Thursday, December 28, 2006

The joys of summer



I have now invested in some fly spray




Thursday, December 21, 2006

Woe is me

Just when I was getting into my running and building up my endurance... I have to stop. Nothing but low impact cardio (ie. cycling and walking *yawn*), leg curls and 1-legged squats (I dare you to try those and without holding anything for balance). The area around my left knee has given me slight problems off and on for awhile but it was never really serious and I could run through it. Last Friday must have really aggravated it cos I spent most of the weekend limping. Anyway I was good and went to the physio which turned out to be far more worthwhile than doctors visits ever are. They had a pretty good idea of what the problem is, something to do with where the hamstring meets the knee joint. Went back again yesterday which has left it very sensitive so today I'm back to a slight limp. And apparently it will take at least one month to get better (probably more like two months) and for me to be able to run again.

Thankfully Toru can come get me from work today. It's a half-day and we close up for the year today. Two boxes arrived for me with the couriers today and work gave us all large food/drink baskets as a present. There's no way I can carry all of that and get on the bus home :P There's currently $80 worth of fudge in my office

Friday, December 15, 2006

WooooYEAH

I dunno?

Anyway Masi Oka
was nominated for a Golden Globe for Heroes. Awesome. He has to win.

Had to slog away at the gym for twice as long this morning. We had our work christmas function thingy yesterday and it ended up being vineyard tours and wine testing. Bit hard to not drink if the event is wine tasting. I ended up leaving with 3 bottles of wine (two dessert) which I have to try and keep Toru's paws off of otherwise they will not see the end of the week. So yes, hence the extra long gym session this morning.


Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Couriers...

I really do have no luck with them do I? Maybe I should have a blog entitled "Maree's bad adventures with couriers". All day the track n trace has said that the item was delivered at 8.51AM. Some nice customer service person tried to call the driver but he's not answering his phone.

At least I got Snow Patrol tickets. YEAHHHHH!!! Go the presale. Now I don't have to worry about not being able to get anywhere to buy them on Friday. I have a feeling I got the first few tickets :P Yes - work was very dead so I could jump on the tickets the second they became available.

Oh yeah, New Zealand is apparently the 'third least corrupt' country in the world. The Finnish beat us at something yet again.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Superman goodness

Exceeeeellent.

My 14 disc Superman Collector's tin arrived this morning. Yay for the super quick Amazon shipping.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Snow patrol!

Are coming to NZ in Feb. Score. I'm in need of another concert. Other than my two David Gray concerts this year I've been in a bit of a concert drought for awhile. Looks like Jem will be back up here again. Luckily there's going to be a presale cos tickets officially go on sale next Friday when I probably wouldn't have access to the internet (and if I did it would be dialup *yawn*).

Anyway stoked. That is all.

Oh yeah, trotted (okay ran and hid under an umbrella) along to the summit club day at Kathmandu today and got me some goodies. Turns out the skirt I've looked at so many times and said I didn't like is actually really really cool. And it was half price. And you know what I'm like when it comes to a bargain/discount.

The final chapter...

The Advertising Standards Authority has decided that the Hell pizza campaign breached the advertising code of ethics. The article is here. They quote someone as saying it's a victory for the protection of families. There's so many things I want to say to that but I shall refrain. I will just say one word - insanity!!

I wonder if this means the big billboard by Beach Rd will be taken down? :( I personally thought the campaign was great. Then again I have probably liked most of the Hell campaigns because of their "edge" and being so borderline.

People take things far too seriously and need to walk out of the dark ages.

Friday, November 24, 2006

A headline to start the day with

Tsunami hits NZ - no one notices

Awesome! Slightly ambiguous but at least it caught my attention.

In other exciting (not) news, some couple had planned to helicopter to the icebergs drifting around down south and get married. But they aren't allowed to. Not just due to safety, apparently you have to be within 12 nautical miles of the coast for such a union to be legal. Who knew? One of them is a lawyer... Surely you would either know that or at least check it out before you start planning?

I shall go back to my breakfast and try to wake up

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Site stats

So after looking at Hamish's most recent post I decided to have a look at my site stats.

Under referrers... Someone got to my site by searching studylink sucks 2006 on Google. It's the first search result if you search NZ sites only. Of course this post will now hit the top of the list :P

Other than that... 55.31% of the visitors are using IE 6.x. Shame on you! 36.86% of visitors are using Mozilla. Nice.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Stuff to do

One of my many culinary creations



I also made my world famous chocolate brownie (well that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's world famous in these parts). I wish I wasn't being so healthy and what not. It prevents me from baking as Toru might have trouble polishing off everything on his own.

So anyway stuff to do... Yes well, stuff to either do or stuff I am doing
- gym 3 times a week (time to stretch it to 5 times)
- discover all the lost French in my head by Feb so I can take an advanced (or close to it) night class
- dust off my clarinet and find some music to play.

And I've already run out of stuff. Oh w
ait that's right, I'm also on a mission to convert all my VHS tapes into digital format. This one is going to take a very long time. I think that's what christmas will come in useful for.

Here's a cool bubble

Friday, November 17, 2006

Odd stuff

When bored or in need of a laugh I head over to the 'Oddstuff' section of the Stuff website. For instance I found these today

- "
Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs"
- "Owner claims kittens have dog-like traits" - you really have to go see the picture. Ugliest cat I've ever seen.
- and last but certainly not least: "
From space, extraterrestrials and astronauts can look back to earth and see The Great Wall of China – and KFC's Colonel Sanders". Awesome. There is now a 8129 square-metre image of the Colonel in the Nevada desert. Always good to see money going to worthwhile endeavours.......

Thursday, November 09, 2006

The dumbing down of our nation

Secondary school students will be able to use text speak in written examinations this year, legitimising a language loved by teenagers.

Of all the ridiculous things to do... It's bad enough that none of them have any common sense these days, now this. The country is going to become void of any common sense and the ability to construct a proper sentence. I sure hope they all learn how to use F7 to spellcheck since they will also no longer be capable of spelling correctly.

Funnily enough, also in today's news is a story about some guy who died because he was texting whilst driving.

Friday, November 03, 2006

To add to yesterday

A longer article and picture of the so-called offensive Hell campaign.

Hahahaha brilliant

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Complete nutter

Yes I am... But I will get back to that in a minute.

First... Hell Pizza is once again offending people *hehehehe* Wonder if this has turned up in my letterbox?

Yeah so I'm completely insane, although most of you already knew this. But as for the latest insanity... Every day AirNZ has it's grab a seat sale - really low fares for travel in NZ but limited number of seats/dates and you have to book that day. So anyway today they have flights from Auckland to Norfolk Island for $129 incl. taxes (yes not travel within NZ). And yes I booked us on flights to Norfolk Island. This is incredibly insane but what the hell? How often do chances like this come up. So in January we're off to Norfolk Island. Toru doesn't know yet... I'm assuming he won't see this before I tell him :P

Friday, October 27, 2006

Where is the common sense?

I ask myself this all the time... The number of people with common sense seems to be declining exponentially.

Here is yet another (amusing) example

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Frustrated to no end

So apparently (as of today) broadband has been unleashed. I wish they hadn't. Besides the obvious issues (like the fact that the current state of the lines/networks can't handle everyone being on fullspeed) the plans have gotten worse. It wasn't great before but it was a lot better... For instance I had 30GB international traffic cap and unlimited national traffic, theoretically at 3.5Mbit/128k. I now (without choice) get "upgraded" to "fullspeed"/128k with an "unlimited" cap. Too many speech marks... How can you call it "unlimited" when you are only allowed to use 700MB of traffic during peak hours? That my friend is a CAP. And without the free national, a "fullspeed"/"fullspeed" with a 20GB cap at $80 isn't alluring enough. Unfortunately as I look around at all the other plans on offer with other ISPs I have realised I am with the lesser of evils.

Apparently the new plan/policy will not effect many customers........................ I already know of many that it will.

So yay for our upgrade to fullspeed - our internet speed will now get worse.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Bwahahahahaha

Pot burgers

hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa

The brillaint invention called bcc

It's nice to see what people say behind your back. Needless to say, my door is longer open to said people/person :P Bless the person that bcc'd their reply with the original email. Bless technology :P

Don't mess with me, seriously. As Tsz said - they picked the wrong person to piss off. Especially around here. I have many, many contacts

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Bad day

It all started when I was straightening my hair and accidentally got my finger in the straightening iron :( It's very owieee. I've spent all morning at work with my finger in a chilled glass of water. I won't go into the rest of my shortcomings for the day.

