Archive for November, 2007

Happy birthday Jack!

November 12th, 2007

Dear Jack,

Can you believe it’s been five years since you and I met? Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you were kind of loud and unhappy that night. We were very excited to finally meet you, and you were very handsome even though you clearly hadn’t had a bath in about 9 months.

Here you are with your uncle David. I remember the conversation we were having when I took this picture. I think he was worried that he would break you or drop you on your head, or inadvertently teach you to love epic Meatloaf songs. For the record, he didn’t do any of those things.

Anyway, since that night you’ve grown a lot. You’re not quite big enough to see over the steering wheel yet, but you’ve got plenty of time to worry about that. In fact, you should ask your mum about the time that we got hit by a car when she was 8 months pregnant with you. Boy, was that hilarious…

Here’s a photo of you when you were 2, with your pretty mum.

You’re a lot bigger now. Really, really tall in fact. And I’ve heard that you’ve grown even more since I moved to Melbourne! You are going to be really handy to have around when you are 10 and Mum’s ceiling needs repainting.

You officially have the best laugh out of anybody that I have ever met. You are also my favourite stand-up comedian, rock-star and dancer, and we’re all counting on you to be famous so that we can sponge off your wealth and industry connections.

You’re five now, could you get a wriggle on?

Happy birthday, kiddo. You’re one of my favourite people, and I love you to pieces. Stay wonderful.

Love,
“Arnie” Liz x

PS: You’re a wally. No, YOU are.

No One Cares What You Had for Lunch

November 12th, 2007

When I participated in NaBloPoMo last year, I was secretly hoping to win the copy of No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog that was donated by Maggie Mason of Mighty Girl and Mighty Goods.

When I didn’t win it, I just went ahead and ordered myself a copy anyway. Maggie even wrote a little note inside before dropping it in the mail.

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It’s a handy resource if you’re finding yourself in a rut, and especially if you’re beginning a blog for the first time. It’s also useful for discovering bloggers who are doing it well, thanks to the examples that she includes throughout the book.

I’ll be trawling it for ideas and inspiration during November to make sure that I don’t fall behind! Let’s hope you’ve seen my last NaBloPoMo whine.

Buy your autographed copy here.

NaBloPissOff

November 11th, 2007

Bet you thought I was just going to post a lolcat today, right? Even I know that a single lolcat doesn’t count as a post during NaBloPoMo. No sir. We’ve got a strict code of conduct ’round here.

In truth, I’ve been working on a new section of this site today. It’s not finished yet, and won’t be for another few days probably, but I spent ages tinkering with it instead of writing fascinating blog posts. At some point I went outside and cleaned out the shed, fumigated it against face-eating spiders and then made room for both my bike AND the enormous TV box.

And then I built a wall. It’s been a long day.

Here’s your damn post :)

If you build it, they will come.

November 11th, 2007

birdcage.jpg

via I Can Has Cheezburger?

Free Rice

November 10th, 2007

I found a neat site today, called Free Rice. It’s a simple word definition game, and for each correct answer the sponsors of the site donate 10 grains of rice through the UN. Their FAQ says it all.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it grew really quickly. It’s also quite addictive, and I’ve learned all sorts of stuff today! For instance, I have discovered that I am so much more than a lazy bum – I am both apolaustic and fainéant. IN YOUR FACE!

And now it is time for dessert, as Free Rice taught me that I may also have a psalterium.

Marina Anfetamina

November 10th, 2007

Remember yesterday, when I was lamenting the changes to the Bonds underwear commercial? They replaced the original Bonde do Role song Marina Gasolina with a lyric-free remix, and it has turned my little world upside down. It doesn’t take much, I know.

Today I searched for a translation of the lyrics to see if there might have been an issue with them, and it turns out there is a reference to amphetamines. The translation was incomplete, but that’s probably all that was needed to get it off the air.

Is there a proven link between references to drugs in foreign languages, and drug experimentation in viewers? I doubt it.

Lame. You should watch this instead:

He doesn’t have ulcers, but he’s a carrier.

November 10th, 2007

These arrived in my inbox via one of those terrible forwarded emails. The email claimed that these quotes were lifted directly from the performance reviews of a major US company. There is probably only a 0.74% chance that this is in any way true, but the quotes themselves are worth publishing. I think they make good all-purpose insults, and that’s just not the sort of thing that one should keep to oneself!

