Thursday, April 29, 2010

Weird Weather Feelings

Now, I was kind of under the impression that after I had spent a year in a very cold country, at least by Australian standards anyway, that I would kind of be less susceptible to the colder weather over here. Unfortunately for me, I was wrong.

Pretty much every morning this week, it has been absolutely FREEZING at my house, and this always makes me do something that I eventually regret for the rest of the day. I always tend to overdress when it is cold, like you probably should, but the annoying thing is that it actually ends up being quite warm for the rest of the day, which means that I have to end up carrying around all the jackets and scarves and stuff like that, which makes me want winter to come a whole lot quicker, just so I don't have to lug all the things around for the rest of the day.

I really can't wait for winter to come, and I know what some of you are thinking, why would you want it to be really cold all the time, why not just in the morning? I guess I'm one of those people that either like it to be quite hot or quite warm, I hate having to start off the day wearing one outfit of clothing, and then come to the end of the day and be wearing something completely different, its totally impracticle.

So at the moment, I suppose I am procrastinating a little bit from pushing on with my history essay at the moment, I should actually get back to that sooner of later. I'll just have to trawl my way through the library to find all the books that I need to get out to be properly informed on all the subjects that I need to write about, which in itself is almost like an assessment task, but it should be alright.
It's kind of weird though, actually, I am quite looking forward to doing this essay, but I think more of in a sense that it will actually be over and done with by next Friday, and that will be the first of not that many essays that I actually have to do for this semester.

The big news for tomorrow though is that I will be going for my P's, which is really exciting, but also kind of scary, I've heard a lot of stories about how hard it is to get in the first place. But to be honest, I know that I can do everything that I'll need to do, so I am quite hopeful that I will get my p's tomorrow, and then wow, I'll actually be able to go to places that aren't accessible by public transport. YEAH.
So yeah, by my next post we'll know if I have passed or not, so I'll keep you on the know!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Research

Because that is what you do in university, apparently.
Anyway, studying for my ancient history essay has, to my great pleasure, taken up a great chunk of my time today. Normally, this would not be a good thing, spending all your time studying, you say? But this is actually my first essay due for university, so I think that I should set a good standard for the rest of my university academic career. In an ideal world, this would be true, but we'll see how it goes.

But anyway, the one pet peeve for today is the fact that they don't put chairs in the Reserve section of the library at uni, which would have had to be the most annoying thing about today. I got 4 hours of studying and research done today, ALL of it standing up. It may actual be a real novel way of combatting obesity or something like that. Whatever it is, I should feel extra proud today for getting so much research done STANDING UP. This may even motivate me to put a letter in the suggestion box. But I'm really not that type of person. I mean, it's bad enough that you have to wander around the library for hours trying to find the book that you're looking for, which isn't actually there to begin with, but then having to stand to do your research? gah.

So that is enough ranting for today.

Now on to Youtube. Whenever I am on the internet, it is inevitable, really, that I will end up on Youtube. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, at times I do actually watch videos which may be beneficial for me in some way or another. But generally, it's going to be a TV show or a music video. I make a point of buying all my music that I listen to, I actually do like having the CD's and all that jazz to look at and fondle, but if there is something that I have been thinking of buying, like a suggested item on itunes, that I haven't really heard anything from, I'll normally type something in on youtube and I'll listen to that.

The one thing that I love about youtube is the little recommended for you video section. You can watch just one video and it will completely update that thing, it's crazy. I watched a thing in Japanese yesterday, just to listen to, and pretty much all my recommended videos now are in Japanese. So I think it is time to watch a random video and see what happens, it's actually become one of my favourite pastimes, which is kind of sad but whatever makes you happy I spose? But I just cant explain this one. :|

I'm gonna press onwards with the studying and see how it goes, the more I can motivate myself, the less I'll have to do later.

Monday, April 26, 2010

4 More Sleeps

Yes, I just have another four more sleeps until I am going to go for the dreaded driving test :O

I am essentially looking forward to it, even if I do fail I'll at least know where I'll need to work on to pass the next time. But I'll try not to jinx myself there. I really hope that I'll pass the first time, but you never really know these days with the RTA and all their crazy rules and stuff like that. At least, I know that I can do everything that they will ask me to do in the test, it's just a matter of acing it during the actual test.

