wafblog v3.0

I recently moved all the photos off my compact point-and-shoot to clear it for my trip to Batemans Bay and Canberra. Looking at the photos I’d moved off, I realised I hadn’t looked at it since I got back from Fiji. It had all my photos from my time in London on it. I was there a year ago, beginning an adventure. I look back on the photos and I miss it. I miss exploring a foreign city, travelling on weekends, living with friends and just doing something new and different every day.

A year has passed and I wonder what have I achieved since I’ve been home? Not much really. I spent so much time at work during the last busy season, it stretched from July to November… relentless in its grip on me and my life. I got to December and the year had flown by. I can feel my attitude to work has changed. I am no longer excited or enthused, I dread waking up in the morning and I find periods of time during the day where I sit at my laptop… listless. Devoid of motivation and inspiration. A friend of mine left recently… and other close friends are planning their move. I have resolved that I will do the same.

In happier news, the festive season brought a very welcome three week break with it. I was able to do my usual end of year cleanout of my room. I threw out so much stuff, I filled the entire rubbish bin. I also recycled several trees worth of paper thanks to CA. It always feels very cathartic to do this and I really wonder where I accumulate all this junk from. My parents were really happy I was home for Christmas, considerinng I was away last year. I think we all enjoyed spending time and just being a family. I also got to spend time with friends and enjoy catching up with lots of mates.

So, a quick list of things I wish to achieve this year

• lose weight/get fit/exercise
• eat healthier/drink less
• save money/buy less stupid things/acquire things I will use
• read more books (including comic books)
• play my violin
• play more computer games
• take more photos. Tempted to do the 365 day challenge BUT not sure how that will work with my numerous analogue cameras…
• stop listening to indie pop/electronica/dubstep, despite how much I love them, and get back to my rock roots
• blog more (hah!)
• catch up more with friends that I haven’t seen in ages, spend less time on people who do not care for my overall well-being
• leave work on time

I suspect this list is much the same as last year’s list. The things I want to do never really changes…

And finally, a few photos from my recent photo expeditions. The Minolta Hi-Matic 9 that I found at the markets on my trip to Hobart has proven to be a wonderful find. The lense gives beautiful, clear shots with a tinge that I think only film can capture. The Diana however, is a more complex beast that I am still trying to master.

Fire hydrant (Diana camera, pinhole setting)

"The Canada" under the Harbour Bridge (Diana Camera, 75mm lense)

Owl artwork (Diana camera, 75mm lense)

No riding the crane! (Diana camera, 75mm lense)

You know what’s awesome? I’ve now seen the Transformers movie TWICE, and it hasn’t even been released elsewhere in the world. How awesome is it that we got to see it a week earlier than everyone else? Considering movies are always released like 2-3 months late in Australia… I think this made up for it. Yes, it was that good, I saw it twice. So far, it’s definitely the movie of the year (we’ll see how I feel after HP – OoTP).

I’m not sure what I expected, I’ve been burned too many times by movies based on a comic/book/tv show. The trailer had looked pretty good, but that’s never clear indication (Spider-Man 3 anyone?). Needless to say, I was completely blown away. I think I was shell-shocked for like 5 minutes afterwards. From the beginning scenes with Blackout and Scorponok to the final fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron – the special effects were just amazing. And the storyline was actually decent with no major plotholes (I noticed one blooper on my second viewing… but eh!). To be honest, I hadn’t thought it would be as funny as they made it. There was a good sprinkling of humour with jokes and gags, almost poking fun at the idea of the Transformers without crossing the line into parody or spoof. Michael Bay did an excellent job of bringing these guys to life, and if you don’t expect the movie to be exactly like the cartoons and you’re not a fanboy with major issues then you’re gonna LOVE this movie. The amount of detail paid to seeing these robots transform from their vehicular form and back again is just staggering. You could literally see the little gears in Prime and the paint job that had been scratched off during his fight. To be honest, I love his new flames (= And just wait until you see Starscream’s manoeuvre in the sky against the other fighter jets. Possibly the BEST action sequence in the entire movie (although I may revise this statement on subsequent viewings), it was amazing to see him transform, shoot at a few jets, transform back, fly around.. transform.. shoot a few more. Absolutely breathtaking.

