random life & musings – Page 40

November 25, 2007

oh happy day!

That’s what I am singing today.

The election last night didn’t go 100% as I wanted it to go but I am extremely happy with the House of Reps result, slightly cheesed about the Senate (below the line peoples, below the line), sad for the Democrats, but so so happy for the Greens. Extremely happy for Queensland. Extremely happy for the future of this wide brown land.

We spent the night round the TV last night, watching the ABC, I was listening to Roy & HG call it on Triple J whilst I was in my bedroom processing these photos. So looking forward to the Chaser’s election wrap up on Wednesday night. Would have loved to have heard what Tim Freedman would have said at the Concert Hall last night on hearing that the Terror had ended. Happy for the future of this country.

Yesterday morning I got up round 3am to go out and get these photos. I was close to going back to bed but I said to myself, today is going to mark the dawn of a new era, I need to have those photos. I went out to Shorncliffe to watch the sunrise over Fisherman’s Island with my camera. It was cloudy, it was very windy but the sun did peek through those clouds and give me a promise of what was coming later in the day.

November 23, 2007

a word or two of advice

Tomorrow marks a very big day in the future of Australia. I won’t tell you who you should vote for as it is pretty darn obvious we need a change. As Tim Freedman said tonight, I wrote this song in 1997, I have never played it under a Labour government, I would like that chance.

A phrase that I picked up from Tim Freedman tonight is this. We have a country that is a society not an economy. Remember that. This builds on something that the Chilean president said “We do not believe in a society of consumers. We believe in a society of citizens”. When did it become the norm for Politicians to spend more time campaigning in shopping centres than they do anywhere else?

At the end of the day Australia is about the people, it is about you, it is about me, it is about of all of us. It is about knowing that the Australia that we talk so passionately about still exists. Bring back the ideology I say.

Vote below the line tomorrow and don’t vote thinking only about your hip pocket. Vote with your brain and your heart. The economy does, will and can look after itself. Vote for what you know is right in your brain and heart about the future of this country, not just the future of the interest rate. Vote for the future of the environment, for a fair go at work, for better healthcare and education.

Vote for something that you believe in. Let us all be citizens again instead of consumers.

November 23, 2007November 23, 2007

Dymo Desires

I have a Dymo at work. I have one at home as well but that is an old school one.
I have a secret desire to label things.
I want to put calculator on the stapler.
I want to put unrelevant phrases such as the sky is green on my phone or strength tester on the hole punch.
I want to put open on the door to one of the utes out in the yard.
I want to label the photocopier the beast.
I want to label a coffee cup with large hazelnut latte.
I want to put out on the in tray and in on the out tray.
Oh it could be fun.

November 22, 2007

Lazy Sunday

I need to stop going off on tangents. I sit down to do one thing and end up 45mins later somewhere else and having barely touched what I sat down to start.

Last Sunday was a Sunday. Not one of those Sundays but one of those Sundays. Sundays where we spend the arvo at the Farm. Sundays where we get out of the car and a minute later are sprawled out on Grandad’s bed talking about the week, what we have seen in the paper today or of course just plotting world domination plotting world domination with Grandad

Those Sundays are also about going for a walk. Though this Sunday it started raining so we went back inside to read instead. I caught up on my National Geographics. Matthew slept. Pabbi read/slept/just lazed around.

November 17, 2007December 24, 2007

Saturday Arvos

Nothing quite like a Saturday or more exact a Saturday Arvo. Spent the arvo picking Basil leaves for “normal” Genovese pesto and Lemon Basil leaves which I think will become a pesto with a bite to it, in the way of chillies and a decent dash of lemon juice. mmm just thinking about the idea now, I can just see a bowl of rice noodles with a bit of the pesto, some cashews and perhaps some steamed Asian greens.

Saturday arvos are also about sitting on a milk crate in the back yard listening to some fine Australian music, chopping up tomatoes and capsicums to go in the dehydrator. In a day or two we will have the most gorgeous semi-dried tomatoes. Some of which will get used to make a tomato pesto. Gee do you think I might like pesto? Really though how can you not. Just a handful of ingredients, a bit of love and tasting and you end up with the most flavoursome “sauce/paste” that can be used in/on just about anything.

Saturday arvos are also about mowing the lawn. Which I did this arvo.

Saturday arvos are also about sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, cutting out snippets for books or exhibitions that we want to check out. Speaking of exhibitions to be checked out, it is only 22 more sleeps till the Andy Warhol retrospective opens at GOMA and to say I am excited would be an understatement :). The even cooler thing? Andy Warhol or more precisely 300 of his works are only coming to Brisbane, they are not going to those two cities down south who always talk about their capital C Culture. Yay for GOMA :D. I am so looking forward to the Andy Warhol retrospective and I have a good feeling that it won’t disappoint me as much as the Guggenheim in Melbourne did. 22 sleeps also till the big opening bash which is going to feature some of Brisbane’s finest artists including Robert Forster, Adele Pickvance & Dylan McCormack doing a bunch of Velvet Underground songs. The even better part? tickets are only $25. They go on sale on Monday – I am getting some for sure 😀

I have just finished my last run through my photos from the De Jah Groove/Cool Calm Collective/Heavyweight Champions/The Colour gig last night (which was a pretty darn decent night) before I send them off to the marvellous batcher. I started using Lightroom a month or so ago and it has sped up my processing so much. I dump the photos, walk away and let it import them/render previews (takes a while on my beast), come back flick through and mark my rejects and give a rating to the photos I have narrowed down, flick through to make sure they all look ok and then off to the batcher they go. Lightroom is nice.

For a change I am also listening to 4MBS Classic FM at the moment and the most delightful piece has has just finished playing (Brahm’s Hungarian Dancers 1-10) everything else has also been quite delightful.

October 30, 2007October 31, 2007

Unlike a yoyo craze, unlike a marble phase

I love it everyday – Spaghetti Bolognaise!

Life is an interesting thing. Or perhaps more the internet is an interesting thing or even more precise Facebook. Last Sunday night Mum and I went to see Peter Combe. The very next day I got a message on Facebook saying that Catherine Riddle had added me as a friend.

Catherine and I grew up together. A fair swack of my childhood was spent playing in Catherine’s back yard, swimming in the pool, playing dress-ups in her Mum’s old ballet costumes and generally just having fun. We went to the same primary school but after her dad spent a year on exchange in England and they went up to Charters Towers to live/teach we pretty much lost contact. We have seen each other a few times over the years but I don’t think I have seen Catherine for probably four years now. I nearly fell off my chair when I got the notification on facebook because a few weeks before when I had joined facebook again as it now seemed like all my friends had it now, one of the first people I searched for was Catherine but she wasn’t to be found.

This is us when we are young tykes, Catherine and I had just turned 4 ( our birthdays are 10 days apart) and Matthew was/still is my little brother.

What made it all the more special was that the night before as Mum and I were walking down the steps out of the Zoo after seeing Peter Combe, Mum was commenting on how Margaret (Catherine’s mum) had introduced us to Peter Combe as I was mentioning that a lot of my friends had not been exposed to Peter when they were young and that she was going to send Margaret a letter and her Peter Combe ticket.

Peter Combe was a fantastic night. The Zoo was sold out and it was full of newspaper hats and pure glee amongst the punters who had forgotten just how much we had loved Peter Combe as children and that we would still sing those songs word for word. I can’t wait for him to come back north again as I would be there in a split second. I have gone to a fair amount of concerts and whilst there was no fancy lights or sound effects, I have to say I think it was the only concert I have been to where every single person there had a huge grin on their face all night long.