Ask, don't tell

On Wednesday night Ivan and I went to the Pearl Jam concert at the Entertainment Centre. They did two shows in Adelaide and we weren't originally going to go but when I heard there were still seats available for the second show I thought it'd make a nice Christmas treat.

They definitely didn't disappoint. They did a fantastic set, doing half a dozen tracks off their latest album but mostly doing a stack of old favourites. The same as when they were here in 2003, the band seemed to be in a great mood and so performed heaps well for the crowd, with Mike being his usual show-pony self and giving the crowd something to enjoy along with Eddie's vocals. Next time they come to Adelaide we'll have to try and get seats closer to Mike.

The only downside to the night was the section we were sitting in sucked. Not view wise, we could see fine, but this one guy in particular was a real downer. I've been to plenty of seated shows before and you either stand with everyone else or you let them stand for a song or two and generally people sit down on their own (as happened the last time we saw Pearl Jam). The guy in front of me stood up for one song, and I followed suit, but the guy behind me, before the song was even over, tapped me on the shoulder and told me to tell the guy in front of me to sit down. Not asked, but told. This guy wasn't taking no for an answer. A few choice words were exchanged between the two guys, and then the rest of the concert was spent bopping in our seats. I simmered a little but wasn't willing to let the guy ruin my night, so I had a good time anyway, but concert etiquette appears to be a thing of the past. What was more annoying was looking around the Centre and seeing practically every other damn section standing. Perhaps it pissed me off more because he was so rude about it, demanding we do as he said.

After the second encore a few people in front of us left so for the last couple of songs we were able to climb over the seats and stand in this area that was clear at the front.

All in all, a fantastic show though, I highly recommend for others to go and see them when they get the chance. Here's a very bad photo taken with my camera phone in which you can't see a thing. I assure you our seats were not as bad as this photo makes them look!

EDIT: Having trouble uploading photo, will do my best to get it going from home tonight.

EDIT 2: Success!

Aunt Mel

I am very happy to announce that my sister is around 6 weeks pregnant and is expecting her first child in July! We were originally told to keep it quiet, but since she's been too excited and has blabbed to lots of people she's now given me permission to tell people too. I'm HEAPS happy for her and can't wait to be an Aunt! I plan on spoiling the little boy or girl as much as I can. Her and hubby have been hoping to fall pregnant for a little while now, and as a rule I'd stopped asking her if she'd had any news because as we all know, when people ask us annoying repetitive questions it doesn't actually help. So when she called me at work a couple of Fridays ago and announced the news I could barely contain my excitement. YAY!!!

In other news, I still haven't posted pics from my October camping trip or details on the last couple of LANs. Should I bother? The posts are now extremely outdated...

Got ID?

A couple of weekends ago I left work early on the Friday to drive up to Berri for the Riverland Wine & Food Festival (hereafter called the Festivus). The website promised frivolity and thus my expectations were high.

Bronwyn was kind enough to let me stay over her place over the weekend along with another Mel that she knows from the Barossa. We both arrived on the Friday night and Bronwyn, bless her, had cooked us a delicious dinner and we had a relatively early night, chatting and watching The Princess Bride which until then I had never seen before despite it purporting to be a classic.

On the Saturday Bron took us for a drive to Renmark in her new car, although it was a not-so-secret plot to get her car washed but we weren't up early enough to do anything constructive before the Festivus anyway.

Around lunchtime we met up with a couple of Bron's Berri friends and walked down to the riverbank for the Festivus of frivolity. I must say I wasn't disappointed in the slightest, it was a fantastic day! The weather was gorgeous, the atmosphere good, the music not-too-shabby, and the wine and food were very good indeed. The wine was so good, in fact, we kept going back for more.

Before dinner time had hit I think we were all... well... tanked. They dtopped serving the wine at 6pm, which was probably just as well, because none of us needed anymore. One of Bron's mates who is notorious for falling over took a tumble and smacked her head on the wooden table, blacking out for a short time. It was as sobering a moment as was possible but she was fine in the end and got home safely.

The rest of us went to the pub for a quick drink before walking back to Bron's place for an intermission. After getting changed and drinking lots of water in an attempt to sober somewhat, we made our way to another mate's place for some home-cooked pizzas before walking down to The Vines, the faux-nightclub the pub becomes after a certain time. I wasn't too keen on going as I'm over the nightclub scene but decided to go along after all.

My attitude re: not wanting to be there must have been evident somewhat as the git bouncer carded me for ID. I'm freaking 27!! Other people I've told this to said I must have been flattered but I definitely wasn't, I was more annoyed at the idiot for carding people that look nothing like they did when they were 10 years younger. Well, in my drunken state of preparing for the night, taking my ID with me did not even enter my mind, so I may have been partially at fault. But only very partially! Anyway, I decided to just go home and get to sleep, so Bron and Mel stayed on while I took the nanna way out.

On Sunday I woke up at some ungodly hour (it was about 6:15am) and pottered around waiting for the others to wake up. After they did I left quite early, visited Mum and Dad on the way home and came home feeling very tired and seedy. Was a great weekend though.

Right, so there's an update finally! After receiving a few subtle hints, now you can all shut the hell up about it :D

Science!

Well a couple years ago when I heard they were going to discontinue the Hubble space telescope program with nothing solid to replace it for a decade I was if not most upset, at least somewhat perturbed by the decision.

Hubble has done so much for us in cosmic mapping to this date and enhanced our understanding of the universe around us from an almost child like ignorance to where we stand today. (somewhere between ignorance and pre-school knowledge).

