rainy saturday shopping ramblings

Given that it's almost the middle of January, it was somewhat ridiculous that I left the house this morning in jeans and a hoodie.

But then it was raining all morning long, and on and off the rest of the day.

So today was decidedly a day of indoor things.

We started with the usual trip to the supermarket, but there wasn't much to report that was different to usual... other than the fact that our usual check out girly was back again after having had the last couple of weeks off.

Then it was back here for the unpacking before we headed out to run a couple of errands at the North Adelaide Village... essentially things I should have done earlier in the week but never got around to.

Ma also wanted to pick up some frames at IKEA so we did a very tactical strike visit... firstly we managed to get a car park not that far away from the exit doors, then instead of doing the whole maze, we went in the exit and wandered backwards until we got to the frame section.

Then, using the frames as makeshift umbrellas (they were the big ones), we jumped back in the car and took a drive down to Marion. And once again, the car parking gods were with us and we got a park with very little effort.

There wasn't any specific reason for the trip, although I wanted to poke around a few different stores for different things... most notably the Assassin's Creed special edition from EB Games.... however, while I'd looked at it a number of times online I failed to realise that it was the XBOne edition, not the PS4... and while they had it, it wouldn't have done me much good anyway.

Other than that we found a big mixing bowl to replace Ma's pudding bowl with the giant crack in it and a few other little bits and pieces.

As we were leaving it came time to repay the carparking gods for their earlier generosity, because we had to stand and wait and watch while a couple of stupid cars made life difficult for a seeming endless stream of other cars and generally took up space in the same row we were parked in. Eventually they sorted themselves out, and just to ensure the carparking gods were still on our side, I made sure I pointed out the fact that we were leaving to a car that was stalking parked cars further down the row.

Then we headed down Goodwood Road to Galaxy Toys.

Ma had gotten it in her head that it might be nice to make a couple of the Lego minifig frames for people she knows who have small boys, so we'd actually been checking out Lego all over the place in Marion, but unlike when I was a kid, they don't seem to actually make packs that just contain a bunch of minifigs any more, which is a shame.

I also pointed out to Ma that if she was looking to have six minifigs in a frame, then she'd be looking at at least $30 in minifigs, plus the frame and the plates, so pretty much pushing $50.

Anyway, it was a good excuse to finally set foot in Galaxy Toys, since I keep wanting to have a look, but I just never get there (usually because it's when we're on the way home from Marion and neither of us can really be bothered). It turned out to be a much bigger shop than I expected, but they also seemingly have more Lego sets than anywhere else we looked all day.

We poked around for a while... particularly the Harry Potter wands in the back room... and oddly enough my favourite ones were Hermione, Luna and Fleur, although both Snape and Sirius's wands were also kinda cool.

But we poked around the old minifig sets for a bit, Ma didn't really seem to get anything in the way of inspiration.

I did, however, see that they had the new series in. Galaxy Toys is one of those places that goes through and identifies all of the minifigs so you can go in and buy just the ones that you want... which I pretty much think of as cheating... half of the fun of the minifigs is the thrill of the chase and standing around feeling up little polybags until you know you have them all.

They also seemed to have them slightly cheaper for the whole set than it would otherwise have cost me, so that's a definite bonus.

And while we were there the guy and girl behind the counter were going through a box of the figs and feeling up all the bags to identify what was what and labelling them. So I told my story about standing up on crutches to go through the seventh series, and also helping various and sundry people in Myer at various times.

I think the guy behind the counter was trying to test me, because he handed me a bag and asked me what I thought it was... granted this is literally the first time I'd laid hands on this series, and initially I thought it was the sheriff based on that I thought was his hat, but I kept feeling around looking for either his gun or the 2x2 tile I knew was in the pack, but couldn't find either. I did find something that was definitely a gun though, just not the Wild West gun and after checking out the box again realised it was the Alien Trooper.

So if he was trying to test me, then I think I pretty much passed.

We definitely have to go back at some stage though... it's a fun little store.

When we got to the Greenhill Road intersection and Ma mentioned the H word... that's right, Haighs... if she hadn't said anything out loud then we may have just headed straight back to my place, but she did, so we ended up doing a detour to the factory shop.

And for what may be the first time EVER, when we got there the little car park out the front was entirely devoid of cars. Again, quite possibly the carparking gods were smiling down on us.

It also meant that we were in and out pretty quickly.

That was pretty much it... although when I got home there was a note under my doormat from one of my neighbours apologising for making noise and promising to keep it under control from now on. Sadly it wasn't any of the neighbours that I have a problem with, and while I was kind of aware there was noise coming from that direction, it's at the opposite end of the block and didn't bother me. But it was nice to see at least one of my neighbours being a person and recognising that noise is bad.

