code monkey

I swear, I'm going to be mainlining sugar by Friday...

First off I had to have a bath in a bucket this morning... okay, maybe not a bucket and maybe not actually IN... but I am thankful that once upon a time, a very long time ago, when I was out on the town with Raury, we happened across a dumpster outside a restaurant that was undergoing renovations, and I found a giant metal cooking pot... a little busted, but it's been very useful ever since.

I put some water in it, fired up two burners on the stove and heated enough water to have myself a pseudo bucket bath.

Entertaining, but not something I want to repeat... unfortunately, it's an exercise I'm going to have to endure again tomorrow morning thanks to my useless landlord and the useless plumber he uses. Grrrr....

And this was all after I was woken up at 4:30am this morning by some combination of rain, wind and the banging of the metal hatch on the electricity junction box thing (which was possibly my own fault because I moved the hatch when I went out to try and restart my water heater)... I tried to ignore it until about 5am, when I got up and went and wedged the hatch closed...

Anyway... after all that... work!

It felt really weird to go in, but not go to the same floor that I've been going to for the last two months... I had my system down, and suddenly... no system. I even went in half an hour later, but there was nobody around when I got there (which won't be a problem from here on in, I'll be going in at 8 as usual, it just means I'll have more time to myself at work in the morning)... and I had some drama trying to log in and set up my email and whatnot... nothing major, just annoying quasi early morning, new place drama.

But getting back to my opening statement, I think I may end up mainlining sugar by Friday... it's not that it's annoying or anything, it's just that I haven't done this kinda thing in a while and the sugar may come in handy. I'm also pretty sure I'm going to be there until Friday at the minimum... it probably won't go longer than that, but I'd say it will take the rest of the week. Partially because I changed the information architecture of the site three times before lunch... but at least that's locked in now, and hopefully everything else will go smoothly.

With the advent of their "new" text editor system (new since the last time I worked on anything like this anyway) I'm actually less of a code monkey this time than I have been on previous occasions... if anything I'm more "cut and paste monkey"... but I'm not complaining, I don't mind it being easier (although I will admit that I did used to enjoy "hacking" the code).

And it seems like I'm going to be seeing more of the old crew than I expected this week... Sugarmonkey didn't bring in all of the graphic novels... and Rockchick still has one of my Pirate DVDs... so that's good, but weird...

But at least the adventure continues...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 283

Oy... what a day...

Will diss shortly, only have enough room in brain right now for Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Loneliness :: Empty


2. Traffic :: Lights


3. Chaos :: Life


4. Burp :: Beg pardon


5. 500 :: Miles


6. Movie :: Night


7. Coma :: Soap Opera


8. Bark :: Bite


9. Stare :: Eyes


10. Angelina :: Brad

Current Mood:

cold water

Okay, so either my kite is cursed or possibly I'm a tiny bit paranoid...

But why is it that bad and annoying things only ever seem to happen on weekends?

I've been having issues with my shower and more specifically with my hot water for some time now... but today it packed up completely (again). I'd kind of found a way of having a hot (hotter) shower recently, by turning on the hot water just the right amount... for some reason that made it hot.

But this morning, nothing...

I grumbled and bitched at it, then went out to check the water heater, fiddled with the knobs, couldn't get the thing to relight. Joy of joys... which mean that after some umming and ahhing and attempting to ring the new land agent people (and getting nothing but recorded messages with mobile numbers and then just recorded messages), but in the end had to ring my landlord.

And of course, the plumber won't come out on a Sunday... so I'm stuck with no hot water.

Which means I haven't had a shower yet... and I won't be able to have a shower tomorrow morning before work... I'm pretty much stuck with taking some sort of sponge bath and praying that the plumber actually comes tomorrow morning, and actually fixes it when he does come.

Technically there are showers somewhere at work, but I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with that whole idea.

Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers for speedy plumber action!

Current Mood:

kite flying saturday

This Saturday was very different from last Saturday...

Which mostly was a good thing, considering how I was feeling last week. But while last Saturday seemed to be all about the shopping and the buying, this week was very much "shopping lite".

Maybe it's because it's very nearly the end of the financial year and all the "Stocktake" and associated sales are done with... I don't know... but there was very little purchasing.