So it looks like Hell might be bought out by Burger King. Dunno if this is a good thing. *ponder*

So who wants to go to a graduation? I managed to get one more ticket than the usual allocated amount and now I have 2 spare :/

Monday, September 18, 2006

DVDs Galore!!!!!!!!!

With so many new DVDs out my credit card has been going crazy at Amazon and Cd-WOW. I could only get two of them in Canada cos the rest weren't released while we were there. But Amazon has been rather quick with its international shipping so I have two dvds sitting in my hot little hands right now. Soooo many TV boxsets. And this week is the start of the madness, with some of the new seasons starting. We are watching so many US shows these days, and the occasional UK show. And the 18th season of The Simpsons :)

So I graduate next week, which is far more exciting than it sounds. Last time I checked, jeans and sweatshirt are not suitable attire so I'm screwed. I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon trying to find something but I swear the stores have nothing but casual or skank or ugbo clothes (and yes ugbo is a word cos I said so). Urghhhhhhhhh...

It's Toru's birthday this weekend. He's going to be old! I'm taking him to Wellington next month for his present.

Oh and there are more photos to put on flickr from our trip (Toru's photos) and I will get around to that at some stage.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Looooong update

Yep it's been awhile. But I'm back in the country and getting around to writing this. I tried to keep a trip journal type thing but I either wrote nonsensical ramblings or didn't write at all so I shall use it as a guide :P

24 August - Sitting in Honolulu Airport . The humidity is nuts. So much for our direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver. Didn't even stay with same plane. Entire reason we chose this route was to avoid US Customs but alas. We have now been fingerprinted, photographed, bags swabbed... All this and have had zero sleep. French speaking steward guy was pretty funny. Must refrain from reading everything out loud that's in French - Toru doesn't seem to appreciate it much :P The really nice lady at departure gate is originally from NZ - explains the really nice part and the comment about certain rules being stupid. Apparently she is from Bay of Islands. Hand luggage was hand searched at Sydney and shoes checked. We were all patted down too. Paid to be standing up at the gate - we got to board before all the people that were sitting.

So once we finally make it to Vancouver we get to start the 24th all over again. Yeah so let's not do this again... Oh wait we probably will have to when we return. So more fingerprinting and signing away a waiver to any rights :( I have a real problem with that.

24 August (again) - Flight from Honolulu not so great. More cramped. Apparently they had to find a plane for us so we were probably just lucky to get out of Honolulu. Customs etc. was easier than transit in US. Easier doesn't even describe it. Thank god though, I was ready to topple over from exhaustion, lack of food etc. So yes we made it. Walked for awhile around Downtown/Granville St. Found Rocky Mountain Choc shop but didn't buy anything (yet!). Robson St looked cool but I don't think I'd be willing to pay the prices. Toru's sleeping (I think) and I'm bored. It's odd that it's still so light outside, so used to it being winter in NZ. Well we have roommates now. They're British. I found a cool beach/park thingy.

25 August - Made it to free breakfast then walked to Granville Island via Granville Bridge. One word about Granville Island - STRAWBERRIES!!!
Okay so in general, food. Best strawberries I've ever had, and I've had a lot. Got some blueberries too. Should've got blackberries but going back for them tomorrow. Got donuts. Soooo good. Don't know that you can get donuts in NZ that are anywhere near these. Mmmmm... We then headed to Broadway (east/west?) so Toru could go to MEC. Got bus to Burnaby where there was a rather large mall, Metrotown. Not so much of interest to me but yeah. Oh that's right, got a really cool hat in Granville Island. Got SkyTrain back from Burnaby, pretty cool. Auckland should seriously invest in those.

While outside MEC a lady asked us for directions (which we could actually give) and surprisingly she picked our accent. She's visiting friends in NZ soon, small world.

Just been lazy and sitting around the hostel tonight. Watched the final of Whistler. HA HA HA.

Vancouver is very clean. There are recycling bins everywhere - awesome. (So far) Canadian's as a whole are very friendly.

26 August - Granville Island again (briefly) to get berries and drinks from the Parrot place. Hot chocs here taste much creamier, even with the low-fat milk. Got bus to Stanley Park. Walked around, went to Aquarium. Dolphin show! Saw the totem poles and a lighthouse. Headed to Canada Place - wasn't all that much to see (other than expo centre), got bus to Robson and walked up there. Rocky Mountain Choc shop... Mmmmm chocolate. Got marshmallows on stick covered in chocolate. Unfortunately due to size and varying shapes of marshmallows, looked like this
Got pitcher of beer on Davie (gay central apparently). The cheese sticks were nothing like cheesy bread, remember not to buy on rest of trip. Have new roommates now but haven't seen much of them.

27 August - Got ferry to Victoria. Have a car for a few days. So drove to Victoria then walked around. Very pretty but seems very touristy. Maybe that's just me. Drove out to some lighthouse. Got in for free. Saw random animals wondering around carpark. Some American's were stranded, their rental car wouldn't start. Gave them ride back to Victoria. They had some really nice strawberries. Hostel is very funky/artistic, to put it one way. But cheap and has its own bar :) We have tiny, tiny room (cos we're that cheap) that fits a foldout bed and fridge. Nothing else. Had more beer.

28 August - Well today had to be the best so far, besides the incredibly crappy sleep. Drove from Victoria to Tofino, which is approx. 4.5 hours. Driving around looked like NZ, if you exclude the tall, tall trees and the smooth, flat, straight roads. Went kayaking in Tofino which was awesome. Sun was out but was a bit windy hence slightly choppy water. Serious currents in some spots. In a double kayak, with rudder which I am really not used to. We kayaked out to part of Meares Island were there's a short walk thru forest. Saw HUUUUGE trees and really old trees (one was approx. 1800 years old). Some had hollowed inside so you could stand in them.


Drove to Nanaimo since I insisted on staying here. Definitely worth it, it's probably the ritz compared to the rest of our trip - Painted Turtle Guesthouse. It's supposedly a hostel but I would liken it to a hotel. We get an awesome queen size bed in a fairly decent sized room and free internet. Finally a decent sleep tonight.

31 August - K, so I was lazy and bored so didn't write the last few days. Nanaimo was pretty boring but the hostel was great. So many places there are closed on Monday's and Tuesday's. Very strange. We got ferry back to Vancouver and went to Capilano Suspension Bridge. I'm just insanely paranoid, well paranoid isn't the right word. I trusted the bridge but the rocking etc. still freaked me out.

At some stage on Tuesday I lost one of my favourite earrings. Still annoyed over that. Talked to an Aussie and Brit in TV Room in Vancouver. It was like being in a non-English speaking country and finally finding people that speak English, as odd as that sounds. We watched Superman (Chris Reeve days) :P Next morning flew to Calgary. Flight is somewhere between Akl-Wgtn and Akl-Chch, so fairly short. Economy on Air Canada is nicer than AirNZ. You actually get selection of cold drinks and way more cookies. Calgary was very cold (similar to Auckland recently, approx 12-15 degrees). Our first day of rain in Canada (and ended up being the only day of rain). Calgary was also very bland looking to me, especially when buildings look the same colour as pavements. Drove to Edmonton today where it was sunny and a few degrees warmer. We have a private room again for a few days, thank god. I don't do well with dorms and we're both in need of decent sleep. People are insensitive. People suck :P

Anyway, so we walked around Old Strathcona and had coffee (well Toru did). Internet is very expensive here - what's the deal? I thought Vancouver was bad but it's cheap in comparison. $1CAD for 15mins!

Tomorrow we are going to the infamous West Edmonton Mall for the most part of the day.

I've been annoying Toru with the following:
- Why do they call Rock Melon Cantalope? Especially when they still call Honey Dew Melon, Honey Dew.
- Why do we call green peppers capsicum?
- In my opinion, the average NZ'er likes very plain, bland pizza (with the exception of anyone who gets Hell Pizza) but the Americans/Canadians (in general) like extremely plain pizzas. Why? I remember at RBNZ, whenever American's called they wanted a pepperoni pizza which we didn't have but created in a roundabout way. Yet here it is the norm.

