And The Road Goes On..

2003-12-01T18:44:00.000+11:00

Update on my life

This past week and a half has been fairly full on. I have been continuing to do my dog grooming course as well as my normal work as a vet nurse, which has left me permanently exhausted. Also been having a rather rough time at work. Last week was the week for most of our terminally ill dogs to make the journey across the Rainbow Bridge. Barney, the Samoyed with the bowel obstruction joined the procession last Sunday and we have lost 5 dogs from the pound to parvo. Dogs seem to be dying left, right and centre. It has gotten that bad that today that there was a dead dog lying in a body bag in the storeroom when I got to work cause the freezer was full. It is very depressing when every dog that comes in seems to die. The local pound has a huge outbreak of parvo which they are refusing to do anything about, so when dogs get released into the care of rescue organisations, they are already sick and dying. I am sick of seeing dogs suffering for days on end only to lose their struggle and succumb. I am also sick of the smell of parvo and having to clean up vomit and watery diarrhea.
Also we have had 4 kittens dumped on us for rehoming. A mother cat and her 3 kittens were brought in on the weekend and a little 5 week old girl kitten was brought in last Thursday after being hit by a car (fortunately she is okay and is thriving). So today amongst the death, I consoled myself with lots of kitten cuddles. I am really hoping that this week will be much better.

2003-11-18T14:10:00.000+11:00

Megway Transporting Human

A bold step forward in pedestrian transport. Why walk, when you can Megway!

2003-11-18T13:52:00.000+11:00

Dead Bug Funeral Kit

For you, on the death of your bug.

2003-11-18T11:22:00.000+11:00

Bad Monday

Yesterday was a truly shocking day. I got called into work at 9:30am as we had to do emergency surgery on a Samoyed that had a bowel obstruction and there was heaps of grooming to be done as well. I thought that I was getting okay at grooming, but I just didn't have enough experience to deal with a 10 year old border collie that didn't want to be clipped for summer and a playful 6 month old Labradoodle with a half matted coat. I managed to struggle through and do their backs, necks and chest - but that was as far as I able to do. It also didn't help that I was violently ill last Thursday and am still trying to recover. I really wanted to return to work and be able to impress them with at least some grooming knowledge and instead I pretty much fucked up. I also did exactly what my grooming teacher told me not to do as it would demotivate me - and she was right, it did. A small concession - I did manage to hydrobath four dogs successfully and with a minimum of fuss.
The surgery on the Samoyed was a 4 hour ordeal. The bowel obstruction was caused by a pair of stockings, which did major damage, and we had to remove about 4 inches of bowel. It was really touch and go, but the dog survived the surgery and last night was up and walking around. If the poor boy survives the next 3 days, then his outlook is good.
I just hope today is going to be a little less stressful.

2003-11-11T19:17:00.000+11:00

Dog Grooming Course

I have just completed day two of my dog grooming course, and I am surprised that I am not doing as badly as I thought I would, actually I am doing quite well. Also getting up at 5:20am isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, probably because I collapse into bed exhausted around 10pm and don't move until my alarm goes off. I am even enjoying watching the sun rise. Knowing my luck tomorrow getting up will be harder than ever and I will be totally crap at clipping. One thing I am not enjoying is that my arms are absolutely killing me and I have muscles in my back that I never knew existed. I am definitely going to be in need of a massage once this week is over.

2003-11-08T09:55:00.000+11:00

Lose the Pom-Poms

Last night, I went to watch the WNBL match between the Sydney Uni Flames and Perth Lynx. Sydney won 76 - 66, but it wasn't the convincing victory it should have been against Perth who has lost every one of their games. The match was full of fouls, with one Perth player being fouled out of the game and several players on both sides racking up 4 personal fouls. The game was held at the Flames new home stadium at Sydney University, which looks great and has much more comfortable seats than at the Bankstown Stadium.