Once the usual Supermarket Adventures were over with we decided that we might go out do the kite flying thing. I mean it's been over a month since I bought my new kite (pictured right), and I haven't had a chance to use it yet... what with the whole knee thing...

So after a quick side trip to Arndale (mostly to see if I could find a particular DVD for Sugarmonkey) we headed down to the beach. At that stage the wind wasn't up enough so we headed down to West Lakes for a bit, wandered around the shops there. I very nearly bought another ring... from Diva of all places. They had a couple of fairly unisex silver (silver looking, I have no idea what they would have been made of) rings... one that was just square and the other that had a top like a silver Lego block, which was really quite groovy. In the end I didn't bother though... partially because I wasn't sure how long they would be interesting... and partially because next to my current ring they were actually too chunky. It's a little bit of a worry when women's rings look too chunky on my fingers though.

Anyway... after wandering around a bit and not really buying anything (Ma bought a few cheap things in Diva and I bought a book in Kmart), we had a bit of lunch (nothing to write home about) and headed back to the beach to fly my kite.

I can't remember off the top of my head how long the lines are for my kite, but I have to say, unwinding them for the first time was a little bit nerve wracking... as was actually letting the thing loose into the sky. And it certainly had some pull on it! But it was tons of fun! I was a little nervous every time it crashed, since it's about ten times as expensive as the last one I broke, so I would like it to last longer than the one session.

And while it did crash spectacularly quite a bit, by the end I had it flying pretty well... I still haven't managed to do the "Pull Circle" described in the little manual that came with it, but then the dude that wrote it has been flying kites for twenty years.

There was one moment when some people were wandering by with a couple of little dogs, one of whom ran over to say hello to me... but as they were walking through the "danger zone" I made sure to keep the kite from doing anything too clever, I had this vision of the crashing right on the little doggie... less good...

So yeah... a good afternoon was had...

Current Mood:

photo friday: perfect library

Normally my Photo Friday posts are shots I've taken myself... but today, seeing as how it was my last day at work, while I was wasting time looking at blogs with tenuous links to anything work related... err... researching Web 2.0 technology, I came across this post about a bookcase in a house in London.

I want this bookcase!

A bookcase that's a "secret" staircase that also has stairs wide enough to sit on. Too cool, too cool, too cool by half!

Although the colour coding of the books on each shelf is maybe a little much...

I also feel like I'm sitting here channelling a certain blogger a little bit... after work I went out and bought the soundtrack for Sweeney Todd (the Johnny Depp movie version)... I'd thought about it previously, but H-San mentioned something to me about the movie this morning, and I said that I wanted to buy the soundtrack... and that I might go out and buy it after work... and because I don't need much encouragement, so buy it I did.

I'm currently swaying happily while whistling along to "A Little Priest"... I think it was a good purchase... a good way to mark the end of my time with The Gang I think.

It was kinda weird actually... I mean I'm going to be back there on Monday (in the building anyway)... and I have to go up and see them on Monday... Rockchick borrowed my Pirates of the Caribbean DVDs, and I have to pick up the last Y graphic novels from Sugarmonkey...

Oh, and speaking of Pirates... Ma sent me a text message while I was wandering around shopping... she won the "best dressed pirate" at work today... so all that discount shopping we did last weekend paid off!

Current Mood:

working lunch

Lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch...

Occasionally the Universe takes perfect care of me! We'd arranged to have a not-really-but-almost farewell lunch for me (it was also for about three or four other things, but I like to pretend it was for me), and only the people who I really, really wanted to go to lunch with ended up coming to lunch... which pretty much meant that it was me, Ginger Ninja, H-San, Sugarmonkey and Rockchick.

Woohoo!

We decided to head down to the Duke of Brunswick... actually it was one of those weird things... Ninja sent a list around to everyone with a bunch of places marked on it and she'd already ticked the Brunswick... and then none of us really cared enough to be bothered ticking anything else, so everybody ticked the same thing.

And it was a good choice I think... it's certainly a gorgeous pub, all polished wood and light open spaces and a stunning dining room.

Because we'd preordered (gotta think ahead), the meals came out fairly quickly... but then we were pretty much the only people actually in the place at that point... it did start to fill up later though.

