Wait a minute, what happened to January?!

Seriously, it was January just about a week ago...

Holy smokes, we're one month into 2011 already! That went awful fast.

Quick TL;DR summary of the past couple of months:

• Did the Christmas thing - went to work for a few hours; went to visit friends for Christmas dinner, and then; drove for two hours on an unfamiliar road in the dark so we could collect my nephew, and THEN had to drive two hours back. (I got someone else to do the second trip on my behalf - I was WAY too tired to manage it.)
• Did the New Years' thing - went to our friends' place nearby for a pool party, even though we only spent about 30 minutes in said pool because it wasn't warm enough to stay in it for long. (PS. we seem to have misplaced our summer - do you have it perhaps?)
• Had mysterious car troubles - something weird was happening with the electrics connected to the engine; most of the time the car was fine, but occasionally it would fail to start proplerly, blow a fuse, and on more than one occasion the dashboard smouldered. Eeep. My stepdad had a look, found a loose wire that was the probable cause, and now my car is behaving itself again. For now.
• Friends of mine got married, after having been together and raising a family for the past five years (and have been friends for even longer). It was really great to see all of the friends and family come together and help out the bride and groom; my mother even made the bridal gown!
• Oh, and parts of Australia got threatened by the elements, but not bushfire this time - rather, the opposite: Queensland got rained out and washed away in January, and then had visits from Cyclones Larry and Yasi in February... while New South Wales and Victoria copped the leftovers of these two in the form of huge storms and more flooding.

...A friend of mine had actually put this blog under the January spotlight of her Write Club, but silly me I totally forgot to update anything for the past month, despite actually having stuff to write about. Erm... oops?

What can I say? I apologise to the visitors who may or may not have come through, hoping to find something more recent than my Dad's car accident, and hope that if anyone else out there is still reading this, I'll be going up to Queensland to visit family next week - so this space will actually have something up-to-the-minute on it, if we're lucky!

Sigh. I know, I know. It's not that I didn't want to write to you all, it's just that sometimes the little ole motivation gland doesn't want to act. Sometimes, you just gotta pick up that little cattle prod and give it a jolt, you know?

Long story short, I'm not dead yet. Stay tuned!

Oh boy, here we go

My computer is playing up at the moment, so I'm trying to use my DSi to manage the task of posting here. Holy heck, it's much harder to do this when you're navigating semi-functional webpages on a teeny tiny screen! Let's just see how this works, hey?

...Well, that seemed to work without too much trouble - though, I doubt I'll be trading in my keyboard any time soon.

So! It's nearly That Time Of Year Again™, and everyone is frantically rushing around the shopping centres trying to prove how much they love each other via expensive and impractical gifts! Gotta love it.

I've been clever this year, and did most of the gift-shopping back as far as June (when I still had my last job). Yet, I still went through the whole "maybe I should get so-and-so a little more"...

I'll be working again on eXcemas Day this year, but only for about three hours... which means that I'll then have to do the big run-around afterwards in order to catch up with everybody. (I'll be driving for at least 3 hours afterwards!)

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I got to socialise a few times this month, and all from the comfort of my home. I had a couple of friends come down for a visit - I 've known them both for at least ten years, from when we all used to study at TAFE. Unfortunately our jobs and locations keep us from seeing each other as much as we would want to nowadays, so whenever we get to meet up is a pretty big deal.

Anyways, once they'd arrived, and we did the basic catxh-up, we fell back into old habits... which were basically sitting around, talking trash and generally doing a lot of not much at all.
Oh, we did get in a few games of Beatles Rock Band too.

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I have more to say but the browser won't let me enter any more characters into this text-box - damn you, Opera! - so I'll continue in the next post.

End of Part One!

So Long, November

And so, another month runs away from us all. Only 25 days to Christmas, and 31 before the year leaves us for good. It really does feel like time moves so much faster now!

So, here's a quick-ish recap of what I got up to in the last month:

---

I slowly got the hang of my new job. The manager said that I was the fastest person they'd ever seen at adapting to the registers, which made them happy (they are essentially the same register system that they had at the last place). However, I only wish I could have translated that same success to the rest of the tasklist; it's been so damn difficult trying to work out which knowledge I need to keep, and which skills I'm better off forgetting. The good news is that I have been improving and getting more stuff done over the month, which makes me happy.

---

I went and visited my friend in Warragul twice - the first time I had to leave early so I could cover someone's "sickie" at short notice. (That in itself was kinda weird, since I was still in the middle of training at that stage and felt totally out of my depth, but it was only a short shift and I managed fine.)
...The second visit to my friends was much better. We spent most of the day fooling around like friends do; we had a go at making soft drinks with a Soda Stream system, which I'd never seen in action and was very curious (long story short - it's just fizzed up water with sugary syrup added to it).
Then we tried to figure out what kind of animal was making these small holes in the backyard:

We assumed that they were yabbies (small freshwater crayfish-type animals) except that these holes were too far away from a watersource for that to make sense; didn't stop my friend from trying to coax one out by ramming a big stick into the hole.

Needless to say, it didn't really work. Maybe they were yabbies on holiday, or something. Or maybe there are bits of crustacean mashed two-foot deep into the ground... who can tell?

---

I was supposed to go up and visit my Dad in Queensland near the end of the month, but had to defer it until January thanks to the new job - which I was happy with. I figured I'd have to put it off even before I'd had the job interview! (I hated putting my Dad out like that, but he didn't seem to mind so much; so long as I still go up and visit him... eventually.)

---

I'm still having some issues adjusting to the new hours I'm keeping. I'm meant to be working from 11pm to 7am, four days a week. That basically means I sleep through the better part of the day - unless something wakes me up, like the bloody phone ringing >:{ - so when my "weekend" comes up, I have the option of either keeping my nighttime schedule, or trying to break the cycle and get at least something out of the natural daytime. So far, I've been keeping the latter, mostly to fulfill the obligations I've been making to others, but also because it's damn annoying only doing stuff at night!
Also, I've been noticing a residual tiredness, which has been affecting my sense of judgement slightly.

---

I also caught up with my friends from the days of the mural project. It had been several months since we'd last gathered, and I wasn't sure how much longer I would be available now that I had a job again - as it turned out, no major problem on my part, but have you ever tried to synchronise the schedules of more than three people?
Anyway, I'd been meaning to ask the art director of the project if I could buy one of her works of art - specifically one of her ink-brush pictures, of which she'd done an entire series a few years ago - and so, after perusing her collection, she surprised me by giving me this:

I naturally went straight to the picture framing place and had it professionally mounted. It's now on the wall above my computer desk, and I'm looking at it right now!

