Jen - school holidays again

Half the year's gone by - the kids are in the mid year holiday break now. Boy have they needed it. Last term (Term 2) was 11 weeks long and they were absolute wrecks by the end of it. Slowly recovering now. As are their parents.

Shoshe - Berries-R-Us

We finally finished planting our berry patch. We've got six red Heritage Raspberries, six Anne Fall Golden Raspberries (though we think 2 of them died while waiting to be planted) and six Arapaho Blackberries. And last week we discovered that we have feral black raspberries along the creek!

Shoshe - Guardian of the Compost

We have a Compost Snake. He (or she) likes to curl up on the top of the compost, under the brown paper bag that we left at the top of the bin. We also have a Front Step Snake, which seems to live under our front step and may or may not be the same snake.

Epic Kit!

I had arranged to go mountain biking in the afternoon with a friend from out of town. 30 mins before I was supposed to leave (late), the General Manager turns up, then I make my escape (normal knock-off time), then I get a text from a colleague saying: He wants to talk to you, urgent!. Me: Can it be done by phone? Him: He will call you. Then I have this “meeting” whilst driving (I don’t remember anything about the drive – I can see why it is so dangerous), arguing with the GM about why I need to delay a big piece of equipment by year, but how it won’t affect the project at all.

And then did I mention the bike dramas? The night before, I go to check on the bike, tyres are a bit down, so I try and pump up the rear one, end up fully deflating it, then snap the valve off the tube (means it won’t ever pump up), so I go to change the tube, find that the rubber of the tyre has glued itself to the rim of the wheel so I can’t take it off. Then after I left work, I went past a shop to see if they could replace it, and *he* couldn’t – he was asking if I had used a special glue or compound to fill the tyre, left the wheel with him to try and fix. And that’s when I got the text about the GM wanting to talk to me. Then I race home, pick up my spare wheel with the city slick tyre (mostly flat), and drive out to meet the friend. I'm only one hour later than we had originally planned. Mountain biking on a city slick tyre? It can be done, but looks really silly!

Jen - Portable computing

iPad iPad iPad.
It's good. Money well spent.

Eurotravesty

Dear False Dan,

Lithuania was goddamn ripped off! What the hell, man?! Please use your Euro-connections to fix this Euro-tragedy.

Joe

PS: Hi, how are you? I am fine.

falsedan - eurovision approaches

I am doing the hard yards and watching the semis this year... dangerously low on beverages but I feel that Milan Stanković is the man to watch

Ben - I made a paper windmill

I no longer require orphaned dolls to power my model workhouse.

Shoshe - one free tag

I got some free LaserFest luggage tags at a geophysics conference in December, which I promptly attached to my suitcases. A few weeks later, one of my (Aussie) friends saw the tag and asked me about it. It turns out that she's a presenter on Triple J, and because of the free luggage tag, she did an episode about the 50th anniversary of the laser! She asked to interview me, but a friend of mine works on Mars Science Lab's rock-shooting laser instrument, so I turned her over to him.

http://matsailing.blogspot.com/

I own a boat!
http://matsailing.blogspot.com/

Shoshe - lost

For the past few weeks, I've been looking at tons of images of one of my field sites, Cumberland Ridge, which encompasses three neighboring outcrops in the Columbia Hills (in Gusev Crater on Mars). I'm trying to correlate the locations of the outcrops by identifying the same rocks from several viewpoints. I know these outcrops and the small rocks around them REALLY well*. Now I'm looking at some images from a nearby site, and I don't know any of the rocks. It feels like I'm lost -- Tennessee Valley is just to the side like it should be, but I'm in this sea of rocks and I don't recognize any of them. It's really weird. Kind of...alien.


*By name, actually. Cadge is my favorite, but Buoy has really grown on me. It's easy to identify from just about any angle.