The USyd Cheerleaders were back again. I thought we had thankfully seen the last of them, but alas they still linger on. Australia isn't a cheerleader nation. We don't have cheerleaders supporting high school teams and very rarely are there cheerleaders for professional sports. We, as a nation, are just not the cheerleader-types. We can do our own cheering. Thus, a disorganised group of three girls and two guys with pom-poms yelling out unoriginal cheers whilst having no idea where they are supposed to stand is downright embarrassing. They were okay at just dancing to "upbeat" music, but it when it came to cheering and performing standard cheerleading tricks it physically hurt to watch them. They make the game look amateurish, and in a sport that is struggling to get respect, it is not something that they need.

2003-11-07T12:09:00.000+11:00

Non-Descript Week

Well, my home phone is finally fixed. The phone guy reckons that the dogs had chewed on the phone line that is situated under the house. They may have, but seeing the great number of rodents that Rory (my beagle) keeps catching, I have a sneaking suspicion it was the rats.

Work is sending me on a dog grooming course next week. They have had no luck finding a professional groomer to come in 1-2 days a week, so they are training me. I have an underlying fear that I am going to be totally inept. I am just not creative with my hands, I can't draw, build stuff out of wood and I even have a hard time cutting a straight line with a pair of scissors. I have explained this to the vets, but they still seem confident that I will make a good dog groomer. The course is being held on the Central Coast, which is a 90 minute train trip from Sydney. It is not going to be fun getting up every morning at 5:30am. I am totally not a morning person. I can't even get up at 7am when Lela gets up to walk the dogs. However, I am looking forward to learning about grooming. If I am able to do this, it will definitely secure my job for many years - and it is a valuable skill to have.

2003-11-02T11:50:00.000+11:00

New Mobile Phone

I finally have a brand new mobile phone. The gorgeous Nokia 3100. It is much smaller than my old phone and honestly it looks like a toy. It came with this horrible pink cover, so my first course of action is going to be buying a new cover - I refuse to own a pink phone. I had a lot of fun yesterday setting the phone up, making new caller groups and playing around with the polyphonic ringtones. In playing with the ringtones and trying to find new ones I stumbled across the greatest scam on earth. If you want a new ringtone, you find the one you like, then you call a 1900 number where they charge between $4- $8 a minute, you put in your order, and then a web address gets sent to your phone. Then you have to use WAP to go online and download it, all the while paying the data transfer fees. A ringtone can end up costing you in excess of $12!! It is a total rip-off. If you want to avoid this and create ringtones on your PC and then transfer them to your phone, the data cable to do this costs $120. It is ridiculous!!
I am determined to find a cheaper option - there has to be one.

WNBL

I went to the game between the Sydney Uni Flames and the Canberra Capitals last night. Unfortunately my team Sydney went down to Canberra 67 -56. However, it was definitely well worth the defeat to see Lauren Jackson play. How often are you going to see the MVP of the WNBA play? LJ scored 39 of Canberra's 67 points, the next highest point score on the team had 6 points. It was great watching that caliber of player in action, but how I wished she was on my team instead of the opposition.

2003-10-30T11:58:00.000+11:00

E.T can't phone home

I am currently suffering major telecommunications problems. Firstly, our home phone has died - no dial tone, nothing. We can't ring anyone and no one can call us. That would be a minor inconvience if my mobile phone hadn't also decided to die. My mobile phone is over three years old and has suddenly decided that whenever you try to make a call, the battery will promptly die. Thank god, I have cable internet! I am off to get a new mobile phone tomorrow and Lela is handling the home phone situation as I can't call anyone from the phone company from home.

ID for the Elderly

Finally NSW has decided to give over 25s that don't hold driver's licences some photo ID. I don't drive. Sydney traffic scares the shit out of me due to the high number of drivers who can't seem to operate a motor vehicle safely. I have no desire to be out there amongst them. This has made proving my identity very difficult. I have a learner's permit that expired in 2000 which I try to convience people to accept - but quite often they don't. I also have my passport which was issued in 1995. In my photo, I look extremely ill and very different to how I currently look. However, I hate carrying my passport around as I know I am going to lose it. Getting into pubs and over 18s gigs is becoming more difficult and for years I have complained that we need photo ID for those without driver's licence. Finally, it is here!!!
The new NSW ID and, according to Carl Scully, it is "expected to gradually supersede the proof-of-age card which is available to people under 25, but which is not available to the elderly". Nice to know at age 28 I am considered elderly.

