Do you know what I love... I love the fact that you can find almost anything to suit a particular need on the internet. I didn't want to sit here in silence writing about my week, but there's nothing on TV, and it would have distracted me anyway... so I'm listening to an 8 hour video of rain falling on a roof. And I could have chosen 8 hours of a campfire on a beach, or 8 hours of a purring cat... actually hang on a second...
No, I can't do 8 hours of purring... not that it's not lovely, but I'd legit fall asleep.
Technically I really should be doing this through my headphones, but I left my headphones back at the office on Friday night.
Also, I realised something this week... I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point, everybody but me on Instagram stopped using the frames and, as far as I can tell, the filters. Here was I, happily going along using the app the way I thought everyone else was, then I suddenly realised, yeah, you're out on your own there buddy. So I'm attempting to follow the herd. Still using some filters, but not at full strength, and I kinda like the results so far.
But seriously, next time there's a meeting where we all decide something isn't cool anymore, can somebody at least send me a memo afterwards? Thanks.
Oh, and just in case anybody is interested, I've added a widget to the sidebar of the blog that lists all the podcasts I'm currently listening to on a regular basis. And if anybody has suggestions for interesting ones, let me know.
Last Sunday my plan to invent mushroom soup went pretty damn well. I got the idea at some point to roast the mushrooms first, and that was a good plan. Turns out it's really easy to do (well dur... but chop into quarters, toss in olive oil, salt and pepper... then into the oven for about 20 minutes). I also threw in a potato, a turnip and a swede, which kind of bulked things out.
It was a very "and this, and this" kind of soup. I stuck a teaspoon of Vegemite in for flavour, the same with Dijon mustard... and ended with some fairly out of date natural yoghurt to make up for a lack of cream.
Side note, can you guess the downside to listening to rain sounds while typing... yeah, I need to pee...
Sorry, TMI.
This week was all a little m'eh.
There was a census on Tuesday... well, there was supposed to be a census, except the website crashed. Looks like it might be up again now though, so I may have to try and fill it out later.
I started watching the series everybody on the internet has a massive nerdboner over, Stranger Things... I'm about two thirds of the way through currently, and yeah, I'm really, really not feeling it. I'm not saying that it's bad, I'm just saying that it still really hasn't grabbed me.
Case in point, I watched two episodes Sunday morning, but wasn't compelled to watch the whole series straight through. In fact, even though I think I watched another one on Sunday night, I didn't go back to it until maybe Thursday. I also wish I could put my finger on why it isn't working. It may be that it's too earnest and I haven't really found a reason to care about the characters that much.
I'm aware that the internet may well gather their pitchforks and torches, but yeah, like I said, a well put together show, just not on my frequency.
Other than that the week was fairly dull. Work got kind of hectic, mostly because I was distracted by some other work and couldn't give anything else my full attention.
Friday we had a morning tea and drinks to celebrate someone leaving... but it was someone I didn't really like all that much, so while I enjoyed the morning tea and went to the drinks, it was most in spite of the person they were for, not because of them.
The drinks didn't really last all that long... at least not as long as last time. But Owlgirl did come in, as did Herschel, so that was nice. And Owlgirl said she had some shopping to do and could only stay for a little while, but hated shopping alone... so I decided that I'd go with her and wander around the shops. To be honest, when we left the drinks were already winding down (and I was only about three drinks in).
So we wandered about looking for whatever it was she wanted, I did take a detour off to the comic book shop for a minute to pick up one of my orders.
Then just before 8:30, we rendezvoused with her BF and they went off, leaving me to grab something for dinner before wandering home.
And when I got home, I found my fan-made Jacob Frye/Assassin's Creed Syndicate pendant waiting for me. It looks pretty good actually. I made need to make a slight modification to it, but the coin is an authentic 1844 shilling, and the necklace is pretty comfortable to wear. And yes, fan-boying pretty hard. But it also doesn't LOOK like I'm fan-boying... because it's just a coin necklace, and if you don't know what it is, you're none-the-wiser.
This morning I managed to get up, do some dishes, have a shower and be dressed albeit without any shoes, when Ma arrived... and I didn't get my ass out of bed until after she'd messaged me to say she was on her way, so that was pretty good.
We did the usual supermarket thing... I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with the soup this week. I just bought a soup pack and a ton of vegetables, so I'm guessing vegetable soup... possibly with chicken, I dunno yet.
When we got back we had to make a quick trip to Coles over at the Village, since we'd forgotten to do that at Norwood, then unpacked and kind of sat around a little bit going...
"I dunno, what do you think?"
"I dunno, what do you think?"
"I dunno, what do YOU think?"
And that never gets us anywhere.
Fortunately I had something of a backup plan, since my bus goes past the art gallery every morning, and I've been seeing a big sign for a Robert Hannaford exhibition for a while now.
Now, before today I knew jack shit about Robert Hannaford, but looking at the four images on the banners outside the gallery, I was pretty sure he was an Australian artist from the 1930's or 1940's, who primarily did male portraits. And both of these things are my bag.
Turns out that technically none of that is true, beyond the Australian bit and the portraits bit.
Robert Hannaford is a South Australian portrait artist who was born in 1944, worked as a political cartoonist and has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize 23 times, winning the People's Choice award three times. And all of the handsome men on the banners outside the gallery were self portraits.
I will say that I fell instantly in love with all of his work. I still can't get over the very 1930's, 1940's vibe that I originally saw, it's definitely there, but even just the self portraits from when he was in his 20's (which I think are most of the banner images), especially the quick pencil sketches and the like, are amazing.
Robert Hannaford - Tom (1987)
This is my favourite though...a portrait of his son Tom from 1987. Putting aside that Tom is a beautiful young man... that amazing, amazing blue against his skin tone... this image doesn't do it the least bit of justice. It just shines like a jewel.
It was also interesting that the gallery had mixed through some other works from their collection, a collection of self portraits, a group of nudes, some large portraits of important leaders, all complimenting Robert's work beautifully.
I was so enamoured by his work that I did something I've never done before... I went to the gallery shop and bought the exhibition book. I'll have to set aside some time and go through it... it's mostly his artwork, but there's a few pieces of text too.
We wandered around the rest of the gallery as well, which we don't do all that often, but it's nice when we do. While I do miss some of the pieces that used to be up (and don't really like some of the new pieces... like the dead horse thing), I do love that they now mix up ancient and modern works into themes rather than time periods.
After we'd finished our wander, we headed down to Burger Theory for lunch. I had the new Burger of the Month... the Diner Burger, which has a hashbrown, egg salad, bacon, BBQ sauce and cheese in addition to the usual beef patty. I can't say it's the tidiest burger I've ever eaten, my fingers were a giant mess once I was done, but it was interesting.
I do think the hash brown got a little lost to be honest... and if memory serves and these were their "made from scratch" hash browns, they were really good. And, as always, the BBQ sauce was lovely. It was just maybe missing a little... something... I can't put my finger on what though. But still tasty.
Then we wandered back to the car and called it a day.
Oh, and I need to remember to go looking for a new wireless mouse next weekend if not before... the one I have currently is losing it's buttonness... I've replaced the battery, but it still doesn't want to click when I click... so maybe time for a new one. Maybe a trip out to Officeworks.
Hmmm... given how badly this is behaving, it may need a trip tomorrow...
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