The Blog

   Distractions for the win...

So, life sucks, and I hate my PhD. Fortunately, here's a picture of Wikipe-tan to cheer us up!

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   Yes, I am putting our conversation online for discussion...

You: And when I link to an outside web page I use target="_blank" to open a separate window. This could apply on the location page too where you have the link to the hotel.

Me: We don't do target=_blank/_new. It's considered very bad manners to presume that you know better than the user how their browser should behave.

You: Yeah, but for those who haven't got a clue how their browser is meant to behave .... see above point (where it was brought up that using headings as links meant that the links weren't underlined as normal). I just don't like relying on the "back" button once I've moved away from the page I need to be able to get back to.

Me: ...

And at this point, I just want to yell at you. This is a conference for astrophysics students (and sure, you made me put 'astronomy' on the front page, but it was always astrophysics). And yet you believe them too stupid to know how to drive a browser, just because this newfangled technology is too much for you?

It's very much getting to the point where I'm going to start issuing ultimatums, and I hate ultimatums. Fuck you, and the long horse you rode in on.

(And yes, I know I used to do the same thing (and that I still do in the link bar because I'm too lazy to edit it - as evidenced by just how long those links have been there). But back when I started this blog, I was using internet explorer, and so was everyone else. Things were different, and it made sense back then...)

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   Just because I'm not confused enough...

The terms ante meridiem (before noon) and post meridiem (after noon) do not literally apply to noon and midnight. Although the term meridies (literally midday) properly applies to noon, its abbreviation m. is not commonly used.

However, it has become common practice in countries that use the system (such as the United States) to designate 12:00 p.m. as noon and 12:00 a.m. as midnight at the beginning of the day (this is the de facto convention).

Nevertheless, this usage... is contrary to the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends the use of 12:00 p.m. for midnight and 12:00 m. for noon (not 12:00 a.m.).

Thanks, wikipedia, for not at all helping with the am/a.m./AM dilemma. Well, ok, you helped a little, but I'm not going to forgive you for the 12:00m. thing any time soon (even if I can't wait for Lesa to complain to me about that).

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   Everyone, let's be sensationalist!...

Behold, as the Sydney Morning Herald flips out and declares the Australian flag to be inaccurate... because people didn't have telescopes and know that at least Acrux was a double star when the flag was designed.
*sweatdrops*
It's just going to be that kind of year, I think. Let's make the flag three dimensional while we're at it.

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   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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   Does everything have to be a test?...

Why do we continually put those we care about on the spot?
Why do we only hurt those we love?
And if everything is a test, what happens to those who fail?

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   Dragonflies...

2 shots Midori
2 shots Vodka
1/2 shot Lime Juice
Fill shaker with Apple Juice and ice, and shake.
Enjoy with apple slices!

Labels: cocktails, feeling better (with application of alcohol), Irodim Illusion, recipes, this was before tags, yay vodka

   Fay-sama!!!...

Trivia for today: Daisuke Namikawa, who was the voice actor for Fay D. Flourite in Tsubasa Chronicle, was the dub voice actor for Anakin Skywalker in the Japanese versions of Star Wars Episodes II and III.

Of course, now I want to draw Fay dressed as Anakin...

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   *rolls eyes*...

There's nothing quite like getting home and the first thing you're told is that they need you to fix the internet. Turns out that someone turned off the modem and didn't turn it back on again. Yay for my technical skills.

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I doubt the results, actually...

In other news, I got a nice big box of anime today. It took a month to get here, but it was worth it in the end.

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   So, let's review...

This week I have:

• Made a katamari that is as big as ten (1 tsp) sugar packets.
• Earned a $50 bonus at my tutoring gig.
• Tried (and failed, repeatedly) to see my supervisor to tell him that I hate my PhD and need either a vacation or to quit.
• Tried (and failed, repeatedly) to find a venue for next year's Harley Wood Winter School. At least now we have a destination in mind (the Hunter Valley) and I'm looking into buses and trains to see where people can get from Sydney without too many changes.
• Was nominated for the ASA Local Organising Committee (this is the conference that follows the HWWS, which I'm on the Local and Scientific committees for).
• Started a flame war with one of the academics (incidentally, the guy who said that Macquarie University would be happy to host the conference, who won't be able to attend because he's got another conference on that week).
• Bought a pair of new shoes that are indeed decidedly me.
• Was unable to attend the Dymocks booklovers club sale in the city due to mother being unable to meet me in the city due to blackouts. Went to kinokuniya instead and spent an hour deciding that I was only shopping to fill the emptiness that is my life. Tried to go home and made it eventually
• Resolved that if I don't take at least the second half of next week off, someone (most likely aforementioned academic) will die.