Four of all ended up having The Brunswick Beef Burger (with salad, matured cheddar, relish, bacon, egg and hand cut chips)... I wasn't in the mood for something more complicated, so the burger sounded like a good plan.

And it was... the hand cut chips, while possibly a little on the sparing side were REALLY chunky (and given the fact that no two chips had even the least resemblance to each other, I'll buy the whole "hand cut" thing). The burger was tasty... big fat beef pattie that had some taste to it, the relish was tangy and sweet (actually it could have been a little less sweet and a little more spicy). And it didn't all fall apart as I tried to eat it, or dribble all over the plate... and these things are important in a burger.

After lunch we did that thing you always do at work related social engagements and talked about work... oh, and women who have backs/asses shaped like cellos (it was the waitress, she had an odd looking lower back area, and Rockchick and I were discussing it)...

Then we came back to work and had to attempt to pay attention to stuff... which is not easy when you're dosed up on beer and protein.

So tomorrow is my last day... *sigh*

Current Mood:

random diesel hotness

This week's Random Hotness is brought to you by International Jock and Diesel, with the help of up and coming country music star Justin Gaston... and by the letter P and the number 8...

Okay, maybe not the letter and number, but the rest of it is right...

Current Mood:

dotpoint wednesday

• My knee is acting weird... it "slipped" (I can't think of a better word for it, the kneecap moved in a way it really shouldn't... but up, not to the side) a couple of times on the way to work today... and it was really stiff every time I got up (granted I did spend way too long sitting still doing actual work today, so maybe that's it)... I don't actually want to think about what that means...
• My love for Firefox is waning a bit... it's been playing up today and the browser actually crashed a couple of times this afternoon... I had enough of that with IE...
  
• I've been reading this graphic novel series Y: The Last Man over the last couple of weeks... Sugarmonkey is big on the comic books, and he just brought the first book in randomly for me to read. It's all about the last guy on earth after all the rest of the men die. Sounds kind of depressing, but it's funny and quirky and really good. And so totally ripe for a teevee or movie adaptation (they're talking about a movie, but I think it would be better as a miniseries).
• Speaking of Sugarmonkey, he continues to both amuse and frustrate me... he actually had me laughing so hard this afternoon I was nearly crying... and that's not the first time we've done that while I've been working there this time.
• I have two days of work left... well, two days with the web gang anyway... *makes sad face*
• Tomorrow we're going out for big lunch thing... *makes happy face*
• If I never see another set of standards or guidelines for website development I will be a happy boy... every time I work with this crew (okay, so it's only twice, but still) I end up rewriting their web standards... what's up with that?
• Also, I want icecream...

Current Mood:

things from another season

There's nothing much in the flower genre around at the moment, and I could do with something colourful and cheerful...

Not much of anything going on here at present...

There's an annoying eBay commercial that keeps popping up on teevee... and the tag line at the end says something like "big game bargain hunters"... only every time I hear it (which is usually from the other room when I'm in here) it sounds like the announcer is saying "big GAY bargain hunters"... which always amuses me...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 282

I'm feeling much better now... the stomach issue has passed by Sunday morning, which was a bonus.

This week at work seems like it's going to be "interesting"... and now, Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Goodbye :: So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen


2. Cage :: Nicholas (who I don't like)


3. Buddy :: Fuck


4. Magic words :: Please


5. Library :: Book


6. Fall in love :: Again


7. Tense :: Situation


8. Work! :: Yes Please!


9. Empty :: Nest


10. Heat wave :: No thanks!

Current Mood:

we all scream for ice cream

Your Ice Cream Personality

You like to think of yourself as a fairly modest person. And it's true that you don't talk yourself up... but you're also pretty happy with who you are. You have a wild reputation, but you're not as wild as you seem. You take risks, but only measured risks. You are a fairly open minded person with a wide range of tastes. You are quite accepting of unusual ideas and people. You tend to have a one track mind. You prefer not to multitask. You can be a bit dramatic and over the top sometimes. You are bold in every way

The Ice Cream Personality Test

Current Mood:

unwell yet shopping

I'm not a well little bunny today...

