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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • January 20, 2009

    Part 2

    Just as I was feeling better; it’s just stuff we’ve lost after all, life will go on. So on Monday I realised that my cameras were also missing. My crappy digital (no big loss, I wanted a new one at some point anyway) and my film SLR (well, my photography days are probably over, and as much as I loved my Minolta film SLRs aren’t worth jack these days).

    Yesterday the little homies came out for the first time since Sat afternoon. The hoodlums were hanging around across the street as they do. Strutting around. Wearing my camera case slung across one of their shoulders. We watched them for awhile, squinting through the blinds. I have terrible eyes even with my contacts in, but it’s a very distinctive case. It’s a big bulky pouch with shoulder strap. Black and spewy-grey with the top folded over and a buckle. Inside it has two compartments, the larger on the left and the smaller on the right for my USB cable and batteries.

    Honestly, we couldn’t believe it. How freaking stupid! That’s not brazen, it’s just foolish. Even I would know better than to parade around stuff I’d just stolen in front of the house I stole from. BF and flatmate went out to speak to them. They squealed “What did we do!” the second they spotted them and ran into their house. Yeah…

    An innocent person wouldn’t run. And what exactly was it they “didn’t do”? Oh, and their mother came out to yell “Leave them alone, they didn’t do it”. Yeah…

    I think they gathered all their cronies together down on the corner later. And sent their dog over to bark at us on our driveway. Unfortunately it was after hours for dog control services by then.

    It was sort a stand off, we hung out at home, they didn’t come back out. We plotted fun ways to sort them out, like explosives on their roof (it’s low down and easily accessible from the walkway next to it), sniping them with our hunting rifle, or bow and arrow, etc.

    Rung cops back to inform them we’d seen them with our property. Not sure what next. Haven’t heard back.

    Wow, it’s like a gang war! I really could do without these dramas in my life.

  • January 20, 2009

    Journalism 2.0

    I worry for the future of journalism. I imagine it dying out for real before long. So many journos are making the move to PR after just a few years, for the hours, pay, glam and perks. The older generation – the experienced feature writers, investigative reporters, editors, subs – will be retiring soon, and who’s going to take their place?
    The thing about communications as a degree is its specialization. It’s tightly, narrowly focused. There isn’t much room to broaden your knowledge base. It seems to me that it’s better to do undergrad and do a bit of everything, whatever interests you – biz, science, politics, history, sociology – and then the post grad in journalism. It also sets you up for a particular round, if you have knowledge and experience in a particular area.
    Us comms grads aren’t going to have the wisdom of the older journos, and who’s going to guide us?

  • January 19, 2009

    Burgled!

    Our house got broken into on Saturday night.

    I no longer have a laptop. That’s all they took though, that and a set of keys that were on the couch just outside our room.

    I’m totally unimpressed. I’m no right winger but I do believe in hard work and earning your way. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, I work hard to get the things I have (what few there are…). So in my mind it’s really not on to steal from others. If you want something that bad, get out there and work for it yourself!

    Yet I was pretty calm. And I haven’t been too upset really, surprisingly…just kinda resigned. Brings me right back to my first ever flat where my phone was stolen the first night there. I just feel really violated by the whole thing. I mean, someone’s been in my room. Looked at my stuff. Taken something of mine. BEEN IN MY FREAKING BEDROOM WITHOUT ME KNOWING AND NOT BENG THERE!

    Phew. Anyway, have moved my guitar and amp out of the house. We also had BF’s lil bro’s PS3 but in a diff room. Thank god. I am so relieved that wasn’t taken, because imagine if it had…it was brand new and we could not afford to replace it.

    It’s rare that we’re all out at once. During the week, sure, but during the weekend normally at least one person is home most of the time. But all of us were out Saturday night. Got home at nearly 3, went into my room, noticed the conspicuous absence of my laptop on my desk.

    But aside from that, we don’t actually have that much of value!  Which I guess is good. I just can’t believe how dumb they were. They didn’t take our new DVD player, while the box was out on the floor. As was the PS3 box, but they obviously didn’t go and look for it. Our gain.