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I went to the Gem, Bottle and Collectibles Expo last week. It's basically a big room full of people showing off their wares, which happen to be items of a sought-after nature (gemstones, collectible books, vintage bottles, stamps, swapcards, etc.) and for some reason I felt it necessary to spend quite a bit of money in there. I came out with some old Coca-Cola glass bottles, of the kind I barely even remember (this is going back about thirty years, before soft drinks started being sold in plastic bottles); my uncle collects Coca-Cola stuff, so he will be very pleased when he gets those.
The rest of the stuff I got was basically ROCKS, but at least they were attractive rocks. If I'd been interested at the time, I could have asked what some of them were, but that takes away from the challenge of discovery, of course! What's the value of saying "Here's a nice piece of chalcopyrite" without having the research to back it up, anyway?

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And... now it's December, and I turned 32 this year. When did this happen?!? insert sound of premature mid-life crisis
But seriously, though... this year my birthday was good.
I went out for lunch with my family, and then I helped my Ma out with her Christmas shopping, which basically involved following her around and acting as a sounding board for gift ideas - "Do you think your sister would like these pearl earrings? How about we get her a hot tub?" and so on and no, those were not actual ideas.
It was rather weird, though. While we were out and about, we kept running into people who remembered me from my previous job, and they were so friendly and asked me how I was doing [fine, thanks] and if I'd scored a new job yet [yes, actually] and about how those dreadful [people from country I won't name] weren't running the old shops very well, and so on...
And my Ma thought it was so funny that it kept happening wherever we went, it became a kind of running joke, to the point where people were just saying "Oh, hello Ben!" to me on the street!
Who knows, maybe it was some Birthday Mojo thing... Anyway, once we'd got back off the street and away from my audience, we cleaned up and went out for dinner at a bistro-type place, which was also nice. And then, we went home and had cake! And then tried our hands at Beatles RockBand! (once we figured out how to make it work in two-player, that is)
And then... well, I came online and posted about it all here! And so... goodnight!

Tics Tacs - the Inverse of Kit Kats

...okay, sorry for the folks who thought my last post was TL and so DR. Basically, here's a quick catch up over what happened since September:

• I lost my job
• I caught chicken pox
• I then caught a cold, or flu, or some upper respiratory infection
• thus I spent half of September sick
• and I missed out on the company break-up because I was too contagious to go
  
• (oh, and my sister caught the pox as well, and we both almost died apparently)
• my savings started running out at the end of the month
• so I signed up for unemployment benefits
• two days later, my tax refund arrived, which meant I didn't need to go on the Dole (d'oh!)
• I applied for a few jobs, and had my name put down for something else via my employment agency contact
• two weeks into October, I scored an interview at another service station
• I was the best candidate, and I got the job
• so now, I am employed again! :)
  

Weird how it works out like that, isn't it?
So now, I at least have an income again (yay!), but now I have to start worrying about keeping schedules and missing out on important social gatherings all over again (boo).
Still, it beats being on the Dole.

---

I got an email from my old American penpal the other week; she has a much more exciting blog than mine, not neglected or anything, but she is apparently a semi-regular reader of this one. She asked me if I were still posting anything on this thing, and I explained that I didn't have a lot to share about myself these days...

And then I remembered something; back when we first started writing to each other (which was probably waaay back in '98 or so), we used to send each other different types of confectionery. She would send me delicious Hershey's chocolate bars and Jelly Belly beans straight from the United States, and I would represent humble Australia by sending her yummy Tim Tams and Peppermint Aero bars.

Sadly, this Candy Exchange was thwarted by the change in political temperature brought about by September 11 - the US Government shortly implemented new controls on importing food into the USA, such that every food item brought into the country (whether it be a shipment of beef, a crate of oranges, or just a big crazy-looking box full of sugary crap) required lengthy documentation for each unique item, detailing where each product was made, who made it, how it was packaged, what it was made of, how many were in each pack, how tasty it was, how many the postal inspectors were allowed to sample, etc. etc. etc.

I am sorry to say that, because of my enthusiasm for the project, the registration process was ridiculously daunting, and so I failed to honour my part of the exchange.
...but I DID at least buy the candy, so that counts for something, right?

Anyway, while I was cleaning up my room the other day, I found the parcel I'd assembled a couple of years ago, and it still had some confectionery items in it! Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, a lot of the stuff in the box was spoiled; chocolate does not keep for much longer than two years (trust me on this - ick).

Before I throw all of this stuff out, I'd like to show you some of the interesting stuff we got to sample over the past couple of years, because it's kinda interesting, you know?

First up, the Kit Kat Chunky bars. In Australia, Nestlé has the license to make Kit Kats, and, along with the regular 4-finger packs, they make these over-sized single-finger bars. As many popular snacks do these days, they sometimes come in seasonal "fun" flavours; though they weren't all available at the same time, I managed to assemble a collection of them (click to see close-up):
Left side: Honeycomb; the regular Chunky; Caramel; Cookies and Cream (these last three are the only ones still currently available).
Right Side: Chocolate Strawberry (special fundraising edition for the Pink Ribbon breast cancer charity, it has a pink strawberry wafer inside); Cookie Dough; Chocolate Overload (every element of the bar is chocolate flavoured!); Toffee Crisp.
Not Pictured: Mint Crisp; Peanut Butter (which I thought tasted foul, nothing like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); and White Chocolate (because they never released that in a Chunky bar!)
If you're at all interested in seeing some other strangely-flavoured Kit Kat bars, click here and here for the Japanese take on them!

And continuing the colourful candy theme, we move on to Tic Tacs:

Top row: Peppermint; Spearmint; Orange; Extra Strong Mint; Apple Sour.
Bottom Row: Peppermint (in a special box for the Pink Ribbon charity); Passionfruit Mint; Lemon Mint; Mango; Tropical Acerola (which I imagine is some kind of berry?).
The first three flavours were pretty much the only variety of Tic Tac available here until about ten years ago; then they released the Extra Strong, and then the Passionfruit flavoured one (which is... an acquired taste). After that they seemed to go a bit mad with flavours. The most recent variety is Citrus Twist, which isn't included here.

I was fascinated to learn that Tic Tacs had vastly different flavours in the States; thanks to my penpal, I got to sample some Wintergreen flavored Tacs, which I was also surprised to learn were actually green - none of the above flavours have any colouring, aside from the actual box. I understand there is also a Cinnamon flavoured Tic Tac?

Learning about this sort of thing is very interesting, I think - things as simple as the food we eat can be vastly different when you travel even a short distance (like interstate), so I can only guess what someone else in another country would think of our old familiar "lollies"!

Okay, enough of the candy comparison! If anyone out there wants to find out more about the local confec., send me a comment, and I'll see what I can put up! For further recommended reading, have a look at the Candy Blog for more sweeties from around the world!

