Top Sellings Albums in Oz

The top selling albums of the past ten years
(in Australia)

1 Come On Over (Shania Twain) 1997

I only own the greatest hits....











2 Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette) 1995 ^^

This was the first CD I ever owned. I still treasure it...










3 Innocent Eyes (Delta Goodrem) 2003 ^^

I always liked this album. Can get a bit wearing if you listen on repeat though.









4 Savage Garden (Savage Garden) 1997


I only have a compilation created by Loulou. Its got all the best ones anyway.







5 Falling Into You (Celine Dion) 1996

I love Celine Dion. Not enough to buy her music though. I love her French songs.
She really does have an amazing voice.
And yes, I love my heart will go on. Sorry.







6 Abba Gold (Abba) 1992
7 Immaculate Collection (Madonna) 1990
8 Recurring Dream (Crowded House) 1996
9 Come Away With Me (Norah Jones) 2002 ^^
(at least I did ... somewhere....)
10 Forgiven Not Forgotten (The Corrs) 1995
How good was This album. I had no idea it was so massive in Oz though.
11 Yourself or Someone Like You (Matchbox 20) ^^
(on tape, hehehe so old)
12 Forrest Gump (Soundtrack)
Sister has it. Good album.
13 The Very Best of (The Eagles)
14 1 (The Beatles)
15 Affirmation (Savage Garden)
16 The Eminem Show (Eminem) ^^
17 Live (Throwing Copper) ^^
Sigh, another of my staples. Hardly listen to it anymore though. One of my favourite songs also got kind of ruined when I found out earlier this year that the Snowtown murderers used it while they killed people. Creepy!!!!
18 HIStory (Michael Jackson)
LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON! Always meant to buy this.
19 Don't Ask (Tina Arena)
Hahaha I remember dancing in Year 5 to Tina Arena in my friends basement/rumpus room. Good times.
20 The Sound of White (Missy Higgins) ^^
Must say I'm not as into her second album, this one will always be the best.
21 Soul Deep (Jimmy Barnes)
22 Get Born (Jet)
23 Unplugged (Eric Clapton)
24 Let Go (Avril Lavigne)
25 Barricades and Brickwalls (Kasey Chambers)
26 Fever (Kylie Minogue)
27 Odyssey No 5 (Powderfinger)
28 Remasters (Led Zeppelin)
29 Symbols (Led Zeppelin)
30 The Best of 1980-1990 (U2) ^^
This was MUCH bigger than the secong 1990-2000 Silver one. I have both, this ones better. It has all the Joshua Tree classics on it. I don't know if you ever heard the story, but Eca and I got tickets when the concert was released last year. We were both madly clicking the Ticketek website and I got through (yay!). Then they postponed their concert, AFTER Eca had booked her ticket to London, based on the concert date. Eca was devastated she was going to miss it, and I knew it wouldn't be the same without her either.
Fastforward, they're talking about re-schedule dates, and wouldn't you know it. The re-scheduled for when Eca was back in Australia for our wedding. Only problem was it was smack bang in the middle of our Honeymoon, so now I couldn't go.....
Apparently it was a great concert too.....
31 The Ultimate Collection (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
32 No Angel (Dido)
33 Greatest Hits (Robbie Williams)
34 Back To Bedlam (James Blunt)
35 Just As I Am (Guy Sebastian)
36 Fallen (Evanescence) ^^
37 That's What I'm Talking About (Shannon Noll)
38 Feeler (Pete Murray)
39 Life For Rent (Dido)
40 I'm Not Dead (Pink) ^^
41 Michael Buble (Michael Buble) ^^ (burned)
42 Breakaway (Kelly Clarkson)
43 Songs About Jane (Maroon 5)
44 Mistaken Identity (Delta Goodrem) ^^
45 American Idiot (Green Day)
46 It's Time (Michael Buble)
47 Love Angel Music Baby (Gwen Stefani)
48 Monkey Business (Black Eyed Peas)
49 So Fresh - Hits of summer 2003 (Various)
Now how the hell was this particular
(NO idea why there's no # 50)
^^ Own it.

Not the biscuits!

I keep, on my desk at work, a jar of biscuits for when I get snacky. I only eat one maybe two, every other day. They're Arnott's Snack Right pillow biscuits, which are yummy. Snack rights are low fat, or low something or other, so I don't feel like a pig when I eat them, its like 1 Weight Watchers point for two biscuits or something.

This morning, I read that they've been misleading us! The Apple Blackberry ones (a favourite of mine)

"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges that the fruit shown on the packaging of five of Arnott's bestselling, Snackright fruit slices and fuit pillows, might not in fact be a major ingredient."

I mean what is going on here!

"....shoppers have every right to expect berries to be a significant ingredient of Snackright apple and blackberry fruit pillows.

..... if berries and apple are on the packs then they should make up ``a significant amount'' of the ingredients...."

