may 31, 2004
she uses tangerines
This afternoon I walked down the road to get some cream so I could make my favourite vegetarian lasagne this week. And I had three important conversations.
i. With Jake the super-friendly, grey cat who let me scratch around his ears for a very long time.
ii. With a small boy and his father. The little boy who was only just about 4 years old was very weirded out by my freshly hennaed hair. I told him that I ate heaps of oranges to make it change colour.
iii. With Scooter the fluffy white dog.
While I'd like to have a fluffy pet or a small child living in the house with me, I'm going to intitially buy a gold fish. Though the house is so cold that I'm a little afraid that the fish may well freeze in the super cool little fish bowl that my mum bought for me yesterday.
pipstar @ 12:11 AM | link | Comments: ****
may 26, 2004
gold dust woman
Slowly the C++ is coming back to me.
Words like Singleton, Virtual and Template which I first came across 4 years ago, are beginning to make more sense, or at least become more familiar.
I'm filtering the Java, ASP, PHP, SQL and ActionScript out of my brain to hopefully find a gold nugget, nay, a diamond of useful information.
Luckily the people that I have the fortune to be working with are incredibly patient and willing to answer my potentially stupid questions. And even if I'm not currently well versed in interpreting error messages from compilers this week, I know that very soon I'll be quite au fait about the whole shebang by the end of the month.
I figure that if I collect enough little bits of informational gold dust, eventually I may eventually gather enough to make a nugget of knowledge.
pipstar @ 10:14 AM | link | Comments: **
may 25, 2004
shhh.
This has to be the quietest workplace I have ever been employed at.
pipstar @ 10:18 AM | link | Comments: ****
may 21, 2004
photo friday: macro
pipstar @ 04:45 PM | link | Comments: ******
may 21, 2004
cam d. this post is for you.
I've tried to not post too much about my new job because blogging about work can end up being a very, very bad thing. And because I was afraid that My New Exciting Job might ring up and say "Pippa, we made a mistake, we wanted that other, talkative, redhead chick to work for us."♣
But it appears that they still want me to work for them. Even though I can't drive a computer game♥ car successfully (I persist in moving my body around with the controller) and my knowledge of c++ is rusty like a sardine can in the bottom of the ocean.
Unlike a rusty sardine can, my knowledge will soon be polished up until it gleams like a very shiny metallic thing.
And I am very excited about starting, so excited that I visited my new workplace yesterday, and I don't actually start until monday.
Which is lucky because I found out about the Other People's Sweaty Shoes event taking place in half an hour. As much as I'd like to say that the exercise is a trust exercise involving wearing your workmates sweaty shoes all day and hoping that you don't develop Tinea afterwards and that I'm willing to get Tinea, that's how much I want my new job, I can't. We're going bowling.
I must go and put on an extra layer of socks.
[Also, I bought a sweet denim jacket today, so I must work out a bowling appropriate outfit which enhances the sweetness of the jacket.]
♣ Which is really a little paranoid. I couldn't start the job down here until May because of my contract in Coffs Harbour was for three months and that didn't seem to matter. They still gave me the job. That must mean something?
♥ Contrary to popular opinion, I can drive a real car relatively well.
pipstar @ 04:43 PM | link | Comments: ****
may 21, 2004
...the sweetly sleeping sweeping of the seine...
damn, the decembrists make me so happy.
(i just received a vinyl EP and their first album in the mail)
pipstar @ 04:40 PM | link | Comments:
may 21, 2004
to clarify...
I first heard "pants" used as a comical, swear word whilst playing backgammon in Turkey. My English friend, Jon would exclaim Pants! or Arse! whenever something bad happened in the game.
Other variations included "A bunch of arse" or "Well, that's a bit of pants".
If you think about it and combine the phrases the result is something like a wedgie.
pipstar @ 04:28 PM | link | Comments:
may 19, 2004
pants.
No, not trousers! But "pants" used as a swear word.
On Saturday morning, as I left my cousin's house after a farewell breakfast I dropped my LOMO.
Whoops.
I'd only taken a couple of photos on the roll of film, so I thought "what the heck" and closed the door straight away. And took photos all the way back to Adelaide.
It seemed like a really long roll of film.
And then at the Exeter last night I realised that the film had detached from the sprockets on the spool and so there were no photos being taken.
- no photos of Shae and I in front of the Big Banana with my new sock monkey Gloria.
- no photos of the Fredo pie shop which seems to have every kind of pie. Even oyster pies. I bought a rhubarb and apple pie which was sadly lacking in satisfying amounts of rhubarb.
- no photos of the Big Rock (fake Uluru) which marks the site where Leyland Brothers World stood.
- no photos of my first ever visit to IKEA during which i bought a pink love-heart ice cube tray and the handklaver light shade.
- no photos of Julie driving.
- no photos from the Exeter the other day.
Luckily, the camera is still working properly even though it did fall onto concrete. I also managed to drop my Colorsplash Flash the first time I used it (I'd left it at Mum's as a getting-back-home present to myself) and I had to take it apart and realign bits and pieces, but it's working again.
Anyway, I'm safely home and I now have to deal with owning heaps of stuff once more.
