quiz Day, which is usually fun. We plan to follow that by some board gaming somewhere so weekend looking kinda full. But full of fun which is a good kind of full.

Brrr

2004-03-08T17:25:00.000+08:00

Well, here's a little dip in the warm summer weather, I assume Pam is enjoying it to the hilt.

Went to the observatory summer lecture last night. It had rained earlier in the day and we weren't sure if we'd have to go to the backup plan, but the rain didn't last and the skies were clear for the talk on the Void at the end of the Universe. Good talk, but the more prepared people were definitely rugged up, it was more than a little on the nippy side, especially if you've been used to the 30°C+ days we'd been having. The Bureau of meteorology assures us that the weather will warm up again but last night, and today have been a little on the cool side, and alas, I did not dress for cool. My attempts to remedy this would not win me any fashion prizes, but at least kept me from shivering for most of the day. This building does not heat up quickly.

Work settling down

2004-03-01T11:08:00.000+08:00

Well, 1st semester is underway, and the pace has cranked down from frantic to merely busy.

I have my new geek toy. Very nice to have a phone/pda. Andrew is stoked with his purchase too, we were working in the evening on saturday so it was a little tricky dragging him away from his new toy long enough, still was a good tour. Nice and clear.

Off to observatory

2004-02-28T17:52:00.000+08:00

Just a quick pop in, got to get changed before I do my volunteering stuff tonight. It can get chilly up there.

I may soon have a new geek toy, Andrew succumbed and has gotten the new P900 and is a happy camper, which means I may soon have his 'old' P800 mobile phone. Which is a big step above my current one.

Whee :)
Oh well time to change

Yay, back inside

2004-02-22T20:29:00.000+08:00

We've moved inside :) Much warmer. Though I seem to be susceptible to the cold today as I'm still feeling chilly. Today's daily set puzzle is proving trickier than normal.

Baack

2004-02-22T19:59:00.000+08:00

Well, it's been a while since I blogged. Work has been busy and social life also, which is both good and bad, but haven't had time to blog much.

Work's stressed because semester starts on Monday and the frantic rush to get ready for the start of semester has kept me busy.

Social's been busy with watching some movies some good, some not so good. Some plain silly.

And of course Valentines day, had a nice dinner with Andrew at the Annalakshmi at the barrack st jetty. Very nice vegetarian indian food.

Saw The Angriest Video Store Clerk in the World II last night. Was fun, was interesting that as we went along to the theatre we seemed to pick up more and more SF fans heading to the theatre in nearly every eating place we passed, and in northbridge that is quite a few.

Patrick seems to have recovered from the accident.

Hope Pamela survived last week's hot days, especially the day where we weren't allowed any air conditioning :(

Has cooled down nicely since, though considering I'm sitting outside right now, perhaps a little too cool for sitting outside at night in shorts & t-shirts.

Playing game though so not having much luck in persuading the rest of them to move inside.

After the con.

2004-01-27T15:44:00.000+08:00

Well genghiscon was fun. Played many many games, sat in on some panels, sang along with a roomful of people who were singing the songs from Buffy - The Musical (Once More with Feeling).

Even got some sleep.
Then went to fireworks with Andrew's family, including new arrival little Ashton, who slept through whole thing, mind you where we were watching from the booms didn't reach. Except for that plane going over, but he slept through that too.
Then home to discover that not only hadn't I taped what I thought I had taped, but I'd taped over the 3rd part of the Dr Who & the Gunfighters episode with guff. Before I watched it. Oh well.

Now settling back into work after the long weekend.

Busy week...

2004-01-21T09:48:00.000+08:00

Whew, apart from being borrowed from my usual work for a week, this is turning into a very busy week for me, caught up with Craig who is back in Perth for a bit on Saturday night and Monday. Last night I watched Spy Kids 3D and my eyes are still recovering. Was fun, though Andrew says the 3D bit didn't really work for him. Least unlike prior 3D movie attempts the bits that were 3D it didn't matter if it looked slightly odd.
Tonight I think badminton is back and my weekly singing also. Tomorrow is the swancon Underworld screening, and then Friday Genghiscon starts.
That will take up the weekend, and I might get a bit of a break on monday before the Australia day Fireworks.
Ah well, back to work!