2003-10-24T10:41:00.000+10:00

Technical Difficulties

Been having some technical difficulties with the poll doing strange things when using various types of browsers, so it has been removed.

Thrown Out

I was overjoyed that some MPs decided to make their feelings known during Bush's address to Parliament. Senator Bob Brown and Senator Kerry Nettle were removed from parliament for questioning Bush about Australian citizens still languishing in Cuba with no end to their torment in sight. I am hoping beyond hope that this will start proceedings to get these men back to Australia, though I am not expecting it to. It seems to me that Howard doesn't want to deal with them either and is quite happy to leave them rotting in Cuba.

2003-10-23T10:29:00.000+10:00

New Poll

With President's Bush visit to Australia today, I thought a new poll question was needed. Simon Crean, the leader of the ALP, has forbidden any members of his party to turn their backs on President Bush during his speech in Parliament today. Many MPs were wanting to do this to express their disapproval of Bush's actions in Iraq. Since protesters have been moved kilometres away and the use of loudspeakers banned by Herr Howard, Bush is going to get no real sense of Australians disapproval of his actions. Everything he is going to be shown is going to display approval and commendation for his murderous rampage across the Middle East. It is an outrage that when a President from a country that is proud of its constitutional right to free speech comes to visit our country, that our citizens are being banned from speaking.

2003-10-23T10:17:00.000+10:00

Prey Drive

The trial with the kitten is over and it was decided that we just simply are not ready to have a cat in the house. Caleb has a very strong prey drive and whilst this could be curbed over time, our open plan house with its three internal doors didn't allow us to block off a room for the kitten to be in. It was cruel keeping such an active kitten in a wire crate or a narrow stairway, so the kitten went back to the clinic today and the dogs have re-established their dominance over the house.
One day, when we have a house with more doors and Caleb has a better grip on obedience, I would love to get a kitten again. But now, it is time to put some real effort into Rory and Caleb's obedience training. Lela and I have been amazingly slack and not taken the dogs to their weekly obedience class for almost two months now. We are such bad puppy parents.

2003-10-21T13:13:00.000+10:00

Pounce!

We have a brand new member of our family, a tiny 7 week old male kitten who yet is to be named. He is on trial here to see whether he and our two dogs can get along. He came home around 8pm last night and so far things are going okay. He is currently in a wire crate in the kitchen which has a baby gate denying access to the dogs. The kitten doesn't seem the least bit worried about the dogs at all. He has hissed at Caleb only three times, twice when the kitten and Caleb's nose met under the kitchen cupboard and once when Caleb was pushing on the baby gate with his nose. The rest of the time, the kitten has calmly approached the gate looking rather curiously at the two dogs who are standing on the other side whining.
The kitten is absolutely tiny - weighing in at 770 grams. He is intensely curious about the world and is eager to get out and explore. It is absolutely fascinating watching him play with a toy mouse. It is such a predatory act complete with stalking, pouncing and batting the mouse around with his paws.

2003-10-20T13:01:00.000+10:00

Toasty Mona Lisa

Lela told me on the weekend that someone had made the Mona Lisa completely out of toast. I wasn't 100% convinced that she was telling truth, but a search on Google proven her correct. Someone has even reproduced it in pasta.

2003-10-17T11:25:00.000+10:00

Selling your Soul

Ever wondered how much your soul is worth? Well stop wondering and get your free, no obligations quote at Wewantyoursoul.com.
My soul is worth £16879 and 56% of people have a purer soul than me. That I think is handy knowledge to have.