So this weekend hasn't been too interesting really, I have pretty much just been doing a lot of driving practice, just perfecting my parking skills to be honest, and I think that now that I have those things covered, I pretty much own the car. But anyway, here's hoping that I have really good luck on Friday, and that I get a nice instructor :D

So apart from doing doughnuts in the empty carparks, this weekend has been a pretty average ANZAC day weekend, we just normally watch the parade on the TV and then kind of didn't do a lot for the rest of the day, but it was alright, a pretty relaxing day pretty much.

But for the moment, I have to finish a bit of Japanese and Linguistics homework, but after I've finished that I'll find some interesting stuff to put up, so hang tight :D

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Strange People on the Bus

Yes, it would appear that I am guilty as charged, I do feel kind of bad that I have been neglecting my blog for the moment, I think it's taking me a little more time than expected to get back into the swing of things at uni.

To be honest though, you guys haven't really missed out on a lot from this week really, most of my time was spent on a bus going either to or coming from university, so there are just a lot of stories about the strange people on the bus. So much so that I think that I am able to make an entire post about it. We'll see, if not I'll just throw something amazing on the end.

The one that really sticks in my mind was the uber racist old lady on the bus. Now this one is a keeper, kiddies. So I was on the bus coming back from uni, and the bus is always PACKED to capacity just after the university stop, so there were of course a lot more people standing than is really comfortable.
Just on a side note, I don't really mind standing on a bus, I pretend that I'm surfing or something, makes it pretty cool. Just so you know.
So about two stops after the university stop, this lady in her forties gets on the bus, and slowly makes her way up through the bus, after the bus had taken off again. And unfortunately, for many of the people on the bus, her trip would be far more memorable than what they would have wanted.
Obviously, this lady just didn't like Asian people of any sort, because she proceded to walk up the bus and tell every person who pretty much wasn't white to get up off their seats and let someone else sit there.
AND SHE MADE HER WAY TO THE BACK SEAT OF THE BUS!
Now, the funny thing is that a lot of the people on the bus didn't really speak English that well, which kind of enraged her a little bit more, because they just stared right at her with a look that needed no translation, WTF.
It was actually pretty disgusting behaviour in my opinion, but kind of funny, noone actually got up and I thought that that was hilarious. I know I certainly wouldn't have gotten up for her, so yeah.

Then there was the time that someone tried to pay for their bus fare in foreign currency. That was absolutely hilarious, neither the bus driver nor the passenger had any idea what was going on. The guy just got on the bus, told the bus driver where he wanted to go, and then out comes the wallet filled with the unfamiliar money. I think the bus driver just ended up letting the guy go on the bus for free. 

And then of course, one of my personal favourites. You know that you're going to have a good time whenever you see someone with numerous bags of oranges or other spherical fruits get onto the bus.
I think you can almost com to your own conclusions here, but this lady comes on to the bus with something like 4 bags of oranges, and an important side note is that these bags were all untied. MASSIVE mistake.
So this lady goes up to the bag of the bus, and the bus kind of starts off again, and everything is pretty good, nothing much happening. And then a lone orange rolls past on the floor. Soon enough, the bus has to slam on its' brakes for somereason, and a flood of oranges comes surging down the aisle of the bus. Which absolutely made my day.

Obviously you can see that I have a lot of fun on the bus. GAH. I'm so looking forward to next friday, I have my P's test scheduled, and it would be so great to get them first go, but I'm not going to hold my breath, I know that that is pretty hard to do. But anyway, I want to hear about your bus stories, so just leave a comment and say hi and let us know what they are!

Ta for now

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Out of the Loop

It feels like, at the moment, I am one of the very very few that couldn't really be bothered to pay any attention to Underbelly, mainly just because it doesn't interest me in the slightest. In my opinion, we already have plenty of crime shows as it is, and the crime ridden underworld of Melbourne and Sydney just doesn't do it for me. I must admit that it is doing very well and yes, it does have thousands of fans, but yeah. Just putting it out there.

My second day back at uni was somewhat interesting, amazingly, through no effort of my own, all the stuff that i hurriedly copied down for my Egyptian Archaeology subject has somehow managed to remain orderly lodged in my brain. I think we may be witnessing a sheer miracle here. I didn't think that I would be able to retain more than a quarter of what we covered for history, due to it's sheer density, but a fair good chunk of it seems to have just slotted nicely into what now will be referred to as the 'pottery' part of my brain. It was quite nice to actually understand what the lecturer was talking about for a change.