Night mobile!

2004-01-13T20:33:00.000+08:00

My car's little wiring problem (insulation in the wires going into the hatch had rotted away leaving a mass of shorting copper) is now all fixed. I can now drive safely at night without worrying about not having brake lights, or unilluminated licence plates.

Got the airconditioning regassed at the same time so I now don't have to rely on the roll down the window method, which is good because with the heat some days are getting that's becoming a less reliable method of aircon.

An Auntie?

2004-01-08T13:50:00.000+08:00

Well, Andrew is now an Uncle, so I guess that makes me the nearest thing to an Auntie I'll probably get in quite a while. His brother's fiancee had a little boy today. Ashton John, who I might get to see at the weekend. (I'd go visit earlier but I don't want to give new baby my cold germs)

Seen some, well slightly colour challenged photos but the new Mum and Dad look happy and the baby, well, asleep really :)

I guess the next few years will show whether I'm really trend resistant, what with the large increase in infants my friends seem to be producing lately.

Bleah

2004-01-07T00:39:00.000+08:00

Well, back to work. Though so far I've spent maybe one morning at my workplace. Given that at the weekend I came down with a rotten cold and am now coughing and sneezing and not really inclined to spread my germs around if I can avoid it, so yesterday afternoon and today I worked from home. Yay for telecommuting.

Enjoyed NY party. Hopefully that isn't where I picked up this cold, but I know of at least 2 people there who were feeling sniffly so that might be where I got it. Or not. So hard to tell.

Have seen and enjoyed RotK. It's fun, but take a bathroom break before you go in. It is indeed long.

Still figuring out what to do about car. Head not in state to make decisions.

Bed sounds like a good idea.

New years eve

2003-12-31T13:53:00.000+08:00

Well, 2003 is nearly finished, and looking back there have been some down spots, but overall for me it's been a pretty good year, especially the latter half. My place is looking much more nifty with the rug and cushions I got for Xmas :) I also got a scanner which I suspect will complete my Distributed Proofreaders addiction.

I'm still employed, I've got a good place to live, my social life is good, my romantic life is good :). Now if I could only learn to organise and tidy up stuff.

Ok, minor problems with car but it's still drivable.

Here's hoping 2004 will fix my car and be a fun and enjoyable year.!

Twas the night before the night before Xmas

2003-12-23T23:27:00.000+08:00

Well, it's been a busy week. Over a week without blogging. Most of that seems to have been spent Xmas shopping, Xmas shopping and yet more Xmas shopping. Then of course the wrapping of the presents. Still I'm done now, and I even took time to watch a couple of movies. Peter Pan, which I enjoyed and I direct you to Grant and Simon's blogs for more detailed reviews. To be honest, I didn't even notice Peter's accent. Too much exposure to US accents via TV I guess, I don't notice them unless they're very strong.

And tonight I went with Anna, Art & the sproglets and a few other friends to see Looney Tunes: Back in Action which Simon had recommended to us. A good successor to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Lots and lots and LOTS of in jokes. I suspect DVD sales of this one will be high if only just so people can watch for all the background jokes.
Laughter from diminutive person sitting next to me suggested that while some of the jokes may only be understood by those who grew up with this stuff, it's still funny enough without that background.

Spent some time in DP withdrawal, the Distributed Proofreader's host site was having some sort of core move and the site was having long periods of downtime. The second of which was apparently due to not all the i's having being dotted on the DNS updates. IPs were provided and hosts files amended for the proofaholics among us while the DNS was being fixed and propagated, but the monthly goal isn't looking particularly attainable, but we shall see.

My second postproofing project was posted to project gutenberg this week so I'm feeling quite chuffed about that. My aim now is to post proof a project with no mistakes whatsoever. :)

(For anyone interested Mrs Beeton's The Book of Household Management is now available in plain txt form from Project Gutenberg.)

And Steve Moffat has indeed confirmed as Kylie said that the Press Gang Season 1 DVD is indeed GO! (He just wishes they'd asked him about it because they had plenty of extras they could have given them. Oh well, maybe next season's DVD)

Weekend was fairly quiet apart from going to Sam's BBQ on Sunday evening. The cool wind on the foreshore makes for low fly and mossie count but the wind chill factor did prevent it being a very late affair.