    Pretty gutted we’re not insured. I was all set to get contents insurance back in November – had got three different quotes and everything. Then BF more or less got laid off. That fell down the list of priorities like a rock. Gonna get onto that real soon though. Still, it was just the laptop, so would have had to pay my excess anyway. I plan to get a cheapie this time, probably $600 or so (not much more than an excess woulda been!) Also, doubt they would have paid out given that our windows don’t work properly. And that’s how they would have gotten in.

    We told the landlord we want those windows fixed up so they shut and lock. Tightass didn’t want to pay for new locks, “not his fault”. Well of course, it’s not ours either! But these guys got in and took my computer and flatmate’s keys because our windows don’t work, and that IS your responsibility. Whatever, we’ll pay for the new lock if he sorts the windows and gets the alarm going.

    Worst of all we pretty much know who it was. Let’s hark back to my entry about how we live in the ghetto. I understand life is not easy for some. That’s doesn’t give you the right to be a little shit. And their parents need to take some freaking responsibility. There are three little hoodrats (BF’s awesome word, I use gangster/hoodlum) who recently have taken to hanging around our street. Mainly outside the house diagonally opposite ours. One of them lives there and the others live down by the corner/around the corner. They loiter, drink, glower at people, and sometimes yell out things. Last Sunday I’m pretty sure they were saying something to us as we pulled in home but we ignored them. And as we all left on Saturday night they also called out something (something genius like “what you looking at?”) One of them goes around with a bandanna over his face. Yeah, I know. And we haven’t seen them loitering outside since Saturday night. Coincidence?

  • January 17, 2009

    Nineties child

    Yes I was a nineties child (although you couldn’t really tell it at the time, so deprived and removed from general pop culture was I!)

    C4 had a great countdown the other day…actually they had quite a few good ones, 90s one hit wonders, 90s best of, 10 years of the Big Day Out… I still know all the words to that one Billie Piper song! And god I hated Limp Bizkit, but now I can look back fondly on them and actually headbang along to them…

    So in honour of that great decade, here’s my Hot and Not list of nineties music!

    The best
    N Sync
    Counting Crows
    Smashing Pumpkins
    Nirvana
    RHCP
    Offspring
    Soundgarden
    Weezer
    Pearl Jam
    Jewel
    S Club 7 (have to put them in there – I even had a mad fan site devoted to them, with the coolest – relatively speaking, bearing in mind this was 8 years ago – nav bar, whose CSS I ripped off someone else’s page)

    Worst but still freaking fantastic
    Limp Bizkit
    Hanson
    Backstreet Boys
    Billie Piper
    Hole
    Garbage
    Aqua
    Alice in Chains

  • January 16, 2009

    Screwing up

    I think something is really wrong in my head. I’ve been missing things at work, and I don’ t know how or why. I was positive I’d done all the horoscopes last week, but someone complained they hadn’t been updated since Friday and voiced their strong ‘disappointment’. People are very vocal about these things. Horoscopes, and puzzles. If Sudoku’s not up there is an instant outrage and floods of emails – I reckon they wouldn’t care half as much if there was no fresh news in the morning, as long as they have their precious Sudoku! I live in fear of those, of accidentally messing up a going-live date or mixing up days.

    I also loaded up a 100 best books feature, and somehow missed about 30. That was like 4 pages worth! I don’t know how on earth I overlooked them. When I went back, well I just couldn’t work out what I’d done. I must have been really preoccupied that day. To make things worse, by then the story was no longer in the system ANYWHERE…it was a week too old by the looks of it. I had to type up the rest of the article by hand. That was a lot of lines. Thankfully it was dead quiet and I was glad to have something to do, line by painstaking line.

    For the past two days I’ve also had a really bad pain all up through my right side, like I’ve strained something. It starts up in my butt and goes down to my feet and makes me hobble like a hobbly hobbit, cause I can’t walk normally on it (hurts too much). So I tend to hold on as long as I can to minimise limping trips to the bathroom, or to get water from the kitchen.