So for me when I read this article this morning:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061031/ap_on_sc/shuttle_hubble_8

... to say the least I was thrilled and a small hole of sentimentality which had eroded into me felt like it was beginning to heal once more.

What is probably just as interesting from a new safety standpoint is the second shuttle being on standby should anything go wrong with the first while obtaining or being in orbit since the first will not be able to hook up with the international space station.

NASA always seems to learn from her mistakes which is more than can be said for alot of operations around the globe and even makes some great decisions every now and then.
I heartily look forward to watching the progress of this mission in early 2008.

Quickly!

Just a quick update to let you guys know I am still around, have just been a combination of busy and slack in updating (but what's new). Have been planning on posting with some photos about my camping trip, and will also follow it up by some other random things I've been up to (without photos). But for now I am about to hit the road, as I'm going to the Riverland Food & Wine Festival this weekend so I'm leaving work early for the drive up to Berri, my old haunt. Will post when I return (promises, promises).

Does Liberty Die Here?

Greetings fellow concerned citizens.

In my sweeping of the usual net forums and Blogs that I conduct on an almost daily basis I came across a thread on of all things a gaming forum with echoed cries of "How can this be happening" permeating throughout its several pages and since this is not a normal thing for this site, I was instantly intrigued and read onwards.

(As stupid as it sounds I keep hearing Amidala from Revenge of the Sith saying "So this is how liberty dies. To the sound of thunderous applause.")
A quote from Paladin, Relic Forums.
Amended by Mr Carrot
"Sorry had to bring this one up, Lucas cannot be attributed with writing something as brilliant and portentous. It was originally said by a Weimar Germany official in response to the standing ovation Hitler received in the Reichstag after effectively suspending the democractic process."

Many such parallels have been drawn between the Bush Jr administration and the 3rd Reich now but I shall refrain from going into the stylizations which are evident and abound across the realms of the internet in favour of pushing the point of this post along rather than getting hung up on semantics.

Well I may have you intrigued as to what I am speaking of now that could be so terribly appalling and now will direct you to that which may very well cause the greatest super power on our planet to become a twisted thing of evil and shadows: The military commissions act of 2006
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11396/military_commissions_act_of_2006_proposed.html

"If passed, this legislation would authorize military commissions to try 'unlawful enemy combatants' and detainees accused of terrorist acts."

Well that doesn't sound so bad now does it, terrorists are bad people who hurt innocents to further their own agendas without concern for the lives of those they harm and kill, good on them you might say but ahhh read the fine print, that's where the real debased depravity begins.

I would like to take the entire first post of this thread: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=110969&page=1&pp=15
Just to reiterate and introduce you to the problems that lie within the proposed bill without needing to read the entire PDF if you don't have the time.

*Ahem*
**********************************************************************************
Actions soon to be legally permissible if the POTUS says so!

-Rape!
-Waterboarding!
-Execution on the basis of coerced confessions!
-Torture!

And so much more. The stickler of course is that they must be committed against accused terrorists. What makes you an accused terrorist? Being accused of being a terrorist, of course.

Quote:

Let me be clear about something--something that it seems few people are willing to say. This bill permits torture. It gives the President the discretion to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. No matter how much well-intended United States Senators would like to believe otherwise, it gives an Administration that lobbied for torture just what it wanted. The only guarantee we have that these provisions really will prohibit torture is the word of the President. But we have seen in Iraq the consequences of simply accepting the word of this Administration.

Quote:

To take just a few examples, this legislation would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and hearsay, would not allow full judicial review of the conviction, and yet would allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death. That is simply unacceptable. We would not stand for another country to try our citizens under those rules, and we should not stand for our own government to do so, either.

Some forumgoers may know that the US Congress recently reported (handed off) a bill supposedly seeking to define what torture is and what's permissible. It is, in a word, monstrous.

The bill basically states that the Geneva conventions and all other laws and treaties pertaining to the treatment of prisoners only apply if the President says they apply. This would be retroactive several years. The practical implications of this are staggering.

This bill defines a legal basis for tyranny.

I'm so angry I can barely see straight so unfortunately I can't really go into the depth I desire.

Further reading:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8593.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/28/12236/7431
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/legalization-of-torture-an_115945829460324274.html
(^^for god sakes change your background and text colour *Xy*^^)

Quote:

This bill sends a clear message to both our friends and our enemies about what kind of people we are. It shows them whether or not we are really willing to practice what we preach about freedom, democracy, and human dignity. It is moments like this one when we reveal our true colors, and our real values. Sadly, M. Speaker, those watching today will conclude that when the going gets tough, America's leaders are willing abandon our values... ...abandon them in favor of thuggish tactics they hope might make them safer for a little while.

Quote:

As Ackerman put it: "The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights." Similarly, Lederman explains: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."
***********************************************************************************

Comming from a country that not only supports a regime that intends with all severity and conscious choice to pass an act that can haul it's own citizens from their beds (and those of connected countries with free flowing extradition laws) but also hails them as the shining beacon of hope for humanity, holding them in our arms as brothers horrifies me beyond belief.

So who exactly is an Unlawful enemy combatant if this bill passes and is sanctioned exactly?
Apparently anyone the U.S president deems to be so and without trial or any form of legal recourse that person or persons is now "Legally" held for torture and should they be coerced into a false confession could be executed also without any legal defense permittable.


