movies: moana

Disney's latest, Moana, is truly beautiful.

It also, unsurprisingly given it's directing and writing pedigree, feels properly old-school Disney (while still being all kinds of modern and shiny). Ron Clements and John Musker also directed and had writing credits on The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, Hercules, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and The Great Mouse Detective.

Not to mention Don Hall and Chris Williams who co-directed Big Hero 6 (amongst a bunch of other writing and directing credits between them).

And add to that the current superstar of the musical theatre world, Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame for anyone who's been living on an island in the middle of the Pacific... although he started work on this film before Hamilton blew up into the phenomenon it is currently) wrote all the songs along with "South Pacific fusion" musician, Opetaia Foa'i. I actually have an online version of the soundtrack on shuffle in the background while I'm writing this and while I'm not usually a music guy (although I do love me a good musical), this is really, really lovely... and I'm pretty sure I'm probably going to end up going and getting the album before the week is out.

Normally I wouldn't drill this much into a Disney movie's lineage but this one has some seriously talented people behind it.

It's also stunningly, stunningly beautiful.

From the hair to the water (oh my god, the water... ALL the water... and the wet hair... so much wet hair), to the flora... and just the way the characters, Moana especially, move and pose... she's essentially a fully flesh and blood character.

Clearly Disney have taken everything they've learned from 2 Finding Nemo/Dory movies over at Pixar and really gone to work on the water in Moana. I'm also guessing that work on Tangled didn't hurt when it came to hair technology.

It also feels like an incredibly accurate and respectful interpretation of Polynesian culture... I'm sure they've taken bits from different places and mixed them together, in the usual Disney fashion. But a little bit like (my all-time favourite Disney movie) Lilo and Stitch took the Hawaiian culture, especially hula dancing, very seriously within their story, Moana appears to treat the traditional elements both seriously and respectfully.

Interestingly, because Polynesian covers such a wide area (essentially a big triangle between Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island), the voice cast includes people of Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan descent... which is awesome.

This is also a movie with no romantic sub-plot... if anything, Moana is really an action/adventure movie. The plot is simple (and very Disney)... girl with a path laid out for her by other people feels the tug of the outside world/her own path... follows her path, learns who she really is and has an amazing adventure. In her case the adventure includes sailing across the ocean, finding a demi-god and returning the heart to a goddess.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout-out to both Rachel House and Michael Woodside as the voice and animator respectively of Gramma Tala, Moana's grandmother and self proclaimed "village crazy lady". She's amazing, and probably my favourite character in the whole movie.

And Auli'i Cravalho, who was only 14 when she was cast, does a fantastic job as Moana.

yani's rating: 5 fishing hooks out of 5

photo saturday: beachy boys

The overnight low last night never dropped below 30°C... fuck that shit, fuck Summer and as far as I'm concerned Winter can't come around fast enough.

Thinking about it, I don't really know anything of much note to do a list of things I know to be true right now.

Ma's still has her arm in the sling... but she's supposed to go back to work (at least for a few hours each day) next week. And they probably won't let her drive for another 3 or 4 weeks. Just in time for the Fringe.

I also went back to work on Tuesday. The hardest part, other than getting up at a prescribed time, was putting closed in shoes on after a week of either no shoes or thongs. To be honest, wearing big boy pants was also a bit of a wrench.

I took some time out to do some stuff that I've needed to do for a while but never had time for... but I spent a couple of days rewriting the process document for my area (much as I did between Christmas and New Year last year)... but at least it's done now.

Otherwise it was a somewhat dull week... I ended up having some quite left field conversations with people... including two completely independent and unique conversations about the mantis shrimp (one about the eyes, one about the claws).

And given that while all of my team were back on deck but only half of the wider team was around, absolutely zero fucks were given (by me).

After work on Tuesday I took the parcel of amaray cases I'd had delivered to work (it was just easier), and picked up a veritable fuck-ton of graphic novels (that's what happens when you order a bunch of things and they all come in at once... hehehe so much stuff to read sitting on my bedside table). And then caught the bus home because who really wants to walk carrying all that stuff.

Fun fact: The bus that I catch to work in the morning stops running between 2:18pm and 6:40pm... Yes, there are two other buses that run on almost the same route (only 1 of which I was aware of until just now when I looked it up). But it just seems bizarre.

I don't think I mentioned that I set up the rainbow neon lamp I bought myself "for Christmas" (it wasn't really, but I picked it up on Christmas Eve, so why not)... it's really nice. And I haven't used my other very bright (although it wasn't that bright at the old house, I swear) lamp since.

Given that it was also stupidly fucking hot yesterday, I went and picked up yet another graphic novel order, then wandered around the city for a bit before catching the bus home again.

Ma and I went back and forth a little bit on what we should do about today... she initially suggested tomorrow, but it made more sense to me for both of us to be able to open our places up tomorrow (plus I wanted to go to the movies, and I've got a bunch of other things I need to do), so we settled on today.

