A LEAN, GREEN, PROCRASTINATION MACHINE

 

january 30, 2002

travel links

rough guides
lonely planet
sta travel
time out


pipstar @ 10:12 PM | link | Comments:

january 30, 2002

myth of fingerprints

last night aidan gave me a call!!!! and just as he was finding his new phone number to tell me he ran out of credit and the phone cut out. oh well.

so i decided to go into the city and see a movie rather than sit around and fret. i ended up going to monsoon wedding which just made me feel like going to india. indian clothes look pretty lush.

i was kinda surprised that i saw noone i knew when i was in town. but i suppose that it was a tuesday night.

but. this morning when i was at work, mum rang up to tell me that aidan had rung back later that night and had left a message because the phone line was busy. so now i have aidan's phone number in sweden! but i can't seem to get it to work.

which sucks.

:::...

when i do eventually go overseas i intend to go to vietnam, thailand, india, czech republic, greece, portugal, spain, romania, spain, france, italy, sweden. i suppose i could go to the uk. but i don't have any major urge to drink lukewarm beer and spend too much money. i might miss out on india or vietnam and just spend a month in thailand.

i'm planning on going for 4 months or more and i'm saving up so that i don't have to feel like i'm on a budget all the time! if you have any ideas or suggestions, just tell me
:::...

after work today i met up with jess and amanda and effie and aliese and sarah and debbie. as amanda is moving to melbourne soon it was one of the last chances for "the girls" to get together.

we ended up eating pasta. which i feel is a complete rip off. i can make pasta at home. i know how much the ingredients cost! i know that the amount of labour involved is minimal! so how come i have to pay $12? if i went to ying chow or something in chinatown i could have had an ace meal for $12 and it would be something i'm unlikely to cook at home.

but despite eating pasta we had a lot of fun. and i saw the swell new top that effie bought. it was yellow polyester and had a photoprint on the front of a couple walking through the rain under an umbrella. it defies description. except it brings to mind dating agency advertisements from the seventies.

:::...

and i bought two new books. the wind up bird chronicle by haruki murakami and santa evita by tomás eloy martínez.

mark suggested that i read the wind up bird chronicle. he drew a picture of him giving the thumbs up sign. so i'm holding him to his recommendation.

i have to finish off the moor's last sigh before i can start either of them.


pipstar @ 09:43 PM | link | Comments:

january 30, 2002

decisions

prior to aidan leaving australia, i figured that it would be a good idea for me to go travelling soon after he left. so i set my sights on a month in thailand or vietnam. then i got a job at the abc for a couple of months. which meant that i was in a kind of limbo and had to put off the thailand vietnam thing.

then i thought... i'll go to vietnam for a couple of weeks in february - before uni goes back... but work people were not that eager to fill in my position for a couple of weeks so i gave up on that idea because i wanted to have some dodgy work to do while i'm studying.

and so on to a couple of days ago (saturday) when i visited my old house in parkside. one of the people i used to live with is going off to japan to teach english for a year. i just felt so jealous. and then i chose to spend saturday night by myself (at home) installing movable type.

and i got upset about how this year's going. or more about how i am making it go.

so then i told myself (at 5am) "i'll give up uni! i'll give up work! i'll go overseas for a couple of months... right now!" and so i told my parentals the next day.

my mum and my stepdad have heard about all of these plans over the last few months. so i don't think that they will actually believe me until they close the door on the plane.

they were a bit confused.

particularly when i decided yesterday that it would be better if....

so that's it! [eventually] i'll actually get going!


pipstar @ 01:21 PM | link | Comments:

january 30, 2002

nothing is good but it's not all bad

i checked waferbaby and daniel's finally posted a link to angee his distant love interest. if true love can blossom between sydney and somewhere in canada then there must be hope for us all.

off the lovely angee's site i found - nothing is good. which was ironically quite good. though i liked the drawings more than the text.

