A LEAN, GREEN, PROCRASTINATION MACHINE

 

april 30, 2002

i want something else...

i want to make a new design for the site. something stronger.

[why oh why didn't i do this in the holidays when i was bored?]

[why now when i have three group assignments due in the next six weeks? and a test on thursday?]

and i want to make up stickers which have my email address and url on them, that way i can give them out to people while i'm away.


pipstar @ 03:53 AM | link | Comments:

april 30, 2002

stackhat fun

i managed to mark all the assignments that i had to mark. and i also finished off the tute with my voice still working.

and i hung out with pete at the unibar and we spoke about the karaoke mingefest at his house on saturday, evil neighbours who write anonymous complaints and the price of holidays in new zealand.

and then i went home and rang up karah to say that i'm too lurgeed up to go to yoga tomorrow morning (but, i am healthy enough to meet up for coffeeish / market fest stuffe) and then i organised to meet up with nick later on in the evening.

(my priorities when "sick" are completely skewed)

so after dinner i went to visit nick at his dad's house and we went for a wander looking at the stuff which people throw away on hard rubbish night.

i chose not to wear any of the weird things that we found, but nick wore an old plastic stackhat around the streets of the penfold estate while we kicked a flat soccer ball up and down hills, in the freezing cold (once again the skewed priorities come into play).

and i've just got off the phone to sweden. a very expensive tutorial about playing around with blogger templates. but good. and it was contact and kinda fun.


pipstar @ 02:50 AM | link | Comments:

april 29, 2002

disappointment

apparently i only got 50% for my amazing martha stewart assignment.

i can guess that this was partly because it wasn't in a real "report" format. but i think that it presented the ecommerce information well.

at least the assignment was only worth 10% of the overall mark.

i just know that if i only received 50% for the site analysis, i'll only end up with about 2% for the look at XML.

:::...

i should go to sleep.

draughts and laryngitis and late nights and tutoring tomorrow are not a good combination.


pipstar @ 03:27 AM | link | Comments: *

april 29, 2002

symphysis

<whinge>
i am currently battling some evil lurgee. possibly laryngitis.

i can breathe clearly, but my throat is very sore, and after spending an hour on the phone talking to nick earlier tonight, my voice is beginning to disappear. but it is currently at the slightly sexy, but very husky stage of being lost.

all i can do is eat honey, lavendar candy and super doses of vitamin c three times a day.

i don't know how i am going to teach the tutorial tomorrow if i have no voice left.
</whinge>


pipstar @ 02:41 AM | link | Comments:

april 27, 2002

foxy loxy

i am going to jump up and down like a mad thing once i get off the computer. otherwise i might turn into an icicle.

i just put up a banana cake recipe, and i've played around with the formatting of some of the comment pages.


pipstar @ 09:26 PM | link | Comments:

april 27, 2002

cold hands, warm heart

the past two days i've said to myself, "i'm going to go for a walk along the torrens river before it gets dark". and then it gets dark and i don't go for a walk, and sitting in front of my computer all day means that my circulation is stuffed and my feet and hands end up freezing.

i haven't done any revision for the test on systems maintainance and re-engineering. maybe i should be reading the textbook instead of hermann hesse when i try to get to sleep.

[i think i'm going to try to catch the bus to uni on wednesday. that way i have to wake up, and i'll get to read on the bus. if i wake up early enough, i may even be early enough to actually attend the lecture!]

i still haven't done any of the things i intended to do before the mid-semester break. i haven't even taken in my car to get new tyres or to get the brakes checked. nor have i washed the car (either by hand, little brother slave labour or a machine). nyeh. inactivity is all my fault.

but, after work yesterday i went into town to catch up with luella, jess, sarah, aliese and brian. we finally ended up eating at the exeter (lue and i both ordered chips that we want to eat... so much potato!) having coffee and gelati outside of cibo (so cold!) and then hanging around trying to work out what to do that was cheap, possibly had dancing and good music and which wasn't freezing cold. but we ended up sitting in alfresco's and then going home.

i finally got to see jess' new house in dulwich and i borrowed two van pelt cds from her to burn.

