Update on my fundraising efforts

Woo hoo! Only $95 to go until I hit my target, and since it's payday tomorrow I'm going to cash in on a few pledges. Don't think I'm stopping at $1500!!

If you happen to be reading this and have suddenly though "ooh, that's a good idea...I'll go do my donation now", you can do so on the website here, or if you know me and are in the vicinity I can take cash, cheque or card.

Tassie, you're all in line for some serious begging when I get there next week, so get those wallets out...it really is a great cause after all.

thanks so much to everyone who's already been so generous!

J. (soon to be know as "baldy", "nude-nut" and other rude names for people with no hair)

Happy Launceston Cup Day

to all my Friends in Lonnie....

even though I've never been to the Launceston Cup, for various reasons. Or the races at all. Ever. In my whole life.

Hint, anyone?

I feel a bit dirty...

I admit it, I watched the Oscars last night.

I usually hate awards ceremonies. Actually I always do. I didn't even get any particular enjoyment out of it last night. I think that they're such industry w*nks where overpaid people sit around and pat each other on the back for doing such a good job of failing completely to make the world a better place.

Can you imagine the world tuning in to watch the International Finance Forecaster's Awards? No? Why not? Boring? Hmmm...more boring than the Oscars?

But somehow they suck you in. I was literally just changing channels, waiting for something to start on another channel. I was lured by the frocks and the shoes.

Anyway, since I've already admitted I watched it (apart from the big award at the end, that happened after I fell asleep), and since every other person on the planet seems to have an opinion, here are my expert [sic] opinions on the night....

1. Too much long straight hair, pulled over one shoulder. You look like you have a pet otter draped over there, straighted to within an inch of it's life (or beyond)
2. Far too many fishtail frocks. Not good in it's hey-day, this look hasn't improved just because they made Dreamgirls
3. Kirsten Dunst. What were you thinking?
4. Ellen, I really wanted you to be funny. Pity that only worked out about half the time.
5. Al Gore. Congratulations. If there were an award for funniest moment of the night, I would have awarded it to you!
6. Maggie Gylenhaal - didn't you just have a baby? Have you been living on lettuce leaves and water ever since?
7. Clint Eastwood - glasses can make you look intelligent. Especially when the alternative is looking like you're illiterate.
8. Yep, all that back-slapping "aren't we wonderful" sentiment after announcing this year's to be the most multi-cultural Oscars ever. Doesn't seem like such a good idea when you've got people giving acceptance speeches that are "gasp" not in English (or the US version thereof).

So there you go. I think I'll go have a shower now. For the next three weeks. At least.

An other food brag.

After many year of preparing burritos, a commonly cooked recipe from my repertoire of vegetarian delights, I decided to get all adventurous last night.

I think that I may, just possibly, have perfected the burrito.

Ow ow ow!

Note that that's two less "ow"s than yesterday, and less exclamation marks too.

So I'm a lot less sore than I was yesterday.

but still 3 "ow"s more than usual.

Pre-emptive post

I was going to write a post whinging about the state of my laptop...the fact that it's had the umpteenth bit replaced costing me yet another fortune. The fact that I lost stuff this time. The fact that it came back this time with absolutely nothing on it - no drivers, software or files.

But I've beaten myself to the punch. New laptop ordered today and on the way. Fast and big memory and still under warranty!

Yay! Posts from home will be a possibility once again!

Ow Ow ow ow Ow!!!

I did a Rogaine yesterday. 6 hours of running around in the rain, up hills and down stairs and up stairs and down hills and across streets and along the beach and over bridges and down paths.

All while alternately getting rained on periodically or feeling like we had our own personal saunas happening inside our parkas.

Lots of map reading, a bit of map-misreading, navigation and confusion.

Did we win? Far from it.

Did we get wet? Wet would be an understatement.

Did everything hurt by the time we'd finished? Hell, yeah.

Does everything hurt even more today? I can barely walk. I think "hobble" would be a more accurate description of what I'm doing to get from place to place.

Did we have any fun at all? Lots and lots and lots. :-)

Thanks Danielle and Kate & Andrew

p.s. I'm still going to whinge lots. It really does hurt!

Ummmm..... \:-/

Yep, um, hello to the person who game here by searching for "jacki's videos toy love"

I actually hope you didn't find whatever it was you were looking for.

J.

Oooh....new word!

i love this one.....


apogee \AP-uh-jee\, noun:
1. The point in the orbit of the moon or of an artificial satellite that is at the greatest distance from the center of the earth.
2. The farthest or highest point; culmination.

Hmmm...is this how it's supposed to work?

Good News: Another 2 items crossed off my list at the end of the day!!

Bad News: Another 4 items added to the list by the end of the day. :-(

Something I've never done before

I'm not referring to the shaving-the-head thing (again)

I'm planning a baby shower.

Do you have any idea how much information and how many different ideas are are there on the internet for such activities?

Well, if you don't, I can tell you: It's a lot.

Anyone have any good stuff they'd like to share? It's for the lovely Bec and I'd really quite like it to be a lovely day.

Hello strangers

Hi all, or anyone still out there reading!

Apologies for the Zen Minimalist posts lately. Serious case of the busies at work over the last week or two.

Have finally gotten a huge piece of work finished that has taken us literally since December , so am now in the process of working my way through the list of all the other stuff that was put on the back-burner since then. 19 entries on the to-do list as of this morning, and I've managed to have a bit of a power day and cross 5 off today so far and counting.

I'm going to try to get a bit further through a couple of items and then head back for a big juicy post. Well, tomorrow at the latest or you can give me a slap on the wrist.

Remember Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books? Any votes on the topic for the next post...

1. For me whinging about my dodgy laptop problems go to page 37
2. For my new favourite recipe go to page 15
3. For my take on Chinese New Year go to page 72
4. For more hilarious stories of Sydney Public Transport go to page 66
5. If you don't like any of these ideas go to hell

"How long is Happy Hour?"

I love moments when people (preferably people other than myself) say things like this.

That whole "maybe I should have thought that through a second before letting it jump out of my mouth as a sentence" type of moment.

by the way - it wasn't actually me who came up with this gem, in case you were wondering.

2 thirds of the way!!!

Woo Hoo!! My fundraising efforts are going so well. I've just passed the $1000 mark!!! Only $485 to go until I reach my target.

Looks like the whole head-shaving thing is going to definitely happen. Gulp!

Another List

In the interests of fairness and equity, I believe another list may be in order.

Things that aren't annoying me at all this morning

1. I got a new pair of shoes yesterday. They are shiny and new.
2. The sun is shining
3. I have had lots of generous donations for my fundraising efforts
4. I have impending holidays
5. I got a new pair of shoes yesterday. They are shiny and new.
6. I'm having lunch with Bec and she makes me laugh
7. Did I mention I have some shiny new shoes?
8. Plus the shoe place is fixing my old ones that I broke when I tripped over last week.
9. Shiny, shiny shoes.

A list of things that are annoying me this morning.

1. My laptop. Stupid machine.
2. Mondays
3. My breakfast shop who put their prices up when they were already overpriced
4. My finger. It hurts. Jammed it when folding up the sofa-bed yesterday. Ouch.
5. The Internet. Well, it's OK now, but we have had no access all morning until now. How dare it be out there with all that information and me not be able to get any of it?
6. Sydney Water. Sending me nasty letters even though they were the one's who stuffed up and had my address wrong.
7. Whoever has been giving out my number as the contact for any number of resourcing issues handled by another area of my team. I don't know about this stuff!!!
8. Unhelpful Customer Service staff who automatically blame someone else for mistakes before even checking their facts.
9. Adobe Acrobat. Just didn't feel like working this morning, apparently. Making it necessary for me to manually produce all 86 reports this morning. A task that normally takes about 10 minutes. I've just finished and it's taken me 2.5 hours.

That is my whinge for the day. That will be all.

A sensational piece of lateral thinking

Check this out

One third of the way there

Thanks to everyone who have made generous donations so far to my World's Greatest Shave fundraising drive. I've crossed the $500 mark this morning!!!

Only $1000 to go.

Can you tell I'm focusing on the money. I'm in active denial about the whole losing the hair thing.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far. As for everyone else, well I'll be hunting you down this afternoon!

J.

It's pay day

Feel free to share the love around here

Request

I have a real thing going for bran muffins at the moment. A shop nearby sells great ones, but they're extortionately expensive.

Does anyone have a good recipe?

I might even make enough for everybody.

Updated Shavos Info

All my reciept books and stuff arrived yesterday. Well, maybe earlier, but I checked the mailbox last night and it was all there.

Anyone wishing to donate in person please let me know.

Cheers,

J.

The gentle art of throwing your voice

You don't see many new ventriloquists around these days, do you?

I did see a really good one on the telly late last night (slight touch of insomnia drove me to watch a TV show I normally hate).

I must say I was pretty impressed...2 puppets and yodelling, and I never once was able to pick the mouth moving when it wasn't suppoed to be.

How do you get into a profession like that?

What skills do you need to be a good ventriloquist?

I've never given it ago. Anyone every tried it?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone's day is full of warm and mushy feelings.

And Happy Anniversary to the boy.

Cityrail apologises for any inconvenience

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a bit of a change at the station lately?

The electronically copied and pasted together announcements in the dulcet tones of Gretel Killeen appear to have been replaced by a real live person doing the announcements.

Why has this happened? One can only theorise (since a quick search of their website shed no light whatsoever on the matter)

Either...

