circuit colours

I found these when I was on my excursion in Hindley Street on Sunday... actually one was opposite the Benzobot and the other one was just around the corner from it...

I'm thinking about turning the brown and purple one into a blog template... not completely sure yet, but it doesn't look too bad.

Work continues in it's worklike manner... my three days working with a different unit upstairs turning into two days because I pretty much killed one website per day while I was there, so there wasn't really any need for me to hang around for the third day...

So I'm back downstairs again... which is good... but I don't really have a THING I'm doing... so, yeah, I'm sort of doing whatever and making it up as I go... interesting times...

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now boarding

Your Personality at 35,000 Says...

Deep down, you prefer spending time alone to spending time with others. You enjoy thinking more than talking. You don't spend much time thinking about your place in the world. You are who you are - and people can just deal with that! Your gift is having a way with words. You know how to express yourself well. You are inspired by what is possible. Real life is often too ordinary for you. It's very easy for you to feel happy. You can find peace with any situation.

The Personality Test at 35,000 Feet

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montage monday: backstreets seven

It's been a while since I managed to do a Monday Montage... but thankfully yesterday's little excursion netted me enough photos to knock one up.

Ahhhh... work...

You know how they say "be careful what you wish for"? Well today was pretty much a study in that exact phrase...

Towards the end of last week when I was drowning in the abject boredom of trying to organise the program that administers all the documents on the departmental website, I just wished quietly to myself that I had something a little bit more interesting and stimulating to do...

Today I got my wish... but it came at a price... and that price was a long shred torn off my sanity...

Firstly I was working for a woman who I'm SURE used to be a man... I actually found myself checking for an Adam's Apple a couple of times... it's not that she was butch... but just scarily tall and kinda built a little manishly... okay, she was probably never a man... but she has a scary transgender vibe going on.

Also, as a temp it's a little bit hard to just turn to somebody and say "Would you mind terribly just fucking off?"... she just hovered over my shoulder at various points... not for any particular reason, just to see where I was up to... and it was very annoying and very distracting. In the end I just ignored her and got on with what I was doing, and limited my answers to any direct questions. That's possibly why I came home with a slight headache... trying to resist the urge to punch somebody will do that to you (actually it's more likely to be my lack of weekend sleep finally catching up with me, but I like my first explanation more).

And she still thought I was fabulous by the end of the day... go figure!

There was a plus in the middle of my day though... Subway is currently doing a Tandoori Chicken sub... mmmmmmm Tandoori....

I made a discovery about my white Ikea Flört messenger bag this morning... I got dressed, black pants, sapphire blue shirt, black jacket, black boots, new black necklace... put the bag's strap over my shoulder and looked down at it...

GAYEST! BAG! EVER!

Actually that's not fair... the gayest bag I've ever owned (and still own) is a pink see-through PVC plastic Powerpuff Girls backpack... but Flört is certainly the gayest work bag I've ever had.

I'm not saying I don't like it... I still love it to death... but damn it was a gay, gay, gay colour choice! It's going to be even worse when I'm wearing my pale green shirt...

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unconscious mutterings 276

I slept like a baby last night... I'm pretty sure I was unconscious about ten minutes (if that) after I switched out the light...

And while we're on the subject... Unconscious Muttings...

1. Track :: Music


2. Snake :: Belly


3. Assignment :: Homework


4. Blockbuster :: Video


5. Bombastic :: Mr (it's a Shaggy song, isn't it?)


6. Adventure :: Miss


7. First time :: Virginity


8. Aged :: Care Facility


9. Grip :: Kung Fu


10. Shortcut :: Desktop

Current Mood:

hindley backstreets

Big fuzzy thanks go to recent (and occasional) commenter, fellow Adeladian, Liz_knows who pointed me in the direction of a Benzobot I hadn't previously seen... I do owe Liz an apology though, I looked up the address she mentioned and thought it was somewhere else completely, and so had thought that I'd already photographed the area, but went out this afternoon anyway.