If only some of the others took a leaf out of his book.

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photo friday: art rhinos

This just feels weird... with Christmas and New Years being so close to the end of their respective weeks, I haven't actually written a Photo Friday post for three weeks.

Even so I think I managed to cover most of everything that went on during that time in other posts, so we can start fresh with this week. In a lot of ways this week has felt a little bit like a comedy piss-take on a regular week. First we had the weather, which went from hot to very hot and humid to so humid I wanted to slap somebody to cloud and 22.

It got so hot and humid and horrible in fact that I spent two nights sleeping on my living room floor directly under the air-conditioner. Technically it's no drama at all to drag the giant mattress out, but I may still take a look at inflatable mattresses (although I'm guessing the pain in the ass that is inflating them outweighs the benefit of them being easy to move around the place).

Then work started at the rather low-keyness that had characterised the Christmas holidays at the beginning of the week, and then Wednesday everybody remembered that they were actually back at work and hence all decided to send us things at the same time. And yes, after the last couple of weeks, while I would MUCH rather be busy than twiddling my thumbs, it would have been nice to slightly ease into it a little more.

Tuesday was my first Housiversary (well technically Apartmentiversary, but that looks stupid)! It quite literally feels like I've been there for about five minutes, but at the same time I've settled nicely into my groove. Thankfully I don't need to worry about the whole lease thing for another month, since my initial lease was for thirteen months. Hopefully I can talk them into a 25 month lease, or maybe like a 37 month lease. We'll see what happens.

I also dived back into the world of Assassin's Creed over the last couple of weeks, thanks to the copy of Black Flag I got for Christmas. I intend to do a full review later once I've finished it, but I can see why people had good things to say about it when it came out. They definitely threw out a bunch of the stuff that didn't work at all in the previous game and it feels like they've gone back to some of the earlier games to find some inspiration. Granted, the fact that I'm something of a completionist means that at around the half way mark some of the non-story things are feeling slightly monotonous, but I'm still excited to dig back in again.

And I've very much been tempted this week by the slightly cheaper price of the PS4, as well as the Unity game... so far I've resisted since it is a bit of a chunk of change to lay down, but it does keep popping up in my brain.

But on a slightly related note (only because if I don't have a job then I don't have any money and I can't buy all the nice things), all of the contractors in The Nut House (who outnumber the permanent staff about 2 to 1 I think) have been extended until the end of February from the end of January so that La Ninj can do the paperwork to extend us until the end of the year. And yes, I know I've been down this particular path before and it ended in some degree of frustration, but you know, living in hope and all that.

In completely unrelated news I finally got around to start watching Arrow this week... And there is some small element of forcing myself through these early episodes because I know eventually I'll be rewarded by Colton Haynes in tight red leather... but holy crap some of this first season is crap. The whole best friend/ex-girlfriend storyline I could happily live without, and the show seems to have more than its fair share of dialogue that no human person should really be uttering.

Also unrelated, I succumbed to the retail itch that's been rolling around in the back of my head for a few weeks to buy a Nerf gun... not because I have any great need for one, but I have been looking at websites where they repaint the guns and I was slightly inspired. Whether it'll get that far or not, I don't know, but either way, I do like the design of the gun (which is weird because I'm generally not a gun person).

I also got not only my Instagram calendar (which looks great as usual, although I was a little disappointed to see that they've gone from being delivered in a really nice sturdy box to something that seems a little more "temporary", especially as I use the box to collect the pages as I take them off the calendar) this week and the poster print I got for Ma for Christmas (only two weeks late), but also my most recent purchase of underwear from Andrew Christian.

I didn't realise until they arrived, but the underwear is essentially all jockstraps, or at least ass-less in one way or another. It does mean that I really need to sort through my drawer full of jockstraps and throw some of the less comfortable ones (and perhaps the ones that aren't holding up as well) away. But given that I've worn nothing but Andrew Christian underwear for the last three weeks, I have to say I'm impressed with their products overall... especially the way the pouches fit, but also that the fabric and elastic are generally comfortable and don't tend to dig in or pinch like other brands can. Whether they'll be long lasting I can't say yet, since I only bought my first pair a couple of months back, but overall they seem to be doing okay.

Oh, and anybody viewing this on my blog may have noticed that the mood icon images, as well as my link icons up at the top of the banner have all disappeared... I think possibly when the ISP servers melted out in Perth, maybe somehow it took some of my data with it? I don't know to be honest, and I need to contact my ISP to get them to talk me through FTP'ing into my web space, since it no longer works on my new computer... but I'm lazy and it's not a huge priority, but I will get there.