I can't remember what else... You get the drift.

We had Pizza Hut tonight. Was very disappointed. The entire reason to get Pizza Hut was so I could say I'd had pizza like on tv :P But alas, our rather plain pizza looked exactly like one from NZ. And the cheesy breadstix weren't stuffed with mozerella, they just had light cheese sprinkles on top.

We brought OJ with 'lots of pulp'. Ahhh the freedom of choice - no pulp, some pulp, or lots of pulp. Mmmm pulp.

My head hurts. Oh yeah, Babylon was playing in the cafe. Yay for Dave.

1 September - Spent most of today at West Edmonton Mall. Still not a lot of Maree-shopping. I guess it doesn't matter what country I'm in... Here there are way more stores, therefore even more I'm not interested in. I started my DVD buying today but behaved. It was like browsing Amazon.com but in person. Ahhh the selection. Lost is out in a few days (S2) but will have to wait till we fly back to Vancouver as won't be anywhere with HMV.

Toru mentioned curry today and ever since I've wanted curry. How can a country this size not have Indian food? So we had to have Subway for dinner due to lack of interesting places nearby.

Mmmmm curry.

Toru's moved the mattress to the floor to reduce noise. The second you move a muscle on that bed it makes an incredible amount of noise. So the floor it is. There's some farmers market tomorrow, so will head to that before driving to Jasper.

3 September - In Lake Louise. Last night sucked. We were in one enourmous co-ed dorm but you can't do much about that. There was a band playing well past lights out. I want to complain! The drummer kept pounding at the pedal and it was right above us. If you're going to keep us awake at least leave the lights on. So I didn't sleep well, lots of people snoring too. Drove through Icefields from Jasper to L.L. Took our time and stopped a lot. L.L hostel much better. Back to 2-bunk co-ed dorms and nobody has shown up yet, yay! They have a cafe here with beers on tap. Mmm beer, burgers and yeah... Good night had by all! Breakfast there in the morning. Mmmm two pints of beer :P

6 September - On plane about to leave Calgary. Pretty empty plane.

After LL drove to Banff. Spent the morning looking at all the sights then had a pint on rooftop of Rose and Crown. Hostel was nice but waaaay too hot and stuffy. Didn't sleep much so was pretty grumpy the next day. That is until we found the only DVD store in Banff which had Lost Season 2 (released that morning) and at a standard price. YAY! Walked around the town for awhile before going back to the hostel so Toru could have coffee with his old boss. Banff hostel has a cafe and bar. Had breakfast at cafe and beers night before in the "Storm Cellar". Played lots of pool too.

Drove to Kananaskis yesterday afternoon to stay with Toru's friend. had to get up early this morning to drive to Calgary and drop off rental car to make 10AM flight. Time difference means we'll land 25 mins after we leave :P

We had the longest wait at the airport for bags. Then the longest bus ride back to the hostel. Went to Granville Island (again) for lunch and donuts and berries. Went to the brewery there as well for a pint. Finally found some nicer beer there. Still not as good as Tripel.

7 & 8 September - Uhh trying to remember this as didn't write anything. Did a HUGE walk on the 7th. Walked to Gastown and saw the cool steam clock, then walked onto Chinatown. Then walked across Granville Bridge to South Granville. Pretty tired after that. Had a quiet day on the 8th. Went to Granville Island again (on the cute little ferry) for lunch and good coffee/hot chocolate and more berries :P Went to Chapters to get a book for the flight (which I didn't get around to reading cos I felt like crap) which then gave me a voucher for Roots so I went and got the top I'd been looking at and looking at but didn't want to spend that much on. Realised I could get tax back as well so it's all good. Flight back was again long and I got barely any sleep again. The movies all sucked and I had a headache so couldn't really do much. We had to clear US customs in Canada this time. Toru got a nice lady who asked nothing but I got interrogated and told off for not pressing hard enough on the fingerprint machine.


I have way too many photos and most of them are on flickr. Have some pretty cool videos I took as well. But now it's back to the real world of work and what not. It's sooo nice to be back in my own bed and to have a homecooked meal :P

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Slacker

Yeah so okay I've been pretty slack this month but in my defense, work has been insane and almost like being in a kindergarten. Luckily it's all over now and the extra pay certainly won't go unappreciated. I also got a performance bonus which was very timely, as is the extra pay, considering we are off to Canada in a few days.

I had to (yes had to) buy myself a crumpler bag yesterday. Besides looking extremely cool, it is also red :P But it is also very durable and stuff.

I'm really tired, wish I was in bed sleeping right now. I'm also hungry from being awake for so long.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Shocking

I FINALLY got my thesis mark. After 6 months of waiting... And unfortunately it was what I was afraid of, but it's still all good. I got an A- but because I did a two year masters and because I took those stupid stupid grad physics papers (I knew they were a bad idea) I miss out on 2nd class division one by decimal amounts. But oh well, at least I still get honours! And I get to graduate

Saturday, August 05, 2006

So far today...

  • I've managed to drop almost everything I've touched
  • Broke one of my good wine glasses that is part of a set
  • Burnt two of my fingers
Looks like it's shaping up to be an excellent day

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Old habits die hard

It seems my bad, pointless, old, pop music up loud still does the trick. It can still send me into my nice cosy, safe little world. Bless it.

The first thing I did when I got home today was head straight to the vodka bottles. I did not get drunk and unfortunately vodka didn't do the trick. I then proceeded to play a very long game of Battle for Middle Earth II. All in the desperate attempt to wipe today from the forefront of my head.

I shall rejoice if I make it through the week alive

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The long walk for a solitary beer

After having almost two bottles each of tripel and before 9pm, Toru decided he needed more beer. I swear the more tripel you have the more accustomed you become. Since I am such an upstanding citizen I wouldn't let Toru drive to get more beer, even though he'd only had two beers (yes two beers in Tripel world... 4 in the real world). Anyway so not content with just any beer we couldn't walk 5mins to The Barn (or whatever it's called). I didn't want any more beer but being the good girlfriend I am I went walking too. We walked to Liquorland about 15mins away and it was closed. So on we walk to the supermarket despite the fact they would probably only have normal beer. But we got there and much to his delight there was tripel. And what happens? Only one was drunk so in the end it was a long walk for a solitary beer (oh and sorry, also the 5 lamingtons he ate). Beer explains why Toru was actually willing to walk that distance :p

I deserve a prize - I went to the gym, on a Saturday, for a good 90mins.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Kicking and screaming

I've been given the okay on throwing things and I've been told I can kick and scream also. I'm ready to start writing letters of complaints to almost everyone.

Last week I was quite clearly given the impression, actually it was pretty much spelt out, that all the reports were in and my thesis was now marked and it was just a matter of everything being processed. So 8 days later and still nothing so I ask what's happening... Apparently it's not all sorted. Incompetence everywhere I tell you!! The deadline for graduation is in 2 weeks. 2 WEEKS!!! If it took over 5 months to get the damn reports in how long is it going to take them to sort this out??? The next three weeks are extremely busy for me and then after that I'm basically off to Canada. I don't have time to be dealing with this crap.

How does any of this encourage the growth of the postgraduate population?

Oh and don't you just love how when something is your responsibility everyone else has an opinion on how things should be done? Yet they do absolutely nothing to help...

I'll go back to my quiet fuming. If you see smoke, that'll be coming from my head.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Another 'people suck' rant

sjdflkjawiorfjwao!!!!!!!!!

Grrr I'm all pissy. It was so much better when uni and schools were on holiday. The traffic was better, you always got a seat on the bus and I could actually go to the gym.

Here I am with a gym membership I can't even use. Could've easily used that money for something else. The world is against me - they want me to get big and fat and unhealthy. I stood around waiting for a machine for 15mins at the gym till I just gave up and took off. Why does everyone have to go to the gym at the only time I can make it.

Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I wanna blob out and eat junk food :-

Monday, July 24, 2006

What I learnt about ski boots...


