Deviant Anomaly

We now return you...

2006-09-30T00:42:00.001+10:00

...to your regularly scheduled blogger.

Heya peoples!

Sorry to be offline for so long but as I hear and see Lovergirl's told you, it wasn't exactly my idea. Don't remember much of the Lurch, but from what I do I was having a fair amount of fun until it was cut short.

I'm... mostly okay now I guess - I'm writing from family home rather than friends home, and eyes are being kept on me. It seems I shouldn't be left alone? I don't really get that to be honest, but then there's a fair amount I'm not getting just yet. I'm told I'll be getting better over the next few days and I should be good to work and study from monday next, but I still feel a bit spaced out for now. Thank you for the comments - they were printed out and brought in, and much appreciated. I can't wait to read what you've all been up to while I've been gone, but not tonight - I'm a bit on parole as it were, after I insisted I had to go online, but I won't be on for long (read: my mummy's coming to scoop me up and tuck me into bed in a sec - I won't be fighting too hard).

Plans are for a recap of what's been going on over the weekend, then for next week I'll take shameless advantage of the lack of movement I can get away with right now to do a blog-road-trip of sorts. That and the fact that I'll go stir-crazy if I can't get out in one way or another.

Thanks for not giving up on me while I've been out of it.

Your friend,

Ash(ley)

Good News

2006-09-29T01:07:00.000+10:00

Stephi again.

I tried to post this earlier, but the site wasn't cooperating - good news! At the visit today we found out that (for a number of reasons) Ash is going to be getting out of hospital late (late) tomorrow. While she will be having to have an eye kept on her for a bit, this means she'll at least be staying at her family home over the long weekend, and hopefully coming back to the Asylum sometime next week.

Last I saw her she was still a bit out of it, but she said thanks for all your kind wishes and gave me a message to relay back: 'Greetings to a wider world and thanks for the fond wishes.'

This may or may not be the last you hear from me directly - hopefully Ash'll be good to be typing and talking if nothing more exerting but if not I'll be happy to play scribe for her.

Yes!

Stand-in Writer Stephi

Update

2006-09-26T15:07:00.000+10:00

This is a quick update, explaining both the long silence and hopefully what's been happening.

First off, I'm Stephi - Ashley and I tend to call each other Lovergirl so that's how (she says) she's been mentioning me.

We went to the Lurch out at the goth festival just after her last post and it was a fairly fun evening if a bit rowdy until some asshole came up and king-hit Ash, then started kicking her until we got him off her. Police are charging him, and we've got witnesses all out the wazoo, so hopefully he'll reget it.

We called an ambulance when she didn't get up, and it turned out she was in a coma. Doctors made anxious-sounding noises and did what they could, but it was touch-and-go for a while there. Good news is she was showing signs of recovery and she actually woke up Friday evening. They wouldn't let in any visitors other than immediate family over the weekend, but we got to go and see her on Monday. She'll be sore for a while, but she should be good to head home some time towards the end of the week or early next so long as people keep an eye on her.

She said you guys would probably be worrying or wondering, so she asked me to come on and give you a few updates - just saying she's alive and kicking and such.

This is the first of however many until she comes back, so I'll keep it short. I'm visiting her again this evening with grapes and cherry tomatoes (which she says she's craving), and I'll try to write when I get back.

Stand-in Writer Stephi

Brrrraaaaaainsss

2006-09-09T22:58:00.000+10:00

On April 30th this year, a strange zombie virus struck Sydney! From 1pm the walking undead started to emerge around our Town Hall from shopping mall and bus, as well as from the dozens (literally) of tunnels that surface in the area. We gathered under the big clock until it struck two, then all hundred and fifty of us or so started lurching off through the streets of Sydney.

Crying out our chants of 'Undead Rights!', 'Don't take Death Lying Down!' and the classic 'Braaaaaaainsss', we had more than a few odd looks from passers by. One bit that I did feel a little guilty about was when this little boy took one look at us, screamed and ran off in tears.

This was mostly made up for though when one of our more graphic corpses staggered up to where a fiveish-year-old girl and her mum were watching and mock-bit at her. The mum looked a little shocked, but laughed - the girl? She giggled and went straight for his leg. Took a couple of his mates to separate them, everyone laughing their heads off.

Though when the Lurch continued, his limp was a little bigger than before. Girls rule, am I right?

