movies: arthur christmas

arthur christmas - ever wondered how two billion presents get delivered in one night?Every Christmas I make an effort to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, Olive the Other Reindeer and Hogfather.

Next Christmas there will be another movie joining them in my list of Must See Christmas movies... Arthur Christmas!

It's by the folks from Aardman (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Flushed Away), so it's very English and possibly the best film they've produced so far.

I'm not going to lie, I cried towards the end... we're not talking about going a little bit misty eyed, we're talking a full on, face full of tears, crying.

It's a simple enough story, a single child is forgotten at Christmas and Santa's youngest son, the titular Arthur, sets out to make sure she has her present by Christmas morning.  But it's told with so much heart and an equal amount of wit that it ends up being a very moving story.  Not entirely unpredictable, but I can forgive it it's obviousness because I really cared about the characters.

And it mixes updating Santa with modern technology (a stealth spaceship, modern gadgets, satellite tracking... and may be just what modern parents need to answer all those questions about Santa) with the idea of doing what you love and loving what you do.

There's also some brilliant British voice casting... the delicious James McAvoy who makes Arthur so incredibly relate-able and more than a little dorky... everybody's favourite grumpy teevee doctor, Hugh Laurie who injects just the right amount of pomposity as Versace wearing, technology obsessed, Santa-to-be, Steve... and Jim Broadbent as possibly one of the best Santa voices I've heard in a good while.

Other standouts include Imelda Staunton as the incredibly prim and sensible (and more than a little queenly) Mrs Claus and Ashley Jensen as Briony the elf from the wrapping department who can wrap anything using only three pieces of sticky tape...

All in all, a thoroughly heartwarming, sweet little Christmas movie... although I could probably have lived without the Justin Beiber music video that screened before the movie... seriously, all his fans are in the stupid vampire movie anyway...

yani's rating: 4 presents delivered out of 5

unconscious mutterings 461

Parcels are starting to arrive... which is exciting. There was a parcel on the doorstep (not ideal), a "pick up at the post office" notice and a FedEx notice. Except the fucked up folks from FedEx charge the sender an additional $15 to redeliver a parcel to another address. That's so lame, TNT did it for nothing...

I also managed to find another of the limited edition Harajuku Lovers perfumes for Ma for Christmas... I say "managed to find", I went to David Jones and there they were. So cute though.

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Program :: Computer
  2. Business :: College
  3. Nerve :: Working my last...
  4. Pipes :: Internet
  5. Man :: Naked
  6. System :: Computer
  7. Roses :: White
  8. Gong :: The Rank Organisation
  9. Heartfelt :: Apology
  10. Strolling :: Beach
Current Mood:

shopping of the christmas variety

santa hat supermarketChristmas...

I'm currently in two minds about Christmas... half of me is excited about all the preparations and presents and whatnot... the other half is completely bah humbug and wondering why we bother since it's only one day.

Fortunately I was mostly the former during today's shopping... because it was all very Christmasy.

That portion of the day was helped by the fact that Ma had actual thoughts about what she wanted to buy people.

The morning portion of the day was pretty much status quo... housework, shopping, unpacking... which included a brief present related Red Circle visit.

Then there was more fiddling around with iPhones while it was pouring with rain... more specifically finding and creating wallpaper for Ma, and loading some of the ringtones I made last week. I think she's pretty set now. There's probably more music I should load on her iPhone for her, but that can wait a bit.

Once the weather had improved we headed down to the Goodwood Alive 2011 Christmas Festival... I'm not sure that it lived up to the hype that "the streets of Goodwood will come alive"...a dozen or so stalls in the library carpark doesn't really constitute "streets" or "alive"... but the nice lady from Olives2Oil was there, so I was able to get my fix of really good olive oil from her. And the guy from Pudding Lane was there too, so that's our Christmas pudding needs sorted.

There wasn't really very much else though... and it definitely wasn't as good as it was back when we first started going. And don't even get me started about incompetent people running sausage sizzles...

Anyway, because the market was a little m'eh, we didn't stay very long and then went into the city to do the Christmas shopping thing.