Turns out that the spot that I thought was the spot in question actually wasn't the spot in question at all... so I ended up taking a hike down Hindley Street to track down the real spot. That kinda led me in turn to exploring pretty much all of the smelly little side alleys (oh, the joys of the smell of urine in the Sunday afternoon sunshine... *throws up a little bit*) up and down Hindley Street.

Which seems to have been the right thing to do, I found a bunch of groovy stuff (including something which might turn into a new template design, but I'll have to thrash it out a bit first I think).

The Benzo work in question turned out to be this lovely "copperbot"... I have to say, I always like it when Benzo breaks out from the black/white/grey bots and goes crazy with the colours... and this touch of aqua is the perfect compliment to the coppery yellow colour.

I do also quite like it when Jules comes up with these little random creatures... and I've always been a fan of pink and grey...

But back to the actual excursion for a second...

It's kind of odd, for the most part, when I'm wandering around doing these Sidestreet posts and disappearing down little back alleys and whatever, I never feel like I could be in danger or that something bad could happen to me... except for today... I really dislike the length of Hindley Street between King William Street and Morphett Street, and for the most part, I avoid it... and while I was wandering around the general area I did pay extra attention to my surroundings and who was behind me and in front of me and whatnot.

After I'd wandered up and back I did wander off a bit, see if anything new had popped up in and around the previous spot I've found street art... nothing overly new or exciting, but a couple of bits and pieces... there was a couple of massive new pieces (new to me anyway), but they were locked away in an abandoned area behind a fairly impressive fence, and there wasn't really any obvious was of sneaking in... maybe next time...

On the upside, I haven't fallen sleep all day...

Current Mood:

cork party

Well, yeah... Stu and Mrs Stu's housewarming party all worked out pretty much the way I thought it was probably going to...

There were a few faces I recognised from Stu's 40th, but I'm fairly certain I was the only single person there (and the one or two guys who were there by themselves just hadn't brought their wives/whatever with them)...

So I did what I always do in those situations, I either hung out with Stu, or occasionally Mrs Stu, or I found myself a spot in the kitchen (which interestingly is where Stu rather than Mrs Stu was preparing the couple of bits of hot food) and helped out a bit, or I just let Trouble and Strife hang out with me... well, more Strife than Trouble... but you know, more or less anything I could do so I didn't have to hang out with the majority of beige people...

There were a couple of folks who weren't beige (and funnily enough they were husband and wife), but I honestly just hate doing the whole "mingle" thing.

Mrs Stu loved her giraffe wind chime thing... she didn't have anything giraffe related in a wind chime (well, except for a little tiny magnet that had chimes on the bottom of it), so that worked well too. And it turns out that the wine I got them, Brown Brothers, is her FAVOURITE kind of wine... so I was winning points all over the joint. And the girls liked their little stuffed animals too.

I ended up being, as tends to happen with these things, the very, very, very last one to leave... well, technically it was me and another guy (I think he was the one I sat next to at Stu's birthday and said was the most attractive one there... which, now that I look back on it, having seen him again, man the other guys must have been fugly), but he left just before me, so I was the very last. We helped them clean up outside, bring all the plates and rubbish and whatnot in, save them either having to do it on their own, or having to face it all in the morning, then we sat around in the lounge room for a bit while Stu showed Questionably Attractive Dude how to work the second hand Playstation that Stu had found him.

So in the end, it was about 1am by the time I left there, and maybe twenty past, give or take, by the time I made it back here.

I should switched my computer off before I left for the party... but I honestly didn't know how late I was going to be... and when I got home I should have just switched off the computer and gone to bed, but I was a little wound up (for some strange reason) and went looking for some late night/early morning company...

I should also have realised that the guy I was chatting to was not only way out of my league, but also WAAAAAAAAY out of my league, but I didn't, and invited him over... this was supposedly a ten minute trip at about quarter to three in the morning... at about twenty past I gave up, locked the door and went to sleep...

Lord I hate being prick teased... what fucking joy is there in making somebody think you're going to turn up on their doorstep, and then not doing it? If you're going to lead me on and then fuck me over, at least do it before you've said you're on your way over... 'k?

But even though I knew there was no way he was going to turn up, I still had a little bit of trouble getting to sleep because I was so wound up, and any car that happened to drive down my street suddenly made me hyper alert (you know, just in case)... although I think I conked out pretty soon after.