It took us almost three hours to get to the Opera House (which surprisingly enough was actually where we were headed) delayed slightly while one pack of us attacked a passing bus, another wandered over towards some cops and (later) my gang mauled a poor hapless passerby (who
was actually one of our friends we'd asked to meet us there - looked spontaneous as all hell though).

We chanted slogans, waved our placards in the air and were promptly mobbed by a passing trio of buses filled with tourists happily snap-snapping away. We even drew a television crew or two!

By the time we lurched off into the sunset, we were well-content with ourselves.

Chaos, Panic, Fear? Our work here was done.

Why am I bringing this up today? Well partly the dead-girl-walking feeling after just getting my last assessment - a speech - all written and finished about two minutes before I had to read it out on Friday Evening.

And partly (as you'll hear in the You-Tube) because there's a reprise of the Lurch happening in Early September. Tonight in fact.

Sorry to type and lurch, but I hear my lift outside ^_^

Back tomorrow,

Anomaly

PS: Linky to a you-tube of the Lurch I found the other day - its only a few minutes and its fun to watch... if you watch closely I show up (briefly) around 1:16... not that that's the reason to watch it ^_^

Dev An's Art of Procrastination

2006-09-06T15:39:00.000+10:00

So you have come to learn from the master, young grasshopper? Then let us begin.

The art of procrastination is a manifold path - it is not simply putting things off indefinitely with the constant chant "I will" - as so exquisitely personified by Jase in his younger, less responsible years. That is simple laziness, and while there is indeed a certain charm to leaving everything until someone is actually shouting at you (at least then there's someone to help you go through the piles across your desk) there is an unfortunate and inherent danger in that.

Firstly, you may get a reputation for not doing the work (not exactly a good thing in employment). Secondly in some areas - college being a favourite - noone actually cares of you do the work or not.

You just don't get any marks if you leave it too late.

The dictionary has Procrastination as:

Pro‧cras‧ti‧nate
1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
2. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

But the Art is so much more than that. It is leaving the work for later, yes - but doing it at the eleventh hour (and fifty ninth minute in some cases), just in time to hand it in. Ideally, noone should even know you're doing it, you just inexplicably always seem to have more free time than anyone else.

Funny, that.

Of course, no guesstimation is perfect and sometimes there just isn't any way around a certain amount of research - especially if you don't actually read the question before the day it's due. If anyone tries to tell you the Art is about avoiding hard work, they seriously need to think again. While you haven't been wrestling with the assessments for as long as they have, have they ever tried putting together a 3000-word report in the three hours before it was due, having had minimal sleep the night before (while preparing a different assignment, also due that day)? Incidentally No-Doze on an empty stomach is officially a Bad Idea.

Apparently I was acting like I was high. Can't imagine why.

All too many times, procrastination seems to be no more than a choice between stress early and confidence later or relaxation early and stress at the last minute. Which makes it all the more important that if you're planning to put things off you keep a very close eye on the calendar.

Or keep an industrial-sized pot of coffee behind the textbooks on your shelves (all my roomies are as big a coffee-fiend as I am). And now I've gone and told them where it is. Hang on a sec.

The other big thing to fight is distraction. If you're going to do multiple assessments in a short time - say, hypothetically, one fifteen minutes from the time of writing and another two for Friday - then you can't afford to go off and do something else that might delay your task any later. The due-date is looming over you after all.

So make sure you avoid "just one more" phone call (guilty), "just checking my email" (guilty) and above all, making a blog-post "just while I'm on the computer anyway" (since you're reading this, presumably guilty). Or you too will enjoy the delights of sidling innocently into class twenty minutes late, doing your best to pretend it has nothing to do with the assignment due that tute.

Nope, nothing at all...

NB: Assignments may be devouring me for the rest of this week, so I'll likely be a little sparse on posts and quotes until Friday evening, Aussie-time.

Wish me luck?

Enter the Dad

2006-09-03T18:00:00.000+10:00

The first Sunday of September each year is Father's Day here in Australia. Basically we spend the day thanking our long-suffering fathers for all the grief we put them through the rest of the year, maybe give them small gifts and overall just try to take care of them for a change. In 2006, that day is today.