I did, however, remove the crap ones. You’re welcome.

Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom… and has started to dig.

His men will follow him anywhere… but only out of morbid curiosity.

This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

He doesn’t have ulcers, but he’s a carrier.

Brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room.

If you see two people talking and one looks bored… he’s the other one.

If any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week.

With thanks to Mum, who rarely forwards me anything too crappy.

Marina is on fire (uhh)

November 10th, 2007

In this house, conversation comes to a screeching halt when the latest Bonds underwear ad comes on TV. Conversation resumes mid-sentence 30 seconds later. I can’t explain it – I consider myself to be a healthy heterosexual girl. but there’s something completely mesmerising about this ad. If I think about it too much I might creep myself out.

Tim doesn’t have any conflicting feelings about the ad whatsoever.

I’m trying to find the original on Youtube to share with my international readers, but having no luck so far. In fact I suspect that there is some sort of issue with the song they chose – I notice that for the past few days they have been playing a lyric-less remix of the song. And while the song was apparently available for download on the Bonds website, there’s now no sign of it at all. In fact, the ad itself isn’t even on their Recent Ads page.

I figured the changes to the ad must have had something to do with the lyrics of the song, which I couldn’t really decipher. My google-fu turned this up:

GASOLINA – Bonde do Role

Marina anfetamina
Marina gasolina (oooooo orra)
Marina caipirinha
Bum tchá tchá tchi tchi tchá

Meet me after school and i’ll beat you like gorilla
Bite you like piranha, vem brigar com a minha aranha
Oooooo orra

Egüinha pocotó
Marina is on fire

Etc, etc. If the English lyrics are the problem, I’d be pretty surprised. And I have no idea what the rest means. It’s far more likely that the mention of “meet me after school” suggested that the girls in the ad were school-aged, and some cranky viewers thought they were sexualising little girls. It’s a stretch, but that’s the only thing I can come up with.

All I know is that the song is EMBEDDED IN MY BRAIN when I am trying to sleep and if I don’t find an mp3 of it sometime soon it might actually explode from frustration.

Meanwhile, I found out that Tim & I aren’t the only fans. This is a video made by the seniors of some school called McKinnon Secondary, in which they recreated the Bonds Kaleidoscope commercial (which uses the same music).

How they roped their teacher into doing this is beyond me – my teachers never displayed this level of commitment to our ideas. Maybe that’s because our best idea involved an elaborate plot to put the school up for sale.

If anybody has this song as an mp3, they should really let me know. Until then, at least I have the lyrics so that I can sing them over the remix every 15 mins on Ten!

EDIT: I found the mp3! Uploaded it to my little music player on the sidebar, if you want to have a listen.

Best Baked Custard Ever.

November 9th, 2007

I know this is in danger of turning into a recipe blog, but I can’t help that I keep coming up with awesome creations! Tonight I made a baked custard, modified from one that I found in an ancient Woman’s Weekly cookbook, and it’s AMAZING. It’s also really, really simple and not entirely bad for you.

So since I’m in such a giving mood, here’s how you do it.

INGREDIENTS

2½ cups milk
3 eggs + an extra yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1/3 cup caster sugar
nutmeg

METHOD

Slowly heat the milk in a medium saucepan, stirring continuously. Bring the milk almost to the boil, and remove it from the heat.

Whisk together the eggs and vanilla essence. Gently add the sugar, and then whisk in the hot milk.

Pour everything into a 4-6 cup (1-1.5L) shallow ovenproof dish, and sprinkle with nutmeg. You can also place small slivers of butter evenly around the dish, which can help the top to brown. And make you fatter.

Then place this dish inside a larger one. Pour boiling water into the larger baking dish until it comes halfway up the sides of the smaller dish.

Cook at 160C (or 140C for fan-forced) for 45-60 mins. Custard is cooked when the centre gets wobbly.



I served mine tonight with pears, peaches, cinnamon and caster sugar that was heated for 5 mins on the stove. There were no leftovers! I probably would have added sultanas to the custard if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re babysitting tonight, and sultanas may have been a dealbreaker.