1. You almost break your feet trying to get into them
2. It's a workout to get your feet out of them
3. It's extremely hard to walk in them
4. It's virtually impossible to walk down stairs
5. Almost makes you wish you were a male so you could pee standing up


Yes well... I survived. No broken bones. The only aches and pains are from the stupid soft bed at the hotel which meant very crappy sleep. Getting there was not fun. There was snow on the runway in Queenstown so instead of a direct flight from Auckland to Queenstown we got taken to Invercargill. Now no offence to anyone in Invercargill but it's certainly not on my top 10 places to stop in. Hmm I wonder if it would even make my top 100?? Probably not. The airport barely existed, you had to walk outside to get to baggage claim. So once we got there we all had to pile onto buses for 2.5-3hrs to get to Queenstown. But, of course, we made it. And the bright side of all of that was that there was fresh snow and apparently Coronet Peak was the best it's been.

I have waaaay too many photos but that's what digital cameras were made for :P My photos are here

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

I hate couriers

At the risk of sounding repetitive... I HATE COURIERS. I've lost track of how many times I've said this but they always, always prove the point over and over again. While I was out to lunch a message was left for me saying there is no such address and it's been marked undeliverable. IDIOTS. Absolute IDIOTS. And they'll only deliver to another address or a post shop. And not until tomorrow. So tomorrow I will have to walk 10-15mins to get to the post shop. Ahhh customer service at its best as usual.

In other news, apparently the assessor's report has finally come in on my thesis so I may see my mark before the end of this century. Only 5.5 months after submitting. Should get to graduate in the sucky Spring ceremony though.

Friday, July 07, 2006

When will it stop?

Most people will answer never... I'm more likely to go with the "when people get sick of this" but who knows when it will be. I'm definitely over it. To be honest, I don't know if I was ever really that interested. Although I guess when the first ridiculous ones started I at least showed an interest in how stupid people are and if they wanna give away money like that why not give it to something more beneficial. Then again it's their money - if they want to waste it.

So anyway all this ranting... Once again there is a news article about someone's auction on TradeMe

Schoolboy seeks belle for the ball

Now if I was completely out of my mind and decided to bid on such an auction, I would at least like to know who I was going with. Because in my mind (and this is coming completely from what guys were like at my high school) it would usually be some arrogant, "I'm so great" jock. Now the article says it shows "a certain degree of entrepreneurial flair"... But how is that when we've already had the hugs, cigarette butts, handbags, streaker bikinis etc.? It's not an original idea but good on him for trying to get some money. If he was a gentleman he would put that money towards hiring a limo and getting a nice corsage for the poor girl.

Now if you're interested, here's the auction. I notice there are no bids so far? Although I'm sure now that the NZ Herald has written an article about it, there will be many visitors.


*Edit*

There is now a bid... But is it real I ask you? And Nick actually just pointed out something to me - maybe he should have specified the sex... Then again these are progressive times and perhaps he is a very progressive boy.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Oh the stupidity

Interesting what makes the news these days

Train driver's pie-stop holds up traffic

I really have no words. I mean seriously?

Work finally got me a heater. It's a fairly small column heater so it gets to sit behind my desk with me. Mmmmm heater goodness.

My gloves really are falling apart. I've stitched the tips up so many times yet they still continue to fall apart. Toru blames my nails but I of course find that ridiculous :P

It's our two year anniversary on Saturday. I have cool stuff planned and of course it's cool because I am cool and yes. I think I shall make my most awesome blueberry pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Oh yeah... after 5 months I rejoined the gym! That's not to say that I haven't done any exercise in 5 months but I certainly haven't been doing much and with it being winter and dark all the time I can't really go for a run. So yes I rejoined the gym at uni and I've been going after work. My calves are a bit screwed after the assault they got. The first day I went back I ran just under 3km and cycled just under 8km, all in 40mins. I managed to do 50mins of cardio yesterday.

We've been watching Black Books lately. Brian kindly leant me the first two seasons and being a UK sitcom they are very short seasons. Nonetheless it is excellent and I had to go and order the 3rd season since Brian doesn't have that and there's absolutely nothing on tv to watch these days. Okay I lie... Occasionally there is something to watch.

Someone please buy me new merino gloves :) I thank you in advance

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

A winters day

So I could basically plagarise Daniel and talk about the car windscreen being frozen solid and what not but instead I will ask you this somewhat rhetorical and amusing question...

How often do you hear this: "Black ice causes accidents in Auckland"???

Of course, when I lived in Dunedin you wouldn't even blink an eye at something like that. It would be more of a groan and "not again".

One sight of slightly white looking grass and everyone gets excited. Frost is the closest to snow Auckland City will see and we're lucky to even get that.

It's a cold, cold winter... (and I have to go to Christchurch tomorrow night *brrrr*)

Monday, June 26, 2006

testing RSS feed

okay i'm satisfied that it is working now... otherwise if it's still causing probs i've put the link to the Atom Feed back

RSS and what not

Okay call me slow but I only this morning decided to see what all the fuss was with this RSS stuff... I easily set up Daniel's Blog in Google Reader so then I decided I wanted to have it for my blog. Of course I didn't realise that there was already an atom feed in full working order. So I was trying all these other things and not feeling awake so really not wanting to look at code when Nick said doesn't blogger do it automatically. But I didn't remember seeing anything on my site saying atom but I looked anyway and there was this word 'atom' towards the bottom of the page. How sad. I shall fix this and make its presence known.

I need hot chocolate

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Crap

Yes crap... We were pondering what music Nathan will be listening to when he grows up and decided it would most likely be some genre that doesn't exist yet. Suddenely it sprung to my brilliant mind :P - country/rap. And Toru turned that into crap (in the spirit of the popularity of combining names I'm sure). That then led us to the many variations you might have of crap...

Now does anyone know where the plug adapter is for my camera charger??

Friday, June 23, 2006

So don't worry about radiation...

worry about the lightning factor. Yes lightning. In the latest of "public service" announcements - you should not use your mobile phone outside during a lightning strike (article). But then you aren't safe inside either because I saw the news - I saw that house on the North Shore that got zapped by lightning and blew everything out of the power sockets.

At least if you're in Auckland you could feel better by the fact that apparently our politeness is 7th equal in the world.............. Yes that loud silence is all of us pondering what the rest of the world must be like if Auckland made it to 7th equal. To be fair, there are some polite-serviced stores around. But not enough to make 7th equal.

So maybe those silly teenage boys all those years ago in my advanced driving course were right to point out the "lightning factor" as a hazard in every single driving scenario we looked at.

Yeah or not...

Friday, June 16, 2006

What is the world coming to...

Yes what is the world coming to when a simple metal "D-shackle" (basically a metal fastner thingy) can cause a power cut to most of Auckland.

*shakes head in disbelief*

Today is a good hair day

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Dark Ages

So of course almost everyone knows Auckland was without power yesterday. I'll just throw my story into the pool of many. We were running 5 mins late yesterday morning so at 8.30am we were still in the car when the power went and the traffic lights went. So those final 5 mins were loads of fun. Auckland drivers can be bad even on a good day but with lights out they fall into 3 categories... Those who don't know what to do if lights aren't working, those who know what to do but can't be arsed because they're more important than everyone else, and those who just go with the flow.

So we all sat around in reception at work waiting for power to come on. My laptop had full battery but thinking the power cut may last far longer I wanted to wait till I was desperate to turn it on. Then the university started making announcements and sometime before 11am we shut down and left. I got sick of waiting for a bus (there didn't seem to be any heading in the direction I wanted) so I gave up and started a long, annoying walk. Walking with traffic lights out is not fun. Walked to Toru's work, one of the few places that had actually stayed at work doing stuff, and stayed there till the power came on and then I got driven the rest of the way home. I then proceeded to sit on the couch and watch tv all afternoon. What a great day :P

Finished watching Supernatural season one yesterday, which was far better than I expected, so I have started going through my DVD collection as I have nothing else to watch. Stupid slump in shows.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

People are evil!!

Blah................

You know it's a good day (sarcasm) when you haven't been at work an hour and are already pissed. Somehow I have made it to 3pm and nobody at work killed me/shot me as requested this morning. Now I just have to ignore my stomach long enough to get home and away from the traps of unhealthy food around here.

Work seems to be me fielding complaints about me at the moment. Except the complaints are because people are stupid and can't read/make mistakes. Somehow this turns into it being my fault. Go figure.