Damn right they should be! What the hell else am I eating? Butcher shop saw dust? How the hell are we meant to know whats in stuff if they're lying on the goddam packets! I just don't know who to trust anymore. (but I'm not going Organic anytime soon either)

Dilbert fun

Hello out there?

So, umm....look guys. I'm not saying you need to write like, War & Peace or anything, but it'd be really nice if you could leave a comment sometimes. You know, it doesn't have to be every post or anything, but if you had a chuckle or found what I said kind of interesting, maybe just a
"*chuckle*" or "good post"
You know I'd even take a "hey I found this quite dull"
Just you know, so I know I'm on the right track, or the wrong track, or that I'm even still on the track, not running off through scrubby bushland, with prickly things sticking to my socks.

And if you're just dropping in, how bout a Bangawoyo (hello in Korean)

(because really, who doesn't want a Banga-wo-yo)

You've got to be kidding me

I'm sure that's what the judge thought when this case same across his desk....

Escorts a work expense, court told

November 13, 2007

Question: When might thousands of dollars worth of escort agency services be considered a work-related personal expense for a corporate executive?

Answer: When an accountant might find they relate to entertainment or living away from home expenditure for companionship while interstate.

But even the Industrial Court judge hearing an unfair dismissal case could barely believe that Tas Sinadinos lived in the "real world" in claiming that escort services might be a legitimate tax deduction claim for personal expenses related to his relocation to Sydney as executive manager, logistics, for EDI Rail Pty Ltd on a salary of $185,000.

Mr Sinadinos is seeking orders including 12 months' salary in damages and a declaration that he was not guilty of misconduct in using his corporate American Express card for escort services.

His sacking from the company that provides Sydney trains was "unfair" as he was never shown the company's employee "code of conduct" when headhunted from Melbourne in December 2004.

He told the court he only saw the company policy on corporate card use a month later, by which time he claims to have had a verbal agreement with his manager to charge work-related personal expenses to his corporate credit card provided they were reimbursed directly.

But Mr Sinadinos agreed he did not directly pay back the company for up to $12,000 in personal charges at Coles, Theo's Liquor Store and Delfare Pty Ltd, an Annandale-based escort company, and other Sydney escort services...

...Mr Sinadinos agreed he had not worked since his sacking on August 31, 2005 over "inappropriate and unacceptable" personal spending on escort services....

...Buying escort services for "company" was "not dissimilar" to buying fittings for his apartment. He could not "differentiate [escort services] from buying a rack on which to put food on for my apartment. I would leave that to an accountant."

Jennifer Cook SMH

I mean, how ridiculous!

Cool coffee designs

The Husband - Dean Koontz ****

Great Book.
Good Thriller, good plot twists.
Thanks to Susie and Tom, who gave it to me for my B'Day :)
4 / 5

Just can't get into it....

I've started, and put down, and picked up again, and finally given up on the following books recently

I've had this book on reserve for months. It took ages to come in, and I started it, but just can't get into it.
The narrative style is a series of letters from Eva to her estranged husband. Kevin is their son, who when he was 15, went into his High School with a gun and shot his fellow students and a teacher.
Its an interesting premise, but somehow, I think the letter style really irked me. It gives no opportunity for anyone else's POV. I guess thats also its attraction as an author, and it can't be an easy style to write in either.
Not for me unfortunately.


This book was meant to be great. I wanted it to be amazing.
Ever since I read Infidel, I have wanted to read this. Its a bit of a discourse on Muslim women, but for me it read as more of a lecture.
Again, I just couldn't get into it.
I think it was because I felt like I was being lectured, which can be the difficulty in trying to get your point across about something that the listener doesn't neccessarily fully comprehend and that you're passionate about to boot.


Another book I saw in a book shop, and read the blurb thinking it would be a really interesting read. I think if I was more into colonial history, it would have been. AS it stands though, I'm not, so it wasn't as good a read as I'd hoped.
Unfortunately, on the back of the other few I couldn't really get into, it was a bigger disappointment than it might otherwise have been.
I started at the beginning, and each chapter is dedicated to a mistake. The first chapter is the landing of the British.
Yep.
So I read a few, not an interesting as I'd hoped, thought if I went to the end it might inspire me a bit more.
Last chapter, Gough Whitlam.
Yep, thats the most recent thing covered. So it ended up a bit of a fizzer.

*sigh*
It was all quite disappointing.

This isn't going to be pretty......

From my darling husband....

Hi All,

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo
(Now I know this isn’t going to be pretty, but neither is prostate cancer – and trust me - Yvonne will be making sure I suffer for the cause).
That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer.
Why...

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
  
• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
• Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.
  

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate & enter my registration number which is 156436 and your credit card details.

Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 156436.
Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.
Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket .

Thanks for your support

Our First Wedding Anniversary

Wonderful Husband of mine had Champagne waiting in our room when we arrived, complete with a card that said Happy 1st Anniversary to my darling wife.
So we drank the champagne the first night! Heehee
We then proceeded to do our own tasting tour of the vineyards in the Hunter on the Saturday, which was lovely :)

More weird dreams

Ok so yesterday I had this weird dream where I was at one of M's football games and it was getting dark and when the game finished for some reason the lights went off and so me and all the spectators were sitting there in the dark until; the players came out of the dressing sheds again..... weird in itself, and just as I was sort of waking up I decided to go to the bar and get more drinks, and for myself I got either 2 or 4 drinks (massive pisshead, even in my dreams clearly) and for M I got two beers, and then I think his alarm went off, and my brain incorporated it and I thought "oh no, he's not going to have time to drink those two beers" I tried to explain this to him as he left for work but strangely enough he didn't find it as vexing as I did. He said something about virtual beers, like in Facebook. *shrug*

Last week I had a horrible dream that M and I were seperating (I specifically remember this being the term used). I think I heard M say "I'm Leaving" as in he was going to work, and my brain took that sentence and ran with it. That was awful really, as I felt conscious and like I was thinking, I had an internal monologue happening. I woke feeling relieved this was not the case. I hesitated to tell M right away though, as I didn't want him to think I was using my dreaming time to fantasise about getting divorced.

So this morning I dreamt we had had a baby! Literally woke up one morning, went to the doctor and discovered I was pregnant and gave birth. {actually, maybe this is a subconcious hope that I haven't gained weight from over-eating, I'm simply pregnant. Hmmm, think about it.....} Anyway, my dreams lately have been incredibly vivid. For example I can still feel the vomit on my face from the baby puking all over me. I wanted to highlight this as it wasn't like I was dreaming of babies and bunnies and rattles and fun.
I still have a residual feeling of awe though. Its amazing really what the brain can conjure without any prior experience. Having not yet had children, I can't actually draw on experience for a dream like this, and yet it felt quite real, and I really felt immersed in a realisitic way, not in the emotional caricature you can sometimes experience when dreaming about quite foreign things.

I actually woke from this one slightly disappointed it wasn't real.

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions, originally uploaded by • w a a •.

Mmm Yum coffee

Nath & Mel

Mark & I @ Nath & Mel's wedding

Mark & I, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

This is the Dress I ended up wearing to the wedding on the weekend. It was gorgeous, Events, and fully lined and boned. I felt bad wearing black, but I got there and there were 3 other girls wearing black too.

It won't happen to me.....

In Sydney's Northern Beaches, the local paper, The Manly Daily in recent times has been focused a lot on a local girl, Annabel Catt, who died from taking a version of Ecstasy. You may be familiar with the coverage when the ABC came under fire earlier this year for airing a show, Summer Heights High, with a similar storyline to Catt's death.

This has been a very emotional issue for the local community, as she was young, only 20, and it has sparked a campaign by her family to try to raise more awareness of the issue, in the same manner as Anna Wood's death did. Anna wood was only 15 when she died, and it was a wake up call to a community that was probably pretending drugs were something junkies did, not schoolgirls. Interestingly, Anna Wood's father thinks its more likely the ABC SHH program was based on his daughter.

Anna Wood would have been 27 now, the same age as my brother.

When I was in Year 8 at school, I was what, 15/16 myself? We actually went to school with the son of Bronwyn Donaghy, who wrote Anna's Story, which is a non-fiction account, posthumously written by taking accounts from her friends and family.
Mrs Donaghy came to a camp we had and spoke about her experience, 3 years earlier, in meeting the Wood family (whom she previously had no connection with) and sharing their pain in losing their daughter in such a senseless way.
The message of the talk was that drugs can kill, and "party" drugs aren't benign, you never know what's in them and the effects can be devastating.

Unfortunately behind the scenes, for 100 school kids, the message was also "what an idiot" and "as if you wouldn't call an ambulance". Everyone walked away thinking, consciously or unconsciously, It Won't Happen To Me.

This week, Annabel Catt's family are trying to raise awareness about drugs, by visiting a primary school to launch the "Keep Aussie Kids Safe" campaign being run by Life Education Australia at all primary. They feel if they share their pain with primary school children and their parents across the nation, they can help others. This is a noble action, and would be great, if it worked.

The problem with these talks, vital as they are, is that they don't really work, and this is the biggest hurdle facing drug education. The most effective lessons about drugs are learnt the hard way- through experience.

It makes me wonder whether the "It Won't Happen To Me" mentality ever goes away. Or does it simply become "It Won't Happen To Us" when we have our own children. When does it develop? I am sure that on some level, primary school age children are still thinking that with "heroes" like Ben Cousins and Andrew Johns popping pills, that if they try one, It Won't Happen To Them. And why wouldn't they?