Once I’ve posted this I’m going to go and do one of my favourite things – eat chocolate during The Biggest Loser. Watching them do all that exercise makes me hungry…

Allergy Season

November 8th, 2007

I have been completely unable to breathe through my nose all day. I think my sinuses are so inflamed that they’ve just closed right up. I’m one step away from being That Nerdy Kid Who Is Always Blowing Her Nose that everybody went to school with. You know the one.

Don’t let me become a statistic. Do you have a miracle cure for pollen-related allergies? It’s Spring here in Australia, so this is basically as bad as it gets, and all of the dust from our constant state of drought is just making everything worse. Especially when a certain someone brings it inside.

Polaramine knocks me right out, and I wake up feeling like I’ve just come out of a 15-year coma. I’ll take it if things are really bad though, and if I’m heading to bed anyway. Daytime allergy products don’t seem to put a dent in my symptoms, but I am willing to try anything at this point. It’s been a year since I’ve tried them.

Tell me about your kickass allergy solution, especially if you’re Australian and I’m likely to be able to buy it here! I will repay you by writing far more interesting blog posts when I am not distracted by my snot.

Lolcat of the month

November 8th, 2007

Look, I’m not perfect. Lolcats make me really, really happy and I don’t know why. I’m through trying to understand which part of my underdeveloped brain is responsible for liking photographs of cute cats with bad grammar. I just do.

This one made me laugh so loud that my boyfriend came to check that I was okay.

reportinglive.jpg

Are you confused by these cat pictures that keep popping up all over the internet? Read this great intro on lolcats, and then head to the greatest resource of all, I Can Has Cheezburger?

Show me your favourite lolcat in the comments!

Lawnmower Man

November 7th, 2007

I had the worst trouble falling asleep last night. Tim and I went to bed stupidly late, so we were both dead tired, but I just couldn’t drop off. I was restless and overtired and the more I tossed and turned the crankier I got about not being asleep yet. Plus, I kept waking up Tim and I was starting to worry that he would smother me with my own pillow if it meant that he got some peace.

So in an act of self-preservation I took myself to the couch, grabbed another doona, and miraculously fell asleep straight away! I didn’t wake until this morning when Tim, presuming that I had packed my things and left him in the middle of the night, came out to make coffee. He woke me up, I scowled, and took myself off to bed for another hour’s sleep.

You should see me first thing in the morning – Tim can confirm that I am a thing of beauty.

It wasn’t until I finally emerged for breakfast that I looked outside and noticed that our lawn had been mowed sometime during the morning. Tim didn’t notice either, until I called him over and showed him the proof.

So somehow our mower guy managed to drag his lawnmower down the narrow path at the side of the house, right beside Tim’s head, and slam 2 gates without being heard. He then started up the whipper-snipper and mowed the backyard 10m from my head without waking me. Or my ferocious, snarling guard dog.

I now wonder if we have teenagers raiding our fridge and watching our TV in the middle of the night.

Because we all love a quickie.

November 6th, 2007

I’m supposed to be working on a recording today, so this will be short! Just wanted to share a few interesting links that I’ve come across.

Fridgewatcher – Take a peek at the contents of other peoples’ fridges, and submit your own photo. Particularly interesting is the option to view fridges from a particular country, and see how other people eat.

It made me go in search of the Time photoessay I saw a while ago, called What the World Eats. Visit the article to view families from all over the world, plus their weekly groceries and budget. It’s incredible to see the way that one family can waste so much of their budget on empty calories, and how little it costs for a poor family to survive.

More quick links:

diamondmac.jpg

I am both enthralled and disgusted by this 24kt gold & diamond Mac.

birdseed.jpg

Have you ever wished that birds would flock to you in the park, and start nibbling at your feet? Of course you have.

And lastly…

Media Watch is claiming that Ten and Roving Enterprises are responsible for broadcasting subliminal advertising during the coverage of this year’s ARIA awards. While the jury is out on whether subliminal advertising is even valid, it would appear that they have breached the industry Code of Practice by choosing to insert logos into their show that displayed at 1/25th of a second.

Personally, I think they’ll have a hard time proving that Ten was deliberately trying to trick us into dipping our KFC wings in a tub of Olay. I didn’t notice the ads on the night, and even when I was looking for them in the video below I rarely spotted more than a quick burst of light.