Readers, this not only is a disgusting act of bullying aggression, it is a sickness that flows right from the very depths of all that is conceivably brutal and evil in the natures of powerful men seeking to stretch their reach out further to grasp what they seek and let me tell you something right now, it isn't peace, freedom or dignity for their chosen people that they seek but simply a way to line their own pockets with gold and to have the power to do whatever they wish.

So you may then ask: "What can we as a people of the 'free' western global society do about such a horrible injustice?"
Well the first step, being aware of what is happening around you, you have already taken by reading this humble yet outraged post and taking on board that awareness so as to view the worlds events in a light unclouded by the propaganda being sent forth.
Keep your eyes peeled, this is only the first sign and likely more will follow if this bill is fully passed and approved thinly veiled in a disguise of "protecting the nation from terrorist threats".

McLaren Vale trip

Today I went on a little tour of McLaren Vale with people from the Hungarian church, Mum, Grandma, Maria and Steve. So here's a little rundown of the only thing I've done this weekend aside from gaming and watching television.

Well i awoke at 7:30am to find it pissing down with rain outside. After having some breakfast and keeping warm, i decided to call Mum to see if the trip was going ahead despite the inclement weather. Alas, it was, so i showered and prepared myself for the day.

Naturally, Hungarians are always late, and so we sat in the bus waiting for one couple and left about 15 minutes later than planned. I also discovered around this time that I was not dressed warm enough at all. The bus ride was uneventful, just was chatting to my sis and trying to resist the urge to hit one particular lady across the back of the head for the silly things she was saying.

We stopped at McLaren On The Lake where the priest was going to say a few words but at the end of one paragraph (or the amount I imagined to be a paragraph) the heavens opened up and God saw fit to rain down upon us (possibly as punishment to the idiotic lady in the bus). As fast as old people can move, we hurried to the bus again.

We then went to a winery called Parri Estate where I sampled some fine reds (and purchased one). This was also the place we were to have lunch, so after standing around for half an hour waiting for them to get the dining room ready, we sat down for a meal. Approximately an hour after we'd ordered, our meals were finally served. Delicious, but perhaps not worth the excessive wait. Maybe they thought some of the oldies might die or something *shrugs*... but we had booked the place so one would think they'd have been better prepared.

The rain had stopped but the blustering cold winds continued as we "raced" back to the buses an hour later than planned. From there we went to another winery called Wirra Wirra which was nice but by this stage my heart was not in it and I resisted trying any more wines since I didn't want to spend any more money. However, the winery had this old Trebuchet which they were firing up, launching watermelons into the sky due to some new product launch, so that was a bit of fun.

We then went to this place called the Tin Shed Cafe and had a nice hot coffee, then made our way home.

The End

To close for comfort?

I just saw this today and thought well for those who don't know me very well, since I will be around here fairly frequently from now on to serenade you the loyal viewers of Mels blog with all manner of ingenious or passe diatribes then I should perhaps give you a fairly close view of this strange person now invading your lives.

Enjoy :P

News!

As some of you may have noticed, my friend Xy has been leaving lengthy comments of late. Comments that are so long in fact, that they actually have more content than a lot of my posts. I therefore have decided to make him a co-author of my blog. At this stage there are no plans to rename my blog (since it will no longer be just Mel posting) but I'm sure that Xy will post some amusing and entertaining articles and we can then perhaps discuss naming rights. So, if you happen to see Xy posting, don't think he has infiltrated my blog illegally and leave any nasty comments, will you?

And now, the other exciting news! Although this requires me to make a confession. Some time ago when watching an episode of CSI, the forensics guys were mixing together something in big beakers, like with a 2 litre capacity or something. I was so impressed with these I exclaimed "Wouldn't they be awesome to have as cookware?!" and by golly, I was dead serious. Now, the first step in my ultimate kitchen! I must have these!

A better rundown of the holiday

I figured I would include a little more detail about Glen's trip to Adelaide and what we got up to rather than the generic "we went to the Barossa" line while I post a few of the piccies that were taken.

Our trip to the Barossa was probably the most full-on day, with us leaving early so that we would have time to go to a few wineries. The first one we went to was Wolf Blass where we sampled and purchased lots of "waaarn". Exhibit A shows some of the bottles purchased. I bought myself a bottle of Shiraz not being a big white wine drinker, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the whites, very tasty indeed, so we walked out with 7 bottles from the one winery. Off to a great start then.



The wind had started picking up by this point so we decided one more winery would do it and decided to make our way to Saltram's. One wrong turn later we stumbled upon Angaston, so decided to have some lunch at a Cafe there and then attempt to find Saltram's again. This time we succeeded. By this stage though I think we were both thinking "Oh boy we've bought a lot of bottles of wine already" so we only bought 3 more bottles I think before we headed back home. Yes, only.

We decided to check out Whispering Wall on the way back to the city as I hadn't been there since I was a kid but the wind was really cold and bitey at this stage so we got out of the car, took a couple of quick photos, dubbed it "Windy-as-fuck Wall" and got the hell out of there. Exhibit B demonstrates the windy conditions well I think.



I won't go into too much detail for the other trips or we'll be here forever, but the next piccies are ones that were taken at Waterfall Gully which I think are nice ones.