It's good when the next generation takes after you, and I think Miss Oh Livia is much more like Ma and me... or at least she likes some of the same things we do... even if her taste is occasionally questionable. So while I wasn't going to let Ma buy her a Twilame book, we settled on Vampire Diaries... not much better, but it's not Twilame. I really wanted to also get her one of the Buffy omnibuses... if only to teach her that vampires are bloodsucking undead demon fiends and not to be trusted, let alone romanced. Unless they happen to be David Boreanaz.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any in any of the places we looked... and I'm not sure whether they're a great idea for someone who isn't a fan of the show.

Instead I settled on The Hunger Games. Not sure if she'll like it, but it's supposed to be good, and if she doesn't like it, I'll take it off her hands... hehe.

We also got her a bunch of craft things since she's into that at the moment.

I also picked up a new limited edition Harajuku Lovers perfume (Super G) for Ma... even though I'd totally forgotten about the collection of little bottles I bought all the way back in March. Oh well... maybe the new one can go away for her birthday next year... although I kinda doubt I'll end up doing that.

Fortunately we finished off what Ma needs for a few people, and a lot of the others are just general junk she can pick up at any time.

So it's not even December yet and we're almost done with the shopping.

Current Mood:

photo friday: stencil work

joshua smith's blue girl joshua smith's spray girl
I met stencil artist Joshua Smith completely by accident today...

I went down to Espionage Gallery at lunch because Gary Seaman had some work showing... and I keep promising the go to Espionage but it's never quite worked out right.

And since Espionage is Joshua and Gary's gallery, I ended up spending my whole lunchbreak in there chatting with him about street art and stuff in general really.

It meant I ended up being monumentally late getting back to work, but it was totally worth it!

It's been a bit of an odd week this week...

Work has been equal parts monotonous and annoying... and I spent two days completely reworking someone else's guidelines... and being given less than helpful feedback on some design work that got dropped in my lap.

And between my new iPhone, waiting for various parcels to arrive, getting a bumper package of AussieBum underwear there's been a lot of waiting for things, being excited by the arrival of things... lots of ups and downs.

One final thing... I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance as we speak and I've noticed, more so this season than perhaps in previous ones, that there are numbers that the judges rave about or get very excited about that just make me go "m'eh". And I don't know if it's because the numbers are bad, or because I don't know enough about dance, or just because I'm very particular about what constitutes a good dance routine.

I kinda wish I could get as excited about certain numbers as the judges though, it would probably improve my enjoyment of the show sometimes.

Oh, and it's one month today until Christmas... when did that happen?

Current Mood:

random cam hotness

Sixteen Random Hotness images of model Cam Schultz for the price of four this week...

For some reason that I can't really explain, my favourite picture of the lot is the top left shot on the bottom right photo where he's making the "goggles" with his fingers. But black and white, tattooed and shirtless is ranking him pretty highly anyway.

cam schultz cam schultz
cam schultz cam schultz
Current Mood:

aquisitions tuesday

This has pretty much been my day...

And it's been kinda hard to concentrate on other things...

aquabumps - maroubra pink silkIt all started at 9:30 this morning when the nice man from TNT delivered my Aquabumps print.

I didn't actually get it out of the packaging until I got home, but it is absolutely stunning! The photo attached to this post doesn't do it justice in the slightest. And because it's on that metallic paper, it's not as pink pink as it looks... there's a whole bunch of gold and copper tones in it...

Stunning!

iphone 4s... now appearing at my house in blackAt lunchtime I went down to the Optus store to get my iPhone 4S.

It may have been a better idea to wait until the end of the day because it meant that I ended up not really having a fully functional phone for the whole afternoon.

And the girl that served me was so much worse than useless... essentially when I went in there she just handed me the iPhone as though that was that. Ummm, I'm sorry, aren't you supposed to activate it and do things with the SIM card and generally be USEFUL?

Thankfully one of the other girls finished serving somebody else and came to my rescue a little bit. But they both kinda made me feel much more like I was holding up the line than has ever been my experience in an Optus store before.

I then went looking for cheap, simple cases to tide me over until I can get one that I want (more on that in a second)... but I ended up going to five different places, nobody had anything particularly inspiring or cheap enough.... so I just settled for the cheapest and simplest one I could find. Which then meant that I had to go back out at the end of the day to buy screen protectors, since there weren't any included.

