Happy Anniversary!

Today's our second wedding anniversary. Time sure does fly.

Last weekend, D had the best idea for our anniversary weekend (well, Saturday anyway) which was to go have brunch at the restaurant where we had our wedding reception then walk through the Treasury Gardens, where we had our wedding photos taken.

It was Grand Final day but we don't follow AFL at all so it had no bearing on our plans. We just had to make sure we weren't in the city too late that we caught the post-game crowd.

The weather cooperated, which was very generous for Melbourne in spring. I guess the AFL gods were feeling benevolent at the time.

Society has had a complete revamp since our wedding luncheon. It looks and feels very different and although it's more modern and contemporary now, I think it's lost some of its charm in the process.

The menu's changed and the prices have been jacked up but at least breakfast was still good value for money. Coffee wasn't bad either.

However, if I had walked into the restaurant as it is now, looking for a reception venue, I don't think Society would've been in my top 5. It's way too posh and just a tad charmless for me.

This is the section we had our reception then

This is what it looks like now

It's a bit hard to compare I know since I was too shy to walk through and take pictures of the section.

Even the signage and facade are different. And maybe I'm biased but I liked the old one better.

Old

New

One good thing about the renovation was the bathrooms. They're heaps better. The old ones were really dingy and just a tad gross.

No then pictures to compare (un)fortunately.

After brunch, we walked through Treasury Gardens which wasn't as colourful as it was during our wedding day. I think it's because this year, winter's hung on for longer than usual and so most of the flowers aren't in bloom yet.

Those pictures will have to come later (and might be a series in the postcards blog) as this entry is way too long now.

Tonight, D's taking me out to Donovans. We've been meaning to go (I mean, c'mon, the name alone would get us there) and were just waiting for a good enough reason (it's not exactly cheap). So, yey, I'm excited!

Twilight: What a Load of Crap

I found out about this book because it was on the cover of some magazine I was reading. Actually, the actors from the movie based on the book was on the cover of the magazine. It's called Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. The novel was all hyped up in the article and so I was intrigued enough to borrow it from the library.

I knew it was a young adult novel when I picked it up but, boy, did I not expect the amount of bullshit the author managed to cram into one book. And, I didn't even read the entire book!

I read the first 20 pages, hoping it was going to turn into something interesting, skimmed through the next 100, read a few more pages to see if it had become readable, skimmed through the rest and then read the last 10 pages.

Even with the cursory run through, I couldn't miss the bad writing.

*spoilers ahead. just in case you're thinking of reading it. which i highly recommend not doing.*

So, the premise of this novel is young girl moves to dad the sheriff's small town, meets a drop dead gorgeous vampire and promptly fall in love with him. Vampire (who has sworn off humans, sorta like a vegan vampire but instead of eating veggies, drinks the blood of animals instead) tries to control his feelings for the girl but can't help himself and now they're a couple. He keeps saving her life because, apparently, she's very very clumsy and attracts trouble wherever she goes. Lots of really bad conversation in between. And nonsensical ramblings of the girl's mind (yes, you are subjected to her thoughts as it's written in first person). Something happens (I think it was a bad vampire or something) and girl almost dies but gets rescued by, guess who, the gorgeous vampire. I think it ends with vampire still trying to tell girl to forget about him but girl insists she will love him forever and makes him promise to not ever leave her. But it doesn't end there. Because there are THREE more books after this and the author just keeps churning them out.

So, having read (well, at least tried to) this book, it boggles my mind that the series has become a runaway hit. So much so, that they've even made a movie out of it. Utterly bizarre. Apparently, it's the vampire version of Harry Potter (which I liked, btw), with rabid fans galore.

What's even more bizarre is the idea that a 90-year old vampire would fall in love (and risk everything for) a clumsy, ordinary (in her eyes anyway) 17-year old girl. I mean, having lived that long, wouldn't you find it utterly boring to converse with an inane (no, she's not even smart) teenager?

Clearly, I am not the target audience.

License to Travel

One of the drawbacks of being pinoy is we need a visa to travel most anywhere (other than South East Asia of course and Morocco!). Other than the hassle of providing documentation, I've hardly had any trouble getting a visa (if you exclude the bleeping USA, that is).