For Glen's last few days in Adelaide we had Alex over and had a mini-LAN one night. We played some Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Flatout 2, and let's just say the night was all about the stats. Unfortunately I had to work on the Monday but Glen came into town and we had lunch so that broke up the day nicely. He was inconsiderate enough to book a flight out at 6:15am on Tuesday though but I'll let that slide :D

And that is the holiday in a little more detail! If I think up any more amusing anecdotes I will post them at a later stage. Oh, and for those that might be thinking "Who is this Glen person?" the short version is he is someone Ivan and I met online during our days playing Battlefield 1942 online (he goes by the online name of Xy), we've kept in touch ever since and he is one of my closest friends. It may seem strange that we built such a good friendship via the internet but finally after all these years it was good to meet him in person. Surreal, but at the same time it was like he was here all along. Thanks for coming to visit us, Glen :)

Tourist

Much has happened since I last updated this page. Much! At the moment I am wrapping up a week of Rec Leave I took because Glen has been visiting from QLD. It's great being a tourist in your own town but I must say I have been somewhat embarassed by the rudeness of some fellow Adelaideans. This was mostly demonstrated by our visits into the city where I was apparently wearing a sign asking people to nudge me out of the way, bang into me, and other painful things. Oh wells. Aside from visiting the city we've spent some time in Glenelg, bought lots of wine from the Barossa Valley, and went to outdoorsy places like Waterfall Gully and Mount Lofty Summit and the Botanical Gardens. Thankfully we've had some good weather. At the moment Glen is on my PC so I am using Ivan's to update this, so will post some photos when I can.

Prior to my week of holidays, work was the usual mundane stuff. Ivan spent a weekend in Port Augusta which in one way, it was nice to have the house to myself so that I could turn music up loudly and dance around crazily, but by the Saturday night I was missing him so was glad to have him return. It worked out well too in a sense because I received an unexpected call from Michelle on the Friday night when I was home alone and we went for a late night drive just like old times. I also spent some time catching up with the family, with Dad having his birthday during my lack-of-updates and stuff.

Well I suppose I should let Ivan have his computer back. I will write some more when I get the chance. I have to go back to work on Monday and am already dreading it. *sulks*

Egads, where did time go?

Several people have been hounding me to update this blog and truly I've been meaning to but just have not had the time. Not entirely true, it's not as if every minute of every day is taken up with something, but work has been insane with the end of financial year and raising of charges for the new financial year, and then when I go home all I want to do is play Neverwinter Nights or veg out on the couch, and so my poor little site (which, to be honest, I'm surprised is still being visited) gets neglected.

Aside from working lots of extra hours and doing little else, there have been a couple more birthdays since I last updated. First up, there was mine on June 22, for which I took a long weekend off from work and relaxed and got spoiled as should be the case on one's birthday.

Next in line was Maria's on July 15, but we celebrated hers a week early since her and Steve had a wedding to go to on the day (coincidentally, my cousin in Yugoslavia got married on that day too). We caught up for lunch and that was about it, just a bit of a family thing, but it was nice.

So yeah, around the birthdays there has truly been little going on besides work and relaxing at home. I'm feeling my age I think, having absolutely no energy to do anything following the extra hours I've been doing, but such is life.

Apologies for the lack of updates once again, but as you can see, there has been little to write about.

May/June in dotpoints

This update is extremely overdue. It seemed at a time there was so much I wanted to say and then things got so busy, and then more things happened, and it just became easier to condense things into one post after my original intentions had failed. Such is the world of blogging.

Anyway, thus begins the list to update the blog world on where I've been...

• The weekend after Ivan's birthday was my Grandma's 80th. We threw her a surprise dinner at the Hungarian Club, and I got to see step-cousins I haven't seen for, um, about 15 years I think. It was a nice night and Grandma was so happy.
• The morning of her 80th, I went to the GP for my regular smear test. Got a scare that lasted 3 weeks when an irregularity was found, and they conducted test after test. Thankfully that has passed now but it was very freaky.
• The following Monday I reluctantly made my way into work, only to discover our floor had been flooded due to some plumbing incident, and we were all without desks, an office, computers, phones, etc. Decided to take 2 days off that week as we couldn't do much anyway, being off the floor the entire week.
• Mother's Day came and went, with our family going up to Zorro's in Hahndorf. Pork on the spit, absolutely delicious! Highly recommend this place to those that enjoy their meat.
• The following week I'd already booked Annual Leave which was impeccable timing since everyone else had to move their furniture back into our floor (it was all removed so the carpets could be dried instead of being replaced, tightarses). I spent the week doing very little except relaxing and catching up on household stuff that had been piling up, and seeing Tash who I hadn't seen for months.
• Ivan and I paid a visit to the bank to see where we stood in terms of the house savings. We have a ways to go, and needed to reassess our location of choice. Hopefully another year, 18 months...
• X-Men 3 was finally released, yay! But the film didn't live up to my expectations, although it wasn't too bad, just not as good as number 2.
• I've been put on a project at work, and it has been insanely busy (today is the first day I've had time to sit here for this long). End of financial year approaching makes this place a madhouse.
• Steve had his birthday too (May/June are busy birthday months!) so to celebrate we went to Ming's Palace on Gouger Street. Delicious Chinese food, highly recommended.
• Mum took me clothes shopping as an early birthday present. This is not highly significant, but since I rarely spend a day clothes shopping, I thought it worthy :)
• Eric had Ivan, Alex and I over for dinner one night. Damn that man's a good cook! We watched a couple of movies after dinner and it was a nice night with the lads.
• Ivan and I went to a Quiz night with Alex and his workmates. Our table was coming third but then struck out badly in the end, losing it all on one question. Was good fun though, I hadn't been to a Quiz night for years.
• And finally, on the weekend just passed, we went to Mum and Dad's to have my birthday lunch, as Mum's work schedule next weekend is not as flexible. Despite having food poisoning Natasha came along, bless her, and despite an ordinary start to the event the day turned out great :)

Phew! Okay, I really must take out 10 minutes every so often and update this place more (she says for the 100th time).