I am, indeed, somewhat at the whim of my digestive tract. I bought some Tandoori chicken tenderloins for dinner last night (and to be honest, it makes me feel ill even thinking about them right now), and I think there was something wrong with them. I cooked them well enough, but I don't think I'll be going back to that store in a hurry, if at all. I haven't really got a stomach ache, but let's just say that I've had to make use of the bathroom facilities everywhere we've been...

Not pleasant!

And hopefully it will only last for 24 hours, otherwise I'll not be a happy yani...

It kind of put a crimp in our plans for the day... not that we really had "plans", although I was having a vague idea about maybe finally going off to fly my new kite... but, given my current delicate state, that could have ended badly.

In the end, after we'd done all the regular shopping (thankfully I made it through all of the food shopping without any trouble, it was only afterwards that it struck) and come back here for a while, we ended up going off to Target to buy way too many DVDs... waaaaaaay too many... damn sales...

After that we went up to Arndale and wandered around, mostly to find Ma some stuff for some casual day/Pirate dress-up thing she's having next week at work (I don't know either, and I'm not actually sure I want to know). We managed to find her a few nice bits and pieces cheap and I gave her a few things out of my jewellery collection, a skull ring, a couple of bracelets, one or two things she could hang off an earring, stuff like that.

So yeah, now I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening resting, probably watching too many DVDs and preying this stomach ache/food poisoning gets better...

Current Mood:

photo friday: lace curtains

Something from the vault today... from all the way back in 2002 actually, and my first ever experiment with black and white film. These were my net curtains at the time... Ma's actually rather than the "Grandma's" that the file name promises... but interesting nevertheless...

The last couple of days have been a whole bunch of interesting... not good, not bad, just interesting...

I had a "moment" with the cute guy in the soup and salad store yesterday... he was serving this dotty old woman in front of me, and I happened to catch his eye, and he smiled at me, a smile that very clearly said "sorry about this, she's a crazy old broad really", I returned the smile... then we looked away from each other... then we happened to catch each other's eye again, smiles got bigger... away again, back again, bigger smiles... it got to the point where I actually had to look away from him purposely so I wouldn't bust into laughter...

Unfortunately after all that I didn't even get served by him...

To coin a phrase though, I'd so "hit that"... *grin*...

The perving opportunities continued this morning when we had a morning tea for one of the girlies on my floor... she'd invited folks from another floor, one of whom was the hotness... blonde scruffy hair and slightly unshaven but wearing a perfect dark suit... yummy...

My seeming love affair with Firefox continues... it's so much faster and easier than my go-slow IE has been of late... and I was downloading "art photos" (okay, porn) earlier and instead of the slow "two at a time" thing I've had to do for pretty much ever (I don't know why, but it wouldn't download more than two files from any one site at a time), I was downloading FIVE files at once... hallelujah!

Me likee very muchee!

It was a fairly slow day at work today... I spent a chunk of the morning rewriting (or correcting or updating, depending on how you want to look at it) the HTML code for my page of DVDs (sad and tragic but true)... making sure that it would work in Firefox... went and met with the nice folks who I'll be working with the week after next... did I mention that already? I already have as assignment lined up for the week after I finish where I am... then possibly there could be a week or so more with another group after that... back in the game baby!

Then for most of the afternoon I seemed to be attempting to do my own things but every time I started somebody would go "Oh, what do you think about this" or "Ahhh, could you help me with that" or "What are we doing about the other thing"... I mean seriously people... I'm there for ONE MORE WEEK... why the hell do you need my opinion about everything? And if you need my opinion so bad, give me a damn job...

I've also been fudging around with favicons again... since everything in Firefox seems to display icons in a way that IE never did... I made one for my DVD collection page... and re-added some code to the blog so my icon should show up again *fingers crossed*.

So, like I said... interesting...

Current Mood:

random traxler hotness

I decided on something tall and blonde and wet and slightly dirty for today's Random Hotness...

And what that amounts to is Austrian model Manuel Traxler... yummy!

Current Mood:

on the way home

I haven't really taken any photos of late... but when I was on my way home today and happened to see this rare species of wall gnome, I decided I should probably get out my camera... then it turned out there there were big blue and white fluffy clouds... so then there were photos...

Oh... and I crossed over to The Dark Side today...

One of the girls at work (Nasal Bitch, funnily enough) pointed out that Firefox was going for the world record for most downloads today... and I figured I could try downloading it at work, since I've never actually used Firefox. Seen other people use it, but never used it personally...

