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Saturday, December 31, 2005

As is customary

Just wanted to do a quick update and wish everyone a great New Year's Eve. Hope you all have a great night, whatever it is you might be doing, whether spending it with others or by yourself. I think I've outgrown the "get wasted" aspect of NYE a few years ago and I think the night is no big deal really, but I hope you all enjoy it and stay safe :)

Will update again in 2006!

Friday, December 30, 2005

Street Crime

Yesterday I felt a bit like Homer Simpson: "Look kids, street crime". Except that I had no kids to say this to, and didn't actually say it out loud. Apart from those glaring differences, I was just like Homer, dammit.

I was going across to Target on the corner of Rundle Street to spend a gift voucher I'd received for Christmas. Standing at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the lights to change, I hear yelling behind me so I turn around to see this guy of about 18 or 19 years old running, tripping and falling on the ground. Behind him comes running this 50+ year old guy, so the kid gets up and bolts it across to Rundle Street. The older guy, running out of breath, yells out for someone to stop the kid. No one really knew what to do. The kid had slowed down too, having time to turn around and call the man chasing him a c**t. The crowd, including me, watched on bewildered, as if things were happening in slow motion.

Eventually I heard someone else call out to the older man, "What did he do?", to which the man replied, "He's wrecked our shop! Where's the police when you need them?" That seemed to get the kid running again, only this time he was chased down Rundle Street by about 3 onlookers.

I don't know whether they caught him or not, but it's hard to know what to do in a situation like that. What could I have done, tackled this guy to the ground and held him down until the police arrived while dodging kicks and punches? I know the right thing to do is to try and help out, but at the same time, you also don't want to be involved. When I returned to work and told the few people in the office here what had happened, there were varying stories, some where people stayed well out of things they'd witnessed and others where they'd gotten involved (one guy had tales from both sides). I guess you just assess the situation at the time. I know when I was in Berri and heard my neighbour beating on his wife I got involved indirectly, by calling the police, because that felt safe. Anyone else have a similar tale to tell?

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Loser!

What the bloody hell am I doing at work today? Why the bloody hell didn't I book some leave like everyone else in the city? Even the place I normally go to for lunch is closed this week, so my routine is completely out of whack! Karen and I are the only losers sitting down this end of the building. I was the last loser to leave last Friday night. Silly, silly me.

I was hoping it would be quiet and I was right to a point. The phone has hardly been ringing today and our licensing applications are few and far between but lo and behold, I have been given a fair chunk of work today with regards to water meters. By golly, it sucks the wang. On the plus side, the day has gone fast.

On the down side, I have had chest pains all day. I wonder if I stretched some muscle I shouldn't have with the Pilates I've been doing in the mornings lately, or whether I'm having a long, slow, drawn out heart attack. No time for that, desperately need to go grocery shopping tonight after the closure of supermarkets for 4 days. Ah well, better to shop in some sort of desperation than to stock up on at least 6 litres of milk beforehand like Wendy :)

Monday, December 26, 2005

Phew, another Christmas over

I hope everyone had a happy and safe non-denominational holiday :)

After all the madness that comes before it, I am a little sad that Christmas is already over. I love the decorations, the Christmas cartoons and movies, the days off, spending time with the people I love, generally I just love Christmas, but with the sadness does indeed come a sense of relief, even for someone that loves the season like I do.

On Friday night Ivan and I had a pretty interesting time. We decided to finish off The Sopranos and have a bit of a late night as we had 4 episodes left to watch. So partway through one episode, we get a brown-out (the lights dimmed, some things turned off completely but others didn't). Because we had a bit of light we decided to play some poker and wait it out. About an hour later, the power came back on so we resumed our DVD watching. With only 10 minutes left of the final episode, a total blackout occurred. It was around 2am so we decided not to wait it our anymore, fumbling around for a torch so we could get ready for bed. Silly storms.

So, on to Christmas. On Saturday we went to Grandma's like we do every year. Usually, towards midnight we head to Mum and Dad's to exchange presents with them but due to Dad thinking he had to work early Christmas morning, we went to Mum and Dad's first, then went to Grandmas. It was a nice afternoon/evening actually, and as is tradition, us girls made Grandma happy by singing some carols with her. Even though Maria and I got the giggles, but never mind.

On Sunday morning I went to church with Mum, Grandma and Emil's Mum. Ivan and I then went to see his parents and Grandma after lunch. We stayed there for a few hours than headed home. Alex came around and stayed for a few hours, and now I have two days off with no plans, and I love it. I'm planning to get a bit of gaming done and some reading, and am trying not to do very much housework at all.

So, now to worry about New Year's...

Friday, December 23, 2005

Long weekend Eve

Today is indeed a glorious day, although it doesn't seem like many of us here in the office are getting much done. Unfortunately no one planned any afternoon drinks and I have a meeting at 2pm, so any chance of drinking the afternoon away and going home early has gone out the door, but never mind, I'm still overjoyed that after this afternoon I have 4 days off, yay!