This Father's Day's one of the more interesting I've had in... well... ever. As I mentioned earlier, my dad died last year, though my mother recently remarried (in June). So... the day for me started off with visiting my dad's grave in the early morning. We always used to have this tradition of giving presents on birthdays and christmas (well, apart from the Tree Presents) really early, all sitting on my parents' big queen-size bed? So I thought it was only right to go as early as I could to give him his present and... just to spend some time with him I guess?

Still went to my mother's for a late breakfast (blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, mmm!), meeting up with Jason and his girlfriend (Taylor). More congratses were had, and we teased Jase that by this time next year we'd be giving him chocolate too!

He seemed somewhat stunned by that - apparently it hadn't occured to him yet, though Taylor laughed.

Gave my step-dad (in no particular order) a hug, a giftcard from my work and one of those larger Toblerone bars (750g or something like that?). He gave me (same no particular order) a hug, a hair-ruffle and told me it was always good to see me. And it was good to see him, too - though he'll never take the place of my dad with me, we get on well enough. Much hanging out and barbequed lunch ensued, though I begged off dinner. Lovergirl asked me to go with her to meet her parents at dinner (moral support I guess), which means I should really start getting ready soon - but I'm in a reflective mood so I'm just sitting here now, thinking about my dad.

Who was he? My dad was the warm pair of knees when I was a little one, the giver of big hugs and the solver of all ills - from what to do when my budgie wasn't eating its seed, to why exactly I couldn't multiply 2 by 1 and get three (blame it on my bad handwriting). The man who told me that a warm smile wasn't always a sign of undying love, and the man who picked me back up when I went on to find that out for myself. Always there for me when I needed him (and I did).

I miss you, daddy.

Happy Father's Day.

I knew you were going to do that

2006-09-01T11:08:00.000+10:00

We're all familiar with the myths about multiples, am I right? They share everything, are the best of friends, can't be told apart... and have some odd kind of ESP? And that's just for starters. Well I don't claim to be any kind of expert on twins, but my brother and I seem to have a twin-link of our very own - if an odd one. No, we're not twins, he's two years older than me (an ancient 21). We're definitely not identical. None of the other myths seem to hold for long (we're friends sometimes, other times... not so much), but it's gone on long enough that it's the teensiest bit freaky.

In a good way, of course.

First time I can remember it kicking in was when he was celebrating a victorious soccer season with his primary school team at a McDs - families were invited, naturally. I'd gotten a little high on excitement and two large Cokes (I was five - sue me) and was running madly around the playground when one of the boys on his team dropped down off the climbing frame, landed on my back, and wound up breaking my leg.

I spent a couple of weeks in hospital with my leg in traction (slightly complicated by the fact that it took them a week to realise I was fairly violently allergic to the plaster in my cast) - two days later my brother joined me. He'd come down with Meningitis and the hospital wound up putting him in the other bed in my room. I guess it made it easier for the parents to visit or something?

Anyway, the next 'big' thing I can remember was when I was in Year Four. Remember how I mentioned the end-of-school play? Turns out they'd been rehearsing in the school hall after class on a nice hot summer's day when he blacked out (still won't admit he 'fainted'), fell face-first down three stairs and broke his jaw on the hard wooden floor. My mum raced off to take him to the doctor's when the school called, which meant that when I finally got home (the buses around here - well I'll be generous and call them slow) it was my dad who came to the door to let me in - just in time to see me faint and fall off the balcony into the garden. Luckily flowerbeds are softer than hardwood, so I only needed a dozen or so stitches.

Next case of the 'twin-link'? Ice-skating with friends from high-school. We were both there (mutual friend's birthday), and I fell over fairly early on, hurt my wrist and went back to skating after taking a break. He slipped over at the end, bashed his own arm hard enough that the parentals took us by a doctor on the way home. Seems he'd fractured his left wrist and - you guessed it - I'd actually managed to do the same to my right. By the time we finally headed home we each had our plastered arms like mirror-images, and I was puzzling over how to do my exam the next day.

If you're getting the impression that this twin-link of ours is only to do with the many interesting ways we manage to hurt ourselves, think again - those were just the more memorable times. I've lost count of the number of times since he moved out that one of us has gone to call the other, put our hand on the phone - only to have it ring because the other one (he's usually faster than me I 'fess) felt like talking. Not to mention the time we both bought U2 tickets as a present for the other one at Christmas.

Or when my dad died last year and I'd literally just heard when Jason (my brother) rang. "I just felt really down all of a sudden and felt like talking", he said.