So I downloaded it, and since it came down in one easy little 7MB file, I threw it on my USB drive and brought it home. I wasn't sure I was actually going to load it onto my computer... but, what do you know, I did...

Took it's sweet time too... the actual installation was fine, but when it was converting all my bookmarks and IE stuff it took well over an hour and a half... SERIOUSLY! I thought it had actually frozen, but eventually it came good.

In theory, I'm not a fan of the whole "tab" thing... but I have to say that since my computer is doing this whole dumbass "not enough memory" thing and running far too slow... Firefox is actually working about 150% times better than IE did. So far anyway...

And yes, all the people who have been running Firefox for about a billion years you can feel free to shut up now... *grin*

It's going to take some getting used to, but it's not bad... it is doing some weird things with code in Blogger though...

In other work related news, it turns out that all the Secret Squirrel backroom action came to nothing... but Ginger Ninja went into battle for me, and marched down to the other end of the floor and told whoever she needed to tell that they were keeping me until the end of next week, and the money would have to be found somewhere, and if they didn't like it, it was tough titties...

And she came back without any battle scars... so, yay!

It's also not like I'm totally out in the cold... H-San has already pimped me out to another unit, so I'll be working for at least part of next week (supposedly four days, but probably only two or three)... so, again, yay!

Current Mood:

movies: the incredible hulk

Sometimes when the original movie was so bad (Hulk, I'm looking at you) you kind of wonder why they would bother remaking the movie. Of course I suppose it's better than remaking the good movies and ruining them...

Anyway... The Incredible Hulk is such a remake, and it is fortunately miles ahead of the original.

They have ret-conned pretty much all of the plot from the first movie, and honestly, you need to be paying complete attention during the opening titles, because all the "Last Time on The Incredible Hulk" info is contained in the quick editing in the title montage (even if you know the basic Hulk mythology).... including a couple of references that places Hulk squarely in the same universe as other recent Marvel movie Iron Man (and there is the much talked about cameo by Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark)... but then Marvel is planning to make movies of both Captain America and then The Avengers (which is the superhero team consisting of Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America, amongst others), so I guess that makes sense.

I will admit that I've never been particularly fond of The Hulk... I mean there isn't really that much to him... he's all "dude gets angry, turns green, smashes things"... so, you know, not exactly riveting stuff. But Edward Norton does do a pretty good job as Bruce Banner, especially since he manages to get across the struggle of keeping calm and not wanting to let the internal beast escape.

And I will give them a huge amount of props, the CGI this time is about a billion times better than last time... Hulk stays a consistent size, and he's more human looking (despite the green musclebound thing obviously), doesn't leap impossible distances like some sort of steroid enhanced frog and the textures are pretty damn good. Yes, he still obviously looks CGI, but it's better CGI.

I'm a little ambivalent about Liv Tyler's performance... it occurred to me on the way home that she always seems to play the girlfriend/female sidekick... and from the handful of things I've seen her in it always seems to be the same performance... but whether that's because she's something of a wooden actress or because she keeps being offered the same kinds of parts, I'm not sure. I did find myself wondering how the role would have been if Michelle Monaghan had been cast instead. That's not to say that Liv didn't do an okay job, but it was a little bland.

There were also a couple of characters that seemed like they should actually have gone somewhere... and kinda did go places, but we weren't necessarily let in on the reference... the Mr Blue character for one... interesting things happen to him the last time we see him... but that's the last time we see him...

There wasn't actually a whole hell of a lot to the plot... not when it really got going. There was a lot of good stuff at the beginning, when Banner is hiding and running around Brazil... basically stuff that involves actual acting... but once that part stops there's a lot of the big green dude smashing things randomly.

Speaking of the Brazil sequences though... I know that the stuff was all filmed in real locations, but I've never seen a real location that looked so much like it should have been created as a model... it's just really hard to believe that it actually exists... there's a slow pan up a mountain side that's covered with what I assume are shanty/slum houses, but it looks AMAZING... it just keeps going and going and going and going and you think it's never going to end.

