Saturday, July 28, 2007

Stuff I can't live without

I've been pinged by Mikey! Thankfully he knows just how clueless I am when it comes to the interweb and so he emailed me to let me know he'd tagged me.
Bless him.

So now I have to come up with a list of stuff I couldn't live without.

I'm following everyone else's lead on this and keeping it to materialistic stuff, not people, since my list of people I couldn't live without could be a tad incriminating ;-)

1) My bag. I won't go as far to call it a 'handbag' as that invokes images of pretty, quaint little things that come from expensive shops and are used by ladies. Mine is a satchel bag, it's red, covered in big black spiders and goes everywhere with me. It's contents include: my purse, puffers (Ventolin and Seretide), comb, contact solution and eyedrops, body spray, lip balm, tissues, phone, house keys, car keys, work keys, sunnies, antihistemines, girlie stuff for that time of the month and my camera.
And it's not even a huge bag.
Needless to say, it has almost everything I need to survive in it.

2) Mentioned above but important enough by itself is my mobile phone. Once I thought people were silly to rely on such a contraption but I must admit I have succumbed to it's charms and now panic slightly whenever I leave home and realise I don't have my phone. Whatever would I do if I broke down? Or if someone needed to contact me? Oh good Lord, how did anyone survive ten years ago???

3) My puter. Christian finally gave in to my nagging several years ago and built me a computer out of spare parts he had laying around and a monitor he nicked from the rubbish at work. It's gone through a few upgrades since then (when he got his 22 inch widescreen monitor I got his old one, yay me!), and the background is Skeleton Cow from Edinburgh, and I absolutely love it. It's my link to the outside world, I get up in the morning and as I have brekkie I chat to Boo and Mouse on msn, check my email to see who loves me, see what new shoe spam has cropped up on MoH and catch up on all numerous blogs I read.

4) My car. Not just because of the shear distances that need to be traversed in this part of the world and that our public transport system sucks, but because I adore my car. She's a little red Corolla GTi, 1.6L, twincam, 4AGE and she rocks. She's got an after-market exhaust that makes her sound grunty, but not too grunty and she's rather zippy.

5) My jewellery. I'm not a huge jewellery wearer but the items I wear are extremely sentimental to me. Obviously I have my wedding and engagement rings which I just adore. The engagement ring isn't the one Christian proposed with as many years ago the sapphire in the centre came loose and I lost it. Needless to say I was devastated (I think I cried for three straight days) and I originally didn't like the one he bought me as a replacement. However I have come to love it and now would die if anything were to happen to it.
I also have the necklace and pendant that Christian bought me back from England when he went travelling. It's a Celtic symbol with an amber stone in the middle and although he's given me many other pendants throughout the years, this is the one that I wear almost constantly.
My other treasured jewellery is the wolf earrings and bracelet set that my sister Barb bought for me for my birthday a few years back. As you all know, I love wolves and it was the perfect gift for me.

Right, now I've been told I have to tag five other people who must blog about the stuff they can't live without.

Boo - My pseudo lesbian adopted half soul sister from Scotland.

Mouse - The person my husband has most reason to be worried/jealous about.

Smerk - The magic dragon who lives by the sea.

MadCarlotta - One of my newest friends who I still have much to learn.

OppieJoe - Always there with the hugs when I need them.

I look forward to it guys.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Shocking!

Wow, what a weekend!

Ok, first of all, since I've just finished it, Harry Potter.
Oh my God!
Wow, is about all I can say. I won't give it away for those of you who haven't finished it, that's just not fair, but I do want to say beware, she really does kill off lots of our favourite characters. I was bawling my eyes out, absolutely bawling.
But it was an amazing book, I loved it. I'm so sad that it's over.

Right, the other shocker of the weekend was Collar and Cuffs, the male strip show I went to as our farewell do for Rachael at work.
Now, as most of you are aware by now, I'm not exactly a prude. I'm not easily shocked by much, I like to have a good laugh. My older sister actually thinks the way I act is 'disgraceful', so really, I'm sure general opinion would have it that I'd be one of those women up the front, screaming and groping...

Let's just say I have never blushed so much in my entire life!

I don't know if it was because the group of ladies I was with were much more reserved than I am and their influence was rubbing off on me (I can't believe I've just used the word 'rubbing' in a post about strippers...lol) but I felt like a really sleaze! I tried to look everywhere but at the men! I felt like I had reduced them to something cheap and nasty. How rude of me to make them degrade themselves all for my entertainment! It was really odd! Not at all like my usual self.

Lastly, I had a very pleasant surprise last night when Christian found out by way of the interweb, Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule is going to be made into a mini series directed by Sam Raimi! Yay! (this is actually really old news but we hadn't heard it yet...)
For years we've said it would make such a great movie, we've debated over which actor would best represent the characters, how they would portray the magic sequences (how do you get thunder with no sound to come across on screen?) and other generally nerdy discussions regarding it.
So we are very excited about that!

And that's about it for now. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and sob into my pillow a little more!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Pure blond?