Really apart from that not a whole lot happened today, a lot of tomfoolery on youtube and the normal, but when I start skulldugging around the internet I tend to end up finding something at least somewhat interesting. Like, for example, did you know that there is actually a puppet theatre in Sydney, where you can go watch different plays and stuff like that (although I think it is more geared towards those under the age of five, but nevertheless) or that there are many places here where you can play the honourable sport of Ping Pong professionally. Those were just a couple of the exciting examples which I came across today. I really should try and go for something a little bit more hard-hitting, but I'll start off with puppet theatres and table tennis and see how it goes from there.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

GAH!

So I haven't really been in the blogging mood at the moment, more to do with not really having anything of interest in my own life to blog about than being busy with university and all that. But I'll try and get a spiffy post up for today, at any rate.

To be honest, I'm on a little mission. And it's not like one of my other little mini-missions, where there is no gain to be had, just a little bit of personal glory. For Spanish class we have to do a little writing thing on a Spanish speaking sportsman (or woman, maybe. it all depends), and I have decided with adament fervour that I am not just going to do what would seem to be everyones first choice, a soccer player. Or Rafael Nadal. Just cos.

So I've been searching high and low with my awesome internet searching skills close at hand, and I'm trying to find player profiles for the sport of Ping Pong. Now, I think that if I am able to find a Ping Pong player from Venezuela who played in the Athens Olympics in 2004, I might consider a job in some sort of internet searching position. Maybe I could join Lily Rush in Cold Case. Who knows?

All that I do know is that is proving to be a mighty sight more difficult to locate these types of wild athletes than I thought it would. Wikipedia is kind of lacking in lists of Latin American and Spanish Ping Pong teams. Maybe I have spotted that illusive hole in the market? :D

Anyway, I think that I'm going to listen to a couple of songs out of the "DJ magazine" I got today, there are pretty much a lot of artists of which I have never heard, so it's kind of akin to exploratory surgery. Except not really. Just going to see what stuff sounds good and that I might actually like to use eventually, someday.
Sorry this post is a bit shorter than normal, maybe something blog-able might come around tomorrow and I'll spellbound you with a far more interesting post ! XD

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Sunday Posting

So I haven't been able to post for the last few days, and it does feel like I've somewhat neglected my blog for the past few days, but to be honest it was a pretty good weekend. Yesterday I had a job interview and test, which, hopefully, will turn out well, and I'll be working soon. Finally. So that was one of the main parts of excitement for the weekend.
Then last night I went to a party, and it was a lot of fun, I got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen for a long time, and I think a good time was had by all. Plus it was one of the rare occasions that Joel, Andrea, Michael and I are actually all together since I arrived back from Finland, which is always good. I do love all my new friends at uni, but it's just so much easier being able to hang out with old friends, not really having to worry about what you're going to talk about, or being afraid of being boring or something like that. But anyway, I think that that just about wraps up the weekend for now.

I think one of the things that being with my friends and talking a few things over for me is how determined I am to get a lot of the things on my wish list done, like learning how to surf, or going hang gliding, and the good thing is that those things are very do-able. Plus I think that I might be able to talk some people into joining me with a couple of the goals, but we'll see how that all pans out. What I also kind of "figured out" was that there is SO much more than those 10 things on the list that I would like to do, so eventually I'll just make a massive check list and sort of cross them off when I get them done. I'm kind of thinking of something Kurt-ish, I thinking reading his list of things he wants to do got me to make mine up in the first place, so thanks Kurt!

To kind of wrap this post up like the previous couple of ones, I've found something cool and fun to do here in Sydney, and it also goes with my list of goals. The i.S.K.A.T.E program, at the Monster Skatepark located in the Sydney Olympic Park, gives you the opportunity to learn how to skate in a graded type stage, starting at level i, then moving on to S, K, A levels and so on. I checked this out, and not only is it a lot closer to me than heading out to Manly for a skating lesson, but it seems to offer a lot more. There are group lessons which are for about $30, which seems pretty reasonable, so I think that I will definitely keep it in mind for when I want to give it a try, and it looks pretty good so check it out!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

KICKASS!

YEAH!