YL - gargh

Feeling overwhelmed here over work/career choices.

falsedan - cripes

Beers bought on a Friday can be claimed on expenses. Today I have a Cooper's Green (amazingly), but it doesn't taste as I remember because it's sodding room temperature aaa

Shoshe - mouses!

Yesterday we caught two little mice in our humane mousetrap! We released them several miles away, far from other houses (by a creek at uni).

falsedan - slow day at work

Current work challenge: write FizzBuzz. Befunge is the obvious choice of language to me...

1:v!`*5*54p2*62*77,*5<
v _@>v   >v>:#<.>1+:2^
>:3%|>:5%|> 1#^_^
v"z"<pvv<"p
:>v>v2,"-z2
"",8**,B5"*
iF,622#"::4
"",,3*^<^<3
>^>^>^>,8#^6#*<

Jen - Bespectacled

Age is catching up with me. That plus too many hours in front of a computer screen and a tiny, tiny iPod screen (where's my iPad?!). Just for reading and computer work, mind you.
Pics to come when Dan wakes up and can take them.

Kit - the pink floyd car

I taut I saw a Pink Floyd car, I did! I did!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40260071@N05/3704529626/

(Much better than my photo in the dark, just as the traffic started moving)

Tancred - BCMSN w00t!

After three months of rather solid study I’m very happy to say I passed the Building Converged Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks exam this morning. Two more exams to go to the CCNP :) Then one more for the CCDP :)

Jen - Long weekend

There used to be a time when long weekends were cherished, especially ones that coincided with the end of daylight savings! Sleep-in heaven! Not any more. Now it's four whole days at home with munchkins. Four very long days.

Thanks for a wonderful diversion and an excellent evening at your wedding, Red Bec. It was such a happy occasion and I'm glad it all went well. It was fabulously organised and ran super smoothly (from my view, anyway)!

Jen - Nine years

On this day around this time, nine years ago, the Hive was meeting Dante for the very first time. How time flies.

Friday afternoon special kit

I find out today that the paper I'm going to give at an Industry conference isn't in May, it's on next week. oops!

Dan: can has fever

Felt crappy and lethargic all day, and was assuming it was just general under-caffeination. Got home to discover I had a light fever (as does Jen).

I don't think you can get fevers from not enough caffeine, but I don't plan on risking it.

Jen - students are back

Today I was horrified to find that the new student cards double up as VISA debit cards.

Shoshe - I'd tap that

On Monday we started collecting sap from the first of our maple trees. We've got about 4 liters already, and that's just from a few days and that one tree! Three trees and 4-6 weeks to go. We'll probably make the first batch of syrup in a few weeks.

Jen - Year of the Tiger

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. The weekend was spent, first cleaning then eating (big family dinner on Saturday night), then relaxing, with a spot of sorting and shopping on Sunday.

Also, I can't believe that I didn't write about Atticus. The last week of January was a big one for us. He had a hair cut! And turned 5! And started Kindergarten! All in one week (or thereabouts).

And he's doing great, by the way. Settling in, starting to actually join in and listen to his teacher. He's off the Epilim now too. We think that's probably helped a lot with his behaviour. Yay!

Also... Dante is finally in his permanent class for the year (Week 4 already and they're still stuffing around... but at least he's not in a class of 42 anymore. Back to a reasonable 31). Now he's been moved to a 4/5 class. Not with last year's teacher anymore but hopefully one that's just as good, and back with his good friend Will (who's in Yr 5 this year). He's already got his first homework sheet and excited about learning.

Scrumping Kit

The neighbours' grapes are ready for scrumping.

Shoshe -- toasty warm

We have decided that the most appropriate temperature scale to use is absolute. It is currently a toasty 255K outside. That's warm even by Martian standards*!

*But not in summer, when it can get up to 50 degrees warmer. Goddamn it's cold out.

wading through the end of 2009

I havent liked quite a stack of news that I've had in the last few weeks. The craziness of the driving back and forth all over the place is a bit nuts too.
And so, being Russian Orthodox and having access to a secondary calendar, my 2010 starts today - the Old New Year - 14th Jan.
Happy New Year everyone! Go the old new 2010!