I'm not saying teenagers are going to be exposed to drugs and they won't have any power to stop them, being the mindless idiots that they are. That's not what I'm saying at all.
But this mentality permeates society and permeates all of our thinking, without really asking for it, because Bad Things Don't Happen To Good People.
And as far as we're all concerned, since we aren't Saddam Hussein, we are all Good People.

People feel sorry for families like the Catt's and the Woods, but secretly they think something "must be wrong in that family". Maybe they don't eat at the table together, maybe their kids are latchkey kids, whatever people's measure of normal, and "right" is, they suspect when something horrendous happens, it must be something in the way the children were raised. This isn't neccessarily true, no matter how children are raised, everyone knows the phrase, Curiosity Killed the Cat. Curiosity is a natural, human reaction to new things.

Annabel Catt's friends, I can guarantee you, will still be taking drugs. Their friend is DEAD, and they'll still be out, popping pills "to deal with it". Because even though it DID happen to their friend, It still Won't Happen To Me.

Fab? Right???

Well I've done it now.

And I kind of liked it.
It was a bit weird at the beginning, I was afraid of trying something new, but the end result has been pleasantly surprising.

That's right, today, I'm wearing my skinny jeans, WITHOUT BOOTS.
I know I am only a hairline away from Emo-Fug (I said a HAIRLINE bitches)...
I KNOW I bought them ONLY for wearing with my boots.
I know I have a horrid problem with them sliding down my backside Resulting in constant tugging, which I can tell you from seeing other girls, is NOT an attractive, sexy look.
BUT!
I seem to have fixed the ass-crack problem, with (I know this sounds ridiculously simple) a BELT!!!
Amazing!Now, I didn't wake up this morning and suddenly feel a compulsion to wear skinny jeans, it was entirely organic I can assure you (without the ridiculous price-tag).
See it was raining this morning and because M took the car I had to catch the bus so I thought oh well I will wear my boots and so I was trying to think of what to wear with my boots and my brain skipped to the skinny jeans so I put them on and was expecting them to be ass-crack central and make me feel really fat as usually I put them on and then I feel really fat and my belly hangs over the top ( i know, that is SUCH an ATTRACTIVE image for you all) but this morning I put them on and then I put the belt on and that seemed to fix the ass crack problem and I was walking around looking for a top (as you do) and I looked in the mirror and thought, maybe I'll just leave them like this, they don't look as bad as previously though (its slippery slope I'm on........*thinking* do tight black shorts that finish just under the knee class as fuggin's............*hmmm*)
And then as I was walking to the bus stop I passed a plate glass window and after thinking they looked just fine with my thongs on........I was gratified to see they DID look just fine!

Out of all the pictures in Googe Image I could have picked for this, I chose this one, even though she's wearing heels and I'm not, because of how uncomfortable the model appears. Like its a Kmart ad, and the model is 15 and just starting out. (I don't want to think about what that infers about the target market for skinny jeans)

{AND I am under no delusions that this is what I look like in MY skinny jeans. }

Since Monday's breakdown, I'm actually feeling a lot better, we've been to the gym a few times, I'm trying to eat better (I've mentally said no to chips three times!) And I feel like it's already working for me! I feel almost normal sized in my skinny jeans (yeah I know, contradiction of terms). So maybe when we're jumping into bikini's for a possible trip to the beach Sunday, I can do it with a modicum of pride. (or less shame).

So many windows!

About this time every week I start to get a strange anxiety.

Every Friday afternoon we shut down our computers, but at night we only turn the monitors off and lock them, so everything I was working on/looking at/reading is still there the next day. But by Thursday, I've got almost a weeks worth of windows open with stuff I'm interested in, and not ready to let go of yet.

I use Firefox as my browser and the format it uses, IE totally ripped off for its latest version. I only have one window open in my task bar, but I can look at up to twenty tabs at a time. Each tab can be a different web address. (Thanks to Zogg for putting me onto Firefox!)

I currently have ten open, one is constantly Gmail, usually I have at least 1 SMH and most days I keep my blog open all day too. The rest are random stuff, sometimes I find sites and I want to blog about stuff on the page so I keep it open until I write the post. Other times its stuff I'm waiting to hear an answer on for some reason. Some are things I know I want to read, I clicked it, I'm sure I'm interested enough to read it, but I can't find the motiviation to go back to the article....

So about this time every week I start to get a strange anxiety, because I know that all the tabs I currently have open need to be dealt with and read and blogged, all before 5 pm on Friday.
I get tense, thinking I won't get through it all.
And this isn't even my job, this is just all the other stuff I do during the day LOL

Surely I'm not alone here...

More Ebay

After Monday's depressing arrival of the dress that became the herald of doom, I got two more dresses that I had ordered.

YAY!
THESE FIT!!!
While I hadn't really lost faith in Ebay as a whole, I'm feeling less rotund. This feeling is assisted by having been to the gym every day this week (I know its only Wednesday, shaddup)
Baby steps people. Baby steps.