Back soon! :D
(so, how's that Loretta?)

A Rare Sunday

...is one where I get the day work-free! Like today!

Seriously, though, I've been quite busy the past couple of months. Mostly related to worky-work, though I promised I wouldn't keep yammering about how busy I've been (I should be grateful I have a job in this economic environment, etc. etc.).

In between gigs, I've been slowly trying to re-establish contact with all my friends. I managed to sneak in another visit to my Warragul-based friend and her husband today, and I brought my sister along for the ride too - if that's technically the case when she's the one driving.

It's really good to get in touch with friends, and by that I mean actual social contact, not the plugged-in Internetty type, but the come-over-and-we'll-have-drinks-and-ANZAC-biscuits-and-talk-about-all-sorts-of-crap visit. Chat programs and Facebook do have their uses, but it's hardly as good as the real thing, is it?

I've also been working on-and-off on one of my old games that I sorta-got-finished. Will post more details when it's progressed enough to start generating interest. (though I wish I'd bothered to learn about all this Flash dealie, because people don't seem to like downloading and installing games any more... :/ )

...I hope everyone had a good ANZAC Day. Did you observe the minute of silence?

So Much For The Weekend

NB. I changed the blog colour scheme again, in case people found the bright letters on dark a bit too hard to read. Is this current setup any better? Please let me know!

Well, what a weird week it's been. Actually, I refer to the past seven days, not the Sunday-to-Saturday.
I started off having three days off in a row, and by the end of it, I only had ONE. =(

I worked Saturday morning, and after only getting about two hours of sleep and working for about nine hours, I was pretty much ready for bed - unfortunately, Saturday night was also the night we had set aside for our second Games Night for the year.
Setting up the LAN was a little more complicated than last time, since we now had four PCs to hook up. One of the guests forgot to bring his network cable, which would have left him a spectator to the proceedings; luckily, we had one to spare, so he wasn't left on the sidelines.

Note to self: look for other games suitable for multi-player than Quake III. Shooting up my friends with heavy artillery is not something that makes me comfortable, even if they are disguised as pop-culture icons and running around a giant house!

I managed to stay up until 5am Sunday morning, when I suddenly remembered that I was incredibly effing tired. I shuffled off to bed and slept for about twelve hours. It is remarkably poor form to sleep through the productive hours of a day, even if it is the weekend. "Never mind," I thought, "I still have Monday and Tuesday free."

Now hang on, it gets better.

I got a phonecall at about 12pm Monday, asking me if so-and-so had got in touch with me about working that afternoon... did they happen to call? No? Would I be able to do it? Especially since absolutely no-one else can do it without somehow violating the law of physics (you know, the one that prevents an object from being in two places at once)? You will? Cool! Be here by 3.30!

"Never mind," I thought, "I still have Tuesday free."

I spent most of Monday night playing Ico, but I started getting sleepy around 4am. It was a reasonably warm night, so I tried to sleep with the fan going on beside me. Sadly, the only air conditioner in this house is in the living room, so I have to make do.
At around 4.30, the fan suddenly turned off. I tried to switch on the light to see what had happened - and when that didn't come on either, I realised that we'd had a blackout! (cue scrabbling around my room with my mobile phone, trying to find a reliable torch)

As it turned out, the power failure only lasted an hour, but it blacked out half the town; a couple of other nearby cities also lost partial power. I spoke to someone about it the next day, who said that it was strange driving through brightly-lit streets, only to enter darkness one street over.

Unfortunately, one of the places affected by the power loss was the shop where I work, and clearly the register did not handle the power failure very well.
The next day, when my co-worker came in to set everything up for the morning, he discovered that the register was completely non-cooperative. Apparently, the register's circuits must have either received a shock or not liked the forced shutdown, since nothing he did could coax life back into the thing. After several calls to the tech support, and in between attempts to actually serve people fuel and whatnot, he and the head office staff managed to scrabble together a workable system; basically, everything had to be done manually, just like in the old days before computers were thrown into the mix.

The problem with doing things manually is that they take a lot longer, and it is far easier to make a mistake. Unfortunately, customers have become used to receiving prompt and efficient service, and as such are no longer content to stand around and wait for paperwork to get filled out. So, in order to not inconvenience the customers too much, it would be necessary to have all the staff on site as possible, to make sure evrything went smoothly.

You know where I'm going with this. Phonecall at 9am: "Ben, you're not going to believe this... can you please come in?"

Of course, I couldn't leave people in the lurch; it would have been far worse NOT to go in. It's just annoying that, of the supposed "three-day weekend" that I had lined up, the only actual day I had free I practically slept through (though I did get to play a bunch of cool games with friends, so it wasn't a total washout).

Here's hoping next week works out a little better!

Spend A Little Time With Friends

I'll be working a fair bit over the next two weeks thanks to the Australia Day public holiday (which falls on a Tuesday this year, so most people will also take Monday off as well dammit), so I've made the most of the time at hand and spent it wisely for a change. That is, I've done things that were more productive than just sleeping or sitting around at home.

Yesterday, I had the gaping hole in my back wisdom tooth filled, after having the wind whistle through it for the past four months. Fortunately it wasn't a very deep hole, but it must have been a fairly extensive repair because I'm still a little tender on that side...
Because I don't have any private health insurance, I paid the whole amount out of pocket, for the privilege of having my mouth numbed and my tooth drilled. $140~ is a fair bit to pay for dental peace of mind, but it's worth it.

Today, I went to visit my friends in Warragul. I hadn't seen them since they moved back from the US, and I figured I was overdue.
We stopped for lunch; my friend insisted on paying for the meal, since she felt she owed me for the tickets to Dali I bought for her a few months ago. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to agree that paying $30 for three six-inch subs, plus drinks and snacks, was a fair price... slightly awkward scene in a queue as she negotiated something cheaper...
We then went back to her place, where her and her husband's cats decorated me with hair - I was wearing head-to-toe black, what the hell was I thinking?! - and we watched The Black Balloon:

The movie is excellent, and very confronting - and there were several scenes in it that I could relate to, and no, no-one in my family is autistic. My friend's husband pondered how Toni Collette manages to be in just about every Australian cinema release, and I said "She probably just has a good agent." j.k. she's awesome

We spent most of the afternoon discussing things, like how our jobs were going (not great, but it could always be worse) and what we were planning on doing with our lives. You know, the usual. But the best thing about spending time with them was that it gave me a chance to stop worrying about my own problems, and listen to others' - and of course offer support.

Then my friends had to go into town to chase up some homewares and do their grocery shopping; while they were checking out electrical goods, I snuck across to the Home Entertainment shop across the road and picked up some more music. I'm such a junkie for tunes, now that I have a half-dozen different MP3 players. Music Is Always Good.

