A shameless plug...techAU.tv

It's my blog, I'm allowed to plug things.

If you're a techie or a geek or if you like learning about technology or heck if you're just a friend of Gus then check out techAU.tv

Episode two is an improvement on episode one and I've found their discussions interesting. Also keeping track of the drinks each is having on camera is fun too.

They're a big file to download so I suggest getting ep 2 first as I really enjoyed that one.

Remember, thats techAU.tv

- Jen

Still so young but somehow so much older

Today is birthday number 23. And its been very weird.

Maybe its because its the first birthday I've been away from home for, maybe it is just the fact I'm older and birthdays aren't that exciting anymore. Actually that must be it because I feel the same way about Christmas. I will admit I've been counting down the days to my birthday. I'm not sure why...but like Christmas I think thats more fun than the actual day.

I've done very well present wise; dvd's, an old school style sandwich maker - because its nice having one of the fancy pants sandwich makers that probably irons your clothes for you as well, but I find if you're just toasting sandwiches it makes them too flat. I mean, you could go and eat six of them to make up for two normal sandwiches but bread doesn't grow on trees.

And...a Max Brenner's 'hug mug'. A truly awesome present. I've already had a hot milo in it, and it was delicious.

We aren't going anywhere or doing anything tonight, as we're on a ridiculously tight budget and are living like uni students - so the sandwich toaster will come in handy. I have decided the hardest thing about going on a budget is going on a budget when you have money. Already we've been shocked at the way we've been demonstrating my favourite economic principle, the marginal propensity to consume. Tut, tut.....tut.

Seriously though, we will have to go out for cake or obtain cake. Cake MUST be had. Cheap cake. Cheap delicious cake.

I should go and do something about that.

- Cake Hunter.

Continuum*

It's taken me awhile but I've finally gotten into John Mayer's "latest" album, Continum/um. Unlike all his others which I instantly liked this one kind of crept up on me. I kept playing it in the background when I was on the computer, had it on my ipod (on a good day when it worked). But what sealed it, was the song 'stop this train'. I'm very much as most of my friends know, a lyrics person when it comes to songs. I love 'story songs'. This song really struck a chord with me though. Not literally unfortuantely because still the guitar sits in its corner while I give it long lingering glances. I've had the urge to play it again though so hopefully when I get some spare time..
Anyway! I've put the lyrics below. It's a great song. I actually only really love about 4 songs on the whole album but the rest are nice to listen to.
Been investigating the remaining 'oc' songs I have left to download. Bente if you thought you were sad about missing out on the actual show, I'm devastated because for the past however many years I've been collecting oc music. Basically from the show I go 'oh I like the sound of that', look up the band and in some cases have bought a few of the bands albums. Hello Death Cab for Cutie.
But seriously, if you're an OC fan - get Mates of State - California. If you're missing the show its haunting!! A cover of Phantom Planets opening number for the show. Sniff, now I miss the OC. Not that I watched the last season and a half of it. Still, I will probably buy S4 when it comes out. If only so I have them all.
- Jen
*How do you spell continuum? Two u's? Surely not! Google! You've failed me! I can't trust the cd cover! Its a mystery!

Once in awhile, when it's good, it'll feel like it should

jen_and_schrod
Originally uploaded by trojen_hoarse.

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
I don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
Jen, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in awhile, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I will never stop this train

Other side of the fence

Today I went to Swinburne's career fair, as an 'employer'. Just a little bit different. Myself and another one of last years grads, the ever exuberant Darren went with our graduate manager to promote the ATO graduate program. I've never talked so much in my entire life. About an hour in I thought I was going to lose my voice! I think I managed to talk a few people into applying and in the end it was just like being back at EB selling stuff. A few of the students I talked to I could just pick will get in. They just LOOK like grads!

It's also cool because they've decided this year to put an ex-grad on the interview panel, so hopefully I get to sit in on one. I also had a poke around the career fair but decided to stay put in my public service shell. Some cool sounding grad programs though. Vic Roads sounded good, and masterfoods as usual.

That was my Friday anyway, oh and they also had cakes and pastries from Brunetti's. UNBELIEVABLE!! I cannot get over how good it was. I had what I now know to be a 'coffee mignon' - profiterole filled with coffee custard. But not just your average custard. This stuff just melted out of the profiterole.

Even better thats who they have cater for our graduate program graduation!! Can't wait!!