So I went to the movies today with some friends, and as you might be able to tell from the title of todays blog post, we saw Kickass, almost by a real stroke of luck. We kind of started out with the intention of seeing Clash of the Titans, but it was in 3D, so it would have been a little bit more expensive. So we kind of ambled down to the cinema and decided that we weren't going to go see Sam Worthington in a skirt, but we would go and see a bit of McLovin in Kickass instead.

Just on a side note, I'm not a really big fan of 3D movies. I don't mind the kind of 3D exhibits that some theme parks, because the most that they ever normally go for is about 30 minutes, not normally a lot longer than that. The problem with 3D movies for me is that I'll either have to put the funny glasses on top of my normal glasses, or take my glasses off completely, which are both two very uncomfortable options for 2-3 hour movies. Just so you know.

I must say that I was really impressed with the movie, it was quite funny, in such a way that what was going on in the movie at times was kind of a bit too farfetched to actually be taken seriously. Like, there was a fair amount of violence in the movie, but they were still able to maintain the humour of the movie during the violent scenes. Or maybe it's just our desensitised generation. I don't really know. All in all, it was a pretty ace movie in my opinion, and one that I would probably get on DVD, which is kind of a rarity to be honest.

For today, sticking with the film-y vibe, the "Thing to do in Sydney" is go check out the Sydney Film Festival, I've heard great things about this to be honest. And just a general nice way to pass the time, by seeing a pretty good movie. And after the surfing lesson and hanggliding, too, it might me nice to have a bit of a relaxing time. Or maybe not, if you like that kind of thing.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The First List

After a bit of reflection, I decided that I am finally going to make up one of those lists that everyone is making these days, something like 100 things you want to do before you die or similar. Only mine will be a little bit shorter than that, so don't worry :D

Seeing as it is only about 3 months until I turn 19, I think that gives me ample time to get a lot of these actually done by the time I turn 20. I think that that is the general idea. When I get to 20, I want to have done all the things that people generally do by that stage. Or something like that. I just liked making the list to be honest. So here it is :

TOP 10 THINGS TO DO IN THE NEXT YEAR

#1 - Have a Surfing Lesson / Learn how to surf
       it just looks like SO much fun, and it is really something that I wish that I could do already.
#2 - Learn How to Skateboard to get around places
       I used to be able to roll on a skateboard, but it would be cool to actually do. Plus it would get me up and moving
#3 - Go to a concert
       It's just something that I think I should do a lot more. I really want to see a lot more homegrown artists and stuff like that to
#4 - Try DJing
       I know that if I put my mind to it, I could do it. I just really have to get stuck in and try it out, and really I just want it to be something that I could have fun with, not anything professional or really intense at the moment.
#5 - Get a hairstyle that I can actually recreate
       Unfortunately, my hair is pretty much the bane of my existance. The hair stylists always make it look so good, but do you think that I could ever make it look as good as they do? NEVER. I'll just have to get them to teach me, or something like that :D
#6 - Swim with dolphins
       Again, this is just something that sounds like it is simply a lot of fun. It's something that I've secretly always dreamed of doing.
#7 - Decide what my major will be for uni
      I really just have to make up my mind with this one. When we had to choose a major for uni, i just had no idea what I wanted it to be, but I think that after the first year I will have a lot more of an idea as to what I am able to, and what I want to, do.
#8 - Go snorkelling
      Maybe like, in the Great Barrier Reef, or somewhere exotic like that? With all those wonderful colours and all the fish and sea creatures down there, again it's just something that I would really like to do.
#9 - Take more photos
      And maybe even share a few here. I think that will be like a mini 9 goal, to use more images on my blog. But seriously, I really would like to take more photos. Of everything. Just because :D
#10 - Ask a stranger out on a date
      This is something that I would pretty much never normally do. I really don't think that I'm that type of person, but we'll see how it goes over the next year or so.

So anyway, there is my list of 10 things that I want to do in the next year or so. And don't just think that this is the last you'll hear of these. When I make a list, I am serious. I really want to actually get at least half of these done by the end of the year, and then work on the rest after that. I'll even try and put them up to the side of my blog and cross them off when I do them! And it would be good to hear all of your top 10 things that you want to do before . And it's really surprising, a lot of mine are just really simple things that I think I could actually do without much trouble, which is kind of exciting.