Birthdays and drinks

Last Thursday was Ivan's 33rd birthday and this Thursday is my Grandma's 80th, so we've been quite busy of late. For Ivan's birthday I attempted to make him a dinner of his choice, which thankfully wasn't a disaster, and that night Mum, Dad, Maria and Steve popped around to wish him well and to pass along their gifts.

On the Friday night we went to the Griffin's Head Tavern to meet a swag of Neverwinter Nights Internode users, which I was a little apprehensive about simply because I find it a little nerve-wrecking to meet a bunch of people I don't know but on the other hand I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately Matt couldn't go so the only people Ivan and I were going to know were Ivan and I, thus I was a little relieved when Alex called announcing that him and Eric were coming along to shout Ivan some birthday drinks.

It turned out to be a really fun night and we met a bunch of great people and Ivan got a little drunk which was quite amusing, hehe! We took some photos of the night which may seem meaningless without names to point out who is who but if you want to have a look at them they can be found here.

Now that I am back to my normal duties at work things have settled down to something more controllable and I am starting to see parts of my desk again which has been very nice. Towards the end of last week I was in the "I can't wait until Sandra comes back" stage, although I could get used to the extra money.

Today has been particularly awesome because we have received new colour coded files for each area and the colour we got in the area I work in is PURPLE! So I have gone on a little filing frenzy just so I could use the new purple files, although admittedly it didn't take long for the novelty to wear off.

And now a final note for the day: Ivan watches Big Brother more than I do but pretends he isn't by saying "it's just on in the background". Pfft!

More stuff and things!

I am soooo looking forward to having a long weekend due to Easter it isn't funny. Although I feel I have regained a little more control over my workflow, work is still so busy and thus today I figure I may as well leave early and start my long weekend off on a positive light, so I shan't be here for much longer indeed!

Once again my life outside of work is rather limited. However, last weekend Ivan and I did go to Darren's place for a LAN which was heaps of fun. Ofcourse, I came last in the Racedriver 2, and ofcourse I remained middle of the pack in Tiger Woods Golf, but I had hoped to do better in F.E.A.R than the third place I got, damn Shane and his actual practising of the game. Damn him!! We played a few other games throughout the night to keep things fresh and I must say I can't think of a single thing where I thought it wasn't that good. Well done to Darren for making the night fun as always!

Those sorts of nights can wipe you though, especially when you get to bed at 4am, and so my weekend was no more constructive than that. This weekend I am really looking forward to some time at home, as I can barely get myself out of bed to come to work these days. Tomorrow I'll probably go to church with Mum and Grandma and then on Saturday we're having lunch with my family, so the rest of the weekend I hope to catch up on some reading and TV shows and perhaps do some housework (things are looking a bit on the gross side). Yeah I know it's not at all exciting but you're the sucker reading this :P

Happy Easter everyone :)

Quiet Schmiet

Although still under the pump at work, things have settled into a somewhat controllable routine about the place and I actually feel like I'm getting through things rather than just having them pile up on my desk threatening to bury me.

In fact, the only bad thing to happen to me while I was at work last week was buying a "fresh" salad from a salad bar only to find it was still thawing, with the egg not being fully defrosted. And hey, if that's the worst thing that happens to me in a week of work, I know I am very lucky to have such a job.

So another weekend has been and gone, with this one being much more quiet. I had such a nice relaxing one, it's a wonder I have needed coffees today. On Saturday all I did was go and get a facial and then on Sunday I visited Mum briefly but then hurried home to watch the F1 Grand Prix. God I wish the F1 racing was still here in Adelaide - I really must get to Melbourne for it one year, there's just nothing quite like it.

Anywho, as usual nothing exciting happening on this end of things but at least I am now updating my blog needlessly ;)

Clipsal 500

Ahh, another year, another Clipsal 500. Since the F1 races left Adelaide, Dad and I tend to go to the Clipsal 500 every year, even if just for a day. Last year we didn't go because he had just had operations on his foot so this year we were extra excited. He was going on all 4 days, with me agreeing to go with him on the Saturday. Mum then found out a couple of days beforehand that she could get 4 Gold tockets from her work, so she snapped them up, so in the end the whole family went.

I had such a great time, with the only downside being the heat. We weren't undercover so spent most of the day in the shade, finally returning to our seats for the big race. All in all it was a fabulous day - my family all got along, I got to go to a Motorsport event for the first time in a couple of years, it didn't rain (although some clouds would've been nice) and the race itself had lots of cool incidents which kept things interesting :) I'm looking forward to going again next year already! Unfortunately, every single one of us forgot to take cameras with us, so the only photos I have are on my mobile. I'll probably post a couple when I get to downloading them off my phone.

P.S. I know I have neglected this Blog big time. There are only two things happening in my life at the moment - work and playing Neverwinter Nights when I get home, so I haven't had much time nor anything exciting to write about. I'll try and keep this place alive until I find some inspiration again though.

Waaaaaay overdue

I know it's been three weeks since I've updated, but believe it or not this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write. Work, where I normally update from, has been incredibly busy and I've thus had no time to do any of the web browsing I would normally do from work. The problem has been that a couple of our staff have left at once and there are so many things to do that each day until right now has been chockers. I have not been the nicest person to work with, I must admit, and have gone home lately quite discouraged with this place, but it has its good days too so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Aside from work when I get home I don't log on to update my blog as I'd much rather spent the time playing Neverwinter Nights which is slowly killing me I think, but oh it's a good, fun death! On the few occasions I have left the house for reasons other than work I've either been seeing the family or being lucky enough to see Michelle's family for the first time in many months. I can't get over how quickly those kids grow, I must endeavour to catch up with her more often.