2003-10-17T10:23:00.000+10:00

Kitten Fever

Nothing terribly noteworthy has been happening over the past few days. Life has gone on as normal. Things at work have been steady. We did have a little 12 week old Lab cross die of parvo on Wednesday morning, which was extremely sad. The little pup had been stable for the previous 48 hours and we were all hoping that she was going to make a full recovery. Also at the clinic, we had three tiny kittens that were dumped at the railway station across the road when they were only 4 weeks old. They came to us barely weaned and completely terrified of humans. They are now 6 weeks old and are really starting to develop personalities. The little girl got adopted on Wednesday and is going to a home with 2 other female cats. The two boys are still with us. I have never had much to do with cats before, but am finding myself becoming quite fond of them since I have started my new job. I am seriously debating adopting one of the kittens, but since Lela and I already have two dogs, I am really not sure how they would handle living together. I keep talking myself into and then out of cat ownership.

You may have also noticed a new feature... a poll. I promise I will make the questions more interesting in the future, but since I am just testing it, you are stuck with a boring one.

Also, if you want to rate this blog, simply click on the number you think it deserves, 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, under the Eatonweb Rate Me icon.

2003-10-15T13:18:00.000+10:00

Success!

On Monday, I finally got in touch with the elusive Judy. It turns out that she is the manager of the Properties section and they have done away with the system of one agent being in charge of x number of properties. I was told that she would inform the person in charge of organising repairs and that they would organise the repairs to be carried out. I feared the worse. Therefore, I was extremely surprised to get a call from a plumber on Monday evening to work out a time for the repairs to be carried out. We organised that a plumber would turn up between 8:30am and 9am on Wednesday. This morning I took the dogs for a run in the park and headed back home at 8:20am to find the plumber sitting on the steps waiting. Who has ever heard of a plumber turning up early??? Everything is now fixed and working perfectly. The toilet flushes and none of the taps are leaking. I spent most of today flushing the toilet and turning on and off the taps. I am like a child on Christmas morning. It is quite pathetic actually.

2003-10-11T22:03:00.000+10:00

Now the kitchen tap joins in

Day Three. I didn't bother calling Judy today. There are two messages from me waiting for her on her machine. If she couldn't get back to me on a Thursday or a Friday, there is no way she is going to on a Saturday. The hot water tap in the kitchen has joined the list of things broken. I am not sure what has happened, but I can't turn it off. I can get it down to trickling and then I turn it off some more and a huge gush of hot water comes streaming out. Something funky has gone wrong. So I now have a toilet that won't flush, a hot water tap that won't turn off and a real estate agent that refuses to be contacted about it. As all things happen in threes, I am just waiting for something else to go wrong.

On a positive note, the Sydney Uni Flames won their game against the Townsville Fires last night by a huge 20 points. Go Flames!! They are now 2 from 2, and face off against Dandenong next week.

2003-10-10T10:15:00.000+10:00

Toilet still broken
Day Two. I waited until 10am to call Judy again. I figured 10am was a good time, this allowed people to arrive at work, have their morning meeting and check their messages. I called L J Hooker and asked the receptionist (very politely) if I could speak to Judy. The receptionist told me that she was putting me straight through. The phone rang... and I got the damn answering machine again! This is not speaking to Judy. Why can't they say "Judy isn't in the office at the moment, would you like to leave a message on her answering machine?" Lela suggested instead of asking to speak to Judy, to ask if Judy is in the office. I will try this tactic on my next attempt.