    On the bright side, I managed to wear my contacts ALL DAY yesterday! Woohoooo!!!! They got dry quite fast – which I put down to our wonky AC – it’s alternately noisy and freezing, or silent and completely non functional. Why they can’t maintain some kind of consistency is beyond me. Hopefully the worst of the pollen is past us, cause I loved having my contacts in, and even if I can wear them half the time then I’m happy with that.

  • January 16, 2009

    Driving lessons

    Driving is going okay. I have just over a month till uni starts and I need to pass my test by then, so there’s a little time pressure. I drive really differently with friends, when I’m alone I’m super hyper alert, like seriously buzzing, and fanatically checking my mirrors and steering like a total granny. But having friends teaching me means we talk a lot and I don’t pay quite as much attention to what’s around me (which isn’t good….)

    Being on the roads is okay (although changing lanes makes me twitchy). It’s parking that gets me and I’m really nervous, cause I’m sure I’ll get a mean old guy who’ll decide to make my asian ass parallel park. Seeing as normal parking is a struggle, and reverse parking of any sort eludes me…yeah.

    Also still working on the whole reversing around a corner thing. That is the single most ludicrous move, imo. It’s downright bloody dangerous. Why would you EVER reverse around a corner? It goes against all common sense. You should not be driving backwards around a corner, it’s unnatural and kinda unsafe if you can’t really see around, and why would you need to? Plus it’s almost impossible to do it gracefully and maintaining the same distance from the kerb.

  • January 16, 2009

    Awash in cash….sort of

    OMG!

    Feels good…da da da da ba da da

    cash

    We have money. For the first time in MONTHS. BF got paid early, and given his contracting rate, it’s the equivalent of a full week’s work for like three days’ worth.

    Honestly, I couldn’t get around it all and had to slowly break it down in my budget program. Esp. as I was dealing with a mix of cash and money in the bank. Oh, and flatmate paid up a big chunk of bills, so that helps. We have a horrendous power bill due soon… $60per person, so I socked away extra this week for bills.

    Normally I budget everything down to zero, but not this week. Even after some extravagance, and no doubt extra spending on crap, there should still be some left and I’ll decide what to apply it to later.

    What we did: paid up a lump sum to the Visa, which had been ignored during the Drought of Unemployment; a lump sum to car loan (more than one week’s regular payment!); put some towards the student loan (which is all due in full next week I think, shudder…don’t think we are fully caught up); towards car expenses fund and towards savings (also greatly neglected during our dry spell). Felt great, I tell you. We really want to attack his debt and get that done and dusted, but given the economy and his job situation savings is equally important. Probably should be first priority, but the debt is just nagging away too much.

    I even had money left over to save for me.

    The boy, bless his generous soul, bought a bunch of bourbies for the flat. He was going to pay for it all out of his money, but we arranged so only half of it came directly out of his pocket.

    Of course, it’s easy to get carried away – we drifted into talking about taking a holiday sometime, probably one of the Pacific Islands, maybe early next year. The big Europe expedition can come later. Of course, we don’t even know how long this job will last, there isn’t really any official paperwork and I’m dearly hoping they’re paying taxes as they should be. And who knows where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing post grad. I’ll be happy just to continue doing what I’m doing, and bank some money, take a well deserved break for the first real time in three years.

    Friends complain that four weeks a year isn’t enough! Jeepers, that’s a whole month out of 12. That’s heaps! Of course I’ve worked full time every summer since high school, without a break, so my perspective’s different. Honestly, four weeks sounds like heavenly eternity to me.

  • January 15, 2009

    Lawn dramas

    Our lawn guy is a total freak. He showed up one December day, offering to mow our lawn, sat outside in our chair and smoked, then took off. He came back hours later, cut our grass and tidied up the edges. We paid him. He said he’d return in three weeks.

    And he did. One weekday at around six thirty in the morning. I couldn’t think what on earth it could be, and it must be vitally urgent – who comes calling at six thirty AM??? Grumpy BF got rid of him and told him to come back on the weekend at a more godly hour.

    He didn’t. same thing happened three weeks later. We ignored him and stayed in bed. Heard him rustling around in our recycling bin and poking around the side of the house. Honestly, he just didn’t give up – he called out, rapped loudly on front and back doors, yelled out again. And again, today. Thankfully, this time he didn’t hang out harassing us.

    Then, just as we were leaving the house around 5 this afternoon, he turned up again.

    Finally. Some people just have no common sense.

    So he’s doing the lawns tomorrow, and hopefully he knows now NOT to come at dawn in the middle of the week. And if he hasn’t learned, well, I think our relationship is well and truly doomed.
    lawn

  • January 15, 2009

    Self doubting

    writing_tablet

    Now I’m into journalism, I’m feeling conflicted. I know it’s the right choice, it’s what I want to do and there’s nothing else I’m interested in, in terms of major.

    It’s way easier to move into PR and marketing than vice versa, and I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at publicity at some point.

    But in terms of journalism, well I’m having major self doubts. How am I going to find stories every week? I mean, I know it’s possible – thousands of past students have done it. But without press releases landing on your desk, without a huge social network or connections, without involvement in tons of groups and the community, it’s really daunting. Let alone breaking important news…

    And in terms of actually working post grad, then what? I’m definitely into beauty, but by no means am I any sort of authority. I’ve come to enjoy hard news more, but I don’t think it’s where I want to stay. Especially since I’ve noticed a pattern: something happens, something bad, kneejerk reaction, go to authoritative sources to comment and report on subsequent ‘calls for action’ whether it’s tougher laws, smoke alarms, more lifeguards, more police, cracking down on drink driving, whatever. And it seems kinda of repetitive and lame to me. One negative event doesn’t warrant a full on banning of whatever is at fault, especially when it happens over and over.

    Being a columnist certainly looks fun, though I don’t know what on earth I’d ramble on about. Then again, look at stuff like the Listener (a mag I do enjoy!) and Bill Ralston’s Life column, the Inbox column, the Internaut…. My opinions aren’t strong enough on REAL issues, as yet, and I definitely couldn’t defend any of my views very well at all. And frankly, I hate conflict. Which is no good, and I’ll have to develop a much thicker skin, I know.

    I think I’d really like to get into features, especially music writing. Ever since I stopped playing guitar my love of music has waned. I used to religiously have the radio on, and listen to music on my computer 24/7. I haven’t had the radio on in months, and because I only just figured out how to make the new Windows Media Player sync with my music folder, I wasn’t listening to my songs. I’m hoping to get back into playing guitar later on, now that I’ve realised it really is okay to just putter around and play for the hell of it. I was getting too worked up, too focused on GETTING GOOD and it simply wasn’t fun or relaxing anymore. I wasn’t improving and I just couldn’t play standing up. Now I really don’t care whether I can play upright or not, or whether I can play Astronomy perfectly, I’d just like to get back in the zone of playing for hours, just because. And I think tying that in with writing would be amazing. I love being at gigs, I like the buzz of events. I would be keen as to do reviews and interviews and be part of the scene that way.

    I’ve almost convinced myself! But anyway, that’s still a far far distant dream; there’s lots to get through before that point. As time goes on though, I’ve realised it’s okay to not actually know what you want. So many people don’t. even ones much, much older than me. They don’t have all their shit together, and so I’m not gonna panic. Careers today are so much more dynamic, and it’s not that hard (at least in the media field, from what I can see) to move laterally, sideways, or even transition from sales to editorial. And with the web growing by the day, hopefully there will be lots of online opportunities come next year.

  • January 14, 2009

    The strangest auction ever?

    Anyone else read about that American (or Canadian?) chick auctioning off her virginity? Apparently bidding’s up to almost 7 million.

    Now, morality aside – she was inspired by her hooker sister after all, and well however you choose to fund your education is up to you, but seriously? BA in women’s studies and Masters in marriage therapy? Is that a degree field? Sorry, there I go – i don’t get auctions like these. Dates, sure. “Experiences”, sure. But a night of cherry popping?

    Let’s think about this. How can anyone ever really know whether she is a virgin or nor? It’s not like the olden days where if brides didn’t bleed on Wedding Night then men wanted a full refund. There’s no outward indicator and no physical signs that scream virgin. And like she said, she didn’t think virginity was worth that much anymore, even in times like ours.

    I’m really curious as to whether those seven figure bids are genuine??

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