And then, of course, my body woke me up at about 7am this morning... somehow I think that later this afternoon isn't going to be pretty...

Current Mood:

financial shopping adventures

My new top (probably only for wearing around the house, but the message is apt),

and my surprisingly funky new messenger bag from Ikea of all places!

Oh the joys and joys and joys and joys of being independently financial again! I possibly went a little bit nuts, but it did feel good to have enough money to go nuts with.

The Supermarket Adventures were a little on the quick and dirty side... because I am suddenly so "time poor" in the evenings, the last thing I really want to do when I get home is start cooking and getting all involved in the kitchen, I can think of lots of other ways to spend my time, so I guess my shopping list was very on the lean side, and I didn't end up picking up all that much. Of course that means by about Thursday I'll have run out of ideas and produce to actually make myself anything, so we'll just have to wing it.

Where was I... oh yeah... because it wasn't an overly elaborate shopping trip, and we didn't go across the road to Coles and Woolies like we usually do, we got finished a lot sooner than usual. That did allow us to spend more time that usual in the Red Circle Boutique though, and I fudged about a bit looking for a new pair of sweatpants (there's nothing wrong with my current ones, except it would be nice to have a second pair so I could switch between them now and then), and while I decided against the pair I tried on (grey, I'm so not after grey sweatpants) I bought some new black "work socks" and a couple of pairs of Bonds Hipster Trunks (one in electric blue and one grey pair with one black and one white stripe).

Even after all that we still got back to my place about half an hour earlier than normal, which was good.

After the Ritual Unpacking of the Goodies, we headed down to Arndale (Ma wanted to look in Big W for something), wandered about a bit, I picked up a necklace (supposedly to wear to Stu's housewarming party tonight... more on that in a second... but I quite like it, so I think it might go into regular rotation) and found a couple of DVDs, an Alfred Hitchcock one for me and a couple of Tracy & Hepburn ones for Ma for Mother's Day (which she's actually not overly fussed on... Mother's Day, not the movies... but it was nice to be able to get her something anyway), plus the Sarcasm top pictured above... I probably wouldn't have gotten it, but it was cheap and fit pretty well... I think it's going to be a Sunday Top though, not something I would usually wear "out" anywhere.

Then we stopped off at the bottle shop at Arndale so I could pick up a bottle of wine for the aforementioned housewarming party... I ended up with a bottle of Brown Brothers 2007 Dolcetto & Syrah... I have no idea what it's going to be like, but I know that Mrs Stu likes sweet red wine, and the very cute boy in the bottle shop said it was a good wine, so who knows.

I'm not sure how this party is going to go... but then I wasn't sure about Stu's 40th Birthday dinner, and that one turned out okay... but because the house they've moved into is in Cork Street (Road, Terrace, Place, something anyway) and Mrs Stu decided they wanted a "theme" party, the invitation said "you must be wearing cork"... which, really, is just a big ol' pain in the ass... but after I ranted about it to Stu on the phone after I got the invite, I did come up with a plan... last weekend I bought a bottle of that non-alcoholic sparkling wine stuff (ie cheap, but something I like and would drink), complete with a cork in one of those metal cage thingies... and after ripping my hand to shreds trying to get the cork out on Wednesday (usually they're fine, but this bastard just would NOT come out of the bottle, and I didn't want to ruin the little wire cage thing), I popped the cork back in the cage and refasten it, and I'm going to pop it on the necklace I bought, so I have cork, but with "bling" (lame I know, but then, so is the whole "wear cork" directive).

Anyway after that we decided to head down to the beach, attempt some kite flying... sadly, when we got down to the beach (and I kind of ended up driving on auto-pilot and parked pretty much were I used to park when I was visiting Ludo and Lownee when they lived down by the beach... little out of the way sidestreet location) there was NO wind... well, technically that's not true... there was just enough wind to tease, but not enough to get Ma's little bird kite into the air, let alone my bigass stunt kite... so we farted around for maybe ten minutes, fifteen max, before we gave up and headed back to the car.