Well, as may technically be Christmas Eve now, and I'm going in to work in the morning I should finish off and head to bed. Merry Xmas all that celebrate it, and I'll probably see a lot of people at Fe's drop in or the NY party.

Slightly more coherent

2003-12-15T00:31:00.000+08:00

Well, the tree is in, up and decorated. Then we went to the carols by candlelight up here, (not any of us religious, it's just a nice community thing and we like to sing)

(My own little tree at my place is also up but it's only a little fibre optic one)

We returned from Carols to find that Denver the dog had spent the time removing the seats from the sofa, then excavating as much foam as possible from under the seats. Put the cushions back and it looks fine. Sittable :)

Waiting to find out if rumoured DVD release of 1st season of Press Gang is for real. Amazon.uk and Blackstar have it available for preorder, but Steve Moffatt has yet to be notified about it or indeed paid so may still be some gum in the works.

I guess tomorrow it will be time to start wandering around shops and hoping for some inspiration to hit me.

Tree day.

2003-12-13T23:20:00.000+08:00

Today we went to pick up the Xmas tree, new place this year as the previous place had shut down. Bit more selection at this place and we ended up with a nice tree, not overly large, but not tiny either. Well, it won't be me picking up the needles. Just a bit worried about how the cats will react to it. This being the most recent two's first Christmas.

Played trivial pursuit last night till fairly late. I am so bad at geography.

Agh. It's too late, I'm not really coherent. Time for bed. Tomorrow is tree decoration day.
Channel 10 is being very confusing, they've either repeated the new TMNT series pilot or are showing them seriously out of order.

TMNT - The turtle saga continues.

2003-12-10T23:04:00.000+08:00

First there were the comics, about 4 weird guys with shells, who liked pizza, and could do some nifty ninja stuff, written by Eastman and Laird. Then in the late 80's (87ish) Arrived the animated TV show. This was a lot lighter in tone than the comics, being aimed mostly at kids (and even then it got edited for the UK market where it is apparently illegal to use the word 'Ninja' on TV so they got called the Hero Turtles there). And this was fine and fun, and sparked a huge craze. I liked it. It was self-referential and fun. (Ok, My favourite Turtle was Donatello, hey he's a science geek and wears a purple bandana, how could I resist?)

And then there came the Movies. Live action. First one was OK, the animatronic turtles were interesting but a guy in a rubber suit just doesn't look smooth when fighting.
The second, so so, the third I didn't bother with.

Then there came the live action TV series *shudder*. I saw a couple of bits of this and was appalled. Very juvenile baddies, mostly the same ones every week (no I didn't watch it that often...it was on before something else I watched, honestly) and again the anamatronic suits just couldn't pull off the grace of ninjas. And, in an attempt possibly to be PC, they added a 5th turtle. Female. Who could do magic (URGH).

And now this year comes a new animated series. Channel 10 has it on in the morning around 8am so I caught an episode while eating breakfast, watched another today. I think I've missed a couple so it's hard to say for sure, but the new series seems to be following the original comic series much more closely. (Well, not totally, but much much closer than the original animated series.) Scenes from the comic book, if not the exact storyline (the change of mediums most likely to blame there) are in the new series, which is in feel a lot darker than the original animated series.

I wonder if we'll see the Triceratons in this one. (The Cerebus crossover I'm not expecting)

So far I quite like it. Time will tell.

Woohoo

2003-12-10T00:42:00.000+08:00

I'm on leave till after Xmas! Yay!

Plenty of time to take care of things.

Including my 2nd postproofing project for Distributed Proofreaders which I have nearly finished.

Very tired now so going to go to bed, and turn off all my alarm clocks :) Except, hmm, spotted a new animated series of TMNT on channel 10 in the mornings, would I get up for that? Dunno :) Ahh nostalgia

No more marking

2003-12-07T18:09:00.000+08:00

Well, after a week of mostly marking exams I've had a fairly relaxing weekend.

Friday was quiet apart from a very nice Xmas lunch. Tis the season to get stuffed :)
Yesterday was mostly vegging, bit of proofing and watching Thursday's farscape. Today was gaming day and we played some Settlers of Catan, a bit of Feng Shui and a couple of rounds of Set.