Getting back to the plot... nothing in it is overly surprising, you pretty much know where it's going to end up (not helped by the fact that they keep showing part of the final confrontation sequence in everything I've seen about the movie)... but the end of the movie is actually somewhat lackluster... there's the big fight scene, and then it just kind of stops... and you find yourself wondering "and then?". They do add a couple of little scenes at the end that sort of wraps things up, but it doesn't really explain what happened. I do wish they'd added the second one at the end of the credits so that it would match up with the similar scene in Iron Man... they could have made a whole thing about having those scenes after the credits, and then people wouldn't necessarily have seen them, and would have to see the movie again or get the DVD to see them... it would have been good.

On the up side, at least this one was a decent movie...

yani's rating: 2 Mr Greens out of 5

very confusing day

Colour me annoyed, disappointed, angry, pleased, sad, confused distracted and hopeful...

As I've said to various real life people recently (I thought I'd said it in a recent post, but perhaps not... although I did make a "falling in a heap" reference) that I'm not looking forward to this contract coming to an end.

And while, academically I know that the contract is due to end "at the end of June", I don't think that I was really aware that that's only a couple of weeks away... and today I kind of came face to face with that whole concept in a very unexpected and unpleasant way.

I got an email from the Boss (or Ginger Ninja as she is also known), saying that because of the way the end of financial year accounting works, they have to have all the accounts submitted by this coming Thursday... which didn't bode well for me, particularly since there doesn't seem to be any money in next year's budget for me to stick around (I think if there had been, then there wouldn't have been any kind of problem at all).

So for a little while it actually looked as though my last day was going to be this Thursday... so, you know, shock!

It goes without saying that I wasn't happy about the whole situation... I'm not actually looking forward to going back to my "life"... I don't particularly like my "life" anymore... I've been there, I've done that, I've seen the movie, I read the book, I bought the damn teeshirt, I'm over it... so I pretty much hit the wall (not actually... you know, the metaphorical wall in my head) when I heard the news. I couldn't really concentrate on anything, was having a large amount of trouble actually focusing on the stuff I was supposed to be reading, and ended up taking myself off to lunch just to get out of there for a while.

But as the day progressed, things got slightly better. Turns out that Ginger Ninja, in true ninja fashion, has essentially pulled out all the proverbial, back door, down-low, sneaky, clandestine moves she possibly could and we're going to indulge in a wee bit of "creative time sheet manipulation" (with the full backing of my Agency Girly fortunately) so that the agency can provide Le Ninja with an account on Thursday that will actually cover my hours until next Friday...

Don't even ask how we managed it... it did take me throwing the whole problem into Excel eventually and working out all the normal, time and a half and double time hours so that it all came out to be the right number of hours I would have worked over the next two weeks anyway.

That does mean that if something spectacularly bad happens between now and then, I'll end up owing them some hours, but that shouldn't happen. Touching wood, crossing fingers and not tempting fate... but yeah, it should be fine.

And of course because the Universe likes to mess with me, all this happens on the very same day that this incredibly HOT techy boy with a perfect Y shaped body wearing a fitted business shirt (that hugged his chest and his slim torso and kicked out just a little bit on his hips every time he bent over to do anything) and jeans was installing new computers at a desk that just happens to be pretty much in my direct line of sight. VERY distracting... pleasing... but distracting.

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 281

Having a somewhat changeable and complex day... but more on that later... for now... Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Purchase :: Price


2. Squeaky clean :: Goody Two-shoes


3. Blended :: Drink


4. Wednesday :: Adams


5. Function :: Key


6. Look down :: On me


7. July? :: No idea


8. Raspberry :: Beret


9. Assertive :: Statement


10. Cracker :: Jack

Current Mood:

listening

I spent the afternoon and the evening watching Sin City (graphically interesting and quite cool) and then Hedwig and the Angry Inch (better than I remember it, but still somewhat odd)... then got all domestic and started doing some cleaning up with my new dustbuster (but of course now I have dust all up my nose!)... so all the purchases from yesterday have been coming in useful...

Some random quiz action to finish up the day... painfully accurate quiz action actually...

You Are an Okay Listener

You try to be a good listener, and usually you are. But some people are just so boring and difficult to listen to! Your mind tends to wander during some conversations. You are likely to space out a little or try to change the subject to something more interesting.

Are You a Good Listener?