Next stop was Glenelg, which was a good plan, nice sunny day (if a little chilly in the shade), cashed-up yani, good for wandering around.

We ended up going into a bunch of little chi-chi-la-la type giftshops because I wanted to get Mrs Stu something giraffe related (she has a thing for giraffes similar to Ma's thing about seahorses, only Mrs Stu isn't as fussy about what they look like, whereas Ma only likes CERTAIN seahorses)... and eventually I found this really cute stained glass giraffe windchime thing, and not overly expensive either... so hopefully she doesn't already have one...

After we'd finished our wander up and down Jetty Road, we stopped off at Souvlaki Bros for lunch, which was really, really nice. Both Ma and I had the Grecian Steak Burger and it was very tasty, beautiful tender steak, tasty Mediterranean sauce. Definitely have to go there again, try some of their other things (like the Cypriot Yiros with the grilled haloumi cheese... mmmm)...

Next we decided to head down to Ikea... which could have been a very scary thing the day before Mother's Day, but actually it wasn't any more or less busy than any other Saturday afternoon. I wanted to get a replacement for the bowl I bought a couple of years back, and I found one fairly easily, but when I get it home and look at it next to the original bowl, the new one weighs a hell of a lot less and the sides aren't as thick... *waggles finger at Ikea* I don't know, cutting quality! Anyway I went a little nuts in Ikea... I ended up buying a bunch of stuff I didn't necessarily need, but was interesting...

Case in point is the Flört messenger bag I bought (pictured in the photo above... only $17)... we actually saw these pretty much as soon as we got to the top of the stairs when we arrived, and I ended up carrying the bag through the whole store (only to find that there was a truckload of them downstairs towards the end of the "maze")... but it was kind good that I carried the bag around, it kinda convinced me to buy it... after all, I got the groovy Caterpillar bag in Sydney, and I've been using that, but it's not as useful a work bag as I thought it might have been... a little too small and a little too prone to falling off my shoulder. But I loved the colours of the Flört bag... white isn't the most practical of colour for bags, and I could have gotten the red and grey version (continuing my ongoing obsession with scarlet), but I really liked the white and green mix (the green being the Swedish Ikea Green, which is the same as the icing on the scaryass Princess Cake)... and the design on the green kinda reminds me of like a circuit board.

I also grabbed one of those things that hangs over the arm of your sofa with the pockets for your remote controls and stuff (in good old Swedish Ikea Scarlet)... another Flört product (I dunno either, they have the same name, who knows how that works)... and a couple of little bitty Söt Barnslig stuffed toys (a pink hippo and a blue effelant) for Stu's kids, Trouble and Strife, just so they don't feel left out with the giving. Not sure who's getting what yet... maybe I'll hide them behind my back and make them pick a hand or something...

Ma got herself a new floorlamp (also in Swedish Ikea Scarlet) and we also grabbed a couple of big round placemats to use at Christmas... again, in the same scarlet.

Then it was a quick stop at the downstairs Ikea cafe thing for a slightly tasteless icecream and home again home again jiggity jig...

I have no plans to add up how much money I actually spent today... I know it will have been at least $100, but I can live with that...

And how I've got less than an hour to myself before I need to get organised for the party...

Current Mood:

photo friday: prada

I've already told the "Prada Store in Sydney" story... this is the photo that caused the story...

All I can say right now is TGIF...

It's really weird when you just cobble together a list of fairly random thoughts, ideas, facts and suggestions about the task you've been doing over the past week, and you send it on to the manager of the group you've been working for, who turns around and turns the aforementioned randomness into an "Action Plan" and sends it to everyone else in the team for discussion and response.

If I'd known that that was what was going to happen, I might have chosen some of my phrases a little more carefully (and also double and triple checked what I'd written before I sent it off.

But there it was in my inbox this morning when I got to work, all arranged in a table with headings and columns and words like "Proposed Action" and "Date to be Completed"...

SCARY!

Current Mood:

random surfie hotness

Yet another Random Hotness from the "I don't remember where it came from, but isn't he pretty" file... which helps when you're asked to pretend to be surfing while standing on a blank white background...

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