Tonight, I'm going to give this on-line shopping thing a try... There are a few books that I'm having trouble getting through the usual channels - most of the bookshops I've asked have looked at me and gone, "Duh...?" but I suspect that's mostly due to the books being out-of-print or hard-to-find.

And I really ought to curb my spending, even though I've been doing just fine over the past few (busy, work-filled) weeks. Christmas seems to start a strange spending momentum in me; of course, having the stores reduce all of their stock after Christmas does not help much. ;)

I'll be good, I promise! In the meantime, thank you Katie and Randy for an awesome afternoon! Next time I'll bring the others with me (if they're available)!

Games Night

As I write this, my friend Andrew is playing with my sister's PS2... We have tidied up the house after an inspection, and we used the opportunity to have company over, so naturally we made it a bit of a games night.
We had a few rounds of Buzz!, which was one of the gifts Santa brought my sister last month. The game is itself loaded with innuendo, but it makes for a much more surreal game if you give your character a suggestive name, and have the game announce "NIPPLES is the Winner!"
Then, we had a play at SingStar for my sister's benefit, because she hardly gets the chance to bring out the mikes; sadly, I'm the only other one game enough to play along with her, and my singing is not the best.

We also tried to get a LAN thing going, but it took a few hours before all the bugs got sorted out. There were more than a few swear words flying back and forth before the system was set up properly, but in the end it all worked out, and a few rounds of Quake 3 were had.

I managed to finish M&L: Bowser's Inside Story yesterday, and now my sister is having a go at it after bugging me for the past week. Now, I begin the journey into LoZ: Spirit Tracks, which is a very strange game indeed. Most of the Zelda series have been based in a "middle ages" environment, but this one features, of all things, a train as the central plot device. What next, a motorcycle?

I go to the dentist on Monday, and hopefully go to visit my friend on Tuesday (assuming my car is up to the task); and then I'm back at work for another few days. Oh, rapture. Well, guess I'd better make the most of my free time!

More Kit Kats from Japan

Okay, catching up from this post:

This was what came out of the second parcel from my friend in Japan. More weird parallel-universe-y flavours of everyone's favourite chocolate wafer stick biscuit*!

My friend was kind enough to attach labels to the packets to explain which one was which flavour; unfortuantely, they've all since fallen off. So, I had to do some puzzling out as to which flavour was which:

1. Apple Carrot flavour! Tastes exactly as it sounds! And not entirely bad at that, despite any misgivings you'd have about a savoury flavour in a confection.
2. Soybean Rice Cake?!? This one didn't taste that much different from a regular Chocolate Kit Kat. The flavour must have been too subtle for my tastebuds.
3. Cherry. A nice sweet flavour with a pink chocolate coating. There was some contest mentioned on the outer; I'm guessing this was released as a promo for some rock band, or something? :/
4. Plum Soda. As in, a plum-flavoured soft drink. Convincing and pleasant enough, even though I've never even heard of a plum-flavoured soft drink before I tried this chocolate bar flavoured like one.
5. Mango Pudding. Num num! Me likey!
6. These blue ones were flavoured to taste like something called Ramune Soda. No, I don't know what a "ramune" is. But the bar tasted like a 7-up, so I'm guessing it must be plain soda-flavour? (edit: Oh, I KNOW WHAT THIS IS!!! Ramune is a brand of soft drink that is popular in Japan, and the bottles are sealed with a marble embedded in the neck, like all soda bottles were before screw caps became popular. There are some Asian shops in Australia that sell them, and I've tried them before. They are very nice!)

Clicking this will lead you to the Wikipedia article about Kit Kats, and it includes a list of all the flavours of Kit Kat released over the world. Later, I'll include a photo of all some of the flavours we've had in Australia, for comparision. Aaand, here's what was in the first parcel Nova sent me back at the start of the year! Bon appetite!

* Unless you of course prefer something other than a Kit Kat. Your mileage may vary.

Merry eXcemas 2009!

Well, it's finally Christmas! How is it for you? I'm trying to be nice about it this year, even though I have to work again (which is fine, because I hadn't planned anything else for the day anyways).

We had a very ramshackle, scattered Christmas this year.
The main problem was that so many of us had plans for the end of the year, and it made it difficult to co-ordinate anything in the way of Christmas activities. The main issue was whether we would get to see our older sister before Christmas, as she lives about three hours' drive from the rest of us. As far as I knew (up to two days before the event) we weren't going to do the family gathering until after Boxing Day... so I took my time getting the presents wrapped up and sorted.

On the way home Wednesday evening, I called in to the shops to get some last-minute gift-getting done, when my phone rang. It was my sister, wondering when I was coming home so that everyone could do "the Christmas thing"! O_O;; So much for a minute's notice!

It all worked out well. I managed to give out the lion's share of the gifts that I had for everyone, and everyone was happy with what they scored. Not only was it the Christmas gathering, but it was also a celebration for my sister's birthday too... so we got to have some birthday cake as well! Which is always good.

My nephew got very excited during the evening, but isn't that expected of kids? It didn't hurt that he received a huge bag of gifts from his grandma on top of all the rest of the gifts we gave him. He really got into the unwrapping - in fact, he got so carried away that one of his presents wound up flung behind the TV cabinet! Getting a little too carries away, perhaps?
He also enjoyed the presentation of the birthday cake, especially the candle-blowing ceremony. After my sister blew out her candles, he insisted on having a go himself... and so, once he'd blown out the candles, naturally everyone else had to have a turn! My sister thought this was totally hilarious, so I think we have the makings of a new tradition right here. Oh, and needless to say, there wasn't much candle left on the cake by the end of the game.

I think I went a little overboard on the gift-giving this year. Okay, I go a little overboard every year.
The most extravagant thing I got was the Wii console for my Ma, but only because I'd been silly enough to suggest it as a gift idea back in September. Now she can get WiiFit in the comfort of her home, instead of slogging it out in the gym! (At least, she will, once she gets the balance board and other accessories to go with it.)
Everyone else I gave gift bags full of assorted stuff which I thought they would like. There were a couple of pricey things in there, but most of it was cheap (good-quality) stuff I'd found earlier in the year, a lot of which were off "Clearance" tables and things. The nicest thing I found (and almost kept) was a Mr Bean Teddy, still in its original packaging, which I found in an Op Shop of all places!
It's easy to get carried away with the spending at this time of year, which is why I generally try to get some preparation in before December rolls around. Of course, I was pottering around the shops on Christmas Eve, looking for last-minute catch up gifts like everyone else too, so I'm not gloating too much! ;P

I received some nice stuff too. Right now I'm listening to the Beatles Anthology, parts 1 and 3. I bought Part 2 way back in Melbourne, when my friend came over from Japan. I'm also trying to work out if this new MP3 player is going to start behaving itself -
oh wait, I just finished charging the battery, and now the computer is recognising that it's connected! Silly manual should have said that you had to wait for the battery to charge before it would work... X(
But yes. It wasn't so much the receiving that was the big deal, since I have heaps of crap lying around anyway... It was the giving, and the getting to hang around with the family, that was the most important part. After all the stuff that's happened, what with the bushfires, sick family members, work-related chaos, and general madness, it was nice to end this year on a more pleasant note.