2003-10-09T11:32:00.000+10:00

When the toilet doesn't flush

It is amazing what you take for granted until it stops working, like for instance, the flush function on the toilet. Just press a button and it all flushes away, but when that stops working you have to fill a bucket and pour the water in yourself. Thus a process that takes seconds now takes minutes. Our toilet died on Monday afternoon, was briefly resurrected and died for a final time on Wednesday afternoon, right before I left for work. If I owned my house fixing the toilet would only require a call to the plumber. However, I rent and my real estate agent (L.J Hooker) is the most irritating, frustrating and inept agency to deal with. Firstly, you need to work out who is taking care of your property and it is guaranteed not to be the same person as it was the last time something went wrong. Only armed with this information can you move onto the next stage - Answering Machine Tag. Whenever something breaks, the person who is in charge of your property will either be a) on a rostered day off, b) on holidays or c) refusing to answer the phone. However, the receptionist will never tell you that, and for the next week the only person you will be talking to is her and the answering service of your agent. No one else in the entire office is capable of helping you except your agent, who for the time being, has dropped off the face of the earth. A week later, the agent will call you back, except they won't use the number you left a thousand times on the answering machine, no, they will call every other number but it. Finally, contact is established, only to discover that the agent has made arrangements to get your bedroom window repaired when it is your backdoor that needs fixing. This error takes another week to sort out. Now, you are allowed to deal directly with the tradesperson doing repairs, and I think everyone has had enough dealing with them to know how long and involved that is.

I am starting a countdown of how long it takes to get my toilet fixed. So far, I have found out that Judy is now in charge of my property. It used to be Robert, who is responsible for the bedroom window/backdoor fiasco, and before that it was Andrew.
At 9:17am, I left a lovely and polite message on Judy's answering service. I called back at 10:30am, asked the receptionist if I could speak to Judy and found myself talking to the damn machine again. I decided not to leave a message. Will call again this afternoon to leave message number 2.

2003-10-09T09:34:00.000+10:00

3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference
"Like most Nigerians, you're probably finding that it's increasingly difficult to earn a decent living from email. That's why you need to attend the 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference." Learn the effectiveness of using UPPERCASE, find out what is the optimal number of grammatical errors or simply network with honest businessman like yourself.

2003-10-08T11:09:00.000+10:00

11 hours later and still standing
Yesterday was one very long day that saw me on my feet from 12pm-11pm. I got called into work early as we had heaps of surgeries to do and one of the nurses had to leave early (I work as a vet nurse). The hospital was almost packed to capacity, all with dogs that had been rescued from the pound by various rescue organisations. Most of the dogs had to be desexed, vaccinated, wormed, microchipped and heartwormed tested before they could go to their new foster carers. Fortunately, we were very lucky in that all the dogs had beautiful temperaments and let us prod and poke them with a minimum of fuss. Included in this bunch of dogs was a gorgeous 12 week old Lab X who we dubbed Venus. The poor little one had decided that she had had enough of cages in her short life and just threw back her head and howled for the entire day. We got sick of the howling around 5pm and let her out of the cage for a little wander around, a fed and a play. Since I was the person she saw the most of during the day, she stuck to me like glue and even braved the vacuum cleaner to be near me. My puppy cluckiness has now gotten a whole lot worse.
I managed to leave work at 8pm and rushed to Surry Hills to see Stella One Eleven play at the Hopetoun. Fortunately, I managed to arrive just before they went on stage, but too late to find a seat. My poor legs were well and truly aching by this stage, but I wasn't going to miss the first full band appearance by Stella in over a year. It will well worth the aching feet as Stella rocked their way through a selection of old and new songs. However, I was thankful when the last song ended and I made my weary way home to bed.

2003-10-06T19:40:00.000+10:00

Flamin' Basketball
Today, because of my girlfriend's new-found obsession for basketball, I went to watch the Sydney Uni Flames vs Adelaide Quit Lightning in the WNBL competition. My only physical brush with basketball was playing (very badly) on my high school team in year 10 - ball skills and co-ordination are really not my forte. I must admit that I really enjoyed it and will definitely be accompanying my girlfriend and friends to future games. My gods, I think I am becoming a basketball fan. The standard of basketball wasn't really up to what I witnessed watching the WNBA finals on TV, nor was the stadium. My butt is still recuperating from sitting on hard wooden bleachers for 2 hours. I am really hoping that the new Sydney Uni home stadium has much more comfortable seating, or I will definitely be investing in a cushion to take with me.
For those interested in the score. It was 69-56 in Sydney's favour. Go Flames!

2003-10-05T10:29:00.000+10:00

Dude, Where's My Country?

