Last week was quite good, actually. I meant to write about it here - several times, in fact - but work kept getting in the way. Work even got in the way of my video, which had to be posted on the weekend this time around.

There are good and bad sides to everything really. For instance:

Good: Work is more interesting these days and involves far fewer library-oriented tasks.
Bad: It also involves fewer actual breaks.

Good: People keep complimenting me on my (apparently) awesome taste in shoes.
Bad: This fills me with uncertainty every morning as I choose my footwear AND causes me to wonder if I should have a lot more shoes.

Good: I was complimented within an inch of my life on Friday.
Bad: I'm not quite sure if it's OK just to say "thank-you" or if I should return the compliment if at all possible.

And now I am on holidays and am being kept company by actual, real internet! Internet that's much faster before! Ironically, I spent the first day of said holidays far from this fast internet and instead in the company of people from Ober.net. (Although, as you can see here, we were all very close to mobile forms of internetness...) It was a splendid day! There was an almost-rained-out picnic, followed by unintentional spending of money in Minotaur. This required us to sit down in Borders with a beverage of some sort... followed by further unintentional spending of money.

But seriously, Borders had the "Buffy staked Edward" t-shirts! As part of a stand of Twilight merchandise! How were we supposed to resist, especially when they look this awesome?



I don't have mine on because I wanted to preserve the integrity of my gypsy outfit. *cough*lazy*cough* Oh yes, I didn't mention the gypsy outfits, did I?

We were wearing gypsy outfits.

There you go. It was part of our theme for the picnic and we didn't actually stand out too much, thanks to the fact that we were in the city on Talk Like A Pirate Day. However, according to various bystanders, we could also double as:

1. Authentically-dressed Russian villagers


2. Pirate wenches


3. Pre-Buccanneer-era pirates

Of course, the 3D glasses add considerably to our authenticity in that pic. We were just waiting to see Up in 3D, which is possibly the most gorgeous movie I've seen in ages.

And once all that was over (although none of us wanted it to be), I got right on to my delayed video. Unsurprisingly, it's writing week again and this week's theme is to do with authors we admire or who have influenced us. Since I was in a rather grateful mood all week, I decided to make my video into a thank-you to all the authors who've inspired me in one way or another. Watch to see who makes the cut!



I'd love to know which authors you guys would like to thank, even if it's for trivial reasons. Comment! Make a video! Send me a smoke signal!

So here I am, waiting on hold to arrange for gas and electricity to be connected at my new house (rental, alas) and it seems like the perfect time for an update. It makes perfect sense, right? Apparently I just really want to type out an entire post left-handed...

Today's post features photos taken with my old phone. And it did not give them up willingly. No, it most certainly did not. I will spare you the details, but much swearing and cursing of the name Nokia was involved. It wasn't pretty, but I prevailed and the proof of this victory can be seen below.

(Well damn, someone answered the phone and interrupted my posting...)

And now to the photos, taken with a wonderfully advanced two megapixel Nokia phone camera. Despite this, I'm rather a fan of phone photos, mostly because they tend to be so random. Or candid. Or... something. Here are my seven selections from the photos I wrested away from my old Nokia.

I declare today to be "graphic media day". Which is really just a fancy way of saying "Here are four photos and a video for you all". Because, really, I should be packing and making sure all my chargeable things are charged and so on.

And I do need to put time aside to do excited, loon-ish dances of loonish excitement.

Firstly, please accept this week's video for fivedotnerds. I call it "Zombies vs. Jam" but others might, more accurately, call it a sort-of review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Lost in Austen. There's a challenge of sorts issued towards the end, too.



And now for the pictures, two of which include me looking like unto a loon (which will explain the loonish dancing earlier on this post). Here we go...




So there you go. And now, I really should go and pack if I intend to wear clothes while I'm in Sydney for the next four days...

Well, I did mention it in my first vlog: I like shiny things.

And I have a new shiny thing.


(Can you see my webcam sitting on the box beside the computer? Doesn't it look like it's staring right at you? I swear, the thing watches me...)

This lovely, shiny thing is replacing my old desktop, which was dodgy from the word go. On the up side, it had the entire Office 2003 suite on it. On the down side, I'm not sure it was entirely legal...

And now, on a completely random note, I would like to know why I look at the keyboard, note where the delete key is... and then press the home key instead. IT IS ANNOYING.

It feels weird to be without a desktop computer. I've always had a desktop computer. It's not as though this one's all that portable, though - it's a desktop replacement computer, after all. I'm not going to be carting it with me to work or anything.

