Thursday, November 30, 2006

still amused

i'm sooooo tired and about to head off to bed but i just noticed the link in my favourites list and had to check it out 1 more time. it still makes me laugh (just what i needed-- its been a LONG day). i get tomorrow off though 8) i asked for the day off when i came in at lunch time an even though my usual friday co-worker is sick and there's no one else that works friday afternoon, the director was able to cover me 8). she convinced one of my co-workers to work the afternoon (which she hates) and the director will work with her. yea, wendy and mary-rose. hopefully i'll be able to do everything i plan on doing tomorrow and we will be a few steps closer to being ready for my mom to arrive in 23 sleeps!!!!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

entertainment

they say simple minds are easily amused. i don't think it has anything to do with having a simple mind and its probably a good thing to be entertained easily cuz you get bored less than someone that requires very complex entertainment. here's what its about:
i just sent a message on my yahoo account and the normal ad came up on the side of the page. it wasn't just any ad though-- it had a cow bouncing and doing handstands on the moon. i actually had no idea what it was for until the cow stopped bouncing and i started moving the mouse around to see if i could get him moving again. i clicked on it and discovered it was an ad for connex (one of the train companies in melbourne). on the full page ad the cow just kept going (he's still doing it now in another window). every time i look at it i laugh (and zac thinks i'm crazy-- but this coming from the guy who's laughing out loud to a simpsons episode he's seen 50 times, even when i walked out of the room). here's the link (to the cow, not the simpsons). animals amuse me.... espeically the talking ones, dancing ones and singing ones on optus ads and this cow (cows are one of my favourite animals anyway-- add in some bouncing and i'll be entertained for hours). and now off to bed to dream about cows bouncing on the moon and get up rediculously eary (in the 7 o clocks) to go to the "fill th g" (as in the mcg) rally for workers rights tomorrow morning.

oztion




i've been selling stuff on ebay for several months now but i'm about to start selling on oztion a new auction website set up in australia. i've already seen some good deals on it and couple items i'm thinking about buying for christmas gifts. its free to join-- just click on the link above. its also free to list items for sale (they just take small percentage of the final sales fee) unlike ebay which charges to list items for sale and has extra charges for most extras (like adding pictures etc). oztion just has a few charges for extras but its free to list and have up to 3 pictures, which is all you really need to be able to sell most items.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

baby lambs and other animals

i guess the title is a bit redundant-- lambs are always babies (except according to the 10 year old standing near me that seemed to know a lot about sheep except that she kept refering the the adult sheep as "old lambs").
we were up at CERES this afternoon for coffee and then we went on our usual round up to see the chooks and sheep at the top of the property. we were surprised to find 2 newborn lambs!! we think they were only a few hours old. the mom still had the afterbirth hanging out and she was busy trying to clean the babies while they stood on their wobbly little legs.
i didn't bring the camera with me (i actually said to zac half way up to ceres that i should have brought it cuz it was a good day for taking wildlife photos along the creek). they were sooooo cute though that after we went home i got the camera and rode back up. here's some pics:



how cute is this little guy? listen to him crying for his mom.

we also made a new cat friend today. he lives around the corner from us and as soon as we walked near him he started crying for attention and soaked up every little bit of what we'd give him. on the way home we forgot about him and we were just talking and walking along the footpath. he heard us and we started hearing his cry and then he jumped out from a bush in his yard and over the little brick wall to see us (and loved every second of attention we gave him). he's funny though cuz he knows exactly where his property ends. both times after we left he didn't follow us but just sat at the very edge of his property and kept crying for us to come back. soon we'll train him to come around for a small serve of vegan cat food.
we also almost got a dog this weekend. unfortunately doesn't look like thats gonna happen for a while though now 8(. zac asked the landlord the other day (cuz he lives next door). he said he'd ask his daughter (whose name the house is actually in) and the real estate agent but he didn't see a problem with it. last nite (after we went by the pet shop admiring toys and stuff for the non existant dog and we'd found a couple that we really liked through the lost dogs home website) zac went over to see if he'd talked to his daughter. he said that the real estate agent said no. don't really understand how they can have a say in it if the owners of the property are ok with it. zac's gonna call the agent tomorrow and see what the issue is and hopefully we'll be able to negociate it or i think we're gonna start looking at other (pet friendly) places to live.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