Current Mood:

below average sauna adventures

Unlike certain people who visited the sauna in the last couple of days, my visit last night was slightly less satisfying...

Part of me was kind of expecting it to be bad (I mean, last time was pretty spectacular)... and partially it was because the place was fairly deserted (really, really deserted at one stage actually).

But it was slightly interesting and a touch "informative"... well, perhaps not informative exactly... there were a number of guys there that I recognised from "online", one of whom looked as, if not more spectacular than his pics (doubly so when he was being jacked off by a quite cute guy across the spa from me)... one of the others much less so (seriously dude, go back to the dark hair... the bleached blonde with the very pale skin and too many questionable tattoos... not that attractive)...

Then, as I fully expected, Marc was there... he's the only person I know who will call out your name from the other side of the room at the sauna... silly little Hobbit...

I don't get him. Really. He's always pleased to see me, he sought me out and wanted to have a conversation once he'd seen me... but I haven't actually heard from him since I sent him a text message after my knee drama. Now you would think that no matter how "busy" you were, if somebody that you say you consider to be a friend lets you know that they've injured themselves in some way, well, you'd at least touch base with them and see what the hell was going on... wouldn't you? But I get nothing... and then he's all Chatty Cathy when I do see him. What the fuck?

And since we had that whole "what are the rules" conversation, I didn't even get to jump him. Although I will be honest, while I possibly would have (and it would have been nice to be able to since we were in the spa at the same time as the aforementioned spa jackoff action), by that point of the evening I'd kind of settled in to the night being something of a waste of time, so I wasn't necessarily in the right headspace anyway.

On the upside, I think the heat of the steamroom and the spa did my knee some good... so at least there actually is a silver lining...

Current Mood:

bitsy shopping adventures

Ahhhh... shopping...

Actually there wasn't really that much proper shopping that went on today... a few choice items, but it was pretty much one of those "all over the place" days...

The Supermarket Routine was, unsurprisingly, routine... I seem to mostly be buying the same few things week after week at the moment... with the occasional variation depending on my mood, but it's easier to just buy the same kinds of things so that I have a vague idea about what I'll end up making for dinner.

Helpful, yes... boring, perhaps...

On the way back we called into Godfreys so that I could look at dustbusters (again... I went in a few weeks ago to kick the proverbial tyres and look at what they had, but I didn't end up buying anything)... I don't know if it would have been a better idea to buy a cheap-ass vacuum, but I really don't have anywhere to store one (if it comes to that I have no idea where I'm going to end up putting the dustbuster)... and the slightly docile salesdude did attempt briefly to upsell me to either one of those "stick vacs" (the dustbuster that's build into a handle, which only start at like $100+) or a big vacuum... but I shut him down and ended up buying just a fairly standard, if not overly powerful, Black and Decker model.

After the Ritual Unpacking we headed into town... for no real reason... but we were both thinking that town sounded plan-like... so town it was...

Ma is thinking about getting some new walking sneakers, so we headed over to Joggers World... which was entertaining... we got mugged by one of the overly helpful salesdudes (and it must have been chilly in the store because he has nipples you could have cut glass with poking through his white top) and the next thing I know he has Ma on a treadmill doing an analysis of her walking stride... if I wasn't still knee-impaired I probably would have done one myself, but not only would it probably not have been a good idea to jump on a treadmill just currently, but it also wouldn't have been a true indication of my walk. Later though!

We wandered here, there and everywhere in town... and failing to find anything I was looking for, we decided that since it was still early enough we could go down to Marion and find the stuff that we were both looking for down there.

So that makes three weeks out of the last four that I've ended up at Marion...

While we weren't there very long we did both find what we wanted... I was after a couple of the Bico chokers to go with the pendant I bought last week, and got two, one in black rubber (oooooh-errrrrrr) and one in black leather with like a ring on it (CL5 and CL2 respectively if anybody cares... although it's kind of annoying that they have all these groovy names for their pendants and stuff, but nobody thought to have some good names left over for the things that the pendants hang on)... and Ma found the steering wheel cover that matches the car seat covers I got her for her birthday... actually we found it last week, and I offered to buy if for her as an adjunct to her birthday presents, but she was being indecisive and so nothing happened...

