Not a lot to say, just Happy New Year :) Hope it’s a marvy one indeed for all concerned.
Took some photos today for a website where you can submit any photo taken with the camera less than 30cm from the ground. They aren’t very good, so I’m off on a photographic fiesta tomorrow since i’m not working. Also might do some work on horizonpurple.com. Then again, might not.
Happy 2004 :)
Went up to the Arthurs Creek cemetary on Saturday. Mum wanted some photos of it for history stuff so I went along with the camera which was no hardship. It’s a strange cemetary in some ways. It’s still in use, so alongside people who died in 1891 (one of whom was born in 1799) there are people who died this year. I guess this isn’t so unusual but since most of the cemetaries I visit are now out of use it’s a little strange. Also, the wooden cross retains it’s popularity here, probably due in no small part to the cost of a gravestone. One grave, which I didn’t photograph, had a hand made ceramic plaque which seemed to celebrate the life of the person underneath. I like that. Lots of little gardens and personal touches, very informal.
Now, some websites I’ve been meaning to post links to: Oneword.com is an interesting concept. Basically you are shown a word and given one minute to write about it, whatever comes to mind. The word changes daily and all responses are posted so you can see a range of ideas. Five Line portrait is more visual, but still within the same kind of limits. Could you draw a portrait of yourself using only 5 lines? I will give this a go at some point.
Comment from woman the other day “Where did you do your library qualification?”. My reply “I didn’t actually, I’m an officer and don’t have a qualification”. Her response: (purses lips, shoots daggers) “Oh, I see“. Since I was just scanning books at the time a degree was not relevent. I’m wondering tho if I will go on to do the Tech course. Kirsty is starting it this year. I’m fairly certain I’m still a rubbish student tho.
Still bracing myself to move this whole mess over to the new account. Must do it soonish as I’ve not paid for this account for this month, so they may come over all grouchy and shut me down.
I would really like to post here more, so please please PLEASE hassle me to do so! Oh, and happy birthday to Steve ya old coot!
For the record, I was NOT drunk on Wednesday night. I did have a few drinks, but since I remember the evening with perfect clarity and was able to feel my limbs the entire time, I can safely say I was merry at most. I will admit that I acted out of character, but this was no bad thing. “Oooh, do tell HP do tell!” I can hear you say. Don’t get too interested, it’s nothing that would make the news.
Alrighty, that being said here we go with Wednesday night. This was the night of the branch night out for the end of year festive cheer and we all wandered along to Rios in Richmond, a latin american restaurant with floor show. This was cause for concern for everyone but me as the menu is mainly meat. Having been vegetarian for 11 years I can say that there is usually something I can eat, but the others were stressy about it. This annoys me, why should other people worry about my food habits? There was no cause for concern anyway since the salad bar was bursting with brilliant things like fetta and olive salad and cauliflower in a cheesy sauce. Once you’ve loaded up with salad, waiters come around with big skewers of meat and load your plate. Judy found it hysterical that i was sitting on the end of the table and therefore was right in front of the meat the whole time. i found it bothersome that she harped on because I wasn’t fussed about the meat. Alicia was delighted with the whole meat deal :) Our waiter was new, it was his first night apparently (yeah yeah, he’s probably worked there 5 years and just uses that for tips), and he was so sweet and gorgeous.
Anyway, after the food the band plays and the patrons are invited onto the dance floor. Of course, no one wants to be first on the floor so everyone was sat about until the band leader came down off the stage and grabbed Alicia and I by the hands to go dance, so once I was up I was up and I figured “oh hell, why not?”. This was possibly partly due to a couple of cocktails (although as a spirits girl usually I have to say the cocktails weren’t that strong) and partly due to my fabulous dress. Also, suddenly I was tired of sitting around watching other people have a good time, so I stayed and danced which was so freakish it warrented Tracey taking quite a few photos of me (although once I spotted what she was doing I made sure I kept my back to her!). Eventually some of the others joined us, so we did that thing women do and danced in a big circle before Alicia Jackie and I dashed out for a smoke.
The floor show started kind of pathetically, but improved vastly. Very active, huge energy and the women were stunning. It was just three girls and two guys doing some incredibly speedy costume changes. OK, they weren’t doing the changes on stage, there’s sexually charged and there’s too much information… I’d have loved to photograph them (which is why I was sitting where I was, right on the edge of the dance floor) but that’s not allowed, which I cursed ‘coz there were some good photos to be had. At the end of the floor show one of the women came out and dragged a guy out from the audience to dance with her and seriously, since she was wearing a thong and a spangly bra, he looked like he’d died and gone to heaven! Then one of the men dashed out from behind the stage and dragged a women out of the audience to dance with him and - you may have guessed [and this is why everyone keeps telling me I was drunk] - that was me and it was MASSIVE fun! The first couple of seconds I thought “Oh hell, I can’t dance to save my life!” but he was great at leading and pretty soon i didn’t care.
