The Eve of a New Year

Just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy new year, hope you all have a good night tonight and don't get yourselves into any kind of trouble.

A cousin of mine passed away a couple of years ago on New Years Eve and so we don't have a big party, but I do plan to have a few drinks with some friends tonight and have a good laugh.

Aside from that, I've continued spending money, so thank goodness I start work on Monday (at my new job, w00t!) and money will be coming in again. I now have a mattress and sofa bed so the rest of the stuff I need to get is small stuff which can be taken care of after I've moved in.

In terms of moving here in Adelaide, we checked out a place Monday which was really nice inside but rather like a box, but we applied for it anyway. Checking out another one on Friday, so we shall see.

Well I had better go and have some lunch and then start drinking. Happy New Year to all, heres hoping 2004 is the best year ever! :)

Aftermath

Christmas was nice for me, hope it was for the rest of you too. Although my family can annoy me sometimes, the night at Gran's went without incident and finished a little earlier than normal, so we got home earlier than expected. I got some great pressies for when I move to Berri too, which will make the move a lot easier. The kitchen is pretty much set, with a microwave, kettle, toaster and plates etc all sorted out. I also got a nice quilt cover set and a bed, just have to get a mattress now and that room will be in order too.

On Boxing Day Ben picked me up bright and early and we went to see Return of the King, and even though we got up and some abnormal hour we were in the third row, but it was still ok. The movie was awesome, better than the other two and the time flew by so quickly because of all the battles and things that happened. Got home about 1:30, then Krista was over for a bit which was cool, and then I went to mum and dad's as dad and I were going to Speedway City for the World Series Sprintcars. When I was younger we went quite often but as we got older and life got busier, dad and I don't get to go often, so it was nice. There were lots of accidents and other exciting things so was a good night :)

Saturday we went to mum and dad's for lunch, and grandma, maria, nick, and nick's mum were there. Was a bit exhausting really. Today I was supposed to go to Berri with the family but it's gotten really hot so we postponed it, considering it's always a couple of degrees warmer in Berri. So I took advantage of the day to myself and went shopping for things for the move while these sales are on. I bought myself a vacuum cleaner (because chicks like vacuum cleaners), a laundry basket, some towels, bathroom scales, a dishrack and a dvd player. Ivan and I thought it wise to test out the DVD player, and it's cool because it can play pretty much everything, but unfortunately it doesn't plug into my old crappy tv so I'm going to have to do something about that now. The DVD player also came with a karaoke disc and microphone - now that's asking for trouble!

The rest of the day is being spent inside, avoiding the heat. Only a week of holidays left :(

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish my two readers a safe and happy Christmas (you know who you are). I'm getting in a little early because the next few days will be busy. Traditionally, because I come from a European background, my family gets together on Christmas Eve so later today we'll be going over to Gran's for dinner and staying there for many hours. Then we leave gran's, and go to mum and dad's to open presents, then arrive home some time after midnight. So today I just finished wrapping the presents and then Ivan and I went to look at a couple of rental properties. Out of 5 there were 2 that we really liked, so it would be great if we could nab one of those and not have to worry about things anymore. Will have to wait until after Christmas to see though.

Tomorrow, Christmas Day, for once we have nothing planned, and it's going to be lovely. If the weather's nice we might go to the beach, otherwise we'll stay in and just have a nice day. Looking forward to the relaxation.

On Boxing Day Ben and I are gonna go and see Return of the King at 9:30am, so that will be an early start for me. Nothing planned for the rest of the day except probably watching the other two LOTR movies repeatedly.

Saturday we're going to mum and dad's for lunch. For some reason, despite seeing them at Christmas, mum wanted to spend a separate day with us. I guess it's partly because my cousin John died a couple of years ago on New Year's and so she likes to have the family together.

Sunday I'll be driving up with Mum and Dad to Berri to do a bit of the tourist thing and check out the town, as they've never been there and I've only been there for the interview. Will probably pick up a local paper and check out a couple of properties while we're there.

Earlier today I got a phone call from Greg about the job actually, just confirming my start date and time, telling me what sort of things the training will involve, and basically offering to help me with the moving as much as he can. He said he'll grab local papers, scan anything that might suit me and email them through, and if I want him to go and check any places out for me he will. That's gonna be a huge help!

Anyway, had better get going, might try and lie down a bit, damn early mornings, I'm not used to them now. Hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas, and I'll update again soon :)

Happy Birthday Jun!