Two more working days before Xmas!
Then I'm on leave and will have time to tidy house, Xmas shop, sort out study etc. And of course try and think of xmas presents.

I'm not quite sure of the reason for the uncommon fennish gender skew at Bookclub (Simon's Blog) Are females more literary, or is it a mere glitch in the statistics to do with this group?

Pamela might be finding it quite hot, but I think I'm enjoying the weather at the moment.

New blogging interface?

2003-11-30T00:31:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-30T00:02:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-25T22:44:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-21T13:44:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-20T11:32:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-18T17:31:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-17T17:08:00.000+08:00

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.

2003-11-15T22:43:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-14T11:52:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-12T21:32:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-12T14:10:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-07T17:16:00.000+08:00

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!

2003-11-04T12:59:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-02T13:53:00.000+08:00

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

2003-11-01T11:09:00.000+08:00

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 :)

Happy happy

2003-10-30T22:49:00.000+08:00

My parents dropped off my new filing cabinet (thank you! thank you!), Andrew is back from Darwin/Adelaide and I just had a fun time at the Gengiscon quiz night. (Hi Pamela...yeah yeah...well, I got a consolation purple bandana....Mmm Purple)
All is pretty good. :)
Andrew was going to be back on Friday, but hey everything was packed up and he didn't see the point in hanging around another day so he's back home, and glad to be. Did mean I was at the quiz night so couldn't meet him at the airport, but ah well, he had plenty of family to meet him. Though as it turns out his plane was a little on the late side. If he wasn't an astronomer he'd be thinking he was up late. :)

Finally finished my postproofing of my first project for Distributed Proofreaders, and, glutton for punishment that I am, have downloaded another one ;) A 1921 thriller. Looks kinda interesting.

As the end of the semester approaches I'm thinking about panicking about the amount I still have left to do, but ah..who has the time? I'm ahead on my 'recording' stuff this week so I've got all tomorrow clear. (was going to go to some student seminars but boss says lecture notes and labs are my priority. Fair enough) At least I don't have to worry tomorrow about crashing the audio software.

Was thinking about going to Dave's Halloween party, but I think with Andrew just back we'd both prefer a nice quiet night in :)

One more early rise to go!

2003-10-28T17:00:00.000+08:00

Well, only one more early rise to go now. After next tuesday I shan't have to worry about early morning rises till next semester. Wheeee! To counteract this decadence I intend to ride more into work given that the sun is now still in the sky at 5pm and the weather is getting better.

Still no idea what I'm doing on Friday apart from welcoming Andrew back home :).

I am enormously appreciative of my parental units who have kindly agreed to pick up my filing cabinet for me. I was worried about doing it myself on two counts.

My car is only a little hatchback and getting it in and out could be tricky

I am not exactly an iron woman and the idea of lugging it up the stairs to my place was not appealing

OK, off to move my car so that I can load extra boxes into them for earlier mentioned friend, drop them off at her place and be home in time for Dr Who (because I forgot to change tapes this morning)

So much for that idea.

2003-10-27T14:00:00.000+08:00

Well, it looks like I won't be getting the filing cabinet today after all. More time to chase someone up I guess. :)

And timing seems to be working at the moment as someone needs the boxes I just emptied as they're moving house shortly.

Well, Simon should be back in the country by now. Welcome back! Hope the jetlag isn't too bad.

Just had lunch so feeling sleepy. Oh that's right. Coffee...time for coffee!! Then back to work!

Success!

2003-10-27T11:12:00.000+08:00

My back room is (nearly) unpacked. And with a bit of luck I'll have the filing cabinet to make the unpacking of the rest of my stuff easy by the end of the day. (Provided I can find someone to give me a hand lugging it up the stairs.)

Had a fun time on Saturday night at Emma's place. Lots of nicely arranged food and dressed up people. (Though Tessa's lime green mittens didn't really match the rest of her outfit :) ) Sorry Patrick, but had already committed to this before your invite. Not that you posted it to my topic anyway ;)

Andrew expects to be in Adelaide either today or early tomorrow, and home Friday night. Now I just have to find out what else I'm doing friday night till airport time :)