Michael Moore's new book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" goes on sale in the US and UK on October 7th. So what does a book about American politics have to do with a dyke from Sydney, you might be asking yourself. Quite a bit actually. Like it or not, America influences our politics here in Australia. Little Johnny Howard idolises George W and his archaic views on civil liberties, gay rights and privacy laws. Like in the US, here in Australia a federal law enforcement agency (ASIO) can detain you for 7 days and interview you without a lawyer for up to 24 hours. Your family is not notified about your whereabouts, and all because you are suspected of terrorist activities. Terrorist activity can be as innocuous as being a member of a protest group or a religious organisation or being from the country we are bombing this month. Thus, it is a good thing to know as much as you can about the man and the political system from which Johnny is taking his inspiration.

America. The Big Bad. The ultimate evil. How easily we vilify the US, but do we stop and think how America became a symbol of war and destruction? Michael Moore in his usual tactless way spelt it out for us in an interview with The Guardian - "I hold Blair more responsible than Bush for this war. Because Bush doesn't know better, Blair does. Bush couldn't have gotten away with this without Blair. It is my challenge to the British public to get up off the couch and find another way."
That's right, we are partly responsible for the destruction in Iraq. The British and Australian governments supported the US' murderous rampage across the Middle East. We paved the way for America's rise to becoming The Ultimate Evil. Yet in Australia, despite the rumblings of a few groups, no one seems to give a shit - not even the Opposition. We look at the hurt and pain in the Iraqi people's eyes and say to each other, "isn't it horrible what America is doing to these people". Well, they couldn't be doing it if our government didn't let them. Stop being so apathetic! Stop letting Howard believe that he is invincible. Now is the time to let the Liberal party know that we "are not happy, Jan".

2003-10-04T10:20:00.000+10:00

Bush Down Under

It seems that George W Bush is honouring Australia with his presence and we are paying $2 million for the pleasure. Little Johnny Howard has decided to recall parliament so that George can give a 30 minute speech. To show his appreciation of Australia's continuing support for his war-mongering policies George is spending a total of 24 hours in this country - and I am betting that at the last minute he decides that this is too long and will cancel his trip. Wake up to yourself Howard, you are being played! You are nothing but a pawn in George's quest for world domination. If you were a truly valued member of the Coalition of the Willing, Bush would spend a couple of days here, maybe even a week. Instead, you get 24 hours and a 30 minute speech to parliament. The $2 million dollars would be better off spent improving health care in Australia, so that a little boy in Orange doesn't have to wait 7 hours to get proper medical attention after mincing his hand in a grinder. However, our current government would rather spend that money listening to a man who couldn't even win an election fairly talking about a war that we had no legitimate reason to start.

2003-10-03T12:26:00.000+10:00

Porn for Charity
Blogger Boobie-Thon is back for its second annual fundraiser for charity. All you have to do is submit a photo of your breasts (both female and male breasts are accepted)during October, and the more risque ones will be in a special section that is viewable for a "donation" of $50. It is billed as "the charity drive that gives you a little somthin' in return..." It is definitely more interesting than a little pink ribbon.

It's in the eyes
Psychologist have found that sexuality is hard-wired into the brain before birth and it all has to do with the way you blink. Apparently there is significant difference in the ways that hetrosexuals and homosexuals blink when startled. Now it is time to start startling your friends and co-workers.

2003-10-02T11:59:00.000+10:00

Red Wine Sunrise

Last night I went to Rose of Australia Hotel in Erskineville to see Stella One Eleven in their first gig in over a year. The band had taken a year off to write a new album and last night was an unofficial unveiling of their brand new songs. The guys were in acoustic mode and were backed up by a strings sections consisting of a cello and violin. They opened with a few favourites from their previous two albums before launching into their new material. Unfortunately, s.s.d which is one of my favourite songs from the new album, just didn't work in acoustic mode as, in my opinion, it is really written to be played on electric guitar. However, Somewhere Out There rocked! The album version of the song suffers from too much production, but live it had obtained an edgier feel that really worked. They also played She (which is fast becoming my favourite track), Free, Beautiful Boys, Bitter and Red Wine Sunrise. Then Bernie Hayes came on stage to join them in covering Total Control. I have really missed seeing Stella play, so it is great having them back doing gigs again.
The new album titled Stella One Eleven goes on sale next week, whilst their next gig is on Tuesday at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills. As Molly Meldrum would say, do yourself a favour and check them out.