:::...

i listened to the bends by radiohead for the first time in ages and it broke my heart all over again.


pipstar @ 09:12 PM | link | Comments:

april 25, 2002

little things

there was a frog swimming in our pool. i went out to check on it and it had become caught in the filter basket and was spinning around and around. so i scooped it out. and let it hop away.

i finally got to see the nation blue for the first time last night. after two years of friendship with matty weston i finally got to see him play, and i was so impressed with all the nation blue boys. (i'm glad i left the house)

after the nation blue, i went to minke to meet nick, dan, pia and chris and was completely freaked out to see so many people on a wednesday night. i felt all freaky and sweaty and overwhelmed by the crowd, so i went home, had an expensive conversation with aidan, read the glass bead game and went to sleep.


pipstar @ 05:53 PM | link | Comments: *

april 24, 2002

surprise! surprise!

what a good day to turn on the computer!

i checked my email and found out that i'd won a bag from the youthweek website.

and then i got a comment from the lovely gemma, who i met at pete harding's birthday fun the other week.

what a swell half an hour. so as a thankyou to gemma here's a sketch of how i think i might make the passion flower picture look.

stylisation

i think one of the problems with the painting that i tried to do on sunday is that it is nothing like my doodling / drawing style.

the current painted version is my attempt to make paints exactly replicate a flower. i'm not a botanical artist. so i'm going to paint (or attempt to paint) the way that i draw.

:::...

the other ace thing that is happening today, is that matt w. is coming to town! but for one night only... damn these notorious melbourne bands and the japanese bands they tour with!


pipstar @ 02:40 PM | link | Comments:

april 24, 2002

passionstylisation

stylisation


pipstar @ 08:35 AM | link | Comments:

april 22, 2002

tv turnoff week.

that means avoiding the monday night tv fest. and videoing defeats the purpose.

(do movies on video count as tv? i think they probably do)

so, instead i'll go to yoga at 7.45-9.00. and maybe beer with chris if he replies to my message.

which will mean that i actually go to yoga this week.

i said to myself that i'd go this morning. but i turned up at 10 which is the weekend level 1 time, rather than 9.30 which is the weekday level 1 time. [not good yoga karma] so once again i felt upset about missing yoga.

mum did buy me a mushroom farm to cheer me up.


pipstar @ 05:04 PM | link | Comments:

april 22, 2002

how high the moon

i think that i expect too much.

i had a pretty good time last night. dinner at da boyz' house, and then we wandered through town. but we came to the conclusion that adelaide is dead.

and then today i woke up at 11 (even though i only went to sleep at 5am) had a cup of tea, did some yoga practice on the lawn, redyed my hair and most excitingly i started a painting.

the painting looks something like a passion flower (which is lucky, because that's what i was meant to be painting). but it doesn't really pop out of the page.

i suppose that i can't really expect too much of myself. it is the first time that i've really played with paints for about 9 years. so i should be happy that there is a general passion flower resemblance.

and i also tried to do hand stands as apparently in level one yoga they spring them on you without warning. i was unsuccessful. i just ended up laughing. (but i made a mini, badly scanned comic page about the fun time i had - check the photos page). yoga journal gives some advice about handstands.


pipstar @ 03:06 AM | link | Comments: *

april 21, 2002

tea with karah

i'm not actually blue in real life


pipstar @ 03:33 PM | link | Comments:

april 21, 2002

fear of falling

fear of falling


pipstar @ 08:50 AM | link | Comments:

april 21, 2002

boredcomic

tn_boredcomic.gif


pipstar @ 08:25 AM | link | Comments:

april 20, 2002

cloudy like the city of gray skies' skies

don't get me wrong. i want to be happy.

but the mid-semester break has made me feel like shit. i want to be doing something, but i don't know what to do. i feel lonely, but i don't know who i want to be spending time with at the moment.

i feel like i am waiting for something. leaving the country in about three months would be the major suspect. but i think that it is something that i should do before then.

i've also been looking at keri smith's website. particularly the wishjartales . i think that my problem is working out what i really should be doing, and keeping on wanting to do it.


