HorizonPurple.com

I woke up this morning with the entire score to the Buffy Musical running though my head, which is much oddness as I’ve not watched or listened to that in a good few months. It caused no hardship in my day, except I did find myself semisinging as I re-imaged many many PCs. This is also not a hardship as this re-imaging is very much dull. I like to make it more interesting by setting up three in a row, then forgetting where I’m up to all the time. Fills in the day.

Stayed an extra half hour at work this evening as a bloke from Telstra had arrived to look at our internet hook up as it’s still not working. It looks as though the people who were installing the new security system on Monday did something not good with the connections etc. The Telstra bloke fixed the connection, but as he is not a registered tech with the DSL company, he had to un-fix it and now we have to wait for a DSL tech to arrive (hopefully this year) so he can do the exact same thing. This strikes me as a teeny bit on the silly side, but maybe I’m being picky on that one.

Mum got her photo in the paper for the book, but it’s a shocking photo! She looks mildly demented.

This is a photo of Kylie Minogue and her boyfriend’s dog, who looks alarmingly like Stitch (the dog, not the boyfriend. Or, indeed, Kylie). I have not a lot more to say about that, except that i do not buy crap trash mags but only read them in the tea room at work.

Still no internet at work. i phoned Yvette at 4:55 which was close enough to 5pm for me, thanks. She hadn’t heard anything either so she phoned Vicnet who say they’ll let us know an “estimated connection time” tomorrow morning. Yvette did point out that we already had an estimated connection time, and it was kind of now. They were unsympathetic. Apparently Craig the CEO is deeply ticked off about this and is writing angry letters, but as Yvette said as far as Telstra etc are concerned, we are pretty much a non-event. So there. LOL.

Can’t think what else I was going to write. Nothing of real interest happened today, but that’s not exactly unusual. I am now killing time in a big way. About to log on to TSO to see if I have messages. That’s kinda pathetic, but my only e-mails today were more bulk mails (not spam as such, things I actually want to get but am disappointed when they are the only thing in my inbox!).

First day back at work and didn’t I pick a good ‘un for my return. The DSL link that has (despite expectations) actually worked since it’s installed a few months back decided to fall over today leaving us with no internet at all for staff or public use. I rang Yvette in IT who was not only having a “first day back after leave” but also wasn’t feeling well, poor love. Scott from Vicnet phoned me, then phoned the DSL people who phoned Telstra who phoned them back so they phoned Vicnet who phoned me and we were all hooked up and on hold for a while there. Telstra reckon they can fix it by “close of business” tomorrow, maybe sooner. Probably later.

A bloke came in and asked what was wrong with the PCs. I said “Oh, there’s a problem with the DSL line”. “Well, I can’t fix that!” he said, as if we’d asked him. We often ask random borrowers to fiddle with our connections etc, just for a giggle. I mean really.

Another woman suggested her ISP as a better option, but I couldn’t even begin to explain the trouble with that theory, which was OK as she wasn’t talking to me and anyway, I was on the phone on hold waiting for John at Vicnet to ask the DSL people to ask Telstra…

A very happy birthday indeed to Mr Terry Pratchett.

Last day of leave. Much quieter than the first day of leave which involved flying to Sydney and beginning the trip. Flying somewhere today would have been nice.

JP mentioned that I sound pissed off at the moment. Fair call, I am pretty tense although the exact reason remains hidden, possibly behind a couch. The more I think about it, though, the more I wonder if I’m not starting to feel a little bit stuck. Or a lot stuck. I’ve faffed about so much I feel like I’ve reached a point of no return, which is silly because there’s not really any such thing. I can move or change jobs whenever I like, technically. In practice, though, fear and paranoia tend to set in with alarming speed.

I feel like what I need is a clean slate. I tend to hang on to emotional baggage, which does no one any good at all. Perhaps a fresh start somewhere will at least give me some kind of perspective, or something. On the other hand, a mild social phobia and general nerves could mean I’m stuck somewhere else just as socially silent and alone.

Oh, fuck it. Anyone else want a cup of tea?

How evil are you?

Thought so, how depressing. I am barney now.

Design envy is a terrible thing and I am about to resolve not to read another web log until mine looks… less crap.

In this modern age, why am I unable to fully absorb information from a screen? Research for a story now means copy, paste and print.

Why am I posting twice a day now? Madness.