- Jen

It's not apples.

bruisedApple
Originally uploaded by trojen_hoarse.

I am sick to death of spending time carefully selecting nice, unbruised, firm apples in the supermarket only to get to the checkout and have the checkout guy/chick literally throw them into the bag.

The man always says I need to put them last, that way they will definitely get put on top. Unlike the last time when they got put in the same bag as cans.

His reasoning sounded logical so today I even held onto the apples until the girl had got through all the heavy things. Put them down last waaay at the back. What happens? Girl opens new bag (oops left my recyclers at home) leans down, picks up apples, THROWS them into the bag (with a lovely resounding smack as they hit the bottom) THEN throws a BUNCH of bananas on top.

I got very red in the face and angry. But I didn't say anything. Is it seriously going to make a difference? I tried another time by being nice and saying before hand 'do you mind being gentle with the fruit' 'yeah sure' what happens? smack smack the apples get thrown into the bag.

The reason WHY I'm so angry? I HATE squishy apples. Seriously I might try and eat around the bad bit but if I buy apples and they're bruised when I get them home, I usually won't eat them.

..thats about the end of my apple rant.

Maybe its time to start walking five minutes to safeway instead of 30 seconds to coles?

Mop it, mop it real good

kittenats!
Originally uploaded by trojen_hoarse.

I just had a fantastic idea. It was as I was changing the kitty litter - something we only do about once a week..the rest of the time we just scoop the poop (relax its fine and it doesn't stink). Anyway it was as I was doing this that the bag I was putting the litter bag into split, emptying a weeks worth of pee stained litter all over the kitchen floor (much to the amusement of the cats).

I decided, after cleaning up the mess that I'd have to vacumn and mop the floor. So I ended up doing the whole house, which is what you do when you are related to my mother.

I was emptying the mop bucket into the bath in the hope it might clean the bath a little bit (hey I'm 50% my dad too) and had the great idea of..get this. USING THE MOP TO CLEAN THE BATH! With a little bit of warm tap water I also cleaned the mop! The bath has never been so clean. Keep in mind we have one of those mops with the material bits on it..not a flat sponge one. Sorry, I'm not very clued in on mop terminology.

I really should submit this to the womens weekly and collect some money because I am sure this is one of those $50 good idea things they have.

I have probably shaved twenty minutes off the time it takes to clean your bath. No longer do you need a scrubbing brush and your knees! Or nudity! (or if you're modest your swimmers).

I eagerly await your thankyou emails.

- Jen

A magnetic personality

MRI
Originally uploaded by trojen_hoarse.

Saturday I had the MRI on my knee, Prahran wasn't too hard to get to and I will admit I like that part of town just a little bit.

It only took twenty minutes out of my day but I'm pretty sure it took more than that off my life. If I thought I was scared of vacumn cleaners then the noise that contraption made was like being stuck inside an ENORMOUS vacumn cleaner. This was with my head not being even all the way in it. Lets hope I never have to have one done on my head.

I had one of the jjj hottest 100 cd's to listen to although Missy Higgins wasn't much of a help.

Afterwards we spent the afternoon wandering around the city with Ben and Rel and ended up having lunch at a place in chinatown. You could practically see the salmonella on the plate. Not to mention the place seemed to be some kind of shrine to Deng Xiaoping ex-leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Also, the service was awful.
Pity because the lady out the front hijacking pedestrians was so charming too....

We were all exhausted when we got home and after our stomachs had settled from ice cream and suspicious chinese food, I whipped up some teriyaki beef, followed by a pudding the boys had gone and got from the supermarket.

I know - a packet mix. Still, as seemingly simple as a packet mix is I somehow managed to mix my fingers. Yes, thats right. My fingers - in - the mixer. Not fun. But no blood! It was more of a shock. Normally I'm pretty careful to check its switched off before taking it apart. I did end up with a kitchen full of pudding mix though, and my shirt was pretty colourful too.

Sunday was spent eating hot cross buns and consuming an un-godly amount of Max Brenners. Usually we're pretty good and just have a hot chocolate and some of the strawberreis you dip in the chocolate. Well strawberries I dip in the chocolate. The man finds its much easier if you actually use your tongue to lick out the chocolate pot. Who would have thought? Yesterday though the man had a chocolate mousse as well, which I might add he got halfway through eating and realised the 'bowl' he was eating out of was actually chocolate too. He has since sworn off chocolate forever. I give him until this afternoon.