:::...

everyone else seems to have seen snow! even in california it's snowing! not that comparing california (in winter) to adelaide (in summer) makes that much sense.

i have never seen snow. not real stuff (well i've been to mt thebarton where they have fake snow - but that's in a giant shed!).

in about year 2 during a french class it snowed up at basket range. we all wanted to go outside but my french teacher said "it will last... it will still be there by the end of the lesson". AS IF! as soon as the snow hit the ground it melted away.

and then, in year 12 at the school formal after party it snowed! but of course... i wasn't there. my evil (i mean that), much older, cradle snatching boyfriend (i was 16 - he was 29 [though i didn't know he was that old!]) wouldn't stay at the after-party so we went home after about half an hour.

and i missed the snow!!!


pipstar @ 12:57 PM | link | Comments:

january 28, 2002

blogger pro

of course. just as i set up MT blogger release blogger pro. which is ok. because:

:::...

i've set up a blog for my first Exploring Technoculture assignment. the subject is being run online, so i figure an online assignment will be a good idea. [though i should probably not publish the link to the rest of the class until after the due date].

:::...

yesterday was my [kinda] stepbrother Dylan's birthday. we had 16 people over for lunch (his girlfriend's family, my [kinda] stepdad's brother's family and my family). cold rolls, salt and pepper squid and pavlova! oh my!

:::...

i'm once again acting like a typical libran by swinging from the idea of full-time study this semester to travel to study to travel again. my family's confused, i'm confused, my employers will be confused... i don't know what to do!


pipstar @ 01:27 PM | link | Comments:

january 27, 2002

my first mt blog entry

After about 6 hours of the "500 Internal Server Error" message, f2s finally allowed me to use CGI, and finally I have Movable Type running.

Apart from the Installation problems (probably all to do with f2s being crap and me being tired) MT seems to be pretty ace. A nice clean interface, many options. it all seems good...


pipstar @ 06:43 AM | link | Comments:

january 27, 2002

i intended to spend

i intended to spend tonight setting up Perl on my (crappyoldwindows98ratherthanlinux) computer and to then play around with Movable Type on the safety of my own server. but of course that wasn't as easy as i intended it to be, so i gave up and have spent the last 3 hours trying to get MT running on freedom to surf and dealing with Internal Server Error 500. and yes, i ftpd the files as ASCII and checked potential path variations and have created my own "Hello World!" test files.

3 hours!!! I could have been at a nameless badly ventilated pop club dancing to 5ive and my night would have been more productive!!! this sucks!

:::...

as proud as i feel for managing the last 2 weeks without aidan, i have to wonder why i'm letting myself do this. i'm being calm, remaining busy, resigned to the fact that after the best year of my life [so far] i have had to go back to some sort of holding pattern for the next 12 months (without the promise of good stuff returning).

surely i should be fighting this? shouldn't i be: getting pissed; pashing other people knowing that i'd regret it; recklessly spending my money on electronic goods; allowing myself the opportunity to go haywire; to take a risk; to go overseas for even just a fortnight; to tell my employers to get fucked because the job is boring and badly paid; to cry in front of someone and let them hug me.

instead i've been: largely avoiding alcohol; trying to convince myself that a year's enforced celibacy is a good thing; saving my money for a rainy day; controlling myself in the age old way of the woman (by hardly eating at all); doing new things which i've never done before (like bushwalking) which aren't really risky in any sense of the word; telling my employer that sure i'd love to enter boring content into the world's worst CMS for a crappy wage and giving up plans of going overseas because it would be too much work for my employer!; and most of all i'm not letting anyone see me cry because the one person who can fix everything up is in another country, sending only an occassional short email.

the weird thing is that the way things are organising themselves (finishing uni etc) it seems that 2003 will be the year i leave adelaide. but isn't this the year i should be doing it? the concept of me doing a year of full-time uni this year and finishing my degree is a very sensible one. and i'm actually looking forward to studying. but it makes so much sense for me to go away now. i've got more than enough money. and i don't because i'm so completely shit scared of having nothing when i come back.


pipstar @ 03:32 AM | link | Comments:

january 24, 2002

these are some very

these are some very cute paper dolls
and this site is pretty nice too...
and what about a life uncommon?

it seems like all i've been doing at work for the last week is look at websites. indierocket, loobylu and amazon. oh.. i just found another one... just a sorry lament.

