trick or treat!

halloween came by not so long ago, and while it's not really a big thing here in oz, as compared to the US, we at alphageek HQ do so enjoy any opportunity to dress up, so we got cracking on our costumes (happy coincidental visitors from interstate were told to bring it, or be unwelcome on our couch; they brought it)

kudos for the extra preparation by bloody claire...

...and kat, kat, the pumpkin king (who was immensely frustrated at the party when she realised she'd forgotten to bring her straw)







feeling rather proud, we then drove to the party, hoping that claire's bloody appearance would catch the eye of any passing police. 'twas not to be. we did get attention from several pedestrians as well as small children in adjacent cars at some traffic lights "...but halloween's on tuesday," protested the children (this was a saturday) "oh, we just wanted to get ready early" replied jess, which is probably a better answer than my "boozing up isn't so good mid-week" explanation

there were some gorgeous outfits at the party (though i secretly thought: pah! hired costumes! where's the fun in that?!), which you can see on claire's blog.

i also got to carve my first pumpkin -very exciting!- and was gloatful to win a box of choccies for my efforts (my jack-o-lantern is the one on the left)

i come from the salt water people

those of you who frequent miss claire's blogosphere will already know that we had a FANTASTIC trip to Fraser Island a couple o weekends ago, but if you'd had enough of the photos and reminiscing, well TOO BAD, cos i want to write about it too :)

while the long weekend itself was just lovely, the 'getting there' part was rather fraught... and i'm not talking about the getting up at 4am on saturday morn to drive from Coolum to Rainbow Beach (the ferry "stop"), oh no! -i mean the driving up to Coolum friday night, not filling up the petrol tank first, realising there were a lot less petrol stations adjacent to the Bruce Hwy than we had thought (ie, none by the time we looked), becoming frantic, making random panicked turnoffs at 9:30pm in search of petrol while mentally planning what to wear as it was cold outside, in the dark, and wondering how fast we could run while carrying a jerrycan of petrol, and getting lost in the backstreets of some weird industrial complex in Kunda Park (or wherever we were)...
...before finally making it to a blessed BP, telling our tale of woe to the attendant in a rush of relief, and then looking even more like stupid girls by admitting we hadn't brought a street directory, and could he please give us directions to Elly Street?

but we made it in the end, and didn't break down somewhere in the bush, in the dark, all alone until John Jarratt came to our aid. and that's what's important.

but how about Fraser?

BEAAUUTIFUL!!!



gorgeous sunny hot weather every day we were there, sparkling blue seas, a convivial group with which to share the fun, food, and digging out of bogged 4WDs...
...swimming every day, lying on the beach gazing at the stars every night = BLISS.

...well.
i have a good half dozen MORE photos i want to post, but the bastard lying blogger page won't let me do it. or rather it says: done! picture added. but nothing appears. lies. i hate it. so until i can get someone with more technical nous than me to help, you'll just have to make do. that was claire at indian heads. gah! i can't enjoy the serenity - i'm too cranky now!

(several days and ubertechnogeek intervention later)
oh bless hashi! he is my HERO. welcome mozilla firefox to my laptop (finally) and hooray, for now my photos upload. yay!

accommodation generously provided by mine host ken



driving through the gorgeous scenery



getting bogged in the gorgeous scenery
("sugarbabe" is not OUR car, by the way... no, it belongs to a couple of german tourists we were giving a hand [but not more underwear] to)



my favourite part of the island, the westide, with its mangroves, white sand and clear blue water... stunning



my other favourite spot ;-) elii creek. a clear cold creek you wade up, then slowly float back down, while gazing at the foliage and sky overhead and getting a freezy headache. i love swimming in freshwater!



so what did we think of the weekend on fraser?
FANTASTIC!!!

hmmm...

sometimes i wonder about my job.

like yesterday, when i spent 2 hours sorting through a bucket of stick insect poo (not with a fine tooth comb, but with tweezers) collecting eggs.

but, you know, it was actually quite relaxing to do something so completely mentally undemanding. i just switched my brain off, switched the radio on, and felt the aromatherapeutic effects of eucalyptus oil that has passed through a stick insect's digestive system.

how's the serenity!