My European visa was surprisingly easy to get, given that when I applied I was an unemployed design student. My Australian tourist visa was easy enough to get as well when I first applied for it about 5 years ago.

So imagine my surprise when it took almost FOUR WEEKS to get my visa from NZ. Four freaking weeks. When their average turnaround time is 7 working days. No reason given at all for the delay.

I was ready to call the NZ visa office (or whatever they're called) to follow up and ask what the hold up was. I was also about ready to tell them to forget about it and just cancel all our travel arrangements to NZ(which would've been a pain but doable). I was going to give them until Monday next week before I rang. Thank goodness my passport arrived today stamped with my new NZ visa. A limited one-time entry visa at that.

I'm still excited to travel to NZ for our holiday but given the grief I went through getting a visa, I don't think I'll be travelling back there any time soon. Until I get my oz permanent residency that is.

Btw, out of interest, it doesn't cost Filipinos anything to apply for an NZ tourist visa. Some reciprocal agreement between our governments, I think. Just be prepared to wait if you do apply.

YoungMe NowMe

My sister turned me onto this site where people submit pictures of their old selves and similar pics of their new ones.

It's really cute and now I want to do it. I especially want to do it with my sisters and my sis and I were chatting on which baby pics would be the funniest.

I'm getting her to scan me photos and we'll see how we go. I might have to wait for her to come here for us to do our together ones... More reason for her to come here now!

Smiley's People

So, I've started to read John Le Carre's Smiley's People without knowing anything about Le Carre or the book. I was on Amazon searching for this book for reviews when I found out that this is part of a "trilogy" and this is the last in the series.

So now I'm faced with a dilemma -- read this book anyway and backtrack to the other books if I like it enough OR go back to the library to get the other two books first.

Decisions, decisions.

On the other hand, I can just start reading Mao's Last Dancer and forget about this book entirely.

The "Other" Blog

I'm finding it a challenge maintaining two active blogs.

Although the other blog doesn't have a lot of words, thinking of photo subjects, taking the actual photos and then thinking of ways to be creative about the caption and the blurb takes a lot of energy. So much energy in fact that this blog is beginning to suffer.

I don't know how prevent this blog from languishing especially since that other blog is all shiny and new that I'm more inclined to play with it more often.

I do have post ideas for this one, particularly the torture I experienced in one of our training sessions at work, but with limited mac time (D is addicted to facebook and so is hogging the laptop way more than he should) I just can't seem to bring myself to sit down and write about it.

I will overcome the indolence this blog has suddenly become mired in. It'll take time, that's all.

Battlestar Galactica

D and I have been obsessed with Battlestar Galactica (BG) for the past couple of weeks now. We borrowed the 3 season box set (including the introductory mini-series) and Razor (a between mini-series) from the boys' library. We finished all that and now have to wait for Season 4 (which isn't showing in the US yet, I think).

It's surprisingly good for the most part and when the storylines revolve around BG and the Cylons (you have to watch it to understand), it's really really great. Sometimes, the stories do tend to wander into regular TV-land and that's when it gets soap opera-ish. At least they don't do that too often which is why I'm recommending this series.

It's funny, smart (most of the time) and action-packed (when it's not overly drama-ing). There are some v annoying characters (Gaius and GB [gay boy -- try to identify who that is if you do watch it]) but I think that's testament to the good writing and acting. Best to watch it on DVD so that you don't get frustrated with the cliffhangers at the end of some episodes.

Living in the Dark Ages

I have been noticeably absent from this blog for over a week now and it's mainly because we haven't gotten our internet connection sorted yet. That's a story in itself, actually.

D finally broke down middle of last week and called Bigpond to complain about the lack of network access. After being on hold and on the phone for the best part of his life, the customer service person (this would've been D in a previous life) said a technician was going to come on Saturday to check it out. D was pleasantly surprised as this type of prompt service was not the norm, at least when he last worked there.

The tech dude (TD) was scheduled to come between 7.30am and 12noon. Very big window, but that's how it works here.

D, being D, was up bright and early on Saturday (Saturday!) morning to make sure he was awake when the TD showed up. Before 7am! How rude.