While I'm not the dumbest creature to ever have walked this earth, I am the first to confess that I am far, far from the smartest person around.
Let's say that you'd never have me down as your phone-a-friend.

Christian is an extremely intelligent person, he knows something about everything and even if he doesn't know the answer to a question, he can kind of work out the general concept or theory behind it. And he's usually right.
He would be someone you'd have down as your phone-a-friend.

Every now and then I will do something, or say something and I see a look in Christian's eyes that I'm pretty sure means he's thinking 'Oh God, what on Earth did I marry her for???'.
I honestly think that he has moments when he can't comprehend how we can possibly be meant for each other. Opposites attract to a degree but on occasion I can be really really daft.

Take for instance something that happened last Saturday.
I had been out shoe shopping with Kat (unfortunately shoe stores in this part of the civilised world do not stock pretty black heels for fat German feet so it wasn't a successful shopping day, but I digress) when we called into an Op Shop on the way back to the car. Kat went to look for a cardy and I wandered up to the back to have a look at the books. One immediately caught my eye and I picked it up. It was called Man or Mouse by Matt Whyman and it's about a man, who after failing to win the affections of a girl in real life, heads into the shady world of internet chat rooms in a bid to woo her there.
There's a bit on the blurb that goes something like this : The story of a man and his mouse, destined to find his true love even if it means looking where he'd never ventured (Jo now has the book so I can't quote it for you but I'm sure you get the drift).

So, I read that, my brain processed it, made a mental picture of the story for future reference and filed it away, I paid for the book and went on my merry way. Later on I got home and was showing my beloved the several books I'd purchased that day when in my head the little mental picture I had suddenly burst.

I had been thinking of a man sitting on his computer with his pet mouse for company while he looked for love. Honest to God, with a little cage and everything.

Shall I pause here while you pick yourself up off the floor? Seriously, you can stop laughing at me now...

Anyway, I could have kept this thought to myself, hidden away deep in my shame, no one would ever be the wiser. Instead, I blurt this thought out to Mr Intellectual and almost instantly I see that look. Christian then goes on to explain, as if to a four year old, that it means a computer mouse.
Yup, a huh, I kind of figured that, when the mental picture burst!!!

Anyway, so apart from reinforcing any doubts my hubby has regarding our match made in heaven, I've also just shared this piece of incriminating evidence with you lot, therefore proving that I'm not the smartest person on Earth. I mean, come on, who else would do something that dumb and then think 'I might just share this with a worldwide audience'.

Only me.

But that's why you love me, isn't it?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Happy Birthday Chatterbox!

Last weekend both Christian and Barb had their birthday (do you know how many headaches a shared birthday causes???) and we went out Go Karting and to dinner to help them celebrate.

Christian won the night at Go Karting (as he usually does) and got a very nice trophy for his efforts. My niece Darcie thinks it was 'Birthday Luck' (gotta love the brutal honesty of children) but I tried to explain that Christian wins everytime he drives a Go Kart so there wasn't much luck involved at all. But he had a great time and everyone seemed to have fun (except for Barb who had a slight mental breakdown regarding getting the kids to Mum but that worked out ok in the end).

After dinner we all came back to our place to have a few drinks and I was surprised to find Christian partaking in the revelry. Christian may have one drink occasionally but that's all he has. I've never seen him drunk as the only time he's been drunk was his bucks night and I obviously wasn't there. But he decided to have a few and his drink of choice was Pulse (one of those energy drinks with vodka).
I'm a bit hesitant to give all the credit to the alcohol as it could have been the caffeine (Christian also never consumes anything with caffeine in it), but after a couple of drinks he got rather ... different.

Barb describes Christian as 'The Iceman' as she claims he never shows emotions and never speaks. I must admit that in company, it takes a lot to get Christian talking and even then he's quite reserved, except for his cutting sarcasm. But once you get a few drinks in him, you can't shut him up!
I knew it was going to be fun when he swaggers outside, gives me the thumbs up and announces 'I'm Pulsed!'
Man is he a funny bugger when he's drunk! I've told him that he'll be drinking with me on more occasions as I spent most of the night laughing harder than usual. And the next day I had so many people message me commenting on how much of chatterbox Christian was and how good it was.

I think everyone got to see a different side of him.

Barb also had a good time but she didn't drink. She tried but after one sip gave it up as a lost cause as she had a bit of a bender in Kal a while back and now can't even look at a bottle of booze without feeling ill. Mum had taken the kids so it was nice for her and Mike to just sit back and relax. They didn't stay too long past midnight however since with three kids getting sleep is a bit of a novelty. Best take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself!

Oh, and also over the weekend, Mike (other Mike) and I swapped cars like we'd said we'd do a few weeks back. Before we left for Go Karting we had a bit of time to kill so I suggested he take my car for a spin. It's the first Corolla he's ever driven and he seemed to like it. When we got back he offered to let me drive his GTR to Wanneroo where the Go Karting track was and after my initial panic, I accepted his offer.
I've never driven a four wheel drive before or a turbo (the GTR is a twin turbo just to add to my panic) so it was very different to my little car. I was very worried I was going to break something but as Mike pointed out, his clutch is pretty much stuffed and if I broke it, it would just be putting it out of its misery.
So I drove out there and didn't break anything which was good, and then I also drove it back and had heaps of fun.