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   The thing about being a PhD student...

...is that no one cares.

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   At the top of the tower lies a sleeping telescope...

Okay, I'm finally feeling awake enough to post, so here we go. I'll start with an apology: I didn't bring my camera card reader, so I haven't got any new photos to show you, but I'll put some up on flickr later on, but for the moment I'm just going to write until I can't think of anything else to say.

So, as mentioned before, I'm up at Narrabri, in North-Western NSW. I'm listening to a weird radio station that is playing a curious country mix of a Madonna song and where they spend most of their time talking about the races, I can see about 100 kangaroos and a similar number of sheep within walking distance, and of course there are the telescopes, four of which are within my field of view at present.

So, briefly, ATCA is a set of six telescopes, five of which can be moved back and forth along a very wide railway line, and the sixth is a couple of kilometers down the road. By using so many telescopes looking at the one object, we can use some mathematical tricks and pretend that we have a much bigger telescope. This is called synthesis imaging, because we're synthesising having a huge dish. So, what we do is we cycle through a bunch of about 15 objects, looking at them for about 5 minutes each over a total period of time that is about 14 hours today and 10 hours tomorrow. I'm not going to go into detail here (we have wikipedia for that) but once we get back to Sydney Ivan has a huge job putting all the data together and seeing what pretty pictures there are to see in it all.

We're looking at planetary nebulae, which are the shells old dying stars that were once like our sun. They don't have planets, the name comes from the fact that the first ones found looked like green-blue balls, like Uranus and Neptune. Since then we've found a bunch of different weird shapes, but the name stuck because it's a nifty name. Anyway, I'm actually not sure of the finer details of which project this is for (other than Ivan's PhD), but anyway, the telescopes have been going strong since 6am this morning when we took over, and today has been a lot of fun.

The big problem I have with these observing trips is the fact that I have nothing to do on the first day. The first day is set aside for setting up all the schedule files for driving the telescope, and usually it's a one-person job. But I'm obligated to sit around and work on my own stuff while they do that just in case they need help that I can provide. So yesterday I was in a foul mood because I was sitting around doing nothing (okay, I worked a bit on my PhD, but not much because I couldn't get into it because it's rather boring at the moment). And while I can offer to help until I'm blue in the face, they don't need me.

But today, I get to sit in the control room, and occasionally chat to Ivan, and drive the telescope, and feel like my presence here is actually necessary. I'm sure that later, when they ask me to do a 4am-12pm shift tomorrow morning, I'll hate the lot of them again, but for the moment I'm enjoying this trip.

Today I actually got to speak with the two Japanese people who have been using one of the other telescopes (Mopra, for those in the know). They are completely awesome and adventurous, and together with the duty astronomer we set off on bikes to explore the old National Measurement Laboratory, which was a solar observatory that was in use for a long time from the 60s or so up until about 15 years ago, when the money ran out and they didn't even have enough left to pack everything up and put it in storage, so the telescopes are still there, and the motors are still able to open up the roofs to show us the sunlight. Now, since I have no photos to show at present, I will just tell you that these buildings are awesome. They look like your stereotypical american mailbox (half a cylinder on top of a box), and they split down the middle with the curved roof opening and curving underneath the platform that you are standing on. It's beautiful.

We visited two of these towers, though we only opened one because the boss could see the other from her house just down the road and we weren't technically meant to be there... *grins* The telescopes are still there, mainly because they're huge, and one looks like a death ray for a mecha! I'm not sure that I was able to convey that in my photographs, but seriously, this thing was awesome! We had to tread lightly as we walked around, because the wooden floors weren't necessarily safe, and we had to watch out for the birds who nest there and had pooped on everything. But all the old machinery was there, and it was just amazing to see all this stuff.

We also saw a current solar observatory, belonging to the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON), which was merrily chugging along in a modern little dome. That one is completely automated, and no one ever seems to visit it.

