Jaime - Living in a Snowglobe

We live in a snowglobe. Or at least the blizzard outside makes me think so.

Shannon - A Blizzard - For Real!

It's like one day Vancouver woke up and realised that its actually part of Canada. 20cm and another 10cm to come today! And its supposed to snow until Christmas :)

Youse are all awesome

I just wanted to say that this Hive One Sentence Journal has been a great success, thanks to all of you wonderful contributors and commenters. I am so grateful to have such a terrific bunch of friends - so supportive, caring, funny and geeky :)

Thanks, guys :)

Becstarr : Back in Black

Grinding through the last two days before closedown. Everyone is on edge and there have been a few blowups. Acca Dacca and Pump will get me through!

Jaime - C'mon

You're telling me seriously Falsedan doesn't write and draw xkcd?!

Anna : Old man 2008 is about done ...

Bring in young man 2009 I say!

Becstarr : A-carrolling

Went to the Epping Carols by Candlelight with the fam on Sunday night. We had a picnic. There were fireworks. We chatted rather than sang this year, but it felt quite unexpectedly fantastic. Despite the rush at work, I'm really enjoying this Christmas. :)

Shoshe - Snow with bad timing

My qualifying exam was supposed to be yesterday at midday, but it was delayed due to boot-deep snow (the top of the boot, not the bottom. The kind of snow that, for example, closes multiple airports and flight paths so half of your examination committee can't make it to town before your exam should have been halfway over). We postponed it till 3pm, and eventually until this morning. Saturday morning! It's an oral exam, where your committee members get to ask you whatever they want that might be remotely related to your research project or (very loosely defined) field of study. For 2 hours. Except that mine ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. It went okay though -- they weren't as mean as I expected.

In related news, one of the local coffee companies will give you a half-gallon of coffee in a nifty thermos/urn for $10 if you give them 24 hours notice, and apparently just trusts that you'll return the urn (they don't actually ask you to). Another local coffee company charges $24 for the same amount of coffee in a box, and a third charges $14 for a box of coffee, a variety of sweeteners, cups, and milk.

Jen - A very merry Hivemas

A very pleasant Hivemas was had by the Sydney contingent today at our place. A little quieter than usual due to Dante's absence (at a friend's pool party). Atti relished his chance to be "the rowdy one", Elora ate her weight in chips, baby John snoozed and suckled and was incredibly cute! Excess food, water pistol fights, chicken wings and trifle.

Thanks to Evil for cooking, Elle and Al for helping and Red Bec for her delicious pavlova and excellent salad making skills, and everyone else that helped out! And thanks to Joel and Jed for entertaining Atti so amusingly!

Tancred: Egg nog

Inspired by the Colbert christmas special I made egg nog last night. I used
cognac and spiced rum for the alcohol and it was so so tasty :)

Egg nog needs to be made more often in winter in Australia!

Kit says this is getting ridiculous

I know that everything gets super-busy in the lead-up to Christmas, but this is getting ridiculous. You end up putting in the extra hours, which would be fine if you are catching up, but it's not so fine when you're still falling behind. ARGH, paperwork!!

Becstarr : Smidgeon the pigeon

On Saturday I rescued a homing pigeon who had become demagnetised and was sitting on a roundabout ignoring the cars about to run him down. From his legbands it seems he was from WA (or SA according to Euge - it was an 08 number). Fed, watered and rested, he has since resumed his journey, but it was fun to have a pet for a few hours. I wonder if WIRES needs people in the middle of the city?

Guy : Need more backup plans

I really need specific "heat stroke" lessons for when the temperature in the room goes over 30.

Two lessons I thought would fly crashed dismally because of it.

EC - Jaime's the Cyclon!?!

Recently picked up the Battlestar Galactica boardgame and have trying to rustle up a crew of 6 and the time to give it a run.

Finally happened last night and after a bribe of myself providing dinner for all.

Game was fun though long (~4 hours), with a bit of the Werewolf-esque mechanic that runs in Shadows Over Camelot but can be more influential. Basically took until the final run to the end of the game for the Cylons to be revealed even though the humans were pretty much screwed from very early on in the game. Much finger pointing and recriminations had Anna reveal herself before firing off the final nuke that took out the humans.

I was fortunate to reveal myself as the 'dirty skin job' just in time to the mostly unsuspecting humans, laughing all the way to the resurrection ship.

Guy : Maybe they do learn...

I think I did okay explaining the Global Economic Crisis in ten minutes to a bunch of year 8s. I'm surprised.

Becstarr : Big out, big in

Went out dancing for Anna's birthday on Friday (yay IM) and spent most of the rest of the w/e sleeping it off at home and in the garden. Sleeping lots rather than pushing on appears to have made an incredible difference - who knew? I wish I'd discovered this years ago!

Anna : AHA!!!!

!!SPOILERS!!

So you know the end of King Kong right? This bit ...



... where he's standing on the top of the building. Well that building is the Empire State Building. BUT the top of it looks nothing like the Empire State Building ...



This has been annoying me for some time, enough to distract my attention from time to time but apparently not enough to take the time to find out what's going on. Then today I go to a Metafilter post about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and I see this ...



So what has happened is that in 1933 when they made "King Kong" the top of the Empire State Building did look like that, it was a mooring post for airships, and that the extra bit that obscures the art deco spire is a broadcast tower added in 1953.

!!/SPOILERS!!

It's like this tiny bit of my brain that was constantly worrying about this conundrum has been freed up for other things ... and for that I guess I should give thanks ;)

YL - You know it's Christmas ...

... when you go home to Singapore and find Orchard Road lit up with lights, buildings wrapped up in present-like paper and the sales OH the sales! *almost faints* I'm going to be eating bread and butter for weeks ... gah.

YL - working nights has messed up my sleep

Argh. While working 4 nights in ED was interesting ... 2 days later I am still screwed up from adjusting my clock. I think I am just going to have to bite the bullet and coffee myself through the day today.

Also my bindi from Anna's birthday party made me extra cute!

Evelyn - Aerial Assault Course: Conquered!

After seeing posters up at the gym, I was finally tempted to get myself organised enough to the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena for the Aerial Assault Course. Brilliant fun, and except for the bruises inherent in running into wooden logs, not particularly strenuous. No photos of me, but here is a bbc thing about it.