**Edit** Btw as you can probably tell, unfortunately the dress code for the wedding we're attending isn't "beach boho chic" or I could wear one of these. The search continues, T-minus-3 days**

When did I get fat? oh wait....then....

*Sigh*

We're going to a wedding this weekend and I decided to try my old friend Ebay for a dress to wear, as I don't want to wear something I already own.
I found a dress I really liked, then discounted it as too expensive.

So I found another one that I thought would be quite good. This one :So it arrived yesterday, and its beautiful, I really like it, its a lovely purple colour and its silky and looks well made.

But it doesn't fit :(

Which is a problem.

Its too small, because I've gotten fat.

In fact we got married last November and in about February we realised we'd both put on weight, so we got stuck in, dieted, I managed to lose about 6-7kgs and was pretty happy. Then I sort of slacked off, stopped going to the gym when Daylight Savings finished and it got darker, and colder, and I holed up in our unit getting fatter and fatter again. Then I looked in the mirror at the beginning of August and thought, hold on! Its going to be Spring soon, and bikini season starts, and I'm all squishy looking.

So I resolved to go back to the gym.

Then I weighed myself, expecting to see the numbers at the same level as in February (pre-diet and weight loss) and was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually was still only a few kilos over my "good" weight from when I sort of trickled off on the exercise (about 11-15 weeks). So what happened? My brain quietly told me I could afford to wait, and not get right back into the diet.

Six weeks later I actually made it back to the gym.

So here I am, M has joined my gym too and we've only managed to go once together (I've been a few times solo).
The problem is that its the end of October and when I weighed myself again on the weekend I am now back to Post-, Wedding/Pre-Diet weight. In eight or nine weeks I seem to have abandoned my good-but-not-great eating habits and I gained the other 4 kg's I had lost.

I infact, feel fatter than ever before, I'm muffin-topping out of all my clothes. I have embraced the Baby-doll top, and the empire line dress because I don't need to try to suck my stomach in, which I am finding increasingly difficult and tiring to do all day.

In the last few weeks I have been unable to fit into the following items of clothing:

• Ebay dress. Size 12.
• Blue and white sundress, which made my boobs do something REALLY weird, dress may also be in cahoots with Nude colour strapless bra, which is showing signs of fatigue, and has been "on its way out" for six months or so. Think this is age related, not fat related however. I KNOW this dress fit me a year ago, its only that old.
  
• Just about all my jeans. I think they are all staging a revolt against me. Slowly slowly I have stopped wearing them, except for this one pair, which are really stretchy (loving them). I am punishing myself today by wearing a non-stretch pair that are cutting my in half as I sit.
  
• A multitude of slim fit tops which have all stopped slim-fitting. Including a heap of singlet tops that are stretch (Lycra if you will) that seem to display my fat rolls for all to see (back and front)
  
• Boardshorts. Are. My. Enemy.
• My pale pink shorts that I love *sniff*
• My pink sundress which is currently making me look like a beached whale.
• My white skirt that sits roughly just under my breasts now in order to zip it up. (not good look. What's worse, is considered wearing it out the other day regardless.
• Green and black dress, usually a solid friend, am afraid it won't zip up now.
  
• Am getting tuck shop arms!!!! (I know this isn't an item of clothing, more a reflection upon anything that I wear that displays them-particularly bad in strapless things)
  

So I'm back on the diet.
Thinking of doing the cabbage soup diet for a kick start, I've actually always liked that soup. Problem is its quite warm for soup.

...............*sigh*

Murder & Deception - Brian Bock ***

A good little collection, best thing about Short stories is you can pickup and put down with ease. Problem when they're all by the same author is that they can get tired. Not the best I've read recently (I'm also trying to get through another two short collections).

3 / 5

Mark taking off in the Red Baron

Not quite up on loading vids to You Tube, this is my first effort :)

Edit** this wasn't working when first loaded, has been updated and should work now, so try again. :)

Mark - Red Baron flight

Mark - Red Baron flight, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Mark in his Flight suit before the acrobatic adventure flight.
More pics on my Flickr.
He wasn't so happy looking at the end....

Mark - Red Baron flight (2)

Mark - Red Baron flight, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Red Baron flight (3)

M - Red Baron flight, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

He was a bit wiped in the end.

Hi

You may have noticed a slight drop in regular posts.
See, the blogosphere is actually quite extensive, when you start reading blogs you can get so caught up in them, there are some that you read that stay with you, and some that make you want to go back and read all the archives (BlankTop Chronicles, Cabblog).

I've been reading blogs lately, not just browsing, but really reading a lot of other blogs. This has unearthed a deep-seated fear in me.
This is my fear-
I'm not very interesting.
I've discovered so many funny, witty, compelling blogs that I feel mine is inferior, and I have lost inspiration for posts. What do I write, that I can am comfortable jettisoning into the blogosphere, that I feel might make a difference?
I'm not sure.
I no longer work with freaks, the people I work with now are quite nice, normal people. People you can have a drink with, without wanting to lace your own beverage with cyanide. So I can't write about them.
My job is actually kind of mind-numbingly-boring presently actually.