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my 2014 at the movies

As I mentioned in my 2014 end of year round-up, this year has been a very light year for movies. Mostly this was caused by the massive amount of time I spent playing Assassin's Creed games (yeah, I know, I don't seem to have shut up about that much over the last couple of weeks), but I also tended to gravitate towards TV shows, including The Legend of Korra, The Newsroom, Teen Wolf, Face Off, True Detective, Game of Thrones and The Great British Bake Off.

All up, I only ended up watching about 87 movies, only 18 of which were things we saw at the movies (well, technically 19, but I mostly slept through the last one, so it doesn't really count). Which is a massive drop from the close to 200 movies I've averaged over the last three years.

But that also doesn't count the movies I just put on for colour and movement while I was doing other things, or that I dropped into halfway through on TV. But overall it was a light year.

Like last year, 78% of the movies I kept a track of were ones that I hadn't seen before, partially helped by the fact that I went through a bit of an anime (and more specifically a Studio Ghibli) and animation (the DC superhero movies predominantly) phase during the year.

There did seem to be a higher proportion of good movies we saw in the cinema though, with two movies scoring 5/5 and another six scoring 4/5. And literally the only thing that separated the two 5/5 movies was their rewatchability.

My top five movies for 2014 are:

1. The Lego Movie

What I wasn't really expecting from a movie as funny as The Lego Movie was that it would make me cry. I really don't want to give anything away, because it was something I had no idea about, but it was beautifully moving, and it was definitely designed to speak specifically to a certain type of adult Lego collector.

2. Chef

Where this movie really, truly excels though is in Favreau's story. The plot never gets out of hand, even at the moments where it's the most heightened (although the Downey Jr scenes do skate the edge) and the relationships, particularly between Carl and Percy, are wonderfully written.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I swear that Marvel just goes from strength to strength with their movies... and Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the strongest entries in the catalogue.

4. The Maze Runner

What I got was a movie that was a lot darker and had a much more interesting concept. And there also wasn't a single dud performance from the young cast.

5. The Boxtrolls

And it also goes to show what you can do when you just give the audience credit for having brains in their head and realise you don't need to explain every little thing and then underline it.

As usual there are the honourable and dishonourable mentions, but there's also a new category, possibly just for this year... The Movie I Gave A Shitting Rating To At The Time But Then Recommended To People And Generally Loved More As Time Went By... which is a little big to use as an actual mention, so we'll call it the Slipped Through The Cracks mention:

Honourable mentions: Guardians of the Galaxy (which only didn't appear on the list because I felt that Captain America had the better overall story, plus all the cute interactions between Cap and Black Widow), How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Saving Mr Banks.

Slipped Through The Cracks mention: Predestination... as I said at the time, I don't think I have every enjoyed a movie where the plot was so blatantly obvious fairly early in the movie as much as I enjoyed this one... and watching it again on New Years Eve proved that it holds up to a second viewing.

Dishonourable mentions: It's all M's this year... Maleficent, The Monuments Men and Magic in the Moonlight. All of which squandered their premise and suffered from being less interesting than they should have been. Of the three, Maleficent kind of comes out as the worst just because it was full of elements that were right, as they say, in my wheelhouse, and they still fucked it up.

From the other 68 movies that I saw for the first time in 2013, these were some of the stand-outs...

• Wolf Children (2012): A sweet movie about a widow who was married a werewolf and has two wolfie children who moves to the countryside to raise them. It feels VERY Ghibli, even though it's not, but it is beautiful.
• 1984 (1984): While it's not as rich and deep as the book, this does present a wonderfully bleak looking version of Orwell's story and is definitely worth a watch.
• Summer Wars (2009): A weird mix of Ghost in the Shell and any of the Ghibli movies set in the real world and the virtual world, this movie introduced me to the card game Hanafuda Koi-Koi which I played obsessively (but not very well) on my phone for several weeks afterwards.
• Veronica Mars (2014): Had this actually come out in the cinema here, I would have gone to see it, but alas it didn't so I had to resort to other means (and then bought the DVD as soon as it came out). And really... Veronica Mars/Kristen Bell, this was always going to be on the list. I was just sad that they couldn't find a way to work Duncan into the story somehow.
• From Up on Poppy Hill (2011): I went through most of the Studio Ghibli catalogue this year, and this was probably my favourite from the "realism" genre. A close second, but from the "total fantasy" genre was Pom Poko.
• Sharknado (2012): It's not often that something this monumentally awful ends up on my list of stand out movies. But this was SO appallingly bad, that it not only circled all the way around from bad to good because it's bad, it did a second lap and ended up at mind boggling and captivating because it's genuinely horribly bad. Bad acting, bad writing, bad directing, bad editing, HIDEOUS special effects... it's just bad wrapped in bad, smothered in bad. The only thing better than watching this is watching it on TV while live tweeting it along with everyone else. It's a compelling car crash of a movie.
• Interior. Leather Bar. (2013): While this is presented as though it's a "documentary", the whole thing is one giant scripted essay from James Franco on sexuality, prejudice and, at times, general arthouse wankery. Or alternatively it's just an excuse for Franco to make (and/or watch) gay porn... and watching him watch one guy blowing another guy is almost worth seeing the movie. It's intriguing and also incredibly pretentious at times.