I don't think I have mentioned Tripel. It is the latest release from Monteiths and has now knocked Celtic off its throne of being my favourite beer. But sigh, it's only on very limited special release and only at selected stores. I think Toru and I will have to stock up.

Blah.

There are three lemons sitting on my desk

Friday, May 26, 2006

Insanity

I get to go to Christchurch next month for work. All paid for... well except for the fact that I plan to stay an extra day but hopefully I can stay with my friends for that day. Ahhh I get to stay in 4 star + accommodation in Riccarton. Mmmm Fudge Cottage.

Where is the fairness in the world??? When Jem was up last month I took her and Toru to see Ice Age 2. I paid for everyone and we all got entries into the competition they were running. Of course by now I'd completely forgotten about it. Yesterday Toru got a call saying he'd won the friggin big prize of a family ski weekend in Queenstown worth over $2000. Flights, accomodation, car rental, skiing... the whole shabang. But apparently I "wouldn't enjoy it" so I might not get to go. I brought the ticket therefore I think I should get to go :P We shall see. We might be able to score something extra since there won't be any kids going.

Nothing else of much excitement happening. I am reading a book. It's very good. I haven't read a book in quite awhile.

The end.

:P

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Apparently a house here would cost more...

Hmmm so I'm scanning through Google news and various other news sites, as I do most mornings and I happened to come across this: Australian tries to sell NZ on eBay.

I don't think I need to add anything to that. What could I add? :P

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Payrise!!!

I think today everybody's favourite person is our finance guy. He went to the GM to get us payrises because of the CPI and increase in petrol prices. So everyone on staff is getting a payrise. Most excellent :P

Oh yeah, my public service announcement... My future is off of the allowed topics for conversation at the moment. I am soooo sick of the various questions/comments. Can we all just let my life continue as is for now and deal with the future later. Thanks. Rant over...

Monday, May 08, 2006

Snuggly wuggly gloves

I love my gloves... I decided it was cold enough this morning to wear them. Now I refuse to take them off. I believe they are made of merino wool. They are a very nice dark blue/grey colour. Mmmm gloves.

So the universe punished me for leaving work ever-so-slightly early on Friday afternoon. I just missed an email from Jason saying something along the lines of 'oh yeah, just to let you know that your plan change went through yesterday'. I didn't see this email until I desperately plugged in the dialup late Saturday afternoon and checked my email. I sat pondering and hmmming. What plan change? The only plan change I had requested went through a good month or so ago... *lightbulb goes off* Ohhhhhh he must mean my new install but didn't realise it was a new install. So I ran around plugging the router back in and praise the lord (no please don't) we had our broadband back. I shall not start complaining about the speeds as everyone is at the moment. The line speed is awesome - if only we were getting some of that action.

So yes I am much happier now that I've had my Lost/Gilmore Girls/Grey's Anatomy fix... Still to get my Scrubs/Smallville/whatever-I've-forgotten fix. Mmmm Lost was so good. I ruined it by watching the recap on Friday at work and then went into rocking motion over my dire need to see it right away.

Maybe I shall go get my hot chocolate. Hopefully most of the students will be in class so I can thus avoid the masses.

Oh yeah, Nestle Double Blend hot chocolate with caramel flavour is to die for. *droooooooools* I had too many yesterday. Toru frothed the milk and everything for me. I swear I should've just brought him a milk frother for christmas - his espresso machine has just turned into a glorified milk frother.

Public Service Announcement now over :P

Friday, May 05, 2006

nobody call me with a blocked number

Because I shall not answer...

Okay tip for the day - do NOT enter competitions in westfield malls that have cars and stuff on display. *shudders* I just got called saying I get free electronics or holidays but first I have to attend a presentation with my partner before receiving my free stuff. It's timeshare... I did my google research. Also found some very interesting complaints/blog entries from Australia and America complaining about these people.

Brian likes writing "screw you" emails so he's writing a very formal, legal sounding one for me now to fire back at them and tell them never to contact me again. Until then, sorry if you have a blocked number - I'll wait to hear your v/mail :P

They interrupted my happy happy joy joy trip planning. Bastards...

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Unbundling!!!

Yes, the government finally decided to do something. Congratulations. Finally Telecom gets what it deserves :P

I hurt... Mucho paino... I've done something to my elbow and it hurts whenever I bend or twist my arm. This has meant I've really hurt my shoulder from trying to avoid pain from my elbow. I want to go home.

Still internetless and skyless. Supposedly we get our broadband back on Monday afternoon. I was told that Sky was being set up tomorrow although the last time I spoke to them I was scared I heard them say 9 May. Let's hope I was hearing things or that particular worker had stuffed up. Nick's been keeping me sane by bringing in my shows for me to watch. Amen to that.

Our place is almost looking like something other than a dumping ground now. We've managed to organise/unpack almost all of our junk now so it's looking a lot more livable and homely. I just want everything to be back to 'normal'. No more moving stuff to worry about. I seriously think the moving our stuff part was the least stressful thing. Dealing with various companies along with other such technicalities has given me a permanent headache.

Yay, it is almost lunchtime

Monday, May 01, 2006

Wahhhhhh

I'm so wiped out. My eyes can barely focus on anything. We moved on Saturday. Didn't sleep very well Saturday night and almost thought I was getting a cold or something. So this morning getting up early for work was a bitch.

I have no Sky TV and no internet at home. Bets are now open on how long it will take before I go completely nuts. We get Sky at the new place on Friday. It's anyone's guess when we get internet again. And I'm not desperate enough to resort to dialup. I would probably shoot myself before I put myself through that. I need my shows. I need them like coffee drinkers need coffee in the morning. I wish I liked coffee, it would be useful on days like today. I wish I liked any drink with a high enough percentage of caffeine. Alas, my hot chocolate fix will have to do I guess.

I hope nobody needs me to do anything today. Other than responding to very simple emails. I will hide behind the computer and nap. Yes that will work.

And as I wrote this someone walked in. Oh well, I can handle class party orders so long as there aren't too many. The cleaner has not been in today... Why does this matter? I have no idea.

Urghhh so many headaches moving... Mainly dealing with companies. Like why do you need to change my account number when I move? And not tell me you have but send me a letter complaining about how I used the wrong account reference in the last payment I made to your company?? Plus my previous account is in credit by a substantial amount - I want my money back!!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Woe is me

I'm pouting (well kinda)... There are people everywhere in their capping gowns, even one of my staff members is off to graduate this afternoon. My thesis isn't even marked yet. I will most likely have to graduate in the September ceremony which is the small version and the 'we don't care as much' ceremony. All the exciting stuff happens in the Autumn Graduation.

Anyway we are moving on Saturday. YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got us the deal of all deals (again)... Washing machine for $349 and we got $45 worth of gift vouchers thrown in with it. I love a good bargain.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Boredom

I wonder if people at other workplaces actually did anything today. 5 of our staff took leave today so they'd have a 4 day weekend. The rest of us have come in for the most pointless Monday yet and then have tomorrow off.

If you hear ecstatic screaming on Saturday, it will be me. I can't wait to move. I want to move now. Thanks.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

sighness

Emma's photos put mine to shame... Then again she had the mother of all cameras with her :P

Monday, April 17, 2006

Dave concert (2nd one)

Once again... A lot of this probably isn't of much interest for most of you. So you've been warned. Although if anyone knows of a programme that will create an mp3 from a quicktime movie file - can you please help me out?? Most of the videos I took are crap cos I couldn't see what I was pointing at, but the sound is pretty good and I wanna somehow rip that out on its own.