Then I came home and spent the next hour and a half updating my iPhone's operating system, "restoring" my new iPhone from my old iPhone's backup, resyncing the new iPhone (even though I'm sure that everything should have come over as part of the "restore"), until finally I got a chance to use Siri, make a phone call and give my new iPhone a name (sticking with both the B's and the Transformers reference, the new iPhone is "Bonecrusher").

Siri is wonderful... true she doesn't understand me half the time and she occasionally seems a little thick (she didn't understand "five foot eleven" as being "five feet eleven inches")... but the first couple of times I used her she was actually pretty good. I think she's possibly going to be a novelty though.

The one thing I can't get over is how crisp the screen looks... there's some detailed shit going on there...

rebel capsule x casesFortunately "Bonecrusher" isn't going to be confined to the shitty, cheap case for long... after I got back to the office after picking up the iPhone, I got online and ordered two of the SwitchEasy CapsuleRebelX cases... did I really need two? No, probably not, but the idea of being able to mix and match them was appealing...

Okay, I really didn't need two and I'm kind of having buyers remorse about buying the purple and green one... but it's done now.

I really wanted the case for a couple of reasons. Mostly though, it's the same brand as Bumblebee's case, and that has been an excellent case... I've launched it across the room unintentionally a couple of times and there hasn't been the least bit of a problem. And this is the "next generation" of that case.

But also, like with Bumblebee, the name kinda came out of the case... but unlike the original case, I haven't actually seen them around anywhere, so for a while at least it'll be unique(ish).

lots of pairs of aussiebumsThen, as though I didn't have enough parcels making their way to me as we speak (there are nine now... I got one today, but added two more), Aussiebum was having another one of their sales... and I was intending to buy new underwear for Christmas as soon as they did that... but I may have gotten a little carried away... but there is a large amount of underwear about to be heading my way.

And I did like it... it's very comfortable...

It's just that I'm really supposed to be not spending money at the moment so that I can let my bank balance recover after the Melbourne and Sydney trip.

Oh well, you can't take it with you...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 460

Let's see... I spent a big chuck of last night working on Ma's 2012 calendar... I hadn't intended to, but once I started I just got sucked into it. Then I started working on the one I was planning for La Cousina... and before I knew it it was 1:30am... and once I'd finished tidying up and getting ready for the week it was 2am.

And I got up at 5:30am... so three and a half hours sleep. Not ideal.

Currently I have eight parcels on the way to me (hopefully it'll be nine in the next day or so). From all over the world too... the USA, England, Hong Kong, Spain... not to mention right here in Australia. Speaking of which, I thankfully avoided any drama about getting my Aquabumps package rerouted to work... so that'll be there tomorrow.

And I got a call today that my iPhone 4S had come in and was ready to pick up. I could have picked it up at lunch, but I needed to back it up, update iTunes and my iOS and remove the porn before I get the new one. So that'll be my lunch time excursion for tomorrow.

Turns out that updating everything took about two hours once all the apps and music and whatnot reinstalled itself. And it was more than a little bit freaky watching the apps magically reappear on the phone one at a time.

Unconscious Mutterings...

  1. Crushed :: Nuts
  2. Thanks :: No worries
  3. Steam :: Engine
  4. Bulletin :: Board
  5. Budget :: Money
  6. Value :: Good
  7. Aquarium :: Tank
  8. Logo :: Updating
  9. Information :: Kiosk
  10. Lend :: Borrow
Current Mood:

light square precinct wandering

benzo's green trooper plastic knight
forgotten outlaw - gray street window faces
camping monster gold face
I went on a little excursion today...

It was part last minute planning, part accident. The last minute plan was a decision to go to the "Gay Garage Sale and Art Show" at the Feast Festival Hub... and since I was going to be nearby, I took my camera so that I could snap some photos of street art I saw the other day.

The accident part came in when I tried to park the car, ended up heading down Waymouth Street... which I tend to do for some reason... and discovered that one of the spots that had previously been cleared of street art had a couple of great, huge new pieces on it (partly the golden face, partly the Benzo soldier... but it was way bigger than just those two parts).

That led to a little wandering around (not a ton, I was wearing thongs), checking out some old spots, and finding a few bits and pieces.