Hmm, what else... Ah yes, Valentine's Day has been and gone again, and I must admit that although Ivan and I have a long-standing agreement that we won't fuss over each other on the day, reading other people's blogs make me go "Awww, I wish we'd done something more". Damn you Tim! Nah he did cook me a delicious dinner which was very nice as he hardly ever (read: never) cooks, and it turned out which was even better.

I think that's it, I'm leaving work early to go shoe shopping so I'd better wrap this up :) That's right, today I get to blog AND shop, I truly am spoiling myself today.

Pleasing

Mum and Dad's houseguests left on Sunday which has made them very happy indeed, as from what I heard they were not the most pleasant people to live with for a couple of weeks. On Saturday we had their farewell lunch at Mum and Dad's which went later than I'd hoped, but on the plus side I got to see my family and so there was at least one positive to the day. We did very little for the rest of the weekend except play Neverwinter Nights, and I've enjoyed having a few quiet weekends.

Anyway, so the house guests. Mum and Dad told me many stories about their behaviour but I guess a couple of incidents stand out. The first is the fact that, even though you're a guest at someone's house, surely you could at least wash your own clothes, no? On another occasion, after dinner Dad made everyone little sandwiches as an after dinner snack. The lady promptly put the plate in front of her and ate all four sandwiches. Who does stuff like that? I dunno, maybe I was just brought up differently but I thought people could be polite no matter how they were brought up. I've travelled and stayed with other people on several occasions and it seems only nice to put your dishes in the sink, offer to help with housework, take care of your own laundry, surely? Ah well, now their lives can return to normal. They sounded very happy on the phone after dropping them off at the airport and I think they won't be accepting houseguests again any time soon.

Today at work has so far been bad. Just found out that annoying Manager is staying for 2 more months. This makes me a sad panda.

Run in

Bloody hell, what a morning already. Dad dropped me off at work today and a set of traffic lights changed in front of us which is where I decided to get out of the car. Ofcourse, I didn't look, and thus a cyclist was there I was unaware of. Thankfully, as the lights were red and she was slowing down too, it was not as bad as it could have been and the timing was so that she was able to stop before hitting the door, but bloody hell did I get a bit of wrath. Immediately I said "I'm so sorry, I didn't even look" with her looking like she wanted to punch me, and my word I think sorry was just never going to be enough for this girl. She raised her voice at this point, replying "I know you didn't look!" Well, friends, I wasn't going to stand on this street corner arguing the point (although seeing as we both agreed I didn't look, I'm not sure what we'd be arguing over) so I replied, "I'm saying I'm sorry, what more do you want?" I actually did feel really bad... until she pointed to Dad's number plate as if memorising it to report it later. Fucking pedal bitch.

Insanity

For the last 2 and a half months we've had an Acting Manager, someone who came from outside this office. In that time I have tried to be patient and calm but my goodness, this week he seems to be more annoying than ever. He's one of those "but that's not how we do it in the other office" people. Well buddy, you don't exactly do things right in that there place! I have no problem with people asking questions but this guy's problem (well, one of them anyway) is that he doesn't believe your answer. So he'll ask the person in the next cubicle. Then he'll ask his Manager. Then he'll ask his Manager's Manager. Each person confirming what you bloody told him to start with. And must he question every damn thing we ask him to sign? MUST he? Apparently the answer is yes. Or possibly no, but he will anyway.

The only way to somehow get through these days without banging one's head against a desk is to email your colleagues and vent your frustration like so... "Argh he drives me insane!!! We're not asking you to assess the bloody thing, just DO IT!!!" You get the idea. God bless my colleagues, for we are all going through this madness together.

To the land of Edon

I have become completely addicted to playing Neverwinter Nights online, and the only person to blame is Hoogs. He was over one day, telling Ivan about how much fun it was to roleplay the game online, and thus hooked us in (especially me, the wannabe story teller, very good stuff for the imagination). Ivan went and bought it one day and the next day I did the same, and since then there have been a lot of late nights as a result. It is so addictive because each time you join a server it's a new experience and you can make as many different characters as you'd like.

So anyway, that's pretty much been life for the last few days. Aside from that the only thing that's been happening is that we have some relatives down from Hungary, staying with Mum and Dad for the last week. It's apparently a cousin of Mum's and his wife although Mum hasn't seen them in around 30 years or something. So on Saturday we all went to Gorge Wildlife Park. I can't remember if I've been there before, like back in Primary School or something, but I had a great time. We stayed there for a BBQ then headed home and Darren came over for a few hours. One thing though, I stupidly relied on Whereis.com to give us a quicker way to get there and it sent us on some crazy trip through the hills. One of the streets it sent us down was Corkscrew Road and for a person who hates driving through the hills it was a nightmare. We arrived with queesy stomachs indeed! Needless to say, we took the easier option home, even if it was a few kms longer...

Not the best of breaks

Thursday was Australia Day and thus, a day off work, and in effort to get a long weekend I also booked Friday off as an Annual Leave day. I imagined myself getting some housework done and above all else, relaxing my arse off, but so far that's not really been the case.

