Jen - Last day of the year

Can't believe the year's over already. Worried about what the new year will bring. Unhappy to be going back to work. Watching the fireworks on TV at home while the kids sleep.

Hope everyone has a good night!

Jaime - Countdown

Hey Y'all. You guys got 3 hours to go. Wishing you all a happy new year. MD if your reading this, don't call us at 4 in the morning, we will be asleep. If you do, we're taking Dingus Diamond Dave back and you'll have to foist it on someone else.

Happy new year all, don't get too drunk.

Everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, we're just a bit behind on the new years, catch up real soon ;)

Hugs,
J

Becstarr : Blue and green

Went to Coogee to ride the waves - along with a large chunk of the Sydney population, it seems! The queue for the changerooms went halfway around the block at times! (Tip: Use the Coogee Bay Hotel toilets instead). Water was lovely and fish and chips afterwards were just right. Came home and planted out the peas and beans we got the other day, digging up an ancient rusted foxtrap in the process (!).

PROTIP: listen to the I'm Not There soundtrack

Saw I'm Not There; bit weird but good music and I want Richard Gere's boots.

Becstarr : Pickernicker

Annual Guy & Joe -fest in the park, which included saber fights, Coke chicken, skittles knocked over with footies, manifold frisbees, international and intersuburban guests, one baby out and one on the way, and a giant patchwork of quilts. Hurrah!

Ipod!

I got my new ipod yesterday. Its a shiny silver Classic (80gb). Which means it plays video so no longer will I see those listings of video podcasts and be constrained to watch them at my desk. And if I could get my calendar to actually export its contents instead of just a 0kb vcal file, I could synch that on my Ipod too.

Did I mention how shiny it is?

Xmas Holidays

My company decided to be very nice and give everyone Monday off (without charging us a days hols), and I won an ipod at the company xmas party raffle.

Tancred is sick, so have spent the last two days at home not being a particularly good nurse (can't quite get the hang of Age of Empires), watching Arrested Development, and eating too much (great roast beef, a little over-cooked roast pork but damn that was some fine crackling).

Jen - Merry Xmas y'all

Things have been busy hectic and chaotic... even more so than usual, combined with illness coming and going. Having a quiet day after a December filled with parties.

W00t - A Snowy Christmas!

We had a little Christmas miracle here with snow falling in the middle of Christmas Day. We went out and had a little wander round in the snow before it turned to rain. Had a nice, relaxing Christmas. Only the second time I've ever cooked turkey but it turned out great (brining is the secret!).

Dan - Xmas hijinks

Roaring, howling maelstroms of Xmas fun rolled over our house as we had a Burn (yesterday) and then a Wong(today) Xmas. Lots of kids had too much sugar and too much excitement, and so they haven't been sleeping. Since Atty's illness a couple of weeks ago, and since we've been weaning him off his anticonvulsants, he's been shockingly cranky all the time. Pretty much seem that by 10am he's over it all and ready for bed again. I'm hoping he'll be better soon.

Anyways, lots of awesome presents all round - Dante got RC cars (that's right, 2 of them), the boys got walkie talkies and a big cubby house, Jen got a DS game, and I got Lego.

Kit - Viewing the Christmas Lights

Drove out and around the 'burbs, viewing the Christmas lights. The Daily Terror had mentioned one particular street out west that was good: it was just one house, with mini nativity scenes, moving reindeer/donkey, mini house light up with lights in one window, and a snow scene in another. We thought that was quite good, until by chance we came upon a whole street's worth. There were many milling people, and three ice cream/snowcone/mr whippy vans ready to capitalise on small children.

Becstarr : It's a go-slow and I think I like it

Saw off the Tarlings with an early start for the big drive up to Bellingen, and after that big rush of departure, everything suddenly fell quiet. Spent the day getting used to going slower (soon I may even stop apologising for it!) and was happy to have made it to lunch with Ann, Rob and baby Bella (almost crawling now) and to Mum's for dinner with extended family guests. I could have easily fallen asleep at 3pm but it's good to spend Christmas in at least a little bit of a crowd!

Becstarr : Holiday farts

Slept in until 7:14am, thereby missing the early morning Spongebob Squarepants Movie that Joel entertained our young guests with. Farewelled the Craigs and was farted on in return (Ruby: "You're a palm tree, Bec! *climb climb* Goodbye! I farted on you!"). It was a very silly morning.

The rest of the day was far more cruisy, and included a GIANT MANGO for afternoon tea. P.S: GNC Glebe (aka Russells) is closing!! No!!!

Becstarr : Nailhold until last hour of workity work

Gritted teeth and held on til last hour of workity work at 3:30 on 21/12. Work requests in til last few hours. Productivity ragged but made it across the line and staved off a an incipient argument with a colleague. I am slowly learning just to let some things go.... especially when I'm about to go on two weeks of holidays!

Pub as usual with SJ and Al, no Petto but plus Bez & Shoshe, Dan & Dante, and MD and JT. Hooray! Festivities continued with Matt, Liz and the girls for dinner in Chinatown. Note to self: LEAVE OUT some of the details when explaining things to kids, e.g. why it's important to stand behind the yellow line on the train station. Don't illustrate with the interesting story about the autistic kid who was playing on the tracks a few weeks ago. Their imaginations are very vivid!

YL - It's the moon. And bunnies.

I've caught the skiing bug and more importantly for the first time, taken to the sport like a duck to freezing water! I am proud to be able to say that I skiied on the glacier by myself in the Austrian Alps! Ok blue beginner slope but wow for only 10 hrs total of Ski School over 3 days that's really not bad. Only pain I had was from my flat feet.

There are no trees up at 3000m and it really looks like the moon. Flickr pictures to come.

Who wants to go skiing in Australia next year?

Also, I will be learning bunny jokes in German. My friend Andrea died laughing the other night .... rabbit = kanichien. I am also attempting to learn some German but it is strangely harder than Italian.

I have a theory that people who understand my bunny jokes will make good friends. Anyone want to test this hypothesis? We can try in various languages. "Tu Zi Tu Zi!!!" Also, she has a doona cover from Ikea that is supposed to be wiggly heart shapes but seriously, it looks like BUNNIES!!

Evelyn - Staff Drinkies

The trouble with forgetting that staff drinkies is on is that when you do turn up you forget things like sensible consumption and keeping the water levels high. Double-decker buses seem to move a lot when going around corners.

Shoshe - Done!

The grades are in, as are my problem sets, presentations and term papers. We fly out on Wednesday!

Anna : Middling Sickness

Been feeling slightly iffy for about a week now, the stresses of the last 3 months walking my body slowly towards flu town. A sneeze here, a long tired afternoon there, and everyday it gets harder to get out of bed.

My question for the week is : How can Doug Liman films be so good yet so absolutely forgettable at the same time? I'm looking at you "Bourne Identity"

Tancred - It's far too hot today!

It was -8° when I headed off to work today. Once at work the lazy bum of a sun finally come up over the horizon and raised the temperature to an almost balmy -7°. Everywhere there is a thick 1-2cm of frost and ice along with black ice lying in wait on the footpaths. No idea where the gritters were this morning.

What has made the day truly special is that last night the server room A/C froze up and now one of the chillers has a large crack in the side. No cold air for us :( At the moment it’s 45° in the server room and the rest of the building has no heating. If only we had a window in the server room to open.

Cocktails in Glasgow

Spent Saturday night drinking cocktails in a lovely Art Deco bar in Glasgow in celebration of Kane's birthday. Then discovered that the party season means its impossible to get a bus or taxi home. Well almost, turns out you can skip the non-moving queue when a cab's booked ride doesn't answer and you promise them a big tip.

Overestimated my fitness

Did the adventure race on Saturday in the Avoca Beach/Terrigal/Central Coast area. 4.6km on the kayak, 8.5km on foot and 17.6 on the bike. Totally underestimated my fitness. Walked most of the running legs. Bloody Kincumber Mountain - Pushing bike up the narrow steep & rocky track up to the Wariwari look out - painful and disheartening. Compunded unhappiness because the mozzies hovered, ready to devour you if you paused for a rest. Hot. Got dehydrated. Still sore. Did I have fun? Ummmm….

Dan - another week passes

So, I haven't been posting here much, reading too many RSSes to remember to post. Did lots of work stuff this week, got a bunch of long-overdue stuff done. Took yesterday off, and am now 65% done with Xmas shopping (helped by the various No-Xmas-Present pacts I'm involved in). Busy weekend ahead, lots of work to do before Xmas.

Anna : 500

This is post 500! Well done all! Beach this morning, huge waves that made the first morning beach of the summer feel a bit EXTREME!! Got to try out the cars new stereophonic music magic-a-nator and listened to Triple J on the way home!

Sun gone

Really not one sentence but...

After most of the snow went away yesterday, I decided to actually wear shoes instead of snowboots today. Fortunately, I looked outside before I left -- everything was white! The sky, the cars, the trees, the ground, the falling flakes...

My bus got to uni early enough for me to go to Coffee Hour. I usually just drink tea, but because I had been up until around 4am grading papers, I decided to try the caffeinated hot chocolate that I'd bought for the office. Big mistake. I don't know how much caffeine you absorb from that compared to coffee, but it's way more than I normally get from tea. Unpleasantly so. I'd recovered enough to do some work by around 2pm.

Then at 2:30 we got an email saying that the head of department said we should go home because of the snow. I didn't think the snow looked too bad, but all of the staff -- the people who've lived here for years -- thought it was bad. That was worrying. And I'd just missed my bus (we now live around 15-20 minutes away from uni by bus, and our bus comes once an hour). So I waited there, the only person on the whole floor, for almost an hour. Spooky. I got to watch people with a cherry-picker and a huge (pool?) brush try to keep wiping the snow off the building across from my window though. It's having structural issues, and apparently if more than 3 inches of snow accumulate on the roof it might collapse.

The bus came late but made it home okay (a friend of mine reassured me by saying "the buses here are tough as fuck, as are the drivers. I don't think they've ever shut down due to weather"). Now we're sitting on our couch with a fire in the fireplace, and I'm trying to finish grading my students' papers.

It was a weird day.

Ouch

I just figured out that the reason the sun coming through the window is hurting my eyes so much is because there's sun.

Just 20 more papers to grade and one paper to write. Yesterday I made a numerical model of the Earth's interior!

Shoshe -- getting there

Mineralogy is done (yay!), the seminar is done, and now there's just a term paper, a problem from a way overdue problem set (but I've handed the rest of it in), and grading 30 8-10-page papers.

Our snow is starting to melt. It's weird when the temperature goes above freezing.

Oh yeah -- the other day, first I realised that it wasn't snowing. Then I realised that there weren't any clouds. Then I realised that the sky was blue. It's funny how fast you can acclimatise.