I shall type this while my photos get uploaded and transferred and what not. Overall not as good as last night. Dave was still awesome but the crowd just wasn't as good. It wasn't until the final part of Please Forgive Me that everyone actually got up. Plus he tried to get us to sing "everytime I look at you" and kept making us do it over and over again until it was finally loud and didn't sound pitiful :p

I have to say the view from front row is sooo much better than 2nd row :p Although I did feel rather exposed!! Once again most of my photos are from the end when everyone was standing up and I could finally use the flash (damn ushers). But there's some really good ones I think. What else did I have to remember? Uhhh there were no stories tonight about how his daughter's head is very big and right before he was in NZ last time he had dropped her on her head. And before the Bruce Springsteen cover he said "I can't remember if I'm supposed to use the pick for this one... Oh f*** it". Oh and I'm sure Clune flashed me a big grin towards the end. Probably because I was one of the few actually dancing and singing :p

Managed to grab the setlist again, didn't look like we would at one stage. Anyway here goes:

Alibi
TOIL
Nos Da
My oh My
Lately
Sail
Hospital
Disappearing World
Long Distance (I know this was on the setlist last night but I really don't remember it being there)
Forgive
Now and Always
Silver
Freedom
---
Shine
Acoustic x2... One was instrumental the other was Mansion on the Hill
T.Y.L
Babylon
Friday

Photos for your viewing pleasure

Dave Concert (No.1)

In one word - AWESOME. But then that doesn't even do it justice. The venue was better, the crowd was better and our seats were better. Turns out there was no row AA so we ended up being second row centre (which means front row centre tomorrow night at the 2nd concert).

Most of you won't probably be interested in the rest of this but oh well...

Okay so setlist which I managed to do a nice pleading face for...

Alibi
Hospital
Sail
Nos Da
Lately
Slow Motion
Forgive
Silver
Ain't No Love
TOIL
Now and Always
Long Distance
Freedom
---
Shine
Siren
T.Y.L
My Oh My
Babylon


I should get to bed at some stage so I won't ramble too much. Some of the best moments had to be:
- Please Forgive Me. The entire crowd (all three levels) were up dancing which was the most awesome sight. My hands were dead after that. And singing loudly
- The randos who yelled out Shine, so Dave proceeded to say "I see we've got the Shine-ists here"
- Screaming for songs other than Babylon (what a welcome change)
- How happy Dave seemed. He was really enjoying it (ditto to Clune)


Now although it was fairly easy getting the cameras in, the stupid ushers kept walking around so I didn't have too much luck. The best photos are from the times we were up on our feet. I've got video too but the files are HUGE and the picture isn't great (I was trying to keep my camera hidden and didn't know what I was pointing at) but the sound is pretty good. If I can do some cropping I might get them uploaded. Anyway here's some photos from tonight. Should be more to come tomorrow after the second concert.

Photos


GO DAVE!!

Friday, April 14, 2006

Damn rubbish trucks

Yes damn the rubbish trucks. On Wednesday morning around 6.30am the rubbish truck came and proceeded to go up and down our street and then they must have decided to go up and down a few more times just for kicks. I'm sure this lasted a good half hour, unless some other random truck had turned up to take over the up and down game. Anyway so because of that I got woken up and couldn't get back to sleep. Then what happens on Thursday morning? I wake up some time between 6.30am and 7am. And then this morning I wake up around 6am and can't get back to sleep, hence why I am posting before it even makes it to 7am on Good Friday. Yes Good Friday, when I should be sleeping in. Luckily I have my trusty laptop so I will continue to stay in bed and watch dvds and if I was really stretched for things to do I could watch Toru sleep. However watching him sleep would probably be more boring than boredom itself.

Anyway... So yesterday was a good day. It all started when we walked out the door and saw one of the evil scavengers waiting to bounce on the next available park on our street. He saw us walking out so drove up further probably thinking we were parked in the same spot as the last time he bounced on our park. He ended up waiting right beside where the car was parked and what makes this even better is we were parked in the resident permit parking area. So we go to the car he has to reverse up and stay sitting waiting for a park. I was in hysterics and at that moment knew I was going to have a great day.

Next good thing that happened... The regular girl was back at the coffee cart. She hadn't been there in a good week or two. She doesn't always make the drinks BUT she's the one who knows my order. So as soon as she saw me she automatically started making my hot choc. The milk had just been all frothed and what not so I literally got my drink within 10secs. Excellent.

Last night we went to look inside a flat we'd looked at the outside of (and peered thru the windows of)... There was another couple looking too but they obviously had a low IQ b/c the ad said no pets. Apparently those extremely small gay dogs (no offence to anyone that actually likes those) don't count as pets. Anyway we got the place. We can finally move out of here and not live with stupid flatmates. And we get to be on a nice quiet street in Mt Eden.

And with that I should stop. Toru just grabbed one of the pillows and put it on his head so maybe my typing is bugging him (although I'm sure he's asleep).

Two days till Dave!!!!

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

A million bonus points to me

So yeah while Nick is away on an extremely long weekend drooling over his mac mini, I get to be in charge of changing the backup tapes for the server at work. The alarm in the server room is on a different loop to the main one in our offices so I got given a new code to enter in. I did all that walked into the server room and figured everything was fine... then this incredibly loud friggin noise starts. So a million bonus points to me for setting off the alarm.

I need to call the branch that booked our flights... You'd think (well anyone with common sense but I know this seems to be lacking in the world these days) if you brought two tickets TOGETHER to fly somewhere in August, you would get seats together. Oh no... That would be stupid. I do not plan on spending 17 hours sitting beside some smelly icky boy or some kid who won't sit still or if I'm really lucky one of each on either side of me!! Our flights to Sydney don't seem to have predetermined seat allocations but the huge long leg of the trip does. Urgh. I will yell at them if they don't fix it. I mean it's not like it's two days before and we're getting whatever seats are left...

-------------

oops I may have stuffed up...... But it's Air Canada's fault. Who seriously labels their seats A,C,D,E,F,H,K... How does that make sense at all?????

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Confuzzled?

"The couple have a 23 month year old daughter Apple, who will be celebrating her third birthday with the newest entrant in the family on May 14"

If she is 23 months old then I must be missing something? Can she teleport herself into the future or do the reversal of Superman but still accomplish shifting time by spinning the Earth on its axis?

23 months = 3 years old in May????????????

*shaking head in disbelief*

Not a fruit

Chris and Gwyneth had a boy and called it Moses... Coldplay have a song called Moses but yeah that's probably pointless info but I'm always full of pointless info.

At least the boy wasn't called banana. That would be unfortunate.

*ponders other fruit/vege names*

I think I'm out of A-list material (yes I know - I very rarely have A-list material)

Back to my hot chocolate... must try not to burn tongue

Friday, April 07, 2006

Nothingness

Nobody seems all that intent on doing work today. YAY it's FRIDAY. But I do have to come in to work for about 15 mins tomorrow. Boo. One of my staff members is running a training session which I have to speak at briefly.

Dum de dum dum *twiddles fingers* What is there to do?

One week (and a couple of days) till DAVE. Yay for Dave. And Jem arrives next Saturday for the craziness. It will be a great easter, apart from the fact that I can't have chocolate cos I'm not allowed anything at the moment. And if this doens't work I'm really going to go crazy. I'll be going crazy enough without my Friday night beer. Oh well... Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

We now, supposedly, have a 3.5Mbit connection at home. The likeliness of getting 3.5Mbit at anyone time... well I haven't worked that out but unless it's maybe 2am I'd say the chances are very very low. But we now have a 30GB cap. So really this is all just a slight improvement and everyone knows that even with this NZs broadband is still crap. Damn contention ratios.

I'll go do some work now.............................................. (ha ha ha)

Monday, April 03, 2006

testing

k i think it's working now. *fingers crossed* Will be throwing stuff soon otherwise
----------------
looks like it's working. I've added a flickr badge above the links to the photo galleries that have always been there... I don't have that many photos on flickr at this stage and I think some of them overlap with ones in the galleries so you'll just have to deal. If you can't - go cry, I don't care :P

Rainy days and mondays

Okay weird tech difficulties... Publishing from flickr worked but the photo didn't show up and now blogger doesn't seem to be letting me add a picture at all. I'll keep working on it

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well not both anyway... Yesterday was the insane rainy day (and our damn newspaper was once again shoved in the letterbox to get nice and soaked) and today is Monday. Boo.


We booked our flights. They bet the quote I had by $5 per person... It's something anyway. And we've managed to avoid having to go thru insane security and airports in America. We're taking the route via Sydney with Air Canada. Stupid National Bank eftpos limits meant we had to go back again on Sunday to finish paying for the tickets.

I have to go to the dentist today :( I hope they don't ask when the last time was cos it was probably late 2000 when it was still free cos I was under 18. Those were the days. I need a filling :(

What else? I do not know what I was going to say. I made cookies last night. They're yummy.

Oh yeah, I was bored and uploaded some photos to flickr. I'm lazy and have not yet made pretty pop up galleries like I have with all my other photos.