This morning I hit the gym and got the trainer there to show me how to lift free-weights instead of the machines which I don't really trust. I lift free weights in my super circuit classes but don't have much time to make sure I'm doing it properly.

RSVPs are going well for the engagement party...with no-one actually saying they aren't going to come (yet). Still two more invites to get sent out (my bad) I should really do that today.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

- Jen

Our nation's capital - part two

Saturday the man nipped out with the boys (George, Baz and Joely) while liz and I ..hung out.

Besides becoming incredibly frustrated with the stupidity of optus world staff both at the woden and civic stores (if any of you read this - you're probably high on my list of stupidest sales people I've ever encountered). Liz needed her phone repaired and all of the replacement phones in Canberra were out. So she had to relinquish her phone and therefore contact with the outside world. But hey, Optus kindly offered ring her when the phone was fixed. 'On what phone'????

I stepped in with what I thought was a good suggestion - what about email??? Nope, can't do email - but we can text message. The circle continued.

Once we had some lunch - greasy food ahoy - I had a kangaroo burger that I thought was passable. Again, I made the mistake of forgetting that if I don't do something, other people don't either. It's been a long time since I had butter on something, and white bread too!

That night we headed over to meet up with the boys for George's housewarming/many different party excuses party where we proceeded to have a great time. The weather was great, the company was good. The boys were particularly...chatty as I think they'd been drinking for most of the afternoon.

Then tequila was mentioned. Now despite it having come out of my nose the first time I drank it- I love the stuff. So team tequila was formed and many shots were had. Despite having plenty of fun there...the canberrararians (say it out loud!) wanted to go out - so out...five of us went.

The rest is in the sheep story...

Next morning nine am, I'm woken by liz who is in a mad rush to get to the markets to sell her baby clothes. We made it in on time and although feeling slightly worse for wear I had a pretty good time. We sold a lot too which is pretty cool. I also purchased some ethiopian spices and such so I'll post about how that meal goes later this week.

After pizza and a movie (jarhead - blech!) we hopped onto a plane and headed home to some very well fed and well looked after kittenats.

I had today (monday) off as well and have spent it..doing not much at all. I feel pretty well rested though (I even took another day off the gym). Also made an appointment for the MRI which actually costs $270 not $250 and isn't claimable through medicare/ health insurance because the machine isn't covered under any rebates. Apparently though if I wanted to go to one that was, I'd have to go and see a specialist instead of a sports G.P ($100), then the MRI costs about $500, $200 which I might get back. Its a lot more hassle and at best the same price so...I'll just have to bear it. It's not like we can't afford it but when you pay for private health insurance that you never use...it'd be nice to get something for it.

- Jen

Dance to the sheeplight

sheeps!
Originally uploaded by trojen_hoarse.

The title of this post is taken from the lyrics of a song that has nothing to do with sheep. However several hours of tequila drinking and the decision by three of us that we were not walking ANY FURTHER, in the middle of Canberra on Saturday night left us standing next to some sheep. Not actual sheep..but sheep...statues.

We were also mumbling the words to that fonzerelli song 'moonlight party'..and so it ended up being about sheep.

Boy were the other two (Liz 'n' Joely) happy when they came back to find, Baz, Trent and myself parked on these sheep singing about dancing in the sheeplight. With the addition of our own 'doof doof' and 'oonce oonces'...I think it went something like 'blah blah blah-blah blah dance in the sheeplight doof doof oonce doof doof oonce'.


- Fo' shizzle my nizzle.

Our nation's capital

This weekend saw the man and I take a trip up to Canberra to catch up with some friends. After making sure that the kittenats were looked after we caught a nice big plane up there. Only took an hour, right after we flew over Albury we started descending which was pretty crazy. I think flying from Canberra to Albury would be interesting...do they just drive the plane there?

Once we got there we were picked up by Liz who dropped us off at Questacon after trying to convince us to take her car, we insisted on walking to the war memorial. More on that later.

Anyway Questacon is still great. The best bit was the six metre free fall which I hadn't been on before. From the ground it looks high. From the top it is absolutely terrifying.
I remembered while climbing the ladder behind the man that I'm a teensy bit scared of heights. Only heights where I don't feel safe. What you do on the slide of death is climb up, dangle out holding onto a bar above your head (like you would if you were about to do a chin-up) and then you just let go. I'll repeat that, you just let go.