i finally received an email from aidan today... it calmed me down no end. i've now got his postal address (and very soon - he gets a phone!).

this morning i had a dream / nightmare that i was having to say goodbye to aidan at the airport again. i can't think of anything more stressful. i'd been preparing myself to farewell him for six months by the time he left two weeks ago. and in this dream we had a fight. one of those ones when we're both stressed and unable to deal with a situation and we both crack and then ten minutes later everything is alright. but i think i went out of the dream before everything felt alright.

but everything does seem to be alright. as right as it can be when he's in sweden and i'm in adelaide.

i can't wait to get back to uni.

i have to go now and get my netball stuff from home. byebye


pipstar @ 04:26 PM | link | Comments:

january 23, 2002

how beautiful is this

how beautiful is this site?... i've been killing time all day today. making my back worse by twisting around and leaning on my mouse, revisiting amelie through the website, eating a meat pie with sauce... nothing much....


pipstar @ 04:39 PM | link | Comments:

january 23, 2002

<whinge>i'm beginning to get

<whinge>i'm beginning to get kinda cranky. no emails from aidan since friday. and i'm sure that there are perfectly good reasons why i'm not hearing anything (and to be reasonable - the blog's only been updated once - so it's not just me being neglected...) but it's hard to think positive thoughts about someone far away when you don't even know what they need positive thoughts thought about.</whinge>


pipstar @ 11:29 AM | link | Comments:

january 18, 2002

things which are making


pipstar @ 04:27 PM | link | Comments:

january 18, 2002

all these resolutions that

all these resolutions that i've had about going overseas are dissolving so quickly. it looks like i'm not going to get to vietnam ( or thailand ) as i'll have to be back at uni by the time things (visas, tours available, passport) are available. there are benefits about this.


pipstar @ 03:38 PM | link | Comments:

january 15, 2002

b5 d t k+

B5 d t k+ s- u f i o++ x e+ l c

my blogger code


pipstar @ 12:07 PM | link | Comments:

january 15, 2002

excellent... aidan's posted to

excellent... aidan's posted to his blog. he's alive and hasn't been mugged! yesterday afternoon he even rang up my house (while i was at work) to check if i was alright. i haven't been forgotten!

soon there'll be some photos up on his blog! i'll get to see what helen looks like after a year and a half of not seeing her, and i'll get to see pictures of chicago from an aidan perspective!


pipstar @ 10:05 AM | link | Comments:

january 14, 2002

i feel like i'm

i feel like i'm about to die (or cry so much that i end up falling asleep). i keep on checking my email and aidan's blog and there's nothing new. practically i know that he's hanging out in chicago with helen - one of his best friends who he hasn't seen for about a year and a half. but wouldn't he have emailed just to say that he'd arrived and was ok?

and then i think about how i'm not going to get a hug from him for the next year. and i had to go into the work bathroom and have a bit of a cry. as i type this (i should at least be pretending to work) i feel like i'm about to cry at any minute.

:::...

fuck. i did cry. and in front of wolf. who dealt with it in a wolf like manner (by making potentially offensive jokes) and then gave me some tissues.


pipstar @ 01:51 PM | link | Comments:

january 13, 2002

last night i went

last night i went to maxion - yet another "indie" night put on by my friends (i can't really complain since i've been doing rock city for the last year).

there was breakdancing! but overall the night was kinda like a school social with people sitting in the corner and not really dancing very much.

:::...

it's good to know that i've got my friends looking after me at the moment. but i still feel at a bit of a loss when i'm out. like aidan's going to turn up later in the evening or something like that. mykl played "beat it" by michael jackson that was good and it inspired the ace breaking.

anyway, my friends aren't looking after me just because of aidan flying away. the other sucky thing that has happened in the last week is that my maternal grandmother torchie passed away. i have to say that i feel relieved for torchie and very calm about it. she didn't want to be old and incapable of looking after herself. i feel sorry that she died suddenly by herself and i feel really sorry for my mum and my aunt.

as the oldest grandchild it fell to me to read the eulogy which my aunt had written. i found out amazing stuff! my grandmother studied journalism at melbourne university in the 1930s, her middle name was winifred and she had a fiance called greg who died in the second world war (which relieved me somewhat as my grandfather can be very harsh - i was glad that she'd loved someone else).