Breaking glass

I broke the kitchen window trying to get a fly that was buzzing around indoors.

I chose a bad weekend to do so.

Yesterday, there were largish hailstones raining down in a summer storm. Pretty much every windscreen I saw afterwards was either cracked or missing.

I got the fly though!

Another Year Older

Wiser, hmm? A work xmas party provided free alcohol for the day, good. No snow, bad. (although we did get a few flakes on Saturday night)

David - Snow, Glorious Snow

I am back in Portsmouth New Hampshire for the week. This is about a 4 hour train ride north of New York. And it has been snowing. In fact the day I got here they had a mini-blizzard in my honour. You don't know quiet until you are walking back to the hotel from a pub down the way - no cars in sight, its the weee hours of the morning and there is snow falling around you muffling the few noises that are being made in the town.

Jaime - I'm a rock star

So apparently I am now "famous". Or at least thats what the cool kids say when your on youtube.



This was done for our christmas party. If only everyday was like this ;)

YL - Rayman Raving Rabbids 2

Yeap there is no escape now. We will HURT more bunnies!!

[Wii is releasing Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. Also, an Official Rabbid Site with bunny related news & videos.]

Anna : Yay Punching!

Too many people and too few bags has meant weeks without punching something. Well that all changed yesterday! 12 x 1 minute rounds with 6 rounds of 8 pushups and 6 rounds of 8 situps and about 35 seconds rest between each set. Finish it off with some punching above the head and 2 x 30 seconds on the bags and you a recipe for KICKING ARSE! I do believe I may STILL be high on the endorphins :)

Ben - Lazin' Around

Fourth day of hols, and relaxation is juuuust starting to turn to boredom. Weather clearing up quicker than expected; might make the beach before the weekend, if lucky.

falsedan - I got a parka from H&M

YL - just one more day

Yeah I have been telling myself that for weeks, nay months, nay years. And finally in terms of exams, it is just one (and three) more days. Written on Mon, practical on Wed. omg when will this be over? *insert pained cry* *shakes fist*

I will just say I am very ranty about a lot of things right now. still being a medical student, other medical students in the new 4th year, people who suggest that I was unsure about doing medicine (*shakes fist*), people who look down on me that it took +3 years to do this degree (hey my reasons were genuine compared to the person who had to repeat a year cos the person slept with a patient and came back to tell others about it!!) and random assortment of things - some completely unrelated to med.

omg please let this be over soon. I cant bear to do the dance of sucking up and placid smiles and purported interest anymore. I suck at being a medical student but I'm going to make a helluva better doctor than half this crowd. *gestures with frustration*

David - Dangerous Statistic

I found out tonight that if the subway gods are smiling on me it is a 60 minute trip from the front door of my apartment to the Apple store and back again.  This is of particular interest when you consider the fact that the NY Apple store is open 24/7.

I left my apartment at 8pm this evening, ran uptown, purchased an iPhone for a colleague in Australia and was back in my apartment by 9.10pm.  We all know how easily seduced I am by the shiny - this could get spectacularly dangerous.

Shannon - SNOW!

It's snowing, it's snowing, it's snowing!!! YAY!!!

Dan: Chaos and illness

Went to niece Jasmine's 5th birthday party. Very noisy, and ate more then strictly necessary. Atty has been out of sorts the last few days, and an illness has finally manifested and he's sniffling and coughing and generally miserable, and Jen has caught the same thing. I'm feeling generally crap as well, so I'm expecting to come down with is soon too. Got a big party tomorrow as well, which is next door so we can't really pike out.

In recent news, put in a large grant application yesterday, which lowered my stress levels since it was the biggest nastiest job on my task list. Also new project tracking system up and running as well, which should make life easier.

Becstarr : More unpackering

Still more unpacking!
Today Karinne, Joel and I boldly went forward and cleared the kitchen bench, resurrected the microwave, tamed the fridge temperature, stashed all the boxes in the roof, and started prettying up the backyard for the housewarming tomorrow.

Then we went over to Joel's and continued at his. The house has been transformed! And J has his study back again. It's all looking very cleared out - so much old furniture going out onto the street! So much recycling!

Shoshe -- Done! Almost.

I had my mineralogy lab final exam today! That's exciting because it's over. Now I just have a mineralogy project, a mineralogy lecture final exam, three planetary physics problem sets, a planetary physics presentation, a planetary physics term paper, and a seminar presentation (group project) to do by the end of next week. And then thirty 8-10 page papers to grade the week after. And then I'm done for the semester!

Ben - Free at last

Prac finished today. School swimming carnival. It was interrupted for an hour and a half due to an electrical storm, but the kids were pretty well behaved anyway. One girl wanted to know the odds of swimming fast enough to avoid a lightning strike;

Yesterday, a student from another class asked me if he could tell me all about the dinosaurs. If I'd had known that he was moderately autistic, I might have been more hesitant about saying yes. As it was, I heard all about the dinosaurs.

Tomorrow, holidays start which will mean a week of rain; but I guess my garden could use it.

Friday Afternoon Special

Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

Could things get any worse? These disasters come in threes, right? I'm just waiting for the friday afternoon special to arrive.

falsedan - countdown

Molly Meldrum bought a pie at Aija's shop yesterday, and he's coming back for another today.

V-day!

I totally made it! The evil class gave me a round of applause at the end, a soft-of card and the comment "thank you for controlling us sometimes." I replied "it's been an education."

*sigh* Done!

And now two weeks of nice classes. Sweet!

Anna : Keep On Keeping On

Beating the inevitable post birthday crash into submission through the power of exercise induced endorphins. Had a "cooking emergency" on Tuesday when the freezer door didn't close properly and all the meat defrosted ... "I'll put this chicken in this pan and then put that pan in this bigger pan and then whack the lamb in the bigger pan and then put chicken, lamb and pans into the oven" ...

Jaime - Waitress

Cooked rack of lamb for the first time last night. It was delicious, now I have to improve on that. I think next time I'll take "20". Watched Waitress last night and it was one of the nicest little films that I've seen in a while. It was also a real shame as the writer/director/actress was murdered before the film was released, so much potential wasted.

Oh Fook.

You know when you have one of those days where everything is going along swimmingly, and then !Bang!, something goes totally wrong and hits you upside on the head and no progress has actually happened for the past 2 months? And your project timeframes are then shot to pieces?
Yeah, I'll have one of those thanks.
I hate local councils.

Becstarr : Sleeping in the new room

Got back to Combat after the move - I've been saving all my energy for packing and shifting boxes recently! It wasa new release, hard ("35% more kicks!") but lots of fun, especially the jenga (sp?) shuffle.

Finally made it home to make up my bed and sleep in my new room! Down to one row of boxes along the wall. Feels good to have a place to call home again.

Ben - One Art Please!

Taught my first art lesson today; I wore my beret and tormented the kids with my French accent. The look of disgust on one girl when I demanded to be called Monsieur Hilton was a delight to behold.

YL - Election Results & Procrastination

WOOT!!!! I hope there are good/better things to come ...

And yes *sulk* I am procrastinating with anxiety .... gah. grrr.

On the up side, Anna's birthday party at Coogee beach yesterday was awesome. I almost forgot how much I like it outside in the sunshine ....

Becstarr : It's a new day, it's a new dawn

The air seems sweeter, the sky seems bluer, the trees seem to have more leaves, and I can't stop smiling. Still watching the results come in, and Greens are looking good in Senate! Also amazement at the Costello news. I do feel sorry for him, but I think he's making the right choice in terms of his future happiness.

First swim of the summer at Anna's wonderful birthday BBQ down at Coogee. HURRAY!

David - I Have Been Converted...

I suppose it was inevitable. Being a stranger in a strange land, a continuing focus on style and being surrounded by rampant consumerism... it all came to a head today when I wandered (willingly I might add) into the Apple store. I... I purchased... a Macbook Pro... years of faithful devotion to the capitalist god of Microsoft cavalierly thrown away with the simple swipe of a credit card.

Of course it doesn't actually turn up for a couple of days so I still have time to go out and purchase an adequate supply of berets...

Ben - Back Again

Haven't written anything for months, so here is a random assortment of things that happened with me:

- Made homemade crumpets
- Read a stultifyingly dull book about Australian Prime Ministers.
- Read a quite interesting book about chemistry
- Built a solar cooker that doesn't work - I think I need to rebuild the lid entirely
- Was told by a five year old that I look like a gorilla
- Was told by a twelve year old that I smell like vinegar
- Planted a herb garden.
- Found out that year six kids can write excellent similes but aren't so good with metaphors. Go figure.
- And last night watched the bad man go bye byes.

Becstarr : At the polls

Today is the final day of weeks of knocking on wood every time the possibility of a government change is mentioned.

At the polls for Greens down in Marrickville from 8am - 12:30. It's strong Labor but very friendly (as usual on polling day). I'm too nervous to think in any depth about the results starting to be decided - as if by thinking about it, one might disturb what's happening.

The day was overcast and spitty but by the time I make it to Leon's Election Night party, the results are already starting to look good and the parties are spilling onto the street. The whole thing has an air of surreality. Howard concedes at last and we toast the start of better days to come.

The whole day felt unreal....

Dan - Wooooo!

Woooo! I'm not at the party, but I'm watching the forces of good triumph over evil, and it feels awesome :) Dante came up with me to vote, and quite enjoyed the process.

falsedan - phenomenal

Went for after work drinks, Andrew & Peter taught Aija the basics of playing pool. Watching England lose to Croatia in a pub full of Englischer was fun. I was charged with maintaining the fridge supplys and given the Sainsbury account, so I an instituting a strict policy of replacing Coke with Irn-Bru.

Just voted, was impressed to see party members handing out how to vote cards, disappointed not to see a sausage sizzle or cake stall.

Dan - issue tracking and not smoking and all excited about the election

Got our new Issue Tracking database up and running today - it's way shiny and seems to do everything. Watched Thank You For Smoking this evening. Probably should have watched it last year like everyone else, but I didn't. But I have now. And it's good. Looking forward to election tomorrow, but I swear, if it goes bad, I'm gonna start cutting people.

Jaime - Gooooooaaalllll

Just got back from indoor soccer. Got 2 goals, was very happy with myself (regardless of the fact that one was a complete fluke). Very much want to join a team if possible.

Also, saw this when I got home and I wants it.

Tired now... me ... slee..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Becstarr : Return to the classroom

Taught my first class in about 2 years today! Assessment in WebCT was the topic, 3 of 5 in the Intro series. Only 2 hours and about 9 people, and a beautiful lesson plan and site prepared by the training team, which made for a nice class that was easy to pick up having never taught it before.

Felt good but after this week I am tired tired. Need to get some sleep in before polling in Marrickville tomorrow!!

Anna : !

It's been an exclamation mark kind of day ... I may have an exciting wiki project in the works. Details to be confirmed, pitch to be written, watch this space!