It just seems that almost all the major things and many of the minor in my life have been fairly closely mirrored by him (with one exception) or visa-versa and soon after at that - so we joke about our 'twin-link' and leave it at that.

Except he just called this morning to tell me he's going to be a father...

Should I be worried?

School Daze

2006-08-31T10:01:00.000+10:00

Found myself thinking about school today - probably after reading Jr's post - and since things are relatively quiet at the mome I thought I might talk a bit about it.

I went to school in two places - Primary at St Mary's Public School, which at that stage (I feel old just saying that) was something like four demountables around one permanent stone building. With fans rather than aircon, so it was usually pretty warm - but we got used to it in the end. We'd have morning classes in our rooms, then when it got hot in the middle of the day we'd all go into the central building and 'nap' (read: lay down and whispered to each other, pretending to be asleep when the teacher wandered past) for an hour, then head outside and have lunch. Afternoon class was outside on the grass - I guess they knew us well enough to know that there'd be no way they'd get us back into stuffy demountables once we'd escaped ;)

Biggest thing in the six years (apart from my friends and I deciding each month or so that a different boy was the cutest alive and we'd just die if he didn't ask us to the end-of-year dance or whatnot) was the end-of-school play. Each year our Year Six (last year in primary here in Oz) put on a production that the rest of the school got to see - in our year it was 'Oliver'. All sixty of us were given one part or another - there were a teeming host of urchins/townspeople/chorus - and only a very few of us wound up helping with lighting and moving such props as we had. I actually wound up playing The Artful Dodger, which was pretty neat. For those of you who haven't seen the musical, Oliver is basically the Dickens story of Oliver Twist (which I'm embarassed to admit I've never read) except with more singing and choreography. Artful Dodger is a boy (yes, I know - wound up having to put my hair up under my top-hat) pickpocket who corrupts Oliver and helps teach him the art of theft.

Hence the name I guess.

Anyway we finished our year, dragged various struggling boys onto the dancefloor and the end-of-year-gig, promised one another faithfully that we'd always keep in touch and then (as primary school kids are wont to do) never spoke to one another again, except in passing.

Other than Lovergirl that is, who came to the same High School (secondary school?) with me. So that was Kingswood High, home of completely different uniforms (grumble grumble). From brown and green to blue and... other blue. Tartan skirt, sky-blue polo shirt with sleeves and white socks. In theory we were meant to wear stockings too, but except for formal things I don't think anyone ever did. Well, most of us didn't, anyway.

High school was definitely a revelation in many ways - we were actually expected to think for ourselves for a change, we moved from room to room, we had more time to hang around and with a small shopping mall just five minutes away from jumping the back fence, the freedom to develop a personality and self-image our very own. Not that we ever cut class. No. No. Of course not ;)

In looking back I have to say that me and mine weren't exactly in the 'coolest' crowd, but we were in the same orbit I guess. Probably because we were a little outspoken at times - which never hurts in school - which meant that while we weren't exactly sycophantic enough to be 'in' with the queens of the school, that attitude tended to help as well. Of course, it didn't hurt that we tended to be friendly enough with anyone - including certain members of several sports teams. I mean, I like sport as much as the next girl (who's laughing at me from the chair in the corner) but what is it about popularity and sports?

Maybe I should be asking Shane Warne? But anyway.

Did the usual thing and started work with McD's when I was fourteen to pick up a little extra cash - that lasted all of a month or two, then I moved onwards and upwards to be a check-out chick on the weekends, swiping an endless line of barcodes for the greater good. Mind-numbing, but at least I didn't get grease all over my fingers. I ditched that job too when I was fifteen, actually did a little bit of modelling for the occasional catalogue (a friend of a friend) but stopped that after a little incident when I was sixteen. Which got even worse a month or two after. Dropping the job and the boyfriend like hot potatos, I put my mind back to school and somehow managed to scrape through the exams that year. Two more years of high school with retail work, then took a year off (well and truly sick of education by then). So this year I'm doing a Bachelor of Communication of all things, and agonizing over a major...

Wow, that took longer than I expected.

Be well.

Doing the Bad Penny thing

2006-08-30T12:13:00.000+10:00

Welp, I'm back.

I never planned this to be a daily thing - but then I definitely never meant to be gone for this long. Let's see, where to begin... Sunday?