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movies: big hero 6

Before I get into talking about Big Hero 6, I have to spare a few words for the Disney short that preceded it, Feast.

Disney really is, to use the sporting analogy, hitting out of the park with their shorts... first Paperman, then The Blue Umbrella, now Feast. A simple story of a man and his dog... and food. Once again it has essentially no words, it's all played through the dog and his reactions... and it's GORGEOUS! And because I'm a big softy, I did get all choked up during it, especially at the end.

But, now on to the main event.

I won't lie... Disney had me early with this movie... they had me at the production design of San Fransokyo, a hybrid alternative universe combination of San Francisco and Toyko. They had me as soon as the older brother, Tadashi Hamada (voiced by Daniel Henney) showed up (yes, cue a new Disney crush) and the first time Baymax inflated I just threw in the towel.

This is also one of those movies that is just crammed to bursting point with little hidden Easter eggs, especially superhero and those of the Japanese robot persuasion, but they're not obnoxious, they're just layered into the background.

It's also amazing how much personality they can imbue Baymax with given that he's a big puffy marshmallow with just eyes and the amazing voice of Scott Adsit to convey warmth and sweetness.

The plot is fairly standard origin story stuff, avenging a wrong takes a dark turn and using what you're good at and the tech at your disposal to become a hero. And there were a couple of minor, minor things that bugged me about the story (mild spoilers... if Hiro made the thought powered controller that the bad guy stole from him, why can't he make a new one or make something that will block the signal... it wouldn't bother me so much if they'd addressed it, but it seemed so damn obvious and yet, nothing).

Also the comic relief character of Fred kinda got on my nerves a bit (T.J. Miller plays a similarly "annoying" character in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise)... although the post credit scene with him almost makes up for it. But I liked that in at least some small way, they played the other four members of the Six somewhat against type, and although there isn't a lot of time for major character development, they still managed to make them all distinct, rounded characters who make sense within the world.

But the heart of this movie are the relationships between Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter), Tadashi and Baymax. And it's where the movie shines brightest.

yani's rating: 4 personal healthcare companions out of 5

post new year shopping adventures

All the fun and games are over and it's back to the old routine...

Well, with the odd difference or two, just to keep things interesting.

Because it was so damn hot overnight, I decided against sleeping in the bedroom and instead dragged my mattress into the lounge and slept directly under the air-conditioner. Pure bliss.

And because I'd had the bathroom shut up for about 24 hours, it was a little bit of a dramatic shift when I first opened the door. Plus I could not only strongly smell the wood smoke from all the bushfires happening around the state, but when I looked out of the window, the city was wreathed in smoke.

Once I put the bed back together I pottered around a bit, got ready and headed downstairs just as Ma rocked up.

Shopping was relatively average... but I had to actively remind myself that I needed to get stuff to see me through the week for lunches... not to mention dinners.

We also did the usual trawl through whatever was left of the post-Christmas bargains... which get worse as time goes on, but occasionally you find a diamond in the rough.

Once we got back here, we did the usual guff, and soaked up the air-conditioning before we headed back out to Arndale.

The only thing I really wanted to do was check Big W for the Lego set I was interested in.... but it turned out that they only had one, and the box was dinged up, plus it was back at full price. Plus it was a little bit of a whim, so we'll just see what happens.

Other than that we mostly just took a wander through Arndale on our way to the cinema.

And that was about it really... we did a tiny bit more wandering once we were finished at the movies, and grabbed some food, but then we headed back here just in time for the arrival of the "cool change"... don't get me wrong, it is cooler, but the wind could have wind could have stuck around a little longer.

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2015

Welcome to 2015... International Year of Light (and Light-based Technologies)!

I know I've said it before, but one of the (many) things I do like about living in this apartment over the old apartment is the fact that I can just go and lay on my bed and watch the many and varied fireworks displays that happen throughout the year. And NYE was no exception... in fact there were two displays, the first at the family friendly time of 9:30 (which I actually think was the better display, at least from my perspective) and then the usual midnight extravaganza.

And the night was actually a hell of a lot quieter than I was expecting or predicting... I hardly even heard the concert in Elder Park, other than when I was watching the first set of fireworks (mucho cheering), and none of my neighbours had giant rowdy parties until the wee small hours. So definite bonus there, especially given when there were doing the sound check for the concert last night it was a giant cacophonous mess blasting through my bathroom window. 

The fact that I've spent the week between Christmas and New Years at work did throw off my usual routine quite a bit... not least of which because I was up really early and didn't make it to bed until 1am.

But it also meant that the "must tidy house" compulsions I go through each year had to be broken up into smaller chunks so I could do it during the week rather than leaving it all until last night. It was also as dull as hell, since I didn't really have anything to do, and should probably have taken the time off.

On a total whim when I left the house yesterday morning I put four of the bottles of Strongbow Cider I bought, back before I had all that trouble with my ears, in the fridge. I can't actually remember the last New Years where I had anything to drink, but this was just sitting in the cupboard, so I figured what the hell.

Weirdly, because of working, it also didn't really feel properly like New Years Eve all day (or all night even).

As usual, I lined up three movies to watch... and had some nice left over pasta for dinner so I didn't even need to cook.

I started the night with Wreck-It Ralph, had some jelly stuffed full of grapes with some brandy custard, watched the 9:30 fireworks and did the last little tidy up for the evening, then started How To Train Your Dragon 2. Then I changed my bed and settled in with the last movie, which I only bought yesterday (well, someone else picked it up and brought it to me, but yeah), Predestination. Even though I knew exactly what the storyline was, I enjoyed it more the second time around... although I did work out the plot pretty quickly the first time, but this time around I noticed all the little nods and winks to the central theme of the movie that I don't think I realised were significant last time.

And all the while I worked my way through the four bottles of Strongbow... which isn't that bad, and I don't think I was drunk by any stretch of the imagination, but I was nicely mellow (and given that I only drank them all night, not any water, I was only a little seedy around the edges when I woke up this morning).

I took myself off to bed at 1am after the movie finished, which fortunately was also the time that the whole concert thing was packing up, so I think I heard a tiny bit of music (but honestly that could have been coming from anywhere) before everybody called it a day... night... whatever.

While I could have gotten up this morning and done my usual walk, I was a little seedy around the edges, so I used that as an excuse to just go straight back to sleep for another hour or so and then finally got out of bed and made myself a big egg and bacon roll.

Seemed as good as way as any to start 2015... and I can only hope that this year improves on the good things of last year and, wherever possible, reduces the bad things.

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two thousand and fourteen in review

Here we are, at the end of 2014... which has been a very different kind of year for me in all manner of ways. But more on that shortly...

As always, this time of the year means that everyone's thoughts turn to the year that's been more than the year ahead... and it's usually this time when I trot out the "first line of the first post of each month" meme I've been doing every year since 2006.

Technically I cheated a couple of times this time around... at least one month is not officially the first post (although it's the first post with proper content), and January, it's not the first line (but it's a more appropriate one than "Welcome to 2014"):

January: I definitely had an atypical New Year's Eve last night... I pretty much broke all of my self-imposed NYE rules/customs/traditions bar two... and I didn't even stay up until midnight.

February: Dear Rug Manufacturers, please go fuck yourselves...

March: The Autumnal blog template was inspired, loosely, by two people... the first of which was Ben Teoh's experiments in Lego minifig wall art, which led to me digging out almost all my old Lego Space figs with the intention of making artwork.

April: I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from an post-endorphins crash... my brain has turned a little bit to sleepy mush... but you get that after sitting through a couple of hours of tattooing.

May: You really wouldn't expect that a week that started out at 30°C with me wearing shorts would end at 12°C with torrential rain and me wearing a onesie (shut up, it's warmer and more comfortable).

June: It's been a very long and a very full day... and currently I smell like a nightclub (well, more accurately I smell like a smoke machine, but to me that's the smell of a nightclub).

July: Today didn't exactly turn out like we planned... kind of, but with differences.

August: Given how cold it's been today I figured a little knitted artwork was more than appropriate.

September: This has been a truly shiteful week.

October: This template has been a long time coming... at least in terms of the idea.

November: While we did have an instance of general "blah", today pretty much all came together with nary a hitch.

December: It's that time of the year again, where I go a little bit nuts with the Adelaide Fringe program and then spend a chunk of change on tickets.


