Friday, November 16, 2007

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 >:|

Thursday, November 15, 2007

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.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

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!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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.

Monday, November 12, 2007

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!