Of course, that’s sort of the point – if Media Watch’s claims are true, then we were never supposed to spot them. There’s something really sneaky about this issue, I think.

Twitter, etc.

November 5th, 2007

No doubt my many eagle-eyed readers (ie: Ralf, and… Ralf) will have noticed that I have been tinkering with this site over the past couple of days. Well, unless he reads everything via his rss reader. Le sigh.

Let’s start this again.

Scarlet Words is bigger! and better! with the addition of a couple of shiny new gimmicks in the sidebar. First of all, I finally got around to signing up for Twitter, so now you can see some short updates of what I’m doing throughout the day. I can even update Twitter from my phone or via IM, so technically speaking I should be updating it ALL THE TIME. Only I’m not sure anybody cares, so I’ll just be doing it when I remember.

Twitter is pretty cool, though, and there are all sorts of related apps that draw upon its functionality. First of all I installed a client called Snitter, which sits in my taskbar and collects the ‘tweets’ of people I decide to follow. There’s a collection of other Twitter clients on their site too. It’s a friendly way to see how other people are spending their day, and sometimes leads to the discovery of other interesting stuff on the web.

A few other interesting Twitter-related links:

  • Twitter etiquette

  • Twittercal – update your Google Calendar from Twitter
  • Twittervision – realtime ‘tweets’ displayed on a map
  • MyChores – Use Twitter to help you keep track of your to-do list, and check them off as they’re completed




If you scroll further down the sidebar you’ll also see a new music player, c/o NaBloPoMo. It allows me to upload up to 100 songs that you can stream from my site, or download to your machine. Make the most of my incredible taste in music, and have a listen.

Time to head back to the couch, and cuddle up with Tim and our Very Clean Puppy. I’m just happy to have gotten this blog post in with 2 minutes to spare! It is way too early in the month to fail NaBloPoMo…

Recommended Blogs: NaBloPoMo Discoveries (Pt 1)

November 5th, 2007

As I’m browsing the NaBloPoMo blogs this month, I’ll share my favourites here. If there’s a blog you think I should check out, leave a comment and tell me all about it!





SARCOMICAL
Melissa, Indianapolis USA


I’m really going to enjoy this blog. One of my favourite posts is titled “Cameraphone Pics I Took at My Old Office With the Intention Of Posting Them But I Never Got Around to It Yet I Kept Taking Them Anyway So I Should Be Able to Milk This for a Few Posts, Part 2″.

i can’t stand close-minded people. i’m a night person. i hate the word ‘mucus’. i must have some sort of depth perception issue, as i am constantly bumping into walls, desks, tables, couches, and doors when i leave and enter rooms. i also trip sometimes when walking and going up (yes, up) and down stairs. people who don’t put their carts away in the parking lot annoy me. i have to take a deep breath and brace myself before going on a down escalator. i can sleep through almost anything, but i hate taking naps. feet are disgusting, i don’t care who you are (unless you’re under 2 years old) – don’t touch me with your feet.






DAYDREAMZ
Aidan, Canada


Probably one of the best looking blog sites I’ve seen in a long time, with a really original design. And once you’re finished clicking on the flashy stuff, the blog is good reading too!


No snappy, quotable paragraphs… just a naturally written blog about a girl in Canada.




LETTERS TO VICKI
Jo, Michigan USA


A med school student and mother of three, writing letters to her former sister-in-law Vicki who died a few years ago. Highly addictive, and way less depressing than it sounds.

I know that in the past, we’ve both agreed that my mother is infinitely preferable to your mother. I mean, my mother actually likes me sometimes. And my mother wouldn’t get into such a snit over a fight we’d had the week before that when I came home showing obvious signs and symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage she’d ignore me and let me DIE. Okay, even I know that’s not fair. I know that just because I wouldn’t miss a subarachnoid bleed, doesn’t mean that everyone in the world knows how to spot it. We’ll just chalk that sentiment up to bitterness. I mean, it would’ve been different if you’d been half paralyzed, or unable to speak, or something less permanent and more easily overcome. But you’re DEAD. I think that deserves a bit of bitterness.

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