I'm not going to dignify the garage sale/art show with much commentary... it's enough to say that it was pitiful... and that "nuns" shouldn't be put in charge of a sausage sizzle (also, what the fuck is with trying to sell salad and fruit salad with a sausage sizzle... it's a sausage, in bread, potentially with onion... don't give me salad and don't put it on a plate, just give me bread and meat).

But fortunately the street art saved the day...

Current Mood:

technological and seasonal shopping saturday

crazy christmas shoppers is crazyThings that I learned today...
  • Jacaranda flowers smell like wee
  • Ma having an iPhone means a lot of additional work for me
  • Somebody forgot to tell everyone at Marion that Christmas is in 35 days, not 5 days
  • I'm very, very glad that I essentially only buy presents for Ma
It was also an incredibly long day due to the fact there was much messing around with Apple products and laptops and whatnot.

When Ma got down I booted up her laptop to install iTunes (and had to download it twice because it suggested the 32 bit version when I loaded up the website, but told me I needed the 64 bit version when I went to install it... what the fuck)... only to discover that it wouldn't let me create an account without using a credit card... again, what the fuck?

H-San had the same problem with his iPhone at work, but I never had to do it when I got my iPhone... but thinking about it later it may be that when I created mine, I'd actually installed iTunes and plugged my iPhone in... so maybe that makes a difference.

Anyway, that delayed us a little in heading off to the shops.

I was very excited (probably more than is really healthy to be honest) to discover that Coles now stock the Grove Juice that we had on our last day in Brisbane... so juicy, so pulpy, so orangy... so good. And I may or may not have kissed the bottle a number of times in the store.

When we got back here there was more fiddling with iTunes... I bought Ma an iTunes card to see if using the code from that would allow me to create her ID without having to use a credit card. I was going to get her one for Christmas anyway... and Target was having a buy two $20 cards for $30 deal... so it all worked out nicely. And it turned out that that did the trick...

Technically, the first app I downloaded for her was iBooks, but that was quickly followed by Pocket Weather, Angry Birds and IMDB. You know, just the basics.

After that we headed down to Marion in my car... mostly so that I could put it away in the rear carpark when we got back since it's been sitting out the front since we got back from Sydney. Coz I'm lazy.

As I said at the start of this post, I really have no idea what the hell was going on with everyone at Marion... I mean we weren't really there THAT much later than we have been in the past... but it seemed like everybody was working under the assumption that Christmas is happening on the 25th of this month rather than in 35 days. There were people EVERYWHERE... generally taking up space and being in the way.

And it's not even like a Sydney level of busy... I mean I could be romanticising the memory a little bit, but people in Sydney didn't seem to do so very much standing around inconveniently and getting in the way. Maybe it's because people here aren't so used to there being as many people around, so they don't understand the concept of getting out of the way, looking where they're going and generally not being a dick.

But like I said, I could be romanticising The Sydney Experience.

I'm not sure how well we managed to knock off things on Ma's Christmas list... I know we knocked at least one major item off and a couple of minor ones, but we also did our usual trick of finding things for either ourselves or each other.

Eventually we'd had enough, so we called it a day.

Well, a day if you don't count the fact that we stopped off at The Christmas Shop. To be honest, I think that place has actually had it's day... on previous trips there was usually something worth considering at the very least, but the last couple of trips there's just nothing. Plus the place was full of people, which is never good considering how small and cramped that place already is.

That was where I discovered the unfortunate thing about Jacaranda flowers... the street near the shop is lined with them, and it really did just have that "stale public toilet"/"Sunday morning in the city" kind of smell. Weird, and kinda gross... I'm also not sure why I've never noticed it before.

Then it was back here after a brief stop at my supermarket.

It was about 4:30 when we got back, and then I updated the iOS on Ma's phone, loaded some CDs onto her iTunes, synced her phone and other non-specific tech related nonsense... and by the time we've loaded all the updates on her laptop and I sent her on her merry way it was well after 6...

Like I said... another very big Saturday.

Current Mood:

photo friday: feast flag

feast festival rainbow flag at the town hallThere are occasions when I'm proud of my city... and the decision by both Adelaide City Council and Marion City Council to fly the rainbow/gay pride flag during Feast this year is definitely one of them. This shot is the flag flying on the Adelaide Town Hall.