David - Yay Holidays

Its thanksgiving over here - and I find myself with nothing to do! I was originally supposed to be in London but the trip got cancelled 2 days ago. Wandered up to the event before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Inflating the Floats! Of course I am an idiot and didn't realise that every man and his dog was going to be there. After flirting with a senseless death as a result of being run over by a neverending series of strollers that were larger than the average compact car I abandoned ship.

Oh and I voted. Viva la revolution!

Becstarr : Moving zombie

Started back at work, house as yet unpacked, boxes 4 deep and 6 high in my new bedroom.
I feel like the shell of a person, with someone sitting inside my head looking out and steering from....very....far.....away.

YL - Country Doctor

Almost there! At 5pm 7 Mar, you can call me Doctor. And I got my paperwork from Westmead yesterday. 31 Mar I start work at Coffs Harbour Hospital for 5 months! Emergency Dept then General Medicine. So I'll be off to the country for a bit of a seachange but will be coming back montly to Sydney anyway. Still no Latte since hospital accomodation doesnt allow pets I think. *mutters*

So while I'm not entirely sure if the future will be bright/dark ... it sure will be different! That much will be interesting.

Anna : Stress

Over the last 2 weeks I've noticed some skin problems that I get when put under prolonged physical/mental stress. What could be causing this? New job, Guy and the horror class, 3 weekends lost to filming, increased hours at the gym and more drinking? Nah. How many weeks until Christmas? Hmmm. Well maybe some dancing will help!

Kit - Net Detective

Had a lovely cup of takeaway coffee - just the way I like it, instead of the so-so "It's oh-kay, I can live with it" that usually happens. Ordered a bee keepers hat, to try and keep the blowflys off. Did some net detectoring and worked out what the specials were at the GBs/Myer Sale tonight. Yeah!

Jaime - new shoes

Last weekend was good. Went out friday night to a friends work event and played 14 player halo 3. Then came home and caught up on weeds, next week is final ep for the season.

Saturday went to the Cheese festival on Granville Island and at a bunch of cheese, it was DELICIOUS! Bought a few cheeses for later. Then went over to friends place and played boardgames until 2.

Sunday was cleanup day. Got a lot done and then went out for Dinner. Just before that went and bought myself some indoor soccer shoes as I've been going twice a week.

Indoor soccer tonight, looking forward to it.

falsedan - Amon Tobin

Went to see Amon Tobin on Thursday—his new stuff is a lot noisier, industrial, and techno than previous. The gig was done in 7.1 surround sound, which means the dance floor is encircled with speakers with different sounds coming out of each. Highlight was him using a sample of a 150cc trail bike revving in an outro.

Aija's sisters and mum are visiting, they are nice, also don't speak much English, so I am fully exercising my 4-word Latvian vocabulary… labvakar!

Shoshe: two for two

Yesterday we had people over for a "Christmas pudding making and problem set doing" fest. And we actually did both! We made the pud (plus a figgy pudding so that people would actually get to eat something that they'd made that day), and while it was steaming we actually worked on our assignment! We got two questions done in three hours, which was quite satisfying.

Then today we made super-fast parmesan wafers for a Thanksgiving potluck dinner at my friend's co-op. They were quick and simple and really yummy. We highly recommend the recipe!

Anna : Where did the weekend go ...

That's what happens when you build up to something too much, it flies by and you feel kind of deflated afterwards. A Saturday afternoon looking at fishes and penguins and seals (oh my!) was pleasant, soothing and somewhat educational. Sunday was spent ripping apart camera memory cards in the hope of salvaging them (failed :( ) and spending last Christmas's gift vouchers. And sleeping, there was a good 8 hours of sleeping.

David - Yawwwwnnnnnn

Spent the weekend mooching around the house - which is pretty impressive given that mooching in my apartment means you can take all of 6 steps before you hit an obstacle of some description. Watched Transformers - reconfirmed that as long as you ignore the dialogue it is shiny. Just ignore the dialogue. Also have Spiderman 3 which I can't quite bring myself to watch. And now I have to go into the office and engage in political shenanigans. :-(

Confirmed my flights to Australia last week - I am coming back to surprise my parents for Christmas. They have no idea I am coming at all. Which also means party time with the hive... at some point!

Dan - weekend at home

Had Nothing Much to do this weekend, so I fought an epic battle against the lawn, filling two of those big wheelie bins with grass cuttings, plus the amount dumped onto the garden or in the compost. We've officially got Redback spiders in the yard again. Jen found some monster sized ones in the compost bin which I proceeded to hassle with a stick (I think I squished 'em, but one might've gotten away). Need to have some more Nothing Much weekends. Apart from that, I successfully avoided doing much.

Two Weeks Until V-day

Highlights of the week?

1) We had a "global forum" to discuss the topic of whaling from a variety of perspectives on Monday. The pro-whalers kicked the ass of the anti-whalers. The "Australian school student" (someone playing the role of course, we wouldn't actually let one on the premises) was mocked for getting their anti-whaling propaganda from the Internet and from their Geography teacher. At the end she agreed that she wasn't really sure about the whole topic and perhaps she agreed with the pro-whalers.

Left wing bias in schools indeed.

2) Busy, angry meetings between teachers and the executive. Whenever I walk out of a meeting teachers keep telling me that I'm very brave. I'm so not getting a job.

3) When looking at the Black Sea oil spill story I was asked on multiple occasions "is this for real"? How many times do I have to say in Geography, "YES! THIS IS ALL FOR REAL!"? Damn it's a depressing subject to study.

EC - Best. Show. Evar!

So after Al's thing Kim and I just hung around a bit before meeting up with with some friends for Dinner before going to see Muse. Dinner was OK, support act was crap (The Checkers I think . From NZ?)

Anyway Muse came on about 9:30 ish and was enraptured from the very beginning. I've liked their music since they came out but have not been obsessed over them but this show has certainly got me changing my mind. They really know how to put on a grand show with epic riffs interspersed with hypnotic piano. As good as the music was though, the visuals were absolutely mind blowing with video effects playing in the background that entranced me more than the band playing on stage just as the lights distracted and enhanced the band to produce an effect as if the band themselves were apart from the stage. Very cool.

One thing that struck me though was that this was the first time in a while that I was sitting a distance away from the stage and was watching the crowd on the floor go nuts during the show. I certainly missed it but an observation made was the number of lights coming from the audience. It was obviously people with their phones recording and the constant glow of LCDs stood in stark contrast to the one time one or two people who brought out lighters for a slow number. It certainly seems the transience of the flame has been replaced by the relentless glow of LCDs as people record things for posterity instead of the fleeting sense of the experience. I smile as I listern to Matthew Bellamy singing 'I need it now' while those people keep it for later instead.

Dan - All conference and no play makes Dan go sleepy

Spent yesterday & today at EdHealth 2007 conference in Terrigal. Nick & Marina also there. And the VC. Presented a poster (well, two, but Nick did the actual presenting for one of them, and did a bunch of the making). Had to catch public transport up there now that the little car has gone to car heaven, but got a lift most of the way back. When you're used to kids and living in the city, it's a bizarre but delightful experience getting to stroll quietly along the beach before bed. Got home to a house full of happy smiley kids and relieved Jen, which was nice.

Becstarr : Day 1 of packing

Today I packed. I think I've packed about half the house. I have boxes stacked up to the ceiling. Thanking my lucky stars that I got rid of most of my stuff in the last move (to a studio). Threw away the last of my uni notes, and dropped off heaps of stuff to Vinnies. It felt fantastic - I want to get rid of MORE!

Kit - The interwebs are go!

*Finally* got the interwebs up and running. Had troubles connecting to wireless modem - it would freeze & need a restart everytime I made a change over wireless, and I had to get to the third cat-5 cable before the cable connection worked.
In other news, we're halfway through Movember, and there are lot of seedy looking moustaches hanging around work.

Jaime - Votes in

This morning Shan and I voted at the consulate. Take that Howard! Now I want to sleep.

oh my gee

There is a fridge full of milk and snickers and coke and basically I won't ever need to buy lunch again.

First day at work: here's the OH&S policy, here's a wiki full of documentation, here's a box of computer parts and a screwdriver and a folder of CDs and a desk for you to put your computer on once you finish putting it together, off you go

NEGLECTING TO MENTION THE FRIDGE FULL OF KIT-KATS >:|

Anna : Stay on Target!

Counting the seconds to my first completely non filming weekend in 3 weeks! 2 whole days not thinking about work or anything to do with "red heads" "framing" "cutaways" or "crossing the line"!!!!

Day off has side effects

I took Wednesday off for a "me" day, and to go climbing in the Blue Mountains. Fun! However, an unintended side effect is that Thursday now feels like a Monday. Hard to get out of the house.

Becstarr : A move and a mob

A few big days of clearing out J's studio has made room for little sister Zoe (20) to move in. Flatmate Sarah has also announced she's found a place, so in about 2 weeks J gets his studio back! The clear-put was good though: many things thrown out, and good training for my own upcoming move. It's much less emotional helping someone else sort their stuff!

My main birthday present for J today (1975) was cooking for a big family dinner: parents, Zoe, uncle & grandfather up from Melbourne - 7 people all up (with a possible 10 at one point). It was a lot of planning but I'm pleased to say I pulled it off! Roast chicken, heaps of vegies and chocolate mousse for dessert. Plenty for everyone and pretty much without stress.

The other great thing today was seeing Bob Brown, Kerry Nettle and Jenny Leong launch the Greens' higher ed policy up in the Quad. I loved what they said, but I also loved that they didn't seem to have the fakey "gloss" that many pollies have. It's good to feel there are some people I'm really happy to get behind and vote for.

Anna : Quino-ings On

My Apple, Sultana and Quinoa pudding is a success (as long as you have it with custard) so I thought I'd celebrate with more mediocre wordplay since I got such good feedback about the last lot. Went to see Bob Brown today launching his education policy at Usyd and making a lot of sense about all the issues, $35 billion in tax cuts or $3.5 billion a year to abolish HECS??

David - Answer for Tancred

My project is in the toilet as usual. No idea which freaking city I am going to be in next week. It could be New York, it could be Portsmouth New Hampshire, it could be London - there is even an outside chance that it could be Edinburgh! Good job I don't have a loving partner as I would have been divorced by now!

Tancred - I suspect that in order to get your name over there => you have to be one of the people who has an account at blogspot?

falsedan - I got a job

Went for my interview today at 11. I was a little concerned that my appearance may cause the interviewers to negatively favour me, but interviewer Andrew:

1. is from Newcastle (NSW, not -Upon-Tyne)


2. has shoulder-length hair dyed black and a lip piercing


3. is wearing an untucked casual shirt and boots

We launched into general nerd-talk, and I made a good impression… so good that he called at 2 asking me to come back and meet the CEO and the rest of the team. The CEO is a New Zealander, and is business partners with an anaesthetist. We had a chat about BPEL and I mentioned SOAP, which impressed the project manager. There is one other guy, the actual
programmer, who was busy programming. I went home for dinner and to give them time to come to a decision.

