Since I saw the post-mix machine at work yesterday, this 'song' has been in my head. I only think it's fair that I share it. :D

"Ants in the drinks machine, there are..."

Roadtrip! From Melbourne to Nhill to Adelaide and back again.

Started out Thursday night, expoduck and acerbicmuffin met me at work and then we headed off, in slightly the wrong direction - I get so confused sometimes! - once back on the correct road we were off. There was no major incidents on the way to Nhill, just me getting paranoid at the amount of trucks on the road - and a couple sitting right on my tail - and then me getting more paranoid as we drove towards an electrical storm. It was so pretty though. Oh and giant koalas and dinosaurs. I love the country ;)

( Roadtrip! )

Yep, another trip and another chance to stalk sexy Kiwi cricketers. Adelaide this time for the weekend with expoduck and acerbicmuffin and yes, this one was specifically arranged to go to the cricket. We're off to Nhill tonight - town of the famous 'talking' horse - crashing at the folks' place before trundling off tomorrow morning to the city of churches. That's all I got. Full report when I get home again.

Go Black Caps!

My weekend was very pleasant, thank you. Flew up on Friday from 16-degree Melbourne, stepping out of the Brisbane Terminal into 30 degrees at about 9.30pm. Mmmm, warm.

Had the quick tour of my sister's house, which will come up really well once they're done with the renovations. I can't believe she wants to get rid of the aqua laminate vanity, olive green hexagonal floor tiles and the light peach floral patterned tiles in the downstairs bathroom! ;)

I would like to join the petition for getting daylight savings for Queensland. I am never, ever going to complain about daylight savings again as waking up at 4.30am when the sun gets up is way too fucking early. Even the birds sounded tired. With Queensland having such a beautiful climate it makes sense to be out later at night, but you can't do anything at night because it's pitch black at 7.00pm. All the shopping hours are normal 9-5, so even though you get up early you still have to wait a couple hours for anything to open. Mental, absolutely mental! We drove past all the theme parks on the Gold Coast and everything was closed at 5. Even Luna Park down here is open late during summer!

Small rant over. I went to the cricket on Saturday as planned, it wasn't a bad day out. Absolutely beautiful day. I'm only slightly sunburnt as I forgot to put sunscreen on my nose and on the top of my head. I had to leave about tea, as Bris!bro-in-law was going to be doing the stats for the basketball on the Gold Coast and I wanted to go. As I was about to leave, the guy beside me asked what part of New Zealand I was from. Oops, may have been cheering for the Black Caps a little too loudly. Then I have to explain I wasn't a Kiwi and we had a nice lovely chat. It's a pity I had to go actually - I was slightly annoyed because of what happened next...

Which was: Bris!bro-in-law swore black and blue the Blaze/Breakers game was on Saturday night. Sweet, I'd like to go and throw things at Shane Heal again, and it also means good seats courtside when you know the statistician. After leaving the kidlets with their aunt and uncle we drove down to the Gold Coast Entertainment Centre. It's a good hour drive. We walked into the centre and almost crashed St Hilda's Year 11 Presentation Dinner. The Blaze/Breakers game is next Saturday. Damn. So we drove back, not wanting to get involved with Schoolies.

Sunday we drove out to Mooloolaba, up on the Sunshine Coast. It's a nice little beach down there. It was pretty windy when we left Brisbane so didn't think to put bathers in, thinking the beach wouldn't be very fun with all that sand getting kicked up. It turned out the beach was rather sheltered and it was really nice out there. The kidlets went for a paddle. Bris!sis and I went went shopping. Not that we bought anything, but was very tempted by some artwork I saw in a gallery. After lunch we headed back to Brisbane and then just veged out until my flight back. Like every time I fly Virgin Blue my flight was delayed and I didn't get home until midnight. Fun. I splashed out and actually paid for my in-flight entertainment as my eyes were hanging out of my head and was too tired to read. I got to watch the Rugby League final replay, started watching the All Blacks/Wales game but found the cricket highlights. In all the news services I heard on Sunday about Australian's win, no-one even mentioned those beautiful sixes by Tim Southee at the death. That was a nice surprise when I watched it on the plane. Pity he didn't come in earlier.