critical mass

last nite we did the first critical mass i've done in probably a year or so. i forgot how fun they are (especially in the summer when its warm and everybody comes out for the ride). it was the anniversary ride (10th?? i think). its a great party on wheels. i think there were at least half a dozen bikes with stereos hooked up to them, a couple of santa clauses, other random fancy dress outfits, some decorated bikes, families with kids and of course the food-not-bombs mobile (minus the lid that was lost during the g2o rally). fnb cooked up a ton of food (vegie burgers, rice paper wraps, pasties and a pot of fnb slop-- i think someone got a little over excited and forgot we weren't bringing plates or cutlery to eat the usual fnb slop with). we went around the city and the roads by the botanical gardens then up towards princes park for the afterparty (which me and zac had to leave not long after getting there so we could meet friends for a movie). the best part of the ride was cirling the "round about of death" on royal parade. i'm surprised i've never heard of a cyclist getting killed on it or a car hitting a tram or something. its a very big scary round about (with a tram line going thu the middle of it!!) on one of the main bike routes into the city. we did a couple laps of that on the way up to the park.
unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera and zac still hasn't figured out how to get the pics from his phone onto the computer. i'm gonna try to find a couple good photos on flickr (already there's lots up but i'm hoping to find one of us-- zac was riding the fnb mobile for a while and everyone was taking photos of that so i'm hoping some of those people put them on flickr) i'll update w/photos later. now i'm gonna find the cat and see if she needs to go out.

dec 1: i finally found some good critical mass photos curtesy of melbournian1 on flickr:



the fnb mobile goin round the "round about of death"



gathering for a bike lift


the just keep comin and comin....

Posted by Picasasanta and ??? getting ready for the ride

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

you can always talk about the weather

how do we go from a day that doesn't even hit 13C in the city (and snow in outer suburbs) not even a week ago to it now being 24C at midnite??? (and wednesday this week is only supposed to hit a high of 20C) Posted by Picasa

Thursday, November 16, 2006

where has all the good weather gone?

this is a weather graph of the weather the past few days. sunday was 27C, yesterday was not even 13C!!! what happened to spring?
the amount of rain has been really good (and needed a LOT) but we don't need the freezing cold and wind. we've had the central heating on and been wearing layers of clothes and zac left for work this morning completely in waterproof gear for his 30 min ride in (it stopped raining probably around the time he got to work). i saw pics on a blog of the dandenongs yesterday. i knew zac mentioned snow but i thought that was more out in the mountains. nope, just in the outer suburbs where its about 1200m above sea level.
we're supposed to be back in the mid 20s by the weekend 8) that's melbourne though (especially in spring). Posted by Picasa

Monday, November 13, 2006

mmmm.......pizza

the other afternoon went for a long walk (we've started a habit of doing this on the weekends). we stopped by to see a friend who tore a ligament in his leg and is stuck at home waiting for an operation. we told him we were gonna head up lygon street or sydney rd for some coffee. he suggested we go for pizza at a place called tabet's bakery on sydney road. they do individual pizzas for $2.50. we decided to give it a try and it was REALLY good. they even had one pizza with no cheese so zac could eat it. they roll the pizza up so it looks a bit like a falafel and you eat it like one. we both had the no cheese one (i can't remember what it was exactly but it included olives, onion and some really good spices).
its up north of blyth street several blocks (607 sydney rd). just a cute looking little lebanese bakery across from the IGA.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

funny stories

these are a few stories our friends told us last nite
first one: our friend (who shall remain nameless) was a lifeguard supervisor at a local pool back in canada. part of being supervisor meant he had to be trained in how to teach all the classes at the pool (including aquasize) so that he could teach them if an instructor didn’t show up. the final step of training in how to teach was that they taught a class. he was learning how to do aquasize and not really enjoying it. then the day came to teach his first class. he got up infront of a group of 50 older ladies and started the class. he was pretty unco-ordinated with the moves and the ladies heckled him!!! he was so embarrassed he ran off the pool deck never to teach aquasize again.
second story: same guy. he’s up a mountain trying snowboarding for the first time. he’s on the bunny hill and he takes a hard fall and hurts his wrist. he’s a little embarrassed to tell anyone it hurts so he just says to his girlfriend that he’s gonna go into the pub for a bit. she comes in a bit later and they’re sitting with friends having a drink. he was just sitting quietly so his girlfriend asked him if he was ok. he says his wrist still hurts so she asks to see it. he pulls up his sleeve and the bone is poking at a funny angle. she got him in the car and drove him to the hospital right away to get his broken wrist put in a cast. he’s still embarrassed about breaking his wrist on the bunny hill (but the official story is just he broke his wrist snowboarding but was so tough he went to the pub for a drink first before heading to the hospital).
thirds story: wife of guy in first 2 stories. she has ALWAYS lied to her parents about things (and her poor husband is a TERRIBLE liar—he can’t even take it when she’s the one lying and usually tells her parents that she’s lying before she can finish the story). i think this story was one of her biggest lies ever. when she was 16 and just got her liscence her parents let her take the car to the next town to do her lifeguard training with a friend. during the training they had a short break so her and her friend decided to to go the 7-11. she raced into the parking lot and hit one of those high curb things in the lot and took out the fog lights and everything on the bottom of the front of the car. she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to take the car again for a while if she told her parents so she decided to lie. she had to drive home late that nite and it was along a road that sometimes has boulders along the road. when she got home her parents were asleep. she ran into their room putting on a very distressed act and told them on the way home there was a boulder in the road and she didn’t see it cuz it was dark and she hit it and damaged the front of the car. her parents told her just go to bed and we’ll look into it in the morning. Next morning. her parents take the car to the mechanic who says that the damage was over $x which ment it had to be reported to the police and the insurance company. he also told them to tell the police and insurance company the boulder was moving at the time so that insurance would cover it. so now her lie had to grow and she had to make statements to the police and the insurance company. then a friend of theirs told them that the same thing had happened to her (for real) only the insurance company didn’t believe her and she actually had to find the boulder that had her cars paint on it and put it on the desk of the insurance agency). so our friends dad drove her out to where she said she hit the boulder and told her to find the boulder that she hit. she saw one that didn’t have snow on it so she said it was that one. her dad loaded it in the car and took it home. turned out the insurance agency believed her and she didn’t need the boulder. her dad didn’t get rid of it though. he put it in the front yard and while she lived at home for the next 5 years she had to look at it everytime she went out front and be reminded of her lies (i’m sure her dad probably knew it was all a big lie and put that boulder there to remind her of her lies)