This year definitely did not start out the same way that it ended, more so than any year in recent (and/or blog) memory. Mostly for good, but also slightly odd in some cases.

When the year started, I was quite literally surrounded by boxes, preparing to move out of the apartment I'd been in for seventeen years and into a brand new place. As it ends, I'm very happy (daily stair climbing, bouts of neighbourly dickheadery and a couple of major incidents of water leaking where it shouldn't be notwithstanding) in my new place, with twice the amount of space, a house full of new furniture and a lot less general house/neighbour related stress.

I also painted, stained and varnished a piece of furniture for the first time ever. True it was a basic IKEA pine dresser, and I didn't have any sandpaper so it's not as mirror smooth as it might otherwise have been, but overall it looks damn good and I'm proud of it.

When the year started, I was ungainfully unemployed with severely dwindling bank savings. As it ends, I'm back working in The Nut House, and making (slow) roads to clawing back some savings... and hopeful that my contract gets extended at the end of January.

I also had to unexpectedly replace my laptop this year when my old one just threw a tantrum and refused to function normally. Thankfully it didn’t completely throw in the towel and I was able to get all my data from the hard drive, but it could have picked a better time to throw in the towel.

When the year started Espionage Gallery was a physical place, which I visited regularly. As it ends, Espionage the physical space is no more, and it's now more of a... state of mind. Although it will take physical form again around mid-January for the second Alice in Wonderland inspired show.

I saw more of the inside of hospitals and doctor's waiting rooms than I would have liked this year. And travelled less than usual.

I also got laid a hell of a lot less this year. Or at least it felt that way, especially given the broken thumb, wrenched elbow, back pain, blocked ears and other random maladies that befell me throughout the year when the last thing I really felt like doing was getting jiggy with it as they say. But otherwise the general theme seems to be that the gentlemen callers that I want to return either disappear or are card-carrying mental cases... and the ones I'm not really bothered about are the ones that keep coming back.

This year saw a lot less blogging from me as well. The biggest casualty of the year was Random Hotnesses... which dipped out at 23 posts (which were all pretty much in the first half of the year) instead of the usual 50+, and I've retired the feature, at least for now, because if I'm being completely honest, it had become more trouble than it was worth (plus I think the energy that I used to put into RH posts is now being spent on my Tumblr account. I didn't even do a Christmas Hotness this year. I thought about it, but there just wasn't anything that I felt I had to post.

But this year was also the year that I got some photos "published"... it was only online on the (seemingly now defunct) Already Home website, but it was a thrill all the same.

We also wandered along to the January, April, May, July and August editions of Fork on the Road. But I think I frequented food trucks a lot less this year, since I started bringing my lunch from home (mostly) to try and save a little more cash. Through the majority of Autumn and Winter that has meant stews, soups and lasagne, but once the weather got warmer I've mostly been deconstructing salads, then reconstructing them at work.

Oh, and the other thing Ma and I did less of this year was go to the movies... or at least it felt like we took more weeks off than we spent going to the movies. And I watched less movies in general, partly due to watching TV series and YouTube content, but more so because of playing video games.

It's been a couple of years since I bought my PS3, and although I spent a good chunk of my unemployment last year working my way through Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, this year has definitely been The Year of The Assassin. Thanks to a random conversation with the lovely Herschel at work, I ended up working my way through all of the Assassin's Creed games (well, except for the first one... and the three latest ones, although I did get AC: Black Flag for Christmas and I'm already a few hours into that, and can see myself sinking a TON of hours into it with all the additional side quests and content).

At the beginning of the year I only had one tattoo, now I have a second, and I fall in love with it all over again every time I look at it. It also reawoke the tattooing bug that had been mostly quieted by time since my first tattoo. There are ideas for three, possibly four others, but one would require a trip to Melbourne for a specific tattoo artist, one is too vague a concept right now and the other two are fighting to claim my left shoulder/arm.

Oh, and I fairly major change to my year... when the year started, I was 39... now I'm 40. And I spent my birthday in Sydney having the time of my life at The Lion King.

And today is my fifth anniversary of joining Twitter.

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painless post-christmas shopping adventures

For a post-Christmas shopping excursion, today wasn't too bad.

Granted today wasn't Boxing Day, and we stayed far, far, far away from the city (because, honestly, you'd have to be batshit crazy to go anywhere near the city the first few days after Christmas), but the places we did go were fairly calm.

Ma arrived with a larger collection of the Christmas goodies for me. I didn't have much room in my fridge on Christmas Day, so I only brought a tiny bit of stuff back with me, but other than some extra Rocky Road, I'm happy with the stuff she brought down.