Also, you shoudl all come to my festival - www.corinbank.com
(maybe a saner blog post soon)

Shoshe - nice neighbours

We accidentally left the car's boot wide open for about 20 hours the other day. Luckily, that was about the only 20 hours in the past week and a half that it didn't snow. The battery died (NRMA-equivalent took care of that), but everything in the car was still there! That includes the muesli bars -- we figure the local critters couldn't smell them because it was too cold for scents to waft.

Kit Boo Web

Big brother is monitoring my net access, so no more onesentencehive @ work for me. Boo. 

Jen - First week of 2010

A full week has passed. The year is moving forward. Back to work - it's like we've never left. Child care has started up again, next week Vacation Care begins for the boys.

falsedan 1, global credit crisis 0

New job starting tomorrow, doing support and development for a perl-based résumé indexing application. The company is in Musselburgh, so I shall be sharing a bus with Tancred.

Becstarr - Back from the South Coast

Been down the South Coast to Ulladulla to visit friends and futher onward to Bermagui to visit Joel's childhood rockpools and beaches. Camping, beach swimming, and kid-wrangling have meant that I have spent only about 2 minutes in the last 9 days thinking about work. Good stuff.

Jen - Musical Education

The kids are getting edumacated this evening. Dan downloaded some old music videos and played them for the kids at dinner time...

Charley Lownoise & Mental Theo - Wonderful Days
Mr. Oizo - Flat Beat
Apollo 440 - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Dub
Underworld - Born Slippy

Some old favourites.

Dan: mistaken for a grownup

Xmas was lots of fun, with all three kids now fully comprehending the gift extravaganza that is Annual Gift Giving Day. I was mistaken for an adult, and got cool things like a coffee machine while everyone else got all the lego. Ate entirely too much and am now suffering from a surfeit of tasty food.

Jen - Present giving

Had a great Burn Family Xmas late lunch yesterday - piles and piles of presents. The kids were reasonably well behaved and not too ridiculously spoilt!

This morning has been more relaxed. But now we are off to my side of the family and I'm sure it will be chaos and bedlam.

Merry Christmas folks.

YL - Merry Christmas & political pawnage

It was so good to see everyone. It is true, I still exist. Although even Dante said "I'm sure you were just a figment of my imagination!" And Atticus was sure I was "Cushion". At least that's a solid object right? Merry Christmas all!

However, work is not so pleasant. After weeks, people's true colours are showing up and it's not enjoyable to be used as a political pawn in someone else's inter-departmental games or to be used as a scapegoat/buffer to cover up your fallibilities or take the blame.

Oh and for the record, I don't always have to agree with you just because you're senior in age/years of medical training.

falsedan - strine

On the phone to Mum and couldn't help thinking, she has such an Australian accent.

Escaped London, in Embra now. My landlord runs a brothel in town and keeps asking me to fix the computer there…

YL - storm

It's kind of cool out there. That wind seems like it's tearing past my apartment so hard. I'm almost expecting it to hail or something!

Jen - End of Year Festivities begin

Went to a Golf Day this afternoon. 18 holes at Marrickville in 4 hours. We didn't win but had lots of fun. The winning team got 3 below par.

Next up - lawn bowls.

Kit - new is much the same as the old

Holidays are over, and like yenli, it's back to the grindstone. Budgets, forecasts, programs.
To the Federal Liberals (and the NSW Labor party): stop stuffing around and let your appointed leader lead, instead of stabbing them in the back.

YL - deja vu?

In the continued rat race, it's back to social hermitage and into exam mode.

Ben - Who ya gonna call?

I must have seen Ghostbusters at least a dozen times over the past 25 years; maybe more. But I only just yesterday noticed that there is a packet of Staypuft marshmallows in Dana's kitchen.

I've really got to work on my observation skills.

Happiness!

