Astrid: "Sometimes you think your life is just a big dream and none of it has happened."

Quite the philosopher.

I've been moving along my attempts at geekification of the girls by exposing them to the right sort of TV and movies. At the moment they're working their way through Sailor Moon, which Astrid is so-so on but Carys loves. I've run out of Miyazaki movies to show them for now (Princess Mononoke will probably have to wait a couple of years yet). So - ( Read more... )

After appearing on Channel Nine news being interviewed in regard to the shooting over the road, I may now make another cameo appearance on the same station tonight walking into the IGA down the end of the street, which has just been robbed for the second time in a week by the same gun-toting pillar of the community.

I mean seriously, WTF?

A little while ago someone was shot just 20 meters from our house. The same weekend, a servo just down the road from my sister in law (also in Padbury) was held up. This last weekend we had a police officer injured breaking up a street brawl just around the corner from us, and the IGA down the end of our road was held up by a guy in a balaclava ( Read more... )

From Der Spiegel - Visitors to the Munich Oktoberfest this year drank their way into the history books by downing an unprecedented 7 million liters of beer...The impressive list of lost items includes...a leather whip, a live rabbit, a tuba, a ship in a bottle, 1,450 items of clothing, 770 identity cards, 420 wallets, 366 keys, 330 bags and 320 ( Read more... )

I am the product of many years of Catholic education, including in years 5-7 at Sacred Heart Primary School in Mundaring. It turns out that Sister Irene McCormack, the school principal at the time and my teacher in years 6 & 7, is under consideration for nomination as Australia's second saint. I'm not going to make any jokes about that, she was ( Read more... )

Downloaded and played the Civilization V demo on the weekend. God, it's good. Hex based maps, nice interface, and changes to gameplay that are all good so far as I can see in the play up to 350BC. I won't be buying it for a while yet, I've got major assignments due and then exams, and this thing looks like it could suck time like a big sucky thing.

This weekend the family is going down to North Yunderup, halfway between Mandurah and Pinjarra, where there is a nice little 4.5" Newtonian telescope waiting for an excellent night of stargazing away from the worst of the Perth lights. I say stargazing, but it will largely be spent looking at planets, as it's an early evening smorgasbord up there ( Read more... )

Carys has been picked for the interschool sports team. She's not the star player (came 4th in the school faction carnival), but that still makes her hands down the most athletically accomplished member of the family. I'm not surprised, she has a physicality and baseline energy levels that are exhausting just to watch let alone keep up with. She was ( Read more... )

Ordered a new video card which I was rather impatient to get ahold of. The tracking number showed it as delivered to the Please Couriers depot on Wednesday. On Friday, with no updates to the tracking, I call and ask WTF. I was told "oh, the driver didn't pick it up this morning, so it'll be Monday for sure." Three working days for a delivery? Not ( Read more... )