Friday, October 31, 2003
 | [9] |
Sorry, Dad. I've joined the NRA Blacklist. Nobody needs assault weapons to kill deer!
Hee! CouchCam is now BlankWallCam as we've moved the furniture around for the party. I'm not sure yet if we'll be broadcasting live from the festivities, as I think the Snook's planning on pulling up our network cable (so our guests don't trip on it). Regardless, the digital camera is ready for some action...
 | [5] |
 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Everyone should start Halloween off with a disturbing sight, right? With that in mind, I give you the Penis Bear. Yes, click on that image and check out the close-up. I discovered Penis Bear earlier in the week when a co-worker pointed him out. There he was, sitting nonchalantly in the back window of a random beat up Ford. He's been there ever since. I couldn't resist sneaking up to take a photo. Who manufactures such a thing? Why is he uncircumsized? Who in my office is actually weird enough to drive around with this in their car? The world may never know.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
 | [7] |
Girlie SOS!
I've got the vinyl pants. I've got the skanky top. I've even got the push-up bra. But for me to really be Sarah Michelle Gellar tomorrow night, I need a face pancaked with Maybelline products. I'm terrible at applying makeup but I've got the basic supplies. So tell me, oh glamour girls, how would you go about getting Buffy's look? (I'm going for Season 2 Buffy, if that matters.) Please be as detailed as possible with your application instructions because I'm a dork and if there's a way to get it wrong, I will. :)
 | [4] |
Thanks to Rent-a-Chook, I'm now obsessed with the idea of raising chickens in our backyard. They could eat all the scraps that the worms don't and weed our garden too! And they'd make lots of yummy free range eggs for us. The only problem is our apartment; I'm not sure the landlord would approve. Drat. There go my fantasies of living The Good Life.
"Not all Americans are evil." A well-appreciated essay from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. (Link courtesy of Expats Against Bush.)
At the request of Mia, I've pulled out all my Atkins-related posts and put them on one page. (She's just starting it; good luck Mia!) Some of them seem a little random because the initial post has nothing to do with Atkins but the comments discussion gradually drifted that way. You know how it is.
 | [3] |
Thanks to Amy for the heads up about Spellbound returning to Sydney cinemas. I was disappointed to have missed it the first time so I'm definitely planning to go. I missed going to the National Spelling Bee by four places in junior high. I won our County Bee but only finished fifth in the regionals. Can't say I regret it though, as it sounds like a nightmare of stress.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
| [2] |
Ebert adds Alien to his list of Great Movies. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never actually seen it!
| [1] |
Ted from Queer Eye and The Elf from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer... Separated at birth? Hahahaha. I love Ted.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Did anyone else think that Rove, Paulini, and Millsy were covertly bashing Cosima on Rove Live tonight? I loved it. Laughed and laughed.
| [5] |
RunningBlog:
Gym Stuff.
You know what annoys me? People that offer unsolicited nutrition and exercise advice without knowing anything about me. Somebody recently suggested that I increase my carb level since I'm doing all that long distance running. Newsflash! I'm not doing the running anymore. I've been on a weightlifting program for over a month. I do cardio training but only for short periods (working at a target heart rate). Also - how do you know how many carbs I'm eating? I mean honestly. Some people doing Atkins (the ones in Lifetime Maintenance) eat up to 100 grams of carbs a day! "Eat more carbs" is vague advice based on nothing but assumptions. I eat plenty of carbs. I just choose to ingest them in the form of green vegetables instead of white flour. I'd certainly consider changing my diet if I expected to run a marathon anytime soon, but I don't. And besides, it's not like I'm an Olympian or anything...
...Which seques nicely into this long article on the effects of banned substances in athletes. It's fascinating. The author actually subjects himself to many of the popular drugs and steroids to see what happens. Some of it sounds awful (especially the possible side effects), but I was surprised to see his positive experience with human growth hormone. Who wouldn't like to see better and have scars disappear? Reminds me about all the supposed benefits of the DHEA my thyroid doctor put me on. (For the record, I haven't really noticed any side effects beyond the fact that I'm not cold all the time anymore, which was the whole point of taking them.) Right now I'd love some sort of muscle steroid; I pulled the hell out of my shoulder in Pump class on Saturday and it's not getting any better. Any ideas that don't involve thousands of dollars worth of synthesized hormones? (For the clueless, yes, this is a solicitation for advice. So comment away!)
Monday, October 27, 2003
| [2] |
Hooray! The evening wasn't a total loss... The USA Eagles finally won! The Eagles defeated Japan 39-26 to snap a sixteen-year losing streak. And we got a bonus point! How sweet is that?!
| [5] |
Gah. Australian Idol is a friggin' tragedy. The two best singers scored the least votes, and the amazingly talented Paulini got booted. Meanwhile the two big bland white dorks go through for another week. I give up. I'm not voting anymore and I'm not watching. The Australian public has let me down in a big way.
Just so you know, I don't think OS X 10.3 actually broke Kung Tunes. I downloaded the latest version from the site and it works fine. I think I just had an old copy.
| [34] |
It's time again for another brain-wracking, soul-sucking, time-wasting beeatch of a quiz! Can you identify these bands and TV personalities? Download this spreadsheet and save it to your hard drive. How many can you get? I'm up to twenty right now. I figure we can get them all if we collaborate. Post your answers in the comments.
Kudos to Jeff for a great Halloween costume... Human Sushi!
 | [2] |
Got legroom? Add that to my Christmas list.
| [3] |
I actually broke down and voted for Australian Idol today. I wasn't going to, but my co-workers were talking about it this morning and their opinions were all wrong. They actually liked Shannon's performance! He's got a decent voice, I'll admit, but the boy doesn't even make eye contact or open his mouth when he sings! Everybody was like, "Wow, his movement and rhythm are really coming along, aren't they?" just because he managed to snap his fingers in time to the music. He's a great karaoke singer but the Idol he is not. Guy and Paulini are the true talents and I'll be damned if I let some pretty boy farmer and his squealing teenage fans knock one of them out. (Cosima deserves to go too, of course. She looks like Cherie Blair and she sings like Celine Dion. *shudder* A truly lethal combination.)
Sunday, October 26, 2003
| [7] |
Oh. My. God.
The Snook and I spent the best part of the afternoon today gardening. Yes, gardening. We needed to transplant our baby tomatoes and I've got lots of other veggies we need to start. (I found sweetcorn seedlings at Kmart! I told the Snook we had to get them. They'll probably be hopelessly oversized for the space, but I like the idea of growing a little bit of Indiana here.) Anyway, we've got a triangular flower bed in the backyard that we thought would be perfect. Unfortunately all the rain we've had lately turned it into a total weed jungle! So we bought a hoe and the Snook did his best farmer imitation. Within an hour we had it clear. We planted my sweetcorn, ten tomato plants, and a jalapeno chili plant and then gave them all a good drink. (I also went berzerk on about two dozen slugs I found in the worm farm. But the less said about my slug rage, the better.) Here are some pictures...
  
 
So that's the before picture, Snookums the triumphant farmer, and the after version. Then a closeup of our sweetcorn and our chili plant. It's not the greatest garden in the world, but it's a pretty big accomplishment for two computer geeks!
| [1] |
What's New in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Ninety percent of this stuff is "under the hood" as far as I'm concerned, but it's nice to know it's there.
Saturday, October 25, 2003
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Woohoo! I have officially upgraded to Panther. I got my copy this morning - along with a complimentary T-shirt! - and managed to save a hundred bucks courtesy of the educational discount. (Shh!) The upgrade itself went much more smoothly than I expected. I cleared off the iPod and used it to back up the stuff I wanted to keep: applications, documents, bookmarks, my iPhoto library, mailboxes, etc. Then I reformatted the drive and did a clean install from scratch (removing the partitions I set up last time). The install process probably took twenty minutes from start to finish. Then it was just a lot of busy work - setting up accounts, importing the old stuff off the iPod, etc. I think it's all done except for downloading the latest Gimp release.
Initial impressions: Things definitely seem zippier. Not a lot, but I didn't think OS X ran very slow on my machine before. I'm loving the new Exposé thing; I've got a hot corner set on the upper-right that clears the desktop. Very useful. Snooky and I tried the fast user switching which works just fine, but as I don't have Quartz Extreme we couldn't see the ultra-cool rotating cube effect. The Font Book is pretty sweet; I'm hoping that I'll have access to the system fonts once I get the Gimp going. (We couldn't get 'em to work before but I had a dodgy installation, I think.) So far I've had two applications break after the upgrade: Kung-Tunes and icWord. Everything else seems to be working okay. Oh, and I got rid of Classic! No more OS9; I've taken the leap. (I never used it much anyway.) More updates to follow once I've played around some more...
Friday, October 24, 2003
| [3] |
Crud. Not only did the Herald not publish my letter, they sent me a really stupid response too. Read on if you want to see the exchange. [more...]
Holy crap! You can now search the actual text of over 120,000 books at Amazon. This would be awesome for research... Too bad I'm not in uni anymore. Though I suppose it'll come in handy the next time I've got a phrase stuck in my head that I can't identify!
| [1] |
Welcome home to Brigita's Mister, after a long, long time at sea.
Look at the Aussie dollar! Go, you good thing, go!
I miss Fall in Indiana.
My Dad sent me that this morning.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
| [2] |
Planning a trip to New Zealand anytime soon? I think the Snook and I are definitely going to have to check out these Lord of the Rings filming locations.
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Lately I've been thinking about icons and usability, and specifically whether the little link, e-mail, and speech bubble icons before each post are intuitive. Most other bloggers seem to have settled on using text links. I worry that new visitors to the site won't realize that they can leave comments. So I'm running an experiment. As you can see, I've removed the icons in favor of text links. (I scrapped the e-mail link altogether; was anybody using it? The address was wrong anyway!) I should be able to track which method resulted in the most first-time comments. Right now, I'm not sure I like it. I find it difficult to visually distinguish between posts, but maybe that's just because I'm used to the old system. What do you guys think? Did you find w-g confusing the first time you visited?
Update: Okay, okay, they're back! I did get rid of the e-mail icon though. I guess in certain situations usability comes secondary to the interests of long-time users. :)
Exasperated Co-worker: "I'm writing up some documentation for the new website administrator trying to explain how to update our site. And do you know what? Only one f***ing thing automatically updates! Seventy-five percent of this information already exists on our other sites but there's no integration!"
Me: "I know... What's the one thing that works?"
Her: "The distributors list."
Me: "I WROTE THAT! *pause* It nearly killed me."
That totally made my day.
Another positive article on the Atkins Diet from today's Sydney Morning Herald. Those of us who've actually taken the time to read his books will notice a glaring error though - "Atkins dieters are instructed to begin by eliminating all carbohydrates from their diet." Wrong! I actually sent a letter to the editor to clarify. Fingers crossed it gets published!
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
| [3] |
Kristy vs. the Birds
Round 1: On our way home from work yesterday, Kevin and I were barreling down the highway when I noticed a pigeon dawdling in the road up ahead. "Better move little birdie!" I joked, fully expecting the bird to fly off any second. Suddenly WHUMP! Pigeon carcass flew past Kevin's window. "AHHHH!" we both screamed. Thank heavens it didn't fall into the open sun roof. What kind of idiot bird plays in traffic?
Round 2: Today at lunch I was sitting on a bench in the little park adjacent to our office and knitting happily away on a Hogwarts scarf. Suddenly a large bird fluttered down beside me. With horror I realized it was my avian nemesis... the kookaburra! He was big and creepy with a wicked-looking beak. (Yeah, yeah, so they're not known for attacking people. I'm a big scaredy-cat though.) "Shoo, shoo!" I muttered while waving my arms. He regarded me impassively. I picked up a small twig and threw it, figuring that would drive him off. Instead he sat there and let it hit him, and I swear he narrowed his evil reptilian eyes. In desperation, I picked up my paper lunch bag from McDonald's (I had the salad, of course) and threw it in a nearby bin, guessing that it was his ultimate aim. He didn't budge. "All right," I said. "You win. Have the damn bench." I picked up my stuff and slunk back to the office while Mr. Kookaburra watched me triumphantly. Jerk bird.
| [2] |
Expats Against Bush. Excellent. Count me in.
Major Glitter thread purge! The site sure loads faster, but unfortunately all the lovely Halloween discussions are gone. :(
"I'm a goth and I vote." I honestly fell for this one until I got to the line about Prozac. (Link courtesy of Graham.)
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
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New poll! It's two hours til the big Halloween party and you don't have a costume. What's the best last-minute option?
The iTunes Music Store has sold 1 million songs in 3.5 days. Alas, not one of them was to me. Anybody in the US mind if I switch my credit card address to your house?
In other products-I-desperately-want-but-can't-get-my-mits-on news, the Snook has made great strides with our homegrown "TiFaux" DVR project. We're using this system and so far he's got it playing live TV, displaying the program guide, and recording shows. Unfortunately we seem to be getting some antenna interference from the computer itself so the quality leaves much to be desired. Of course, as soon as we spend a ridiculous amount upgrading the machine they'll probably bring the real thing out here anyway.
| [2] |
The Ageless Project. Pretty pointless, but once I saw the lack of March 1977 blogs, I just had to add myself.
Holy crap. I was reading this interview with Mercedes McNab (aka Harmony from Buffy) when I came across this little nugget: James "Spike" Marsters is 41 years old! Whoa. He certainly doesn't look it. Maybe he is a vampire. (Link courtesy of J.Go.)
Monday, October 20, 2003
| [4] |
Oh yeah, it's on. Tonight at 7:30 pm - USA vs. Scotland. Go Eagles! Anybody in Sydney want to meet me at the pub for this one?
Update: Poo. I can't find anybody to go with and the Snook's busy with his workmates tonight. This is a sign that I should go back to my original plan of going to the gym instead of drinking beer.
You know how you meet people and you have a conversation and afterwards you think, "Hey, that wasn't so bad. I liked them! We had fun! I think they liked me," but then later you start obsessing over everything you said and you become more and more certain that you made a big ass out of yourself? Yeah, I had my second interview today. *crossing fingers*
| [2] |
I spent the morning working on the invitation for our upcoming Halloween Housewarming Party. Check it out:
Location and phone number blurred to frustrate would-be stalkers. Not that you'll recognize me and the Snook in our super-duper top-secret costumes! (The pirate idea has fallen by the wayside.)
| [4] |
Big Read - the 100 best beloved books in Britain. Roald Dahl is on this list four times! The only authors with as many mentions are Dickens (tops with five), Pratchett, Rowling, and Jacqueline Wilson. (I've never heard of her; have any of you read any of her stuff?) By my count I've read 38 of these. I have a perverse desire to go through in alphabetical order and cross them all off. It'd probably take years. Anybody want to join me?
| [2] |
Iron Chef has finally started Down Under and the Snook and I are stoked. I wonder what he'll make of this Iron Chef Fan Fic though...
Saturday, October 18, 2003
As penance for being a naughty knitter, I submitted myself to Pump class this morning. Now I feel as awful on the outside as I do on the inside!
| [4] |
The road to hell is paved with best intentions.
Knitting is supposed to be fun, right? Not this week. I have become embroiled in a scandal involving two knitting mailing lists, a major knitting magazine, and a craft board. Let's see if I can recap this coherently. (Names are, of course, obscured to protect the innocent - not that there are any.)
It all started when one person, I'll call her B, sent a forward to the knitting list I'm on. It was a cute little humorous piece which B was forwarding on from another list. She also said that it had been written and posted by A, and that A had given her permission to forward it on to us. I took that to mean that the piece was in the public domain, since it had already been forwarded to two separate mailing lists apparently with the author's blessing. It turns out that was a slight mistake on my part, but it's fairly understandable, don't you think? When you get a forward, you assume that you're safe to pass it along.
Anyway, I posted the text on a craft board I belong to, of course crediting it to A and mentioning that I'd gotten it from my knitting list. The next day another person, C, e-mailed me asking where it had come from. C's e-mail address indicated that she worked for a prominent knitting magazine, so I was eager to help. I was happy to think that I might be helping A to get her great work published. I replied to C explaining that I had gotten it on a list from B, who in turn had gotten it from a list from the author A. Then I e-mailed B to let her know that someone was trying to track down A. B wrote me back and said she'd heard from them and that she'd be happy to hook them up with A. She also mentioned that she'd contact A and let them know that the knitting magazine was interested. That's when the shit hit the fan. [more...]
Friday, October 17, 2003
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Another nailbiter baseball game... Go Red Sox! Man, I wish I could watch or listen to this. ESPN's GameTracker is nice, but following on a little Java scoreboard is pretty emotionless.
Update: Damn it. Apparently the stupid GameTracker is way behind the actual game, because as I was following along nervously in the 10th inning I suddenly noticed that the little scoreboard ticker showed a final score of 6-5 Yankees. Bastards! They spoiled what little suspense I had!
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iTunes for Windows is now available as a free download, which means all you American PC lusers can now purchase music from the iTunes music store to your hearts' content while we loyal Apple fans that happen to live overseas cannot. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
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Watching the Cubs game and crossing my fingers... and HEY! Apparently that guy who interfered on the foul ball yesterday went to Notre Dame. He's my age too, which means that conceivably he was in my graduating class! I don't recognize the name though. Research is required.
Roger Ebert writes a lovely ode to autumn leaves that includes a rant about leaf blowers and Dubya's stance on the environment. "Bush views the environment with the same interest the Romans took in the Sabine women." Heh.
For future reference (mostly for me), the phone number to request a shade card from Bendigo Woollen Mills is (03) 5442 4600. I had to request that from my knitting list as I just could not find it online.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
| [1] |
Damn. USA lost to Fiji by one stinkin' point! Too bad. Good effort, Eagles.
| [2] |
Am I the only one that hopes this genetic discrimination law will be eventually used to protect homosexuals? As good ol' Ted Kennedy says, "No American should be denied health insurance or fired from a job because of a genetic test." Now all we need to do is find the genetic basis, and whoomp! There it is! How sneaky of Congress. I like it.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Critics of the Atkins Diet have long argued that people lose weight on it simply because they eat less food. Guess what? That may not be the case. Subjects in this study lost more weight on a higher-calorie, low-carb diet than others did on a low-calorie, high-carb diet. Guess not all calories are created alike, huh? I like how the researchers' minds are clearly blown by these results. I guess this is encouragement for me to quit cheating and get back into Induction.
| [5] |
Last night that Snook got to watch his first episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He seemed to like it, though he squirmed whenever I mentioned submitting him for a makeover from the upcoming Australian version. Hee. He needs it.* I amused myself at lunch today by reading those recaps from StraightEye.com. I really need to see the infamous Lisa episode.
* The beard is definitely out of control, but he refuses to trim it until we have our official housewarming party. Why? So he can style it like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.
| [11] |
Mac Users: What's on your Dock? I found this fascinating. What's with all these people anchoring it to the side? I'm very much a default bottom center person. I also liked seeing all the funky little applications people use. So come on, let's see your Dock. I'll take a screenshot tonight and post it when I get home.
Update:
Here it is. Hmm, I didn't realize mine was so boring til now. From left to right that's: Finder, Safari, BBEdit, iTunes, iPhoto, X11, Terminal, iCal, Mail, Launchbar, iChat, and Grab (which I had open to take the screenshot). On the other side is my Applications folder and minimized iCal and Mail windows. I'd customise it more but there's not a lot of need. The apps in the Dock are the ones that get heavy usage and I generally use Launchbar to open anything else. I've got the bounce and genie effects turned on but I never use the magnification. It kinda creeps me out, the way they bulge out like that.
| [9] |
Max asks the question: "What things do you dislike that you're not supposed to?" My answers would be Radiohead, William Gibson novels, animé, Nigella Lawson, tea, sushi, foreign arthouse films, and that whole nebulous category of music that we Hoosiers simply call "techno". Sad but true.
RunningBlog:
Congratulations to my sister, whose marathon training continues. She just finished her first half-marathon! Way to go, Amy.
Monday, October 13, 2003
| [2] |
The Gallery of Ghastlies - Knitwear that never should've seen the light of day.
Woo! I am officially booked in for Camp Creative in January. I'm going to be doing the beading course. Fun!
| [1] |
I wish I had an office that overlooked the harbour. How cool would it be to look up from the computer and see whales frolicking nearby?
Interesting things I have learned recently:- USA is the reigning rugby Olympic champion. Seriously! They won the rugby gold medal at the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games, the last year Rugby was an Olympic sport. I laughed so hard at that I nearly shot beer out my nose.
- Boudicca, my computer's namesake, is supposedly buried under Platform 9 at King's Cross Station. I wonder if JK Rowling knows this.
- Korea used to be spelled Corea. Many believe the Japanese — who controlled the peninsula four years before officially colonizing it in 1910 — changed the name by the time of the 1908 Olympics in London so that Japan would come ahead in the ordering of athletes. The Snook told me this the other night and I told him that he was full of crap. A little Googling today shows however that there is indeed a movement by the Koreans to change the international spelling of their name before the Athens Olympics. Most sane people think this is ridiculous.
I like to think you're learning stuff when you visit my site.
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Recipe Time! I made a couple loaves of Zucchini Bread last week for my co-workers and it turned out really well. Some of them wanted the recipe, so here it is. [more...]
Sunday, October 12, 2003
RunningBlog:
CouchCam is back! Also, my Running Log has been taken down indefinitely. I'm still running but I'm focussing more on my lifting workout. I just didn't want y'all thinking I was a big slacker. :)
ND wins, and more importantly, we actually managed to score some touchdowns! Whew.
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Mac versus PC. The Sydney Morning Herald decides to settle the issue once and for all... and guess what? The Mac wins. Boo-yah!
| [1] |
Thanks to Amy's tipoff, I've discovered that the USA is indeed playing France in the Rugby World Cup on Halloween. How's that for a grudge match? I've been trying to get tickets but apparently the "allocation is sold". Bastard. I was really looking forward to painting my face, eating some freedom fries, and sticking it to those cheese eating surrender monkies. I guess we'll just have to watch from a pub...
Friday Five:
1. Do you watch sports? If so, which ones?
Currently I watch rugby union and cricket (plus the occasional big event, like the AFL Grand Final or the SuperBowl).
2. What/who are your favorite sports teams and/or favorite athletes?
I'm a Domer, so of course I bleed blue and gold. The closest MLB team to my hometown is the Cubs, so GO CUBBIES! Other than them, I pick my teams based on players that I like. I cheer for the Mets because I like Mike Piazza. I cheered for the 49ers because I like Steve Young. I cheered for the Pacers because I liked Larry Bird and Rik Smits. And I really like Steve Waugh, the Australian cricket Test captain.
3. Are there any sports you hate?
Anything involving a motor (i.e. NASCAR, Formula 1, or moto-racing), which unfortunately seems to be all that's on telly here on Sunday afternoons.
4. Have you ever been to a sports event?
Of course, silly. I've been to baseball games (Wrigley and Shea are definite highlights), cricket matches, rugby matches, and of course many college football games. Not to mention all the Little League games of my brother's I sat through...
5. Do/did you play any sports (in school or other)? How long did you play?
I played tennis all through high school and was the #1 varsity player my senior year. I still sucked. In college I played football for my dorm for three years and occasionally filled in for volleyball and softball.
Friday, October 10, 2003
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Shh. I might have a new job. I had an interview recently and it went really well. Company is cutting-edge yet fun, and I'd earn more than I do now. Plus I'd get to work on one of the world's most popular applications. I don't want to jinx it just yet... but maybe I can give you a hint.
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Matthew Hayden broke the all time test scoring record today with 380 against Zimbabwe. Man, I wish more of you watched cricket so you knew the significance of this. It's the equivalent of breaking the season home run record in baseball (before that became a commonplace event). Good on ya, Hayden.
Harry Potter Casting News: Emma Thompson will play Sybil Trelawney, Harry's dreaded Divinations teacher, in Prisoner of Azkaban. Cool. I kinda pictured Sybil as older, but I'm sure Emma will be able to pull it off. (Luckily Gilderoy's not around in this one, huh?) Although, what's this about the movie not coming out til next June? I thought we could expect it this year, same as the last two. Damn.
| [5] |
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI! OI! OI! The Rugby World Cup starts today and I'm pretty fired up. Sure, the Poms and the Kiwis are favored, but I think Georgie and the boys can pull it off. And hey! Even we Yanks have a team. GO EAGLES!
| [7] |
Wow, the new US $20 bill is out. I like the color. Thanks to Aussie and British money, I'm a big believer in having different colored (and sized) bills. I got so confused in the US last June whenever a cashier would hand me a wad of identical green cash.
Thursday, October 9, 2003
| [4] |
Panther is coming! Panther is coming! Hooray, we finally have a release date - October 24. That's two weeks from tomorrow! I've been waiting for this for ages. I desperately need to repartition my hard drive and clear out some old crap but I've been waiting til my next major OS install to do it. Hmm, I wonder if any of the Apple stores in Sydney will be celebrating the release. I'm way too excited about this.
Eek... $230 AU though. Ouch.
| [1] |
Happy birthday to Matt!
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
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Trivia Update: We finished a respectable fourth out of fifteen teams tonight, though the winners beat us by more than ten points. (We're fairly certain they cheat every week so we're going to try to find a new place.) My own personal highlights were identifying the Coronation Street theme and remembering Bob Dylan's real last name. A couple for you: What is the only country in the world whose name starts with the letter "O"? Which three men won the gold medals in the 100m, 200m, and 400m sprints at the Sydney Olympics? Which continent are aardvarks native to? Elton John used which mythical character's name as his own middle name?
| [6] |
Dear Residents of California*,
Thanks a friggin' lot. It's hard enough being an American living overseas - what with our President being a megalomaniacal assclown and all - and you had to go and elect the Terminator. My co-workers have been laughing about it all morning. There's only so much defending I can do, and this is pretty much indefensible. I know the bumper stickers are going to be hilarious and all, but is that really justification for electing a Hitler-praising, debate-avoiding, no-policy-or-experience-having steroid-abusing womanizer? I guess I should just be happy that Indiana's former status as "State who Elects the Dumbest Politicians" (courtesy of Dan Quayle) has finally been overshadowed.
* Except for my sister, who wasn't eligible to vote, and thus is exempt from my ire.
Note to Self: Study this list of world flags. It's trivia night!
Snook sent me a link to this article alleging that Chip and Reichen have officially "divorced". Too bad.
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
| [2] |
New Poll: What's your tummy remedy?
I'm trying to talk the Snook into participating in the Blogger Boobie-Thon for Breast Cancer with me. He's got nice boobies.
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What do you eat when you've got, uh, an "upset tummy"? I woke up with a mild case of food poisoning this morning and I haven't been able to keep a single thing in my stomach for longer than five minutes. I know I need to eat but I can't think of anything low-risk. Thoughts?
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Ma Snook and I are thinking about attending Camp Creative in a few months. It's like summer camp for grownups! I like the sound of the beading, felting, and quilting courses. The Snook himself will not be attending though, as he thinks it will be full of "dirty hippies".
Monday, October 6, 2003
Tonight I saw Japanese Story, a new Australian film starring Toni Collette. I'm not sure I can say anything meaningful about it without giving everything good away. As the director says, "Some people have just gone, like, you know, I don't get it and I don't even want to get it, you know? And then some people go, you know, thanks, I got it." I think I fall somewhere in the middle. But sometimes it's good, you know, to not "get" every single thing. I'm still thinking about it. I'd definitely recommend it.
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Discovery: there's another Wagamama in Sydney!
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Another item for my Christmas list!
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RunningBlog:
Weekend Accomplishments
Did I mention that it's Labour Day here? I really needed the three-day weekend. I entertained some of my girlfriends from the office here Friday night - in case you were wondering, that wasn't me flashing her boobs on OfficeCam, incidentally - and spent most of Saturday recovering. I also knitted like crazy. I finished another Harry Potter scarf order - a Slytherin for Kathy. Check it out. (Did I tell you that I got my hair chopped off a few weeks ago? Because I did. It looks like crap here though because I was out in the rain.) I also braved the school holiday hordes in the city today to get myself some new gym shoes. I went to the Athlete's Foot in Centrepoint and got properly measured and Fitprinted. It turns out that I have relatively flat arches but I'm weird in that I tend to roll my feet to the outside (whereas most of my flat-footed brethren roll to the inside). So I got hooked up with some sweet New Balance Women's 811 running shoes. (Apparently they're a new model because I can't find them on the site anywhere.) So that's my weekend done!
 
Sunday, October 5, 2003
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 The Sheer Stubbornness of the Home Brewer
It's pissing down, and the Snook is brewing. Outside. It's a wonder he (or that big steel pot) hasn't been struck by lightning yet. I told him last night that the weather man was predicting a storm, but he said he reckoned it would blow over quickly. By the time it started he was too far gone in the process to stop. It's pretty funny. :)
Hmmm... An opportunity for some extra pocket money. How hard could be it be to throw on some leather and yell at some Poms? Hahahahaha. (Link courtesy of John.)
Saturday, October 4, 2003
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Interesting mathematical trivia: The Dewey Decimal System classification number for numerology is 133.335. If you reverse that and add them together...
133.335 + 533.331 = 666.666!
The sign of the beast! Repeated! The math book I was reading thought it was pretty interesting, anyway.
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Friday Five:
1. What vehicle do you drive?
A giant natural gas-powered public bus. Well, I don't really drive it exactly, but sometimes I like to sit behind the driver and pretend I do.
2. How long have you had it?
For the last four years (i.e. the length of time I've been living outside the U.S.).
3. What is the coolest feature on your vehicle?
Well, it picks me up right near my house and takes me into the city for only $1.20! I don't have to park it or pay for insurance or worry about it getting stolen. I don't even have to wash it! Plus it holds lots of people and we all get happy fuzzy feelings from saving the environment.
4. What is the most annoying thing about your vehicle?
When it rains all the windows fog up.
5. If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now?
A cherry red vintage VW Beetle convertible with a leather top. I wouldn't be driving it though; it'd just sit in my underground parking space where I could admire it. I'll stick with the bus.
(Did I mention how stupid and annoying these questions are? What, it's just assumed that everybody in the world owns - or wants to own - a car? Sheesh.)
Friday, October 3, 2003
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I just discovered that the Herald has a regular column about blogs! Now if I could just get a mention...
Thursday, October 2, 2003
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More Observations About Men Who Honk at Women. (Because yeah, I got honked at again today. And whistled at. And it pissed me off.)- The lone driver is rarely a harasser. I never get a honk from a guy in a car by himself. There's always at least one more guy, which leads me to believe it's a "macho-showing-off-for-your-friends" kinda thing.
- Along with that - and I'm going to be really classist here - most harassers seem to be low-income grunts with bad jobs. There always seem to be about four of them packed into a dump truck or moving van. Maybe part of their rationale is that I'm obviously not a laborer.
- Nice guys will sometimes try to rationalize harassers' behavior by pointing out that they're "just trying to pay me a compliment." Because I'm so beautiful that men are instantly compelled to let me know. This theory is crap. I stand on the same street every single morning and I only get harassed when I'm wearing a skirt. How honk-worthy am I seems to have less to do with my objective aesthetic beauty and more to do with how much skin is showing.
- There's also another frequently-espoused theory that by honking at you men are trying to get your attention because they think you're nice and they're so adorably inept that they can't think of any other way to approach you. Unfortunately this is also crap, as evidenced by the fact that the guys who honked at me this morning waited until they were just past me to toot. They didn't care about my reaction; in fact, they probably knew I'd be pissed off. They did it to let me know that they'd seen me as a sexual object. Assclowns.
Sorry to rant (and to tar a lot of nice guys with the same brush). I'm just fuming. This is the first day I've worn a skirt all week, specifically for this reason. Do you men understand that? Can you imagine how it must feel to have to change your behaviour to avoid harassment? It's the height of spring here, warm and sunny, and I have to wear drab, body-concealing clothes in order to wait for my carpool in peace. ARRRGGGGHHH.
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
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The Snook and I tried Atkins Chocolate Chocolate Chip Brownie Mix tonight and we were a little disappointed. First off, it retails for five bucks in the U.S. Guess how much I had to pay for it here? Twenty. Twenty dollars Australian. (With the exchange rate it should've been $8 AU, so there was more than a 100% markup on it.) Next, I followed the instructions exactly. Dump the contents in a bowl, add 1/3 cup oil, 1/4 water, and an egg. Mix. Pour into loaf pan. "Pour" was a little optimistic though. This stuff was like thick sticky mud. The Snook kept asking, "Are you sure you followed the directions correctly?" I was sure. The end product was predictably dense and dry. Chocolatey, yes, but way too crumbly. By morning it'll be hard as a rock. So did I get a bag with a wacky incorrect recipe? Because when I pay twenty dollars for brownies, I expect them to be good.
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 Ever wonder what would happen if Salacious Crumb, Admiral Ackbar, Aurra Sing, Jek Porkins, and Grand Moff Tarkin were locked in a glass box together for a year? Wonder no more... Tarkin would emerge victorious and the rest would all be dead. As proof I offer our fish tank, which suffered yet another death last night. We've lost one snail and three goldfish so far. See, this is why we don't reproduce.
At long last, I've managed to import the posts from my very first weblog ever! What, you thought w-g was it? Think again. I actually started blogging in September 2000 on the PurpleWeasels.org site. That blog didn't last long but I've always wanted to incorporate the posts into my Archives here so as to provide an uninterrupted and comprehensive overview of my entire "blogging career". And today, I did it! Of course, 90% of them are just dead links pointing to stories about Notre Dame and campus life, but there are a few gems in there (including a couple proto-posts from our own Brigita). Just go to the Archives and click on the first month. Have fun...
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My latest work project is live!
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archives
You can search through the archives by post keyword using the form on the left, or you can browse by month using the links at the bottom.
"Moblog" refers to posts and images posted directly from my mobile phone.
"PW Blog" refers to posts recovered from my very first weblog, which dealt with news related to my college dorm.
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The Sheer Stubbornness of the Home Brewer