First off I'd like to wish my friend Jun a Happy Birthday! I've known Jun for a couple of years now and I hope he gets all he wants for his birthday :)

So, now the formalities are out of the way, will update on what's been happening aside from the having to move debarkle. I've had one week of holidays already and have totally wasted them. I've spent some time catching up with friends and getting ready for Christmas, but mostly my days have been spent sleeping in, watching The Two Towers repeatedly, or anything to do with Lord of the Rings really, and catching up with people before Christmas day.

Yesterday I went and got a facial (love going to the Beauty Salon, feel so special) then went to see Michelle, Craig and the kids to give them their presents. Those kids are growing up so fast, every time I see them they look bigger. And I fed Alisha some baby food and with the bottle which was a first for me. Poor Alisha had more food smeared over her face than in her mouth, gonna need some practice if I ever have a kid. Ivan and I went to check out some places quickly yesterday too. There's not much available at the moment and all the places yesterday sucked, except one which wasn't too bad, but still early days yet. Hope we find something soon though.

Today we went to Ivan's parents' place for lunch, since we won't be seeing them on Christmas Day. Was pretty good actually, his Grandma was over there too and she's so sweet, and we got some cool pressies :)

Now we're home, I have a headache and Ivan is lying down. God we're old. But Jun's not, even if it is his birthday :)

GAH!

A quick update to let you all know how pissed off I am. Received a letter today saying that our lease here won't be renewed. Why does this always happen to us?!? We pay our rent on time, we keep the place tidy, why do we keep getting annoying landlords who wanna move their kids in? This guy's moving his son in. Well Merry bloody Christmas to us then, stupid kid can't get his own place without dad's help or something? How can people do this and feel good about themselves? I'm so angry, upset, annoyed, etc etc. Now, again, we have to spend our Christmas and New Year trying to contact agents that'll no doubt be on holiday because they don't have a care in the world and find another suitable place. It's not that easy for us to move because Ivan has his business and there's lots of stuff to think about. Plus all the damn hassle of letting everyone know our new address, which we just did 2 years ago for god's sake. And our date to move out is right about the weekend I'll be moving to Berri too, so double whammy. Why not eh? Why did I even think this new year was going to be a great one? Stupid me for thinking things in life could run smoothly for once. GAH!

Overdue update

I am so sorry, I was getting so good at updating this regularly too! I've given up on the "trying to write something about my Cogs friends" thing because I sat here and thought of the names of people I regularly chat to, and then the people I chat to every now and then who wanted to be included, and decided it was all too hard :P Sorry.

So what have I been doing? Well, on a daily basis it seems like a lot but then when you tell someone about it it basically translates to "nothing much at all". Let's see, the weekend.... I can't even remember the weekend, dear oh dear. Oh, that's right, I'll build up to it. Suspense and all of that. Yeah. Last Thursday night I went to Mum and Dad's to say hi to them and to talk a bit about my moving and the things I'll need, small things they can get for me for Christmas that will help, etc etc. I am so so excited about this new job. So excited, so so so very excited. And do you know what's even better? Tomorrow, after 9 long drawn-out years, will be my last day ever with Bilo Supermarkets! w00t and all that!!!

But now I've jumped ahead of myself. Saturday I had a Friends of Belair meeting which was cool, and Sunday I went up to Monarto. The Nature Conservation Society was releasing the report for the Biological Survey they did in the area last September that I helped out with. They had a BBQ on afterwards and I was going to stay but ended up going and getting Subway on the way home because it was all meat stuff. Sigh. And, to top it all off, Randall spelt my bloody name wrong in the report. Twit, my name's an easy one to spell, my surname contains only 5 simple letters and he couldn't get it right. I shake my fist at him and curse his name!

Oh, I found my Honours thesis online which was pretty exciting. After doing that Google search for the girl's name I was talking about a few entries ago, I wondered what came up if I did a Google search on my own name. And I found my thesis had been converted into pdf and uploaded for anyone to gain access to it. That's pretty cool I reckon, except I forgot I put in an ugly, but amusing piccy of me my friend Chris took after I fell over. I shouldn't say fell over, as there was nothing to actual fall "over", I just fell. And it was funny. And she took a picture while I laughed myself silly. And I'm wearing my daggy bushwalking clothes with my hair crappily tied back so I'm immortalised as being ultra uncool. Ok, so maybe my thesis being available online isn't such a cool thing :P