She also brought down my present from La Cousina and Co... I say present, but it was cold hard cash, which is always preferable... and I just suddenly had the thought that I may need to take a look and see who has the Emmett mech suit from The Lego Movie still available, since it wasn't too far off the money I got. Then of course I have to work out where the fuck I'm going to put the thing.

Neither of us necessarily needed a lot of stuff... I still had a bunch of stuff left over from earlier this week (not to mention the week before), so we pretty much made it out of there with much less shopping than usual.

And also, fuck all the supermarkets who were sold out of Brandy Custard... especially Coles who were selling it out for $1 and were sold out, but also Woolworth who had it, but were charging $4... I bought some anyway, but it was a little annoying.

We also had a poke around Target, for no real reason, other than the fact that I wanted to see if they had some of the Twinings Christmas Tea marked down. And they did... so woohoo. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those things where it smells far superior to the way it tastes, but if that's the case, I'll just put some in a little bowl and let the smell waft through the apartment.

After that we came back here, I had to play tech support as Ma tried to upload the new calendar wallpapers onto her phone (and I swear, I had to repeat the exact same instructions to her three times before they stuck), and then her buying a song on iTunes and syncing that to her phone (including her having a complete senior moment on how to sync, never mind the fact she'd already done it THREE times already within about ten minutes).

We decided to take our proverbial lives into our hands and head out to IKEA. We both needed frames for things we got for Christmas, and I also discovered that the one fucking year that we don't go out to IKEA in the lead up to Christmas, is the one fucking year that the majority of their Christmas decorations feature a FUCKING TOY SOLDIER! Grrrr.

Mostly we just did the major loop upstairs, in fact we could have skipped it entirely, but they seem to have changed a bunch of stuff around since the last time we were there, and I kinda like seeing all the stuff laid out in little pretend rooms.

Ma slightly lost her mind when we got to their new little stationery section... they've got all these cute little notepads and gift bags and great little gift boxes you could use as regular boxes and whatnot. And stationery is our general family Kryptonite.

I got out of the whole excursion reasonably lightly... although I impulse bought the cutest little battery powered lamp (the Strala, as seen right)... I have no damn clue what the hell I'm going to do with it (although it may be useful as mood lighting the next time I get laid)... but it was too cute to pass up.

And although they didn't have the whole collection of toy soldier Christmasware, they did have some GINORMOUS red gift bags as well as some gorgeous gold and white paper with the same design on it.

I also bought a second rug to go under my other chair in the lounge... there may need to be a third one to actually have as a rug, although I'm not completely sure yet.

And weirdly there weren't anywhere near as many people in the store as we expected there too be... and because people are basically sheep, there were whole checkouts that you could just walk up to and be the next person served. So that was all pretty damn easy.

We'd talked about going to the movies, but to be honest I kind of wasn't in the mood to go and sit in a dark room for a couple of hours, plus there weren't as many good things that opened on Boxing Day than I thought there were going to be, so we'll save them for the next time we go to the movies.

Instead we came back here (and I saw my new neighbour from the ground floor, since I realised when I went downstairs last night to throw my rubbish out that someone has finally moved into the empty apartment under mine... took long enough), and then went to the North Adelaide Village to grab a couple of things we forgot this morning and then grabbed some lunch at Cibo before running out of the cafe after the most annoying woman decided to sit right behind us.

So that was pretty much the day... much less painless that I thought it might have been.

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post christmas round-up 2014

This is usually the part of the post where I mention that this Christmas has been pretty much exactly like the Christmas before it and the Christmas before that and the Christmas before that.

And there's a degree of that, but this year was maybe a little simpler overall, and a little bit atypical.

I didn't bother adjusting my alarm clock last night, so I woke up at the usual weekday time, lay in bed for a while goofing around on my phone until I finally got up and went out for my morning walk.

It always feels vaguely post-apocalyptic going out around dawn on Christmas morning... and this year more than most. I didn't actually cross paths with anybody for the whole walk, which I think is essentially a record. I did see people at a distance, but right up until I was nearly home I didn't pass anyone. And there were very few cars out when I first went out... so, yeah, it was a little like the beginning of 28 Days Later.

When I got home I had a shower and got dressed in my new Gilles Bone Malefico's tee-shirt and the Almost Naked Dare jockstrap from Andrew Christian (which, even with it's extra straps and things is the most comfortable jock I've worn in a long while)... and jeans obviously. I was going to wear the plaid shorts I bought a while back, but since it was only forecast to be 22°C they didn't seem like a particularly good idea.

Then I packed up the car (and only needed to do two trips up and down the stairs, which was good) and was on the road by about twenty past seven.