Don't get me wrong, the ride to and from Ma's place wasn't pleasant (I really need to get the aircon in my car fixed)... but I'm getting ahead of myself slightly.

I got organised and got to the supermarket just before it opened, as I've been doing since Christmas Eve (and which I'm going to miss once Ma's driving again), and had everything done by just after 8am. I came back, unpacked, repacked Ma's groceries and then loaded up the car and headed down the road.

Like I said, not overly pleasant, but also not completely shit either.

When I got there Ma had already taken all the baubles off the Christmas tree (yeah, that was the other thing we needed to do today, take Ma's tree down)... I wasn't expecting her to do it, but it kind of made sense, since it was something she should have been able to do relatively easily with mostly 1 arm.

I don't usually get involved in the taking down process, so it all felt a little weird... but at least it was pretty quick, and we got everything packed away under the stairs.

Then we headed off the the shops to soak up some of their air-con before the movie (more on that later, naturally).

Now I know it was a kids movie, and I know it was a cinema we don't normally go to (last time was Fantastic Beasts, and I think that was the first time I'd been there) but good grief, I have never been in a movie session where so many people, adults and children alike got up, moved seats, left the cinema, came back into the cinema or just generally didn't sit the hell down and just watch the movie. I mean I get it when you have small children who need to go pee... but there was a couple of kids who just seemed to be roaming all over the cinema (one of them was doing cartwheels about halfway through the movie... seriously)... and their adult was sitting in a completely different section.

Urgh... I mean, c'mon, teach your kids how to movie, for goodness sake.

Afterwards we grabbed a late lunch, came back and I left Ma with her evaporative cooler and took the slightly sweaty drive home. Thankfully I'd set my air-con to start running about ah hour before I got home, so I came home to a relatively cool house.

Now if only the change would come in properly like it's supposed to.

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movies: assassin's creed

Since they announced that they were making an Assassin's Creed movie, I'll be honest, I've had an equal measure of excitement and trepidation.

Excitement because it's my favourite video game franchise and the director was responsible for 2015's very beautiful version of Macbeth. And trepidation because when have they ever gotten a video game movie adaptation completely right.

Having now seen it I can say that as an action movie and as a video game adaptation it ticks most of the current boxes... in fact I'd go as far as to say that it's one of the better adaptations that I've seen (but then I do have a fondness for the Resident Evil series, although I've never played the games, so take that with as much of a grain of salt as you like).

But as a movie... it suffers from the same problem that far too many action movies do currently... it supplies action in place of actual characters. I can't even say character development, because many of the additional characters are barely even more than a thumbnail sketch... like the main female assassin in the historical timeline. I have no idea what her relationship with Michael Fassbender's character was supposed to be... are they lovers, could be related, are they just friends... who can say! But worse than that, I couldn't have told you her name without looking it up if you'd paid me.

Likewise with the other Assassins in the present day timeline... "thankfully" they picked a black man, and Asian woman, a bearded man and a young pretty man... otherwise they would have all just blended into each other... because beyond the fact that they exist, and do some stuff, they have no identifiable characteristics or discernible names (I'm pretty sure the Asian woman doesn't even have any lines).

The only character with an actual arc is Marion Cotillard... yet once again, I couldn't tell you what her name was. Even though Fassbender plays two different characters, neither of them really develop or have much of a personality (whether that was helped or hindered by the fact that director Justin Kurzel, Cotillard and Fassbender had a go at a version of the script, if something I read earlier is to be believed)... so while he certainly learns some things, it doesn't really have that much of an impact on his character.

And without spoiling anything very much, neither side, the Assassins or the Templars, is really presented as being "right" or "wrong"... which is something that a few of the more recent games tried to do with varying degrees of success... but, to be honest, if I'm a fan of the Assassin's Creed series, I'm a fan of the Assassins, and I want them to be the heroes, or at least to be present as less wrong than the bad guys.

As far as this movie is concerned, the only character you really empathise with is Cotillard. And even then, not very much.

It does look beautiful though... which I fully expected from Kurzel and his cinematographer (the same one from Macbeth), Adam Arkapaw... even though I often felt like the 15th Century Spain sequences where just half obscured by smoke and orange light and a lot of really fast cutting.

I'm also not sure if it was just a really, really loud movie or if the cinema I saw it in just had the volume jacked up way too high. Yes, I was in the fully surround sound cinema with all the sound... but it made it hard to hear a lot of the dialogue.

There were more than a few nice moments, especially thing that harken back to previous Assassin's Creed games, but it all felt a bit rushed and a bit shallow. The strongest impression I actually had was that it felt very much like the couple of hours you play in the games before the title screen comes up... it's all about getting you working with the mechanics and tease out a little bit of story, but all the actual character development will happen after that point.