pipstar @ 04:45 PM | link | Comments: *

april 20, 2002

my head seems cloudy

i didn't go to yoga this morning because i didn't want to go by myself. (gee pip, travelling by yourself around europe is going to be terrible if you can't even go solo to yoga). i'd emailed karah about it yesterday but didn't receive a reply.

and then mum woke me up and told me that karah had gone to yoga (she'd rung up and left a message last night but mum forgot to tell me) and that she'd rung up to say that level one was very hard.

i feel really pissed off. and sad. and tired. i actually did something close to organising to hang out with someone (hey, i emailed karah) and then it got stuffed up because of a non passed on phone message.

i am going to reiterate why my life is shit at the moment.


pipstar @ 04:12 PM | link | Comments:

april 18, 2002

seahorses

i just think that if i'm still awake at 3.30am, i probably won't be wanting to get up for 9.30 yoga. so i really will, i promise, try to go on saturday morning.

:::...

i've been thinking about photography, and taking my camera away with me. do i go all colour or all black and white? or do i take a combination?

black and white will be way cheaper in the end. no wasted shots being printed as i'll proof them all before i print. chances are things will look a bit better (people especially). but there's also the chance that i'll take a kazillion rolls of black and white, and then never end up processing them.

but, the same can be said for colour. at least i'll feel like i'm doing something productive if i'm processing black and white.

and if i'm taking colour shots should i be using slide film instead of negative film?

egads! it's so confusing!


pipstar @ 04:57 AM | link | Comments:

april 18, 2002

yes. my life is boring

i made a pretty mean risotto last night. dried wood fungus (rehydrated of course) and thyme and parsley. i surprised myself.

and then i fell asleep at 9.30pm. until 11am.

i am so sad and pathetic. and strangely still tired.

but i sorted through all my clothes. tore up a whole lot of stuff to rags, made a bag of stuff to take to st vinnies and a couple of things to try and sell to get funked.

and then i sorted through my cds to put things back in the right cases. and i'm missing some very important things. the avalanches since i left you album cd bit (i've still got the case... but where's the actual disk!), the jets to brazil four cornered night cd and case, the eels - electroshock blues and the hilltop hoods disk (but i knew that someone nicked that while my brother was borrowing it).


pipstar @ 02:25 AM | link | Comments:

april 16, 2002

[a6497b1c3582]

postmodern narrative at born magazine: what's your serial number?

:::...

my little brother is just one month past his thirteenth birthday, and he acts like such a teenager already! he doesn't like going into town with me anymore for fear that his friends will see him with his big sister. he sprays way too much deoderant around the bathroom. he has hair growing in his armpit (he proudly showed them to me tonight!), and most importantly he started making his first mix-tape tonight.

i feel very proud of him, but at the same time freaked out. it doesn't seem very long ago that i was an eager 10 year old trying to help my mum with this tiny little boy.

:::...

i am procrastinating at mach 10.


pipstar @ 02:53 AM | link | Comments:

april 14, 2002

pretty

detail & pattern


pipstar @ 11:53 PM | link | Comments:

april 13, 2002

go mad kids

derush

australian infront


pipstar @ 08:07 PM | link | Comments:

april 13, 2002

intentions

i think that i'm going to go home and bake loobylu's yoghurt cake before i go out tonight.

i'm going to take along my camera tonight. it will be good to take some band shots again. AND i'm going to take a roll of black and white film. which will mean i have no reason to not go into carclew and play around in the darkroom.

hey. instead of going to melbourne next week, i could

or i could buy a digital camera (though i like my first ideas a bit more)

because, if i go to melbourne, i'll end up buying clothes (too many for someone who is saving to go away) spend lots of money on food, spend 2 days sitting on the train there and back because i left buying a plane ticket until there were none left. spend lots of money on books and zines and records.

while i would get to see lue and amanda and their melbourne posse and little general live and seb and haan, i wouldn't feel very productive.

these holidays should be about doing things that i always put off!


pipstar @ 07:33 PM | link | Comments:

april 13, 2002

my radio spoke to me

in my geeky past i have had dreams in c++, java and flash. i once had sex after working on an assignment in director and everything i did was made up of little sprites being ordered across keyframes (i was very tired).