My main gripe was Frenzy. This character reminded me of ‘Jar Jar Binks’, and anyone would know – that is not a good thing! He didn’t seem very Decepticon-like and I think he was used as a plot device more than anything else. All of the others were cool. Sure, Bumblebee is no longer a VW, but hey… he looks hooooot as the Camaro. In the car chase scene with Barricade, I think it’s fairly obvious why they changed him and I’m glad now that they did. Quite frankly, Bumblebee is ‘da bomb’ :D I guess my only other gripe is that the Autobots seemed a lot smaller than the Decepticons, and the vehicles they chose were not as.. ‘cool’? I dunno – why do the Decepticons get to be tanks and fighter jets? And the Autobots get to be firetrucks? I just don’t understand.

So if you’re having reservations about seeing this movie – I will say that waiting for it to come out on DVD or whatever will not do it justice, unless you happen to have a projector and awesome stereo of some sort. I really doubt you could re-create the effects of a cinema though. And this is one movie that has to be seen in the cinema to fully appreciate it’s awesomeness. Now I’m off to find the soundtrack :D

And why’d you say
It’s just another day, nothing in my way
I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna stay
So there’s nothing left to say
And why’d you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don’t know what you lie for anyway
Now there’s nothing left to say

My uncle came over from HK and stayed with us from Thursday to Tuesday. I’ve spent most of the last few days going out to dinner and on Saturday we went down to Wollongong. The first three photos were taken from the Sea Cliff Bridge down near Coal Cliff. It was opened in December last year, the view is pretty amazing, because the bridge is off the edge of the cliff. It was a bit of shame that it rained while we were there, but it was a nice walk anyways. Only takes about 30 minutes to do a round trip, so that was my exercise for the weekend. The 4th photo shows the really disturbing view of Wollongong showing rather obscene amounts of smoke coming out from the stacks… I was pretty surprised when I saw it. I’m not sure if there’s a smelter/steelworks/coal factory there, so maybe that explains it.

We ended up going all the way down to the blow hole at Kiama, which was really awesome because the sea was quite choppy. Makes for good blowhole (= And because the sun was starting to come out, we got to see rainbow! In fact, in the next photo, there’s two (although the second one is very very faint). And the colours are reversed from the inner one. It was pretty cool to see the full arch of the rainbow as well, cos normally you only manage to see half. Of course, the camera on my phone just isn’t capable of capturing that sort of beauty… I really have to look into getting a decent digital camera.

On Sunday, we went to Bondi for breakfast (I had this big brekkie that I’m still trying to work off at the gym) and then went on to the fish markets. I haven’t been to the fish markets in AGES, but there were heaps of people there. Most of them looked like they were there for lunch… not that many people were buying seafood. Anyways, saw these two pelicans in the carpark.. they didn’t seem at all bothered by all the people and cars around.

Haven’t been up to much else. I’m kind of glad my uncle is gone as he is very tiring… he says weird things to me, and everything has to be perfect and people always have to be doing something. I like my weekends to be relaxing, not full of arguing with other people. *sigh*. Thank god I’m not going to work tomorrow. I can see now why people who work for the Government have an ADO every four weeks. After that much full time work, you need it! Otherwise you’ll go crazy or get grumpy and be unproductive. I am rather pissed though, that I get a 30 minute limit EACH DAY on accessing the SMH website. This makes it difficult to read the news and access other interesting things. I have discovered though that I can read my LJ friends page but they’ve blocked eBay again. It’s like some sort of random lucky draw. I’m going to try and RSS feed the news articles into one webpage that I can put on my server so I can access them from work.