Okay, Sunday morning is officially the Asylum's morning of making-the-place-livable-again - unfortunately since we're all lazy bums (to varying degree) and since most of us are out Saturday night (not me this time) we love to sleep in. Which means 'Sunday morning' started at about noon, and I fled the scene around two for an afternoon/evening shift at work. Oh yes, I work - didn't I mention that?

I work at a menswear store, alternating between being asked by guys which outfit makes them look their buffest and resisting the impulse to hide in the back of the store, put my head between my hands and whimper. It's not that I don't like talking to people (I do) it's just that there's only so many identical convos I can have before my brain starts dribbling out my ears. Even the weirdos we get sometimes (the price you pay for working evenings alone in a store some distance from most evening traffic I guess) are a blessing. I mean yes, they're sometimes a bit odd but at least they're different, you know?

So I was at work, doing worky things: hanging out new ranges of shirts, hanging around the counter, serving the occasional customer, being obscenely bored - the usual. Strangest guy of the day was the man who came in, took his time picking his clothes (less than fifteen minutes from when we close - 7pm) then asked me if I wanted to help him try them on. Told him it was against company policy (always a safe answer - I mean, who seriously is going to be bothered leafing through a hundred-odd pages to prove me wrong?) and closed up the store as soon as he left. From there to the Emster's 20th in the city (by train), which was in a hotel. Neat thing about this is that you can actually crash at the party instead of catching a taxi and going broke or wandering about public transport at all hours - which is doable.

So I got there a little late, hung around and did the meet-and-greet with friends and friends I hadn't met yet. Bumped into a friend of Em's other half (Josh) named Kyle who has the most amazing eyes and was great fun to talk with - eventually Lovergirl had to come and nudge me to go and get changed for the party (no way was I wearing my party stuff to work).

Anyway, the party was spectacular (that's Em on the left by the way), what with forty-odd people squeezed into a hotel suite (which seemed much bigger in the morning) there was quite the range of drinks to choose from, as well as a choice of company. Em paid me out about it after, but I wound up spending most of the evening hanging around with Kyle, then haunted her for a bit before heading off to rescue Lovergirl from some friend of Tripp's.

Long and the short of it? Party started winding down about three or four and my weekend finally caught up with me - crashed on a couch and was only woken up around ten when the hotel was wanting their room back. Spoilsports.

Wandered off into the city, had brekky with Lovergirl, Em, Kyle and the rest, did some shopping and had the best Hot Chocolate ever - which is Lindt by the way - then finally started heading back homewards. Made it back around three, showered changed and went out to do another shift which I remember practically nothing about (being still tired I guess?) then went to bed early.

Tuesday? Caught a movie with Kyle, went even more broke then usual (actually owe some money) with some bargain shopping... then did some getting ready for today and class. Actually started writing this then, only I was falling asleep on the keyboard and the other Inmates noticed and piled me off to bed.

Feeling better now, and it's good to be back.

Note: The pictures aren't loading for some weird reason, so I'll publish this and try to edit them in after.

Note pt2: Pictures are back! Therefore, bonus pic. Which couldn't possibly be me, and so must be my evil twin ;)

Panda Band!

2006-08-26T22:31:00.000+10:00

Yes, that's right - we got to see the Panda Band!

Music was great, crowd was rowdy (after all, we were in it), night was spectacular. Didn't get home until early (sevenish), since we wound up talking to them for a while after their gig. Didn't realise how big a group they were, but apparently they're APA winners and they're already working on their second album.

Which is pretty cool, no? Oh, and Jam? I know they're not quite Peter Frampton, but I couldn't resist dropping that line of yours - I think it went down pretty well ^_^

"Do you know who you are?" - fangirl style, naturally. Come to think of it, we might have actually acted the fangirls there. Oh well, they more than earned it with their performance. Good times...

So after we got up bright and early in the afternoon (around one), flinching from the evil daystar and sticking our tongues out at Duffy and Tripp - who were loving this - we finally got around to checking for messages. For Jess, who spent the night (fine, 'the morning') at the Asylum - but was Tim all apologetic and worried about her? We thought so at first too, but apparently not. Turns out he'd been planning on going out later that night, only since Jess had his car... not so much.

To make it even better, she'd gone and left the keys in her bag so she didn't lose them? So after he came over to yoink it back he could see it right there on the street, but short of hotwiring it there was no way he could pinch it.