I think at the end of the day it's was either as good or as bad as I was hoping/expecting.

yani's rating: 3 hidden blades out of 5

2017

Hello 2017... a lot of people are both very glad to see you and worried for what you hold. Be gentle with us, would you.

It's also the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development... so that's a thing.

Yesterday was a funny old day... it didn't really feel like the last day of the year, and then on top of that it was also a Saturday, so there was shopping to be done. I got up fairly early and headed off to the supermarket to be there when they opened. It was a much more chill experience than Christmas Eve, unsurprisingly.

After I was done and had put away my stuff in my still overstuffed fridge, I packed up Ma's groceries and headed off to her place.

Given that we abandoned going to La Cousina's on Christmas Day, Ma had arranged to go and see them on Saturday... but La Cousina was running a bit behind schedule so we headed off to the shops to do some errands Ma wanted to do.

Then it was off to La Cousina's. And it was a really good visit... it was just La Cousina, Miss Oh, Ma, me and Princess T's little girl. She really is the most adorable baby (she's 6 or 7 months old if memory serves)... all chubby arms and legs and big anime eyes. And she's clearly one of those kids who take to strangers right away... I pretty much had hold of her or had her in my lap the entire time we were there (other than a short nap she had). And it just being La Cousina and Miss Oh was nice too... so we ended up having a good long chat about this, that, the other and nothing much at all and we were there for a couple of hours all up.

I didn't stick around too long after we got back to Ma's... I still had a bunch of stuff I wanted to do before settling in for New Years Eve.

First things first was getting the place tidied up... not that it was that bad given that I hadn't done much all week besides playing video games (mostly Lego Dimensions... not really surprising given that they were over half of my Christmas present... but I also finished off Firewatch, which was amazing, but nothing like I thought it was going to be... but that definitely needs another play through at some stage) and watching the first season of Westworld (it took a while to get there, but by the end, I was totally on board).

Then I had to do some blogging... so I didn't really get started on the usual NYE routine until after 8pm... dinner was a plate full of potsticker dumplings which were fantastic... and a gin slushie, finally using some of those zooper doopers. And I'll say right now... alcoholic slushie, A+++ idea.

Although I'm glad I paced myself... partly because I still don't have the ratios of gin, water, ice and zooper dooper 100% right... but I had two and then just had some gin and soda... and I'll admit, I was a little fluffy this morning.

My movie selections for the evening were Kubo and the Two Strings followed by The Man From U.N.C.L.E.... Kubo still remains an amazing movie, and TMFU, which doesn't hold up quite as well given my original impression, but is still very, very enjoyable.

One thing about being so far away from town compared to previous years, although more specifically the last two, is that I hardly even heard the fireworks... a couple of the louder bangs, but that was about it. And I could JUST see some of the high ones in the gap between a couple of the neighbouring houses. Ah well.

TMFU finished up around 12:30 and I did a little tidying up, but then realised that as is their post midnight NYE tradition, Channel 9 was showing Can't Stop The Music yet again... the down side being that it wouldn't finish until around 2am... so I watched a little, tweeted about it (and got more likes than I think I've had on ANYTHING in quite a while... go figure), then gave up and went to bed.

This morning, as I said, I woke up a little bit fluffy... but thankfully Past Me remembered to buy eggs so that Present Me could have bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast.

I didn't really do much with the morning, but then this afternoon I went off to see the Assassin's Creed movie (more on that later) in the city. And I had enough points on my card to see it for free, so that was nice.

So yeah, the whole weekend/NYE/NYD has been a very quiet and low-key one (I feel like I say that every year, but still, it's true).

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two thousand and sixteen in review

Well this is it 2016... your last day... and I think I speak for many folks when I say that it will be good to see the back of you.

Normally I would pull out the meme I've been using for the last few years where I post the first line of the first post for each month, but as regular readers will know, the blog has essentially become a once a week thing with the occasional extra post, so that's not going to work quite so well.

Also there has been a lot of shit (quite a bit of it shit, some good) that happened this year that I kind of want to pay homage to... and put to rest properly I guess.

So, let's try this...

January: I got word my lease wasn't going to be extended, so I spent the whole month looking for a new place and also packing.

February: I moved into the new apartment and had some form of catastrophe with every service provider except for the gas folks. I also started this year's Fringe.

March: The Fringe continued, culminating in 25 shows. We also didn't do anything excessively exciting for my birthday.

April: My first session of my new tattoo... it was supposed to take 2 sessions, it ended up being 4 sessions spread across 5-ish months.

May: Not a lot happened in May, but that is the month that really rekindled reading and buying books for me again (more on that later).

June: As always, Ma's birthday... and another tattoo session.

July: We lost half of the team at work... many, many, many drinks were had. There was also the only Fork In The Road I went to this year, down at Port Adelaide. And it was also my eleventh bloggiversary.