OK, so it seems like a tiny thing, but after all these years of wall flowering on the basis that fat chicks shouldn’t dance, it was brilliant to find that fat chicks can get away with it. :)) Even Judy said she didn’t know I could move, so there’s a compliment indeed.
And no, I wasn’t drunk but it was a great thing to find. Dale, on the off chance you read this, compare it to your tickle fight :)
Not an eventful week really. Went shopping yesterday which was nasty. Everyone seemed so annoyed, but that is because it is Christmas, season of bitching and stress. While having lunch the ladies at the table next to me exchanged gifts. One had made biscuits for the other, the other had made a cake. they were equally thrilled. Looking beyond to them into the seething mass of people frowing at lists and wondering what to get for Great Aunt Esmerelda, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a lesson in that, but then my iced coffee arrived so I had to concentrate fully on that instead.
Have just set up yet another hosting account, which means I’ll be moving this journal to another server at some stage. Last time was OK, this time there’s a lot more to move (despite my lack of posts :P), so it’s looking to be mucky. So it’s bye bye sothereyago.com and hello horizonpurple.com…. oh help, just realised - I need to design a webpage!
There’s an e-mail in my in box promising me smear proof lips. I’m glad to hear it, I hate it when my lips smear all over my face. Sometimes they smear right off my face, and then of course it’s a mad panic wondering where i left them.
Well, we turned 30 at work today, hooray and all that. I had not slept anywhere near enough the night before (of course) and so was a little bleary for the first part of the day, but got to try out the new camera which was fun :) Handing out balloons to brats is not my idea of a great time, but thankfully most of the kids were fine (and Diane mentioned that I’m really good at balloons, so there’s a career option for me). It’s the kids who take one and then want another that piss me off. Some kids ended up with 5 or 6. OK, there was a lot of demanding cranky people today and i’m too too tired to bother going into it all.
In short, it went OK :) (the balloons I did yesterday had, of course, deflated :P )
A lady came into work today with purple streaks in her hair and three rows of curlers lined up on top of her head. She was in her 50s, I’d guess and when I smiled in greeting (the smile i am certain looks incredibly fake) she grinned at me and said “It was a choice between staying home with nothing to read or coming out like this for some books. The books won!”. I think I’d quite like to be her when I grow up.
It has been a tiring 2 days what with preperations for the 30th Birthday bash tomorrow. It’s a birthday bash for a library, which is no bad thing. What is a bad thing is my fantabulous balloon displays (with 4 balloons filled with helium and floating at different levels*) will be total rubbish by morning. However, there would be no time to do them tomorrow so they had to be done today. I think I’ll sneak in at 6am and throw them out.
My new camera arrived today and I am sure that once i get the hang of the controls I will be flying. I do know it takes a great picture, which is brilliant after the el cheapo digital I’ve been using. Will have a play with it, playingis the best way to learn.
*To create this effect: fill 4 balloons with helium and attach strings. Pull strings down one at a time to place each balloon on a different level. Tie strings together at bottom. Fill sandwich bag with at least 1 cup of rice (uncooked, obviously). Tie strings to sandwich bag. Sandwich bag looks horrible, take two rectangles of tissue paper (in different colours). Place the inside colour on an angle over the out side colour, drop rice bag in the middle. Prick bag with pin and squeeze air out. Gather tissue paper up to where the strings are attached to the bag (you may need to poke the top of the bag in a little bit). You can now either tie the tissue paper around the top of the bag with a fiesta of curled ribbon or, if you are lazy and have a lot of these to do in a short time (me me!) tie it with one bit of ribbon and cut the ends off close to the knot. Foof tissue paper so both colours show. Have nightmares about balloons for at least a week and wonder why you volunteered for balloon duty on the day.
Not a lot to report of recent, hence the lack of posts. Life has been plodding along as usual and apart from one bizarre encounter with a pack of bright purple aliens that I just made up, nothing really unusual has happened. Oh, I did buy a much better digital camera. OK, it’s not the perfect one that makes me drool slightly (this is probably a good thing) but it’s a good one, a very good one and when it arrives I’ll be a happy little vegemite indeed.
Now, to address the question from Sparkle J a few weeks back as to what is happening with sothereyago.com, well - the domain name has expired and the people who it was registered with say it’s been transferred to the the people I registered the others with and the people i registered the others with say it’s still with the first lot. Upshot of which is no one wants my renewal fee and I’m slightly stuck. SO! I wandered off and registered horizonpurple.com as it’s my most common screen name (and the name of my main TSO sim). Now I need to set up an account, move everything blah di blah and so the other three pages I host/work on will be all up in the air for a couple of days, this one included. It’s a pain in the arse, but no way around it that I can be bothered exploring. All this is on hold until various TSO emergencies are passed. Pretty much everything is on hold till then. Real Life is for wimps anyway ;)
Speaking of Sparkle J - huge thanks for the Elise halloween pics which WILL be posted here (with luck, before next halloween…)