but last night was extremely odd.

i add a stomach ache from drinking beer, and i'd just spoken to aidan on the phone before i went to sleep which meant that i was sleeping very restlessly. oh, and i'd just listened to pita and fennesz. [good but distracting]

and then my clock radio started speaking to me. it was parsing the xml examples from the book that i'm reading at the moment.

weird.


pipstar @ 07:16 PM | link | Comments:

april 12, 2002

the end is nigh

i have boring stuff that i have to do this weekend, and fun things that i might have to put off.


pipstar @ 06:33 PM | link | Comments:

april 12, 2002

hi, my name is pippa and i'm a geek

just in case i don't get to melbourne these holidays. i've found something to do. i'm going to make battlecat beautifully validated.

using multivalidator!

and just when i'm going to need it most, a list apart have an article about choosing the right doctype.

and i'm also going to have a look through boxes and arrows.


the sky is overcast and there are about 20 different types of clouds. many different greys, somewhite and a dusty blue colour.

pretty


pipstar @ 03:27 PM | link | Comments:

april 12, 2002

bon ami

i feel like i have done absolutely nothing worth writing about. however:

i'm reading my xml book at the moment. i'd really love to use xml, but why would i need to? to make the "printable" version of dailyish? so, apart from the ecommerce assignment due on tuesday, i don't actually have any real reason to be looking at xml. nyeh.

i made pizza for dinner tonight. and i've just posted the recipe for the pizza dough.
we put homemade tomato sauce, anchovies, pepperoni, sundried tomato, capsicum, spanish onion, feta and pickled octopus and plain tasty cheese on the pizza.

yum.

:::...

i felt sad today. i was watching a repeat of er and i realised that one day my parents are going to die. i'd kinda put that stuff out of my mind after stuart's dad died a couple of years ago.

my grandma dying? i was pretty detached from most things at the start of this year, as a way of dealing with aidan going away. so when torchie passed away i didn't feel very much. relieved. but very distant from it.

:::...

[i shift thoughts again]

a $750 discman? why?


pipstar @ 02:04 AM | link | Comments:

april 10, 2002

how to put a hyperlink into a blog.

"gee... i don't know how to put a hyperlink into my webpage." said aidan.

pippa looks embarassed and vows to never teach anyone how to do things with computers. she looks even more embarassed when she realises that she's employed as a desktop publishing tutor this semester.

"that's ok aidan, i didn't explain the concept very well". pippa stumbles on this admission, she finds it hard to admit failure.

"hey aidan, why don't you check out webmonkey? this tutorial might help you with linking more successfully than i can!"


pipstar @ 02:27 AM | link | Comments:

april 10, 2002

did i say???

that i am procrastinating?

proof of procrastination and yoga participation.

that i finished the introduction to yoga course today?

that within the next fourish months i'm going to be out of this country?

that i forgot to bring food to the uni computer pools tonight, was feeling kinda hungry and then realised that i have candy!?

that i almost shaved my head last night? [boredom largely]

that mum made marinated octopus and i'm eating too damn much of it?


pipstar @ 02:13 AM | link | Comments:

april 10, 2002

villa fiorita

three days since my last post!

that means i must have been living something vaguely resembling a life in the last 3 days...

what did i do?

da girls and i did our first night of music playing at the prince albert.

|            45:45             |

it's like drinking beer to the sound of awfully good mixtapes.

it was pretty good fun, people rocked up (including karah and james!) and we had the most amazingly beautiful working equipment to play on....

cd turntables! a working mixer! and glory of all gloriesturntables!

:::...

after 45:45 i went to the party for dan's birthday up in beaumont. where i had a lot of fun with peta and nick and chris and tori and dan and other people who's names i've forgotten.

i didn't get to sleep until 6am... and i didn't wake up until 2pm.