Of course, TD arrives at 10.30am. He comes into the house, checks the modem and the connections, goes outside to check cable stuff, comes back into the house to check the modem and connections again, and then tells D that there's something wrong with the local area connection which had nothing to do with us.

Since this was not in TD's scope, he had to call it in for another TD to come and check the area connections.

Surprisingly, TD2 came that same afternoon to check on the area cables. I was about to leave for my massage at around 3pm, when TD2 knocks on our door and tells me he has bad news. Very bad news, apparently.

Our (idiot) neighbours had renovated their house a couple of months back and in the process of re-paving their driveway, paved over Telstra's access pit. This meant that TD2 couldn't access that particular cable section.

Of course, as you might have guessed, the faulty cable section had to be right under the inaccessible access pit. They would have to break through the repaved driveway, access the cable and then pave it back again.

Yes, what a nightmare. The good news is, as I was driving to work this morning, I noticed TD3s setting up in front of our (idiot) neighbours' driveway, getting ready to dig.

Hopefully, we'll have access by tonight. Yeah, right.

UPDATE: 6.30pm same day
Woohoo! We're back in business. We got our connection sor'ed.

Orange Goodness

We have a godawful office chair at home that I use for sewing. D's had it for ages and I've been using it for lack of a better one. I've been meaning to do something about it but I've been busy (lazy).

Last Sunday afternoon, I had enough energy to re-upholster the chair and I'm happy with the results.

I basically stripped the chair seat of the rubber that was lining it (lots of staple wires), covered it with the new fabric ($2/m from Darn Cheap Fabrics) and stapled the fabric onto the chair.

For the back rest, I had D remove all the hardware (harder than it sounds) and then sewed a case to fit snugly. I put the case over the back, stapled it shut and then had D put the chair back together.

And, voila, with a little bit of effort and not a lot of cash, we now have a newish chair that's still functional but much more stylish.

D loves it as orange is his favorite colour. I love it just because it's not godawful anymore.

Offline

We're having trouble with our internet connection at home which is why I haven't blogged in a few days.

Don't know when we'll get sorted but I will try to blog during lunch break at work.

At least my other blog has scheduled posts so you can just visit that one if you need a blog fix.

We should be back to regular programming soon.

Another Blog

I've decided to start a new blog. I know, I know, I can't even manage this one (or my defunct ones).

The purpose of this new blog is to encourage me to take more photos so that my creative juices don't dry up. Haha.

I'm still working on the layout at this stage but you can visit it here. Wordpress will be a challenge as the layout is different to blogger but I'll work it out.

Here's hoping it doesn't become defunct like the others...

Lost and Found

I was leaving for work when I grabbed my bag and realised my wallet wasn't in the bag. I thought I had left it at home and had gone the whole day without it.

I got home and looked half-heartedly for it in the usual places but didn't find it. I wasn't too worried cos I misplace things all the time. But, after dinner, I decided to do a serious search but came up empty. I racked my brain for where I could've put it but my brain is like a sieve. I retain nothing. Hehe.

D was getting worried for me but I wasn't stressing cos I really couldn't do much about it and worrying won't solve anything. I transferred the little money I had in my day-to-day account to my savings account just in case someone tried to use my atm card or debit card. I was fretting about having to go get a new license and medicare card but I hoped I could do it all online.

I still held the hope that I had left it in the office but I resigned myself to the worst case scenario.

I came in to work today and found my wallet underneath the pile of paperwork I have. Woohoo! Crisis averted.

You're probably wondering how in the world I didn't see my wallet, which isn't small, on my desk, which isn't big.

This is why.

It's Spring!

Woohoo! It's spring! Winter's gone!
Although today wasn't the best indication of spring weather, what with the mostly overcast day and random freak showers, I'm still feeling hopeful.

Speaking of freak showers, I was on my way to the post office during my lunch break when it started drizzling. And then the drizzling quickly turned into pouring down real hard. And then I got drenched. Of course I didn't have an umbrella. What do you take me for?

I got to the post office looking like a drowned rat. And then, guess what? When I came out, it was bright and sunny, the world looking like it had never rained. And I'm standing there, completely drenched, completely out of place.

Ah, the wonders of Melbourne. Four seasons in a day and don't I know it.