Got a call just now asking me to start on Thursday, hooray!

Tancred I think you have to be less evil. Are you evil? I'm not evil.

Tancred - How?

How do you get your name on the list over there -> ??

Tancred - the weekend

I was on call over the weekend. I was also rather sick. So I was paid to sit at home feeling sick and play World of Warcraft :)

The best bit was nothing went down (fnar fnar) all weekend. Actually no, the best bit was hitting 40 and being exhalted with Darnassus, Ironforge & Stormwind. Human diplomcy FTW!

Becstarr : Revue at Riverside

Off to the Riverside Theatre at Parramatta to see the annual Wharf Revue with Mum, Jess, Tim and Joel. Excellent show, though perhaps more surprising was the lovely dinner beforehand and the generally nice atmosphere. Parramatta seems to be getting more and more "liveable". They do seem to have a particularly good mayor at the moment, in terms of encouraging the arts , a sense of community & involvement and so on. Nice work Parra.

Jaime - Cyperpunk and Vampires

Went out last night and saw Blader Runner at the cinemas. It was the new release and it was kick ass seeing it in a cinema. The re-mastering was great. Went for dinner on commercial driver afterward with Shan and Rob at Waazubee Café. Then went back to Rob's when we rented Cronos as Rob and Shan hadn't seen it. Awesome vampire movie.

YL - random thoughts

Life is still evolving which is good. Today, my friend Anne said "you've just likened dating guys to your hair" - easily changable if not liked! Hmmm I must not be taking things so deeply anymore. More importantly, we are evolving and learning. Let's try another one ....

Still not sure about the hairstyle. Kinda "in your face" for me. Colour's great. I think I liked subtle and sexy better so maybe back to my usual hairdresser at Head over Heels. Will keep experimenting with styling but fortunately hair grows back. Really unsettled about hair which is strange.

Parents here = good for many reasons. not so good for others. Being a hybrid culture person now with 2 feet in 2 boats can lead to decisional confusions. Cleaning/packing = still painful. Apt no sale = angsty & wearying. Maybe later.

Definitely pub Friday. I miss my dog. I also miss companionship.

falsedan - layers

Christmas decorations are up in London: Oxford St is a discothèque of flashing lights, while Shepherds Bush has small (live) tannenbaums attached to the streetlights.

Dug out my foul-weather jacket since the cold and wind tag-team is very effective. I am up to 3.5 layers: hard shell, hoodie, t-shirt + naturally insulating layer of hair. I'm missing my jumper, hi Tancred & Evelyn.

First interview tomorrow at Tower Hill, not nervous about it yet.

EC - The food. My God, the food!

A much happier Monday this week. Started off a bit weak since we needed to get up at 5:30 or so. Of course that was to show up for the first climb onto the Harbour Bridge which was just spectacular. Weather was perfect and it was a lot more fun than I expected. Essentially my (mini) Uncle Michael is leaving for Canada (Vancouver of all places) for an extended stay so we had a family farewell on the Harbour Bridge. No - no pushing was involved.

This was followed by a nice Yum Cha at the place at the top of Market City. The place has opened up again and the service has improved vastly. Food has and still is good. This was followed by a quick session at Galaxy World where Chuppa Chups were won. Yay!

Nap later, we had a mun yit for my cousin who's had their third kid so celebration was done via a 10 course meal - Chinese style. Much eating was done - epecially since our table was under attended as compared to everyone elses. One observation made was that our table without rugrats running around. Hmm.

Hurray, the sun came out

Lovely weekend after all because the sun came out. Orange grove markets to pick up some sourdough bread, nectarines and goats cheese; Then had a picnic on the Sunday at Wentworth Falls Lake with some friends I haven't seen in ages. One person has given up being a vegetarian because it became all too hard when she was diagnosed as gluten intolerant as well as being a diabetic vego.

Jen - Zonked before midday

Long time, no see, Hive One Sentence Journal. I'll try to post some updates soon. However, today is not the day. It's not even midday and I'm completely zonked. What a morning! Oh, the screaming and the clinging and the crawling whilst screaming and the wet pants and the toilet refusals and the screaming. Did I mention the screaming?

Plus I feel terrible because I locked Atti in the lounge room while I put Elora to bed - he's worked out how to open the safety gate at the top of the stairs. Oh no!

Anna : Cinema Very Tired

A big weekend, cooking up a storm on Saturday (still haven't cooked my Quinoa, think I might do that tonight, it's protein-tastic!) and then shooting from 8.30am to 10.30pm on Sunday. A highly successful shoot but it has left me a shell filled only with mediocre wordplay!

Shoshe: Backlog + swamped

More-or-less finished reading the 60 page paper on elasticity in the Earth's interior by the time of the seminar this past Wednesday. Still haven't finished the problem set that was due two weeks ago yesterday, but about half the class is with me on that. Finished the mineralogy lab from 2 weeks ago; still have to finish last week's and this week's (tomorrow arvo after Ratatouille?). 28 papers to grade this weekend, plus I'll have to assign letter grades for the 30 papers my graders are grading so I can give the essays back to the students on Wednesday. And I'm giving my third lecture (this one's on the International Space Station and Ares/Orion) on Wednesday...hopefully I'll be given slides for that one. And we're going to an Arlo Guthrie concert on Tuesday night.

Becstarr : Digging through braindumps

Spending hours digging through braindumps. Everything feels like it takes a very very very long time because it's not just a case of doing it, it's remembering how to do it.

Pub: Talked with G&A about the wiki conference in Egypt in 2008. Let's go!!!

falsedan - sorry, you're not my type

Got my first job rejection today—it's a step up from sending out heaps of CVs and never ever getting any reply.

Grr London job culture… "If you have not heard anything by the 21st of December then you have been unsuccessful on this occasion."

Dan - day off

Took a day of work to recover and de-stress. Mostly sat around. Tried to nap, but Atticus decided it'd be more fun to jump up and down on top of me. Looks like Good Fruit season is starting again - strawberries and cherries and apricots are starting to get cheaper.

Not much happening..

Bored at work, suffering prospective Cabin Fever for the weekend. I know we need the rain, but I'm sick of being indoors!

Shoshe: Righty-o then

So apparently the reason that my geomorphology prof is so into plate tectonics is that he invented it (pdf).

It's an awesome class, by the way. I've missed it a few times 'cause it's at 9am and I'm not taking it for credit, but the lectures are great. He make excellent use of PowerPoint, which I find really impressive, especially for a guy who's about to retire!

Anna : Desk, Sweet Desk

Taken a few more steps this week to make my temporary desk my actual desk. Printed out a copy of this to stare at and brought in my Andy Warhol / Marilyn Monroe cup to hold my pencils. Oooh and a fork, ICT seems to have lost all of its forks.

Becstarr : Hula hula dreams dreams

Big event of the day was the opening for Hula Dreams II out at Clovelly, which J has two works in (Sheik Uke Al-Hilaly and Martin Uke, which sold on the night). The opening went well and my mum met J's mum and Jess met Zoe- not that anyone really got a chance to talk; too much ukelele playing going on!

Had a small family dinner with Jess, Mum and Dad after. 4 is actually a very civilised number for a dinner - everyone can be in on the same conversation easily. :)

YL - red hair at last!

Lousy week until I settled into what turned into a long hair appointment at Bedrock, Newtown. 1-6pm. Yikes. Trimmed, cut, bleached and coloured. There's nothing like 5hrs of sitting still, drinking tea and doing nothing to lift one's moods.

I now have deep cherry red/brown hair with streaks of bright engine red & 1 gorgeous bit of deep fushia pink. All cleverly able to be hidden when swept into a neat bun/pony tail. Hah! The hairdresser Katerina was listening when I tried to explain I had to look professional/conservative while really not being that tight laced! (except when talking about corsets - Fashion has moved on. Time to get new ones from Gallery Serpentine & House of Fetish in the near future.)

Evolution baby yeah. It's a steep learning curve.

Now to see the look on my parents & grandma's face when I pick them up later tonight. lol.

Shoshe: It's snowing!

It's just a flurry, and you have to go outside to see it (you can't really see it through the window), but it's snowing!

It's 38 degrees out, and tonight it's going down to 25. Fahrenheit. I think we're just not going to translate that into real units 'cause it'd be too scary.

Now you can see it out the window! It's not sticking to the ground yet though.

We need to buy snowboots.

falsedan - mo' money mo' problems

Successful budgeting has left me with lots of food I didn't eat, so this week's food budget is now a £15 fun fund. I am resisting blowing it all at the chippie.

YL - rain, blood and babies

Today started out poorly with me venturing out into the sudden outpouring of rain with no umbrella. Realising I had no mobile phone (which I needed in case my real estate agent called me), I got off the bus at Fisher Library and proceeded to get even more wet while trying to get back home.

Needless to say, no action on the apt sale front that I know of. Sigh. Auction is on Sat though.

After feeling out of place on the labour ward, we did end up delivering 2 babies by caesarean between 4-10pm. That was kind of sweet in a sad broken way. In those few moments, women who had loving partners and who were having babies. Captured moment of bliss. Sure there may be many other problems beyond that moment. But I suddenly felt like it was a moment I'd never experience - loving partners & having babies. Deeper sigh. Now that makes me cry.

Anna : Getting better at getting off the floor

New gym program with "Extra Pushup Action" is totally working. First set of pushups no longer feels like death. Just don't ask me about the following sets.

EC - The blood - oh my god, the blood

So was walking home through Vic park late last night because I figured I'd have less distractions to finish essays in the office and I get approached by two kids waving a Coke bottle around telling me to give them my laptop. I obviously told them to go to to hell - especially when one of them didn't look older than 12. Anyway they told me to look behind me twice with nothing there before two more came around trying to intimidate me with numbers - again age no older than 15 in the four of them.

I try scaring them off myself with a few empty kicks since I really didn't see these guys as a threat and they were just kids beforeI find myself grounded from a Coke bottle thrown to my head. I was obviously bleeding but I got up and told them to bring it on. I have to wonder what I looked like getting up from what must have been a nastily split lip and a bleeding nose and still telling them to come again. Anyway they threw the bottle again and missed. I went to pick it up and walked away. Shouting was done and I went home.

I was bleeding something savage but figured - well a split lip - nothing to worry about. Come home and Kim freaks and I look in the mirror and see yeah, I should probably get that seen to. A taxi later am in the RPA waiting room... waiting. 5 hours later I'm stitched up and home again.

And the worse thing? The 5 hours in the waiting room I was forced to watch old sitcom after old sitcom interspersed with the Shopping Channel trying to convince me Air Supply was good.

falsedan - boom bang bang bang bang crack bang

Everyone is letting off fireworks as soon as it gets dark and it gets dark pretty early around here. It sounds like a war zone (except for the magnesium sprays *pppffzztssstzszssssscchchchchchch*)

Becstarr : Belatedly houseproud

First day of LMS not as bad as I thought it would be!
Walked home to Newtown to clean the place up prior to its first inspection as it goes back on the market (Wed pm if you're interested). Once it was clean, I belatedly fell in love with it again. It's been a wonderful little place.... I'm sure I'm going to miss the privilege of having such privacy and independence. No ties has its pluses.

inner city urbanite

Busy day. Had a nice dinner at newtown thai 2, before heading to the australian surf movie festival at manning. Haven't been to manning for donkey's years! The films were a bit of a letdown, with shaky home footage of 80s surf comps. The footage of surfing near port arthur was more interesting, with the guy being towed out by jetski, and taking a bit of a tumble at one point falling down the wave.

Becstarr : Nuh-uh!

Spent a large part of the day trying to finish project work and hitting stupid obstacles (Audacity losing LameLib, etc). Resolved once again not to let a project get to the "I should definitely work on this on Sunday" stage. I thought that ended once I finished uni and essays!

Dan: battling hordes of midgets

We had all the nieces and nephews around today, so there was running and squealing and playstation. Battled the ants that have decided that it's nicer inside than outside in the rain. Changed the TV input arrangement for the first time in years, promoting the computer to AV1 in recognition of its sterling service (everything else shares AV2).

falsedan - witness protection program

Went to Michael's & Megan's on the 1st; drank all their expensive champagne, missed the last train so spent the night on the couch they found on the street the other day. It's a very comfortable couch. Also I was asked (and accepted) to be the witness at their wedding next month.

By the time we woke up on Friday there was an O.C. marathon showing—Latvia doesn't get The O.C. so we stuck around all afternoon while I revealed that you could tell which season an episode was from by the presentation of Peter Gallagher's eyebrows.

Woke up on Saturday to cook teriyaki tofu and watch Thunderball. Went to the dodgiest cleanest bar on Goldhawk Road and drank Amaretto.

Yesterday was the 50 year anniversary of Laika's last day on Earth :sad face:

Becstarr : Endings and newthings

Last day of projects. Brain MIA. J off to sign papers with Cath at lunchtime. Yen Li brought a friend to the D&S. Went to see the lovely Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set at the Seymour in the evening. Big day.

David - Halloween Shenanigans R Us

Took some time out of the political bunfight that I am in the midst of right now and wandered around NY on Halloween night. There is a massive parade through the Village with a bunch of people dressed up to the nines. Kinda like a straight version of the Mardi Gras. Seeing thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers wearing their freak on the outside is a hell of an experience. Some highlights;
- chap in a flasher costume - what is a flasher costume you say? A man wearing a full body stocking with an enormous fake nob! (titter)
- a six foot two black man with a beard wearing a Wonder Woman outfit (double take and then some)
- more Darth Vader and Stormtoopers than you can poke a lightsaber at
- and a personal highlight - enough sailors to swab the deck of an aircraft carrier

Becstarr : yAY ErkoBeserko~

Went to check out Erko Beserko, the Erskineville PS fair. There was plenty of music and small children bopping unselfconsciously, and the general enjoyable chaos of a big jumble of people. We drank homemade cumquat cordial for $1 a large cup (bamboo recyclable, if you please!) and ate homemade vietnamese rice-paper rolls in the Devonshire tea area. Ran into ex-flattie and brother-in-sin Luke, back from London and hanging out with his Dad. Bought parsley, pansies and beautiful native violets that the kids had made pots for. Wandered home past a moving sale, where we scored a big truck with horse carrier for Elroy (J's nephew)'s Xmas present.

YL - pub, beer, communist porn

Interesting week. So this is what it's like to have a normal social life. Evolution & progression is interesting and positive. Or as Bec would say ... it's "positive progression propagatational proposals".

And while we contemplate the magnitude of "Red&Blue Productions", I offer you Porn=Communism as fodder for our Communist Porn production plans. Eg. Naked girls climbing over giant missiles in another parade extravaganza for Kim Jong-il. "He didn't come, he didn't come!" (Quote from documentary on North Korea.)

Dan - weekly update

Did too much work this week; Wednesday went and saw 30 days and 30 nights and Daywatch with Dave & Nick & Paul & Brian (from Jens work) and Brian's friend. Got home late and spent the rest of the week tired. Gave a presentation at the eResearch Forum. Gave out PDAs for PDA project friday. Got to sleep in today, which was absolutely delightful. Now it's a day of hanging round with kids who will get progressively crankier about being stuck inside (Atty is currently systematically squashing his sister, Elora has mastered crawling and is working hard on cruising, and Dante is trying to break the world record for TV watched in a single day.

Evelyn - Damn German Germs

I forgot to mention - when Christina and Peter left, they left behind some kind of nasty German cold. Second day off work - still feeling miserable!

Anna : Beach experiment ... failed

The "Beach Before Work" plan this morning was a bit of a bust ... weather poor, water still too cold to swim, hangover smoothie seemed to suck my will to live and the bus trip back took 30 minutes longer than expected so I was late to work. That plus a heavy week at the gym makes a convincing argument to spend tomorrow in bed.

Becstarr : Wrapping

Finishing touches on cases. Avoiding looking at the wrap-up for my other project (maybe tomorrow?). LMS planning meeting, more calendaring (I take over on Monday). Only just made it to 5, to be picked up by Dave and whisked off to the magical land of Haberfield babysitting and Henrietta the Great Go-Getter, then Vietnamese dinner and planning moving.

falsedan - happy birthday

Woken up by cake and tickets to see Amon Tobin on the 15th and a jar of crunchy peanut butter… winning combination!

Anna : Good Work

Big gym week, trying out new program (with a focus on working the backs of my shoulders to try and stop the clicks that have started happening over the last few weeks), 2 hard sessions at boxing and some yoga. Taking the evening off to go home, do some cleaning, lounge about the house and do some reading. Blog worthy? Eh :P

Gone bush

Am in Wagga for work. Nice town. Long drive down this way (took the inland road through Cowra and Young), and it hasn't rained since I was last here in May. Everything is very dry, crispy and brown. Patterson's Curse is flourishing. My meeting went well.

Becstarr : A spring in my step

Went to a workshop / focus group to help the City of Sydney council and UNSW's Faculty of the Built Environment plan their next Watershed workshop series, and build an education tool for other local councils. It was a great evening! Brainstorming and discussing with a bunch of other people with similar questions and priorities was an unexpected amount of fun.

Anna : Dress Stress

Have worn my new dress to work today and already have "dress stress". Taking deep breaths and trying to chill ...



In other news, finished Anne of Green Gables last night. What a fantastic book! I highly recommend the Librivox audio recording, I think it was this one.

Evelyn - visitors :)

Christina and Peter are visiting! And despite Peter's awful cold, he's keeping up tourist-wise admirably.

Shoshe: Still here

I went to Spirit and Opportunity's second (Mars year) birthday party! :) It was very cool. We had carrot cake, cider and champagne, and the folks at JPL had cake and organic milk (apparently they weren't allowed to have alcohol). The rovers didn't get anything special for their birthdays as far as I know, but one of the models in the MER conference room had an "I am 2" badge, which was very cute.

Our friend Owen from Sydney visited us this weekend, which was awesome. My parents were up to, for my mom's art opening in a "nearby" town (2 hours away). On Saturday we went to my classmate's pumpkin carving party, and Owen carved his first pumpkin. B's becoming a pumpkin carving pro :) I finished grading my students' papers over the weekend, but didn't get any other work done :(

And on Friday night, we watched Stephen Colbert perform live.

Anna : Working Through An Energy Crash

Having trouble getting stuff done at work today. Sending off mail but no one replies. Going to have to work on getting over my phone fear and start ringing people I think.

Procrastination of course is it's own reward. Flickr account back up and running and now hosting some great stills from the shoot on the weekend.

Big news of the day of course is that the beach water temp has hit 20 degrees! Sounds like it's time to reinstate pre-work swims!

Today I remembered about this blog and finally caught up on some (but not all) pressing internet-work.

Shannon: Halloween weekend fun

Dancing on Friday at Sanctuary was awesome. Then 3:00am bacon and eggs followed by a nice sleep in. Unfortunately our friends' two year old daughter's birthday party, followed by exhaustion and rain combined to make us pike on the Parade of Lost Souls this year, so we stayed home and learnt how to play Halo 3 online. Sunday was a good "catching up on shit day". Built a bookcase, wrote some cards and emails, made my first beef bourguinone and tidied up a bit.

Kit: Saddle Weary

Went up to Barrington River over the weekend for white water kayaking. 0.45m water level, grade 1-2 rapids. 17km in 7 hours on the first day - as a result of many beachings on top of rocks, and feeble struggles to get off them. 7km in 4 hours on the 2nd day. I have 'saddle sores' from sitting down for so long. Cannot believe how tired I was on Saturday night (I haven't been so in the past) - is 8.45 pm an acceptable time to go to bed?

Anna : aannnnddd action!

A weekend of filming! First film since "Hamlet : The Game Show" in 2003, "Hide & Seek" is the tale of a girl playing hide and seek with herself starring Nicole as "The Girl" (I think I may call her "Maya" in the credits). The whole weekend went really well, a few mini emergencies, a late start compounded by the start of daylight savings and lots of watching the sky for rain that never came. The footage is looking awesome and I'm feeling re-enthused about film making!

falsedan - watch your step

Went to the Tate Modern last night to look at the crack, watched Meshes of the Afternoon again, then stayed in the shop until closing time. Spent all of Aija's money on beer at riverside pubs—one of the places has Cooper's Green!

YL - interesting weeks

Well some weeks are more or less the daily grind towards a far flung goal. Other weeks are puntuated by interesting events that cause you to think and evolve as a person.

The last 2 weeks have been interesting. I was pleased to turn 30. It was wonderful to be able to share that time in your life when you feel that things are going well and that you are finally yourself again with friends. I havent seen the actual present yet guys, but how can it not be awesome? It's bunnies!

Conversation at the pub on Fri with SJ and Bec always enlightening. =) There is just so much life experience in this group that we have here!

Becstarr : Blobbers

Inspired by Jen's post a while ago, tried to make potato stamps of jellyfish. They were LAME! I might have to get Atticus to show me how it's done.

Also big family brunch out at Epping to farewell Rach, who by now must be in Africa!

Jaime - Partying down

Went out last night to Halloween at Sanctuary last night. Danced for 4 hours. Apparently "Smells like Teen Spirit" was the song of this generation in Vancouver as the whole place exploded with furious dancing and moshing. I'll post pics and video on flickr and daily motion later on (full blog to follow).

Dan: Thundering Gherkins

Not much to report - work, eat, sleep. Kids are doing well, though they had a cranky day. We went to Rozelle Markets with my mum. Shops in Rozelle close to early. Busy work-week - lots of meetings and planning; did some hiring; pondering applying for this.

Becstarr : Felled over

Ordered a Greek salad for breakfast (?) and then almost cried because I couldn't eat it. Realised I had the sookiness that comes with being sick. Cried off attending the Mountains trip (good move!) and stayed home pirating J's broadband. Surfed lots and had a lovely chat to flatmate Sarah in the evening. Highlight of the day: Zoe's moving into the Redfern house asap to escape dodgy coneheads. Less house-hunting is a good thing. Hurrah!

Becstarr: Fullmoonfulldayfullnight

Building, building, building cases all day - apart from when getting video-Skype to work on our new lappies with Ross. A must when siblings are off OS as of Sunday!

After work with SJ and Yen Li, we found the D&S was awash with the cries of "down, down, down!" and crowded full of end-of-year-ing ugrads (I couldn't place where from though; maybe Architecture?). Walked with SJ up to Newtown to find Joel entertaining Matt of Ulladulla (up for tomorrow's regatta) at a tree-shadowed table in the Courtie front yard. Doy Tao for dinner and a full-moon walk home to Redfern.

Becstarr : One house comes, one house goes

New MacBookPro powerpack blew and disk started failing.
Put project hours in, with much grunting (they were very heavy).
Confirmed move date with Dave and Karinne, and gave notice on my flat!
Went to see Zoe's club night on Oxford St and ran into Joel's ex Cath, who I met for the first time. Always a little unnerving, but it went OK.

All up, a very big day.

falsedan - the heat is on

After two weeks of winter pyjamas, London has turned on its central heating so I am thinking of switching back to summer PJs.

dun nuh nah nuh nuh, dah nuh nuh nah nuh

It's just like tv ..

You know that scene from Black Books where Bernard and Manny drink the bottle of very expensive wine, and the value in amount poured scrolls up on the screen?

Becstarr : The fear of hours

Project manager returned from overseas and my hours (project "timesheets") are due and alas, alack, I am sorely behind, and duly castigated.

After worked, cooked pikelets with grated apple (from the current "2+5" campaign) and thought about entirely different things! Also taught J about Creative Commons searching on Flickr.

Becstarr : Setup

Meeting with Nutrition folks-- rolling along at a good speed now. Spent some time moving gigs of data over so my new laptop is now my primary work computer. I have 30GB left out of 150GB, so I may have to start some serious archiving soon!

Swam some laps with J after work, then dinner at Correlli's with Jess and Rach. Rach is fully vaccinated and packing pens and pencils for her 3 weeks in the African orphanage / school. Hard to believe!!

3 x Duck & Disappointing Play

I've had duck in a meal for three days in a row by accident. YL's party with peking duck in pancakes, sang choy bow and the duck noodles on Saturday night. A sampled wholemeal duck pancake from the Dank St Festival on Sunday, and Duck Pizza from the Australian Hotel. Dinner tonight? Not duck!

Went to see Riflemind". Sold out season, only standing room tickets available on the night. Hugo Weaving as the lead character; Jeremy Sims & Susie Porter also. I couldn't put it any better than the little old lady sitting next to me, when I heard her say during intermission:"If I were on my own, I'd go home. It's rubbish theatre." I found the characters intensely annoying and disagreeable, and only saw that there could be a human side to "John" (Hugo Weaving) at two points in the piece.

Anna : Work, gym, sleep, gym ...

Good day at work then off to boxing. After two very hard sessions last week we had a more managable session last night ( Joe looked like death at the end of it so he may disagree ). Finished the session off with some crouching, working on undoing years of rowing induced shortening of the hamstrings and perfecting my sq'wahtting technique so that I can fully enjoy the drugs that Bec assures me are located in the thighs! Yoga this morning with more hamstring stretching and more sq'waht, working moving the tension from my knees back into my butt where it should be.

Who wants short shorts? I WANT short shorts!

Becstarr : Catching up

Outpatient cases finally coming together (diabetes, coeliac, hypercholesterolaemia, cardiac). Next up: inpatients, starting with an ICU tube feed!

Overall, a quiet day, but with lots of small catchups and calendarings with people. Starting firming up a move date, and checking out tickets, visas and vaccinations for Central America.

Anna : Back at work

Two days feeling like I had been run over followed by two days of solid napping and I feel human enough to make it to work. Hooray?

Becstarr : Sunny Sunday slowdown

Hung out in the garden with all the star jasmine out. Walked to the Danks St Festival (nice food, g*d-awful jazz fusion music, excellent kids' activities). Went swimming. Ate banana pancakes from the local Vietnamese fruit store for dessert.

The week's highlights;

1) I was informed by a student that Kate used to have a penis.

2) A student asked me where chickens come from, but not in the chicken and egg sense. She had no idea what evolution was. I don't think she really got what I was explaining, but when I also explained Creationism she thought that was complete rubbish.

Moving & Celebrations

I was late for the removalists, and my poor flatmate had to interrupt his Saturday morning sleep-in to let them get started. Moved. Then got all dressed up to celebrate Yen-li's 29+ birthday. Happy birthday 'Big Sis'! Note to Hive: Iggy Pop's "Wild Child" is a good karaoke song to start with, because no singing is actually involved.

Jen - Yummy dinner

Grandma came over for lunch and the afternoon, to the boys' delight and the girl's trepidation. Bec came later to babysit and Dan and I went to Yen Li's dinner. Delicious! Thanks, YL, for a lovely evening.

Also, Elora finally worked out crawling forwards, and we discovered two more teeth up the top!

Becstarr : The wheel of feasting

Yen Li's birthday feast was on in style at a laaaaarge table at the Marigold, with a giant lazy susan, two Peking ducks, and many dishes. Squid, jellies, fish, piggies, beef, steamed chicken in lotus leaves, shitaake mushrooms, bamboo membranes... you name it! The other hit of the night was Elora, who was very charming and put up with being dandled / flown / etc around the entire table.

Karaoke after helped tamp it all down, though I couldn't manage to join the King St drinking procession that was being planned. Looking forward to hearing how it went! Thanks YL for a lovely evening. :)

falsedan - it's sunny here

Back in the lands of the living; no longer pale as a ghast, sweating & falling asleep when I sit down. Ate a proper fry-up for lunch, watched some of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (confusing since I started in the middle), went to the pub—still on antibiotic so enjoyed some refreshing whiskey and lemonades.

Jen - Visiting next door

Spent most of the day next door - my mother had a visitor so we hung around, too (eating the yummy lemon syrup cake she made). Elora turned 8 months today.

Evelyn - cat sitting

We're minding two lovely cats while our friend gets her apartment sorted - one is a huge fluffy ragdoll who loves having his belly rubbed; the other is a tiny bengal cat who loves hiding under the sofa or on top of the cupboard - and walking on you in the middle of the night.

Dan - all work and no play

Worky worky week is wearing me out after the previous fortnight's relaxation. Played with iChat (so I can be present at a fortnightly meeting from my desk rather than in person); we got a 4 way chat going. Did the "write down all the things I need to do today and only work on those" thing, and actually got through a lot of urgent work. Quite surprised.

Happy 29++, Yen Li.

Becstarr : Solid work

Big meeting all morning to calendar 2008 for the 18 people of my workgroup, but managed solid work work work afternoon (cholesterol and diabetes cases) and evening (time-coding bioethics seminar recordings). Drinking lots of chamomile tea. Working on staying calm and focused.

Jen - The week just disappeared

Where did the week go? Thought I'd only missed a day or two but turns out it's almost a week. Having trouble remembering the earlier part of the week.

Saturday: Made potato stamps and the kids did some painting. Had a picnic lunch in the backyard.

Sunday: Taught Dante how to wash the car. Roast pork for dinner.

Monday: First day back at school and work for the D's. Hung around with Atti and Elora. Picked up Dante and co. from school and took them to gymnastics.

Tuesday: Hot, hot, hot. Hid out from the sun's rays and cursed the upstairs of my house yet again (until the southerly came through).

Wednesday: Took Atti and Elora to the paediatrician. (All's well.) Went to Ikea and a cool fabric shop in the arvo with my mother (didn't buy anything!). Took D to piano, picked up A - Dan went out for a movie after work. Happy birthday Jaime!

Thursday: Babysat my nieces this morning. Went grocery shopping this afternoon. Bought $100 worth of nappies. (Half of it for my brother!!) Happy birthday Yen Li!

falsedan - inventory

> INVENTORY

You have:
no job
no house
a screaming case of tonsillitis
antibiotics

> USE ANITBIOTICS ON SCREAMING CASE OF TONSILLITIS

OK

> SLEEP

Sweet dreams!

Shannon - Sooo tired

I was so tired yesterday and managed to wind up over an hour late for work. Even though it was a hard slog during the day, I still somehow made my pilates class. Thank goodness class is literally on the way from my office to the bus-stop, as the dark, cold, rainy days have set in and staying home near the proverbial hearth is the smart thing to do.

Becstarr : Yoga or swimming or something

Burst into tears at work at one point today. Think I may need some extra yoga or swimming or something. Babysat Aidan (2) and Alana (almost 5) with Dave in the evening out at Haberfield. Had a lot of fun with storytime, and got to debrief with Dave as well as have a read of Alana's last Christmas present from D: "Henrietta - there's no-one better". I definitely need a copy!

Anna : Arms Like Uncooked Spaghetti

Soreness from Monday punch-fest has kicked in and my arms won't move. Talked to Nicole last night and she's up for being in my film so I'm on track for filming at the end of October. Oh yeah, and I accidentally joined Facebook. Most people seem to be going for a profile picture that captures that ingenue / it girl look, so I decided to go for something different.

Becstarr : The crunch is telling

Feeling increasingly stressed about getting projects done on time. Talked to Ross about the LMS handover in about 10 days. Team meeting where we got told our working group reports would be considered after the planning meetings. Up-side (I think) of the day: our new computers were released, and I now have a half-set-up MacBookPro.

Saw Electroma, I highly recommend it - very roboty.

Becstarr : Tablecloth-sized bread

Spent what felt like far too much time editing a dodgy doctor's name out of a recording from a very interesting session from the bioethics seminar. It will be a great resource, if we get permission to put it up, but man, sound editing is teh suxx0r! Stupid defamation laws. I think people (and corporations) have way too much protection.

After work: Combat, then tablecloth-sized Leb bread & tabbouli wraps, and some Bro'town. I can't believe I like it so much when a few weeks ago I could barely understand what they were saying!