No, that's what my netbook's for. :D

And in other news, I have already recorded my vlog A DAY IN ADVANCE. I'm worried. The last minute is when I do things, not a day in advance. I may have doomed us all to... doom.

First, some correspondence.

Dear Gillette,

Contrary to your claims, five blades are not, in fact, better than three.  Please to be giving me back the significant amounts of money I parted with in order to uncover this lie.

(Might as well start with the classy one, right?)

Dear LJ Voice Post,

You fail!  No, you fail.  Don't come at me with your reasonable arguments about actually entering my phone number in the correct international fashion or saving more than just one Voice Post number to my phone.  You.  Fail.

It's just lucky you're ceasing to fail now.

(Completely LJ's fault.  Really.)

Dear CountryLink,

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLLL.  So much fail it's impossible to encompass its magnitude with a mere word.  First, you make me wait almost forty minutes for a delayed train in forty degree heat.  (Forty degrees Celsius, people.  One hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit.)  In forty degree heat, I say, on a little platform with only a tiny bit of shade to help keep cool.  IT DID NOT HELP.  And then, not content with this, you arrived in the city NINETY-FIVE minutes later than you were meant to.  NINETY-FIVE.  Seriously.

(*is still shaking fist over this*)

( And now for the picspam... )

Just a few choice pictures from my recent two trips to Beechworth.  And with any luck, I should also be embedding my latest fivedotnerds video right about here:

Huzzah!

Please let me introduce you all to my new workspace, viz:



Yes, it is a) outside, b) sharing space with a spade and broom, and c) awesome. And that lovely little EeePC there answers the question of whether I switched my laptop for a netbook quite nicely. I haven't regretted that for a minute - it's even been inadvertently useful for my vlogging, due to its possessing a (completely rubbish) webcam. My intention was to buy an Acer Aspire One... but the ten inch screen of the EeePC kept calling to me, telling me how... big it was.

Well, ten inches is big when compared with eight point nine...

What innuendo?

I like being outside. I like having my own space. I like being able to sit there in that incredibly ugly yet unbelievably comfortable chair and think.

Oh, and write, maybe.

And I definitely like the bit where I receive an excellent wireless signal from my router. That's important.

I feel as though I can write out there - as though I have enough space to be creative. It's a different story inside, where I'm sharing space with noise and televisions and people. Which I don't really mind, per se, but that environment doesn't seem to be very conducive to creativity. Sometimes, I wish I were able to write anywhere, but it turns out I can be incredibly picky about my surroundings.

So, before I go off to work on my next vlog, I'm going to ask you all a question: Can you write anywhere? Do you have a place where your writing just seems to flow effortlessly? Conversely, are there places where you just can't write, no matter how hard you try?

Yes, one question in three parts.

brb, vlogging

:D

So, I had a plan and it went like this:

• get on board train on Thursday morning


• connect to my mobile broadband


• finish off LJ entry and post it


• optional – read email


• vital – download copy of my writer’s latest chapter for beta-ing

It was a good plan with solid fundamentals and I approved highly of it.

Unfortunately, it actually went like this:

• get on board train on Thursday morning (Yes! Off to a good start!)


• fail to connect to my mobile broadband (Less good...)


• try connecting with modem in each of my three usb ports (Starting to become damned annoying...)


• fail to connect (...)


• end up being told that there’s no SIM or USIM in my modem, which is news to the USIM inside my modem (*begin swearing now*)


• fume over inability to finish off LJ entry and post it


• luckily discover that I downloaded my writer’s latest chapter already


• contemplate throwing mobile broadband modem to the floor and crushing it mercilessly

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Yes. Yes, I think that sums it up nicely.

GAH.

There were also plans to spend time with the boy and the Sonia (who live next door to the parents for now), but it turns out they were in Melbourne for the exact same days I was in Beechworth.

I’m told it was a complete coincidence.

Really.

And then there was the set of coloured lights, which I helped the Da put up along the back verandah... only to be told they actually belonged on one of the trees out the front.

So we re-located it to one of the trees out the front... only to find out that it actually belongs on the roofline around the side of the house. I, however, am not convinced. I think it looks fine on that tree. I think the other set of lights will look every bit as fine on the roofline. I think, in short, there is no damn point in un-doing all of the work of putting the stupid lights on the stupid tree just so we can put them on the stupid roofline instead.

Christmas lights: they look pretty, it’s just in everyone’s interests to have nothing to do with putting them up.

In closing, please accept this photo I took on Wednesday afternoon. It records an historic event: petrol under one dollar a litre. Truly ( a moment in history... )