Then again, there are still six more days to go until 2009 is done... so maybe I'm talking too soon? :/
At any rate, I hope all my friends and readers* have a Great Christmas (if you do "the Christmas thing") and a Happy 2010!

*Yeah, both of you!

Another Parcel Received

A quick note, while I'm here:

Nova, I received your package with gratitude! I will post a photo of the yummy contents as soon as we've tried them all. (No, this post is not about drugs.)

Regards,
Neb

PS. What on earth happened to your blog?!

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Five

Skip to Part One of this topic by clicking here.
Otherwise you'll be reading this all back to front and that would be silly, now, wouldn't it?

We had spent so long waiting to get inside the exhibition that a minor problem came up - none of us had eaten a solid meal for nearly five hours. We had brought snacks and nibbles, but we had expected to go somewhere for lunch afterwards; we hadn't anticipated the long waiting time to get into the Gallery.

One of my friends has trouble with her metabolism; she needed to eat something immediately, or else she would likely faint. I did not want to leave her on her own, so I gave her a muesli bar that I had in my pocket, told her to eat it and wait outside for me, and I would try to find my other two friends in the exhibition to tell them we were going to wait outside for them.

Sounds like a good plan, right? Er... didn't quite work out that way.

First, I had to find either one of my friends. Simple enough in theory, but I had to:
a) find at least one of them in a huge crowd of people, most of whom were walking in the opposite direction
b) do it quickly, since I had someone waiting outside for me
c) try to have a good last look at the art, while I still could, and
d) try not to look suspiciously like an art thief. Silly, I know, but remember, there were several small and valuable pieces of jewellery in this exhibition as well, and I happened to be wearing a jumper with a big pocket in the front!

I have no idea how I managed to get around without getting arrested. I managed to walk back and forth across the entire exhibition space, several times, all the while looking agitated and distracted. I caught the eye of several of the security staff, and tried to look apologetic - I'm sure many of them paid close attention to me... or was it my imagination?
Anyway, I finally found one of my friends, who had no idea where the other person was - big surprise. I passed on the message, told them not to worry and take their time looking at the art, and promptly said my goodbyes to Dalí. Until next time...

Out in the foyer, my friend had wolfed down the nut-bar, but still needed something substantial to eat. She didn't really want to buy something from the Gallery cafe, as it was kinda pricey, but I'd promised my friends inside the show that we would wait for them inside (since I still had their train tickets).
In the meantime, I went to the Gallery shop to try and hunt down some posters and stuff, and bought the Liquid Desire program. At least that way, I could appreciate the art in my own time, and preferably without a bunch of people standing in front of it. ;)

After waiting about fifteen minutes, we decided, bugger it, let's eat something here. We sat and ate, with a view of the exhibition's exit so that we could catch our friends on the way out.
After another few minutes went by, with no sign of our art-bound friends, I tried calling their mobile phones to check their progress - no reply. Instead, I received a message from my sister, who had spent the afternoon with her partner enjoying the view from Southbank. They were at Federation Square; what were we doing now?
I replied: "We just came out of the show, and are waiting for X and Y to come out. Did you want to come over to the Gallery and wait with us?"
Their response: "Yep! See you soon!"

Ha ha ha. Nice and simple, right? Not quite. You see, the Gallery had thoughtfully extended their opening hours to allow all the extra people who showed up a chance to actually see the art. Unfortunately, they had sold the last tickets at about 3.30pm, and after 5pm, they locked the entrance doors to the public. We could get out, but no-one could get in.
I had not realised this. And soon, I saw my sister through the water-wall, but there was very little I could do to actually get to her.
She: "Are you coming out? It's freezing out here!"

Oops.

So now, we had to:
a) wait for our friends to come out of the show (who were expecting us to be waiting for them inside the foyer, and were not answering their phones), and
b) get out to our friends waiting outside. Oh, and let's not forget
c) get to Flinders Street Station in time for our train home!

Hahaha!!! Remember, back in Part One, how I said I could start to relax? Well, I stopped relaxing right about now. {=(

I checked the timetable, and realised that our train would not leave until well after the Gallery had closed, so all we had to do was wait out the front, and eventually the last two stragglers would get the hint. At this point, I regretted telling them to "take their time".
And it was getting cold outside.

Naturally, it all worked out in the end.
The last two members of our party were among the last people to leave the exhibition - trust them to get their money's worth! It turned out, both of them had brought their mobile phones with them, but they were in their bags, which were in the baggage claim room... X|
But they finally came out and joined the rest of the world, and we all made it to the station on time.
I managed to take a few quick photos of the city on the way to the station:

The rest are in my Nature Photos Album (which I'll admit is stretching the definition of Nature a bit, but I'll fix it up later, okay?).

On the way back home, we stopped by our friend's place for a bowl of Post-Dalí Soup and Banana Bran Muffins (with Compulsory Tea. My friend is British, you know).

And, that's it!

I would like to thank the following for their help in making this trip of a lifetime possible. Is so a trip of a lifetime! Well, it bloody well felt like it.

• Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, for producing the art, and giving us a reason to go and see it.
• The National Gallery of Victoria, for hosting the Liquid Desire exhibition. Also, for staying open the extra time to allow all the other late patrons a chance to see this beautiful art.
  
• The staff of NGV, for being incredibly patient and putting up with hundreds - no, thousands of people over the last few days of the show. I heard from many sources who went to see the art that it wasn't merely the last day that was so busy. There had been a huge crowd of people as far back as the Tuesday before! Eeep. No wonder they all looked a little frayed at the edges! Credit plus to all of you.
• V/Line, for getting us to Melbourne and back on time. Beats driving there and back, that's for sure.
  
• My co-workers at the shop; thank you very much for covering my absence, though you probably didn't realise why I'd taken the day off. I didn't want to have to drop a Sunday shift, because I know how hard it is working a weekend with the limited staff we have at the moment, but it seems that everyone else I know has the notion of the weekend being free time! Who comes up with these crazy ideas?!
  