Is it still stealing if he owns the car? Or at least, owns more of it than she does? Jess paid for one of the tires after ripping up the old one on a broken bottle back in June, so I guess that part's hers at least. Mental image of a divorce with a car being ripped apart ("Okay, we each get two and a half carseats, and I'll trade you my half of the steering wheel for the rest of the carbureter..." carburetor? Something like that. I think).

Anyway, not much after that. Aside from my brother arguing with his girlfriend (that time of year I guess) and Mum going through another of her why-can't-we-be-a-family-again phases. I mean, I've told her before that I think we just tend to work better with the occasional get-together, dinner or phone-call... but she seems to think that if she can get us all in one place long enough we'll somehow mend all our fences. Nice try, mum.

Though she is hinting at a parent-paid holiday in New Zealand.

Tempting...

No poetry today - instead something which may or may not become a Saturday regular depending on how predictable I turn out. It's...

What's going on here?
In which I put up a small image that amuses me and people talk about it. Or don't. If they feel like it.

A special thanks to Erik for helping me figure out how to put the Linkage part up (read: actually send me the exact HTML to cut-and-paste into the template window) ;) My hero!

On that note...

Later!

These boots are made for walking

2006-08-25T17:27:00.000+10:00

Well, it looks like there'll be one more for the Panda Band tonight we'd just gotten home when Jess (in the green ;)) showed up, in a combination of tears and righteous fury after having a fight with her boyfriend, Tim (in the blue :P).

Seems he'd been late in picking her up for work to the tune of half an hour, then took her back to his place to make her dinner (both as a way to start the weekend and I assume as a kind of oblique apology). So they get home and he gets out the bread and the toaster...

To be fair, I think they've been having a number of spats lately. Love that word - just makes you think of sausages or somesuch landing in a hot frypan, doesn't it? But anyway, she flipped, he just sat there calmly - which knowing her, probably made her even more angry (sorry Jess, but it's the truth). So she storms out, grabbing the keys as she goes and drove over to my place to talk it out.

In his car ^_^

Later!

Naughty, Naughty

2006-08-25T14:07:00.000+10:00

Someone's been a bad girl...

...me.

It all started when I woke up at ten this morning, still feeling kinda out of it from Thursday night. Thing that made this especially fun was that one of my least favourite lectures started at nine this morning, so by the time I walked across to Uni (two black coffees and a V later - I like to start my day with a bang) there was only another half hour left of it. Aaaand... that's when I remembered I had a class assessment due in the tutorial. Which started right after the lecture.

Did I mention I'm not the most organised person in the world?

Made a beeline for the nearest computer room and managed to put together a fairly impressive-looking reportlet (is that even a word?) from scratch over the half-hour, hit print, logged out and went down to the printer to collect. And waited. And waited. And the printer just sat there. Winking at me.

Took me another few to realise that the pretty blinking light was next to the always-ominous little word 'paper' - so then I rang my friend who works in campus IT, and got him to come and unlock (and fix) the printer for me so that I could finally get my report out, ran to class (only twenty minutes late)... and found a note on the door.

"Today's 11-12 tutorial will not be on, as your tutor is sick. All assessments will be handed in next week." Twitch. Twitch.

This sort of got me out of the educational mood, I confess. Soooooo... I basically spent the next two classes talking with friends and planning things - a good reason I guess, since it means I actually know what happened in the lecture and we know how we're getting to see the Panda Band tonight. Em's toyfriend (he hates it when I call him that) is driving us, for the promise of unspecified sexual favours - from her, naturally. Or for her? It gets kinda murky when you get into that area.

More later, but here's a poem I stumbled across that piqued my interest:

Where does all the time go?
It passes in a rhythmic flow.
You meet great people passing by,
But you must leave them soon - so tell a lie.
I'll see you then or maybe not,
We will never know until the earth stops.

When that moment finally comes, and you see those faces again,
You realize earth didn't stop - you are just in heaven.

Music soothes the savage...

2006-08-24T22:03:00.000+10:00

...me ^_^

Big day today!

After much trial and error - and error, and error - I finally managed to save up enough to replace my old MP3 player! For those of you who don't know (most of you, I s'pect) that worthy met its tragic fate at the hands of my first time in a mosh pit - some months back - and I've been feeling the lack ever since. But what can I say? I suck at saving. I mean, I make these whole grand plans about setting aside $40 a week - yet I still spend most of my pay on the day I get it (Thursday) and there's always something I see that I just have to have. Then when the weekend comes around? Yyyyyeah...