Had another session with the personal trainer. He’s taught a few useful exercises. But, if I want to continue session it costs $35/half hour. That’s BLOODY EXPENSIVE!!! So I think I might just have one session a fortnight, which means I’m paying about $36/week for gym + training. I think that’s a bit more affordable and reasonable. Maybe I should become a personal trainer… seems like a fairly fun job.

Well for a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you’re having such a nice time
You’re having such a nice time
Keane – Nothing In My Way

So, check THIS out:

Fred now has three flowers, not one!!
I’m very impressed, and I think my parents are as well LOL. Mum told my dad that he had to take more photos HAHA. I find it a bit odd though, that Fred’s flowering in WINTER? Doesn’t seem like the right time to be flowering huh?

I didn’t know this – but Fred actually flowers! I got Fred a few years ago, when I asked my dad to buy me an indoor plant. He went to the garden show and got me some of those ‘air’ plants. They don’t need soil and you can just stick them into some rocks. Dad got bought me a small display that had two plants which I called Fred and Ted. However, I went overseas one time and gave Fred and Ted to Su to look after. I probably shouldn’t have done this as her track record with living things is pretty dismal. Suffice to say Ted died. Since then, Fred’s been moved to our kitchen and is now attended to by my mum. This morning she told me to take a look at Fred – and check it out:

The flower looks pretty damn cool doesn’t it? It’s a lovely purple colour and the tops of his leaves have gone a nice red to match. I suppose it’s to attract birds or insects.

… which probably isn’t going to be that big.

The Easter Show
Word of the day: foul
Quote of the day: “ye olde pixelated graphics” – Travis in reference to cross-stitch

So, after much bribery and negotiation, Manda and Travis agreed to come to the Sydney Royal Easter Show which is held annually. It’s been like 8 years since I last went and I really wanted to go now that I can afford it! Only I realised at the end of the day that I really could *not* afford it :P Everything is so damn expensive now!

Anyways, whilst waiting for Manda and Travis, I got this lovely view of the Telstra Stadium (is that what used to be the SuperDome?)

I’d forgotten how big Olympic Park is, cos whenever I went there I’d go straight to the Aquatic Centre or the track. They have these metal poles with all the names of the athletes and the poles speak. It’s a bit eerie walking through them.

Anyways, first place we went to inside the show was the “Woolworths Fresh Food Dome”. Pretty cool, cos really the Easter Show is all about buying lots of stuff you don’t need but look good anyways. Those fruit displays are always pretty cool :D I can imagine they’d take forever to make and I’m not really sure how they manage to make the fruit last for so long o_O And then we moved onto the Arts & Craft section. They have these cake displays (again.. how do these things keep?) and even one section that said “perishables”. Unfortunately, looking at dozens of fruit cakes doesn’t excite me. So we quickly moved on to the scaled models and wood work. I thought this navy carrier was awesome:

but Manda didn’t agree ): Some of the artworks were pretty good, especially the kids’ ones. Sometimes I think kids capture art so much better than adults, maybe because their perception of the world hasn’t been made to conform to anything yet.

Now, it’s only because my parents would never read my blog that I feel safe in posting up the next picture:

I got one of those airbrush tattoos, cost me $10! But it looked pretty cool when finished :D Only lasted for a few days, but was fun anyways. I really wanted one of those ones that lasts for like a month. Bu it’s not like I could show it off considering it’s winter and my mum would probably kill me if she ever saw it.