To go along with the "trying new things" subject, I've found a little cracker that you can try out in Sydney. After you have tried your surfing lesson from yesterdays' blog, you can go to Hang Gliding Sydney and see what they have got on offer. They offer tandem flights, which is the only way you can really go about it without becoming a fully qualified hang-glider, I suppose. What is awesome is, and I didn't know this before, you are actually in the air for about half an hour. Which now makes it seem like you're getting a lot more for your money, I thought it was a LOT shorter than that.

Anyway, stop by and say hi, see if you can list 10 things that you want to do and share it with us here! Have a nice day :D

      
   

       

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Ten Days Straight

I was just recently glancing at my most current Itunes library, and it just so happens that I have 10 days, 5 hours, 10 minutes and 14 seconds worth of music on there. I think that makes me incredibly happy in one respect, but also kind of bummed out in another. At times it feels that, even if I played my library the whole way through, there just never is anything new and exciting to listen to. I don't know if anyone else gets that feeling, but I sure do. On the other hand, I could put my Ipod on shuffle and I could let it run for weeks on end potentially, because I certainly don't listen to music the whole 24 hours of the day.
And that isn't even including my Podcasts, with my 100+ episodes of Hamish and Andy, which I pretty much always listen to on the bus up to uni, it just makes the trip feel a lot shorter than it actually is. I think I'm going to look at this situation as being the cup which is half full.

So I went to the Easter Show yesterday, and it was a really nice day out, but to be honest, nothing has really changed. Even some of the food stalls are in EXACTLY the same places as they were even a couple of years ago. Regardless, it was a nice day out, and I was even able to get a couple of t-shirts while I was at it, and I did actually get a couple of show bags, but for the most part they just don't really seem to be economically feasible. And I managed to steer well clear from the ride that broke down the other day. In fact, my biggest venture would have probably been the ferris wheel, which is always a nice experience, you get the best views for miles.

All in all an awesome day, although it is always a little hard on the wallet to be honest, but that is pretty much to be expected.

PS. Just to highlight the underlying blog theme for the week are some fun things to do in Sydney, maybe things that even locals don't really think of doing.
The one for today is learning how to surf, which to me always sounds like a really fun thing to do. Everyone seems to be smiling and having a really good time when they are on the tv learning how to surf, plus it is a great and fun way to exercise for people who might not be motivated for just a run around the block. Lets Go Surfing really seem to know what they are talking about. Located in Bondi, they have reasonably priced lessons for all types of levels, and again, everyone seems to be having the time of their lives. Just a bit of food for thought...

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Disasters, Boob Scares and Food Holidays, OH MY!

Getting prepared for this blog entry was actually a lot of fun, to be honest. Now that our internet is uncapped, I've been able to do a bit of random research for this post, which ultimately means a more entertaining one.

I just love being able to go on a tangent, with absolutely anything as your starting point. I was watching the new episode of Bones today on tv, which was a really great episode in my opinion, and I just got out a notepad and started to jot down some random things that caught my interest, pretty much just anything that came to mind. Now, a lot of the stuff I jotted down, I really couldn't go much further with, like the new Diet Coke ad that seems to think that the use of puppetry would make us more likely to go down to the shops and buy a couple of bottles, or weird ninja stuff. I know that I could have probably extrapolated on the weird ninja stuff a bit more, but it really was just such a broad topic, and with my lack of knowledge about anything ninja, I didn't think it would be the best idea to go along with that subject.

One thing that I did pick up was disaster/doomsday/apocolypse movies. And this is more of a moan about them than anything else. Now, the price of a movie ticket has really been rising in the past few years, and in my opinion, that last thing I want to do is spend all that money on a movie that is simply going to put me in a bad or depressed mood afterwards. And that is my main issue with the disaster/doomsday/apocolypse movie genre, the types of movies where the world is going to come to an end for some strange ecological reason.
Now, I do get the symbolism, yes, we are destroying our world with our pollution, that we should take better care of the world, but I know that already from abundance of news bulletins out there about pollution, and global warming. But even then, there is at least the acknowledgement that there is perhaps something that we could do to avert our demise, if we take better care of what we are doing to keep the world clean.
The types of movies that really get you down though are the likes of 2012, where it is simply the end, there is nothing that you can do about it, nada, finito. As great an epic movie as 2012 is, I just thought it was 3 hours of "why am I watching this if this is ACTUALLY going to happen, i should be out enjoying things in the real world, or at least watching a comedy movie".
And there are absolutely hundreds of these movies out there. A quick google search will come up with 219,000,000 results for 'end of the world movies'. Even Disney Pixar has gotten to the little kids with Wall-E, a story about a robot cleaning up a ruined planet after humans over-polluted it. I would much rather watch The Hangover any day.