Freeway Blogger
A friend of mine sent me the link to site recording the art of the Freeway Blogger. It is a great example of what is known as guerilla art. With slogans like "Nobody died when Clinton lied" and "Ignoring the UN to bomb Iraq for ignoring the UN - Pathetic" you really can't go wrong. With Bush arriving in Sydney in the coming weeks, I am really hoping to see phrases like these to grace the placards of those protesting - and it would be wonderful to see them on our roads as well. The closest to this I have seen is a sign on a telegraph pole announcing a protest meeting at Marrickville Town Hall with the heading, "Give Bush the welcome he deserves".

Extreme Pumpkins
It is pumpkin carving at its power tool wielding best. I am also not sure that combining pumpkins and pyrotechnics is in anyone's best interest, but these guys make it look great. If pumpkin carving is your thing, you can't miss Extreme Pumpkins.

2003-10-01T13:21:00.000+10:00

Return of the King

The brand new trailer for the third and final installment of the The Lord of The Rings trilogy is now up at the official site.
It looks absolutely amazing!
Also in the US, they are screening a LOTR marathon the day before Return of the King opens (16th December) featuring the extended editions of Fellowship and Two Towers, and then Return of the King. Check your local theatre for details, as this is a once-only marathon.
Hopefully, the cinemas in Australia will be running a similar deal. Return of the King opens Boxing Day here, so it is likely that this marathon will be held on this day as I can't imagine it running on Christmas Day. If anyone has details about the marathon in Australia, please, please let me know.

2003-10-01T10:24:00.000+10:00

Angel of Darkness

I am currently playing my way through the new Tomb Raider game. I have made it up to The Archeological Dig, but would not have done so without the wonderful resource of The AOD Guide from the guys at TombRaider Forums. I thought I should give them a public thank you as I have relied fairly heavily on their guide.

Keeping on the Tomb Raider theme, I went to see the brand new TombRaider Movie last Friday night. I am in two minds whether I liked it or not. The lovely Angelina Jolie did not disappoint in the eye candy department and the action sequences were at time very impressive. However, the plot just didn't hold up. Right at the beginning of the film, it is revealed that Pandora's Box, that everyone is now after, is located in The Cradle of Life, but it takes them four countries and most of the film to realise that the Cradle of Life is in Africa. Anyone who has sat through high school science or history could have told them that! Finally, they made it to Africa with the glowing amber orb which at this point resembles a golden disco ball of death rather than a Greek artifact. They talk to some natives and then go on an amazing walk through untold dangers, which could have all been avoided if they had just helicoptered into the place - like one character ended up doing right near the end of the film. They also repeated a plot point they used in the first film where the male love/hate interest ends up dying whilst he is trying to get the item which will let him rule the world. Although in the second film Lara kills him, but you could see it coming a mile away so there was no real suspense. I give the film a 6/10 - it is only the stunts and the gorgeous Angelina Jolie that prevented it from being a dismal failure.

2003-09-30T11:03:00.000+10:00

Show and Tell

Show and Tell was never like this in my day. A 5 year old girl in Darwin, Australia showed her kindergarten classmates how to make a bong out of a Coke bottle during a Show and Tell session. To read the whole article go here.

What is the world coming to when a 5 year old knows how to make a bong? One wonders if she also knows what it is used for and how to use one?

2003-09-30T10:05:00.000+10:00

First Post

This is my first attempt in blogging. I needed a space in which to store my thoughts, my rants and interesting gems that I find in my journeys on the World Wide Web. Blogs looked a very cool way to do all this, so I did some research and got myself a free account.
This blog is still in a very embroyic stage and no doubt will be changing over the coming days as I play with the settings.