We also had a really good chat and, unlike Christian, who is such a natural at driving a car that he doesn't understand where I'm coming from, Mike actually got what I was saying. For example, I've never been able to heel-toe so he told me about how he learnt to do it and made me feel a bit better about no being able to do it and also a little more confident to give it a go. We also said that when summer comes we should take out cars down to the drags so we can see the time difference between my car and Christians' (his is almost the same but is super charged) and I found that Mike didn't laugh when I said the only thing stopping me from doing that was I can't do a burn out and I'm scared I'll make a fool of myself when I'm warming up my tyres. Apparently he felt exactly the same way with his old car and that's one of the pluses with this one - 4WD means you don't have to.

So it's been good to have someone to chat to about crap like this who a) doesn't laugh at me and think I'm silly or b) like you lot, are falling asleep while I talk about it ;-)

Anyway, I'll leave it at about that for now. Nothing else too exciting has happened except for going to see Transformers (that movie rocked!).
I'll catch you guys around later!

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Crap, crap, crap

Well, apart from only a few things, everything has been rather shite lately.

It's been the end of the financial year so work has been really flat out, there's so much shit going on over at MoH that I'm about to wash my hands with the whole thing, Boo and Ro are going away on holiday so for the next two weeks I won't have anyone to chat to on msn and we've finally been getting some rain (which is a big yay) but it means that I haven't been able to get out and about to take photos of Bimpkin. I'm running out of time to do that as Alex gets back in two weeks and I need to have the gnome arrive in time. I have a couple of pics so maybe I'll have to leave it at that and hopefully Bimpkin will make his way back to Perth if Smerk volunteers to be a host...

Anyway, I'll not go on and on about all the crap that's been happening as that doesn't make for a fun post so I'll fill you in on the good stuff.

Work-wise I've been told I've got a permanent place at my current branch which is what I was hoping for. I really do love it there and it's much better off for me targets wise. It will be a challenge however as there are so many new entrants that there's not a lot of experience and the experienced tellers there are really lazy (on the whole) so there'll only be one or two of us who carry the workload. But I can handle that...

I've had a few late nights recently (again) which meant I didn't get online to say bye to Boo and Ro before they left for Wales as I've been sleeping in a bit longer than normal. Wednesday we had soccer, Thursday we went and saw Rise of the Silver Surfer (as Mike so aptly put it 'I feel dumber for watching it, but it was rather entertaining'). On Friday I went to the pub after work for farewell drinks as the Team Leader has left. I got felt up by Mr Ugly Universe '06 while standing at the bar. I was too shocked to do anything but glare and move as far away as possible but in hindsight I would have loved to have slapped the bastard. But it was a first for me as no one's ever attempted to pick me up before so I'll hopefully learn from experience.
After the pub Christian and I went round to Richard's workshop again so he could do some tuning on his Levin. I spent most of the night helping Mike change his dash lights to coloured LEDs. We had a choice of blue, red and white globes so we spent about an hour just moving them around and seeing what all the effects looked like with mixing the globes. Eventually we decided on just the blue ones and it looks really good.

Yesterday, being the last Saturday of the month, was the night Minimal Exposure play at the Velvet Lounge (our mates Lachlan and Adrian who DJ) so Christian and I made plans to go see them. However, last minute, as I knew he would, Christian piked on me, saying he wasn't feeling up to another late night out. So I scrapped the plans to have a few drinks, donned my Designated Driver hat and swung by to pick Mike and Richard up on my way through.
It was a really good night, even though Lachlan was too sick to mix so he stayed home but Adrian was there and he was really good.
It was so packed there, as there was a US DJ who was on before ME as a guest performer, much busier than I've seen it before. Mel and her boyfriend Jann were there too, so it saw all five of us trying to squish onto one couch. Mel sat on Jann's lap, Richard was next to Jann, then me and then Mike made himself very comfortable by trying to squash me to death. By the end of the night pretty much everyone there had sat on me, or fallen on me, or lay on top of me, until I finally asked if I had suddenly become a couch.

Now I am known as Mrs Couch.
*sigh*

But it was heaps of fun, we had a lot of laughs during the night. At two thirty we headed off home, discovering on the way that my rev limiter kicks in at 8000 rpm. It wasn't by accident either, Mike wanted to know so when I dropped them off, my car was boycotted to satisfy his curiosity. I'm sure he'll regret that as we've promised to switch cars one day and his GTR will be at my mercy, muhahahahahahahahahah.
I can't wait actually, although I am just slightly scared of driving his car as it's quite a bit more powerful than anything I've actually driven...but it should be fun nonetheless!

And that's about it for now. Sorry, another boring post about cars and crap, I'll try and make the next one more interesting!