But now the weather has turned cold, and her steering wheel has become cold in the mornings, so she decided she wanted a cover... Mothers!

So yeah, that was about it... we went a bit all over everywhere, but appropriate purchases were made...

Current Mood:

photo friday: tranquil

I just felt the need for something slightly tranquil for today's Photo Friday... and what could be more tranquil than a photo from my visit to Sydney's Chinese Garden of Friendship...

And I have a bunch of random thoughts wandering around in my head, so we might just subtitle this post as "Dot Point Friday"...

• One of the bonuses of working within a Web Development area is being about to sit and read information about blogging and wikis and Web 2.0 technology and Googling anything that doesn't seem familiar and getting thoroughly distracted by things online and then having sometimes long and involved discussions with the people you work with about it all... and it's still actually work!
• I went into a store today that I swear I haven't stepped foot in for FOUR years (and if not that long, then certainly a very, very long time)... but the woman behind the counter remembered me and noticed that I'd lost weight since the last time she saw me... so obviously I am memorable!
• Last night I stopped and spoke to one of the guys selling gym memberships for the gym that they're building in my supermarket "mini mall"... sadly they do the payment stuff week by week (perhaps to disguise the fact that a year's worth of membership is about $700)... if it had been a lump sum I might have considered it... there's nothing more convenient that having a gym within walking distance of home.
• And I really need to get laid...

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random betty hotness

A slightly atypical Random Hotness this week...

While I haven't been actively watching Ugly Betty, I do keep catching bits of it while flicking channels (and I'll admit, even though I wasn't in the room watching the teevee, it was what I had playing in the background last night), and it just so happens that my watching coincides with the appearance of David Blue as Cliff, the shlubtastic love interest for Michael Urie's totally over-the-top character of Marc.

I actually love that they chose David specifically, and the physical type in general (described as a "mid to late twenties, overweight, average-looking photographer"), as a love interest for Marc... however damn unlikely the match would be in real life, it was nice to see (the few bits of it that I did see that is)... particularly because David plays the character with such heart that you just want to snuggle his brains out...

Okay, maybe that's just me... but there's those big brown puppydog eyes, that cheeky and knowing little grin and, well, just EVERYTHING really... even if David is straight...

Plus, having read the interview he gave over at AfterElton.com, he just seems like an amazing guy... especially when he says things like "I would rather play this role than a straight man who is not nearly as interesting"...

Current Mood:

five things meme

I haven't done a meme in a while... and even though I'm, you know, out there and having a life and working and everything, but that doesn't leave a lot of actual time and thought process to make with the sparkling and witty blogage...

So I fall back on the meme...

Five Things In My Freezer

1. Chicken Stock
2. Reusable Hot/Cold Pack
3. Vegetable Soup
4. Puff Pastry
5. Italian Mince Casserole

Five Things In My Closet

1. Old Porn Video Tapes
2. Original 1974 Platform Shoes (which were Raury's)
3. Too many shoes (seriously, I need to kull some of those things)
4. Walking Stick
5. Spare Clear Plastic Shower Curtain

Five Things In My Car

1. Street Directory
2. Jumper Cables
3. Windscreen Sun Visor
4. Tissue Box (which Ma bought and put in there)
5. Car Manual

Five Things In My Bag

1. Apples
2. Captain Jack Pencil Case
3. Digital Camera
4. Berocca
5. Work Security Card

Five Things On My Nightstand

1. Deep Heat
2. Red Jasper Lion
3. Leather box with Condoms and Lube
4. External Hard Drive
5. The book I'm currently reading

Current Mood:

flying street art

Dipping into my folder of street art today... and going with a theme of "flying"...

Even though it was nice to have a day off yesterday, I was actually a little bit bored, and it was kinda sad that I was happy to head off to work this morning... that doesn't bode well when this particular contract comes to an end... I forsee some amount of falling into a big heap and being all sulky and irritated when that happens... and there may be a need for icecream or good quality chocolate.

And most people are back on deck this week (or will be by tomorrow), so that's always a bonus too... stops me from having to answer "I dunno" or just making things up...

Oh, and in "knee news", my knee is feeling much better, although I'm still having trouble "locking it back" when I'm standing still... but I'm walking pretty much like a person again, I just need this last little bit to fix itself and I'll be all good again.

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