Lauren named a fish after me! Yay :) I feel so special, thanks Lauren :)

Mum has a little plane made out of soft drink cans. Today she moved it to the low shelf in her room and the dog spent 10 minutes barking at it because it wasn’t there before, and obviously must be barked at. Eventually he plucked up enough courage to put his feet up on the shelf and sniff the plane, which fell forward at him, so he had to bark at it again. I am wondering if he’s unbalanced. :)

A letter in a computer mag I bought today makes a lot of sense. I’m too damned slack to bother typing it all out. Basically, it said that the only reason we lust after bigger better and faster is because technology keeps “improving”. The author suggested slowing or stopping development (I know that’s very much not going to happen, but it’s a nice theory and not one I disagree with). Reason? People are only unhappy with dialup internet because they know broadband is out there. They are only unhappy with a printer that does 10 colour pages a minute because they know that there’s a printer that will do 20 pages a minute (although, to be honest, at this moment I just want a printer that will print with black ink from time to time). He suggests ignoring advancements and being happy with what you have.

Having mulled it over, I realise that while I am quite keen on gadgets in general, I’m not really much of a technology junkie. I see little point in having a 120cm TV, for example. This is not just because there is no way known of fitting a 120cm TV into my loungeroom. A while back I wandered through the TV bit of a local shop (local-ish anyway) because I was thinking of replacing my adorable but aged portable TV (it does a really annoying crackle thing now, but it is elderly so one is inclined to forgive). I couldn’t find a little TV at all. Not even a slightly little TV. I’m talking 15 inch screen here. Nada, nothing. I’m sure there’s still a market, but this shop disagrees (before anyone points out that you can still buy 15inch TVs, I found some in another shop but by that stage couldn’t actually afford to buy one).

Looks like my freebie e-mail provider is starting to decline. This is shame because I love my e-mail address. Always makes people smile :). I could fall back on my hotmail or wage slave accounts, but they are so chock full of spamy goodness that I can’t cope at all.

Just had a look at a couple of employment type sites. Mainly manager/executive type jobs (hey, i reckon they should let me be a manager, I’d be much fun) or pizza hut/mcdonalds type jobs (not that there’s anything wrong with these, but I think I’d kill people after 23 minutes). Check the paper tomorrow.

Two posts, wow. Only ‘coz The Glass House isn’t on for ages yet.

Well that’s the week off then. How alarming to think that on Monday morning I’ll be back at work, being generally cranky and hard to get on with. It’ll be nice to see everyone, but I’m not looking forward to the grind bit. I can already sense 16 dead PCs waiting for me, but perhaps I’m paranoid.

Not a lot done today, mainly worked on the owl stitching (Oh Little Town). Only a bit of wing and the lights to go and I’m done. I say “bit of wing”, but it’s probably going to take another month :)

After God knows how long, the paddocks over in the valley are green again. They’ve been a faded brown for months and I can’t quite get used to them being green now. Even our own paddock is showing signs of life, although we’ve lost a lot of trees.

Not a lot to report again. This fast paced life puts me in no danger of burn out, I assure you.

Got the last batch of photos back, and they included a photo of a plaque at the William Ricketts sanctuary which reads :

a pure imagination born to man in a state of true freedom and wrought in fire is to be desired above all things.

Spent this arvo faffing about a bit with the local history group page, trying to unclutter the index a bit and advertising the book launch. Also scanned in some Elsie pics but didn’t manage to get around to doing anything with them. Got rid of a few old files too, love deleting stuff :)

There was an advert on before for a four wheel drive and the slogan is “The best ever tribute to Australia”. Huh? Stupid of me, I thought car makers made cars in order to make money. I had no idea wach car was a tribute to Australia. How terribly unpatriotic of me to buy a second hand car when I should be supporting car makers and buying a new car, possibly every 5 minutes. I mean really, what a fucking stupid slogan. Honestly.

Something in my PC is causing dodginess. I will worry about this at some stage, possibly when it is far too late to fix it.

The ABC showed a special on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome tonight, which was partially interesting as I have the syndrome, but mainly not interesting because I am not interested in having babies at this point of my life. It was kind of another of those “all women are gagging to have a child” things. I am not gagging to have a child. The people who made the programme tonight don’t seem to realise that some women may want treatment for the other health reasons rather than to have a baby. I have other things on my mind at the minute!

What else? I’m wondering why I bothered to have the calender since I’m posting every day at the moment. Perhaps it was “Yay, I can have a calender! I’ll have one then!”.

Just opened an e-mail from Poppett to find that JB Hamster has died. I never met JB on account of him being in England but I heard a lot about his antics. That’s JB to the left.

I’m listening to “Wavedancer Memories” and remembering sitting on the deck of the Wavedancer all relaxed and calm. I wonder when I’ll feel like that again.

I am in the process of deleting my BritCom page, which is kind of odd as I’ve never deleted a page from the internet before. i’ve moved the bastards hundreds of times (a tedious process) but never just taken one away. There are two reasons. 1. The page is still on my old ISP. I keep my account only to keep the page up, which is silliness now I have so much space here. Also, I am tired of getting 100+ spam messages a day to that address. 2. I intended to update the page section by section and move it to this host when I first loaded this page here. That was October 2001. Lazy me. Also, the pages themselves hadn’t been updated since late 1999. It was time to pull the plug (or the trigger, if you like).

Alarmingly, I’ve been faffing about with webpages since 1997. That seems so unutterably long ago now. Anyone would expect me to be kind of good at it now. I am better at it, but not good at it. Still, it’s fun :)

ooh. I just found my woeful web comic attempt. LMAO.

Time for another image, this is my dog proving that just because it looks uncomfortable, that doesn’t mean it is:

Mum’s got to have her photo taken this week as the local paper is actually going to mention a coming event while it is still a coming event (they are better at saying “The event has happened”). It’s for the launch of the Local History book - “Kooka on the Wattle”. Currently we have 250 copies in the next room. That’s 250 copies that each need a little sticker mentioning the printer because we had “Put Printer Here”. We did give the printer a revised version (which also fixed some typos and made the cover slightly prettier) but he didn’t use that one. Annoying. That reminds me, i need to print out 250 little stickers….

I need to empty my ashtray and also learnt to type again as this sentance has taken about three hours. OK, 2 and a half. Perhaps it is my (still) weakened condition. Also, my crappy former ISP that I still have an account at is sending all my e-mails twice. Since all those e-mails are junk it’s irritating, but probably not worth crapping on about for much longer than this.

I really really need something to happen to put in here. LOL. Played Settlers II most of the afternoon. I have a cheat to make it all super quick for faster victory (or in my case faster having-arse-kicked).

Today was quite lovely, actually. Sunny but not hot and very still. I sat in the paddock for a while trying to top up my tan (only it just doesn’t work that way) and watching the sun in the trees. Also, it’s nice to have a Sunday arvo without that “Work tomorrow” feeling. One more week of freedom. At the minute it feels like stacks of time but I know that next Sunday night I’ll be posting along the lines of “Where did all that time go?”.

Wonder if Peppy has landed in the UK yet.

LOL, just got one of those anti-spam software spams. It’s all insane. At least it gives me a reason to post because today was another unproductive one (today’s excuse: it’s the weekend. I don’t need to be productive until Tuesday now).

I really wish i’d called this thing “I could catch a monkey”, but sadly it’s too damn late.

Not having much to say, here’s a pic dragged from my hard drive:

That’s the Alice Springthorpe grave at Kew Cemetary. She died in 1897 at the age of 30. She came from a wealthy family and was the heiress to a fortune. Her husband, Dr John Springthorpe, was considered very much beneath her and many people believed he had only married her for her money. When she died, he spent most of the fortune on this grave to prove once and for all that the money didn’t matter to him. One of the inscriptions reads “Twelve Years of Earth’s Best Love lie Buried Here”. It’s a stunning tribute.

That, to my mind, is a story and a half and I very much like it.

Just got an e-mail from BowieNet telling me that my membership is all lapse-y. Oh well, since I’ve not logged on there for, ooh, about 6 months I think I can live without it. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way over Bowie, but the website isn’t worth the $$ to be blunt (especially when the $$ is US$$ and US$$ equals AU$$$$).

I did not much of anything today. It’s a public holiday, so there’s no pressure to use time in any meaningful way (that’s my excuse, anyway). Also, I am now more ill due mainly to not one person bringing me soup and Buffy. I am hoping this is the illness peak and tomorrow I will feel as I did yesterday. My smoker’s lungs, however, are doing evil laughs and warning of less fun to come.

There is to be a US version of The Office. This is just plain wrong. I can’t even begin to start describing the wrongness. I have seen the US version of Men Behaving Badly (AKA “It’s a Man’s World”). I have seen the US pilot for Red Dwarf. I have seen the US version of Fawlty Towers. They have one major thing in common:
THEY ARE ALL SHIT.
I was watching The Office today and in it’s current form it’s too damned subtle for American TV. The budding romance between Tim and Dawn, Gareth’s harmless pratdom and David Brent’s overstepping of marks.. none of it will be kept. Stephen Merchant (co-writer) said they had tried to stay away from the “everyone is zany and life is full of incident” sit-com formula, but I think that’s what the US version will be.

Bugger, this was going to be a deep and meaningful post due to Maxis closing The Sims down for massive maintainence (hate that ‘coz then I have to wander about and think about stuff). I’ll see if I can get it back on track. First I need a cup of tea.
One cup of tea later
OK. i was talking to Tash earlier and she asked if I was following my dreams. The answer, predicably enough, was no. The reason for this is elegantly simple. I am a giant, yellow chicken. True. I look at problems first. Create imaginary difficulties so I can stay all comfy here in my zone, even when things in my zone (like my job, for example) make me less than cheery. However, knowing this is the problem gets me no closer to a solution for another simple reason: I am a LAZY giant yellow chicken.