Such relief when I left work (at 7pm) last night. Going on holidays!

Kit ??

Did I just wash out my wheelie (rubbish) bin before breakfast?

Jen - Holidays over

Jaime and Shannon came to stay and it was GREAT FUN! The kids loved "Jaime-n" (as in Jaime 'n' Shannon) and Shannon and Holly, of course, and miss them lots now that they're gone. School is well and truly back - second week of term 4.

Shoshe and Bez - Bourgeois scum

We bought a house on Wednesday! 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 3/4 acre. Come and visit!

Kit is Quality-Bee

Under Quality System Certification ISO9001 (I think), you are supposed to keep your records for seven years after. I just got a phone call about a project I was involved in 6 years ago, because the people who had actually done the work after me hadn't.

YL - London

London is great! I could live here. But there are times when being the driver, porter, guide, talker, organiser etc while travelling with elderly Chinese grandmother and protective parents can make it trickier!

Shoshe - Snow!

I meant to post 3-4 weeks ago saying that the leaves had starting turning, and that fall had begun. Last night we got about 4cm of snow.

Well, that didn't go well.

It doesn't look like I'll be graduating this year. Bit annoyed.

Kit: minor bokashi incident

I had a minor bokashi box incident in my car yesterday whilst hooning around a corner too quickly. The smell, to put it politely, is a bit like vomit, and a bit like horse poo.
I had to retreat to the shopping centre, two washes with bathroom soap didn't help, so I tried one of those odour neutralising ones from the supermarket (three washes so far).
I feel a bit like Macbeth, because I've scrubbed and scrubbed, yet "Will these hands ne're be clean?"

Becstarr : Is in love with Oliver Sacks... again

I have been reading Oliver Sacks' A Leg To Stand On, his autobiographical novel of breaking his leg fairly catastrophically, including a complete denervation - that is, he lost his ability to perceive his leg as part of himself. It's a fascinating reflection on being a patient, on illness and convalescence.

Kit: Note to Self

Do not carry indoors for squishing the caterpiller that you have just found on your plants. It will wriggle out of your fingers, you can't find it, and then suddenly you are scrubbing green stuff out of your carpet.

Shoshe - They grow up so fast

I caught our two young passionfruit plants trying to break into our liquor cabinet last night. One had a tendril all the way around the handle. The other had slipped a tendril between the door and the frame, and had a surprising hold on the inside of the cabinet. Our older passionfruit plant (the twins' progenitor) is grabbing onto the ceiling.

Jen - Apocalypso

The world is bathed in sepia tones this morning. What an incredible sight it was, the red dust blown in from Central Australia by gale force winds and blanketing the entire city. Stuff you, sunlight! Very apocalyptic.

Pics on flickr.

Shoshe - Preservation

Two nights ago we made tomato paste from tomatoes that we grew in our garden plot. Tonight I made elderberry cordial (from elderberries we bought at the farmers' market) and pickles from the Boston Pickling Cucumbers that we grew, using my great-grandfather's recipe.

falsedan - writing my CV

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
RRRRRRRRRRRRINGGGGGGGGG

Kit - spring observations

1. Deus ex-Machina now trades at night time.
2. No column 8 online anymore!?!?!! :-(
3. Spotted the first Red-Bellied Black Snake of the season (actually, the first one I've seen in the wild). What a beauty!

Jaime - reintegrating into society

I'm still recovering from my long weekend of PAX and things are still a bit wobbly. Saw a lot of good upcoming games and played a lot of boardgames including the new BSG expansion, very cool. Also I drank a lot at the Taphouse. I advise anyone considering going to PAX to do it, much more fun than going to Vegas.

Kit - life, work update

1. Slight moment of panic this morning, as I thought I had locked myself in the secure garage, without house keys or car keys to get out. Just as I was thinking of breaking the car window to get to the roller door controller ... I found my keys. Phew!