So whilst I was doing a bit of research on the previous topic, I happened to come across a truly distressing article on news.com.au, my favourite source for all things new. Namely, the fact that diva Amy Winehouse is having some problems with her boobs.
According to the article, it would seem that Winehouse was rushed to hospital with severe pains in her breasts, most likely due to her breast implants, worth the princely sum of £35,000 pounds.
What kind of got me was looking at the comments that people left on the UK newspaper "The Sun"s article on the subject, some of which include "you're a drain on the health care system Amy", and "no matter how much I try, I can't seem to care." I can only imagine Amy Winehouse lying in her bed in the hospital and just feel the warmth and support from all her fans out there. But i must say, if I was ever to have a fake implant burst or become faulty, I would assure you I would be rushing off to the hospital ASAP.

The final topic I came across is kind of on the theme of travel ideas, which I have been looking at for the past couple of blog posts, and it is the exciting concept of 'Culinary Tours'.
The whole idea is that, food being one of the biggest parts of a foreign culture, whole tours are being planned solely around the food of a particular region.
Now, as a really big food lover, I absolutely love this idea, and on the article that I was reading it looks like it is a really big idea. I find that the Asian ones would be really interesting, simply because of the fact that a lot of people just don't really know where to start off with an Asian culinary adventure, after being exposed to the westernised Asian cuisine. And when I went to the link Wendy Wu Tours, they actually cover pretty much the entire Asian continent.
Just another idea for a travel trip that I came across today, thought I might share it with you guys.

Should be an exciting day tomorrow, I'm going to the easter show tomorrow, so I might post something about it either tomorrow or the day after. Have a nice rest of the weekend!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

CAPPED

Or so it would seem at the moment. So it's a bit harder to find some great stories for inspiration out there, but I'll work hard on it :D

Still in the middle of my 2 week break from uni, which is kind of nie and refreshing, but I must say that it is kind of nice to have uni to fill my days with sometimes. Don't get me wrong, though, I do love my holidays ♥
So at the moment, there is a pack of kookaburrahs outside the house, and it's quite nice to hear them laughing away to themselves, because they have kind of gone under the radar a bit at the moment, I must admit I haven't heard them around for a little while. Must be those little birds driving them away.

I'm really looking forward to Monday though, I'm going to go to the Easter show and check out how things are going there. I'll be sure to swing past the food pavillions to get all the free samples, have a look at what is going on in the main arena and just have a general amble around this year I think. I may even go and see the little baby animals, if the mood strikes. We'll just have to see how that goes. However, I think that I will steer clear of that ride that broke down yesterday.
Hopefully the weather will be fine on Monday, I think I saw on the news that it was going to be. I personally think that this type of weather is absolutely PERFECT beach weather. It's not really hot, so the sand isn't going to burn your feet, and you might not get as burnt, plus there isn't going to be as many people and tourists at the beaches as there is in summer. Ideal, i say. But we'll see how that turns out.
Just on beaches, I think that I would have to say that my favourite beach here in Sydney would have to be Manly beach. I think the general atmosphere and ambiance of the Manly area is absolutely amazing, and it's just a really nice place to go, if you go to the beach or not. However, if you do make the trek out that way, it would kind of be silly not to go to the beach and have a good time. Plus the ferry ride from Circular Quay to Manly is a real treat as well, you get to see a lot of great sites on the way, and you can always use a bit more vitamin d from the sun.
I think i'll leave it at that for the moment, hope you guys are having a good weekend so far!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Cat Massage and Such

I'm just going to keep this one fairly short, I just would like to share one of my all time favourite videos from youtube here, about a lady and her crazed obsession with giving her cat a massage.



I think that that is pretty much one of the most messed up things that I have ever seen, but I do love it. Just keep yourselves on that whisker watch alert.

