I forgot!

To say that I watched my first ever English Super League match today :-)

It was surprisingy good and was a very close game between the Wakefield Wildcats and the Warrington Wolves. The only thing I did notice was that the English League is not as elegant as the NRL here, if you can use such a word as elegant to describe rugby! And I still think that British players look more weedy that the NRL players with the exception of a few who weren't British born and had the usual rugby player physique - that's what I'm talking about! You know, the big thighs and broad shoulders which make them better for tackling. You seem them go for the ball and you know they will put the opposition on it's arse with ease! Proper rugby players.

At one point though it did look like there may be a punch up going to start, but it never came to fuition :-( I love good rugby punch up!

Roll on 8pm :-) :-) :-)

Knock, Knock

Only that's the problem! Due to the design of the houses in our estate/cul de sac we don't have door knockers but a buzzer intercom thingy. You can only hear the buzzer intercom thingy when you are downstairs and due to the design of the house you are never far away from the front door when you are downstairs. There are no corridors and it's all open plan. The only doors down stairs apart from the obvious front door are - back door, door to garage, door to downstairs toilet and from there is the door to the laundry. The front door leads straight into the front room and the buzzer intercom thingy handset is on the wall to the left of the sofa, if you are downstairs you can hear it just fine. We also have a buzzer thingy handset upstairs on the landing but that one doesn't make any noise and I don't know if it was ever supposed to and it's broke or whether it has never made a noise.

Door knockers are much easier! Anyway, I realised this afternoon when I looked at the tracking of my parcel, that I had missed them this morning and I blame the stupid intercom thingy. It wouldn't have happened with a proper door knocker!
I should have been installing my 1GB of RAM today had I heard the door. Thought I probably would have chickened out of installing it my own and waited until tomorrow and got Mr M to help/actually fit it LOL But instead I know have to wait until they re-deliver it on Monday, I don't even get an option to call them and go to their depot to pick it up, I just have to wait until Monday. I'm so gutted that I didn't hear the door this morning :-(

My Adobe Creative Suite software has been sat on the floor for a about a month while I sorted out getting my Mac to the correct spec to install it and all I want to do is have a play with it. I'm hoping that once installed and I've had a good go at it that I will become more inspired to get on with my photography studies, which have come to a grinding halt. I'm hoping to go out over the weekend and get some night shots of Sydney for my assignment. This will probably have to take place on Sunday though as tomorrow night we have Earth Hour where everyone is supposed to turn their lights off, though it may make for interesting photos! I wonder if Luna Park will turn all of it's lights off? Weird!

When I was first told of Earth Hour, it was said that it was happening tonight and I didn't get the lights bit, I thought you had to turn everyting off. This of course led me to shout "I'm not turning everything off! Don't the realise that there's footy on!" I was then reassured that it was only the lights and not everything so I could still watch the Friday night footy. Of course it helps that it's happening on Saturday instead of tonight. I'm not too sure what to make of the idea, I appreciate that we need to help the environment but I don't think turning off the lights for an hour will make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. It would be much more beneficially if the Aussie government signed up to the Kyoto agreement, I don't understand why they don't.

I have also often wondered why the governments weren't interested in the planet years ago, why the change of heart all of a sudden? I also don't think that countries make the most of solar power, hydro and wind power. Though, I must say, the last time I was in Leichardt I noticed that some of the street lights had solar panels on them and that Leichardt Council are trying to use more solar power. Good on 'em! It's about time it was looked at more seriously, now all we need is for other local councils to catch on.


Anyway, in other news...... I went to Woolies this afternoon to buy stuff for tonights dinner and I was so happy to find Italian Parmesan! Proper imported Italian Parmesan! Hoorah! This may seem very bizarre to some of you but I love Italian Parmesan and I usually have to travel to Leichardt to buy it due to supermarkets usually only stocking cheese made in Australia. Oh, and if you love cheese as much as I do and you want to know the best State for tasty Aussie cheese - Tasmania! YUM! :-)

The First Dance

Even though Mr M and I aren't getting married until we go back to the UK, I watch and see things that start me wondering about our wedding. So far I can see the biggest headache being 'The First Dance' with cries of "do I have to?". Mr M isn't a dancer and the only times that we have danced together have been in the house when i have some music playing and alcohol has been consumed.