Friday, March 31, 2006

YESSSSSSSS

Big boss man says I may have my time off :P He's signing the form now. YAY. I wanted to get that sorted so we could book flights. It's not till Aug/Sept and I chose dates that wouldn't mess with work stuff I have to personally do.

OH CANADAAAAAAAAAA....... :P

Back to the dark ages

We were tv-less last night. Yes I know, life is so tough! Sometime before 7pm the Optus B1 satellite had an outage... The tv continued to tell us that we were experiencing atmospheric conditions that were affecting the signal. HA yeah right... Just before leaving for work some 20 mins ago there was some sort of picture back. That's a looooong outage. All is not lost as I came to the rescue last night with a new episode of Lost and Scrubs for our viewing pleasure. Mmmmm something. Oh and according to the Sky website, we're all getting credits. Praise the lord... No please don't

I'll go back to my Special K with dried berries... Then, well it's free drink time at the coffee cart

Thursday, March 30, 2006

tomorrow is Friday

So far today I have walked to the coffee cart and said hi and paid. No 'this is my order'... Yes you could say they know what I get by now. I'm there basically every day. Now is that good or bad? Every 5th one free is good. Plus it's cheaper there, and more reliable.

Anyway so this whole get rid of the 5c coin business and how it won't change prices. Yeah whatever. So apparently from November if you buy a single 45c stamp you will be charged 50c due to rounding. Yet it's still called a 45c stamp. So let's see... If I buy 9 stamps over some space of time they've made a profit of an entire stamp from me. Okay rather pointless............ But hey these things start small. What's going to be next????

Oh yeah I have a meeting with my staff in about 25 mins. Guess that gives me 25mins to look at whatever else I planned to look at on the web this morning.

3 weeks on Sunday till David Gray. Yayness (yes I know it's not a word)

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

and the bible says - Maree doesn't care

I'm in such a complacent mood... I think that's the best word to describe it. Then again I don't know. I don't know what triggered it either but it all started yesterday.

I'm sick of doctors now (wait wasn't I always?)... I had what has to be one of my most pointless visits ever. Why did I bother? And as usual they don't know what to do. So life goes on as usual.

Basically got accosted by two Asian female Christians when walking through Albert Park yesterday afternoon. I was happily walking along listening to music on my iPod when these two girls come walking up the hill looking rather lost. So when one of them said 'excuse me' I figured they needed directions. But no... Instead I got 'are you christian' - NO, 'do you want to study bible' - NO... And I run away annoyed. It's the last time I try to help anyone!! If they want to 'study bible' that's their choice. Leave me alone. At least I didn't yell profanities at them as I know Toru has done on Queen st before.

It's as bad (or is it worse?) as damn telemarketers... My favourite one yet is hi I'm blah blah blah from blah blah blah is there anyone in your household over 35 or whatever ethnicity (I forget which)... They were completely out of luck there. Toru has this amazing ability for knowing after 'hello' that they are telemarketers. They don't get a word in.

I shall now go back to my lathargicness and stare at the computer. Maybe if I stare hard enough I will burn a hole right thru.

Oh and ha ha ha http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3619189a11,00.html

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Queen of the castle

Yes, yes I am. Nick and I finally rearranged furniture in my office and so I now have the HUGE desk and we've managed to find even more floor space. I could have a party in here easy.

I also have a plan. Zuji.co.nz gives discounts on most flights... Flight Centre has a beat price guarantee. Therefore I shall get a quote from Zuji and take it to Flight Centre and get them to beat it. Yay. It's brilliant. Mmm I want more Chupa Chups (they're leftover from the training sessions I've been running). I really should apply for the time off work at some time. It's not till Sept but early bird gets the worm or something like that right? "O Canada......" Interestingly enough that's the only part I know and whenever I say it I hear Ralph Wiggim's voice in my head.

Someone gave me a Student Discount Card for Dominos... Pitty I don't order dominos.

Mmmmm want more Chupa Chups.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

and...

they got a bronze. How cool... I never would've been that good.

*sigh* I kinda miss swimming. Only kinda though

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Strangeness

I must say, it's weird watching people you went to primary school with competing in the games... Plus ad to that, you used to train, compete and do duets with them. Very strange.

Today is a good day to be a kiwi. Lots of medals by our standards :P

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Today must be my lucky day

HAHA so many dodgy and not so dodgy things happening today. I was one of the "randomly selected" people that vodafone sent a txt to saying you'd get 50% bonus credit if you top up today or tomorrow. So I put $100 on, that way I get $50 free and won't have to top up for quite awhile.

I also managed to score the 50% student discount on Sunday star times subscription. Which isn't exactly dodgy, technically I'm a student because my status is 'active in programme' until my thesis is marked. Teehehe.

The other extremely dodgy thing I can't mention. Some of you will know anyway. Let's just say somehow I got access to something that is very much in early testing phases and nobody can work out how I managed to do it or why it only happened to me. Many people are jealous.

As you can see I'm really hard at work - as always :) Of course I am of course I am. Got a free pen and mug with that subscription as well

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Having myself a sulk

Yeah so yesterday's flat listings in the paper proved to be a lot better than usual. Unfortunately we found the perfect place at a fairly good price but we were 2nd in line for it and missed out. I was worrying about getting it and what not a lot last night for some reason and therefore did not get much sleep/sleep very well. And now every other place is going to need to be up to that standard for that price *cries*.

On a more pleasant note, we went to Strassman last night which was great. My cheeks hurt from laughing and I was almost in tears. I also got a 17" lcd monitor yesterday (ahhh it's nice to have money to do such things) and I'm still trying to come to terms with the amount of desktop space I have. Mmmmm yummy monitor.

Battle for Middle Earth II is fun... I've never liked strategy games, probably cos I spent a lot of my 1st year at uni sitting around watching my ex play the most boring game for spectators ever. But once I got to destroying things and winning I started to like it a lot. I think I get huge brownie points (not that I need them :P) with Toru for buying it. It was on his computer before I got a chance. I dont think I'm up to playing against him yet though.

Hmmmm I wonder if I have enough brownie points to get a shoulder rub. I need it

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Organisation... obviously lacking

So uhhh I just checked my email and there was an email "Fwd:trainees". I had no idea who it was from, thought it was spam but decided to have a look anyway. It was an email Forwaded by the education faculty from Dilworth to say when the first day for the teach trainees would be. Why the hell am I getting emails like that? I politely (and in as few words as possible) replied saying uhh I withdrew from the diploma before the course start date.

Everyone at work finds all of this stuff rather amusing because I'm sorting out stuff for myself that we would usually be doing for students. Like having to repay the $5k.

Really, where is the organisation??

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

HAHAHA

Apparently my bank manager is on holiday. But someone actually called me - maybe that's why.

What is the point in voicemail?

What is it with people not ever bothering to return voicemails??

We know that a certain Real Estate company doesn't. I don't need to repeat that one again...

But it also appears that my "bank manager" doesn't return v/mails either... He also never answers his phone. When I wanted to cancel my overdraft I had to talk to my bank manager and not someone on the 0800 number. Yet I'm sure if I wanted to extend my overdraft they would have happily done it. Now I need to make a large one off payment but National Bank has a limit on the amount of a one off payment and it can be temporarily increased by, guess who... Yes my bank manager. All of this hassle now because the TeachNZ payment ended up going thru even though I'd pulled out. So now I have to pay that money back of course, yet the stupid online banking won't let me.

There are other people I've had to call everyday until today when they finally answered their phone.

So seriously - what is the point in voicemail? And why the hell do people always say that we should leave a message so they can get back to us. If you don't check your v/mail then be friggin blatantly obvious about it. "Hi I can't take your call and I'm too lazy to return voicemails so it's probably best not to leave one"

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Go away

Maybe I should go back to bed and get up again... I have maybe 2 hours of work left and I still haven't woken up. And guess what? This is gonna be a whine post... I have mozzie bites again, they itch and they're big and annoying. I'm sick of looking and looking for new places to live. They're either nice but too expensive or nice but way too far from the city. Or they're listed with a certain real estate agent who seem to think it's inappropriate to respond to voicemails or let them contact you on their office number. We even made the effort to drive past two places they had listed but when I try to call I went straight to v/mail - and that was on Friday. It's now Tuesday. I want to kick them all in the ass.