Other than that, it's been something of a questionable week. And this is very likely to turn into a random stream of randomness since it's quite late and my brain is kinda all over the shop.

Somebody let off a firework right in front of my apartment block this evening... there was this flash and then a "wheeeeeee" noise, and then a terrifying BOOM. Thankfully it was just one, otherwise I would have had to go outside and enquire what the fuck the culprit thought they were doing.

It's also been one of those weeks where portions of my body seem compelled to fall apart completely. Seriously, I've done enough miles in this one, and it's essentially a clapped out wreck... can I upgrade to a newer model?

Also, my desire to hump random strangers continues unabated... which is slightly misleading, because I'm generally all about humping random strangers... but there are periods of time when I'm really not bothered about having sex (alone or with anyone else) and other times when I would happily grope passers-by in the street. But thankfully it comes and goes throughout the day or else I'd be impossible to deal with.

Usually on hookup sites, the older gentleman offers cash to have sex with the young and pretty twink... but today I had a young dude offer himself to me for cash... tempting, but I'm not big on paying for it as a general rule.

I'm pretty sure that I've "shot my bolt" as it were with Archer... the only thing I don't understand is why he would go out of his way to give me his phone number if he had no intention of hooking up again. Or he did, but something I did or said spooked him. Which is unfortunate, because I really have no idea how else to be when it comes to guys... I'm usually direct and don't play a lot of games and expect other people to be like that too, even though I know they're not for the most part. And it's not like I've never fibbed or told a guy one thing when I meant another... but I try not to drag it out and prefer to let the guy know when I'm not interested.

And tangentially related to all of that, I've been staying up later than usual of late, which isn't so great given how early I have to get up in the morning... which in turn led to me oversleeping a couple of times... which I'm sure contributes to me feeling crappier than usual.

So what does one do when in that kinda mood... well, giving eBay a bit of a thrashing looking for Dunny figures. This time last year it was toy soldiers, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of them on eBay this year...

Speaking of parcels in the mail, I appear to have gotten all the issues with the Aquabumps print sorted after they gave the delivery company the wrong address. Now I just need to wait until Monday for them to attempt to deliver it to see how easy it's going to be to either get them to deliver it to work or else redeliver it towards the end of the day so that I'm here to sign for it.

And although the wind has picked up and the temperature is well on it's way to cooling down, the last couple of days have been uncomfortably warm... I know I say this every year, but I really do loathe the summer heat... Even more so before it's officially Summer.

Dammit... and I've stayed up later than I intended to... again.

Current Mood:

random cf hotness

A decidedly NSFW (no actual frontal or backal nudity, but it's close) Random Hotness this week thanks to the lovely (mostly "straight", mostly naked) boys of Corbin Fisher.

Partly because having "the best sex ever" last week woke up the base, lizard part of my brain (ie, the Id) which is now craving everything in these pictures, up and to including a new tattoo.

But this is more of a love letter to the person or persons who take the official photos for Corbin Fisher. I am absolutely in love with the style and beauty of pretty much all of the photos that come out of the Fisher studio.

Light, depth of field, poses... and that's all before you get to the men. They often feel more like "art" photos in the vein of people like Howard Roffman rather than normal porn studio photos.

So, Corbin Fisher Photographer... I salute you! Sometimes even with my hands...

the boys of corbin fisher the boys of corbin fisher

the boys of corbin fisher the boys of corbin fisher
Current Mood:

movies: the three musketeers

the three musketeers - every legend has a new beginningNow, can somebody remind me how this goes again... you pay money and they let you sit in a dark room for a couple of hours...

It's been a while! In fact we missed the whole of October!

But, on with the movie.

The Three Musketeers!

As the title of the post suggests, this is not your mother's Three Musketeers. This isn't Charlie Sheen and Chris O'Donnell... this isn't Oliver Reed and Michael York... and this certainly isn't Gene Kelly!

This is Paul W.S. Anderson's Three Musketeers... this is Mission Impossible meets Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft.

It's not in the least little bit historically accurate, it plays fast and loose with not only the original Musketeers story but it reinvents history as it goes along.

The whole thing is as camp as camp can be, but there's great action, amazing costumes, gorgeous men, Milla Jovovich doing what Milla Jovovich does best, the core of the Three Musketeers story survives... oh, and it has airships. Yeah, you heard me... airships.