For Beto, I haven't see any spiders or snakes yet, but I'm sure they're lurking somewhere in the background. I'll be disappointed if I make it through the entire weekend without seeing any, even though I really don't want to.

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   Too stuffed to blog...

Even though this is my 200th blog post, and I had intended to give you all a big story, I just can't find the words. Seriously, my notes are all confuzzled and I'm starting to doubt my own literacy. So, in the interests of not disillusioning anyone, I'm totally going to just let you know I'm still alive (and see if the changes James made have fixed blog uploading), then I'm going to go make tea and fall asleep. I have to be up at 4:30 anyway, I might as well go to bed early-ish.

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   This is where I am at...

So, another thing that was missed by my readers was the fact that I'm now kinda a real astronomer. Which is to say that at the start of September I was dragged away from my computer (kicking and screaming and begging to be allowed back near my model, I tell you) and taken up to the radio telescope at Parkes (seen in the picture, which links to my flickr set about the trip). We spent 43 hours (continuous) observing a collection of supernova remnants that are known to be interacting with clouds, in the hopes of spotting some maser (microwave laser) light from them. Which was an awful lot of fun, let me tell you, even if we didn't necessarily find any. I ended up sleeping something like 8 hours out of 50 while we were away, but I ended up seeing a lunar eclipse, which was awesome.

Anyway, the moral of the story was that I had so much fun that they've dragged me away again, this time up to the Australia Telescope Compact Array at Narrabri. In fact, as of this moment I am sitting right about here, or maybe a little bit off the track. More like in the Lodge (not the one in Canberra), which is maybe 100m from the arrow. Close enough really.

I had a big long blog post planned, but my head is full of fuzz from the really long car trip to get up here, so I think I'll end this now and maybe post tomorrow once I've had a chance to look at the photos I've taken and figure out why I took them.

Suffice to say I need my sleep, because I'm not sure how much I'll be getting after tonight. (Yes, James, I know I told you that we were only doing daytime observing this time, but it turns out I lied, because Quentin bullied Ivan into agreeing to do the observations for the people scheduled at night, and we don't have enough people here to really do things comfortably like we did last time.)

Oh, and the knowledge that they keep the red-bellied black snakes (deadly) around because they eat the brown snakes (agressive and deadly) is not necessarily reassuring to a good snake-fearing girl like me.

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   "But now I can do it Professionally..."

Last night I took my mum to a Chocolate Appreciation course (supposedly for her birthday, but I just wanted some chocolate). The course description read as follows:

Taste your way through the history of chocolate from ancient to contemporary recipes. Take your taste buds on a journey and sample everything from chilli and rose to mouth watering Australian native flavours. Learn to detect the difference between compound and pure couverture chocolate, plus the characteristics of dark, milk and white chocolate. Find out the reason why some women NEED chocolate. All this in a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

What that doesn't mention is just how yummy are the chocolates this guy (Joseph of Kimberly Chocolates, who doesn't seem to have a website) makes! So very good! *bounces* But I'll start at the beginning...

So, the difference between *real* chocolate and compound chocolate is the way it melts in your mouth. Real chocolate is made with cocoa butter, which melts at 34 degrees C. Crappy compound chocolates use vegetable fat which melts at 38 or so, which means it doesn't melt in your mouth the same way.

Cocoa pods are awesome. They come in different colours (though we only got to play with a red one) and a decent-sized one will contain about 40 cocoa beans. The beans are roasted, and fermented, and in the process they go from being purple to a brown and they look like almonds. These then get mushed and turned into chocolate, though it wasn't until the 1830s or so (actually, I'm a little fuzzy on the numbers) that they invented chocolate as we know it in a solid form. For the most part chocolate has been a drink, for as long as there have been people living in the parts of the world where it grows natively.

Speaking of which, of the different chocolates I got to try (all at 56% cocoa), the one I liked best came from Cuba. It was very smooth to taste. I think James would have liked the spice of the Tanzanian chocolate, or maybe the Malaysian. But he would have liked the 100% chocolate best (though it had too much tannin for me)!