........beep........beep........beep........

ah, anonymous. my blog is AWOL cos my mind is AWOL.

i like to (ok, am forced by my own inactivity to) think of my blog as a long term coma patient: it shows a profound state of unconsciousness, showing no response to external stimuli and exhibiting no voluntary actions.

on rare occasions, slight signs of activity DO appear, probably stimulated by the ministrations of the attending nurse, who turns my blog to prevent bedsores, perhaps, and whose cool efficiency masks a tender heart ;)

Sunday Roast

well, i've been getting quite a bit of abuse from my "myriad of special acquaintances" about lack of updates. my excuse is that i've been doing very little of interest, so have nothing to post about... but maybe a post about nothing is slightly better than nothing at all (-hah! no maybe about it for all of you out there with desk jobs, eh?)

so, what?

well, i cooked a roast last weekend... nothing special to you perhaps, but it was a heroic endeavour for me for many reasons: 1)i've never done a roast before in my life, 2)i usually only do one-pot cooking that doesn't require synchronisation, 3)the occasion was the inviting of some work colleagues over for the first time, and i wanted to be able to serve them an edible dinner (stress!), 4)i did it all by myself (NB-including grocery shopping, but excluding gravy), 5)i got the recipe confused and cooked the meat for almost 3hours, instead of 1 and 1/2hours, and 6)i was cooking for 8 people.

a marathon effort indeed. baking a "how-to-win-friends-with-Lish" cake (an awesome cake - see recipe below) beforehand took my total cooking time up to 6 hours straight.

matters were also not helped by the fact that while i was cooking for 8, we unfortunately only have 6 chairs in our house, including hash and claire's wheely desk chairs. so we had to drag folding chairs up from the garage and chock our guests up to table level with pillows. this was such a poor effort that one of our guests opted to sit on claire's gym-ball all night
instead:)

but all that aside? i made a FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC roast (or roasts - did a beef AND a chicken roast)... i have no qualms whatsover in saying my dinner rocked - no-one even spoke for the first half hour cos they were too busy eating. we had to save our conversation for afters:)

Delicious.

How To Win Friends With Lish
155 g butter
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cups S/R flour
3/4 cups cocoa
3 eggs
1 mystery ingredient
3 hairs from sham beard
1 big bag dried mango
time (to burn)
180 degrees C*

*as you might be able to tell, this is not exactly how you make the cake... but it is faithfully copied down from how Lish wrote it on my shirt back in 2003. i don't use the hair or the dried mango or quite as much butter, but i DO use a whole orange, orange & mango juice and dried peaches. work out what you want to do yourself!

coff, coff,

papa- i got the black lung!

sooo,

yes, yes, i have gotten my computer now, and no, i haven't actually done anything worthwhile with it yet (other than attempt to look up all the places i've ever lived on Google Earth, that is), but i've had enough of the nagging, and what better time to update my blog than while i'm home sick and have naught to temper my boredom but a shiny new laptop... and my guitar... and knitting... and pillowcase project... and cupcake icing... and books - well, i guess you're just lucky that the laptop was the first port of call for HMS Boredom today.

so i have a cold - which is probably not being helped by the Haigh's chocolates i'm currently scoffing (but they're sooo gooood!) - and colds are never fun - well, except when you're doing slime science shows for kiddies, and then you can do snot demos (or is that just me?) (its all about the joy on the children's faces!) - but they (colds, that is... thought i might've lost you there with the somewhat excessive bracketing and hyphen.. a....tion..[?]) do always make me smile when i remember one of my favourite comedians likening her cold to having a "harmonica made of phlegm" stuck in her throat. how vivid! now whenever i have a "chesty cough", i imagine that i produce two-tone musical wheezing, confusing passers-by into looking around, wondering where the inept buskers are hidden.