I haven't given up, but I've lost a little bit of focus. Hmm.....*musing*

Well this about Sums it up.

My Birthday

My Birthday 07, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Robbie, Toddy and Rach. Kicking on at our place after.

My Birthday libations

My Birthday 07, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Mark, Hayley and Sean. We started with a picnic at Davidson Park underneath the Roseville bridge and then kicked on at our place before moving into Manly.

Birthday Picnic 07

Birthday Picnic 07, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Bathurst 1000 2007 (3)

Bathurst 1000 2007, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Bathurst 1000 2007 (2)

Bathurst 1000 2007, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Bathurst 1000 2007

Bathurst 1000 2007, originally uploaded by dataceptionist.

Our campsite set up, which was re-jigged as the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in.
See Flickr for more pics.

Chillun

*sigh* I want the babies.
My friend Sonia has just announced she's pregnant, which is fantastic for them.
I don't know how much longer we can hold out!

Hmmm.....Casey who???

A further blow dealt to Casey Donovan's failed career after being the winner of the 2004 season of Australian Idol (supposedly due to gaining the "fat vote").

In an article about The Deadlys, an annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement in music, sport, entertainment and community, this years winner was Jessica Mauboy, 2006's Oz Idol runner-up.

Cathy Freeman is mentioned, Anthony Mundine,

Young leader of the year was Cape York's Tania Major, the Kokoberra woman who is also the 2007 Young Australian of the Year for her work raising political awareness of indigenous education and health issues.

Among the more familiar faces, South Sydney's retiring fullback David Peachey was honoured, as were Mundine (Sportsperson of the Year), the WBA super middleweight champion the crooners Jimmy Little and Kev Carmody, the actors Aaron Pederson and Deborah Mailman, and Freeman, for her work as a TV presenter in the SBS series Going Bush.

Its almost as if they're trying to avoid mentioning Casey Donovan (far right). I mean, it wouldn't be out of context for them to mention her at least in passing! Donovan won the same award Mauboy has won this year, back in 2004 after her Idol win. They're both Australian Idol graduates, both of aboriginal heritage, surely this warrants a small comparison? Apparently they seem as intent on keeping Donovan out of the media and out of work as Sony BMG . Not that I care overly, I don't like her music, but certainly intriguing.

Boozle- search for the best grog price

Discovered a brilliant new website today, BOOZLE allows you to search your local area by brand for the cheapest price for your product. Its amazing! I did a search on cartons of Vodka Cruisers in my local area and and found them on special! Do it!

Heavy Breathing

Had the most DISGUSTING experience on the phone at work today. I answered the phone with the customary business greeting. A laboured voice on the other end of the phone asked if I would speak to him for a moment (which is apparently where I went wrong).
He sounded a little like a regular customer of ours, who I thought may have been playing joke on me. I was confused, he said he really needed to talk to someone, I asked him where he was calling from, he told me Melbourne, I then proceeded to ask him if he realised he'd called a business. I was kind of thinking maybe there was something actually wrong with him, perhaps he was thinking of injuring himself and I said to him I didn't really think I was equipped to assist him (thinking perhaps he needs to speak to LifeLine) and as I started to look up on my computer the number, should I need it, HE STARTED JERKING HIMSELF OFF, grunting down the phone.

It was beyond REPULSIVE, I can tell you. I still feel naseous from the experience.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling

NO SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!NO SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!
Great book :)

Yes I'm a pop culture/media whore. From Nelson Mandela to Harry Potter, the irony is not lost on me I assure you. I was determined to finish Mandela before starting Harry though.

The Long Walk to Freedom- Nelson Mandela autobiography

Facsinating book, quite a heavy tome however, certainly not for the lighthearted. I was keen to finish it however, as I always felt it was something I should know more about. Sometimes I feel myself to be incredibly ignorant, regardless how much I've read. An extraordinary man.

4.5 / 5

Virgin screws Flickr

Hmm, very interesting situation mentioned in SMH tech section whereby Virgin Mobile took all these peoples photos from Flickr and used them in billboard ads without even telling them.
Kinda freaks me out.
The reason they could do it was the licence that the photos are posted under, which allows them to be shared (the point of Flickr), also allowed them to use the pictures without breaking Copyright, as long as they credited the photgrapher, which they "did" by referencing the Flickr address at the bottom of the poster.
This is the photo in question

Taken from SMH article site.

Where the girl on the Right was cropped and had the caption "Dump your Pen friend" as the ad. This girl was only 16 however and Virgin is being sued.

See this discussion which contains a reponse from Virgin, I'm not sure if you're able to view it if you're not a Flickr member, I can't tell....
If you can't access, leave a comment and I'll try copy and paste the discussion. Some pissed off people. Virgin trying to palm it off as "creative". =Read= we were able to use your photos for free, isn't that innovative of us!?