[things get kinda boring now]

went off to a group meeting for the ism+re assignment, went home, fell asleep in front of sweet revenge.

woke up slightly dulled and kinda fresh on monday morning, tuted my desktop publishing tutorial, hung out with peter and a very friendly border collie called "zydecko" (we didn't know its real name) and then went home for the monday night tv marathon.


pipstar @ 01:03 AM | link | Comments:

april 06, 2002

wash my soul

there's no way that anyone could feel healthy if they'd eaten as much chocolate as i have lately.

compared to previous years, my chocolate consumption is minimal, but i'd not eaten any for a month before easter came along.

timtamsminieggsbigeggsferrerorochervanilla toomuchvanillaicecreamandchocolatesauce

my skin feels gluggy and my tastebuds are all hooked on sugar highs, so they get angry when i try to feed them carrots or something healthy.

[i think that next year i'll have to pretend that i'm vegan so that i won't be given so much chocolate. or maybe i should just give it to my little brother.]


pipstar @ 12:55 PM | link | Comments: *

april 06, 2002

no. 2 egg

yay for phone calls from foreign countries. and for emails being received when they were thought to be lost in the ether.

i feel cared for. on the other side of the planet. but cared for.

:::...

i had a boring, nothing working properly day at work yesterday. i couldn't log onto my normal computer, so i couldn't access the beautifully pippa preferenced programs. i ended up typing the content in for a whole week's worth of one of the shows. half of the images didn't get to upload (because i couldn't use ftp) and i didn't get to fix up the archiving problem.

so i felt kinda unproductive. but, i did actually start work on the testplan for system maintainence and re-engineering. that's something at least.

:::...

alex and i scooted up to the video store and hired stand by me, he died with a felafel in his hand, and romeo must die.


pipstar @ 11:41 AM | link | Comments:

april 04, 2002

i'm torturing myself looking at

i'm torturing myself looking at marthastewart.com. they don't deliver to australia... and what use am i going to have for leaf, noah's ark, bug and snowflake shaped cookie cutters? which would cost about A$100 to get here?

well. i'd make beautiful cookies. not that i'd be able to afford the ingredients.

[ the decorative photo corners are very pretty. ]

:::...

somehow, tonight i am going to

and then i'm going to go to bed early. get up early, do an hour of hardcore yoga, read murakami in the original japanese, go to abc work, go home and do ism+re testplan and data, go to the tyke cd launch and la maison at lab.*

*note: some of these things are imaginary. that means i won't really be doing them.


pipstar @ 07:00 PM | link | Comments:

april 03, 2002

i procrastinate

You are Civilian Calvin!
You don't get to travel much outside your neighborhood, but you still manage to get in plenty of trouble. When you're not acting up, you like to wax philosophical.
Take the What Calvin are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com!

and jejune...


pipstar @ 04:04 PM | link | Comments:

april 03, 2002

crouching in the cupboard

i think that i was a bit complacent at the start of yoga. the first four weeks were easy.

however, that "sure i can do it easily" attitude is more of a hindrance now that we're at the end of the course. i lost my balance about 3 times and felt very dizzy about 10 times. i think the whole mind over matter thing needs some working on.

as does my "doing things" initiative.

while i did hand up my assignment and did yoga today, the afternoon was kinda wasted. i bought stuff: gunther grass - my century and a moosewood cookbook: $10 for the two, sandinista by the clash on vinyl for $20.

when i got home i sat around, read some murakami short stories and ate dinner. not a single bit of study, or prestudy procrastination cleaning. and then i went out and had coffee with nick h.

but i am at uni now, i've written a long email to aidan and i've actually printed up the next objects and algorithms assignment. i must go home to sleep.


pipstar @ 12:55 AM | link | Comments:

april 02, 2002

work with me on this one

in my mind, when i think of the F building, i think of one physical structure.

however, at the university of south australia, building F is a state of mind. across two separate physical structures.

i was confused too

luckily i did read the miniscule sign at the old computer and information science school office. or i'd have left my beautiful assignment on marthastewart.com in a storage receptacle rather than the assignment box.

so i ran across mawson lakes campus desparately trying to find F1.51. in my mind it would be somewhere nearish to F1.25 where i would go to lectures if i wasn't still asleep.

F1.51 is in the other illogical building. and i ran around all puffing and panting like a silly old goose.

yay for me.


pipstar @ 09:41 AM | link | Comments: