The Blog - The Archive

   Things I learned from Spam Today...

Neurofibrillary tangles are insoluble twisted strands of a protein called tau protein that form inside brain cells.

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   The Real Post-Birthday Post...

Hi all!
I thought it was time I get off my butt and write a real birthday post, detailling my presents and thanking people, both for the nifty gifts and for hanging out with me on Friday Night (and yes, my birthday is the 20th, for those that I confused). And so, with the neverending story playing in the background (thanks Beto, I love having it on DVD, there're so many things I never saw on my battered old VHS (like what Atreyu sees in the Magic Mirror Gate - the tape was always too dark to see that)).

So, where to begin? The first present I opened (from Nilanka and Marc) was what I thought was a gorgeous photo frame, but further thought (and a few emails) revealed that it was actually an earring stand, which is something that I was just thinking that I would need in the not too distant future, particularly if I keep making earrings.
Also featured in that photo are Han Solo and Greedo, which I received from Brendan and Morgan. (I've also got C3PO and Chewbacca, but they haven't come out of the packet yet, since I'm saving that joy for the weekend.

From Heidi and Tony, I received a rubber chicken launcher, which I have been playing with all week!

James gave me an awesome cupcake cookbook (and I bought myself some accessories):

Jessie gave me some teas (lychee black tea and jasmine), my dad and my brother gave me chocolate and I got a huge stack of books:

• Battle Royale (manga) volume 1 - Charles
• The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke - James
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein - Heidi and Tony (I've always wanted to read this, and my mum positively squeed when she saw it).
• San Sombréro (a land of carnivals, cocktails and coups) a travel guide - From my siblings
• The Planets by Dava Sobel - also from my siblings
• Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (*worships*) - from my father!

But perhaps most awesome is the present from my mother:
About the only thing that would have made that more awesome would be if Morgenstern himself had signed it. I'm going to have the best long weekend ever; I'm going to lie in bed and read all of my books, and cry over the Morgenstern and squee at Fragile Things and generally have a good time.

Thank you, one and all. I had a great birthday, and I'm glad I got to share it with you all. (I'll tell the stories from Friday tomorrow, since it's nearly my bedtime.) And if I forgot anyone's present (somewhat likely, I am rather scatterbrained), just nag me, because it's not that I don't think you're important enough to list, it's just that I am dumb.

Love you all!

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   Summer's Heat...

I always dream too much in summer. Something to do with the heat means I'm not able to sleep well, and so I spend my nights hovering on the edge of sleep, dipping into dreams as my mind searches for a way to rest.

And in many ways this is a good thing. I like dreams, they give me inspiration and hope. There's nothing quite like waking up and knowing just what I'm going to do to my characters to make their lives more interesting and difficult. And new characters pop up, pointing out that maybe someday I'll get around to thinking up interesting stories for them that might just see me become a real writer.

But then there's the other side, where I sit on the bus and think, "oh yeah, I have to reply to that email when I get to my computer", and it takes me several minutes of thinking of a response before I realise that there is no email to reply to, I just dreamed there was. I hate dreaming about work.

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   Chipper? Me? Never...

Hey all, I'm in a better mood now through application of coffee, friendship and yummy food, so I thought I'd make with the recipes, so you can all share in my joy.

Catherine's Honeydew-Assisted Strawberry Smoothie
1. Make a yummy set of honeydew melon ice cubes by pureeing 300g of honeydew melon and 20mL of ginger cordial (which burns one's mouth in its concentrated state). Strain it and skim it and make about 12 ice cubes (they apparently go really good with vodka and tonic). Chuck them in the freezer and head back to your blender.
2. Throw in the leftover melon pieces (from a half-melon, I had about four chunks left), the solids from your strainer, and the foam that you skimmed off the top of the strained melon. Add a splash of maple syrup, a big scoop of strawberry icecream and a reasonable amount of milk.
3. Blend! Feel the power!
4. Drink. It's surprisingly nummy.

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   It's just not my birthday...

...unless someone makes a trip to the emergency room.

(My brother may have broken his arm at cricket today. It's horribly bruised and swollen and hurts to move. So they've gone to see how badly it's damaged; it's almost certain that he's not going to be playing in tomorrow's semi-final.)

(ETA: Not broken, just very badly bruised and twice its natural size. It's been strapped and the doctor recommended *not* playing cricket tomorrow, but we all know how that is going to turn out.)

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   Blogic...

The way certain things only make sense on the internet.

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   BEWARE MY CAPSLOCK OF RAGE!!!

All day, all fucking day, someone on this floor has had a windows machine with problems. And that oh so annoying windows "ding" has been going off, seemingly randomly, at a crazy volume, all day. I'm about to start storming down the corridor with intent to reformat.

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   Oh Bunny...

you speak truth.

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   The Parkes Elvis Festival...

So, aside from being the home of the Dish, Parkes is the site of the Elvis festival each year. I knew it was on because I'd heard mention on the news, and I had read a traveller's guide a few weeks ago. But I had never expected that I would end up encountering a bunch of Elvises (Elvii?) yesterday morning.



The Elvises were staffing a countrylink express service to Parkes (very express, it was the only stop), and many of the passengers were thrilled to be meeting some before they even got to the festival. It all looked like good fun--it made me want to jump on the train without a ticket, and I don't even like Elvis' music that much.

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   Morning Updates...

Hey all... Wonder how long I can keep this regular diary thing up? I feel absolutely wretched this morning, primarily due to a lack of sleep.

So, today's updates: I pretty much got the last of the conference details sorted or delegated, save for the fugly title graphic. I'd link to the temp site, but that'd get me into troubule.

For large chunks of last year I was working part-time on a teaching development program in which we were using an audience response system (remote control keypads) to ask students multiple choice questions during classes. The idea being that by getting them to (anonymously) answer questions you get students more involved in the class and they're more likely to study and pass the course. Well, I'm still involved in this stuff for a few more months (until the money runs out), and today's great news is that the software to drive these things is finally available for Macs!
While this sadly means that I now need to put MS Office on Minako (my iBook G4, can't remember if I ever blogged about her), it also means that happily I don't have to spend my weekends suffering on the PC. I think this means it might be time to copy over the last of my files and give Asuka back to James.

My love for CLAMP continues to grow after I read the spoilers for the next arc of Tsubasa (whee! Fye-sama!!!! *dances*). It's almost enough to make me start reading fan-translations rather than waiting for Del Rey to hurry up and get up to date (then again, a check of their website tells me that there's another volume due out this month - ah, I'll forgive them for now).

Speaking of manga, Del Rey has released a one-volume shoujo manga of Train Man, based upon the Densha Otoko story. Thought James might like that link. Actually, James will probably also like this story about events in Second Life (sadly not involving any flying penises).

And Brendan has convinced me that I should become a slashfan for the Domus Prime novel. It's all his fault. Fortunately I have no desire to write fanfic slashing my favourite characters together yet, but I'm definitely going to squee over the fanart he drew for me. I'll post it once here once he scans it for me.

Now I think I ought to start pretending to work. Bleh, I still feel crappy and hungover.

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   Small things...

My parents have decided to have wardrobes built into the boys' room. This will free up at least a cupboard and a chest of drawers to be moved into the 'computer room'. Perhaps the goal of "Catherine having her own space without having to move out" isn't quite as crazy as it first seemed.

The conference location has been decided to be the Hunter Valley. It kinda won by default, but that's all right by me.

And the worst article blurb ever from the Sydney Morning Herald site:
Extra 21,500 US troops to Iraq
7:56am | George W Bush is to announced his new strategy for Iraq today, including the sending of many more US soldiers.
Doesn't it just make you cringe?

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   On the Subject of Maths...

The religion of mathematics -- and, yes, it IS a religion -- and its hysterical defenders simply have to back off with their tiny-minded name-calling and embrace tolerance.