I am off to Brisbane tonight, primarily to visit my sister, but by a happy coincidence the Aus v NZ Test just happens to be on the at 'Gabba. I might take in day three. ;)

I picked a good week to go! My sister informed me yesterday that they had 4 inches of rain in the previous two days. And she's not even in the bad areas. Apparently it's devastation only two suburbs away from her. They chose their house well.

I'm slightly trepidacious flying up tonight as there are thunderstorms forecast again for this evening. I don't particularly want to be in a big metal box flying into the heart of that!

Anyway, hopefully NZ won't lose any more wickets today so I can see Dan bat tomorrow.

Go Black Caps!

I saw a number plate today:
V DL 011

For those cricket fans playing at home (and my icon should give it away) guess how I read that? How sad.

Made even sadder by the fact they stole my idea.

Oh, I love my country. When our national sport (in the view of a Victorian) is not played by anyone else in the world, we find the closest realtive, change the rules a little and get a test series of Australia v Ireland in International Rules Football. What a manic, insane game it is. But thoroughly engaging.

I'd say it's virtually Gaelic football, played on the square pitch with a round ball with goalkeeper, with just a few AFL rules added in. For example when running with the ball you can either kick the ball to yourself (Gaelic) or bounce it (AFL). They've retained the AFL behind posts beside the Gaelic goal. All together there is 3 types of scoring: goal (into the net - 6), over (over the cross bar - 3) and behind (between the goal and behind posts - 1)

Though they are supposed to be playing the same game, there are obviously differences between the countries. If everyone was wearing the same shirt you'd be able to tell who was AFL and who was Gaelic just by their ground game. Especially when the ball was loose and the AFL boys would go in to grab the ball with their hands, rather than kicking it clear like the Irish. I had my eyes closed when that happened a few times. A few feet were getting very close to heads.

It was really exciting though. It seemed a quicker game than AFL, just for the smaller ground and shape of the ball I'd say. Not that AFL is slow by any means, there's a lot more ground to cover with a weird shaped ball.

Oh, Austrlia lost by the way. But it was pretty close, only 4 points in it.

And the ill mood is not due to the football, but from seediness I'm still feeling after quite a large one last night. *damns Jamesons to hell*

- Put your music player on random.
- Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (Since I have a lot of the same artist I skipped to the next new artist)
- Let everyone guess what song and artist the lines come from.
- Bold the songs when someone guesses correctly.

( here be song lines... )

I'm having a very "can't be bothered" sort of day, which is not good as I'm at work. I have a view of the gorgeous day 27-degree day outside and I just want to be out in it, reading a book.

I suppose I could have gone down into the city to watch the Grand Final parade, but to be honest I really don't give a flying about Geelong and/or Hawthorn. Yet, I will be watching the GF just as I do every year. It takes all my effort to say this, but go Hawks.

I went to an NBL match last night. The only other one I ever went was about 17 years ago and those teams don't even exist any more. Anyway, my current* team - the South Dragons - went down do my previous current* team, the Townsville Crocodiles. We could have won it too, if we didn't let them have an almost 30-point lead at half time. *rolls eyes*

*I have to say current as all my basketball teams seem to fold or merge. :(

A short history of my basketball supporting:
Southern Saints - merged with Eastside Spectres to form...
South-East Melbourne Magic - merged with North Melbourne Giants to become...
Victoria Titans - changed their name back to Victoria Giants - which I refused to support as I never liked North Melbourne so therefore began to support...
Townsville Crocodiles - my favourite player went up to play for them so I thought that was a good a reason as any to follow them, but then...
South Dragons - became new team in the NBL, began supporting them as they remind me of my beloved Magic (I miss the Magic still)

It's quite difficult to get involved in a sport when you keep losing your team. It gets very frustrating after a while. However all of this could have been avoided if I had taken up allegiance with the Melbourne Tigers who have remained an NBL stalwart since 1984.

Stolen fromlokicarbis 

When you see this, post another Buffyverse quote in your own Livejournal. Let's see how long we can make it.

I'm sure this one has been taken...