August: We haven't seen enough movies this year to actually do a full on movie post like I usually do (we only saw 10 things at the movies, which is honestly just pathetic), so I'll just say, Kubo and the Two Strings which came out in August is hands down my pick for movie of the year.

September: My tattoo was finally finished. Also, the whole of South Australia had a massive blackout, so we did what any right thinking person would do, we went to the pub. And after the blackout I discovered that my roof was leaking... making 2 leaking roofs in 2 apartments in 2 years.

October: Felt a little like old times with a visit to an Espionage Gallery art show. And I finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

November: Ma fell and fucked up her shoulder. And on an unrelated note, I'll say what I said at the time, what the actual fuck America?

December: The saga of Ma's shoulder continued... culminating in an operation just before Christmas, which has meant a very different December for both of us. We still put the tree up at her place, but we had to cancel the traditional Christmas goodies, so I just made a fuck-ton of Rocky Road instead. We also discovered that Princess T had a baby and didn't tell us (I met her today, she's gorgeous and adorable and I want to eat her little chubby hands). And due to the heat we made a last minute decision to move Christmas to my place.

So that's the year that was... for me personally I'm a little fatter than I was this time last year (hell, I'm a little fatter than I was six months ago)... I've had a couple of weird health things pop up but then prove to be nothing at all, or else more related to my ongoing issues with my back than anything else. I've gotten laid a lot less this year which I think mostly has to do with my ongoing attraction to guys best described as flaky timewasters.

Work continues to annoy, challenge and otherwise consume much of my brain (at least until I walk out the door in the afternoon). I've had 4 different offsiders through the year... 2 we lost in the cull, and 1 is temporarily filling in for guy who got the job on a permanent basis. Management also continues to make decisions that are best described as mental.

The other thing I wanted to do this year was try out a "favourite things" list... or at least things that I've discovered this year that were new to me.

So...

yani's favourite things 2016

In no particular order...

Good Reads

One of the women at work mentioned this to me earlier in the year, but then at some point sat me down and showed it to me.. and I fell in love a little. I love a list, I love keeping track of things, this lets me do that, including keeping track of books I want to buy.

It also got me back into buying books in a way that I'd really moved away from. The only probably with that is a limited amount of space to put them.

99% Invisible

See also My Dad Wrote A Porno, Invisibilia, Alice Isn't Dead (and to a less extent Within the Wires), The West Wing Weekly, Good Game Roundtable and Death by Discography.

Again, 99PI was recommended to me by people at work, and I dived into it in a big way, going all the way back to the beginning and listening to every single episode one after another... it took me a couple of months but at the end I was very sad to not have Roman Mars's velvet voice inside my head on a daily basis.

The other podcasts mentioned are all ones that either I discovered this year (MDWAP, Invisibilia, GGRT) or that started this year (AID, WTW, DBD). I'm very much a podcast type of person, so discovering new, good podcasts is like other people discovering new music.

Grayson and Midnighter

Along with a resurgence in reading books, 2016 also very much saw me get back into graphic novels in a big bad way. This went hand in hand with a new comic book shop opening here in Adelaide, Greenlight Comics. And it's an incredibly open and welcoming place, much more so than any of the previous stores we've had.

So I've been developing a relationship, taking suggestions and just taking chances on things recommended to me.

One of those was Grayson, as in Dick Grayson (or the original Robin from Batman and Robin)... it's less superhero-ey and more "spy-ey"... but it's also a little bit homoerotic and doesn't take itself terribly seriously.

And weirdly it also ties into both the Batman books I was already reading, and another graphic novel I was interested in, Midnighter... think an out gay cross between Batman, Captain America and Wolverine... yeah, that.

Gin

I tried gin for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and really like it, mostly for the smell... that's all there is to that really. But I'm planning on making a gin slushie shortly.

Fidget toys

I'm a fidgeter, I fidget...  I also fiddle and whatnot.

I accidentally discovered fidget toys after getting a very simple one from one of those craft markets... it was essentially just a marble inside a knitted disc... then I fell down a YouTube hole at some stage and discovered Fidgetland.

I now own one of their Tutties and one of their Noahs... and I play with the Tuttle all the time (especially if I'm watching stuff on TV or YouTube). It gives my hands and the back part of my brain something to do while the rest of me is occupied. And I love it to bits.

So, yeah... I think that's it for this year in review. I've very much hoping we move onwards and upwards in 2017, because I'd love to do this again next year and be all "2017 was a truly amazing year".

And for the sake of tradition, tonight... right about nowish in fact, marks my 7th Twitter anniversary.

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post christmas round-up 2016

Usually at Christmas I complain that nothing ever changes and we do the same thing year after year after year with only minor seasonal variations.

Compared with previous years, this year was definitely one big game of "one of these things is not like the others"... mostly, kind of.