Anyway, I finally succeeded (Lovergirl helped) so on my way back from having lunch with friends I roped Lovergirl and Em into coming with me to pick out the new one. For those of you technically inclined, its... hang on, lemme check. A Creative MuVo Vidz (if it has a number I don't know it) on which I'm listening to You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrissette at the time of writing. Love that song :) Took us something like half an hour and three salesmen to work out which one we were after - and the price was right since Father's Day is coming up over here and it was on discount.

In my defence I already know what I'm giving my dad, so there :P

It's late now, so I might do some skimming then crash.

Later!

Eye of the Beholder

2006-08-23T20:53:00.000+10:00

Okayyyy... I wasn't going to do this yet since it sorta ruins my inspiration for my next post, but oh well. Remember how I mentioned my roomies in the small house in the small part of the small town? If you don't, just pretend you read my profile, 'kay? Much easier that way. Anyways, let's go on a little tour of the gang. With pictures! Which means I can even stick one in my profile!

I swear, I've got to learn how this blogger thing works. Or learn more. Either way.

Anomaly

Okay, this would be me in something of a mood - or trying to look loomy, which I guess is much the same thing. Believe it or not, I don't exactly strike terror in the hearts with this look (my other look, now...).

This is back at my parents' place - see the nice walls, furniture and stuff? Telltale sign. But its one of my saner moments, so it's the one I use more often than not. Most of the time. Some of the time.

Okay, okay - so it was just the first one I dug out. Moving right along...

Lovergirl

See? Told you I wasn't always so scary. That's Lovergirl on the left - she's actually smaller than I am!

As well as being smarter, funnier and a lot more organised. ^_^ If she wasn't such a great friend (and a life-saver more than once) I might even be jealous!

As is, she keeps me sane and I drive her crazy ;)

Two down, two to go!

Tripp and Duffy

Duffy's the big one, Tripp's the half-big one on the left - but don't tell him I said so! These two were already in the place when Lovergirl and I moved in, so they've had some getting used to us to do (previous tenants were guys - ask me sometime about the confusion when we moved in, 'kay? It's a neat tale to tell).

Party animals and occasional pill-heads, they're pretty cool peeps all up. Friends I guess, though I've only met them a few weeks back :)

And that's all she wrote - later!

The first thousand posts are the hardest...

2006-08-23T15:38:00.000+10:00

All in all I s'pect I'll be having the most trouble with this one - no, that's not quite right. I guess the second one will be harder still when I don't have a handy intro to write as my post. A cop-out? I guess it could be seen that way. What would be incredibly handy would be if some kind and noble soul should just happen upon my blog and tell me what to write - but that sort of thing only happens in fairy tales. And fan fiction.

"Now... where to begin? Ah, yes."

I don't really know what sort of writings are going to go here - random musings I s'pect, though if I get any requests I'll likely be delighted to answer them. And not just as a sign that someone's actually reading this too (which could be good or bad - but I have comments for those). I'd like to get this up to a post a day or therabouts, but I think that's a little ambitious for me just now - not to mention that even the most devoted reader of all time would be bound to get bored of me sooner or later. Cue shameless plagiarism (from Jade in this case) as I frantically search for ideas to be my foundation:

1. I am me. I've had enough people trying to change me over the years, and if they've not succeeded you'd just wear yourself out trying - deal with me the way I am, love me and leave me, whatever.

2. Apart from the it's/its controversy, I know I write fairly well. I'm not being pretentious, it's just the way I write - any random driftings of grammar are probably entirely intentional.

3. Yes, I do tend to speak my mind. That's what these are for, no? Besides, I'd sound a right idiot trying to speak someone else's ;)

4. Any resemblance shared by any of the characters of whom I write with any offline figure, living or dead, is entirely unintentional. Unless I'm actually writing about you, I guess - though then you'll probably know me in person. Feel free to beard me offline if I've been particularly mean, 'kay? ^_^

5. Yes, I do like to chat. Don't take me not being on my MSN personally - unless you've been annoying me for weeks (impressive in itself) I'm not blocking you. I'm just out (Outside, out cold, something like that).

Well, how's that? I'll try to be more personal and rambly in the future, though if sympathetic peeps could throw me the odd meme, it'd be much appreciated.

Later!