Jen - excited!

Word just came in that Shan's off to hospital to be induced. I am bouncing with excitement and will eagerly await the news all day. Fingers crossed for an easy birth!

Guy - For Ben (who we assume is dead).

Kit remembers to hand stuff in

The pesky assignment, which was due in November (08), has *finally* been handed in.

Becstarr : A super-productive Caturday!

Joel's gone sailing for the weekend and left to my own devices in the house, I have surprised myself by having a super-productive start to the weekend!

I have not only but also: swept and mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors; done three loads of washing including a backpack, sports shoes and the shower curtain; used the final rinse grey-water from each wash on the lawn; sourced and fitted water aerators to the kitchen & bathroom taps; cleared several GB of space on J's laptop; met Karinne for a catch-up date over chocolate and churros in Glebe; and done a massive fruit & veg shops at the wonderful Harris Farm.

Woo!

Ben - Full throttle!

Guess who just got a sweet new motor scooter?

If you guessed 17th century science fiction pioneer Margret Cavendish, you were dead wrong. It was me!

Dan - school's back

It's the end of our first full week back at school - Dante and Atty were at school all week. We're all exhausted and cranky, and we'll be resting hard this weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to recover despite the cruel and unusual heat the BOM has planned for us.

falsedan - I am a victim of the global credit crisis

My bank won't give me a credit card unless I show them the last few months of bank statements. :(

Shoshe - Sprouted!

The lettuce that I planted on Sunday sprouted today (Wednesday)!

Tancred - It's rather cold this morning

It’s cold today. According to the web it’s -6° and feels like -9°. Last winter the server room AC froze and tore it’s self apart (no one remembered to put antifreeze in the chillier).

This morning our AC stopped working. It’s now 41° in the server room. IT sits outside the server room doors which are open, and all our windows are open trying to make a draft to help get cold air in there. Damm it’s cold. I’m indoors and I can see my breath. I think we should all just get to go home.

Shoshe - Groundhog Day

Sadly, Groundhog Day doesn't mean as much when you know that there will be (way) more than 6 weeks of winter, and that spring is most certainly not right around the corner.

Shoshe - Go my brain!

I got brilliant insight into 2 of the questions on my Celestial Mechanics homework last night at about 2:30am, after finishing a teen vamp novel. I even figured out some stuff that the super-maths officemates didn't get! Clearly I should be doing more...light reading.

Over the weekend we set up the winter greenhouse. I re-potted the aloe and planted six little pots of lettuce, and we brought the bay tree, rosemary, and orchid home from uni. They're all in a bookcase sort of thing with growlights and mylar. The greenhouse is bright!

Tancred - Blizzard

It's not just snowing - It's a blizzard :)

Jaime - rubbing bellies for the win

Last night I won a poker tournament thanks to "Pixel" kicking at the right moments to tell me that it was the hand to play, baby is indeed getting a new pair of shoes.

Guy - First week done...

While I'm woefully unprepared, as always, I'm happy to be back.

The midgets are great and I like what I'm teaching.

In Studies of Religion we were defining religion and one student was very eager to explain to everyone the difference between a ghost and a spirit.

"A ghost is where it's a figment of your imagination and a spirit is real."

Something in my face gave away that I didn't agree with her, and so she asked if that was right.

I said that traditionally speaking a ghost was the spirit of someone who had died, while spirits were a much broader category, including spirits of trees and animals and the Holy Ghost and whatnot.

However, what I was thinking was; Of course it's made up! It's all made up! Everything in this course is a figment of people's imaginations. Ghosts, spirits, miracles, God.

I didn't say it because I probably shouldn't alienate any of the students at this early stage of the course...

David - Boy Howdy Is It Cold

So, I was in Chicago a week or so ago. The temperature was -21 Fahrenheit, -31 if you factored in the wind chill.

To put it in practical terms, the half frozen river was releasing steam because it was warmer than the air. I walked the 6 blocks to my hotel with a jumper, jacket, overcoat, scarf, gloves, beanie, boots and at least 3 hits of whisky. I couldn't feel my legs by the time I got to the hotel. I had to go to the bar for another 3 emergency shots of whisky to stave off hypothermia. How the hell Grizzly Adams managed to survive I will never know...

Kit is tempted...

The second coffee truck man told me today that he can do iced coffee (rather, he offered it to me). Real coffee shot, vanilla icecream, choice of flavoured syrup, whipped cream, chocolate on top.

My one (of many) weakness!!

Dan: Dante's adventures in MMOGs

Dante has discovered his first MMO game - Moshi Monsters. It's a silly thing where you create you monster, and it wanders around this little world, and you feed it and get it stuff, and meet up and chat with your friends' monsters. All pretty simple, and entirely within the browser. But he's so keen that he has decided to spend his pocket money on a 1-month membership. God help us when he discovers WOW.

I don't think that word means what you think it means

Becstarr : Emerging from a kid hurricane to an empty nest

Just got back from visiting a full house of kids (5, 7, 9) and 6 adults up the Central Coast to an eerily quiet house. That's right: Matt and Zoe have flown the coop over the weekend, and Joel and I are empty-nesters! For the first time in my life I am savouring owning every shelf in the fridge (and pantry, and bathroom) and so on. Come to think of it, that's not quiet true as I was in that studio in Camden St for a while. OK, forget that particular rhetorical flourish, but it's still Very Exciting!

Ben - a productive use of my time

I was watching TV, and I saw an ad for Valkyrie.

So I made this picture.

I love the holidays.