:::...

there are moments when i think that maybe i'm doing the wrong thing. am i going to waste this year by waiting around for aidan? what if he comes back and we think the other sucks? or if only one of us thinks the other sucks?

i suppose that it's only been 2 days since he went. there are many more days to get through over the next year. i get to do many exciting new things this year!


and bushwalking is the new thing that i did today! at 930 in the morning (on a sunday if you mind!) mum came in with the suggestion that we go down to cape jervis to do some bushwalking. we got to see an old silver mine site which had grown over with bush (there was a smelting machine as well - and piles of arsenic residue - a by-product of silver production).

we also did this walk down a very steep gully to view a waterfall which had dried up and which was really a trickle. the rocks on the track were all worn away and there was a lot of gravel which made it easier to slip down. but we survived. i saw some wallabies and lots of lovely native plants (i was surprised but the bush actually smelt the way the bush should smell - like eucalyptus oil). we also drove past an area of forest where there were very old stringy bark gums (eucalyptus obliquea (sp?) ) which were so very very tall and wide.


pipstar @ 09:18 PM | link | Comments:

january 12, 2002

i feel like i'm

i feel like i'm going to be sick.

i know that i'm going to be able to function for the next year. and i know that i will be happy. and that i won't be lonely. but already in the pit of my stomach there is an aching for aidan. i'm going to miss him so much.

i feel really flat. it's going to take a while before i stop looking at the phone expecting it to ring (as if we're going to have enough money to do long distance all the time! - if at all!)

:::...

i want to ring aidan up to tell him how well i'd been able to deal with him going (i only cried a bit in front of his parents - who were crying anyway; i hung out with my mum and went to very expensive op shops; i had a big cry by myself at about 2 when i was trying to have a nap - but i got eventually stopped and had water to rehydrate; i filled out a passport form (still need to get a photo) and bought The Rough Guide to Vietnam; and i had dinner with aliese, brian and jess).

i wanted to check how he was. to tell him that i had meant to give him a hug which was to cover all eventualities (loneliness, regret, coldness, lack of sunlight and self-induced poverty) and that i feel so guilty that i hadn't. to admit to how i really feel about him rather than the generalising i end up doing so that i don't scare him away, so that i don't take a huge risk.

i think that maybe this is some elaborate cheeky game which he's playing that he really will come back in a fortnight and say - "just kidding" and blow raspberries on my neck. but i know that it isn't.

i figure that in terms of loneliness i've got the best deal. i have my family, my friends and my dog. i can also still see aidan's family, friends and dog. i can get a hug anytime that i want one. which is why i miss aidan so much - because i won't be right next to him in case he needs me.


pipstar @ 03:57 PM | link | Comments:

january 12, 2002

take the what should




Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz


pipstar @ 02:52 PM | link | Comments:

january 06, 2002

aidan and i went

aidan and i went to ying chow last night. we ate so much food. maybe too much. granny's bean curd, eshan chicken, rice, "truffles" and chinese green vegetables and the best spring rolls ever. and a bottle of riesling between the two of us.
i'd like to say that in china "truffles" means honeycomb tripe. gross looking.

and then we went past grimaldi's and had espresso con gelato - coffee and baci flavoured gelati. mmmm.

we watched half of farewell my concubine and then went to sleep. (we finished it this morning - long, good and slightly confusing in parts). we saw mifune earlier in the week. that really was weird.

:::...

it's only about 5 days until aidan gets on a plane and blasts off for sweden. i can think of better things to do then wait around for a week until we effectively break up. the theory being that i might go and visit. that we'll see whether there's "something" there after a year. assuming i'm still in adelaide and still wanting him.

but. i can also think of worse things to do. like not waiting for him. or breaking up before he leaves (however tempting that may seem some days). poking myself in the eye with a stick.

at least he'll be leaving on the 11th (12 mth anniversary). that's better than when he was going to leave on the 8th. there's some symbolic achievement in lasting a year.


pipstar @ 05:31 PM | link | Comments:

january 04, 2002

my design is sooooo

my design is sooooo boring at the moment. i've got one i kinda like at home on my computer, but i'm not completely sure about it. it's too wide.


pipstar @ 03:01 PM | link | Comments:

january 04, 2002

plooj - a common

plooj - a common occurance in my old share house.

a hard know to think - cool

seems like a good deal why didn't i read the users.f2s.com forum before i registered a domain with f2s - oh well, i suppose there's next year... or i could get pipstar.com going with f2s and then arrange for the hosting to be changed over.... i'm just not sure whether pipstar.com is what i want to stay with. i'd thought about pepper - but that's already taken.


