Happy Long Weekend!

Have a great long weekend, folks! I'm off to Newcastle bright and early - getting up at 5am tomorrow morning *sob!*

see ya!

Onions Make Me Laugh

Sometimes onions make me cry, but The Onion kills me with laughter. My latest favourite is:
Bush Seeks Support for "U.S. Does Whatever It Wants" Plan

This photo is of Picasso's 'The Lovers' which I took @ The Picasso Museum in Paris in July. I really love the colours of this piece and it's got a great energy about it - it's something I'd love to have hanging in my dining room one day (I wish!) ;-)

Festivals Up the Wazzoo

Getting very excited about this weekend...driving up to Newcastle with Shay, Fidelma and Sally for the mountain o' conferences including:

• National Student Media Conference


• National Young Writers Festival


• This is Not Art


• Sound Summit


• ElectroFringe


• New Media

I'm ready to get all festivalled-out. There are lots of workshops and things I want to attend - we'll see how many I get to. It feels like the Big Day Out of workshops and I'm on a mission to see everything I want!

Freak Magnets Unite! And Random Thoughts on Friendship

Here we are, the original Freak Magnets, me and Kristen. This was taken in July this year, in Boston. Kristen and I had gone to my favourite Colombian Restaurant and then we met up with Shayna for drinks. Shayna thought we were super freaks for wanting to take this pic in the middle of the sidewalk, but oh well.

I've been thinking about friendships lately. I have a lot of very good friends, all around the world. But isn't it funny how people become friends? Some people you click with instantly. Other people slowly grow into friends over time. Some friends you only discuss superficial things with. Some friends you only discuss deep things with. The best ones are the ones you can discuss everything with. But with friends that grow slowly - at what point did you cross that line from acquaintances to friends? When did you decide that you could keep each other's secrets? When did you know you could trust them?

And isn't it amazing how friends come in cycles? People I was tight with a year ago I hardly ever see now and friends I barely saw a year ago I see all the time now. And some friendships stand the test of time, distance, lack of contact etc. You can pick them up where you left off. And some friendships change and you can never get them back to where they were.

All very complicated and all very simple at the same time. I guess I just want to thank my friends for being my friends - I know I can be pretty difficult to get a hold of and stay in touch with sometimes. Thanks for not giving up on me :-)

Hallelujah! & Scary Things I Come Up With When I'm Sleep Deprived

Ding-dong the website is dead! Okay, actually, it's not dead, it's just gone live, but it's "done." For now. Still more stuff to do on it, but I am actually going to bed soon as it's okay enough to go live - yay! So I got home from work at 11pm on a Sunday. It's just another thing for me to put in the "things I've done that I hope to never do again" list.

Spent most of the day in the office today, and most of it in the office yesterday. Thank god I went to Sal's b-day shindig last night or this would have been the lamest weekend of my entire life. (Thank you to Claudine for saving me from myself...I had fallen asleep on Saturday night and her phone call woke me up in time to get my butt to the Civic Hotel!) Sal looked absolutely beautiful last night and Mr. Shay was looking extremely dapper! A very snazzy couple indeed!

Miss Fidelma made me laugh when we were walking down the street, everyone freezing except for me, and said, "Damn you Americans and your good winter coats!" And I laughed and protested, "But I got this here! In Sydney! For 10 bucks!" And it's true, I found this cute little winter jacket on sale, marked down from $69 to $10. I couldn't resist. Owen says it looks like I'm wearing a sheep, but I don't care - I love it. And it's not really wool, thankfully, as I'm basically, allergic to anything with hair....sigh.

Even funnier is that about 5 minutes later Shay said something similar about my jacket and once again I insisted I got the jacket here, in good ol' Oz. So there you have it...Australians may not have central heating in most homes, but dammit, they do have some really warm winter coats, on sale for $10, no less. You just have to be as thrifty (read: poor) as me to notice ;-)

Nah, I'd still buy cheap clothes even if I was rich as I am the biggest slob/klutz of all time and I would only eventually spill spaghetti sauce on something expensive, or trip and fall and get a big tear in it. I rarely buy anything over $30 clothing-wise. That way, if something happens to it (and something will, mind you), it's not a big deal. Remember, I am the granddaughter of a woman who broke her collarbone playing poker. I've accepted my genes and I am acting accordingly. ;-)

I spoke to the lovely Kristen this evening. She rang while I was at work. It was a great/funny/fantastic conversation for the most part, but it got beyond stressful when Kristen heard a fight breaking out on her street and noticed people screaming and fleeing from a bar across from her apartment. She thought this guy might have had a gun. She thought she heard a gunshot, which would explain why people were screaming and running. I was freaking out..."Ohmygod, get the hell away from the window, Kristen! Get down! Get down on the ground! Stay there!" By the time we hung up, things were under control, at least I hope so!

Scary Things I Do When I'm Sleep Deprived

Now to explain that dodgy 'magazine cover'...Yeah, so I took a half hour this weekend to procrastinate from working on that damn website to come up with this rather pathetic attempt at humour. I was just a few brain cells short of funny, but the main thing was that Ray took this photo of me, as you can see, where I look like I'm some pre-pubescent 12 year old teenybopper trying to make it in the entertainment industry...and the rest is history. (Note to my cousins: Yes, I'm being sarcastic! ;-)

p.s. Big thanks to Rammstein - I just got your virtual/actual postcard and it rocks! Long live the Nerds of the Night! ;-)