Oh, and we had hot chocolate, which was so yummy. The secret to hot chocolate is to use a mix of half milk / half cream, and to have about 70-80mL per person. Then you grate an entire bar of chocolate into it as it warms, and stir. If you want to use skim milk, add more cream. *grins*

We got to try a bunch of truffles, including a lemon myrtle (an Aussie bush) flavour, a peppermint one, a dried mango dipped in dark chocolate and something else that I'm obviously forgetting (Mum will no doubt read this and remind me). But they were all good.

And at the end, because chocolate is an appetite suppressant, I totally didn't need to eat any dinner. Or breakfast this morning (though I did have a bit of toast for morning tea).

So yeah, I had a great time, recommend it to everyone, and may yet go back for a chocolate making course in a few months when my wallet's recovered and I have free time. I love chocolate, don't you?

Labels: this was before tags

   Why the hell do I feel obligated to clean up after you?...

Sometimes I think I only got the blog back so that I could rant about my family. They piss me off so much! The subject of today's rant: my father.

So most of you don't know this, but my father moved out of home in February. He moved into his mother's townhouse, which, sadly, is still in the same suburb as our house, and he tends to come over and hang out here whenever he wants. Because the internet is faster (he'll never convince me of his "dial-up is faster" wankfest, mainly because: a) I understand the science of how it works; and b) I control the router, so I know why he believes that the internet was always down/slow around here), and because he can't stand his mother. And I think on some level he wants to confuse my poor mother, who just wants to be left alone so that her broken heart can start to heal.

Anyway, that's the background of where I'm at with regards to my relationship with him.

So then we get to his crusades. Ever since his brain tumour / personality transport (1988), my father has been prone to declaring that "next weekend is a cleanup crusade and you all have to be here to participate." Regardless of previous plans or inclination and who the so-called "mess" belongs to (usually him). Most of the cleanups have centred around the garage, and in recent years I've been able to skip it simply by going in to uni to work.

This weekend was no different, although as well as cleaning out the garage, he'd arranged a council cleanup (where the council guys send a truck around to pick up a 2x1x1 metres pile of stuff - you get two of these a year). Now, aside from the fact that I kept getting called out to the garage to confirm that "yes, the box of stuff marked "Catherine's" does belong to Catherine, and yes, I still want my Star Wars toys, you heathen scum", they tore up a bunch of furniture (which probably could have just been moved and left for one of our neighbours to collect) and generally built up a pile that was about 10x1.5x1 metres i.e. it was frickin' huge!

And while the neighbours were very obliging about picking up some of the furniture, and the unopened scanner, and the old cricket gear (most of which went to a very cute little kid who seemed delighted to get his first cricket bat, even if it was a little bit battered), a lot was left for the council. Who, quite understandably, only took 2x1x1 metres worth of stuff and left the rest. Kinda like they'd agreed.

That brings us to tonight, when my father decides that not only is he going to pick up Catherine from the station and do my mother a favour (and why the hell is he hanging around here anyway? Does he just lurk to watch the council workers or something? Were they cute?), he's going to dump a carful of garbage in one of the parking lots up there. While I'm sitting in the car.

HELLO? Did he miss the part of my adolescence where I took part in six Clean-Up Australia Days? And the bit where I was president of Club Earth in High School? And the bit where I always vote Green? And he wants me to just sit there and take it while he litters like that? When I tried to express my outrage all I got was a "I pay my taxes, and the council won't even do their part..." rant. I don't fucking care about your taxes! Your council, who you voted for, chose to enact these rules. They are, in effect, your rules, that you desired. And if you didn't agree, you should go to council and petition them to change it.

The worst bit is I feel so bad about the whole affair that tomorrow morning I'm going to go back there and clean it up. I'm not sure how I'm going to dispose of his boxes of garbage, but I'm sure I'll find a way. It's the right thing to do.

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   Behold while I do rant...

Okay peoples, here's the thing: Every morning, my sister's alarm goes off at 6:30AM and wakes me up.
I'd have no problem with this, save for the fact that she never gets up until 7:15AM or so.
So, this morning I had had enough. I asked her, very politely, if she could move her alarm back to 7 or so, so that it goes off after my alarm and we all live happily ever after. And she glared at me as if I'm the most horrible person on the planet!
What's a girl supposed to do? I like my sleep! I never get enough, and she's not helping by waking me up twenty minutes early every day. Grr!

ETA: I spoke my to Mum, and she said that I was indeed polite and well within my rights to ask such a thing.

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   *hiding*...

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