Tomorrow we will be heading to Mum and Dad's mid-afternoon than we all go to Grandma's for our traditional Christmas Eve get together. I'm hoping it's a nice, calm relaxing day, but you never can tell with my family. Christmas day itself will be another nice quiet day. I might go to church with Mum but not sure yet, as we'll be going to see Ivan's parents and the timing might be off. The other two days are currently free, but there are definitely things I'd like to get done at home. Maria wanted me to go up and see her one of the days but I'm not often at home so I have to learn to say no.

Anyway, as this is most likely my last post before Christmas, I hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and enjoy the time with loved ones! I will post again in a couple of days.

Seasons Greetings!!!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Facelift

When I first started using Blogger a couple of years ago, it didn't contain any Comments software at all, so I set up my Blog using an external comments source. This had its ups and downs, the downs being that the service was often unreliable, sometimes down for a couple of days at a time (although admittedly, that hadn't happened recently). So, last night I finally made the decision to use Blogger's in-built comments system, thus wiping all of the comments I've had over the years. Kinda sad, like losing old letters or deleting old emails, and for a sentimental Cancerian such as myself, a tough decision to make.

Because I had had my Blog for a while and manipulated the template so much, I couldn't get the comments to work. I decided to start off completely anew with a brand new template. Again, back when I started using Blogger I think there were 6 templates to choose from, but now there are around 20. I narrowed it down to 3 and Alex helped me choose this one. Green isn't my favourite colour but
a) they had no purple templates, and
b) this template has a sort of "nature" feel to it which personalises it for me a bit.

So, the rest of the night was then spent adding things into the template and formatting it to make it my home again. I'm quite happy with the result, the boxes make the site look a bit more neat, but I'm sure I will come up with some thing I'd like to change here and there in time.

So anyway, the facelift was a small success.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Delirium

Due to a lack of sleep lately, I have gotten over the cranky mood I was in yesterday and have today entered Phase: Delirium. I do like this phase, it makes the workday go faster, the lunacy of other colleagues more amusing and generally just makes things a lot more pleasant.

During my walk at lunch today I noticed there seem to be a lot more pigeons in the city lately. On several occasions I've had to adjust my steps so as not to step on one that's lingering at my feet. Today, particularly, was rather amusing, as I witnessed a lady walking along, pigeon in front of her, but then suddenly the pigeon took flight, turning as it did so and fluttering in front of her face. The poor woman let out a shriek as she tried to dodge and weave this bird of no intelligence. And all I could do was find it very amusing, not laughing in front of the poor woman but having a chuckle as I tried to tell Karen back at work. Ah yes, good times indeed.

PS After much pressure and annoyance at my comment system, I'm thinking of moving them, but then I'll lose all the comments made up to this point on my blog. This saddens me a bit but does it really matter what people commented in the past?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Roar!

Last night I went to the Mammal Club Christmas party which was a small gathering on the banks of the Torrens behind the zoo. It was great to see everyone before we start meeting again next February, especially Lydia as she hasn't been very well lately. It was a nice night, a slight breeze cooling down a warm day, and as the sun was setting you could hear a lion roaring in the background. I'd enjoy hearing that sound in the distance every night I think.

Today is a return to Summer weather as it's going to be 36C, and for the life of me I don't know why I'm wearing pants instead of a skirt today. The thought didn't really occur until I was halfway to the train station this morning. It's a bloody hot day, my legs are suitably defuzzed, and yet I'm wearing pants like some idiot. Good job, Mel. (Random Rambling #288)

I had a very productive day at work yesterday so today is a little quiet until I find something else to do so I'd better go and make myself look busy...

Monday, December 19, 2005

Oh Christmas Tree

I can't believe it's less than a week until Christmas. Unfortunately our office doesn't close and I haven't booked any leave but the public holidays will still be nice. I'll be filling in for Sandra which means a little extra money, which will definitely come in handy after the Christmas spending. I haven't gone too crazy with the spending though - I'm trying not to use my credit card and we're still saving for a house. This is probably the most organised I've been though, as normally I wait to shop until a couple of days beforehand. This year, pretty much everyone is taken care of except for my Dad, but I'll be getting his one night this week.

Anyway, so on Friday we had our work Christmas party at a pub across the road. Unfortunately, after 2 hours we had to pay for our own drinks which made the numbers thin out a fair bit, so it was a good way to wind down the afternoon but finished pretty early. On Saturday Maria came and picked me up and we went to Mum and Dad's to put their tree up and decorate the house. We decided to do the traditional thing and put on Boney M's Christmas album, like we used to when we were kids. It was quite a fun day actually. There were the inevitable arguments about how the lights on the tree should be placed and whether the tinsel on the curtains was even, but we had lots of laughs and it's done for another year.

Saturday night was a quiet one, just pizzas at home and DVDs after the guys decided not to go and see King Kong after all (didn't bother me at all, I must say). On Sunday I did a little more Christmas shopping for Maria but that was about it. Hope you are all enjoying the week leading up to Christmas and will at least have some time off to relax.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

My Big Friday Night... and more!