I also want to take qualifications away from many people at this university. My patience is starting to wear out today... Don't try to patronise me because I'm new - just because your predecessor can't notify me otherwise doesn't mean I stuffed up. How hard is it to reply to an email saying I'm no longer the contact person. Grrrrr...

I have to get handbooks printed and the quote they gave me is insane. I will be nice and not call them and tell them to shove it.

Oh boy I'm in a good mood :P

I went for a run last night but half way thru my stomach started getting semi-quesy. Stupid friggin stomach

In good news... I got my final pay today (and I obviously did have holiday pay owing - yay) and pay from here. I ended up with a lot of money today

Friday, March 03, 2006

Perks of the job

Sugar overload... There's little tester containers of choc mousse and some sort of almond/nut vanilla icecream from Burger Fuel in the staff fridge. This is bad. And I can't hassle Nick for getting more cos I got more too.... Plus they left some $2 off vouchers around.

And... free drinks this afternoon. Score.

As you can tell, I'm working extremely hard



This is worth seeing

NZ Herald article

awesome :)

Sleepy sleep

Must.stop.yawning.

So Wolf Creek did not live up to the hype, well except for the 20-30 people that got up and left during it because they couldn't handle it. I actually thought it was pretty crap and just gross. Maybe all this violence on tv and in movies really does desensitise you, because I was just not freaked out. I missed the best part of it though - apparently there was a group of christians who sat through all the other gross disturbing stuff but as soon as there was a guy being crucified that was blasphemous and they had to leave. So rape and head-on-a-stick etc. was all okay but a guy who was nailed up on a wall wasn't? Go figure...

Toru and I also went and saw Copote on Tuesday night. It was good. It's one of those movies that has you feeling some sort of something towards the bad guys. You know they're bad and deserve what they get but you still feel really bad about it. Although being in NZ I can't say that they deserve the death penalty.

Still waiting on a call from the Real Estate agent... At least it's not Rob the nob, but it is one of his colleagues so maybe I shouldn't hold my breath. Grrrr it's no wonder these places have been on the websites for so long - they never bother to return your calls.

Apparently I may have some work to do now... :P Oooo I have business cards as of Wednesday. Fun fun fun

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Blue pants

New Simpsons... Ahhh blue pants and GK Wellington, esquire (or was it JK? hmm).

Apparently they've solved the shortage of fruit pickers problem... Prisoners are being paid 20c an hour to pick it. Just think, after 5 hours of work you'd have an entire dollar. Awesome.

In other more pleasant news... Toru came home with flowers and a necklace for me last night and then took me out to my favourite restaurant. Ahhh the perks of relationships :P

I got a couple of free double passes to a special screening of Wolf Creek on Wednesday night. It's being released here in a couple of weeks and everyone claims it's pretty hard out. It's supposed to be a thriller/horror.

HAHAHA it just started raining quite a bit and I've got a great view of the hords of students getting off the buses and getting drenched. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Mmmmm moisturised hands

Monday, February 27, 2006

and we turn to the stars...

"You greet your birthday this year with all the enthusiasm you would display toward a lottery winning. Perhaps because you realize that in many accounts, you have indeed won the lottery. Your relationships are strong and getting stronger"

the horoscopes seem to be nice to me at the moment... Yesterday's said that those from 18 months ago would be extremely surprised by where I am in my life now and what I had achieved and that I would really be able to shock them with something this week. Score.

On another note... it took about 15 mins to get my hot choc fix this morning. The students are back in full force :(

I am the dancing queen

I'm changing the song (not the dancing queen song). It is now "It's my birthday and I have more David Gray tickets". YEAH BABY YEAH!!! Emma came through again and is going to join me at the 2nd Auckland concert as well. *dancing dancing dancing* This time I got us 2nd row centre. I swear to god, they are soooo reserving the front row seats. Those bastards :P Now just to smuggle my camera in.

So yesterday twas the birthday celebrations so to speak (but my bday is actually today). Toru's family took me out for lunch on Waiheke. When we arrived at the place they were playing "The Other Side" and then they proceeded to play White Ladder in its entirity. Yes - I am in Dave heaven. Then we walked around the beach before jumping back on the ferry to Auckland. Had dinner and drinks at Cardrona. To all of you who didn't show - SHAME ON YOU :P To everyone who did make it - thanks :) After 4 pints of very average beer (what do you expect at a Speights Ale House?? Just don't let my Dad hear me say that) and being told that the kitchen was closed (so no dessert), we went home. Toru had a projector from work to "test" for his clients. In other words we lay sprawled out on the bed watching The IT Crowd on the bedroom walls. I'm so buying me a projector now :P

Friday, February 24, 2006

2ND DAVE CONCERT

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I wanna go to both. Now to find someone to go to the second one with me

Mmm fudge

pleaseeee?? *bats eyelids*

Purple monkey, yellow dishwasher

I think Katie used that as part of the title for a composition in Form 5 music. I was just talking to her on MSN which for some reason reminded me of that. Plus I think someone said it on a repeat of the simpsons that was on recently.

My eyes sting. Stupid computers.

Curling is the most boring sport in the world. Well I guess bowls comes close. At least in curling there are butch European ladies to laugh out as they scream "fast fast... clean FASSTTT". Did NZ manage to win any of its curling games? They seemed to get to play a lot but not actually win anything.

I have a mozzie bite on my little finger :( Also on my leg, my arm and my shoulder. So I guess that's good for me since the count is under 10.

Yay it's almost lunch time. Mmmm my fudge is all at home :( I had to keep it away from me

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

HOLY CRAP!

See this is what happens when things overlap etc. Today I checked my account balance figuring that my other job would have paid me. They had (and it's done every fortnight) but so had my new job and Studylink (which must be my last or 2nd to last payment from them). Yeah there's just a little bit of money in my account today. Of course bills and rent will make it look not so impressive. Still it's time I actually cancelled my overdraft rather than just saying I will. I shall call them soon.

Ooo uniguides coming around today with freshers. *teehehehe* Can I scare them? Nah I'll play nice. At least it will be something to do for a few hours. I got told that my rep news for Craccum couldn't be accepted (jokingly) because it was in early and they're just not used to that.

Oh yeah we're going to Strassman's Get Chuck'd tour. Mum took me to one of his other tours when I was in Dunedin one year. Was a lot of laughs so hopefully this one will be the same. Guess I should do some real work :P

Monday, February 20, 2006

Another year goes by

So in a week I will be 23. At this time one ponders what one has done in their life (or in other words, Maree has too much time to sit and think about life). Let's see... I have a Bachelors Degree and unofficially have a Masters Degree. Somehow I've managed to get myself a fulltime job which is officially a managerial role (which still baffles my poor brain) and I have an awesome boyfriend. Hmmm so now it's time to ponder the big issues of life... Like what am I here for? And what is the meaning of life... HAHAHA. Don't hold your breath on that one. I think I've adopted the great principle of going with the flow and seeing where things lead me. It seems to be working.

Moving on from my bullshit :P Mmmm The Fudge Cottage in Christchurch has an online store. This is very bad. I resisted ordering up until yesterday afternoon. Mmmmm good fudge. www.thefudgecottage.co.nz

Sadly I think it's time for a trip to one of the many cafes on campus. I was trying to resist the urge but my willpower is not strong enough (especially on a Monday morning)

Friday, February 17, 2006

weeeeeeeee

I can hear David Gray - Alibi playing quite loudly and I'm not the one playing it. Hmmmm interesting. I am impressed. Everyone in these offices seems to have iTunes and all their music shared on it. Ways to pass the day :P

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Information overload

My poor poor brain... Trying to wrap itself around the fact that I have a humongous office all to myself (I'll get an assistant in like 3 months and then it might not seem so big) and I'm in charge of an entire team of people. How the hell did that happen?? Oh yeah I applied for it... Check.

Crap the other phone is ringing. Not the one on my desk. And in typing that I didn't have enough time to run across my humongous office to answer it. At the moment I basically come in the morning and teach myself more stuff. Information overload, information overload. I basically train myself. With all this sitting around and early mornings, I'm at the uni cafes waaaay too much.

I think I'll take a lunch break soon :)