Aside from the actual dancing, you have to choose the song to dance to. OMG! Do you know how difficult that is going to be. I'm not a fan of soppy love songs and Mr M is more inclined to go with The Clash than Celine Dion. Which is a good thing becuase I couldn't stand having Celine Dion warbling on our wedding day. In fact *mental note to self - make sure that no Celine Dion gets played on wedding day*

So, perhaps we could go for something different. Here's my alternate list of songs so far:
Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
Green Day - Stuck With Me
Kaiser Chiefs - Everyday I Love You Less & Less
OPM - Heaven Is A Halfpipe
Foo Fighters - No Way Back
The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Weezer - Keep Fishin'

Just a select few for now!

I had better add that the list above is only a joke and will not be our first song. I'm actually thinking of scraping the first song idea anyway, I don't see why we have to use a tradition if we don't want to. It's a radical idea but something that many people are ditching, infact when we went to Mr M's best mates wedding last year, they didn't have a first dance. They did have a harp playing thought the afternoon which was lovely.
I'm also thinking of charging per head for people who want to come along, why should we pay for them to eat? (semi-joking, that thought really has crossed my mind but we will opt for fewer guests instead. And maybe still charge them....)

It's no wonder people say weddings are stressful. Someone remind me why we even bother? Maybe there is some tax break for married people or is that only if you have sprogs these days?
Tax break would be good, and make it worthwhile and maybe then we could pay for all the food LOL




NOTE: On a serious note, we won't be inviting any children. If any guests have sprogs they'd better get a babysitter because the people who know me, know that I am not child friendly and have a zero policy when it comes to them.








Edit: As much as I personally, do not like children and do not want any of my own, I would not see any harm come to a child. Most of them annoy the crap out of me but there are a few little cheeky angels out there who occassionally melt my heart, however, these are very few and far between. I believe in discipline and feel that this is lacking in most people parenting skills, the evidence is in the way their children behave. There is nothing wrong with smacking children to teach them right from wrong, if you do it right you will only ever need to smack them once, the threat of a smack the next time they do domething wrong will be good enough. I appreciate that some people don't understand the difference between smacking and child cruelty - smacking involves using force on the bottom and I don't mean a light tap. I do not believe in hitting children, or cliping them over the head; that is cruel. But when they do something wrong they need to understand there and then and not when 'Daddy get's home', by that time they will have forgotton what they did.
If I see you smacking your child in public, I will not give you dirty looks but let you carry on with your disciplining. I only give dirty looks to parents who can't control they're screaming and annoying brats.
And if you are looking for evidence that discipline through smacking works, then take a look at the animal kingdom. Watch a mother with it's young and you will see that she let's them get so far and then smacks them. It works!

Accidents Happen

Unfortunatley.

Heard on the news yesterday about a car crash in Kogarah in South Sydney. The car went onto the pavement and caused injury to nine people, one of whom has since died.
The scene shown was awful and I can't imagine what the people at the bustop where the crash happened must have been thinking when the saw the car heading straight for them.

Of course, as with any car accident the first thing people start shouting about is speed! I have always maintained that it is not speed that kills but people inability to control it. Heck, how slow are we gonna have to start driving? And of course there are a number of ways to reduce speed, the most widely used being the speed bump. Those things are a menace and I personally believe that they can cause serious harm to people. For example, if someone is in the back of an ambulance with certain injuries and they go over a speed bump they could actually kill that person. Okay, it's a bit dramatic but it could happen.
More often it is people with other injuries that suffer, such as those with bad backs. You try going over a speed bump as slow as you want with a bad back and it will still cause pain! I occassionally get severe neck pain and I despise going over those things when I am already suffering as it makes it much worse. I know that speeding is a major issue but why can't they just put in more speed camera's?
I'm just waiting for the first person to take a council to court for injuries suffered/made worse from speed bumps. It will happen one day and then I can rejoice in them all being taken up :-)