2. In my absence from work last week (acting Dr Frankenstein), coffee truck 1 has stopped coming, and coffee truck 2 (who had given up the battle of wooing us in the month before), was less than interested in shafting his regulars for a quick profit with us less than loyal coffee drinkers.

3. Blooming Greystanes library must be the *only* library without an after-hours returns chute.

Kit's Frankenstein moment is delayed.

What was supposed to start at lunchtime yesterday started at lunchtime today. Kids! Make sure your red is connected to red, blue to blue, and white to white, otherwise you have to run around in the dark looking for phasing errors.

Shoshe - Long bugger of a day

It started out the night before, when we had no hot water.

We still had no hot water in the morning. Talked to the rental office; 3 buildings were affected. I knew I was going to miss my normal once-an-hour bus, so I walked the 10 minutes to the every-15-minutes bus.

Apparently my annual buspass had expired, even though I swear I'd renewed it months ago. The busdriver was a bitch, and I didn't have $1.50 in change, so I got off the bus and went to the bank across the road where a very nice teller gave me change for a dollar.

Ended up catching the next once-an-hour bus. Got to campus 45min later than I'd wanted to and went to the new bubble tea place that's right by my office. Put the bubble tea in the office fridge because my day was full of classes and I wouldn't have time to slurp tapioca until 4:30pm.

Rushed to class 1; had a short break; was late to class 2 because it turns out it wasn't in the room that I thought it was in, and I had to wait for the elevator because it had the nearest course poster saying where my class meets. Left class early to TA.

TAing was okay. There was a fair bit of banter between the prof and me in the "space news" section -- we kept forgetting about one after another of the several spacecraft that have had problems over the past few days. We currently have no decent weather forecasting on Mars, for the first time in a few years. And it's dangerous duststorm season.

Some of my students from last year came to visit me just after class, which rocked :)

Went back to the office with about 1/2 hr before the postgrad soc meeting. Needed to talk to my advisor, who was trying to meet with many people before they left for the day. Got my bubble tea out of the fridge. The tapioca pearls had somewhat congealed, so I shook the sealed cup a bit. Failed holding-onto-cup-while-shaking-it and dropped sugary bubble tea all over the corridor and my advisor's carpet.

I was really looking forward to that tea.

YL - Potion.

Wanted : 1 Potion of Un-weariness.
Anyone got a recipe?

Also thanks to Dante, I have a great understanding of the game of Bakugun & was able to indoctrinate another little boy into the game today! lol.

falsedan - I am more of a victim of the global credit crisis now

Being made redundant at the end of September! Not a bad thing: CEO told me in the meeting where I going to tell him that unless he could convince me that the company was going to grow & actually do something anytime this year I would be resigning.

Already had one person asking after my CV, so!

falsedan - vegetarian sausages in Berlin are pretty bad

how bad are they?
Why, they're the Wurst!

Seriously, this faux-bratwurst had bits of rice in it to give the toothiness of hard bits of gristle…

Kit has reached a milestone

End of a project ... time for a new haircut.
FRINGE!!!

Shoshe - S2K

Today is Spirit's 2000th sol* on Mars! She's old enough to go to kindy.

We're having a birthday party, and Spirit's playing in the sand (current project: examining and drilling into a soil target named Polyphemus Eye).


* A sol is a martian day, and is roughly 24 hours 39.5 minutes.

Dan ran a game

Ran my first roleplaying session in about a bajillion years last night. Discovered that google is an awesome GM's assistant for running a Vampire game.

Jaime - Feeding a baby actual food

Feeding a baby is like whack-a-mole but in reverse ... I stick by this statement.

YL - hot, cold, warm?

I had a hot summer surfing USA among other things. I put a pause on the grind of work, worrying about careers & just feeling the road running under the car while the possibility of "who knows what" approaches over the horizon. 3 packed weeks full of people, hearts and life experiences. Amazing. There is so much more to do. Not enough time!

Philosophically, where do I go next?