It's been a pretty chilled out holidays so far, I went for a driving lesson yesterday which was pretty good, finally am almost ready to take the dreaded test to get my p's, which will be awesome. I have like 2 things to do for Uni, which are both practically done, so it should be another great week of restful holidays for me, which also unfortunately means there's not a whole lot I'm doing that is particularly blogworthy, so I will have to try double hard to find some interesting topics to talk about and such.

Hope you are all having a great Easter Break and/or holidays!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The New Fad

I really love it when I'm able to find something new to interest me for some amount of time. I think, due a lot to my own fickleness, it's really hard for me to stay focused on one thing that interests me for more than a month at a time. So when I find a new tv show or something out there that I would actually be willing to watch and follow closely I get kind of excited.

At the moment I have been watching a bit of Ugly Betty (gasp and look shocked if you want to), mainly because I was watching the telenovela in Spanish that it was based on and kind of figured I should watch the English version as well. All in all, I do like it so far, but I think that is what the pilot is supposed to do, make you want to watch something more.
I think what has done it for me too is that soooo many, perhaps too many, of the shows that we watch on tv these days are related in some way to crime, like CSI, NCIS, or Criminal Minds. As much as I love all those shows, sometimes it can just get a bit much being virtually surrounded by crime, criminals, blood, autopsies, the whole deal. To me, it's nice to be able to find something a bit lighter now and again, and I think that's what Betty has done for me.

Some other news, I am going to go for my P's on the 30th, really excited but still a little nervous. I hope I am able to pass the test the first time but I'm not really going to hold my breath on that one. So now I just have to practice perfecting my parking skills and just hope for the best, to be honest.

I'm still looking around at various South American destinations, and to kind of go in with the theme of finding new blogs to read, I found this site out there, Travel Blog, which looks like it has information on pretty much anywhere that you can think of. And what is great is that there are literally thousands and thousands of really personal blog posts for you to read through, which, in my opinion, it ultimately better than reading a stock-standard entry in a guide book. I think with the personal blog touch you get a feel of how things are for real, rather than just how they are supposed to be. I've saved this one to my favourites and I just think it's great fun to read through.

Just reading through some of the stories on the blogs, i think you can really get a feel of what people experience while there travelling, both the good and the bad, which is why I think travel blogs are probably some of the best resources for budding travellers out there.

Oh, and Monday I'm going to be going to the Easter show, I'm pretty excited to be honest, bring a little zest to the holidays! I'll make sure to put up some pictures when I go. :D

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Away We Go

Today I got a real itch for the travel bug again, which is even more motivation for me to go out and get a job, still working hard on that one there.
But it dawned on me, by the time I've finished university next year, I will have 2 years of Spanish down, and I thought that I should probably put that knowledge to the test, and just learn a lot about the cultures that I am learning about.
I must say, this is one of my favourite things in the world to do, to research the pants off a country and find all these cool places to go, watch the travel shows on television for a reason, rather than just laughing at them getting humorously lost in random countries.

Now, I am fully aware that I have like no money to go to this trip. That would require some type of employment (a large wink to all those employers out there), and then for me to efficiently save up enough money to make it over to somewhere. But I think that this could very well be the incentive that I need to actually get myself up and going in that respect. Everybody always needs some for of motivation to do things, and I think that I have found it at the moment.
Now, for this wish trip I think that I would focus mainly on South America, maybe start of up the top or down the bottom and just work my way around the continent. I'm not sure how I would do that logistically, but these are all things that shall fall together with the fruition of my master plan. I would also head up to Mexico so I can visit a few friends there, and just because I think they would all kill me if I came all that way to the other side of the world and didn't make the trip up there.
And of course, I would definitely go to Brazil. I mean, how could you not? It just looks like a lot of fun, and it would be really great to say that you've gone there. Even typing about it is making me really excited. I really have to get a job now :D.