• My friends Katie, Trish and Andrew, for experiencing the art with me. I know not all of you thought it was worth the trip, but trust me - you would have regretted not coming to see it. Next time, we'll not leave it to the last minute, okay? ;)
  
• Krissy and Drew - sorry you didn't stick around! You missed some awesome stuff. But I knew you couldn't stand around in a queue all afternoon (not entirely sure how we managed it ourselves), so I'm glad you guys made the most of your day. Also, sympathy for those who wanted to come, but had to pull out at the last minute.
  
• Ma and Ray, for minding my nephew for us, so Krissy and Drew could come up and see Dalí with us. Well, you know how that turned out. ;D Next time, I'll honour my promise to steal a Renoir for you. And by steal, I mean "buy a print of".
  
• Everyone else in the queue, who would probably have to be the most well-behaved and patient crowd of people I've ever seen, and indeed been part of. It proves to me that Art really does civilise people!

So much for art, hey? But, I still have to see this painting, so...

Someday...

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Four

...or, What I Thought Of The Dalí Exhibition.

I remember that the first thing we saw was video screens depicting the countryside where Dalí grew up. The strange, weather-eroded stone grouping that clustered around the fishing village were the inspiration for many of Dalí's landscapes. It was nice, but I wanted to see some art, not some rocks! Get a move on, people!!!

And then we realised: we had spent the entire afternoon queueing up for the show, so we'd got stuck into the "single file" mentality. Naturally, once we were in the show, we could wander around at our leisure. So, we did!

The gallery was full of people, so I had to peek over everyone's shoulders and admire the artwork from a distance. Most of the art in the first room was from Dalí's early period, which I recognised, but wasn't really interested in - until I saw Self-Portrait with Raphaelesque Neck.

And then it hit me - I was finally looking at an actual Dalí. Wow.

I went onward, and saw paintings and works that I'd only ever seen in glossy picture books, but now, they were real. They were beautiful. They were... absolutely tiny!

Seriously, though. This one!: Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops in Equilibrium on Her Shoulder. In a book, it looks like it would be at least the size of an A3 piece of paper, right? It's been painted on a block of wood smaller than a postcard.
But jeezus, the detail. You had to peer very closely to make out all the texture he's bothered to put into it. You would have to wonder why? but then realise that that was how he worked - he would not be satisfied with anything less.

I got to see so many other artworks that I knew. It was like running into old friends.
Hey, there's Memory of the Child-Woman - long time no see! Glad to hear you've been allowed back after all that trouble that came up the last time you were here.
Oh, did you get to see The First Days of Spring? And look, there's Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms The Skins of an Orchestra! And - hey! - welcome, Slave Market with Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire! We're so glad you could come...
Yes, I know - the titles of the paintings are, well, surreal. That's kind of the point, though, isn't it?

Even though it wasn't the complete collection of Dalí works (and how that would be possible to assemble I could never imagine), there was so much to see within the exhibition. The layout curved and twirled around, as it progressed through Dalí's styles and trends. One section had his earlier works, the next would have sketches and sculptures, and the next would have screens showing film projects for which Dalí had scripted scenes. Dalí's vision extended over many different media - he wasn't just a painter or sculptor, he was an artist.

Here's some more of the stuff that I liked:

• Lobster Telephone - hello? :D
  
• Destino, a movie collaboration between Dalí and Walt Disney! It was originally conceived way back in 1945, but was only completed in 2003 due to technical and financial reasons. (It was almost part of a Fantasia movie, but was instead released as a cinematic short.)
  Click here to watch it. I won't embed it directly, because I don't know whether the link will still be there later on - copyright reasons, and all that.
• There were also a selection of Dalí's jewellery designs on show. They had a display of his animated jewel piece The Royal Heart, which was a ruby-encrusted mechanism that would beat much like an actual heart. They only showed that as a video, because the original is so fantastically fragile that it would probably break if they'd brought it over.
• They also had some footage of 3-Dimensional holograms of Dalí and Gala that he had created. The other one they had was of Alice Cooper with a snake(!). Oh, and they had also set up a display of one of his stereoscopic paintings, which turned into a 3-D image when looked at in the correct way (much like the Magic Eye pictures from about ten years ago). I didn't get time to see that one, because there was a queue for the viewing apparatus, and I'd had enough of that lining-up rubbish for the day!
  
• The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory was there. In fact, it would probably be the most recognisable of Dalí's artworks, next to the original work it was based on. I know one of my friends really wanted to see the "soft watches" for some reason. Actually, so did I - but I really wanted to see the first one, too. Well, I guess I'll have to take a trip to New York to check that one out!
• Near the exit was The Ecumenical Council, which was HUGE. It was as large as you would expect a painting with that much detail to be - it was practically a mural. But a highly-detailed, labour-of-love, probably-took-years-off-his-life mural.
  
• And right near the exit was Dalí's final painting, The Swallow's Tail. An understated work, but beautiful nonetheless. He survived until 1989, but after his beloved Gala died in '83, he lost his passion for life. This painting was made in the year after her death.
  

I spent less time inside the exhibition than I spent waiting to get in, but I would have done it all over again in a heartbeat. Actually, no, I would have organised my time a little better and gone and seen it all a lot earlier... but, you have to learn about these things. ;)

Anyway, one more post to go!

________
By the way, most of these links are courtesy of Olga's Gallery and Virtual Dalí. The rest are random links and Wikipedia entries, but feel free to explore those if you wish.

Click for Part Five

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Three

While we were waiting, we overheard that the Gallery was going to keep the exhibition open until 7.00pm, instead of closing it at 5.00. I thought that was very generous; it would have been very difficult to keep the people who had bought their tickets from rioting when they suddenly closed up!

So, we were now in the entry line. It moved a lot quicker, and curved politely around the ticket line - which we could see slowly disappearing as the last customers were let in. I would have liked to have been the very last person in that queue; how lucky they would have felt!

Eventually, we turned round a corner, and saw this:

"Not long to go now!" we all cooed. (Waiting in a line made us a little coocoo by this stage.)

We turned another corner, and there was the entrance to the exhibit. And looking at it now, it resembles more a nightclub or restaurant than a gallery - "Hey! Let's meet up at Dalí's, I heard they do a great fried egg and bacon!"

After three exhausting hours... we were finally inside the exhibition!

Aaand... I have no photos to show you of the inside.
Well, of course not. The Gallery had strict rules against that sort of thing, what with copyright issues, licensing agreements, flash photography damaging the artwork, and so on. My friend got busted trying to take a snap of something with her camera phone, though - naughty girl!

I can, however, seek out links to the paintings and exhibits that I loved, and I shall do that in the next post.
Suffice to say, for now, that it was amazing. And well worth the wait and expense.

Click for Part Four

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Two

So, where were we? Oh, yes. Still in this fugging queue.

I should point out that this second queue wasn't even the entry line; it's only the line for paying admission. If we'd expected this, we would have sorted something out a lot earlier, but... what could we do?

Wait. That's what we could do. Apparently, that's what 15,000 other art patrons did over the same weekend, and I suspect half of those were in the queue with us...

Luckily, we'd brought our cameras into the gallery. I snapped a few shots of the gallery interior, just because it was a nice place to be (and we would be there for a few hours anyway):

This stained-glass cathedral roof inside the gallery was designed by Leonard French, and is apparently one of the largest stained-glass ceilings in the world. It's really stunning to stand beneath it, and I suspect it helped calm the mood of everyone in the line - we hardly heard any complaint from the people around us. (except for one guy who had medical problems and was very unhappy about being forced to stand for such a long time)

This was one of the central courtyards that was redesigned when the entire NGV had a facelift a few years ago. Doesn't look like much, but you can see a lot more catwalks and passageways across the third level. Perhaps not in this photo, but from other angles you could see them, and you never used to be able to reach the third floor. Anyway, it looks nicer now.

After the first hour or so, we started to question this whole "looking at priceless art" idea. We knew that the gallery had advertised the close of ticket sales at 3pm, and it was slowly dawning on us that we were unlikely to get to the ticket counter by that time.

My sister and her partner were with us - oh, did you forget? My sister wanted to come along with us, because she couldn't get to see it on her own terms (due to my mysterious illness) - and they were pretty sick of queueing by this stage. Given the choice of sticking around and waiting, or leaving the queue and enjoying what else Melbourne had to offer, they made the choice to bail.

I felt bad about that, because I knew they were very keen on seeing the Dalí artworks. But I understood their decision to leave and enjoy themselves, as they normally don't get the free time to do what they want - what with looking after my nephew, work, theatre stuff, and so on, it would have been foolish to spend a rare day off waiting in a line...

Meanwhile, the rest of us made the choice to stay. I had set my mind to it - I was GOING IN, even if I had to go all Clark Griswold on the Gallery and DEMAND they unpack the fricking works of art from their carry cases and HOLD IT UP until I'd had my fill... I. WAS. GOING. IN.

After TWO HOURS, we finally managed to grab our tickets (and guarantee access to the show)! And we were so relieved.

Until we remembered, of course, that there was a whole 'nother queue to wait in... sigh
I realise that this is a thoroughly boring post, but I promise you, we do eventually get to the good stuff. Stick around...

________
(btw, just for giggles, here's what happened to someone else who decided to go and check out some Dalí in the company of the harshest critics. I mean, WTF? Who brings babies and infants to an art gallery?! Needless to say, our visit had nothing like this happen.)

Click for Part Three

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part One

Heh heh! I could start this post with an apology about not blogging often enough, but it seems just about everyone who has a blog says that at the start of each post, so... Nyah.

I really should have told you both about my trip to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire exhibition, since it happened at least a week ago. ;/
I've gone as far as to load up the photos I took, but actually writing about it? Not so much.

Well, time to address that. Since it was so important, and all...

After I'd established the day we were all going to head up to Melbourne, our trip had attracted other interested people. What was originally going to be a smallish party of three threatened to turn into a bulky crowd of eight - and this was before I'd even sorted out the costs of travel and admission. O_O;
I spent a few good hours on the two or three days leading up to the trip frantically texting and calling everyone else to establish who wanted tickets, who had concession cards, which train to catch, where we should go for lunch, etc. etc. stress stress stress

The day arrived. I managed to get up early enough to collect my friends and meet up at the train station. Everyone had their ticket, we were on the train, ready, on time and on schedule! FINALLY, I could start to relax. We'd DONE it!

And then, we got to Flinders Street Station, walked across the St Kilda Bridge, and thought, "Hey, there seems to be an awful lot of people down this end of the city - "

Oh my god.
There was a queue of people waiting outside the gallery. Frig. I'd never even thought about this. None of us had. For some silly reason, we'd expected to be able to just walk in, buy tickets and enjoy some Surrealist art. Too bad we were NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The line into the gallery was very quick - compared to the line INSIDE the gallery:

Hahahahahahahahaaaaa...!

Click for Part Two

Weird...

All systems appear to be go for the trip up to Melb. this weekend, but things got a little... weird.

I was meant to stay at home and attend to my nephew while my sister and her partner went up to see the Salvador Dali thing, but instead I wound up stuck in bed for two days (my ONLY TWO DAYS OFF FOR THE WEEK) because of a strange episode that happened to me on the Monday.

I had just seen off my friends, who had come around for a surprise visit at about 4 in the afternoon, when I suddenly noticed that something was affecting my vision.
It was a strange effect: it was similar to the kind of after-images you get when you look at a bunch of bright lights, like a cluster of street lights, except that I hadn't seen any sources of light to trigger the effect. I'll put up a mockup of what it was like when I get the chance.
It was a startling effect, and when I realised that they were kind of sticking around a lot longer than a regular glare effect, I thought, "uh oh, migraine".
So I took a paracetamol and went to bed. The visual effect faded after about 15 minutes, and I laid there waiting for the headache to start...

If this was in fact a migraine, it was a very peculiar one. The initial symptoms presented themselves very differently. Normally when I get a migraine, it starts with a sparkly blind spot thing that spreads out from the centre of vision, but this thing was just a bunch of inanimate spots, which looked almost exactly like the glare afterimage (they even did that colour-inversion effect when I closed my eyes). Also, they didn't last as long as the regular visual disturbance.

But the other weird part is that, even though I still felt all the other general crappy effects of a migraine, I didn't get a headache. At all. Well, I had a crampy feeling in my neck the next day, but I attribute that to needing a new pillow - well, I did just spend several hours in bed.
I'm not 100% sure that the painkiller I took helped with this, because it's unlikely that a single over-the -counter paracetamol tablet would work that well.

This is kinda disturbing. The research I've done suggests that this could be a migraine, as there's several different types of effect and symptom you can experience. But the general consensus is that it's unusual for migraines to suddenly change like that, so... I think I need to pay another visit to my doctor. X|

Anyways, I feel well enough now, so it looks promising for the weekend. And now my sister and her man are coming to the city with me! Onward Bound!

I feel better now

I managed to go and visit my friends last Tuesday! It's a bit hit and miss nowadays, since we all have such different schedules to keep. I'd hate to have missed them though, especially after all the bitching about it I did in my last post! ;P

The gathering was in aid of the trip to Melbourne I've been trying to organise for the better part of four months. I want to go and see the Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, but I don't want to go all on my own; a lot of my friends are also interested in art, and especially in one of the greatest artists from the past century. The collection of Dali's work will not be on show (or indeed in the same place) for much longer, and to miss out on this would be a terrible shame.
I would be prepared to go to see it on my own if I had to... but I don't want to do that. This is the sort of thing you need to enjoy in the company of friends, so it was important that we managed to sort something out that was suitable for everybody. How am I supposed to speculate on the meaning of burning giraffes and lobster telephones without someone to laugh with?

Besides, the last time I went out to my friend's art studio was well over a year ago, and I fell asleep on her couch like the gracious guest that I am. Hey, I was coming down with a cold, I had no idea that was going to happen!

As I said, I've been trying to organise this for a while, but things (as always) have come in the way. Such as work, other people's plans, no free time, scheduling problems... etc. etc.

We have sorted out the day of departure: this Sunday, the 4th.
Travelling there and back should be no problem, as there is a train station literally out the front door of my friend's place, so all we need to do is get there; but I would have preferred a better margin for error than the very last day of the exhibition!!! O_O;; Nervous, much?
Never mind - all is sorted, and will work out on the day!

________
In other stuff, Geelong beat St Kilda in the AFL Grand Final. I guess the Cats managed to recoup their loss after last year's defeat to Hawthorn, but I feel really bad for the Saints; they haven't won a Premiership in 43 - sorry, 44 years, now. Never mind guys, try again next year!

Also, I have added a new item to the Friendly Blog list: Nerdgirl's Adventures, which is my sister trying to come to terms with the world of technology and all it entails. She's also been updating her Have Some Cake! blog recently. I think she's finally free of the evil thrall of facebook, but can we pull her back fully into the Real World? :|

Stay happy folks; this freezing cold weather can't last forever!

I need to get out more...

Hey constant readers! yeah, both of you

I finally went and collected the painting I bought last month, after about a week of missing contacts and plain forgetfulness. I'll post an image of the artwork once I get permission from the artist - copyright and IP protection, and all that. ;)

While I was there paying for art, we got to talking about how things have been for ourselves. My artist friend has been very busy trying to scratch together enough works of art for her art course and for another showing she's been signed up for... It's so damn hard to come up with good ideas for art, and doubly so when your under the pressure of a deadline. I wish her all the best.

But it also made me realise why I've been so unhappy with my output lately. I have been working quite a bit for the past few months, as my family and friends are sure to point out if you ask them. The problem is, work is ALL that I've been doing.

If you were to ask me how I've been, or what I've been doing, I'd probably say, "Oh, I've been busy working". But if you asked me what else I'd been up to, I'd probably draw a blank. And that is not good.

I think the problem lies in that I can only really focus on one particular project at a time. Multitasking seems totally beyond my powers. I can do it, but only if the tasks are related and I'm not literally doing them at the same time.
When I first started my job in retail, I was also doing a course of WFTD painting murals (a slightly different arrangement from the one I've been talking about earlier in the blog). And what I discovered was that it was a freaking nightmare.

Imagine doing something like painting, which is like meditation in a way - you are focused solely on the task before you, in a quiet and distraction-free environment (or at least it ought to be). Now, imagine that you have to step out of this environment, and suddenly find yourself in a chaotic, multi-directional place like, say, behind the register of a service station. At any given moment, you could find yourself worrying about four or five different tasks, and each of them could be interrupted by something else.

It's a bit like participating in a triathlon, or that sport where you have to do some cross-country skiing and then try to shoot at a target with a rifle. Oh, that's a biathlon, apparently. I was close.

After a few months of trying to keep all the threads together (and learn a new job in the process), I eventually decided to stick with just the retail thing since it was the part that was actually paying me. I hated giving up on the art stuff, but at that point my job was too important to screw up, since I hated being unemployed.
Since then, I've done some painting stuff in the meantime, but only the parts for the mural that I've already described in this blog and that was only incidental; I originally only went to the studio for a social visit and got roped in to helping out - damn, she's persuasive. Aside from that, not much else has happened with my art.

And that's the problem.
By investing my time mostly with work, I've been neglecting all the other stuff that makes live endurable. I've become slack in my free time, and instead of visiting friends, doing fun things and generally having a life, I spend my days off mucking around at home, and sleeping.

I think I need to alter my priorities a little. Just a bit.

Of course, the other thing is that my employers have recently altered my working situation. I am now working a guaranteed five days a week, ensuring I have 30~ hours spread over two sites, with casual rates. Everyone who's heard about this seems to be happy for me. But. I'm not entirely sure I think this is good news.

I don't know why I'm reluctant about this, since it's mostly work that I'm familiar with, and there are a lot of people who would really enjoy being in a position like mine. I know for sure that the job environment is not going to be any better anywhere else.

I think my problem is that I'm treating this job as an end in itself, when it really ought to be the means. After all, who of us can say that their job is their entire life and say that they are happy with it?
I need to make sure that I'm doing all of this for a reason, and not just a self-contained one (ie. I'm doing it because they need me to). I need to remember that all this money I'm earning doesn't just have to go to the bills and food and stuff. I need to remember that I do have other skills than knowing how to give correct change, and which brand of beans is canned or frozen.

Put simply, I need to get out more.

At any rate, this is something I need to work on (no pun intended). I need to organise something with my friends before the end of the month, so that ought to be a good starting point.

Stay tuned.

Catching Up

Ugh, I've realised that I'm really bad at catching up with people. I've spent the past few months virtually living in a cave, as far as my social life is concerned. I used to have the excuse of being too busy, long distance, illness etc. etc. but all that does is separate me from my friends even more. Not good.

I've made amends so far this month. I've been good and sociable three times so far:

1. I went and saw my ex-US friends at their new house in Warragul. They had only lived in the house for a couple of weeks, and apologised for the mess. HA HA HAAAH!!! My standards for "mess" are WAAAY higher than yours, guys... You need to come see MY house. Especially MY room. (...btw, any luck naming the kitten yet?)
2. I finally got around to visiting my ex-housemates who now live in Boolarra. They'd moved towns, and I was so far out of the loop I didn't hear about it until about four months after it had happened. #0_0# Their new place is beautiful and spacious, and is perfect for raising their two kids - once they get all of their electrical problems sorted out. And it's so nice and quiet out in the country. Only thing was, I also got to see how close to the town the bushfires came. VERY close indeed.
3. Aaand... I got to meet up with friends at the GippsTAFE Vis. Art Dept's art show! It was good to (briefly) chat with some familiar faces, even though it was so noisy and crowded inside the gallery you could hardly make out what people were saying; and my voice doesn't travel well in the best circumstances! I also bought a painting by one of my friends, but I haven't collected it yet...

So, I've been a good young man so far - but it's not over yet. I still need to deliver some very late Easter stuff to some other friends of mine, and also go to the Salvador Dali exhibition with some other interested pals. Don't worry - I'm gonna do it, already, just gotta get organised...