Job applications are now closed for next year's jobs. Who knows which direction I'm really heading in. Or am I just afraid to say it out loud? =)

Kit: Spring has sprung!

I had a nice week away from it all in Central Queensland - visited Carnarvon Gorge and Mount Moffat. A combination of "mountains" (Great Dividing Range), and desert weather. When I got back, I found that a jonquil has sprouted flowers; and the aphids have invaded and colonised my Ranuculus seedling.

Jen - Dinner and Peas

Dan's cousin and her husband visited from Brisbane this weekend. Always lovely - my favourite of his extended family. Tonight we had them over for dinner. The kids fought for their attention by seeing who could be most charming or cute. It was a nice change. As we were cleaning up I found a packet of defrosted peas which we forgot to put away earlier. I had a good laugh as I remembered Brian's stir-fry that time. Anyone else remember those weekly dinners?? We did a roast. What did you cook? I can't remember!

Kit will have Holidays!

Going on a summer holiday. Already in holiday mode. 1.5 days of work to go.

Shoshe - Google frustration

Trying to find information on how to plot a MiniTES (miniature thermal emission spectrometer) spectrum using the Davinci tool/environment/interpreted language. When you type "minites", Google assumes you meant "minutes". "davinci plot" is clearly of no use.

Ben - Internship

Just finished my first week of internship. Nice little school, unusually well behaved kids, and only a 20 minute bike ride from home. Not a bad little set up, all in all.

Tickets are bought: We're going DownUnder

Yay, finally bought our tickets. We'll be in oz between September 24 & October 20. Will likely be spending the first week in Canberra, but the next three weeks in Sydney.

Get ready to meet Holly-boo!!!

YL - holiday

It's good warm summer weather here in Columbus, OH. If you told me about the many many turns, steps and decisions it'd take to get to be at this point in time in my life .... I'd have never believed you.

Sometimes I think about starting over some place else. Where the road doesn't know my name and everything is different.

Kit - modern woes

Accidently wrenching the wireless LAN antenna off its connections in the modem can't be good. I have been reduced to using a public library computer for non-work emails and "oh look, a neighbour has left their network insecure"-type raids, whilst the toy is soldered back together... and hopefully works.

Ben - Well that's done

Just finished my DET interview. Think it went well.

YL - Statistic!

I was going to say I would finally become a statistic .... but I realised I'm already a statistic. lol =)

What I do also realise is I should have bought shares in Roche (company that makes Tamiflu) YEARS ago.

Hindsight is awesome.

Becstarr : Tax Pack Rat

I am just back form the post office, having sent in my tax returns for 2004, 5, 6, 7, and 8. It feels absolutely fantastic and when I sat down to it, it only actually took me one weekend. I can't believe everyone was right when they told me just to start it and it wouldn't be that hard. Why is it so hard to take advice sometimes? I guess I just need to be open to trying things.

Anyway, thankyou to everyone who has, over the last few years, encouraged me to get on top of this. And a special thanks to Mr McCulloch, whose scoffing on Sunday morning (when I "just" had to find my group certificates in order to lodge) spurred me on to the final burst of paper-chasing. :)

I may even get the stimulus bonus. The milky bars are on me!

Anna : Just when I thought I was out ...

They drag me back in ... bugger.

Dan - In the navy!

We hopped in the car yesterday and drove down to Jervis Bay to see Evil graduate today. Was very cool to see her in her fancy uniform, and the kids had a great time - mostly due to the novelty of the long distance travelling and sleeping in a motel.

Anna : Why do vampires suck?

After months of Twilight, True Blood (the show and the books) and then flash backs to Lost Boys I am left wondering, how can vampire stories have so much appeal while at the same time sucking SO MUCH??!?

Guess I'm off to watch Near Dark again ... cry little sister ...