And I loved it.

It kept everything fresh, and even though they played around with character backstory and relationships, it was actually surprisingly faithful in parts, and those that weren't actually didn't feel out of place.

It's also clear that Orlando Bloom was paying close attention to Johnny Depp throughout the first three Pirates movies... there's more than a touch of Jack Sparrow's scenery chewing in Bloom's performance as Buckingham. He's wonderfully evil and camp though, and it'll be nice to see him take on more of these villainous type roles rather than the hero I think.

Speaking of the hero... Percy Jackson star Logan Lerman takes on the role of D'Artagnan... all floppy hair and youthful cockiness... but it was nice to see someone so young taking on the role... even Chris O'Donnell felt a little old at 23.

And Lerman pretty much kicks ass all up and down the movie.

It's got a great cast actually... other than Bloom and Jovovich, there's Mads Mikkelsen and Christoph Waltz making the most of the villains... Matthew Macfadyen, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson as the titular Musketeers... a fun comic turn by James Corden as their servant... and beautifully awkward performances by Freddie Fox and Juno Temple as the King and Queen.

It's campy, it's historically irresponsible, it's full of explosions and modern action movie staples, it's so very over the top... but I had a thoroughly good time with it... quite probably because I was expecting it to be completely over the top.

But I loved it just the same.

yani's rating: 4 rooftop swordfights out of 5

unconscious mutterings 459

Okay... so that's that thing done... I kinda know how it's gunna end, but you never know.

Oh... well, that was... quicker than I expected to get a response. But it's still not a done deal til the proverbial fat lady sings... or possibly squeals.

Anyway, enough of being cryptic.

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Help :: I really need some sometimes
  2. Close :: Minded
  3. Start over :: I often wish I could
  4. Dirt :: Digging
  5. Kilometer :: Metric system
  6. Speedy :: Gonzales
  7. Shop :: Christmas
  8. Trumpet :: Foreskin (it's a Priscilla reference)
  9. Dog :: Brown
  10. Canoe :: Barbwire
Current Mood:

the seasonal shopping beast awakens

the seasonal shopping beast awakens... freedom, ikea, target, optusOkay... so the title of the post may be a wee bit melodramatic...

But given the hugeness of today and the fact that it was also the Christmas Pageant it all just felt very epic...

And I really do feel like I can hear the gigantic Christmas Shopping Beast stir within it's tinsel and wrapping paper lined cavern and flex it's red and green claws.

Ahem... like I said, it's been a very, very, very long day.

It all started reasonably normally. I woke up, tidied the house a little better than I've done since we got back (by which I mean I actually did some tidying). That did mean that I was a little behind schedule by the time Ma got here... but I'd gotten on a roll and didn't want to stop tidying up until I reached a natural stopping point.

The rest of the usual shopping pretty much went along in the usual fashion...

Then we kinda got a little caught up watching the Christmas Pageant on teevee when we got back here (but with the sound down... the commentary has always had the ability to rot your brain within seconds)...

But before long we headed out for something of a homewares extravaganza.

We started at Freedom... they had both some Nutcracker/toy soldier related products and some seahorse related things. So I bought Ma some of the latter and she bought me some of the former... it's all very reciprocal.

Then we headed over to Ikea, mostly to check out their Christmas stuff... and poke around to see if there was anything that could be used as Christmas presents or parts thereof. Well, for Ma anyway... thankfully I never have very many presents to get.

I'm sure that somewhere, some learning institution that teaches a course on the psychology of shopping much have a whole module on Ikea stores. It's a carefully constructed maze designed to carry you around and make you pick up things you wouldn't otherwise have thought about. Other stores do it, but Ikea is particularly good at it.

Even skipping the entire top floor, we were still in there for a while.

The third part of the plan was a little more ephemeral... we'd been tossing up between the city and Marion, the former specifically to go to Optus about new phones, the latter as more of a "looking for presents" kind of idea.

We decided on town... the Pageant had been over for a while, and we figured it would probably have calmed down a little. I did have second thoughts as we were on the way in... but nothing concrete, just a random feeling that we'd make the wrong choice.

In the end it turned out to be something pretty minor, and the good outweighed the bad.