but perhaps i should be writing of pleasant things? lets see: i've just been to melbourne (yeah, THANKS FOR THE MUCOUS, MELBOURNE) to see friends, eat cake and be merry (thanks 'thini, karen, ned and sammy for your hospitality!).

also went to a Lindt Chocolate Buffet last weekend - oh my! it was... magical...:)
although i did myself proud with 2 solid hours of eating gourmet cakes, i am disappointed -nay, horrified!- to say i could not also fit in the lindt hot beverages or chocolate cocktails -I, who have prided myself on my discernment! -I, who have valued myself on my abilities! -How humiliating is this discovery! Till this moment, i never knew myself. (thankyou, Miss Austen)

my household also threw a toga frat party a couple o' weeks ago... i realise this time lapse means that boat has well and truly sailed on me blogging 'bout that (plus my housemates have done the event much more justice on their blogs - check 'em out - got photos, too! [that would be at http://thebowlofcherries.blogspot.com/2006/06/togatogatoaga.html and http://chunkyd200.blogspot.com/2006/06/nihili-est-in-vita-priore-ego.html]), but i've got to say how peeved i was to be the last man standing at ~2am, the housemates and co-hosts having buggered off to bed, leaving me to deal with the last lingering guests, being a bunch of strange french people.
and i don't mean strange as in weird, i mean strange as in strangers.
i remember stumbling around, blowing out the gazillion tea light candles scattered round the place, and extinguishing the braziers (not brassieres), thinking: this isn't fair... i'm drunk! i shouldn't have to think about fire safety issues right now!
(by the way: don't try and put out braziers by pouring beer on them; it produces a really stinky steam... i nearly choked)
and i had to do all this in such a way as to subtly send a message to the french people that said: everyone's gone to bed. go away now.
and put up with "ah, everyone has gone to sleep? i want to sleep with you! haha, just joking! ...you don't even know my name! [accusingly... as if I was in the wrong] ...can we have a photo together?"

good times... good times...

but methinks it is nap time now, so au revoir!

Sugary Shit

...i wish the spelling would also be alliterative (shugary shit) ...that would be much more satisfying.
why, oh why did i have pepsi and jellybabies for afternoon tea when i know excessively shugary drinks make me feel ill? my hands are actually all shaky right now (it's impeding my touchtyping skills... not that that would be evident, as my anal-retentive love of words and spelling is keeping me self-editing...)

i feel like poo. on a stick.

but the good news is: i am getting my own laptop! hurrah!

so soon i shall be able to blog from home rather than continue these illicit hurried interludes i've had to snatch from work to be with blogger.com (and you, of course, dear reader), and we can bring our relationship into the open at last and declare our passion to the world!

goodness. don't mind me. it's the shugar talking.

devil's advocate (as opposed to his advocaat)

don't ask me for help with your moral quandries-
...i will even draw you bad advice.

whoops

argh! look to the LEFT, the LEFT!

Seriously -

no, seriously - i have nothing. unlike my illustrious ubergeek housemates, i don't have a digi camera or computer for the posting of fascinating pics and anecdotes. very embarassing. can i distract you (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! ...oh wait. there is no man. and there is no curtain... *sniff*) from the lack of anything by recommending some links with actual content? interesting content, at that! (ooooh)
...look over there!
-no. to the right, you fool.
(hmm. excellent idea. insult the 2 [maybe 3] friends who are the only people reading this blog... oh well: dry your eyes, princess(es)! ...ahh, i love that saying! (Hasherism, 2006))

possible side effects

hmmm... i really just wanted to post a comment on a friend's new blog, and somehow ended up with this.
but then again, i have been enjoying various others' blogs for a while now; maybe i'll be inspired to join the game:
watch this space!
(or not. it may not fly)