Kit the commuter gets cultured

Went to see Reuben Guthrie at Belvoir last night with Anna, Guy and Lachlan. Funny in parts, but also depressing comments about the isolation of modern humans. During the post theatre discussion, Anna said that she wanted to have a notebook in which she would ask a person to draw their impression of a map of Sydney. For her, the north shore would be marked "here be dragons". I am embarrassed to say that the first thing that popped into my mind was: motorways. The second was: public transport routes. What would yours be?

YL - contemplations

On a day off where I don't have to be anywhere at any one time, I relish the simple pleasure of a full day of sunlight to myself. Granted, I'm going to go to a bookshop (sans sunlight) but then I'll have the pleasure of books!

Also, getting compliments at work from patients/their family is nice. Never been much good at processing compliments .... just a nod, smile and thank you seems to be a sufficient response. Apparently I'm kind. Who woulda thunk? Me? Pfft!

Shoshe - Amateur Robot Astronomy

Spirit has more power than she's had in about 2 Mars years, so the engineers have requested that we do more nighttime observations to use up power (when we don't use up enough power, we shunt it by waking up in the middle of the night and turning on our heaters for an hour or two). I thought it would be nifty to take a picture of Earth, and it turns out that Earth and Venus are in conjunction in the martian sky! They're about 1.5 degrees apart tonight, and will be close to each other a bit after sunset for the next several nights. I've spent the past few days working closely with the Pancam operators and an awesome researcher who's been studying twilight at Gusev. On 21 June at 19:07:28 UTC (19:40:05 local time), Spirit will start taking some pictures for me! If these go well, we might take images every day or two for several days and make a little movie.

Ben - Eye of the Storm

Finally, all my semester 1 assignments are in the box and I don't have any semester 2 assignments due until... let's see... two weeks from tomorrow.

D'oh! Lousy forth year.

On the plus side, I've lost enough weight this year that I can fit into my old suit. This will save me either buying a new one, or holding my gut in for the entire hour long DET interview.

Aching!

Did my second tabata class yesterday. How can 30 mins be so painful?

Kit doesn't want No. 3

The hot water heater broke down over the long weekend (whilst we were away), so a weekend's worth of camping grime had to make do with a cold shower and hot water from the kettle (the former won).
Then I had another toaster emergency.
I don't want No. 3.

Ben - 12 500

This thing's going to cost me a fortune in printing.

Ben - 10, 000

The assignment that I'm doing just passed the 10000 word count, and I still have a section and a half to do.

Join the teachers, they said. See the world, they said...

Also, my fridge broke down last week. For a few days I was eating like a king as I chowed my way through everything in the freezer before it went off. But since then I've been living on food made from supplies from my cupboard. It's surprising how quickly you tire of lentils, polenta, plain spaghetti and pea soup without any bacon.

If only I had a cask of fruity lexia and a bad haircut, I'd be a true student cliche.

Shoshe - Retro

Last Saturday night we went to the local roller derby, and then to a Pong tournament at a friend's house.

Kit needs a holiday

How hard can it be, when submitting something for review, to check back through all of the client's comments in previous correspondence to confirm that all issues have been addressed?

I'm an Aunt!

Christine had her baby!

YL - life

In summary, (*&$#$%^&*)()(*^&%$^%#^%__(&*&^%.

YL - work

In short, *&^#%$*^%$&*^(*&(DHW^%&)*##^)$^&%_*&^*.

Anna : Lurgy

Been a busy fortnight but largely wasn't at work. First I had three days at a IT conference and then last week I was in and out of the office with the flu. Starting to feel better and a bit more relaxed after some time off so had a nice weekend. Writers fest, started my Samoa shopping, sushi in the park and then Mexican last night with chilli shots (some spicy and fruity red goo in a shot glass) with a discount coupon that we found on the fridge just before it's expiry date.

Ben- So busy

I've been so busy lately that I forgot to do any shopping this week. So last night, when I went to cook dinner, I found that the only meal I was adequately prepared to make was tuna and cabbage cannelloni in potato sauce.

Surprisingly tasty with a bit of lemon juice and some pepper, but it really could have used a little tarragon.