But back to that terrible accident...
By all accounts the driver was a 42 year old woman and her instructor was with her in the car. The poor woman was, understandably in shock and I can't imagine what she must be going through. I very much doubt that she will ever get behind the wheel of a car again. The brother of the instructor said on the radio today that he thought that she probably put her foot on the accelerator rather than the brake. This was something that I thought when I heard about the accident last night. I remember when I was learning to drive, I made the silly mistake of having my brother teach me to drive, and that saying about family and teaching is completely true! My big bro' was a qualified driving instructor with a well known driving school in the UK. I was a 17 year old nervous wreck! Made worse by my bro'. However, he did say that there are too instincts when it comes to fear, flight and fight. Well, I was clearly flight! This means that when you panic you basically shut down, it takes over you and you let it. Fight, obviously means that you fight through the fear and control it, your mind stays focussed on the job in hand. Problem is, I've never responded well to being shouted at. That aside, and after many years of being fearful of driving, I realised that I had a major problem, I was more than normal scared. I was having panic attacks when I climbed into the drivers seat of a stationary vehicle!

I overcame this by learning to drive with a female instructor. I told her about my past history and she booked me in for a lesson the following morning, so that it gave me less time to worry about it. I never looked back. But I remember that all of the cars I drove when I was learning had dual controls. It was something that I was insistent on, because if I did something wrong or if I got too out of control with fear, I knew that the instructor could take control of the vehicle. It made me feel safer. And I wondered with that accident if dual controls were fitted, and I would guess with the outcome that they weren't.
I don't think it is legal to have dual controls fitted in learner cars, it's certainly not in people's cars that get used to learn to drive in. But I think if your profession is as a driving instructor you should have your own vehicle and it should be fitted with dual controls. Rather than blaming speed, why don;t we look at other ways that the accident could have been avoided, with the instructor taking control. I'm not blaming the instructor, no one is to blame, it was just a tragic accident. But surely the instructor knew that she was no longer in control of the car and as such could have taken control of the vehicle IF it had dual controls.

There is no right or wrong here only considerations and sadness that such a terrible accident happened :-(

Eat an Apple or look out of the Windows

I converted to Apple around 2002. I bought an iMac flat panel, you know the one where the screen is attached to the dome base by a shiny metal and movable neck. I loved it from the moment I saw it on the TV Adverts and found it very easy to use.
As mentioned in a previous post, I have, until recently, still been using the original OS that came with the machine. Now that I have updated the OS to the latest load I have been wondering whether I converted to a bad Apple.

You see, I have had many problems since updating the OS but I can accept that it's just change and I have to get used to it. It has better security than my old OS, which is a good thing even though it was a pain in the arse to figure out. With the new OS came a new version of iTunes and this has to be the biggest pain in the arse to date.

I have a 3rd Gen 20gb iPod. Bless, the little thing has been serving me well and the only sign of problems and age is with the remote control unit that plugs into the headphone jack. It's great for using while training as I can skip through songs and unjust the volume without having to look at my iPod. Recently, it has started cutting out on the left earplug but comes back when I jiggle the wire. So I know it's a connect fault and need to by a new remote control unit.

I've put loads of albums on to iTunes recently that I haven't got on my iPod, so yesterday I upload a couple of those albums. Initialy, as in for seconds, it was ok but then went in to scanning for "gapless playback". It would get stuck doing this and freeze my iTunes and lock up my iPod which meant that I had to pull him from the dock because he wouldn't eject properly. Today I have had both crash on me and my poor little iPod went into scan disk mode to check the HD is was alright. Fortunately, he gave me the tick of approval. However, I had to force my iTunes to quit twice before it actually did.

I'm so annoyed!

My iPod doesn't have "gapless playback" so why does it go through the process everytime I move songs to my iPod? AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH

I wonder if it's a ploy by Apple to make us buy the latest and greatest iPod which actual does support "gapless". I've been through the Apple disscussions forum and many other people are suffering the same problem as I am. And it seems like we're all pissed off about it. But how long before we have a fix? God only knows! And should you happen to see God, could you ask him for me please? Thanks :-)

I just read...

a blog by a stranger that I love reading everyday http://youlooklikeafrog.blogspot.com/
Original Mel put what colour her blog should be in her recent post, so I decided to take a look at the quiz and see what mine would be

Your Blog Should Be Blue

Your blog is a peaceful, calming force in the blogosphere. You tend to avoid conflict - you're more likely to share than rant. From your social causes to cute pet photos, your life is a (mostly) open book.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Hehe, it's blue! My fave colour. Couldn't give a shit about what it says, i was more concerned with what colour it would give me :-)



Hmmm, I really should learn how to do this blog thing properly. Particularly linking blogs that I frequent regularly such as http://beki.typepad.co.uk/
Had to find a way of putting it in somewhere!

Hair today, gone tomorrow!

No, not my hair but that of Melbourne Storms Matt King.

For those of you who aren't aware just yet, I am now very much enjoying the Rugby League! Being Welsh I should enjoy rugby but in the past in has been a game that I had very little enthusiasm for but since coming to Australia I have been swept up and away with the NRL - It's great!

Of course, as I have a soft spot for Melbourne (despite living in Sydney) one of the teams I support is the Melbourne Storm and who wouldn't support a team that has a player that looks like Sideshow Bob :-) I took great delight last Friday shouting "Go Bob!" everytime Matt King had possession of the ball. Tonight they were playing the Canberra Raiders and won - yay! But while I was watching I couldn't find "Bob" on the pitch. I frantically played a game of "Where's Bob?" while cheering and screaming at the TV. I finally caught a glimpse of a guy that.... no wait... that... that is "Bob"! But the "Bob" on my screen was no longer.
Yes, Matt King has shaved off his hair.
I couldn't believe it, I was in shock and I could no longer shout "Go Bob" because without the hair he's just, well, too normal.
Fortunately, Kingy was a good chap and shaved it all off for The Worlds Greatest Shave to help the fight against Lukeamia.
At least he had a good reason to lose the trademark 'fro.

I have scoured the net but so far I haven't found any pics of hairless Matt but I will edit this post and add one when I find one.

Today, I've been mainly....

Putting yet More music into my iTunes. Not only mine but Mr M's as well seeing how he lost his library and is building/deleting/adding from mine which I managed to copy over for him.

Today, I have added:
The Who - Then & Now
Mattafix - Signs of a struggle
Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV
Panic! At The Disco - A fever you can't sweat out
Eminem - Curtain Call
Various - Sound of the Suburbs
The Clash - The story of the Clash
The John Butler Trio - Sunrise over sea
The Jam - Greatest Hits
Guns N Roses - Greatest Hits
Various - Music from The Long Way Round
Peter Gabriel - Shaking the tree
Dolly Parton - A life in Music (Thanks to Beki for her comment on MySpace which reminded me that I hadn't put Dolly on)
Patrizio Buanne - The Italian
Savage Garden - Truly madly completely
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Bag of hits
Simon & Garfunkel - Tales from New York
Tori Amos - Tales of a librarian
Robert Palmer - At his very best
Chris Rea - Old light through new windows
Lighthouse Family - Postcards from heaven

From this latest offering you can probably tell that the rest of my iTunes collection is just as eclectic. I love listening to music while at the computer which is why I have so many of my CDs stored on it. Only problem is the last time I copied my library back over I had to re-do all my playlists. When I copied the library over to Mr M's PC I remembered to put the XML file into the right folder which meant that it kept the playlists. Only problem is that it doesn't remember which songs go into the playlists, so I had to manually move them all about which meant that some albums aren't showing the track list in the right order. I'll have to take a look to see if there is any way or preserving the order as I'm going to have to go through the same issue the next time I load a new OS (probably around Christmas unless I succumb and buy it earlier, like when they releas it!) as I like to do a fresh install rather than just upgrading. Only because I think you have less problems with a clean install though you do have to reload all other software.... hmmm. No, even with all the hassles I still would do a clean install for a new OS.

My current iTunes library is sitting at 3266 songs, 8.8 days, 13.63 GB!!

I'm Soooo Happy :-)

I've finally found a supermarket that stocks Hellmann's mayonaise!

This may not be exciting for most people but I love a decent mayo and the nearest I've found in the supermarket is S&W and, well, it's just not Hellmann's! I used to have to buy it from an import shop in the City for $13 a jar!! In the local-ish supermarket (it's in North Sydney) it's just $5.70. Bargain!

