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Regrets

There has been many times this year and in the past when I have put money, uni and other things before going to concerts and in the end ultimately regret it.

Michael Franti and Ben Folds both played in Brisbane last month, both two shows that I had ummed and aahed over about because of the price but also two artists that I enjoy dearly. When I decided I wanted to go it was too late and they were sold out. Earlier this year I regret not going to have seen Beth Orton, Martha Wainwright, Tristan Prettyman, The Posies, Misfits, Bouncing Souls, Sigur Ros, Xavier Rudd, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Gerling, Split Enz, Claire Bowditch, Jason Mraz, Bic Runga and Dianna Ross (but her show has been cancelled so I haven’t really missed out) and so many others.

In two weeks time Chris Isaak is playing at a local vineyard with Alex Lloyd and Ross Wilson, I ummed and ahhed and now it is sold out 🙁 Now somebody’s (really) crying 😉

My mantra now is that I will go with my gut feeling when I first hear about the concert, price will not be the determining factor; the factor will be what sort of rotation do I have them on in winamp or have I heard good things about their shows.

I don’t want to look back at my life in five, ten years time and regret not going to those concerts as I continue to enjoy their music especially when I hold such special memories of concerts from the Mountain Goats, The Whitlams and others.

The other day I saw an ad in the paper saying that tickets for Madeleine Peyroux go on sale this coming Friday (well that was yesterday) and this morning when I was cycling to work I saw a billboard advertising the concert so one of the first things I did when I came home was to buy my ticket 🙂 I am five rows from the stage and pretty much smack in the middle 🙂 I stumbled across Madeleine from something I had read about Yann Tiersen (the artist who did the Amélie soundtrack) and was just enchanted by her voice, listening to the magic it weaves in the air, just magical stuff, I can’t wait!

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jabbed

A couple of months ago, Gardasil the vaccine for four types of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18), which are four of the strains that account for the majority of cervical cancer and genital warts infections was released to the public in Australia with much fan-fare. Today I received my first shot in a three shot course which is given over six months. Gardasil may be pricey but for my parents, my doctor and I, it is the sort of thing where money shouldn’t be in equation, because the benefits far outweigh the initial outlay from the back pocket.

In saying that it will be a great day when it is added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which would lower the cost and enable even more young women across Australia to access the vaccine. It will also be a great day when it is put on the National Immunisation Program Schedule for girls aged 12 years which will make it accessible to all the girls of Australia.

It will also be a great day for the team at local hospital that developed the vaccine. I can say today it feels pretty cool to receive a vaccine that was “grown in my backyard”, it also makes me proud of what they have done. Go Dr Ian Frazer and the team at the PA&UQ! For this work Dr Frazer was named the Australian of the Year for 2006 which really shows just how much of a breakthrough this vaccine is.

Whilst I was there I also started on my Hep A/B combined course since I had missed the Hep B whilst at school and it makes sense for future travel plans to get the Hep A as well (also makes it cheaper).

This means that I have matching bandages on both of my arms 🙂

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Camera Obscura

I had a book out of the library the other day of the most coolest camera obscura photographs by Abelardo Morell funnily enough called Camera Obscura. I can’t descirbe how much eye candy was in this book, so you should race straight down to your nearest library and borrow the book out (Dewy Decimal – 779.092 MOR, Library of Congress – TR268 .M67 2004). Most of the photos in the book are eight (8) hour exposures!

My original plan was to black out one of the rooms at home and observe the world but following what was set out on this page, I just grabbed a cardbord box and some tracing paper/vellum for my first trial. I figured our pretty quickly that I needed a couple of blankets over the top of me to block out stray light so I could see the projected image better.

The resulting projected images whilst simple, upside down and dim are so cool!! Go grab a box, some tracing paper and a couple of blankets and play with it yourself, fun for the whole family!

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Exploring West End

Mum and I spent went on a little outing this morning to West End browsing, shopping and eating our way along Boundary St, up a few of the side streets and some other places on the way home.
The highlights included:
Bent Books, where Mum picked up the LP book – Trekking in the Karakoram & Hindukush (sigh, wouldn’t it be lovely? We both watched a doco the other week called “Karakoram Highway: The Road To Globalisation” and it is also the where “Three Cups of Tea” is based (my top book of the year if not the last couple of years)).

Swiss Gourmet Deli – looking at all the yummy smallgoods and grocery items, so many wonderful things. We stopped here for morning tea where the lady behind the counter was shocked that we don’t drink coffee .. at all! It was a bit of a laugh. Mum had a Friand and I had a Cannoli. mmm yummy.