Postal Joy

Sometimes, I swear its like the postman holds onto our mail, waiting until there's "enough" to deliver.
Does this ever happen to you?
You get no mail at all for days and then suddenly, three or four letters, suddenly all of a sudden. I can imagine the postman flipping through the envelopes, "hmm number 12 hasn't had anything in a while, might drop their's off today.......ooh number six, I'll add that to the pile...."

Spoilt Princesses

I'll tell you what bugs me, stupid mothers with their princess daughters, whinging that they shouldn't be criticised for blatant exploitation.

In an article in SMH,

THE mother of a 12-year-old girl chosen to be the face of Gold Coast Fashion Week has demanded a public apology from Prime Minister John Howard over claims her daughter is too young to model.

As Maddison Gabriel spent yesterday getting pampered at a local beauty salon with seven girlfriends in preparation for her 13th birthday today, her mother, Michelle, said she was shocked Mr Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd had weighed into the debate.

"Without knowing us, how dare they make those comments," Mrs Gabriel said. "I would suggest both of them contact my family before they make any more defamatory remarks about us. We as a family deserve an apology from both of them.

Of course you do lady, no one else is allowed an opinion, and your daughter is flawless and the fact that she's being exploited seems just fine for you. Nevermind the fact that Gold Coast Fashion Week hasn't had this much press in years. And when the sleazy old guys and managers are touching your daughter up in the casting room, you'll be the first to cry foul.

"As politicians, you would expect that they would know how things would be misrepresented and maybe they should have known what our side of the story is before they made those types of comments.

As politicians they are expected to make comment on issues they know little about, radio interviews and press conferences REVEL in opportunities to catch them out. The fact that they are on the money in this instance is a happy co-incidence.

"I believe the Prime Minister is getting very doddery. He does not know exactly what 13- and 14-year-old girls are like. I used to vote for him."

Mr Howard told Melbourne radio on Friday: "Catapulting girls as young as 12 into something like that is quite outrageous and I am totally opposed to it."

His concerns were later echoed by Mr Rudd, who said: "I have real concerns about littlies that young going out there doing that sort of thing."

But Mrs Gabriel defended her daughter, saying Maddison would be 14 by the time she represented the fashion week next year.

She also denied reports that part of her daughter's duties as an ambassador would be to appear at Gold Coast nightclubs.

She said organisers told her yesterday morning that there were no plans to pull her daughter from the position despite the negative publicity.

"There's been a carry-on about Maddison wearing adult clothes," Mrs Gabriel said.

"People should know she is 5 foot 7 [1.7 metres]. All of her friends buy clothes from adult shops. Every 13-year-old I know, even if they're little, wears adult clothes.

So what, that makes it ok for them to be wearing adult clothes? Little girls have played dress ups with their mothers clothes for years! That doesn't mean we should stick them in leopard print boots just because they ask for them! This attitude gives new meaning to "13-going-on-23".

"[As a society] we're trying to get our teenage daughters to act older. I am so happy that I've got a daughter who has got a good head on her shoulders."

Since when as a society are we trying to get our girls to act OLDER? WHEN did that happen you stupid twit!? I thought we were trying to get girls to act THEIR AGE. For chrissakes lady, with an attiude like this, Pageant-Mum much?

Maddison chose to spend her birthday weekend like many teenage girls, starting with a sleepover with friends on Friday night, during which they ate pizza and watched movies.

Ok this part is normal

The celebrations continued yesterday with a visit to a Gold Coast salon, where the girls had manicures, pedicures, eyebrow waxes, eyelash tints and their make-up done, and indulged in birthday cake.

Umm, excuse me, just got very Un-normal for a thirteen year old girl. Waxing? Far out, I was barely allowed to shave when I was 13. My first eyelash tint was for my Year 10 formal.

Boys were strictly banned.

"They're not my favourite," Maddison said. "It's really more a girly day."

For her birthday, she asked for a laptop, clothes, accessories and a couch. Today, the family are throwing a big party at their Mudgeeraba home.

FAR OUT!!! No wonder this princess won this competition, her mother pushed her through it probably, and has given the little angel everything she's ever wanted by the look of this list. I'm sure I wanted a CD player at this age, a COUCH????? LAPTOP (do NOT even get me started)

But unlike most young girls, Maddison began her last day as a 12-year-old fielding a call from the BBC in London.

She said that, while all the attention had been overwhelming, she did not understand why because of the number of other young models in the industry.

"You see all these other young models that are 13 on the front of magazines," she said. "I wanted to do it since I was very young and I've been trying to get into it, going into competitions since the beginning of this year.