I must say, the showbags sure aren’t what they used to be. I was actually worried before going in that I wouldn’t have enough money to buy showbags I wanted. Instead, I found it hard to actually find a showbag I *wanted* to buy! In the end, I got a computer magazine one for $10 (cos it had like 4 magazines in it) and I split the giant Cadbury one with Manda. Least I got lots of chocolate :P

It’s at this stage that I must mention the FOOD at the Easter Show. Manda assured me that “cheese on a stick” and “dagwood dogs” were foodstuffs that I must try at least once in my lifetime. Having parents like mine, they never let me have those sorts of things when I was younger… so I took this opportunity to try them. I must say, they do look rather… unappealing. And after eating half the cheese on stick all I could say was “foul”! Not that it tasted foul, more just the notion that I was eating something that was 90% oil *shudders*. After eating half the dagwood dog I felt rather ill knowing I had consumed stuff that was probably entirely manufactured. I had some nachos as well for lunch, and even though I was full, every time we walked past a good store I was like “ooh! hamburger! ooh! pancakes! ooh! german sausages!”. I finally succumbed and bought a corn cob. YUM!

Of course, no trip to the Easter Show would be complete without a visit to the animals. We saw sheep, goats, pigs, giant cows (ok, so they weren’t actually giant but have seen the size of them? they’re HUGE!!!!!), little baby animals, horses and cats. I was about to say I was sad they didn’t have a poultry section, but looking at the map now, it looks like we missed it. Shame, I wanted to see some chickens and geese. Oh wells ): Got this cool picture of a sheep (it won a few prizes from what we could see) and I absolutely adored this little Boer goat:

I don’t really know how people can go to the Show and not go see the animals. Maybe just cos I don’t normally get the chance to see them so it seems really cool to me. I did feel sorry for those cows though, all these people were patting them :P

I can’t really remember what we did after that. Oh wait, yes I can. We went on a bunch of rides. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a complete wuss when it comes to rides. I don’t like going upside-down and as I’m scared of heights most rides freak me out. Add to this that my stomach tends to feel ill if I’m sloshed around too much and well, there’s not many rides I’d like to go out. So, of course, Travis said he wanted to pay for me to go on the SlingShot. If you’ve seen this thing, you’ll understand my trepidation. Lucky for me, the darn thing costs $30 a ride (what a bloody rip off!!) and was thus deemed far too expensive for us. We went on the much tamer carousel (which I actually enjoy :D). We also went on the ferris wheel! It was a lot higher than I thought \: but it’s held up by 500 bolts so I guess I should have felt safe. heh. Manda and I also went on a rolelr coaster, that was a lot shorter than I expected but was actually pretty fun.

The ride that Manda and Travis couldn’t convince me to go on!

To top off our day, we went to see Alex Lloyd play live at The Shed. He was meant to start at 9:15 or something, but due to some technical difficulties (or something), we saw Bertie Blackman first. She wasn’t too bad actually, rather enjoyed her songs although I’ve never heard of her. By the time Alex played it was 10:00, so we didn’t get to stay long. I was really glad that he played “Lucky Star” as his second song though, cos that’s my fave song off his first album. Yeay for free live music!

Unfortunately for us, when we decided to leave, we exited out the wrong exit. And when we asked the security guard dude how to get to the car park he directed us but, didn’t tell us it would have been quicker to go back inside and walk through the show to the exit on the other side. So, we walked the entire length of the show from the outside… and kinda wasted 30 minutes. I wouldn’t have been too annoyed except for the fact that it was cold enough to freeze your tits off and thus not so fun. Well, least we’ll know for next time.

Other Stuff

Hrm, I haven’t been up to much else lately – besides job applications, uni, work, seeing a few movies. Which is all typical stuff really. The job apps are taking quite a bit of time and I’ve been to a couple information evenings so it feels like I’ve been really busy.

Oh! I am proud though – I made my first fanmix over the last few days. It’s a Draco/Hermione one and the graphics took me a while. I’m so not used to Corel PaintShop Pro X (last version I used was PSP8). So yeah, I had to go searching for cool fonts and stuff (man, DaFont is awesome). But, I was glad to have finished it and posted it on my LJ today. If you’d like to see it, it can be found here.

Anyways, I should go and do stuff for my thesis. I haven’t really been working on it for the last two weeks and I’m now getting a bit worried that I won’t finish in time. *sigh*.