Ivan had a big data entry project to do which he anticipated might take him the whole 4 days so in an effort to free up his time I decided to give him a hand. We worked all of Thursday and Friday afternoons on it and got it finished. We'd just talked about how we'd go out somewhere for dinner with some of the money earned as a bit of a treat.

Then Ivan was packing the stuff up, moving the chair back around to the other desk but had to lift it to get it over the desk. In doing so, he tripped over the wastebasket and the chair went through the front window of the unit. My immediate reaction was to laugh, because I always laugh when something bad happens as some crazy defense mechanism and also because the vision of him tripping over was quite bloody amusing. But then I realised most of the money we'd just earned had just, literally, gone out the window.

We phoned a couple of glaziers and one came out at a reasonable price last night but didn't have the right sized glass and ofcourse, he has not yet returned today so our front window is currently patched up and all our neighbours are now well aware that we're idiots.

In an unrelated topic we also seem to have an ant problem. The problem is, we keep getting odd ones around the place and not a stream so we have no idea where they're getting in but their singularity is starting to annoy me.

So aside from all that crap I haven't done very much at all besides watch a bunch of Smallville episodes. I'm frantically trying to get through the Season 2 episodes. And the extent of my housecleaning so far has been cleaning the toilet. Not exactly the break from work I had planned...

Last

It's the last day to vote for my blog in the 2006 Australian Blog Awards so get to it! Follow those links to the right and vote away! And unlike John Farnham, this really is the last time [to vote].

As an aside, today is possibly the last time I have pasta for lunch when I'm wearing a white shirt. Will I never learn?? Apparently, because this shirt is stripey the spillage is not as obvious but methinks my workmates are just being kind.

Oh, to be (filthy) rich!

After having the same $10 sunglasses for just under 10 years, I decided it was time for a new pair when I put them on recently and could hardly see out of one eye due to the lenses getting scratched in my handbag. Sunglasses are something I have never splurged on because of the fact I either a) lose them, b) sit on them, or c) scratch them. But this time, I thought, I'd look for something a little better and attempt to take care of them.

I went into Shades first, which was a huge mistake. I tried on a few pairs and fell in love with this one pair which, I was very disappointed to hear, were going to cost me $400. $400 for a pair of sunglasses! I'd never want to take them out of their case! I'd require an alarm thingy with them so I could locate them! They'd need to be completely unbreakable. Unfortunately, the price was mainly due to the name, and not for any of these nifty features. Woe is me.

Ofcourse, every other pair I tried on and looked at after just couldn't compare to this pair I'd fallen in love with. I searched high and low for something reasonable. In the end, I went to the Chemist and ended up buying a much more respectably priced pair of sunnies, but alas, they don't look quite as good.

FYI for those in Adelaide, the Sunglass Hut I don't think have ever heard of customer service. I went in there twice (yes, I gave them a second chance!) and each time the "customer service" staff walked right by me not to someone else, but just to wander around the store aimlessly. Good job, ladies.

New planet discovered!

This morning NASA sent off a probe to Pluto, but let me tell you, I don't need no fancy high speed thingy to discover my own planet in the last few days. This planet is situated... get this... on my leg.

Yes, I speak of a pimple. On my freaking leg. Who gets a pimple on their leg? I mean that rhetorically but clearly the answer is me. I don't know why or how but somehow it appeared on the lower half of my leg earlier this week, and from the looks of it, it's here to stay for a while. And it's not just a little one either, it is HUGE and stands out like dog's balls. So in this 35+ degree weather I can't even wear a skirt to work. Bastard of a thing!

A challenge indeed

My poor Dad seems to have a continuing run of bad luck when it comes to sucky employers. There was as some might remember the whole debarcle pre-Christmas 2004 when the place he'd worked at for 15 years decided to give him the old heave-ho and then the challenge of getting them for unfair dismissal. SO he wanted to get out of that industry and start something new, and since then poor Dad has had trouble finding his place in the workforce.

I don't know why my family kept it from me, but I only found out a couple of days ago that Dad's no longer doing delivery work anymore because again, basically his boss was a bit of a prick (this time, no evidence of something we could take him on, unfortunately). I was initially told Dad was put on standby because the company lost the delivery contract, but then last night Mum told me she suspects it was because he made a pay enquiry with his boss after working on a public holiday and the boss apparently flew off the handle. How can people be such total arses?

So this morning Dad had an appointment with a recruitment agency that Ivan had set up (bless his cotton socks). I went along with him before work as it was an informal get-together just to hand in a Resume basically and arrange a time to fill out paperwork, etc. She was such a positive person and was very reassuring, so I hope something comes out of it that above all else makes Dad happy! God knows he deserves to be happy after putting up with crappy workplaces for so many years.

It really got me down thinking about it last night, probably because I remember my own crappy experiences. Thankfully, I have had pretty good working relationships throughout my working life, but when I started off at Bi-Lo as a 15 year old I had the biggest dickhead as a boss, ever. He gave me a written warning on Christmas Eve for the love of god! In fact, the only two written warnings I ever got were in the first 3 months of working there, both from him, and I worked with that company for 9 years with no other verbal warnings, even. I hate that man to this very day.

So, get it off your chest, what bad experiences in the workforce have you guys faced?

A shameless plug indeed

In honour of my 300th post, and also because I'd like to bask in some kind of e-glory, I bring your attention to the fact that you may now vote for me in the 2006 Australian Blog Awards (see links in the sidebar). Unfortunately, you need to be registered with Collective Apathy to vote, so one link directs you to the nominations screen where you can register, and the other link takes you to the voting page for the category I'm nominated in. I've made it as easy as possible for you all to sign up and vote for... well, whoever you like :) Signing up to the site is easy and well worth it to cast a democratic vote. So, vote away (if you please)!