Yes, of course young girls WANT to be models. It doesn't mean they SHOULD be models. This statement I feel accurately reflects why this girl doesn't understand. As I heard Kristy Hinze echo on the radio, if girls this age appear on Dolly or Girlfriend that's kind of OK, their target market is girls that age. When 13 year old are modelling for adults, thats wrong.

"My friends are really proud that I won. They're excited for me.

Yeah because they're beacons of normalcy in the world. They're just excited you can give them free shit now.

She said her goal was to become an international model.

A spokesman for Mr Howard said he had nothing to add.

Get out of Town!

Last night Eca rang and left me a devastating voicemail.

"ummm, Nicole just told me Robert Jordan died..."

Holy Cow! Now we'll never know how it ends!
Robert Jordan wrote a series of books called The Wheel of Time, and was part way through the 12th when he died.
However! There is hope. Fan sites indicate that he knew he may die mid way and has instructed his friends and family in the general story line so that the book may be complete.
What though, if he realizes twenty pages into the 800 page tome that this may be the last book? Suddenly its all, ".......and Rand realises he is actually a dragon born into a man's body, and that's why he was always so weird?"
It's possible he realises all too late it will never quite end properly as he has to rush the conclusion. Is that better than not finishing the book?
I depend it all sort of lands on how the book is written, if it's written in the linear fashion that the book is published in, then it can be finished by another without going completely pear shaped. But one of Jordan's styles is that there are effectively twelve different story lines going all at once. What if he's written four or five completely, and someone needs to step in to write the other six or seven? That would end up a pretty spaz book, if you ask me.
Perhaps our resident writer can weigh into this debate......

Well of Positivity

As a side note for the day, fill your being with positivity, then share it with others by dropping a positive thought into the
Well of Positivity.
Mount Franklin is donating $1 to National Breast Cancer Foundation for every positive "donation". It really is quite satisfying, so mosey on over and try it.

And they call her Train Wreck Britney....

After so much seraching to see this, I finally found a you tube on Mia Freedman's blog.
*note the puzzled looks throughout as they cut to the audience. I think this is the most telling part of the whole video.



I actually was expecting a much larger rail disaster than occured. Sure it wasn't a great performance as she's been known to give, it actually reminded me a lot of an Idol contestant, or a So You Think You Can Dance? audition gone sour. The lip sync was very average, but I don't think she really deserved to get so caned. Admittedly I do agree that she was exploited by MTV, they would have known she wasn;t going to be in top form, yet they put her on first anyway.

HAPPY 21ST!

SENDING SOME LOVE TO MY BIARTCH BEEB.

Solariums are Evil.

:*(

Be Prepared-but for what?

Scouts world over celebrate 100 years of scouting this year. Its a big year really, 2007 is officially the year of The Lifesaver also. {nothing better to do in 1907??? Start organisations to get kids off the street and stop them using wacky tabaccy?}
There has been a tv campaign promoting Scouts this year, you know where the girl is covered in mud and says she's having time of her life?? You can watch below if you haven't seen it [ where are YOU during prime time?? ]



I myself was a Scout, well I was part of the Scouting movement in two ways.
I was a Venturer, which means you're too big for regular Scouts and you can illegally drink as long as your leader is cool, oh and you go camping and stuff too. For a longer amount of time I was a Brownie and then a Girl Guide also, which essentially means no illegal drinking and lots of serving tea for a badge and floristry. No wonder girls abandon Guides for Scouts???
Unfortunately for Scouts Australia, their big year has been besmirched by a legal battle involving a sexual deviant who was a Scout Leader for some years. The victim that took them to court has been awarded $1.2 million dollars in compensation, $500, 000 of which is to be paid by Scouts Australia.
It makes you wonder how many of them get away with it? The victim alleged that Scouts Australia had known of the problem for 11 years, doing nothing. I guess I will count myself lucky nothing untoward was happening while I was Scouting.

Love Lies Bleeding

I forgot to post this, (I've post-dated) I won Free Tickets to this performance at the Glen St Theatre Too!
Great show, very interesting subject matter of euthenasia.
By Sydney Theatre Company.
:)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

To my lovely husband,

25 today! :)

Law and Order on Capitol Hill

Arrghh! Yay! A Tv Star has joined the candidacy for 2008 POTUS!
Fred Thompson appeared in Die Hard 2, but I know him better as Head Defence Attorney Arthur Branch, playing Jack McCoy's boss (the quintessential Law and Order lawyer-though I did like Angie Harmon, who incidentally has gone on the star in the TV adaptation of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series which I loved as books, well now I'm off point).



See him here in L&O context....

Farewell Pavarotti

In a terrible blow to classical opera lover everywhere, Pavarotti has died today. He sounds to have been in pain, battling pancreatic cancer among other medical problems, and in that sense it is good he no longer suffers. But as an opera lover, I mourn the loss of such a large presence in modern Opera.

SMH article here

APEC

lol Oh those Chaser boys....
In other opinions, I'm really not a fan of stupid APEC.
GO the public holiday though! :)