caves and jenga

monday was the first day of not-so-nice weather on our trip. worked out good cuz that was the day that zac's mom had planned to give us the car to drive up to the buchan caves and lakes entrance.

while we were waiting for our tour of the limestone caves to start we went on a short hike to find kangaroos (there were lots around). the photo below isn't the best photo but its the only one i got of a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch.

the royal cave:


viewpoint overlooking lakes entrance:
one happy hour ended with games of jenga and sequence. its amazing how long we kept jenga going before it fell over (especially considering all of us had a glass of wine or 2)

Thursday, November 09, 2006

this is what i'm marrying into

this is the result of happy hour one afteroon (other happy hours resulted in similar entertaining events)
this is zac's uncle's collapsable bike. kids in the caravan park kept riding past and then he decided he could do better than them by making a motor for his bike out of cardboard like he used to as a kid. after he got it working everyone had to have a try.
the first video is denise (listen for her little britian style "i'm a lady" as she rides)


here's martin riding past (the quiet lawnmower noise is is "motor")



and this one is the funniest of them all. as he's riding back to us we're expecting to see the same as the last video. this is what we saw coming past us:


he'd challanged a bunch of kids (and won!!).

raymond island

sunday afternoon zac and i jumped on the ferry to raymond island (just a quick cable ferry ride from downtown paynesville). the island has a large koala population (its covered in gum trees) so we wandered around the island koala spotting. we lost track of how many we saw and got tons of photos.
a mom and her baby:
another mom and baby (this one was in a tree infront of a house that was for sale-- i wanna buy the house just so i can have a couple koalas living up my tree)
a swan and her signet:
it was sad cuz most swans we saw only had 1 signet with them. the others had been picked off by large birds or foxes. how cute is the little guy though? Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

paynesville

on the way up to paynesville (bad name for such a relaxing place) last we stopped for lunch at a park in sale. lots of birds around and some wood carvings of animals.
zac leapfroging a frog:
saturday afternoon zac's uncle took us along with 2 other friends of his sailing. it was a great afternoon for it.
zac steering the boat:
one of the MANY black swans we saw thruout the weekend:
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finally, my halloween photos are up 8)

i was supposed to be a vicious cat. the blood wore off the sides of my mouth and chin pretty quick and i couldn't talk with my teeth in so by the end of the nite i looked like a large version of ray.


the hunchback and the witch



zac as a rock suicidal rock star
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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

back online...again

i thought the computer died again so jay took it again and it worked fine. denise brought it back she was picking us up to go to paynesville friday morning-- it didn't work!!!! i called jay but didn't have time to play with it cuz we had to go. he figured maybe the motherboard had died and we just needed to replace that. he was going away for the long weekend too. i played around with it when we got home this evening and couldn't get it running. jay said he might look for a motherboard for us tomorrow. i went to bed then had a revalation-- i wasn't the one who hooked up the computer when denise brought it around. i got out of bed and checked the outside cables to make sure they were attached. the one from the monitor to the hard drive wasn't connected!!!! i put it in and we're up and running. again. 8) i have tons of photos (and a couple REALLY funny video clips) from our weekend in paynesville plus those halloween photos from 10 days ago. i'll put them on tomorrow. right now i'm going back to bed. again.