all things me

While we were sitting on the subway, a colleague of mine said I should throw a house-warming party when I finally get to move into my new apartment. A really good idea, but I have a problem: I’ve never been to a house-warming party!

What do people do at a house-warming party?
What should I serve? (I’m not going to serve alcohol.)
Do I need to have seats for everyone or are people prepared to stand around?

And most importantly: Should I hide my alien collection?

I think I should at least have a sofa and kitchen table + chairs before I invite anyone, but I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to find them! Also, I would hate to see my brand new sofa ruined by food or drink. (Or am I being too obsessive?)

I’m thinking I’d have it on a Thursday or so. Friday nights most people want to go out and get drunk because they don’t have work the next day; and my house-warming party wouldn’t be the best place to spend a Friday night…

Luckily, I have more than 6 months to think this one, too, through.

(What’s up with that misaligned window?)

Tomorrow’s my last day before the 2-week vacation (my first part of vacation — I have 2 weeks left after that). As usual, I’m worried that I haven’t shared enough information with my project manager back-up — or the tech people for that matter. Oh well, I have a few must-do things tomorrow, including a work-related phone call I must make. I’ve been postponing it for eternity because I don’t like official phone calls.

I did make an official phone call quite easily yesterday: I was inquiring about an apartment I heard about through the grapevine but, alas, it had been reserved when I called. Too bad; it would’ve been at an excellent location. The thought of reserving it, though, made me want to get an own apartment — desperately. I’ll have to go to the bank some day to make plans and hear what sort of price range I could consider.

This week has been really busy. On Tuesday I went in to the city for the first time when we had dinner at Sydney Tower (Centerpoint Tower).

The food was really good; I even tried some kangaroo and camel. The camel meat was really tough but the kangaroo was alright. I wouldn’t eat it regularly though. There also were tiny octopi (octopuses) but I wasn’t feeling quite that adventurous. We saw the fireworks they had arranged for the cruiseships Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2.

On Wednesday we went to Stanwell Park for some nice views

and then to Scarborough for some lunch (I had fish and chips — how boring am I?! It was delicious, though). Then we drove down to Wollongong for some more views and choc tops (soft ice with chocolate coating).

On Thursday we went into the city again. We walked through the Rocks (the old part of the city) to the Opera House.

Strolled through the Royal Botanical Gardens to the Library of NSW. There were some nice exhibitions there about old books and escaped convicts. The last stop was the Sydney Aquarium where I saw the platypus! I didn’t know they were so small — only 30 cm (about a foot) long. It was a fast bugger so I couldn’t get a proper picture…

We were knackered from all the walking so we decided to leave the Wildlife World for the next day. So, today we went to the Wildlife World where we saw all kinds of insects, reptiles and of course…

the wombat

the wallabi

and of course, the koala

Unfortunately there were no kangaroos, probably because they need so much space to live in.

I had good luck in shopping too: found a book on Stephen King’s unpublished stories (I forget the name and it’s safely wrapped up) and Dreamfall (PC game). I can’t buy much more — I only have 20 something dollars (AUD) left!

My friend’s mother-in-law took me to Cronulla Beach today. On the way there we drove through a national park and it was like in a jungle there! It was all green even though there had been a bush fire a few years ago. I got an amazing look at the area because there were loads of steep hills. Beautiful!

At the beach we walked through the rocks that are under water at high tides.

We stopped for a bit in the shade

When we got up from the rocks onto the pathway we came across a palm tree!

Quite beautiful, isn’t it?

After the walk we went for a lunch at South Beach Seafood. I had my first taste of fish and chips and also tried some crab. The crab was in a funny looking dough ball with the claw sticking out. Really good though, quite sweet. Then we walked down a street full of shops and I bought some things to take home. Can’t tell what they are yet because my sister’s reading this.

You’d better protect yourself — by locking your computer when you leave the keyboard for even a second. If you don’t, a nasty computer virus may walk by and select you as its next victim.

(It says “Hahaa!!! Your computer’s been infected by a virus!!! You’re a dead man!!!”)

That’s not my screen, though; I always lock my computer.

The other day (Nov 10th) while I was away from my computer for a while, I saw my boss sit there and do something. After thinking “gasp, did I lock the computer” (just instinct, no security issue if he saw what I was working on) I went to look what he was doing. Well, take a look:

The bottom Post-It has, I was told, dog treats (I had to ask what on earth were those) and it reads “yum!”.

(Hmm… I was missing my favourite pen this week, those are maybe written with it. I’ll have to go get it back.)

On Wednesday I was voted employee of the year (thankyouthankyou) — it was a tie, though, and I had eventually won in a paper clip draw. Luckily I won because the other one got a bottle of wine. I got a whopping gift certificate to a fancy restaurant chain so I’m taking my sister, Grandma, and an aunt/godmother to eat. It should be fun but the restaurants are so fancy (everything has mushroom and/or alcohol) that I don’t know if I, let alone my sister, find anything to eat.

Coffee makes you giddy…

Grandma always remembers when the first snow comes each year because she notes it down in her calendar — I never remember (barely remember what I’ve eaten a day before), so I thought this time I’d record it: Last Tuesday (Nov 1st) it snowed for the first time this winter (in my opinion) but it turned to horrible slush by the end of the day. The next day it showed again and that time it stuck. Today we had a wonderful blizzard so I took the above photo through the train window.

The colour is more realistic and the chair does look more comfy. And you know why the picture’s better?

That’s right. I caved in, surrendered, gave up… I bought Nokia N73.

Actually, I did something worse — I got a package deal! I hate package deals. They make people’s lives way too easy. But it allowed me to take the phone home without paying a dime. Sure, I’ll have to pay a whole lotta dimes each month but I figured it’s not a bad deal because in the end, the phone usage (calls and data, I pay for SMSs per message) is not a big part of the monthly fee. And I was planning on changing service providers anyway.

The subscription isn’t working yet because they have to move my number from the current provider but the phone works anyway. It’s good, because now I can play with it and learn it first without having to be afraid that I’m using something that costs a lot.

First impression: I’m loving it!
(I’ll elaborate once I’ve actually used the phone for a while.)

Note to self: Try and postpone buying a memory card until the MU-36 (2GB) is available in Q4/2006. Why wait when you can buy a 2Gb Kingston miniSD right now with less money.