I have been half-inspired by the crazedturkey's WITL. Well, completely inspired, really, but that inspiration comes to a screeching halt when it encounters the wall of effort. Wait, I mean Wall of Effort. It requires capitals, definitely. So: completely inspired in a half-assed sort of way.

It's hard work remembering to take photos. Seriously. And there was a completely awesome opportunity to take a photo of a mostly-disassembled traffic light this morning, which I passed up due mostly to running head-first into the Wall of Effort.

Despite this, I did manage to come up with half a half a dozen photos.

:D

Which is... yeah, it's half-assed.

Anyway, right now I am obsessed with this:

( Obsession... )
ILOVEITILOVEITILOVEIT.

It's quite an unholy love, really. But seriously - I can get the internet on it. I left a comment on the bathmat's latest post WITH MY IPOD!

Of course, it's entirely possible I may be getting just the tiniest bit too excited about this... But. But. But. It's gorgeous and shiny and I have it mostly due to the boy's habit of buying the latest iPod and then selling it a few months later. And he was splendid enough to sell it to me this time around. And now I can check out the latest lolcats and fail blogs and download addictive games and generally waste hours and hours of time from the comfort of my own couch!

Also, I believe it can play music. Haven't actually tested that theory yet.

( Pickle, of course... )
My cat. Again. Because she's cute and that's exactly how she's curled up right next to me now. Uh, except she now has her face hidden behind her back leg.

( Right here, right now )
And this is what it looks like right now in front of me. Mostly, I'm a fan of the completely random map of Australia that appeared on the TV right at the moment of taking the photo. Oh yes, you can tell I live in Australia because I have a map of it on my TV. It's so subtle...

So that's my day in a couple of photos.

And now I have to post this and then attempt to stop my cat from climbing onto my keyboard...

It's raining.

It's hailing.

I have the central heating on.

And may I just remind everyone that, here in the antipodes, we are currently expecting Summer to be happening out there.  Well, late Spring.  But still.  Where is my sun?  Where is my heat?  Why did I buy all those cute dresses to wear to work if it's going to HAIL??

Ah, so many questions that cannot be answered.

Other questions that cannot really be answered: Where have I been since the third of August?  Well... it can be answered, but it would most likely be full of angst verging on emo, possibly descending into very, very dodgy poetry and ending with a bonus rant about the complete dearth of orange juice and crumpets in the house.  And that all adds up to something completely unsatisfying, so let's skip it and go straight to ( some random photos instead. )

And in other news, I would like to assure crazedturkey that her identical twin is alive and well and working somewhere at Forest Hill Chase.

Ah, there goes the hail again...

I am writing to you from my new place of abode, thanks to my mobile internet which works. Although, admittedly, sometimes the software likes to pretend the modem doesn’t exist, forcing me to connect through the network centre... but we get there in the end. And the dear little modem/router that usually deals with our ADSL is very generously giving me local and internet access via the home network, although I have no idea how it’s planning on making good on the internet component of that promise.

Things, in short, are going suspiciously well. Here’s how the tally stands:

Boxes: 0 Me: 1
Furniture: 0 Me: 1
Internet: 0 Me: 1

With no defeats yet suffered, I think I can call that a victory without being premature or anything. The place feels like a home already. Just this morning, I was sitting at the table, eating my breakfast and reading the paper. If that’s not civilised, then I don't know what is. (Yes, I may no longer be living across the road from a supermarket, but I am living around the corner from a milkbar and newsagent, which is almost as good.)

There will be photos. I keep running into hurdles with them at the moment. Firstly, I forgot that I needed to run a virus check on the camera I brought home from work... so that’s not going anywhere near my computer, despite the fact that I took a whole bunch of photos on it. Secondly, I took another set of photos with my own camera... until it ran out of battery. And thirdly, I don’t actually have any graphics programmes on my laptop, so I can’t re-size and fix the photos without first running my old desktop and getting some replacement batteries for the camera.

But the photos will come in time.

Pickle has settled in just as quickly, although she did throw a hissy fit when she discovered the lack of window-sills. The ones in the old house were perfect for a cat to sit on and watch the world outside. Not so with these ones. At present, she’s half on a window-sill and half on the couch. No, I tell a lie, now she's sitting on the frame... which can’t be comfortable at all.

And I’m sure I’ll get used to this strange silence eventually. It’s quite a novelty to be hearing bird sounds instead of six lanes of traffic, including bonus buses.

Oh, and the sound of rain falling on a tin roof takes me right back to my childhood. ’Tis lovely. :D

Sometimes, work comes with that most delightful concept known as “perks”.  Not always, of course.  Previously, my perks involved a great long list of nothing much at all.  Now they involve being able to take home the resident Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ30 in the name of, uh, learning how to use it so I can instruct staff and students on said use in the future.

*grins like a loon*

It was practically work.

Really it was.