Boy is my life exciting! So much so that the best I can come up with on a Friday night is the following tale. Ivan had his work Christmas party which couples were not invited to (extremely bloody rude I think) so I was made chauffer for the evening. It started off with me just having to drop him off, but ofcourse, then there was the question of whether the guy at the door would let him in with the shoes he was wearing or not, so I had to drive the block to make sure he wasn't stuck outside. Delightful to do in Friday night city traffic!

Anyway, he was only going to stay for a couple of hours, but then after a few hours he called to say he was having a good time and wanted to stay longer. That's cool, I don't care how late he stays out but it sucked he didn't take his house keys. No way I'd be able to sleep leaving the front door ajar for him or something. Anyway, so I used the time to watch some DVDs (Adaptation being one of them - not too shabby at all). It was lucky I stayed up because although his workplace had provided them all with Cab Charge to get home, he was unable to actually get a cab, so I went to pick him and Alex up at about 1:30am. Dropping Alex off, around the corner from his house, I was made to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a koala sitting merrily in the middle of the damn road. Poor thing, I missed it by inches and must have scared it big time. There was no way I was going to approach it to get it to move (crazy scratchy things) so I reversed and had to go around it (it had left the road when we were driving home). So that was my super cool exciting happy mega Friday night. Top that!

Saturday we had a LAN which wasn't bad but finished relatively early since we were pretty tired from the night before (and Ivan slightly hungover, hehe). On Sunday Maria and Steve picked me up and we went to Mum and Dad's for lunch, just to catch up a bit.

That's been about it until last night, when Ivan and I went to Mum and Dad's for dinner. My cousin Lewis lives in Sweden but the rest of his family lives in Queensland so he's been in Australia visiting them for a few weeks. Him and my auntie decided to come to Adelaide for a couple of days so he could see the rest of the family, so they flew in yesterday and last night was the only time I could see them (they fly back to QLD tomorrow, very short trip). It was so good to see him, it's been at least 5 years since I last had, and we were quite close when we were younger.

Anyway, now that I've brought you all up to speed on my gripping life, I'm gonna go and have some lunch, then get back to work. Ciao.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Boredom to the max

Oh man, I am so unbelievably bored at work today! That's right, if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. So just take my word for it.

All of the Managers are at some conference thingy (as the official invite called it, I'm sure) today which is indeed a splendid occasion but the lack of incoming work today makes the day completely drag on, and that is definitely not a good thing. There are only so many websites I can visit (largely due to work blocking most of the interesting sites), but I can point you in the direction of something, no pressure ofcourse.

If you felt so inclined you might like to kill some time by perhaps nominating my less-than-exciting Blog here for the 2006 Australian Blog Awards. I really don't want to nominate myself so instead of being a complete loser by doing that, instead I'm only a partial loser by advertising the fact here. I'm thinking of the categories of Best South Australian Blog and/or Best Australain Personal Blog (can be up for both categories if I should be so lucky). And no, I'm not sure I'm actually worthy, but hey, this is the best this site is probably going to get.

Now that the shameless advertising is completed, I can ramble to fill up some time. I bought Ivan's Christmas present yesterday and I want to give it to him now but that would defeat the purpose a bit. But seeing as it's one of the few presents I've bought for people this year (funds are tight) I suppose I shouldn't ruin the surprise. I also got a little brooch for my Grandma to wear when her carer takes her out to lunch, as she likes getting dolled up for those things these days. I only really have the ones for my parents left to get so I'm a lot more organised this year than I think I've ever been before. Exciting stuff!

Hallelujah, I've just been given some work to do. It's a Christmas miracle!!!

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

A Day on the Green and other stuff

Well and truly time to update, methinks. The weekend was aces! On Saturday morning I drove up to Angaston where I was staying with Bron's parents, as Bron and I were heading off to A Day on the Green, which if you haven't heard of was an outdoor concert with The Audreys, Mia Dawson, The Whitlams and Pete Murray. The concert didn't start until later that afternoon so we went for a bit of a drive to the shops in Nuriootpa to stock up on bad food for the day.

The concert itself was pretty good, with The Whitlams being my favourite for the day. I've wanted to see them for years so finally got the chance, and they didn't disappoint. In total there were 14 of us but the only other person I knew was Bron so I was a bit overwhelmed but it wasn't too bad. I'll post some photos of the day if I think of it later. Pete wasn't too bad but didn't get into it until towards the end of his show. Still gorgeous anyway.

On Sunday we looked around Angaston a bit (very nice town) and then went into Freeling to the Gungellan pub. I don't watch McLeod's Daughters but apparently that's the pub in the show. Anyway, there were only 6 of us meeting there for lunch so I enjoyed myself a lot more that day. From there I headed back to Adelaide, had a day off Monday to do laundry and that was the weekend! Better get back to work now...