As I mentioned yesterday, at the 11th hour (being Thursday), once we knew the weather on Christmas Day was going to be, in a word, shitful, we decided to move Christmas Day from Ma's place to my place.

Initially this was going to include an early visit to La Cousina's, before packing up and heading down the road, but Ma decided (all on her own) to throw that in and not worry about it, given the weather.

I woke up pretty early, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5:30am, and rolled out of bed not long after to start getting ready. Just before I was about to jump in the shower my phone beeped to let me know someone had liked something on Twitter, turned out it was Owlgirl, so since I knew she was already awake (and I'm not really surprised, that girl is STUPID for Christmas), I messaged her with seasonal greetings before getting ready.

I think I ended up leaving here at around 6:15am (with the air-con already on)... which was good for two reasons, the lowest temperature that we had all day happened at 6:30am and there was hardly anyone else on the road.

So I made pretty good time, got to Ma's, spent a quick minute taking photos of the tree (because traditional), then loaded up the car and headed back down the road. Unfortunately there were more cars on the road by this stage, and annoyingly the cars I kept getting stuck behind wanted to do between 5 and 10km under the speed limit.

Anyway, we made it back here before it heated up too much, we stuck on Arthur Christmas (which I had already watched the night before as is my annual Christmas Eve tradition) and I made the usual Christmas breakfast of croissants, this year with cheese and ham, nicely flattened in the George Foreman.

With not having the visit to La Cousina's to take up a goodly chunk of the morning, we kind of just faffed about watching the movie, getting Christmas texts (and, in my case, the occasional Snapchat) from people, including some photos of my new "second niece" (and by new I mean 7 months old at this stage... because my family does like to keep secrets from each other), who is so adorable I just want to eat her up, even if she does have a really badly spelled "upmarket bogan" name.

Eventually it was time for presents.

Mostly because I knew pretty much all but one of the things that were in my parcels (and because about half of them were things I bought for myself that I then subsequently put away for Christmas), I just watched Ma open her stuff for a bit and then slowly started to open my stuff.

• Sunnylife neon rainbow light
• Lego Dimensions
• Fantastic Beasts Story Pack
• Adventure Time Finn Level Pack
• Adventure Time Jake and Lumpy Space Princess Team Pack
• Adventure Time Marceline Fun Pack
• Harry Potter Harry and Voldemort Team Pack
• 2017 Warwick Rowers calendar
• 2017 Alfredo Roagui calendar and print
• R2D2 glass
• Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them book/screenplay
• DVDs
• The Lego Movie (Bluray)
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Bluray)
• 101 Dalmations
• Finding Dory
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• The Martian
• The Song of the Sea
• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End PS4 game
• Lilo and Stitch "Ohana Means Family" statue
  

Yes, indeed, there is a lot of Lego Dimensions there... partly because I really wanted all of the Adventure Time sets, plus the Fantastic Beast story pack. The Lilo and Stitch statue is the one thing I didn't remember... I do have a vague memory of Ma mentioning something about it, but I'd totally forgotten it was a thing.

Ma liked all of her stuff, especially the Erstwilder snowman brooch and the calendar.

Once we were done with that I tidied up and then started on prep for lunch. And unlike previous years where I do half of the stuff and Ma does the other half, this year it was all me (for obvious reasons). Also, the fact that we were cooking in an actual oven with clearly regulated temperature rather than the Weber which is subject to it's own whims and idiosyncrasies meant that everything was cooked on time and well.

It's also useful that I have the comedy oversized oven as well, since everything (turkey, sausage meat and potatoes) fit in with room to spare.

While the meat was cooking I prepped the vegetables, then started putting the salad elements together until we were good to go, with haloumi the last addition.

And I think it was just after 1pm when we sat down for lunch, which is impressive given past performances.

As usual, I made twice as much as we actually needed, but it looked quite pretty and festive and was chock full of meat (the aforementioned turkey and sausage plus bacon). And I'd been tossing up whether or not to put together my own dressing but in the end I used the mango, lime and chilli dressing we've used before.

The table wasn't quite as interesting as it has been in previous years, since we didn't bring all the fancy stuff with us from Ma's, and my table is pretty tiny... so essentially we just used my regular old bowls... but the salad bowl is new and pretty nice for a $10 impulse buy from Kmart I have to say.

We put one of Ma's DVDs, Pom Poko on after lunch and somewhere towards the end of the movie I made some dessert... the mince pie icecream I put together along with crushed up meringues and some fresh raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries... which was pretty nice.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit general and a bit blah... given that Ma was staying here overnight there wasn't the usual "pack up and go" portion of the afternoon, which would probably have occurred at some point.

We ended up watching some random TV, I put together the minifigures from my Dimension sets, but otherwise nothing overly exciting... eventually I put together a plate of stuff for dinner from the leftovers. And as usual, we kind of picked at it until we'd had enough.