I actually went there to look for Lea & Perrin's Worcester Sauce. I swear we bought our last bottle from Coles but I've been to three different Coles supermarkets and two different Woolworths and a Franklins Store and none of them had it. So I bought some other brand that looked and tasted like vinegar and ruined my lasagne grrrr! I had visions of having to go to the import store again but then I remember the IGA in North Sydney. That is now my fave grocery store because the had my favourite mayo and my fave worcester sauce.

Yay!

I have since been eating stacks of Tune, Mayo & Sweetcorn sandwiches and this weekend I'm gonna make some Egg Mayo sarnies - Heaven!


You think this is strange? Well you know what they say, Little Things Please Little People :-)

My take on bands reuniting

First off, this is the first photo I've put in a post since I upgraded my OS. I'm now using Safari as my web browser and, well, it seems to have changed things around a bit. For example, the image is displayed assome URL type string rather than giving me the image. It works in preview but I don't know where my typing will be unlike before. Think i will have to download Firefox again and go back to that.

Anyway, to the reason for this post....
I've just an article about band reuniting and why it's a bad thing. I personally don't think it is. The article mentioned that the bands had written the best stuff years ago and that the solo careers weren't very good, also that if it for nostalgic reasons that people want to see the bands back together, that they should instead listen to the records.

Now I disagree with this for several reasons. Firstly, the bands that have reunited may have written their best stuff many years ago but does that stop it being good? No. Some of the solo careers have been extremely successful and as the Police were mentioned the article perhaps the forgot that Sting was the lead singer of the group. I would say that Sting has a huge fan base since going out on his own solo career.
Secondly, what the article fails to realise is the reason why many people, including myself, go to concerts in the first place. To see the actual people perform live in front of you. I've been fortunate enough to see some great concerts and I would have to say that the Rolling Stones might just be at the top purely because I never though I would get the chance to see them live for a numer of reasons including their age. So to see them live and rockin' like the were still in their twenties was amazing and they sounded good too!

For this very same reason, I would love to see The Who live. With the bands reunion and subsequent tour, I may well get that opportunity. I'm pushing 30 so I wasn't exactly concert going age when The Who were in their glory days but the reunion and tour now means that so long as I can get to where they are playing and have the money for a ticket, I could see some more rock legends in the flesh.

So far I have seen live:
The Rolling Stones
Elton John,
The Foo Fighters
Green Day (twice)
Jimmy Eat World (as a support act)
My Chemical Romance (as a support act)
Kaiser Chiefs (as a support act)
UB40
and in April I will be going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Sure, I could listen to the albums but it's not the same as seeing them perform life. Jumping and dancing around and meeting other people who are there and enjoying themselevs for the same reason you are.


Edit: After publishing the post it seems that it looks quite normal, so I just have to get used to Safari's quirks :-)

More Tech dramas!

So I managed to install the new OS Tiger on to my Mac. After fretting for ages about the info on my Mac such as photo's, my photography course, music and did I mention really important photos? LOL I finally bit the bullet and installed it.

To make sure all my prize possessions stored on my Mac were safe sould anything go wrong, I saved them to my external hard disk and then Mr M and I networked the Mac to the PC and he took my pictures as well and then I networked my laptop to my Mac and also took another copy of all my pictures... just to make sure. We had been talking about networking the machines for ages but had never really done much about it and we were both surprised and how easy it was.

Mr M had been having problems with his PC a while back and wiped his PC clean. While he had saved most of his important folders and documents he did manage to loose all his music from his iTunes. I said that he could take the music off his iPod and so he set about reinstalling his iPod and as a consequence wiped that too! I thought he had attached his iPod and the PC hadn't seen it and that's why he reinstalled but it wasn't the case, he just jumped the gun. Fortunatley I still have all my iTunes Music and my iPod working fine so I suggested we network the two machines again to save him some time so that he can copy my music to his PC.

This was such an easy process in jaguar but Tiger has so much security in it that it makes a mockery of Apple's Mac advert where they show Vista's tight security. In Tiger, networking is certainly not easy! I read the Apple Discussion forum to see if anyone had some similar problems and what the remedys were. After spending all of last night and most of today seaching for answers, i gave up and posted on the forum. I kep on searching and sure enough I found an answer to a different problem but it was along the same lines. I had already set Mr M's and my access to read/write permissions but the solution to the other questioner was to highlight the folder that you want to access and then change the permissions. I took the logic and applied it to my problem and sure enough IT WORKED!