I don't do much math myself, but, like the majority of Americans and right-thinking people around the world, I support "moderate" mathematics. Evangelical mathematicians force their fringe ideas down our pants, but we will always cling steadfastly to our cafeteria approach to proofs.

- The Huffington Post

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   Dear Boyfriend...

If you love me, you'll buy me an Apple TV (and a HDTV) for my birthday.
*evil grins*

(Note: Not an actual demand, just a statement of desire for such a sexy device.)

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   Sometimes, when I'm feeling very uncharitable...

I think to myself that the train ride would be more pleasant for most involved if the really fat people had to stand up. That way twice as many people could sit down, and the fat people need the exercise more.

Then I realise that this makes me a horrible person.

Oh, and on the work thing: If I've spent a week designing (and writing the content) for a website, and you come along and fix the typos, don't tell everyone that "Catherine and I are currently working on the website." Because if you do, I will happily surrender the job to you and let you take over until we've done an equal share. Good luck with the php scripts... I think you'll find them stimulating.

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   More than you ever wanted to know about spinning leeks...

So last year, we all stumbled across the Orihime Leek meme, which was truly awesome. And then we read the wiki article and were intrigued about Ievan Polkka.

So, this morning, inspired by a post to Fandom Lounge, I hit the internet and found a version with lyrics. My journey was just beginning: I then was lead on to find both the full song and the lyrics translated (at the bottom of the page) and sang along for a while:

One thing I tell you is you won't trap me,
no, you won't find me an easy catch.

Continuing on, we find a video of Loituma singing the leek song, and then because it had to happen, here's a pretty good techno version.

Finally, we have one last flash version, just for luck.

And that's the end of this morning's adventures in leeks. And no, I'm never going to get this song out of my head. Neither are you.

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   Screw You Hippies!...

Stop trying to sound sympathetic. You're the ones who have put me in this state.
You never send uni-related mail to my uni email account, you expect me to be on the spot to discuss your conference issues at all hours of the day (and night) and for some unknown reason YOU ALL FUCKING WANT ME TO OK EVERY DECISION! No! We have a committee, and Catherine is about to resign from it since I'm sick of doing everything!
And don't you dare complain about the fact that I just told you that I'm sick of the way you people are doing things. You asked me for an opinion and that's it. I think you all nitpick too much over tiny details, you're not willing to seek more options when it's actually appropriate (though you'll happily do it once we've decided on a shortlist of options) and frankly I think the decision should have been made a month ago.
And about my "don't care" attitude: I think that's going to be my mood for the rest of the conference. I didn't want to do this, I haven't enjoyed any of it so far and I don't see why I have to be the one that everyone else is constantly coming to and dumping stuff on. I just spent two weeks of getting over all the crap people dumped on me, and I'm back one day and it's as bad as ever! Frack you all, you've ruined a pretty ok day, and now I'm going to bed.

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   Not to be confused with my officemate...

Jinn in the modern world.

I admit it, I'm something of a junky for fairy tales and legends. And I've been having a lot of fun this week reading up on such matters. And I'm always fascinated when I read about how people still believe in jinns, or demons, or evil witches out to eat your babies. Or angels and fairies, for that matter.

I'm sure there was meant to be an essay in there somewhere, but I'm too much on holidays to write it.

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   I want to roll you up into my life...

So, while I've been ignoring my blog (and my site and the various and sundry updates I'm working on), I've been very crafty. Among other things, I've made a series of crochet katamaris, and then given them to other people. At least one is headed out into the world for wacky adventures:

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   On the subject of manners...

Sometimes I am made very much aware that I have fallen in with snobs.

ETA: Turns out they're not snobs, they're just English.

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   Thoughts about Chick Flicks...

I'm always saddened by the fact that every girly movie (well yes, and every other movie) I've ever seen ends with a big old disclaimer pointing out just how made up the story was. I get to the end of the movie filled with warm fuzzies about how I too could have a happy ending, and then the last thing I see is a big warning saying "this is fake and could never happen to a real person like you".

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