We finished off the day by watching one of my new DVDs, Song of the Sea, and at a certain point decided to inflate the mattress so it was done.

You would assume if a mattress and a pump are made by the same company that they would not only fit together, but that they would be made to lock into place with each other. Not this mattress... while the pump goes into the inflation point, it doesn't actual lock together with it. Annoying. Also it look longer and wasn't as easy as I though... but really it's my own fault because I could have bought an electric one, but no, I bought the foot powered version.

Ma want to bed around 9:30 and was quietly snoring away by about 11 or so... I gave up and crashed out at around midnight.

I will say that I didn't sleep great... weirdly both Ma and I woke up at 2am... and then after that I had a really hard time getting back to sleep. I think part of it may have been that the mattress stretched out a little like the instructions said it was going to and it wasn't as firm as it needed to be... also it's really hard to get in or out of easily. But mostly it just wasn't my regular mattress so that was weird.

I'm pretty sure I dozed on and off and then woke up around 4:30 and realised that the cool change had come in, so I turned off the air-con and opened a couple of windows.

And then I woke up when my alarm went off... because I'd forgotten to switch them all off. This morning wasn't much of anything... we packed things up ready to take back to Ma's place, I made the other two croissants up with the leftover ham and cheese, I had a quick shower and then we headed down the road.

So, like I said, while it will be a memorable Christmas just because we did things at my place rather than Ma's, it was otherwise fairly uneventful.

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have yourself a merry little christmas

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ma's presents 2016

With a few exceptions, I feel a little like shopping for Christmas presents for Ma kind of fell over around the same time she did... (okay, too soon, I said it and even I think that was too soon).

It also seems because I was more shopping on instinct for the past month and a bit there's a more than usual distribution of snowmen... and none of them are Olaf, which is a change from recent years.

I honestly don't care what she does with the big plush snowman after Christmas... but it's soft and cuddly and adorable (and it was cheap as well).

Even though I could have wrapped her presents at any point recently, I left it until the last minute, partially because of the Haighs chocolate, but it also meant I could drop some of the duplicate Steven Universe toys in as theoretical stocking stuffers.

Other than that, the wrapping process was much the same as always. Again, not doing it late at night was a bonus, as was the fact that the returning star that is the big red shiny box wasn't crammed full...

• Artful Resin pendant
• Green flower brooch
• Green crystal earrings
• Silver seahorse brooch
• Oroton leaf brooch
• 2017 Sculpture calendar and iPhone wallpapers
• Snowmen
• Jim Shore snowman ornament
• Erstwilder snowman brooch
• Hallmark 2016 snowman ornament
• Itty Bitty Frosty the Snowman plush
• Snowman plushie
• Cherry cranberry pistachio nougat
• Haighs dark orange pastilles
• DVDs
• Doctor Blake Season 3 and 4
• The Lego Movie
• Spirited Away
• Pom Poko DVD
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• Assorted Steven Universe pint sized hero toys
  (Rose, Steven, Connie, Stevonnie and Greg)
• 'Smores Snowman card

I'm really looking forward to her reaction to the Artful Resin pendant and, as always, the calendar.

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photo saturday: beach santa boys

The pre-Christmas edition of things I know to be true right now...

• Two days before Christmas is a shitty time to announce staff changes, even if it means I can finally apply for my own job and maybe actually get a permanent job again.
• In any scenario where people should be considering the comfort and wellbeing of others it won't happen either at all or to the level that it should.
• The forecast for Christmas Day is 40°C. If it gets to 40.1°C it will be the hottest Christmas in Adelaide since 1945.
• Christmas is at my house this year (more on that later).
• Adulting is no fun.

It's been a fucked up kind of week to be honest.

And I'll be honest, more than a few of those fucked up factors revolve around the fact that at the beginning of the week we were headed squarely into heatwave territory. For the record, here in Adelaide a heatwave is "5 consecutive days at or above 35°C (95°F), or 3 consecutive days at or over 40°C (104°F)". At this point it doesn't really look like we're going to get to that... today is only supposed to be 35, not 40, and Monday the cool change is supposed to come in during the wee small hours and knock the temperature down to 28. But Christmas Day is going to be all the hot.

That wouldn't be quite as much of a trauma if Ma was in possession of a full set of working arms. But now we're going to ditch the trip to La Cousina's, I'm going to go pick her up as early as I can get my shit organised in the morning, we're going to come back here, cook everything in my giant oven and enjoy the air-conditioning. Then, depending on whether or not the change comes through at a reasonable time Christmas night or not, I'll either drive her home that night, or I'm now the owner of an inflatable mattress that is larger than my actual mattress, and I'll sleep on that in the lounge while she takes my bed.

It also means that my fridge is literally crammed full of not only my own stuff, but stuff for tomorrow.

Having to give a shit is hard. I see why people often don't.