The drive up to Ma's was fairly quiet... but as I said to her last week one of the issues with driving to her place first thing in the morning is the almost epilepsy inducing flashing of the early morning sun between the trees.

One of the things that was different this year is that we weren't heading out to La Cousina's place first thing in the morning, so once I got to Ma's place we had the entire day to ourselves.

We did a few bits and pieces, just general prep stuff and then put the croissants in the oven and had some breakfast.

Then after some clean-up... and possibly lighting the barbecue, I honestly don't remember when that happened... it was presents time!

I was right about Ma's reaction to the Joshua Smith artwork... I left it right until the end of the presents (actually I nearly forgot it entirely, because it wasn't with everything else) and when I got it out of the bag it was in and turned around, she was flabbergasted. I always enjoy being able to do that at least once with presents.

When I'd finished unwrapping all my presents and had laid them all out I realised that while I'm a 40 year old man I most definitely had a man-child themed Christmas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that... it was just amusing. That is if you don't count the calendars.

But once I was done, my collection of things looked like this...

• Warwick Rowers 2015 Calendar
• The Art of Alfredo Roagui 2015 Calendar and art print
• American Crew Daily Essentials pack
• The Lego Movie Benny retractable pen
• Disney Infinity 2.0 Tinkerbell figure
• Bulbasaur plushie
• Assassin's Creed: Black Flag PS3 game
• Assassin's Creed The Collection novels
• As You Wish book by Cary Elwes
• Gold Lego minifigure keyring
• Lego Chima Legend Beast Lion
• Lego minifigure small storage head
• Glass ampersand
• Mini shears

And then the DVD's...

• The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air and Book Two: Spirits
• The Newsroom Season Two
• Cars 2
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
• The Croods
• How to Train Your Dragon 2
• Monsters University
• Wreck-It Ralph

The other thing that ended up being different this year was Ma tried a different kind of fire-lighter in the barbecue... natural or organic or some other rubbish... what they turned out to be was rubbish. Okay it may not have completely been their fault, I know we've had some issues in previous years when it's been windy, which it definitely was today.

But after we'd left the coals to heat up we discovered that they just hadn't... so we ended up cooking everything in the oven instead.

It did mean that everything wasn't quite as browned as we may have liked, particularly the roast potatoes, but it also meant that the meat was all nice and tender and juicy.

While everything was cooking we did yet another round of clearing up, I did my usual present photos and then set the table up.

Then we had a well deserved sit down for a while.

As the turkey and the sausage meat got closer to being ready, I started prepping everything else for the salad. And, with all due modesty, I made a fucking kick-ass warm dinner salad.

Along with the roast potatoes and the turkey and sausage meat there was basil leaves in place of salad greens, a gourmet tub of tomatoes in all manner of sizes and colours, green beans (because they're my favourite) and prosciutto and halloumi all fried up and crispy.

I tossed it all with a little white balsamic vinegar and we were good to go.

This is definitely a Christmas tradition I'm happy to hang on to, because it's damn yummy.

And of course, because I have no ability to make the appropriate amount of salad for the number of people actually intending to eat it (I always make more than I need), there was enough left over for Ma and I to split and have for dinner later in the week.

We were also both pretty full, so we decided to wait a while on dessert and instead sat down to watch Brave (which Ma bought for herself for Christmas)... or rather watch and listen to the audio commentary.

Of course, as usually happens after Christmas lunch, mostly because Ma goes to the midnight church service with her bestie every year and only gets home around 2am, she was a bit of a sleepy bunny and kept dozing off every now and again. But what else is after lunch for at Christmas.

At some point we'd digested dinner enough to make room for dessert, so we made up the same thing as last year...fruit mince ice cream (which was much richer than last year's attempt but just as delicious), crumbled up meringue, raspberries, blueberries and some chocolate shards I made last Sunday with leftover chocolate. So damn good.

Then once we'd finished Brave, we went with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2... and I think both of us were a little dozy during that one.

And once that was done we pretty much called it a day. We packed up my presents and some of the food stuff I was bringing home with me (I need to clean out my fridge before I can fit all the good stuff in, so Ma's bringing it down on Saturday) and I filled up the car, kissed Ma goodbye and headed home.

The drive back was mostly uneventful, except for when I got to the last stretch of Main North Road and the traffic had all completely crawled to stop. And it took forever (I don't know how long exactly, but it felt like about ten minutes) before I even got close enough to discover there had been a three car smash and two of the lanes were closed off. Whoops.

Hopefully no matter what kind of Christmas you had, it was better than the Christmas those three people had.

So that's it... Christmas is over for another year... roll on 2015!

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to all of you, merry christmas

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