The age-old problem

Or perhaps it should be called the old age problem? Whatever you call it, I'm not liking it. Allow me to explain. It's only while I'm here at work that I noticed something quite upsetting. The light in the bathrooms here is quite bright and is at just the right angle that when I look in the mirror, this one gray hair strand I have stands out, being incredibly obvious. I didn't even know I had any strand of gray until seeing it in the mirror in the bathroom here. How depressing! I'm only 26, I'm not supposed to be getting gray hairs yet. Although, my sister started going gray at a young age, but I was hoping I'd take after Mum who didn't seem to go gray until she hit the 40's. Thank goodness I get my hair coloured regularly and have an appointment on Friday!

In an effort to make me feel young, Karen (bless her) saved me a chocolate crackle and a cornflake cupcake thingy and presented them to me the other day. She had made a whole bunch for her friend's child's birthday party and put a couple aside. I haven't had those since I myself was in primary school and I'd forgotten how yummy they were. But more importantly, they made me feel young again. It's really something that should be served at adult parties I think. Stuff the cakes and savoury snacks, just make a tray of chocolate crackles and everyone will love you for them.

The season of spending

I love Christmas, I always have. I love decorating the Christmas tree, catching up with the family, and have been known to sit staring into the Christmas lights for ages, just thinking. I must admit, I also love spending money, so when it comes to Christmas it can be a bit troublesome. Not only because I buy gifts for other people, but I inevitably see things I'd like for myself but which I know nobody else will buy for me, so I tend to treat myself over Christmas, too.

On Wednesday night I went to the Dymock's Booklover sale where we members got a sneak peek at the new catalogue. Yes, I bought a present for someone else but inevitably also bought myself 3 books, and saw something in the catalogue they were out of stock of, so ordered it. Probably not the best idea, what with trying to save for a house at all, but hey, if you can't treat yourself over Christmas, when can you?

In other news, I recently switched desks here at work, and although I got to keep my computer, the monitors didn't get changed over. That's cool, they're the same model, but the last girl who sat here was a vegetarian and she's placed stickers on the monitor. One says "Meat's no treat for those you eat" and the other has a picture of a chicken and says "I am not a nugget". I feel bad removing them there but it's also hypocritical of me to leave them up, especially on those days I'm eating my lunch at my desk. As a plus side though, I now have my purple intrays to match my purple folders (not all of them though, have 3 more trays to trade).

I'm so happy it's Friday, I just wish it was Friday afternoon. Hardly anyone is here today, I wish I had been a bit smarter and booked a day off too. As I was walking to work from the train station I passed so many people on their way to Adelaide Oval to watch the cricket, I was green with envy - I know where I'd rather be.

Anyway, back to it I suppose...

Warnie V's Leslie

This morning Ivan and I were discussing Michelle Leslie and comparing her case to Shane Warne's own drug case a couple of years ago. There are, ofcourse, some similarities as well as major differences aswell, but here's a comparison.

Shane Warne
- Was given the drugs by someone else (his mum).
- Claims he didn't know the drugs were of the banned variety.
- Didn't actually commit any crime, but a sporting offence.
- Was banned from playing cricket for 12 months as a result.
- Did all he could to avoid the media in the aftermath.

Michelle Leslie
- Apparently a friend left the drugs in her bag.
- Claims one day that she thought they were her prescribed meds, then next day she admits to being an occasional Ecstacy user.
- Committed a crime in Indonesia, and it would also be a crime in Australia.
- Given a 3 month sentence, with time already served concluded, so she's already home.
- Wants to profit from crime and sell her story to the media.

Isn't there something inherently wrong when a person committing an actual crime does less time than a cricket player who did something a bit stupid? Yes, I love Shane Warne so perhaps I'm biased, but it does seem a bit backwards to me.

Any other comparisons I've forgotten about?

I wish

Oh, to have the weekend still here! It's just been one of those mornings - until 11:30am I wasn't able to log into my computer. I may aswell have slept in or just sat at my desk reading. Oh well.

The weekend was really good but a bit tiring. On Friday after work I drove up to Maria's. We decided to get some pizzas for dinner, then later on she made me some rice pudding which I haven't had since I was a kid. After Survivor we were pottering around, not sure what to do, before we switched over to Foxtel and found The Sound of Music was on - something neither of us can watch with our other halves. So we watched that, singing along as we always did. It's funny, I've seen that movie so many times but it seems like each time you watch it, you're effected in different ways. Guys just don't get it. Anyway, Maria and I were sharing a room but she kept me awake with her incessant snoring, so I have no idea what time it was but sometime during the night I went into the lounge to sleep on the sofa. So, I was heaps tired on Saturday.

Mum and Dad drove up to Maria's at around 11am on Saturday, then we all had lunch together when Steve got home from work. I made my way home, then Alex came to pick Ivan and I up for dinner at Eric's (I was tempted to write nothing about this part of the weekend just because Eric wanted to read it but I couldn't help myself). Eric has the most gorgeous dogs (not that I remember the breed). I possibly liked them so much because they didn't leave fur all over you. Anyway, Eric made some spaghetti bolognese which was really yummy, not a shabby cook at all! While Alex tried to fix his computer we watched a bit of Pulp Fiction then for some strange reason we were forced to watch Evil Dead 3. Funniest "horror" film I've ever seen! Oh, and I raided Eric's book collection, borrowing 11 books, so that should cover my next few months worth of reading (bless him).

On Sunday I woke up feeling sorry for myself after drinking a bit the night before (and not having drunk anything substantial in a while). I made my way to Grandma's at 1pm, having a bit of a chat and giggle until the rest of the family arrived for a late lunch. Last night I was pretty stuffed so just watched TV and read. Karen comes back tomorrow and I want to have finished reading Dracula so I can return it to her and get into one of these books from Eric.