Kit: Definitely no geek here, no sir-ree

Got a new laptop with a digital tv tuner. wondered why I couldn't pick up any tv signals even when I scanned twice. Then realised I had plugged the aerial cord into the power supply input.

Ben - Back again

Holidays over. Did very little - stayed with family, came home, did a little swimming, tidied up around the garden. Those of you with kids, don't get divorced; it'll really ruin your kids' holiday plans to have to visit both of you.

Anyway, back at Uni and planning for second prac. Should be fun.

Anna : Busy Weekend

Friday : Kate's "Toy Box" Party in the Blue Mountains. Guy went as "Blind Pew" the Pirate with two eye patches, I went as a very dready troll doll. Lot's of dancing in the kitchen to freestylin' guitar and talking to "Kate's Party" Stephen who I only see once a year. Highlight of the evening? Random B.M person drunkenly gushing about how beautiful Guy and I were.

Saturday : First hangover in months, they are just as bad as I remember them, and Belgium Waffles for breakfast. Then back to the city to pull ourselves together and put in an appearance at Leon's 1920s party. MORE dancing, this time to supermergatroid swing beats. Highlight of the evening? Leon's tux, complete with gorgeous white stripey waistcoat, care of the David Jones Formal Wear department.

Sunday : Half hearted cleaning, film organisation and Playstation. Free vegan indian treats from Claudette downstairs as thanks for letting her store stuff in our fridge the night before and lots of searching the web for classy dames for FD's SB buddies. Highlight of the evening? Apparently one of the SB buddies had never encounted Louise Brooks and now he's in love. Silent Film Brunettes REPRESENT!

Becstarr : Maple muesli and roo burgers

Left J in peace to cartoon and wandered home to toast muesli with maple syrup. Roo burgers and strawberry icecream for dinner, along with the new ABC show The Abbey-- good stuff!

Yen Li - Rome, ObGyn, On Sale Now!

Rome - was the awesome. Was just amazing. Grandma in wheelchair = no need to queue for the Vatican at from 7am to get in at 10am. Completely by accident. She had a blast. Mahjong and chinese dinner every night. Being pushed around by loving granddaughter & up steep hills. And museum folk very accomodating and extra helpful letting us through special doors and up lifts. Viva Roma! However, traffic = insane & unsafe. Look 4 ways before crossing.

ObGyn - 8 weeks to go. Looks interesting. 7.30am starts not interesting. But grateful they are at RPA and not (for example) out at Westmead. Happy that it is 8 weeks to go! Almost almost ALMOST done with medicine degree. The Grind Part 1 is almost over. Realisation that my first full time job is at age 30. Eeeeep! And I have to be responsible, ethical, upright, moral, effecient and polite. Crap. But ok I get money for it. =) lol.

On Sale! - If you know anyone interested in a 3BR 2.5Bathroom 2 Car space apartment, let me know! I will send you the property link. Lol. After weeks of deprived sleep and packing & sorting & lifting, new carpets, fixed windows, praying for gorgeous weather, painted walls and display furniture ... viola! a gorgeous apartment is now ready for sale. Today was the first day of pre-liminary viewings (with only mailing list advertising) and we got 2 groups who were interested & could afford! Prospects are looking good at this early stage. Hope for more good buyers next week. For Auction.

Evelyn - Cycling

We cycled out to Tancred's work and back - about five hours in total. Stopping for Ice-cream, and wild blackberry picking.

Becstarr : Househunting in a feral market

OK, I'm being overly dramatic. It's not quite a feral market for househunting, it's just that (a) it's now painfully expensive and (b) I've always, always hated househunting. Looked at 3 places, confirmed that taking over Dave's Newtown lease is waaaay the best option. Hoping to move around late November, and already making cooking plans (green mangoes!) with Lady K, flatmate-to-be.

falsedan - ill communication

Still sick—I have a weird lump on the back of my head which is causing me concern. Aija is smuggling me care packages from work: pies, cans of Solo, Violet Crumbles.

Jen - Last day of the holidays

(Not including the weekend). Cooked french toast for breakfast to use up the loaf which Atti squashed earlier in the week. Crashed out on the couch and then went for a nap in bed. Had a lovely visit from Auntie Bec in the afternoon. The boys adore her but Elora was terrified. I think she's going through that "stranger danger" phase. Stir-fry and chicken & sweet corn soup for dinner. Now trying to get Elora to sleep. Perhaps she's still a bit frazzled from earlier??

Becstarr : A slow girding

No boxing or pub in the end-- instead, went home and started learning (South American) Spanish! Señorita Cyn has lent me a CD to this end. While I don't think I'm likely to ask to go windsurfing any time soon, it does provide for lots of helpful rrrrepetition.... especially of the lovely rrrolling r's.

Big Day Out is GO!

So after missing out on tickets to Rage Against the Machine and predicting the quickness Big Day Out Sydney sold out on, Kim and I resolved to go down to Melbourne for this year's show.

Discussed this with Nick and similarly he was planning on going to the Gold Coast show. His experience was a bit past 12 and he had some problems logging onto the site but not too many.

As such I waited until Friday officially ticked over and logged on. No problems whatsoever and was still considering picking up my full ticket allotment of 4 though I only needed 2. Decided against it in the end since it really wasn't the ethical thing to do.

Anyway, got my confirmation at 3 this morning so am good to go (barring plane tickets). Just looked and even the Melbourne show's sold out already so yeah for staying up past my bedtime!

falsedan - fully sick

Went to a farewell last night for a couple of the girls who live at the hostel. My first time in a Walkabout! My beard got lots of attention (from drunken Australian males)—I explained to Aija that girls in AU don't overly care for beards.

Saw Control: Ian Curtis was a doofus >:|

Jen - Peaceful Thursday

Atti at child care, Dante out with his cousins, Elora slept for three hours in the middle of the day. Bliss! Then, managed to get all the kids to bed before 9pm. Hopefully we're getting back to our old routine.

Becstarr : Pennywort salad

A day of minor but accumulating frustrations and hold-ups. Luckily, after work things picked up, with goat curry and pennywort salad at the monthly family dinner, this time at Burmese restaurant Bagan (Strathfield).

Anna : Thank you for not killing me Mr. Lion

Good day at work today I think, starting to get the right tone in the weekly meeting with the boss, got to report on lots of completed projects and may be able to jump into something and help Library IT get a thorn pulled out of their paw. There was a project manager involved in that fable right?

Becstarr : Team play takes coordination

Spent most of today re-orienting myself in a site which I'd handed over to someone else to work on at the end of last semester. Realised that sometimes (often) handing tasks over, when I'm going to need to take it over again later, doesn't really save me work. Probably this would be less the case if I was working in a system less obfuscating than WebCT-- it's like working blind most of the time.

Jen - No Atti today

Sent Atti to childcare. Spent way too much money at Ikea but did get a wodge of groovy fabric. Also, put the finishing touches on the cardigan. It's completely done and ready to wear! Yippee!

Dan - rampant consumerism

Slept in, got Atty to school late. Went to Ikea, bought too much stuff (frames, hand puppets, shelves, giant bugs, kitchen stuff, etc.) Dropped off Dante for a sleepover with his cousins. Played with test 3G phone.

Anna : Zing!

Feeling (literally) whacked today after a pump session yesterday afternoon and had to give back keyboard and mouse so they could go back with lease equipment and left using the keyboard and track pad on laptop which seems to have reduced productivity by *cough* percent.

Solution? My first coffee in over a month.
Result? The caffeine is hitting me hard, like a hammer wielded by a humming bird. Concentration, slightly increased, focus, spread thin as I jump from unfinished tought to unfinished email to unfinished ITSM job and back again. And I have a feeling I'm going to crash just before my meeting with the boss ... meep! WHAT HAVE I DONE!

Shoo Blowfly Shoo

Went for a walk around the paddock at lunchtime on a warmish spring day. Discovered that blowflys would land on white shirts, and dark blue shirts; but did not like red shirts.

falsedan

Feel sick with maybe some kind of flu, washed my hair for the first time in 4 months (barring the two times I had haircuts).

Shannon - The Long Weekend Draws to a Close

So this Thanksgiving weekend not only served up a delicious roast chicken dinner (followed by pavlova) but a chance to get some serious sleeping-in done, our discovering that Old Navy is awesome, and us finally catching up on some movies - Eastern Promises is great if you can sit through the brutality, and 3:10 to Yuma is officially my favourite film of the year; See it!!!

Becstarr : Ashtang-ouch-ya

Dave's on evening yoga classes while in school holidays, so I was invited to come along to "the best yoga in the world". Having heard a lot about these classes over the last year or so, I tagged along to the Dobroyd Hall, overlooking the water. It was seriously upper-body challenging-- I was at one stage invited to cross my legs and flip them through my arms. Saw some poses I'd never seen before, and realised once again that I seriously need to work on abdominal strength. Ouch! Great class though. Yoga tourism-- recommended!

Jen -Sewing and crying

Sunday: Tennis in the morning. Made a pin cushion for my sister-in-law in the afternoon. Started making some more pin cushions but got too tired so just watched some telly in the evening.

Monday: Got to sleep in a little! Entertained two nieces for a little while (wasn't hard - they just played with the boys). Played some new Singstar. Sewed together the pin cushions that I started last night.

Tuesday: Dan had to work for most of today so I didn't do much except look after the kids. Stuffed and finished the pin cushions/pyramids. Yelled at Dante too much.

Becstarr : They seek clarity

Week 11, coming up to the end of classes, and (for me) of project period (~26 Oct). Starting to pull the Bioethics stuff together, with a fair bit of student feedback coming in, which is very helpful-- it's always good to have hard data to remind people that students care first and foremost about having a clearly communicated calendar, getting to their readings easily and lecturer feedback on their tasks, well before any of the fancier stuff like pretty colours, phone voting or Flash animations.

Anna : Big Weekly Cook

Sunday was cooking day, made "Left Over Pie"*, "Chicken and Mushroom Risotto with Barley" and experimental "Prune and Seed Cake" which I then ate too much of. Anyway, Hotel Yorga now well sorted for a week of eating at home.

* A true "Left Over Pie" this week, used the last of the eggplant, last two satchels of pesto and pizza sauce, last of the lasagne sheets and the celery and capsicum that didn't get eaten at Euge's housewarming.

Becstarr : Sisters and swimming

Beat morning heavy-headedness at Cafe Julia. Revelled in the ongoing glory of my pansies in the Redfern backyard. Met up with the sisters for yet another coffee in Newtown to plan the last family dinner before Rache heads off on the 28th, first to Africa then to the UK for a year. Swam laps at NM with Joel, then cooked a korma for dinner and dreamed of making beautiful, beautiful quilts like they have on the internets.