:::...

have i ever discussed how annoyingly slow my work's publishing tool is? it makes some kind of sense the way it's organised - but hundreds of stories are published daily. AND only the abc uses it. so if i become an expert user i'll only ever be an expert user here.

ohmygod. aidan and i were playing with (my bro) nick's ps2 the other day and tristan (aidan's dog) walked past, caught the controller cord and pulled the ps2 off the tv. and now the disk tray's stuck. which if we get it repaired without voiding the warranty will cost $199 dollars! so thankfully my dad's off looking at whether his insurance will cover accidental breakage. [fingers crossed]


pipstar @ 02:16 PM | link | Comments:

january 03, 2002

did i tell you

did i tell you the other day that I baked bread? yip. and then last night I made some more (4 rolls and a pizza base). last night I put some gluten flour in and it turned out even better.

making bread is really easy and you can see the yeast working and stuff like that. but you have to wait so long until it's ready. and there has to be somewhere warm for the bread to rise. on sunday when i made the bread it was daytime and warm so i put the bread inside my car to rise. last night it was much cooler so i had to fill up a hot water bottle and place the dough and the hwb in the linen cupboard.


pipstar @ 01:42 PM | link | Comments:

january 02, 2002

photos from the south

photos from the south australian work cover awards ball.

hey. i moved the site and lost the file. damn.


pipstar @ 04:20 PM | link | Comments:

january 02, 2002

what would you do?

what would you do? (from my diary)

if i had to go away from my house today - say for a bushfire, ghetto creation, toxic waste spill i'd probably take my cds, my photos, the japanese box jo, peter, wendy and valery gave me, (if i could move it in time - my rug from mum and ed) and some of the more special pippa clothes that i have. [which reminds me i should do something about insuring my cds]. i might take my computer case, but the most important computer stuff (blog + websites i've worked on) is already online.
i usually have my diary and phone with me anyway. and unless i'm swimming or playing netball i'd have the bracelet aidan gave me and my butterfly ring on.

clothes i hear you say...
well. i'd take the clothes which i knew could never be replaced. things that mum gave me which i'd save for my own (imaginary, well off in the future) daughter. a purple cheesecloth country road shirt from a trash and treasure - 50c. the cream calico with black rose print dress of mum's which is too small for either of us to wear anymore. my baby blue Lush top with the weird zip - part of my identity.
a rug? well. that was my 21st present from mum and ed. it arrived 6 months late - but i want it to be wherever i live.

when it was ash wednesday (when i was about 4 or 5) mum packed a whole bunch of things into the car. including her feather quilt. she'd waited so long for one and saved up for it so much that it was one of her most recently acquired and treasured posessions.


pipstar @ 03:14 PM | link | Comments:

january 02, 2002

it's not very long

it's not very long now until aidan departs on his amazing year long trip to sweden. in a kinda symbolic way he's now leaving exactly one year after we met. which i think has to be better than three days before our one year anniversary. [but only slightly]

we set up a basic blog called aidan's hangover yesterday.


pipstar @ 02:44 PM | link | Comments:

january 01, 2002

last night was new

last night was New Year's Eve and I'm not hungover at all!
Which shows that drinking lots of vodka can be a good thing (if you've done the carbo loading thing beforehand). aidan and i went to minke and we took a hipflask of vodka with us and we danced the night away.
i don't think that i have any specific new year's resolutions apart from being happy and making other people happy. not having so many possessions might be a nice idea. learning to spell would also be kinda cool.


pipstar @ 04:45 PM | link | Comments: