Magic Eye + origami = cool. (I’m just bragging because I can see them. Can you?)

Speaking of reality TV – Jeez! I’m just stream-of-consciousness girl here tonight – the Snook and I are now addicted to The Amazing Race. We laughed our asses off when all those teams put unleaded gas in the diesel vans the other night. I’m rooting for both of the brother teams (hot twins and chubby baldies). I like John Vito and Jill too. And how happy was I that Aaron and Arianne are gone? She was the mayor of Whineyville.

Actually, there’s an upside to the whole no-Internet thing. Tomorrow night is the penultimate Survivor, and the finale is airing on Saturday. I figured there was no way I’d remain spoiler-free for two days. But with no Internet, there’s no worry! So there’s a silver lining there. (Don’t any of you dare think of spoiling it in a comment here! I’ll ban you for life!)

The one drawback of my new job is the draconian lock they have on our Internet usage. Five minutes after I sat down at my desk, I tried to hit web-goddess to show it to my office mate. Instead I got a big “Warning! You’re trying to access a non-work site! We’re watching you!” message. I was like, “Huh? You mean I’ve got to go eight hours without checking my e-mail or reading the news?” As Snookums put it later that night, “A whole day of just work? I’d go mad.” What’s worse is that for my job, I need to research quite a random group of sites. For instance, today I needed some pictures of boats for a project. An hour later, my boss came by to ask why I’d been surfing the Navy’s website. That’s how closely they’re watching us. It’s spooky. So no workday surfing or posting for me, sadly. 🙁

First day of work! Here we go…

Eight hours later: It was good. Another girl (a graphic designer) was starting too, so I made a friend right off the bat. Then we discovered that we’re both sharing the same makeshift office (a meeting room) until the whole company moves over Christmas. We went through the usual induction type stuff, and then the rest of the day was spent getting our brand new PCs ready and figuring out what we’re going to be working on. My tasks at the moment? Write a choose-your-own-adventure story and create some printable board games. How cool is that! I’m so glad to be moving back into the creative stuff and away from programming.

Though I’m reliant on public transport, the commute isn’t terrible. I made it home in one hour tonight, but that was with a lift from the office to the train station. On normal days I’ll probably have to tack a 20 minute walk onto there. (I could bus it, but I figure the exercise will do me good.) Actually I only have to do that for a week, and then once we move into the new building I’ll have a new route. Again, probably looking at an hour or so. Strangely I don’t mind it as much as I did in London. There’s just something about riding over the Sydney Harbour Bridge that lifts the spirits, you know? (Plus I plan to utilize the time productively, i.e. knitting.)

The biggest shock of the day? The receptionist who let me in this morning is a chick from Ohio! We had some Midwestern bonding. It’s so neat to finally meet some people that aren’t just friends of the Snook’s.

This excellent weblog has just sucked, like, two hours of my life away. But it was worth it. I now have a burning desire to accumulate lots of obscure German designer board games. 🙂

I braved the hordes at the post office today to send off the last of my Christmas cards and packages. There I discovered that a new law went into effect today: anyone sending packages over a certain size must provide ID and have it recorded. I’m all for preventing terrorism and stuff, but why introduce this ten days before Christmas? All it did was double the waiting time and hassle everybody from the customers to the clerks.

You know in Amelie, when she returns the box of childhood treasures to Dominic Bretodeau? I feel like him right now. Thanks to the internet, I managed to track down my favorite holiday song of all time: Snoopy vs. the Red Baron. (Actually there are several versions of it, all from the same album, but my favorite one is the one with the “Christmas bells, those Christmas bells…” chorus.) I don’t think I’ve heard this song in twenty years. I can close my eyes and remember listening to it with my Dad on the stereo one early Christmas morning. It’s nice.

Some SMC chick (i.e. a girl from my university‘s sister school) has made it through to the second round of American Idol auditions. I got a laugh out of reading her comments. She literally mentions her religion in every. single. sentence. “God gave me a little place… When I sing it’s like God gives me a whole new voice… It’s like going to Church… My faith in myself is zero, but my faith in God is 100.” Dude, I almost hope she does get on the show. I’m sure it can only be improved by the addition of a fervent (and crazy-sounding) Catholic.

I’m selling an autographed CD, if anyone’s interested. It’s Ben Lee’s “Something Borrowed, Something Blue” EP.