Kit: back to old stamping grounds

Markety, market market. Went to the smh/good living growers markets on Saturday. Pretty much the same stall holders as when I last was there ~ about a year ago. Stocked up on fruit bread, venison mince, willowbrae chevre, darling mills olives. Pretty crowded and busy. Gillie's garlic had sold out by 9am. Heard one woman exclaiming on her phone "These are the best markets I've ever been to!". Um, yeah... if you haven't travelled much.

Shannon

First Saturday morning sleep-in in our new home - divine! Gonna make crepes with maple syrup for breakfast and then tackle some more unpacking.

Dan - a day at ease

Didn't do much, since I'm in vacation mode. I've been enjoying my deck chairs, and the Spring weather - warm and indecisive. Danced with Atticus and Elora, played Uno with Dante, got some Civ goin' on, and watched about a cubic metre of TV this evening.

Jen - Warm and cool

Napped, laundered, sewed, knitted, ate. Elora likes ricotta cheese. 'Twas warm and then just like that it was cool when the Southerly came through. In an instant, I tells ya!

Becstarr : Building organisms

More relaxation by cooking: Baked my first yeast-risen bread! Smelt amazing, texture good, but the taste wasn't as intense as I was after. I may need to investigate specialist flours.

Tancred - Friday wrapup

I have spent the last two days trying to master all the intricacies of MRTG and SNMP. It's going to rock when I finish setting it all up :)

800 students have moved into the halls and all their problems are now in the hands of - teh winner is me :)

The Uni is still very much a building site so students are being bussed across the city for their clasess.

Tonight Evelyn and I are off to a gallery opening - Free wine FTW!

Jen - Need sleep

Was up from a quarter to 3 till 4:20am this morning. Ack. Tired today. Dan had a meeting so left first thing but thankfully came back for lunch. Kids spent the morning outside, painting their hearts out. Atti's toilet training is going well.

Becstarr : Considering

Discussions of the uni's email systems going on on Contacts. It's been years since I posted, but I'm tempted to wade in once again...

Dan - enjoying holidays

Enjoying the not-working thing quite a bit. Working a little bit now and then; helped give a presentation to a DVC today (went well). Saw Stardust yesterday with Dante. I enjoyed it, but he was scared by all the scary bits (holding on to my hand so he could hide behind it).

Anna : No-Choc-tober Progresses

Taking a break, munching on yummy dried figs, trying to forget the taste of chocolate. Also after being woken at 5am this morning by our down stairs neighbour listening to the radio for 15 minutes I'm pondering the phrase "If you can't beat them, join them" ... I should go to the gym more ... and going to very early clases would get my gym for the day out of the way ... mmmmm figs.

Jen - One child day

Dan took Dante out for the day (and Atti was at child care again) so I just had one child today. Yippee! Fixed Atti's curtains (using rings instead of hooks). Did some fabric shopping (online and at Spotlight) and looked for a new oven.

Becstarr : The boxes are calling

Our new work computers have been delivered and it's taking all my self-control to stop myself reaching into the mountain of boxes only a metre behind me and plucking my new MacBook Pro and liberating it from its stickytape-and-cardboard prison! However, until the behemoth Archibus (asset management) has been placated with sufficient data entry, no unboxing may occur...

falsedan - woo hoo hoo

Saw the Dandy Warhols last night at the Electric Ballroom in Camden! Highlights: Godless -> Nietzsche; lowlights: pretentious London assholes, bankers chatting with their mates throughout the entire show, dude wearing a Mark of Khorne t-shirt D:

Ben - Holidaying

Been visiting relatives. More visiting relatives to do. Why do no relatives live near beach? Lousy relatives.

Also been catching up on non-uni related reading. Recommend "If a Pirate I Must Be..." by Richard Saunders, a biography of Captain Bartholomew Roberts

Jen - Staying indoors

Atti went to child care today. The rest of us stayed out of the heat as much as possible. Went to the shops in the afternoon before Dante's piano lesson. Discovered that he has head lice again. Ack!

Becstarr: Moth whirlwinds

Dinner with Dave and a big walk in Sydney Park through dusk and a whirlwind of moths. Major topic of discussion was the permeability of the "made" world to the natural world. Wei (who's from Taiwan) finds it incredibly disconcerting-- maybe in Australia, with the bogongs, spiders, the possibility of snakes in the backyard, and the often intemperate climate, we're more used to it? I like this permeability and find it reassuring, even if it is uncomfortable.

Dave is still not convinced about compost, though-- he claims due to childhood traumas. "I understand the concept that dealing with your own waste is good, but...". One day I will convince him! He also refuses to look at the worm farm. Pff.

Anna : Speaking of Moths

I noticed the moths too, one in my backyard yesterday, another tapping at my window at work. I thought to myself "Either I've been cursed by a voodoo witch doctor OR it's time for the annual Bogon Moth Plague".

In other news, it's hot. Damn hot. It's Kiss Me Kate Hot!

Kit: Theatre

Saw Sydney Theatre production of Don’s Party. Haven’t read the play or seen the movie. It was a lot of fun, and it looked like the almost-full-house enjoyed themselves.

Jen - Hordes at the movies

Took the kids to see Hairspray today. Fun film. Took my niece, nephew and their friend as well. I'm glad we don't have that many kids! Also finally made up the cardigan. Just need to sew the fabric part on and it's done. Wonder if she'll get a chance to wear it now.

Becstarr : Mothra's return

Meeting 1: The Nutrition folks to refine down the electronic medical record model we're going to use fr the case studies to train the students. Meeting 2: Fortnightly team meeting. Meeting 3: Project reporting and handover between project managers as MH leaves os for the rest of the project period. Meeting 4: Renata for a Bioethics catchup. Meeting 5: Karinne, to discuss house-hunting in Nov. Also, I am developing a growing coterie of fluttering, confused bogong moths. Hooray for moths!

I contracted a cold but beat it off in less than 24 hours with the judicious application of whiskey and tea.

Anna : Mmmmm Sushi

I've eaten FIVE sushi rolls today ... FIVE!

Yen Li - Back from Rome & more packing

Rome was more than beautiful and more than full of crazy traffic & tourists. My grandmother had a great time. After all, she had people pushing her around in her wheelchair so she didnt have to walk unless necessary, we jumped VERY long queues and the Italians were very helpful to her at the various museums/sites opening special doors & elevators. Pics to come.

For the first time in 10 years, I was reluctant to leave Singapore.

Shannon & Jaime - Moving Trip from Hell

So imagine your moving an entire apartment and your mover doesn't turn up (or call or return phone calls). Our arms are now several feet longer. But we are now in a nice apartment with a gorgeous view.

falsedan - I like Piña Coladas

Went for a walk in the rain—saw some pigeons sitting in a puddle and a cocker spaniel sneezing.

Jen - Warm sunniness

Hot today. Dante went for a sleepover at his friend Ewan's house. Atti was very upset when they left. Didn't do much else. Chores. Hung around in the backyard. Toilet training continues.

Becstarr : Wading into the grass

More rest to shake flu, which meant piking on the much-anticipated Wisemans Ferry bike ride with Anna and Karinne. Boo!

On the up-side, spent much of the day in the company of Mr Tarling in the unmown grass of Camperdown Park enjoying the shade and the sunny, windy weather.

Kit: Rushed weeked in Melbourne

Went to Melbourne for the long weekend. Visited a fantastic Moroccan
place in north Fitzroy - great food, and such a bargain. Timetabled in
a "slow food" lunch today from 1200-1300 hours, got out in 30mins, so we were ahead. Bought a frypan - surprisingly, they let me take it on as carry-on luggage.

I saw The Police and ate some amazing homemade mushroom soup - chalking today up as a win.

Jen - Pleasant day

Didn't do a whole lot today. Some chores. Had a nap. Atti had a few more accidents. Elora looks like she'll be crawling in the not too distant future. Watched the first episode of Season 4 Grey's Anatomy. Must have more. Looking forward to having Dan home for the next two weeks!

Becstarr : Filling up on Aussie history

Tried to ward off a flu with lots of rest. Watched an Aussie movie (set in the 70s? made 1990)Return Home and started watching the ABC tv film about the 1998 Patricks Stevedores / Maritime Union bust-up, Bastard Boys. The latter definitely isn't a bedtime movie-- as recent history (and all under Howard), the union-busting tactics are jaw-dropping in scale. Can't wait to see the rest.

Civ Therapy

Recovering some lost sanity after two exhausting months. Trying not to think about the seven weeks of the same ahead.

Jen - Out of sorts; Party and photos

Friday: Atti was really out of sorts today. Wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't go to the toilet. Ended up using nappies again. Cousins Jaz and Lori came over for the day and a sleepover.

Saturday: Lori's second birthday party! Also finally completed the photo books (spent a while scanning in pics). Ordered several copies for various folks. Yay for freebies!

Becstarr : rhubarb, pears, roasted tomatoes and AFL

Relaxation through cooking: poached rhubarb and pears, roasted tomatoes and pumpkins, beef and barley casserole, and a giant batch of banana and coconut muffins. Then for dinner, made pizzas (including bases). Listened to the AFL match (!) and spent plenty of time in the shady courtyard.

Shannon - One three more sleeps...

til were out of this place. Was thrilled to come home yesterday to find another brilliant blessay on Stephen Fry's Blog. They might be long posts, but they are so worth the read.

Becstarr : Long weekend ahead

Beautiful weather made it even harder to stay focused on work for the last few hours before the long weekend ahead. Lots of meeting juggling as we all remember to reschedule Monday meetings!

Jaime - Victory Not Vengenace

VNV was awesome. I'm very tired. Got 4 hours sleep. Saw Army of darkness twice yesterday, once before going out to VNV and once after. The same 55 minutes both times. Packing and more packing...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

falsedan - you have no power over me

Bought a practice contact juggling ball in Camden, so practiced my catches while I did my laundry.

Shannon - Tired.

Very tired this morning after the absolutely awesome VNV Nation show last night. There should be a rule about good shows not being scheduled mid-week - it's going to be a long day at work today.

Jen - Photo picking

Spent most of the day picking out photos and editing a photo book to give to my parents (in cooperation with my brothers), as well as choosing pics for one for Dan's mother (and one for ourselves if possible). There's a free offer going on, expiring this Saturday (email me if you want details - $39.95 worth of book for only $4.95 P&H).

Becstarr : Burn the folder structure, we don't need it anymore

Spent a chunk of the day discussing our team's communications with the working group (4 ppl all up), which is all part of the team review happening after Stephen's departure. If I could pick two things that I think would make the biggest difference, it would be (a) putting our doco in one place, accessible to users, and making it easy to edit for all team members, and (b) improving the team's search skills. If it were up to me, I'd try addressing (a) with a wiki and (b) with some training and removing the entire labyrinthine folder structure of our shared drive (-> getting ppl to stop even trying to remember where things are). I think the likelihood of either becoming reality is questionable...