Hope you guys have had a great Easter so far, I'm going to go drool at some more destinations for the moment, I'll be back later to let you know how it goes.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Happy Easter Everyone

Hi all, hope that you are all having an amazing Easter break, I know I certainly am having a pretty relaxing couple of days for a while. Haven't really had a lot of chocolate this year, but that's alright, because I have gone off chocolate a lot to be honest, I really wouldn't thank you for it at the moment. So don't buy me any of these please.
On the note of ridiculously sized bits of food, Hamish and Andy have been doing a segment for the past couple of days about some really incredible food challenges that they would like to do, and it's really bizarre what some of them are. And the suggestions that they got on the radio were just the ones that were in Australia.
So just due to some random inquisitiveness about what is actually out there in the world in terms of eating challenges, I found this absolutely awesome site. Unsurprisingly, there is a really massive focus for challenges stateside, but that doesn't really matter if it's just for entertainment purposes. I could read through all these entries and be entertained for hours on end, but I'll just go through a couple of my favourites. :D

The first one is the 8 pound burger named Mount Tater, available, if you're game, from The Spectator. It has a 2.3 pound bun, 3.2 pounds of beef, 1 pound of cheddar cheese, half a pound of bacon and a pound of tater tots (potato gems). This one seems absolutely crazy to me. I thought that I was being a bit indulgent whenever I get a double quarter pounder meal at McDonalds, but I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that again. I think just having a stomach that has the capacity for a 4 pound burger would be pretty amazing, but doubling that and going for the eight just seems a bit optimistic to me.

Looking down the list of eating challenges, you really do see a whole lot of 28 inch pizzas, which are pretty impressive in their own right, being almost double the size of a standard pizza here in Australia, I'm guessing. But then I glanced past this one, which seemed insanely huge, but really impressive. At Big Lou's Pizza in San Antonio, Texas, there is a 42 inch pizza available for your consumption. I couldn't actually find any information apart from on the site, but I imagine you would be able to get any topping you wanted on the pizza. Now, I don't work in inches, so I got out my tape measure and I was absolutely astonished. 42 inches is 106 centimetres rough. Even if i am not mathematically gifted enough to tell you the circumference of the pizza, I can tell you you would be one sick puppy if you ate all of this at once. Interesting but seemingly impossible challenge, it still amazes me that some people can actually stomach this amount of food.

And finally, a sandwich. But not just any sandwich, a sandwich of gargantuant proportions. For just $28 US, you can purchase yourself a two and a half foot sandwich, and if you want to win the prize, which is your $28 back for the sandwich, an extra $25 and A T-SHIRT!, then all you have to do is eat the 2.5 footer in half an hour. This seems like an almost feesible task, but then i remember that the Subway rolls are normally just a foot long. I think the reason that so many of these eating tasks are so hilarious is just really because it is so funny to picture the sheer size of a lot of these things coming out and being put on a table.

So if you feel like sharing the love, let us know if there are any eating challenges you love or have tried:D and have a great easter everyone!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

APRIL FOOLS

Well folks, today is the first of April, which of course means that it is April Fools Day today. Now, I was actually quite lucky this year, i didn't get a prank played on me yet, and I'm really not expecting to now, seeing as it is past lunchtime.
In the spirit of the day, though, I found this site which is really funny, it goes through 100 of the best practical jokes ever played. Compared to anything on this list, I don't really know of anyone who has even come close to getting any pranks of this magnitude. I think the reason why a lot of these are so impressive as well, is that they are really good national or even international pranks, like the one that said that the state of Alabama was going to change the value of Pi, or when Burger King decided to release a "Left-Handed Burger", where apparently all the ingredients of the burger were rotated 180 degrees so that it would be better suited to all those people who were left handed.

I had a really good chuckle at most of these, but then it got me thinking about how gullible all these people must have been. I know that a lot of these pranks would have been made out to be very realistic, obviously, to better fool a lot of people, but the fact that thousands of people came up to Burger King for the day when they released the left handed burger is kind of a bit disturbing. Or maybe not disturbing, but just a little strange.
I mean, to me its pretty obvious that there really can't be a different burger for people of different-handedness, but apparently there are people out there who would. I'm sure we all have one of those people in our lives that are just so gullible, they will believe absolutely anything that you tell them, but even the left handed burger seems a little bit farfetched to me.

In other business, it was the last day of university today for the next two weeks, which is really great, and I am so glad that we ended on a Thursday as well. I think Thursdays are probably my favourite day of uni for this first semester, i only have Spanish and Japanese today and I really love starting off my day with Spanish.
But now that I do have two weeks break, I have to get through all of my uni work, and then I should keep looking for a job. I actually probably have more of a chance now that a lot of the Christmas casuals have been let off and they need more help around the stores, but I will still probably be looking around for a while. Such is life.

So I'm going to leave it at that for the moment, I may or may not post a blog tomorrow, but if I don't, have a great Good Friday and Easter Weekend folks!