After the man had jumped, I said to the girl up the top...'um I don't think I can do this' and she said 'you don't have to! just walk back down'. Just walk back down? ... Um, no. The taunting and the unrelenting teasing facing me at the bottom of the ladder would be 100 times worse than the zero gravity halfway down that slide. So I ventured out, and there I am - dangling. Watching the man- grinning at me from six measley metres below. Then I realised that while my hot, sweaty slippery hands were strong enough to hold me up there..dangling - they weren't strong enough to pull me back in. There it was - the terrifying realisation that I would have to, in fact, let go.

So I let go, and halfway down my face felt like it would fall off - but in a good way. It was heaps of fun and I decided then and there that I wanted MORE, MORE of this shaky shaky feeling and fun!!! Then I stood up and started laughing and when the guy asked if I wanted to go again...I said HELL NO!

That was pretty much Questacon - lots of cool fun things but no more adrenaline. After we'd finished we checked out their cafe as we were getting peckish...all though I'd decided that healthy was going to have to put the curb for the weekend..I wasn't about to subject myself to the horrors that presented themselves in the dark depths of hell that was their bain marie. The man however, accustomed to eating day(s) old cheeseburgers ordered some hot chips. I think he ate about three, then threw them in the bin.

So we set off on our quite long walk around lake burley griffin to the war memorial. Where, I reasoned, good food would reside. After all, its a classy kind of place. By the time we got there, subsisting on three mentos I had in my bag..we were both pretty hungry. However we pushed hunger to the wayside and started in on the war memorial. Which was brilliant. You definitely do appreciate it more when you're older. I'm still in shock about the 'midget' submarine recovered from Sydney Harbour. 'Midget' is obviously a term used quite loosely. I just thought they had problems finding them because they were so small! They're huge!!! Obviously whoever was looking was having a 'man's look'. Or the harbour is big.

Anyway half way around after my stomach had started eating itself we saw a sign for a cafe. So far on our trip the cafe's in Canberra were failing miserably. I'm sure if I wanted some caramel slice or some hedgehog it might have impressed me. But I wanted food...and some congealed pasta wasn't going to cut it (yay I finally found something that perfectly fitted the word congealed)!

After we'd finished we sat out in the sunshine and ate a bag of chicken chips the man had, which we rationed out between us. While we waited for liz to pick us up we relaxed in the sun. Until a bus full of tourists turned up. They promptly swarmed around us and one guy who had his shirt off sat down next to us while his friend started snapping photographs. Not being racist but they were Asian and it did really really annoy me. Firstly, you ask if you can take someone's picture. Secondly, you should only have your shirt off if you are somewhat ripped. Thirdly, and of all the things you should never, ever do - is pee on a tree outside a war memorial. Really, you shouldn't. Like I said, if it was dark and you'd had a few, then peeing in public is a pretty common occurence in Australia. But at four in the afternoon in broad daylight when there are toilets less than fifty metres away and you think its the funniest thing ever...

If the man hadn't of had those chicken chips I'm pretty sure he would have piffed the golf ball he'd just found at him. Luckily liz turned up then and we went back to her place for dinner. We actually stayed in as we were both incredibly tired...think we were in bed by 10:30!

- tbc.

Diagnosis: Probably Runners Knee

So I finally went to a sports doctor about my knee. I haven't been running at all since early January and have been resting my knee by using non-impact equipment at the gym. But the gym is a lot more expensive than running outside and it just means I rarely get out at all now, what with living and working across the road from a train station. I've developed a fluorescent tan. Its not a good look.

Anyway the doctor played around with my knee, and caused me considerable pain too - its hurting now and it only ever used to hurt when I ran anywhere. He said its probably Runner's knee which is supposedly easily treatable - and the cool runners page on the topic has made me feel better already.

Just in case its not runner's knee though, I have to have an MRI. A very expensive MRI. What is the deal with these things? Its $250 which is a pretty penny in my books, and thats $250 out of pocket too. Also I have to go all the way to Prahan to get it done!

Actually I went to Prahan the other day for work and I had lunch at the lucky coq - $3 pizzas is a pretty good deal.

But still....thats $253* dollars y'know. AND while I'm ranting. WHY are we paying $125 a month for private health insurance when I still have to fork out money for expensive scans. Scans I might add that if the man put his mind to it he could probably rig up through the microwave. We don't use it much anyway!

- Ouch
* Because if I'm there I might as well get a $3 pizza.