We started with Target... Ma wandered around upstairs while I went looking at clothes downstairs... I ended up with $133 worth of clothes (jeans, three tops, a belt and some thongs), but only paid $100 for it, which is good. Although on the down side, I'm going to have to take the belt back because I assumed the size I got was the right one, turns out it wasn't (but I only worked that out when I got home). Annoying.

After that we headed to the same Optus store that we've gone to for our last two phones at least, only to find that they were shut. And not even just that we missed them in the morning, the store is now shut on weekends. Bad for them and bad for us. And I think that was the thing that I was unsure about... somehow.

Anyway, we headed into the City Cross food court to get something to eat while we planned our next move.

We decided to go and kick the tyres at the Optus store near Haighs, just so that Ma could get a better idea what was available in the iPhone oeuvre.

And the nice boy in the store went through all the options and Ma decided to get the phone there and then. So she's now the proud owner of a white 8GB iPhone 4 with a somewhat sparkly cover. I swear though, the whole phone contract renewal thing just taken forever. What with all the explaining, and signing three copies of the form and blah blah blah...

Once we'd done it all once for Ma's iPhone, we had to do it all a second time for my iPhone 4S. Of course I don't actually HAVE an iPhone 4S currently... they're on "rain-check" at the moment, and it should come in within the next three weeks, give or take.

After a brief stop at the Optus store at the other end of the Mall so that they could cut Ma's sim card down to size, we had a brief wander around the tragic little market in Hindmarsh Square (I'm guessing they brought it forward from tomorrow to take advantage of the Pageant... but it was about a dozen stalls, none of them particularly interesting), then headed down Rundle Street to Cocolat.

We then bought a couple of cold drinks and sat in Cocolat for just over an hour while I showed Ma all through her new iPhone. I'm not sure how much of it stuck... but we went through a few things more than once, so hopefully she got that stuff.

Now that it's all written down, it doesn't sound like a lot, but we were in each place for quite a while, so it was 4:45 before we got back to the car.

So... a very full day... Ma has an iPhone... I'm waiting on an iPhone... I have an outfit for Christmas Day... and the Christmas shopping season begins in earnest from now.

We're we just here not that long ago?

Current Mood:

photo friday: taronga birds

black cockatoo barn owl
golden eyes black plumes
For reasons I don't really understand (other than the fact that Sugarmonkey hasn't seen me for like five weeks... and anything I'm passionate about seems to be grist for the mill), the Taronga Bird Show has featured very highly in my week. So it seemed apt to feature the stars of the show today.

This week has been... interesting.

But the first week back after a holiday is always weird. This has the added bonus of there being a lot of strangeness generally going around work given all the changes that are going on, or due to go on or have the potential to be going on.

Added to that however was the news that my contract has been extended for six months, so that takes me through to the middle of next year. Which I'm honestly having some conflicted feelings about... a little like the end of last year. On the one hand there's the money and mostly enjoying the people I work with (more so now than this time last year to be honest) and the work has the potential to change for the better in a meaningful way. On the flip side, the work has the potential to change in such a way that will mean huge effort and workloads on our part with no discernible change to the culture of the organisation.

Which basically means that I'm conflicted.

On the more positive front, I have hot water again. Actually, even more than just having hot water, I have a brand new, pilotless hot water heater. Which means I have better water pressure, hotter water and theoretically never again have to worry about the water heater going out. I could have kissed my plumber! Well other than the fact I'm pretty sure he's as ugly as sin, and I wasn't actually here when he installed the new system.

Also on the down side, it turns out that my Aquabumps print has been delayed due to the fact there was a mark on the print. But at least they caught it before it was sent out.

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random chemistry hotness

Given yesterday's confession about really good sex, I thought a "duo" related Random Hotness would be timely.

These shots I found on Favorite Hunks & Other Things of Randy Blue models Diego and Chip by photographer Nicky Reyes fit the bill nicely.

diego & chip by nicky reyes diego & chip by nicky reyes
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the best sex of my life

image from simon's bear art - http://spidey0192.tumblr.com/At the risk of getting all NSFW and TMI...

I had sex on Monday night... and the more that I think about it, the more I think it's possibly the singular best sexual experience I may have ever had.

Or, at the very least, it's fairly high in the list.