Let's see, what else. Tuesday night I had the Christmas BBQ for the Herpetology (that's reptiles and amphibians) group I'm in, and that was a really good time. Mel got a little tipsy, but just enough to be happy, not over the top, and I had a great night. And they had stuff other than meat which was good too (helps when you're on the committee and you can ask for such things :P)

Yesterday Ivan surprised me by giving me my Christmas present early, which he kinda had to do because if he hadn't I would have gone and bought the Two Towers Extended Edition DVD myself. And I got a new keyboard, and I love the noise it makes when I type, which might be why this entry is so bloody long. I'm outta control, somebody stop me! Bloody Jim Carrey, ruined that line forever. So started watching it last night, but when it got to 2am and they were only just starting the battle of Helm's Deep, I thought I should really get to bed and finish it another day. The extra scenes made me so excited, there were a couple that I really thought should have been kept in the theatrical version but the rest were fine to take out. I'm sure Peter Jackson is so relieved I give him the thumbs up. Right. So I might go watch the rest now actually. OH! And today I got me ticket for the Return of the King, 9:30am on Boxing Day, w00t!!!!

Ok ok, I'm going!

Funneh stuff

Today I was bored and was sifting through the PC at work and came across the funniest note I've ever found. It was from the ex-manager, who it looks like was about to go on holidays so was leaving a note for the other managers to tell them what to do. But he didn't just write the tasks, he made it damn funny. So funny, in fact, I had to print it out and bring it home and I'm gonna post some of it. Unfortunately, the best one I can't post because it contains the full name of this one guy who gets paid out extensively in the paragraph. But here's some of the other stuff:

"The Nestle coconut milky bar in the box on the floor does not contain coconut! First the cut wages, then head office shuts, then they cut the coconut out of the chocolate.... next thing you know, Saddam's running for Parliament. Crazy world we're livin' in people!! Crazy shit. See what happens when you put kids in charge... F__k'n Charlie, never should've run that chocolate factory... bloody kids running shit... crazy, crazy stuff."

"Please murder the Arnott's rep - Dippers are still out of stock after 4 weeks. Take the tickets off and tell her to incredibite my reduced fat."

Gold! I wish I could post more, but better not. In other news, my start date for the new job has been pushed back to after Christmas, so starting here in Adelaide on January 5th for 4 weeks, and so won't have to move to Berri until early February. I have 3 weeks off in between old job and the new job, my first Christmas off in 9 years, so I'm really happy. Hope I don't spend all my Long Service Leave money, kinda need that to move :P

Censorship

Today I heard that one of my entries of a less favourable variety was found by an online search for the person's name, which surprised me a little because the person has an extremely common name, and I didn't include their surname. I heard this while I was at work and then spent the last hour of my shift wondering if I should remove any nasty posts I've made on here and refrain from posting what I feel. But that's censoring myself, which is what I asked Squash not to do on his blog just because people he was writing about found it. I want to be able to write what I want on here, but at the same time I don't want to make matters worse between me and said person, nor do I want to make them feel bad just because I can't get along with everyone I come into contact with. What do you guys think? Should some thoughts just be kept to myself, or should I just write whatever I want? Some deep, personal thoughts will never be revealed here, this is not that type of a blog, but what about this other stuff? Do I ignore arguments or disagreements and just write happy thoughts?

As it turns out, I've done a Google search on the name and in three pages of results could not find any reference to my blog, so I don't know where this other person was looking. I'm not gonna say the name again for fear of ending up on some random search engine. So, opinions? Thoughts?

Emmy

This'll be very short, because I don't even know Emmy but if I don't mention his or her name I'll never hear the end of it. What did you expect me to write? All I know about you is that you watch All Saints, which I've replaced with CSI. Um, so yeah, that's Emmy done.

Paragon

What can I say about this guy? Paragon is very cool, and I mean that in the suave, James Bond kind of way. He has a way with the ladies but seems to be able to mould himself around the people he's with. I mean, he seems to be able to approach a group, suss them out, and then join in the conversation comfortably in a short space of time. I guess I admire this quality because usually around new people I am quite shy, and it often takes a person like Paragon to make me come out of my shell. He's a people person, for lack of a better way of saying it. But watch out, this guy can flirt, but I can't say it bothers me :)

And, he shares a birthday with SuperSammo, so two of my closest online friends have even more in common. Hmm, it seems when I thought about what I'd write for Paragon I had more in my head, but I'm afraid that for now, this is all I could remember. Don't ever change mate, you're great the way you are.