Oh, this just in: work sucks.

Bloody Rumsfeld

Is this man really worth all this security in Adelaide? Is he worth closing main streets for and blocking some pedestrian paths for? I truly believe not, if someone really wanted to hurt him I'm sure they could get to him. Instead the general population of Adelaide, who possibly despise the man but who are not psychopathic people, have to suffer.

I knew there would be roads closed and bad traffic, and don't normally drive into work but since I'm going to Maria's straight after, I had to. So even though I only live 10-15 minutes from the CBD, I gave myself 45 minutes to get to work. Apparently, so did everyone else. As I moved along at a snail's pace and arrived at work 15 minutes late, I came to the conclusion Rumsfeld is an arse who does not warrant road closures.

One of the guys that works here walked the same way to work he walks every morning, but got stopped and asked what he was doing there today, ID checked and everything. A 50 metre pedestrian path that shortcuts besides a bank on one side and a fitness centre on the other was protected by a security guard today so those of us already running late had to detour from our normal paths. Was Mr Rumsfeld perhaps sitting on a bench there having a smoko with Downer? Me thinks not. Unnecessary bullshit. And then I heard about someone yesterday running off the train to try and catch their bus only to be tackled to the ground by police thinking they were some terrorist. Good work. I look forward to the man leaving and life in our city returning to normal.

Busy Busy

It's been a while since I've written and it doesn't take much for me to try and avoid doing some work so here I am to provide you with a quick update.

The cold I had a few weeks ago came back with a bit of a vengeance last week and knocked me out for a few days. My NaNoWriMo project has pretty much fallen in a heap again this year, which is a bit disappointing but this is the most I've ever written so that's a step in the right direction I suppose. I haven't looked at my novel for a while now (I think 10 days or something) so it's really fallen through, well and truly, unless I happen to get a whole bunch of free time and motivation all of a sudden. But I'm ok with it, and I'm going to keep it going, even if it takes me a year or more.

Last weekend was pretty quiet, mostly just family stuff on Saturday and that was about it. This weekend is a bit more full-on but nothing too strenuous or anything. Tomorrow I'm driving in to work so that straight afterwards I can go up to Maria's and sleep over. Steve works every Friday night and usually Mum sleeps over there but this weekend we thought we'd have a bit of a girly Friday night, maybe watch some corny movies and have some rice pudding and stuff. On Saturday night Ivan and I are off to Eric's place for dinner. I can't wait because Eric used to work at a publishing house and apparently has boxes full of books I can borrow. Oh, and I look forward to Eric's company too, ofcourse :P On Sunday I plan to finally meet my feelow Adelaide NaNoWriMo participants and then I'm off to Grandma's to spend the afternoon with her a bit.

I promise* I'll come up with something interesting to post here soon :P

*with my fingers crossed

Should have taken the day off

I don't know whether it's this weather or there's some cosmic alignment but it's only Tuesday and already I've dealt with so many idiotic people on the phone this week it's enough to make me dread coming to work. No kidding, this morning I was thinking I should stay home because the damn phone yesterday drove me insane and this morning has been no better.

Yesterday a man kept me on the phone for 20 minutes while he complained about every thing under the sun, most of which had nothing to do with any actual water-related issue, like the government has plenty of money as they're spending it on these ridiculous trams which will disturb traffic in the city (guess he doesn't know trams have been running in the city for decades) and how if God Almighty knew what us people were doing with his natural resources, etc etc.

There must be an abundance of people out there who have lost their medication this week...

NaNoWriMo

Inspired by reading Dracula by Bram Stoker, I've decided to write a vampire novel for NaNoWriMo. Not very original I know, but if by some miracle I manage to get to 50000 words by the end of November it'll only be my first crappy novel anyway. I started by writing a Chick Lit novel first but failed miserably on day 1. So I had to scrap that idea on day 2 and so far this new idea is flowing an awful lot easier. But with the poor start I'm a day behind, so need to write about another 2000 words today to catch up on it. Don't want to give up in the first week like I did last year...

We have a weener

It's the Melbourne Cup today (that's a big horse racing event for you non-Aussies, they call it the race that stops the nation). As is usually the case, the only betting I ever do on the thing is the office sweep. A few years ago I was lucky enough to come first and win some money, but ofcourse, the general format is that I get a crap horse or two who finishes somewhere in the middle so I win absolutely nothing. This year was no exception to the rule.

I suppose it's been a week since my last update so I'd better... update you all. Yeah.

I was a bit unwell last week and ended up only being at work for part of Tuesday, then Thursday and Friday. I'm still not 100% but I feel a bit better so there's no more excuses for having days off (unfortunately). The weekend was really good. On Saturday we went to Darren's for a LAN. I came second in the F.E.A.R. deathmatch competition and won a CD holder thingy which is kinda cool. Daylight savings started so we lost an hour somewhere during the night, so we ended up going to bed at around 3:30am. On Sunday I went to Belair for the Friends of Belair 20th birthday party. Nothing overly exciting but we had yummy roast for lunch and the weather was gorgeous so no better place to be on such a lovely day than a national park methinks. I had yesterday off as a Flexi as it was Mum's last day at home before going back to work after the operation so we got to spend a few hours together. So today feels like a Monday a bit.

Today also marks the beginning of NaNoWriMo, something I failed terribly at last year but have decided to give it another go. Although, I don't know why I'm giving it a go. Last year I at least had an idea and the time to write whereas this year I have neither. I have to write at least 1667 words a day and today all I've got is 261 (so far). A terrible start. Damn work...