1. The auto-thingy is broken. It happens to the trains enough, after all. this has got to be a likely scenario
2. It's a ploy to make people feel more empathy towards city rail. The chap does sound rather friendly. Let's see how excited he is after a couple of months of continuous train announcement, though.
3. Gretel's tried to renegotiate her contract. BB is losing ratings every season. CityRail is having none of it.
4. Some train driver's broken his thumb or something and can't drive. He's on worker's comp anyway, so they thought they'd put him to good use and stop him gettnig bored.
5. Nothing's really changed, I've just finally lost the plot and am hearing voices.

what does everyone else think?

Speaking of my mailbox...

Speaking of my mailbox...(were we?) I think that last post requires further explanation.

It's not that I walk past my mailbox several times a day and yet fail to empty it.

I live in an apartment complex with a centralised mail room.

It's actually a bit of a walk to get there from my door. I go in the side gate from the train and directly to the basement if I'm driving, and out the opposite side gate if I'm heading up to Newtown. Hence, I don't actually tend to go past my mailbox very often. Only on weekend mornings when I head down to get my weekend newspaper from the shop of a coffee from the cafe.

And last weekend the boy was up early (due to falling asleep watching telly at 8pm) and went and got the paper and a coffee for me, so there was no mailbox run.

Just in case you were wondering.

Because you might have been.

2 Days until pay day.

I'm counting on a big influx of donations to my big fundraising effort. I seem to have stalled the last couple of days.

Still waiting on the receipt book...maybe I should actually check the mailbox tonight when I get home. Then everyone's in trouble...I'll be stalking people's desks, doing the rounds, and hitting up everyone who comes to my desk to ask for work to be done. It's gonna cost them!

Tee hee. I kind of like that idea.

If you don't need any work done, but want to donate anyway...you may do so here

Is it wrong of me....?

...to laugh at the guy who tripped over the phone cord on the way out of the meeting room near my desk?

Tee hee hee

I've just realised why I have so many accidents. I'm not clumsy, you see, it must be karma.

Better Mood today

It's be hard to be in a worse one.

And I realised when I got home that, even though I am a staunch and vocal fan of summer rather than winter, there are a couple of winter things that are very nice. I got to use them last night.

Slippers. Warm, fluffy, daggy-with-purple-hearts-on-them, comfortable, make-you-feel-better slippers.

Soup. With hot buttered toast. Home-made with chunky vegetables and beans.

Feather doonahs. Enough said.

It's not enough to make me a winter-person. But it's a start.

Some Improvement

I'm now only damp.

My lunch is really tasty. No less than 7 people walking past my desk (yep, tragically, I'm eating lunch at my desk again) commented on how good it smelled. Chickpea & vegetable curry with brown rice. Yum.

The internet seems to be particularly funny today. It started with CheddarVision, and was followed by Personal Submarines and my personal favourite: Psychic Museum Closes its Doors Due toUnforseen Circumstances.

I'd still rather be in a hot bath with a cup of tea and a packet of tim tams.

The whole Sad Story

Firstly, some background - I have a skun knee. Another story altogether...who'd have thought it was a bad idea to walk down the street and read the newspaper at the same time? Anyway, it's quite sore, especially walking. Especially especially walking up or down stairs.

So I get up this morning and get ready for work. It's raining a bit, so I grab my umbrella on the way out the door.

Of course, as soon as I step out into aforementioned rain, deluge begins. Umbrella basically useless in the face of the sheets of water pouring from the sky. Sore knee. Running imposible. So wet that my shoes keep slipping out from under my feet because of the amount of water between my feet and the soles of my shoes. Finally arrive at the station, completely drenched from the waist down, and decidedly damp everywhere else.

I've missed my train. Of course. This is the photo I took once I'd arrived at the station.

Catch the next train. Still wet.

More background - the late train runs around the city circle in the opposite direction to the early train. This makes my journey longer so on mornings when I take the late train, I usually jump off at Central, run down the stairs for my platform, up the stairs to another platform and hop on a train going the right direction.

This morning I decided not to switch trains and to just deal with the whole city circle loop. Sore knee. Stairs hurt. Soaking wet. Already late for work anyway.

Of course. Train delayed. Stuck at Circular Quay. Train delayed. Lovely view of the bridge. Or there would be, if it wasn't raining so hard that I couldn't even see that far?

Finally get to my station. Now it's so late that my breakfast place has run out of scrambled eggs. Still wet. Knee hurts.

Get to work. Still wet. Realise we're about to push a forecast that doesn't contain any of the public holidays I so painstakingly collated for 2007. Hmmm, looks like about a full day of rework to be done. Just what I asked Santa for.

I've been at work for 2 and a half hours now. Still wet. Now also freezing. Wandering around barefoot as my shoes are still so wet that they're making my feet even colder. I put my jumper on, but it was in my bag when I was in the rain, and so is also wet. Not helping.

Grumble, grumble. Is it all over yet? I think I need a hot bath. Maybe a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits.

Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed.

Today's been one of them so far.

If a Celebrity dies and there's nobody around to throw a press conference...

So, Anna-Nicole Smith died this morning.

Tragic. Tragic end for a tragic lady with a bit of a tragic life.

Not funny at all. Kind of sad, really.

I heard the news on Sunrise this morning while I was getting ready for work.

Might have been a bit, funny, however, watching the Sunrise gossip correspondent, Nelson, trying to be diplomatic whilst discussing recent events in the aforemention deceased's life. Admittedly, he didn't do a bad job, considering the complicated and convoluted subject matter.

Tee hee.

My Rock-Star Moment

It's Friday - casual dress day at the office.

I decide on a bit of a Rock-chic ensemble...jeans, black logo t-shirt.

I accessorise accordingly...funky hat, overly-long chandelier earrings with silver lightning bolts at the ends.

I take off for work, walking up the road, feeling pretty good.

The wind picks up, flicks my nice sharp lightning bolts around, which are on lovely overly long earrings just long enough that they can flick me in the face and eyes.

Ouch.

I'll bet I looked pretty cool having my rock-star moment on the street.

An email conversation

I had plans for dinner with my friends Bridget and Catriona this weekend. A true copy of our email conversation:

B: Can I please take a raincheck on our drinks this Sat? I have gone out
way too much the past 2 weeks and I am now paying for it. I really need
a quiet weekend in on the couch resting my old bones.

J: Yeah, actually it's been bloody busy for me lately too, plus my laptop
is in for repairs and is bound to be bloody expensive.
Catriona - are you OK with a raincheck?

C: No worries at all- I have been quite sick the past few days and think i
need a bit of recuperation myself!

B: So it's agreed. We are all getting old and soft!

J: That's the same as mature and full-flavoured if you happen to be a cheese
or a wine!

C: and i am totally a cheesy wino!!

The bald truth

It's been quite funny to see the reactions of people to my recent pledge to do the World's Greatest Shave.

It's ranged from people offering to donate money for me not to do it, right up to someone who thought it was so funny they'd happily shell out the lot just to make sure I am bound to go through with it!

It's a funny thing, hair. Quite a lot of how you look and how you feel really depends on it. There's a huge industry built around colouring it, cutting it, shampoo, conditioner, hair masks, treatments, hairbrushes, combs, blow-dryers, hair straighteners, elastics, hair clips, scrunchies, hairbands, gels, mousses, waxes, hairsprays and styling products. God knows, I have a bathroom full of this stuff.

I've always been a bit proud of my hair. It's naturally (yes, really) blonde and straight and usually quite shiny and bouncy.

So from one perspective, I guess that's what makes it such a scary thing to contemplate. Who will I be without my hair? What will I do with no hair on special dress-up occasions? What if I look like an alien?

But then I kind of think about the other hand as well. Maybe it will be liberating. I won't have to brush my hair in the morning and try to untangle the birds nest. I won't wake up with hair in my face and mouth. I won't have to find novel ways of keeping it out of my way while I'm working, cleaning, walking, breathing....

Most likely it'll be a bit of both. Either way, it's still enough to give me butterflies whenever I think about it. Wish me luck.

Tonight I'm Going to....

• Go straight home from work.
• Change into clothes that are stretchy
• Kick off my shoes
• Turn off the phone
• Cook myself dinner
• Sit on the couch and watch telly.

Ahhh...it's been a busy week. A night with nothing on is a luxury. I'll be in heaven.

:-)

Committed

No, not talking about what I should be due to my dubious mental state.

Talking about the fact that I'm now committed to participate in the World's Greatest Shave.

It's a great fundraiser for cancer research.

And I have to Shave my head if I raise enough money. Gulp!

So go on, hop onto the link and feel free to sponser me. It's tax deductible and all.

Gulp.

Good thing I have a lot of hats.

Gulp

I may never leave my computer again

I have a new favourite website.....

check it out here when you have a few free hours....

Cool Link...literally.part 2

Strange Weather Phenomenon in New Foundland

Stairways to doom

what is it with me and Escalators. Trust me there's even more stories about me falling over on escalators than I've mentioned so far on here.

And I just did it again. Absolutely no good reason. Just riding up the escalator with my lunch. Pow. Fallen over. How does that work?

Ow.

Happy Birthday to You...

Aunty Nene!!

21 again.....

Celebrations started yesterday with a lovely afternoon in the sun in Erskineville, drinking a few cold ones (soft-drinks, of course) and the odd cocktail.

Thanks to our (unexpected and highly surprising) restraint....(Sandy's out of town at the moment. Connection?) we are all primed again for the family dinner tonight. (I'm getting an honourary invitation).

Have a great day, babe.

J.

Cool Link...literally

Check it out