I’m not even sure anymore which dreams are worth following. I’ve just checked my bank account and can say that any dreams involving huge wodges of cash are pretty much out for the short term at least. There goes my life ambition to throw $20 notes off the top of the Rialto. Actually, I would LOVE to do that, and how much fun would it be to be at the bottom of the Rialto when the money falls? (For those not in the know, the Rialto is a very tall building in Melbourne).

There’s that horrible question I keep getting during annual reviews at work which is “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”. What are you supposed to say to that? In 5 years I’d like to be doing many things, but will probably be at the Library, scanning books and fixing computers. My answer is always “The Bahamas” and we all have a good chuckle and move on. Sometimes you just have to make your own fun.

There was a news story on the TV last night about companies offering a free month of Spam blocking. After the free month, people would then have to pay for the service. This is all very well and good, but what tickled me was the bloke pushing the service saying “Spam is universally loathed, it’s annoying and takes up time and server space… etc etc”. And how are they promoting this fabby service? Well, they’re sending out spam…

In other news I am coming down with a cold. This is far worse for me than for anyone else with the same symptoms. Why? Because I’m me. Someone please bring soup and the latest series of Buffy on tape because I forgot to watch it at all.

It’s an open fire night for the first time this year. Last night should have been one, but we were caught on the hop. The dog isn’t sure at all about the fire. Girl Dog used to rest with her head as close to the fire as possible but Stitch isn’t quite that brave yet and is edging up the hearth rug instead. Every few minutes he moves an inch closer, gives the fire a long stare then dozes off again.

Easter is upon us again. I’ve not got anything to say about it, just thought it was worth a mention.

I am alarmed to discover that i have literally run out of things to do online. So I re-signed with h2g2, mainly because I’m reading The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams (sort of).

Found out today exactly why my camera advanced 11 frames without my having taken any pics. Thanks Poppett and Peppy for taking all those photos. My revenge is to the left. If you didn’t want it on the internet Poppett, you shouldn’t posed for the photo :)

Am annoyed to find that the pricey frames for panorama photos aren’t actually big enough for panorama photos. I don’t know who’s in charge of that, but I’ve got three of the bloody frames I want to whinge to someone about.
Am also less than overjoyed to realise that one of my films is missing. I think my bag opened on the plane home ‘coz there’s a big dangly ear-ring missing too. Sadly, it was the film that had the shot of me and the Austin Powers bloke at Movieworld :(

Miserable bloody entry. Oh well.

Back for good this time. How reassuring for you to know that. Got home about an hour ago, unloaded my new huge stack of CDs (found a super cheap CD place in Melbourne. Am currently listening to “Vegetarians of Love” by Bob Geldof) and my teeny frogs (more frogs, always more frogs) and some other junk I had to buy which may or may not have included a teddy bear.

My inbox is alarmingly lacking in any meaningful e-mails. You would think that after not looking at e-mail for a while, something interesting would turn up to raise a smile.

Saw Ed Byrne this evening which was a laugh and a half. Frank Woodley was three laughs and a near pass out (I love that man, I really do) and Jimeoin was bloody hilarious also. Here ends my Comfest review, I hope it has been of use to you.

Went to the supermarket today and the woman who served me looked at what I was buying (mainly junkfood) and said “It’s hard to keep them entertained during the holidays, isn’t it?”. This raises the alarming question when did I start looking like a Mum?. I am not saying it is a bad thing to look like a mum, but I would have thought you need only look at me to realise I am in no way responsible enough to be a mother. It’s like not being asked for ID anymore, or taking the P plates off your car. I almost feel like I should be living a proper adult life, but am hoping that feeling will go away after a decent night’s sleep.

The oddness of being a “tourist” in Melbourne is… odd. Yesterday we did a day tour and came back via my area. We were literally 5 minutes from my house at one point, it’s odd. I also feel odd paying for internet access. this is an oddness that won’t go away, but i guess I can hold off obsessively checking my e-mail until I get home tomorrow night.

Saw Frank Woodley last night and managed a front row seat which was fan-bloody-tastic. The show rocked on, and at one point I very nearly did fall out of my chair. I love Frank W, the man is insane. Only in a good way.

Um. Tonight we go disco bowling (not my idea) and then tomorrow I don’t know what we’re doing during the day apart from a quick train trip. As long as it’s not the Ramsey St tour I am happy.

Note to self: cut nails before trying to type anything else.