And so that I could avoid going to any stores on Christmas Eve, and since the shops were open until midnight on Thursday and Friday, I went off to Kmart on Thursday night to get the blow up mattress. Just being at the shops after they should have been closed (if only by about 15 minutes) was weird... but the fact that it was mostly deserted was also strange... and the fact that the people that were there were exactly the kinds of people you would expect to see at Kmart, after hours, just before Christmas. And we won't even talk about the fact that seemingly all the staff were about 12 years old. But it was a "successful" trip.

Also, as I mentioned, the big boss announced the changes to the way The Nut House is structured this week... well, the final edition of the changes... we've been trying to fight the initial proposed changes, which were done by a thundering (external to the organisation) moron at a point when we had no more fucks left to give. In the back of my mind I kind of always knew that they wouldn't back down from that plan, if only because they got someone external to do it and, I'm guessing, paid way more money than it was worth to have it done. So to not use it would be acknowledging that they wasted not only everyone's time, but the money as well.

The one positive is that my position, which I essentially created from the ground up, is going to be advertised, at the level I wanted it to be set at. The main downside from my perspective is that I've never seen the job and person spec and I have no idea what the hell it says... even though I'm the only one who has ever done that job. But I guess I'll see it in January some time when it gets advertised. So by this time next month I could actually have a grown-up big-boy job that is mine.

Granted that comes with it's own set of headfucks, but hopefully it's more in the plus than minus column.

The other fucked up thing about it, and the main reason we've been fighting it as much as we have, is that they've given La Ninj the flick... to some degree I actually understand it, but on the other it seems like a really stupid thing to do after she's just shepherded us through 2 and a half major projects which have been widely acclaimed by the powers that be... yes, that's exactly the person you should be getting rid of, you thundering morons.

Otherwise work was about average to be honest... we had one day where one of our systems just packed up on us for no reason anybody has been able to explain, and while I wasn't directly involved in getting it back on it's feet, it did mean that I did some ancillary running around and couldn't do anything with that system the whole day.

I'm so glad that I'm having the next 10 days off to be honest... I'm just exhausted... mentally, emotionally, physically... and I just need to recharge my batteries and attempt to not think about work at all if I can help it.

On the up side though, H-San and I did do duelling Christmas music a couple of times this week... of course his idea of Christmas music is always something heavy metal inspired, but it was fun while it lasted anyway.

Oh, I just remembered... last Sunday was The Nut House Christmas Party (that's how long this week has seemed to be, I forgot that was only last Sunday)... it was a good time, my Rocky Roads (one milk chocolate, one dark chocolate) were greatly appreciated, especially as I made people take some home with them so that I didn't have to deal with the leftovers. I also think I may just make it in those disposable foil trays from now on. Easy to get out and makes a good thick product.

I spent a good portion of the time talking to Owlgirl... we haven't caught up like that properly for ages, and most of the other people I see on a daily basis, so I can talk to them any time. As always we massively over-catered... given that there were a number of full sized salads, plus about 4 or 5 different types of meat, plus a potato bake and a noodle dish, plus breads... and then there were four different kinds of dessert... nobody went hungry and we left H-San and Mrs San with a LOT of leftovers. Also, as a tip to myself for next time, just wear shorts ya idjit!

Now, if you'll excuse me for a little bit, I need to go over to the shops and grab some lunch and a couple of things I forgot to get this morning.

Okay, it hasn't gotten any less crazed out there... and it's quite a bit hotter.

Now where was I...

To be honest, I think that brings us around to this morning... which is actually kind of a short story...

The supermarket was opening at 7am rather than 7:30, so I was determined to get there for 7... and I did... but after going across to Bakers Delight and then coming back, it seemed like there were about 100 people that just materialised out of the walls, especially at the deli counter.

And while I understand wanting to shop early when it's going to be hot... and I understand food shopping is probably the last thing on a very long list of things that some of these people had to do... what I don't understand is how, what I assume are, relatively competent people on a day to day basis, can completely and totally forget how to supermarket just because it's Christmas tomorrow. It's like every time there's a public holiday Monday and everyone ceases to function as a person at the supermarket. I just don't get it.

Anyway, I braved the insanity very calmly all things considered, especially how over it I am with a great many other things, and was finished before 8am, which is only a record from the time on the clock perspective, not from the length of time I was in the store.

Of course I forgot some things... which always happens... but I got them all when I went to get my lunch earlier.

Then when I got back here I had to completely clear out the freezer and the fridge just so that I could get everything that I'd bought put away (I have too many fucking jars in the fridge though to be honest... which is just annoying). From there I tidied up, and was intending to vacuum the floor, which I'll probably do later on because I just can't be arsed right now.

I have also completely thrown the idea of having a Christmas haircut in the 'too hard' basket this year... Tink is still away (although given the text message I got yesterday, now back in the country) and the place I went last time was just a bit m'eh... plus it's mostly passable, and I'm not seeing anyone other than Ma, so who really gives a fuck.