Oh, how arduous and time-consuming it was, working on my long weekend by playing around with... um, I mean, concentrating workfully on this camera with its generous amount of pixels, spectacular zoom and manual focus.  If there’s one thing I’ve dreamed of since owning my first digital camera, it’s manual focus.  And it was lovely to have it, even just for a weekend.

Since my attention was recently alerted to the fact that I have no music-related icons whatsoever, I decided to make that the subject of my photo shoot.  The resulting icon is up there near the title, but here are some left-over shots.  (Oh yes, that would be my lovely new iPod video, that I bought mere weeks before the new ones were released.  I don’t care, though; I still love it dearly.)



I like so many things about this shot: the slight graininess, the shadows, the softness of it.  (Never mind the bit where the two pieces of paper join together.)  Bonus points go to the person who used the camera before me and who left it set on black and white.  Thanks so much for that, idiot.  Because when you’re photographing a black iPod on a white background, you don’t really notice that the colour’s been turned off...




This one I like for the swirling reflections.  Those headphones may be the best headphones ever, it's hard to tell.  I like my music sharp and defined and I like my public transport sounds muted out, and they provide both of those functions.




Pickle was incredibly unimpressed by the fact that I was paying more attention to the little black thing than to her.  She was actually asleep on the chair in the lounge room five minutes prior to this photo, as you can tell by her ruffled fur.  I guess some sort of “Egads!  Someone’s ignoring me!  Me!  A cat!” sense must have kicked in, causing her to wake up and demand appropriate attention.




And this would be a flower.  I ventured outside after the iPod shoot to have some fun with manual focus and ended up having extra bonus fun with the white balance.  It’s still way too dark in this pic, but it’s better than the auto setting.


I love this camera.  Does anyone think work would mind if I just... kept it safely at home for the next five years or so?

Because Pickle is gorgeous.  Because I almost forgot I have a camera.  Because she posed in a perfect patch of sunlight.  Because of that, I bring you picspam of the cat kind.




( Even prettier pictures are hiding under here! )

I’m having one of those strange days where I just like typing.  It doesn’t matter what it is - I could be writing the greatest novel even known to humankind or a list of reasons why I shouldn’t stay up long past midnight on a work night - as long as I’m typing something, my brain and fingers are happy.

Actually, now that I think of it, I probably should write that list of reasons why I shouldn’t stay up long past midnight on a work night.  I really do need more than five hours’ sleep, especially if my cursed cat is going to insist on waking me up half an hour before the alarm.  If she wasn’t so damn cute she’d be right out on the streets.  Although I did feel slightly bad when I accidentally kicked her in the head.  I wasn’t trying to!  She was trying to rub on my legs (universal cat-speak for “FEED ME NOW FOR I AM CUTE BUT ALSO STARVING TO DEATH!”) and I was trying to prevent it as I was still sulking over her waking me up at an unearthly hour... and this resulted in my kicking her slightly.  She didn’t mind but then, she was rather focussed on getting some food out of me.  If she had to put up with a small kick to the head to get her breakfast, then so be it.

And then she knocked half of her biscuits onto the floor and refused to pick them up when I told her to.  She’s such a disobedient cat.

In other news, I’ve been trying to get back to my habit of writing a list of tasks to accomplish each day.  The only down-side is I usually end up laughing at said list by the end of the day, amused by my absolute inability to complete even the simplest of tasks.  So far, I’ve failed to: write several emails, write one hundred words, complete a drabble, make a new banner for my LJ and finish beta-ing one chapter.  On the up side, I have written (and read) several rather long PMs, created havoc in the Survivor game I’m running with rigel_7, made two and a half banners (although NOT for my LJ) and found the time to curse my iriver at length for failing to have a proper shuffle songs function.

I am achieving things; they just happen to be the wrong things.

Yesterday, I went shopping and actually enjoyed myself.

According to my past experience, this should surely mean that the world is about to end.  Quite soon in fact.

Not once did I experience the urge to mercilessly slaughter those around me.  Not once did I develop a headache simply from stepping into a store.  Not once did I lapse into speaking in sullen monotone.

It’s all a bit disturbing, really.  Mind you, it helped that I was with the Bindi (ye olde sister-in-law) at the time.  She’s a fun person to spend time with, even if she does have a tendency to encourage you to buy everything in which you express the slightest interest.  But I came out of it with a new bag (which is absolutley perfect!  I’d ramble on about it but I’d surely only end up worrying everyone about my obsession with bags...) and a lovely stripy quilt cover set.  Not to mention a European pillow which turns out to be very good for sprawling over whilst reading manga.

Of course, Pickle thinks I bought the pillow for her to sleep upon and promptly set about doing so once I’d finished my reading.

And since the good rigel_7 happened to mention the other day that I haven’t posted any pictures of Pickle lately, this seems the perfect time to do so.

Here she is, modelling her new “bed” whilst my new stripy quilt cover provides a lovely background.


’Tis the last day of my holidays today, too.  I’m not sure how they managed to fly by so quickly.