Now we continued to stroll down Boundary st, seeing what we could see and just enjoying the “scene”, I picked up a recycled Sari silk bag which is just gorgeous I will have to take a photo of it tomorrow.

The next stop was the real target of the day, ara beeka, the most delectable Lebanese(?) pastry shop. My eyes were twinkling and my mouth was watering at all the pretty pastries and biscuits in the display case. I could have just gobbled up the entire case and died in a nut and sugar bliss. (76 Boundary St, West End).
This is a selection of some of the goodies we got, most of them are priced at about $1 a piece of you can buy by the kilo ($22ish) or half kilo which works out much cheaper if you are buying more a couple. The staff behind the counter are great and up for a laugh as well which was nice.

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The next substantial stop was at the West End branch of the City Library network, it is the cutest little library I have ever seen, it is a very small one room library that is about the size of our lounge room and eating area combined. It was soooo cute!

Then it was The Language People, a bookshop that specialises in mmm well language books from ESL (English as a second language) to Literacy to learning foreign languages. The first thing I checked out here was if they had any Icelandic books and sure enough they did – Colloquial Icelandic, we then had fun seeing what other “rarer” language books they had, I was quite impressed with the range of Tetum books they had.

We then left Boundary St and headed over to Reverse Garbage, one of the most interesting stores in Brisbane. I picked up three partial Letraset sheets for $1.50! Mum scored some assorted fabric pieces for 90c.

The last stop for the day was Simply Good at Alderly which is a loose bulk bin food store with all sorts of wonderful dried fruits, lollies, legumes, nuts, flours etc all at very, very good prices.

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Pretty things

Well the way too short mid-semester break is over and to show for it I have written two essays, caught up on my readings and prepared for an exam this week. As well as a little bit of playing.

Yesterday I made these two headbands and cut out all the pieces for my 21st birthday quilt – Mum paid for the fabric and I am making it. It uses fabric from the Flowershow and Palazzo collections from Benartex.

Between cutting out all the blocks I also made two headbands 🙂

Headbands!

The one on the left uses a pattern from Heather Bailey – Hooray for Headbands and the one on the right uses a pattern from Katie Sue – Reversible Fabric Headband

Now that I have played with two different patterns I plan on merging them a bit for the next one as I like the ties on the Heather Bailey pattern but prefer the tapered cut from Katie Sue as I prefer how it sits on my head.

Now whilst I was having fun at home, Mum went out to a little class and made this most adorable little pouch.
Mum's pouch 20061002_0996Mum's pouch 2

The little stone affair in the middle is one of those glass pebbles that people put in vases covered with a scrap of chiffon. How cool does it look!

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Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey

You might be wondering what the deal is about the title for this post, well even if you weren’t I will tell you anyway. Pabbi has just been diagnosed with the D word aka Diabetes Type II. Currently his blood sugar levels are in a bad way – high 20’s, low 30’s – the normal level is between 4 and 6. Hopefully though as his medicine and diet changes kick in, it will improve.

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The internet is well the internet.
This blog (I really hate that word but let us keep on moving) has reconnected my family to at least three people so far and I think that is pretty cool.
We have hooked back up with Neele who was our first German exchange student in 2001.
My older brother has hooked back up with one of his mates from around the time Matthew was born in 87.
And just the other day I received an email for Mum from a Kiwi lady who knew Mum from the fish factory she worked in Iceland many, many years ago.

All through the power of Google!

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We spent the most delightful time this morning on the phone to Karl, whilst he was wandering round the streets of Berlin at 1am in the morning, killing time between his flights as he heads to Munich/ München for Oktoberfest. Mum started telling Karl about the time she had spent in Berlin and the bullet holes in the buildings, when he asked where they were and Mum of course couldn’t remember. I quickly hopped on Flickr and Google to see what I could find. I found a couple of streets and then by the time I was back on the phone with Karl, he had actually started to walk down one of the streets I had found on the net. Then as we talked, as he walked and looked for bullet holes, he found what he thought could be bullet holes, well more to the point, there was little else they could be – lots of dimples on old stone buildings, which matched with what I saw in photos. The wonders of technology!

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I also just watched the season three opener of Veronica Mars which MSN is showing before it starts on TV in the states next week . Bonus! Play the episode in Windows Media

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I am also in the midst of finishing an essay on the Japanese camera industry and I have to say not only is this essay coming out faster than any other, it certainly rocks writing about something I really enjoy and have a decent knowledge on already. I certainly never thought at the start of this degree that I would be writing an essay on Canon, Nikon, Sony and the like. Certainly pretty cool.