Hooray!

I'm now in the process of copying my iTunes music to Mr M's PC.

Result :-)

It seemed like a good idea at the time

I already have Photoshop Elements 2 but now that I am a student I thought I would take advantage of the huge student discount on software. What better splerge than on Adobe's Creative Suite Premium! I ordered the software and also a new piece of hardware - a Wacom Intous3 Tablet! The Tablet is plugged in and is amazing. I first used a tablet in the early 90's at school in art class and I fell in love with it. The new Tablets are much more responsive and my own Tablet that is sitting next to me is absolutely gorgeous and I love it.

I will be able to use my Tablet with Photoshop Elements but I really wanted to get the Creative Suite as it comes with other software in the bundle pack that looks just as amazing. I've bought a Classroom in a Book by Adobe to learn the basics of Creative Suite and how the various programs link together. I've already looked through the book while waiting for my parcel of goodies to arrive in the post, and the stuff they take you through will be such good fun to practice.

So after waiting 6 days, my package finally arrived. It was like Christmas and I couldn't wait to start playing with me new toys. The Tablet was so easy to install, almost a case of plug n play, the software was a different story.....
I was so excited about using it but then read the system requirements. I had bought the Mac version, check. I am running 10.4.3, um, well, actually no I'm still running 10.2.8 I still have Jaguar running on my Mac. OK, I can hear you screaming "what!!?" but I've never seen the point in upgrading my OS. It has, up until now, always done what I've wanted it to and the newer versions haven't offered me enough to make me upgrade. I've finally taken a look at Tiger which is already up to 10.4.8 and it looks alright, but I've seen the previews of Leopard and I must say that that upgrade looks well worth it! I'm finally excited about an upgrade to my OS but sadly Leopard isn't due out yet :-( Rumours by analysts say that Mac may realease it towards the end of March which would be awesome but according to Mac's website it is going to be mid 2007.

So do I wait and have software I can't use just yet, or do I opt for Tiger now and then upgrade to Leopard towards the end of the year? I'm gonna go for the latter option, pointless having software sat there if I can't use it and my OS is many years old so it should get upgraded anyway.

And then we come to RAM, 384MB to run one creative app and a recommended 1GB to run multiple. OK, slight problem here as well as I only have 256MB! Again, I have never needed to upgrade my Mac because until now it has done everything I've wanted it to and more. But I guess I have neglected him seeing how he hasn't had any changes apart from software apps and a 320GB external HD. According to spec I can upgrade my RAM to a total of 1GB but I think that the shipped 256MB RAM can't be removed? Will be going to the Apple store in Chatswood on Saturday but I don't expect them to know! They'll probably try to get me to buy a new Mac, which would be nice but my old iMac isn't ready for the knackers yard just yet thank you very much! So researching via the internet it is.

And, yes there's more! I also need to get a USB hub as I have too many USB devices and not enough ports. So in total I'm looking at $200 for new OS, over $100 for new RAM and probably around $50 or under for the USB hub, and I've still saved over $1000 on the software. Yay!

Nothing's ever easy is it :-)

Would I lie to you baby?

Have you noticed how sometimes the brain lies to you?
Seriously, it lies!

My mum recalled in a recent conversation how she managed to cut her finger while slicing potatoes. She had cooked the potatoes and sat down to eat and then saw her finger. It wasn't a deep cut and wasn't bleeding, it was the type where you just slice through the skin several layers without going all the way through. I have also had injuries a bit similar to this where you don't realise until well after the event.

So it made me wonder about the brain. You cut your finger and your brain is assessing the situation and decides it's not important enough to let you know, so you carry on oblivious to the fact that you've hurt yourself. Then later your eyes see your finger and it starts to hurt, but it wasn't hurting before! Your brain is there going "Oh, you've seen that then. yeah, wasn't going to tell you because it's not really that important is it, I didn't want to worry you with these trivial matters..... damn those eyes! I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for them". Almost like a scene from Scooby Doo!

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it :-)