I've said before at various times that I'm a bigger guy... and as a result of that I tend to hear an awful lot of "I'm not into guys your build" or "You're not my type" or just the plain old "Not interested".

All of which is fine on a case by case basis... in fact I prefer guys just coming out with that rather than being half-assed about it... but it does get a little wearing and disheartening en masse.

But on Monday night I was logged into gay hook-up site of choice, not really actively looking for anything, just putting it out there as it were... although if I'm being honest, the complete lack of sexual desire I felt while we were away was replaced when we got back by a desire to hump just about anything short of the furniture. Anyway, I was messaged by a guy who I can only describe as "out of my league"... we'll call him "Archer" for the purposes of this post... late 20's, tall, self described "swimmers build" and very well endowed.

Occasionally there's some weird scammer or other that appears on certain profile sites that tries to get you to talk to them on an IM service, or sometimes guys don't pay attention to my profile properly... so I've had some experience with guys messaging me like that who disappear in short order.

Not Archer though.

Even after we'd chatted and I'd invited him over and he said he was on his way, I didn't actually believe he was going to show up.

But he actually did. And he looked exactly like his pictures.

Now, the reason I'm rating this as one of the, if not the, best sexual experiences of my life is that possibly for the first time ever all the little stars aligned.

It wasn't even particularly WHAT we did... that wasn't really outside the realms of normality... although he was a spectacularly good kisser... it was more that in a way that I don't think has ever happened before, Archer was as into my body as I was into his.

I mean, sure, I've had sex with other guys whose bodies I found amazing... and I've probably had sex with a few guys who liked my body, but I don't think there's ever been an instance before where both of those things existed in the same sexual encounter. And it wasn't just that he liked my body... it was obviously (very obviously) turning him on in a way I've never experienced before.

It made me both aware of my body in a different way, but also allowed me to acknowledge and even celebrate my body in a way that I normally wouldn't even think about.

And like I said, I was so incredibly amazed with his body... just having something that beautiful and, to be honest, unfamiliar (in the "not usual" sense) responding to my touch was a little bit mind blowing. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that his body is perhaps in the top two or three hottest I've ever had the privilege to enjoy.

It really felt like we were rolling around on my bed for a couple of hours, but I think it was probably about half that time. It was just that the time felt elastic.

Did I mention he was an excellent kisser? And that he shot his load the full length of my torso which surprised the hell out of me. Yeah, I know... that last one was bragging a little bit.

It was also unexpected once we were finished because he suggested swapping numbers even before I had a chance to. Of course swapping numbers also involved swapping names, because there really hadn't been time beforehand... and because I'm a slut and didn't even think to ask.

Will I see him again? Well, I'd like to... and I messaged him briefly yesterday to say thanks (and to check to see if he'd actually reply) and he seemed up for a repeat. So who knows. But if there's any chance of arranging something casual on a regular basis, I'd like to do it.

But I'm also a realist, and I'll wait until after Round 2, or maybe even Round 3 before I get too excited.

On the up side, there were also some things left undone, so we have somewhere to go from here if/when we do hook up again.

It's also taking a large amount of self control not to message him again for Round 2.

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 457 + 458

The first day back at work is always the worst... although today really just proved that it's pretty much a case of "same shit, different day". And while it felt weird to be back at work, it was distressingly familiar distressingly quickly.

And you know those times when you do a dumb thing, knowing it's a dumb thing based on all your past experience, but do it anyway... yeah, I may have just done one of those. Or it would be great, who knows.

Unconscious Mutterings... a double edition, since I missed out on last Monday...

Last week...
  1. Class :: School
  2. Shopping :: Fun
  3. Bitchy :: Queen
  4. Consulting :: Firm
  5. Texts :: Phone
  6. Sigh :: Big
  7. Office :: Same shit, different day
  8. Develop :: Strategy
  9. Boardwalk :: Under the
  10. Prime :: Suspect

This week...
  1. Distress :: Beacon
  2. White lie :: Harmless
  3. Costume :: Superhero
  4. Stampede :: Elephant
  5. Unappealing :: Going to work this morning
  6. Idiot :: Surrounded by
  7. Correction :: Make changes
  8. Resignation :: I'd need to win the lottery first
  9. Insipid :: People often are
  10. Celebration :: Christmas
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