I wear the cheese, the cheese does not wear me.

Our server has crashed at the office, which means we can't do any work as all out files were stored on its hard drive and the back up hasn't backed up since the 10th! And only one of our other 7 computers can read the back up disk.

You would think I'd be over the moon about no having to do any work, but I am so bored!

*hugs weet-bix*

 

Puddings!

That's the only way I can discribe the pudding display I witnessed this afternoon. I'm sure there were supposed to be 36 finely tuned sportsmen out on that field, but the 18 in the royal blue and gold were definitely puddings. There was the odd flash of brilliance from the puddings but all too soon it faded. I include myself as the biggest pudding of all for supporting them!

*sighs* 100-point pudding drubbing. I'm off to drown myself in sausage rolls...

I had a good day on Monday. (Probably only interesting to me)

I bought my new phone (as most people would know as I can't stop going on about it). It's very shiny and the screen automatically changes from portrait to landscape depending on the angle you're holding it. Very shiny indeed!

Even though we had drawings due on the gone Friday, I didn't have anyone hassling me at work all day, which meant I could get some work done.

I got to leave work earlier than normal. I had to babysit the munchkin nieces, but not to be looking at lines is a God-send. I'd been working late most of last week and had come in on the weekend, I was so happy about the standard 8 hour day.

The munchkins were angels. No tantrums, they did what I said, went to bed when they had to. Wonderful. Also my sister had cooked dinner for me by the time I got there.

When I got home there was a big package on the hall stand for me. My scarves had finally arrived!! I'd been waiting two weeks and they're brilliant. So warm and pretty. (Ok, ok. They are actually tartan scarves of my footy team; one it the old school colours and one in the new and improved colours of the new millennium - but still pretty to me)

Also as I walked in the door, The Scary Teacher informed me I had a letter from New Zealand. Hm, strange, but interesting.

So after the fantastic day I had the only thing that let it down was the speeding fine from the NZ police, which was definitely me driving as it was on my way to the cricket in Napier. Bugger. Even though I was 14kms over the limit it's only NZ$80 - brilliant. Cheapest speeding fine I've ever had!

Pete 2 who shares my office has just used the phrase 'unguarded muffin'. Guess which song I can't get out of my head.

And one has just appeared on my desk. Surprise blueberry muffin, my favourtie. Thanks Pete 1. :D

*sings* It is the job that doesn't end, it just goes on and on, my friend. Some people starting building it not knowing what it was and we'll continue building it forever just because it is the job that doesn't end, it just goes on and on, my friend. Some people starting building it not knowing what it was and we'll continue building it forever just because it is the job that doesn't end, it just goes on and on, my friend. Some people started building it not knowing what it was and we'll continue building it forever just because it is the job that doesn't end, it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

I am back in Melbourne. *sigh*

( My trip. )

Skip to the end. It was a long driving trip. I have jade, mud, honey, toys and blueberries. :)

Only three more official sleeps and I'll be in Kiwiland. Yay! I am looking forward to it like you won't believe. Not only for that fact that I'm leaving the country, but I have 10 whole days where I don't have to think about McDonald's. Woot!

We have everything booked. I have my cricket ticket safe and sound. We're going to see Split Enz in Wellington. I'm ecstatic about that. They sold out Rod Laver in Melbourne and I missed them. So I may have squeaked when I saw there were tickets left, and squeaked even louder when I realised they were playing the only night we were in Wellington.

I bought myself a new toy for the occasion. I've actually made it into the 21st century and am now the proud owner of a digital camera. It's very cute and snazzy and appropriately, for me, black. Now I just have to work out how to use it.

I was ready to say this was a load of old honk, but Oh. My. Lord!

( stolen birthday meme )

The Scary Teacher and myself have decided to go to New Zealand again. She is booking the flight as I type. I am really quite excited. We only toured the South Island last time, so over Easter we'll be seeing the North.

Like the sad cricket tragic I am, there is a plan to go to the Napier Test. As the Scary Teacher hates cricket with a fiery passion, she'll be taking a wine tour while I sit in the sun all day (hopefully) and look at Dan Vettori.