Oh, and I got both of the parcels I was waiting for this week too... the one that caused all the drama last Saturday, and I picked up the neon rainbow light on Friday after work (I'm going to leave it and open it tomorrow though, because it makes more sense that way).

And then I need to wrap Ma's presents some time this afternoon... but that can wait until later as well.

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photo saturday: whites

This that I know to be true this week...

• I spent far too much time this week worry about Ma going in for surgery on her shoulder.
• Her surgery was fine, however she has torn not 1, not 2, not 3 but all 4 muscles that hold the ball joint together. She's supposed to be in a sling for 4 weeks.
• She's staying with her friend this weekend, and I won't see her until Christmas.
• Princess T has, at some point in the last 12 months, been pregnant and had a baby girl. She didn't tell us this. So now I have a (according to Wikipedia) "second grandniece"/"cousin-grandniece". Also the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because La Cousina kept T a bit of a secret until quite far into the pregnancy. Fucking families hey.
• I don't actually know what the baby's name is... Ma didn't mentioned it when I spoke to her.
• Gin smells amazing.
• Australia Post delivers parcels on weekends in December. I was not here to get said parcel.
• My knee is, at this point, pretty much fucked... but hopefully will improve.
• At some point today I need to make Rocky Road.

Okay, so there's not really a hell of a lot of additional story to be told to be honest.

Last Sunday was fairly uneventful... my choice of salad for the week was a bit m'eh. In fact just salad in general, m'eh.

I thought my knee was on the mend from last week because I hadn't been using it all that much over the weekend and by Monday it mostly felt back to normal. But then towards the end of the week it really flared up, and while I got my chiro to look at it (and give it a yank back into the correct position) on Friday, it still doesn't feel like it's that much better. Hopefully, if nothing else, having a week off work where I'm not standing up for half the day and then walking home may let it sort itself out.

Work has kind of slowed down, except of course for the "oh, this one thing, it's the last one for the year, do that" type stuff, which is always a fun time. But really, it's the week before the week before Christmas, have these people never heard the "nobody cares" song and accompanying interpretive dance routine?

Like I said at the top, I spent too much time (both objectively and relatively) worry about Ma's operation. I knew I was, but at the same time I could shake the sense of impending doom for some reason.

Yeah, my brain... all broken.

Wednesday was not a good day with one thing and another, although the random kindness of the people I work with is occasionally surprising but always appreciated.

So I decided I needed to stop at the bottle shop... and decided that gin was what was called for. Now I will say that I haven't necessarily tasted the gin on it's own properly, but the smell of gin... OH MY! I'm very much in love with that smell.

Also, a couple of gins was definitely what was called for.

After my chiro appointment on Friday I wandered... well actually, limped would be a better description... around the city for a while. It was the usual rotation... Zing, Greenlight, Dymocks, Target... but also diverted to Myer to look for the neon rainbow light they had in their catalogue. They didn't have it in, but the lovely girl in the store ordered it for me, and knocked the delivery charge off, and I realised afterwards that there was already a markdown on that range of stuff... so bargains all around.

I've gotten to like the subtle amount of light that my neon Christmas tree gives off, so once Christmas is over I'll replace it with the rainbow, see how that goes.

Today was the first Saturday I've had to myself pretty much since I'm actually not completely sure when... even last Christmas we still see stuff on the Saturdays before trimming the tree and making the Christmas goodies... so fuck knows to be honest.

I dragged my ass out of bed to be at the supermarket nice and early (but I still need to be there super extra early next weekend, otherwise I just know it's going to be shit), did all my supermarket shopping, which honestly wasn't all that much, since I was only doing shopping for myself and I still have a lot of stuff.

After I came back here, I did a quick unpack and then turned around and went straight back out to visit both Big W and Target... ostensibly just for a USB to put something on to put in Miss Oh's present, but I also wanted to find the
Fantastic Beasts book for myself... In the end I came home with 6 things, only 1 of which was for someone else (the USB). Christmas hey!

And I was back here by about 11am. Annoyingly, I went out just after 12 to get some lunch and when I came back, there was a parcel and a "come collect your other, bigger parcel" note in my letterbox. By the time I realised this, the post office was already shut. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this happened last December... weird-ass Saturday parcel deliveries. I mean don't get me wrong, if I'd been here it would have been awesome (and the fact that they left one of them was great)... but when they do it as a totally random thing just in December, it's fucking weird.

I have the Nuthouse Christmas lunch tomorrow at The House of H-San... so before then I have to make two lots of Rocky Road (and find room for it in the fridge), write a card, print something and find that video I wanted for Miss Oh.

Next Saturday I'm basically going to hibernate the whole day... well, I'll probably wrap Ma's present, but other than that, hibernation.

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