Has it been that long?

I was getting into such a good habit with updating this Blog regularly and now, before I know it, almost a week has passed since my last update. Oh well.

Not that I have anything interesting to report, really. I was intending to get on here a few days ago and discuss the "controversy" (and I use the term loosely) that is Brokeback Mountain, and I'm sure I had other things to prattle on about, but that moment's passed so I'm left with a quick boring update.

With the whole metering data saga work has been really hectic as I was responsible for moving the project forward while someone was on leave, and at times over the last 3 weeks I was sure I'd go somewhat crazy, but thankfully he's back from leave now and my own work can slowly return to normal.

The weekend passed with little fanfare, although it's just what I needed after the leadup to Christmas, than New Year's, than a LAN. A rest was definitely in order. On Saturday I went to visit Mum and Dad for a few hours and that was about the only time I left the house over the weekend. The rest of the time was spent watching the Cricket, watching Smallville episodes, catching up on other weekly TV shows, playing a couple of games, reading, and generally just sitting on my arse. Fabulous. (Or should I say, fabularse, ha ha).

My apologies for not leading a more exciting life at the moment :)

JeStEr's Arcade

On Saturday we went to Darren's place for what he has named JeStEr's Arcade, i.e. a LAN. He's running it so every 3 months he has one with prizes and points for games tally over the year so that each year he can name a Gamer of the Year. That sentence contained the word "year" a hell of a lot.

He's planned it really well actually, and we had a lot of fun despite turning up late and being assigned to The Hot Room (temperature-wise, not looks-wise). There were 8 of us in total (he's gonna keep the same 8 coming each time to make the points fair). The games that were up for competitions were F.E.A.R, Tiger Woods 2006 and Racedriver 2. After F.E.A.R where I'm not too shabby my downhill slide down the ladder began but not to worry. I didn't manage to walk away with any prizes this time either, curses.

Other games we played for fun were Flatout, SWAT 4 and good old Worms World Party for a few laughs to finish of the night. We got home at around 3am so on Sunday we did as little as humanly possibly, with me watching a lot of TV shows and vegging on the sofa.

The only other thing that has happened to me this week is the air conditioner at work is broken and they're endeavouring to fix it ASAP apparently, and they appreciate our ongoing understanding. I don't understand at all, I'm afraid. Would much rather be working from home. Pfft, who am I kidding, I wouldn't get a thing done!

Hmm, better go get something done...

Topics for discussion

I swear, sometimes at work we have the strangest conversations.

I can't even remember how we got onto this topic, but I somehow managed to hear that Karen believes Jesus was actually a vampire. This somehow morphed into the beliefs of Scientology. This somehow morphed into South Park. We then eventually all returned back to working.

Today the topic of discussion was mouldy food, and when it is ok to simply pick off and continue eating the once-mouldy food item, and when it is not. The concensus was that picking off mouldy bits of bread and cheese were ok, but anything meat or yoghurt related were definitely not. And any growth that looked furry was a definite no. And apparently people have died from eatting green potatoes. Then we questioned how blind people would know if their potatoes were green.

Ah yes, you can learn wonderful things and have wonderful conversations in an office environment.

2005 in dotpoints

2005 was very much a topsy-turvy year for me, with a summary of my year below:

• I got to go to Sydney (my favourite city) in January for the Wave Aid concert with Bron. We had an awesome time but I still have the tanlines from getting extremely burned while we were there.
• Dad had his unfair dismissal hearing and won (big relief for the family).
• Music Month for Bron and I continued with us going to the Big Day Out (hadn't been since 1997). Even though this was in February, and thus not the same month as Wave Aid, we still called it Music Month. Being come on to by some guy who was the most drunk I've ever seen someone was the lowpoint.
• At the end of February I moved back to Adelaide from Berri and started my new job in the city with the same Department. I still miss the people I worked with while in Berri but things are so much easier now.
• I started getting into golf even though I am so very bad at it.
• I finally got some new glasses and got to ditch my old 80's frames.
• Ivan started a second job, which took us some time to adjust to.
• Mum had a major operation but is all good now.
• I finally got the geckos I've wanted for ages and adore them despite them getting moody with each other and needing to be separated. Damn drama queens. Their names are Geckotron and Merkenschlager :)
• I got some scary moles removed. Scary stuff but all good in the end.
• I turned 26 with no fanfare but had a nice birthday for a change.
• BF2 was released and was played furiously for a while but now I haven't loaded it since August.
• My sister and Steve got married. It was beautiful.
• My own relationship with Ivan fell apart briefly, with me even looking at other places to move into, but thank goodness, at the eleventh hour he told me the truth about how he felt. We've now passed our 6 year anniversary.
• I lost one of my best friends.
• I gained some new good friends at my new job.
• I got to meet a bunch of friends I speak to online from interstate.
• I went to Victor Harbor for the first time in years.
• I went bush camping for the first time in 2 years. Man, I'd missed it.
• I went to the Barossa with Bron to see Pete Murray and The Whitlams.
• My parents have had some major financial hardship, which unfortunately looks to be continuing into 2006.
• Christmas was the usual quiet affair, and this year we (the family) didn't drive each other crazy. A Christmas miracle!
• NYE was spent at Alex's with a BBQ and a retro games night, playing stuff like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and Park and Shop. Bloody hell it was fun :D