There is one self-sown purple podded pea, some silverbeet, cos lettuce, mint and basil which survived the incredibly hot end of summer. Given that there's been hardly any rain while I've been away I'm surprised that anything is still alive.
I'm trying to not settle into my grandma's house too much as I want to move out into some type of share housing arrangement. If you know of anyone who is looking for someone to move in, or who has a sweet house in North Adelaide for me to move into I'd love to hear from you.
pipstar @ 11:53 AM | link | Comments: ******
may 14, 2004
photo friday: parts
Insect killed by Panda the Cat. Remains arranged by Pippa.
pipstar @ 04:36 PM | link | Comments: *********
may 14, 2004
terrifying pterodactyls
Last year I did a teeny bit of screaming, lots of sushi eating and much makeup application for Brillig's Pterodactyls filmclip.
Tonight (technically tomorrow morning) at 3:25am on RAGE, the video will be debuted on national television.
100 evil schemes...
professor terrance dactyl...
an unsuspecting city...
& 2 young friends off for a quiet evening at the movies...
it's a recipe for mayhem - or for ruling the world!
will the city be destroyed?
will evil prevail?
will the friends ever make it to the movies??
the ice age opens...
pipstar @ 02:50 PM | link | Comments: *
may 13, 2004
(!)
I am truly excited by this (via coudal).
pipstar @ 06:35 PM | link | Comments: ****
may 13, 2004
dancer in the dark
I finally spun fire!
thanks to trisha and mick for teaching me to spin and giving me confidence!
thanks to mick for the great photos.
pipstar @ 12:16 PM | link | Comments: ***
may 13, 2004
meetup
The Webloggers Meetup for Adelaide will be next Wednesday (19th) at The Exeter on Rundle St from 7pm.
I'll be there.
pipstar @ 11:39 AM | link | Comments:
may 12, 2004
i thought you might like to know...
The plan is that on Saturday morning I will shower, have breakfast, pack my bedding and backpack into my efficiently stowed car and then drive south.
For about 6 hours.
Hopefully I'll find my way around Sydney to meet up with the lovely Julie. And then we'll eat some dinner and go to see Black Level Embassy play at the Excelsior in Surry Hills.
You're welcome to come along and meet up with me.
Then, on Sunday (I'm only going to drink water on Saturday night) Julie and I will try and fit her luggage into my car and we'll drive for about 7 hours to Hay.
And we'll eat some type of schnitzel derivative.
Sleep somewhere.
And wake up the next morning (Monday) to drive via Pinnaroo back to Adelaide.
I'm hoping that my parents are going to slaughter a fatted calf or something because I'll be hungry.
So I presume everyone will be at the Exeter on Tuesday night? Because I will be there awaiting your hugs.
pipstar @ 12:29 PM | link | Comments: ******
may 11, 2004
the $400 haircut
In the last couple of years I've been really lucky with my hairdressers. Back in Adelaide I'm a regular customer of Sally's at Limbo on Unley Rd. And I love the way she cuts my hair.
I was so lucky with my choice of hair artiste in Coffs Harbour, and today I went back to see Daniel at Sozo. The theme words for my last haircut by him were disjointed, animated and manga (to celebrate my entry into the games industry). And it was a really good cut.
On Friday, 5 weeks after my last cut, I had an excellent hairday. So excellent, that a 21 year-old, body-boarding, stoner brother of a friend of a friend said "Whoa! That's like a $400 haircut or something!"
As far as I'm aware, boys in general like good looking hair, but I've never heard of one complimenting a girl with an exorbitant haircut price. So I'm very flattered.
And I'd like to think that the cut I got today is worth at least $400 too. Daniel (also flattered by the imagined cost) worked within the animated theme again and the result is certainly of the manga character haircut variety. But it's still a bob. With scruffly bits at the back.
Which falls under the "business at the front, party at the back" definition of a mullet. But it's reversed. So it's a front mullet, or frullet.
A Frullet which is worth $400, but only cost $45♥. Bargain.
♥ Don't laugh. That's what a good haircut costs these days!
pipstar @ 10:59 PM | link | Comments: *******
may 09, 2004
block aid
Long time readers of this blog will probably know that I have a slightly unusual interest in packing stuff up.
I really like bags with pockets and desks with hidden drawers. I admire Aliese's Ford Ka which has sweet compartments hidden away in the shell of the interior. I think that one of the reasons that I want a boat is just so I can work out how to fit my supplies into the hold.
And campervans? Packing up to go travelling around the countryside like the Leyland Brothers would be so much fun.
I almost bought a box of childrens' unpainted wooden blocks yesterday because they'd be a sweet gift if any of my friends were to get their act together and reproduce and they were packed so exactly into the box.
Tins? I just love them. I have special tins for hairclips, an old Panadol tin for first aid gear, a couple of tins for tea, one for henna (from the czech republic) and a tin which I keep blank cards and small gifts for unprepared birthday giving in.
Prior to my departure overseas a couple of years ago I even had a packing list blog which recorded the stuff that I was planning on taking with me. And if I was feeling depressed while I was away, I found that nothing cheered me up more than emptying out my backpack, throwing away the stuff I didn't need and then repacking everything.
As a small child I would sit on the toilet and envisage how I could convert the family bathroom into a teeny tiny little house just for me. I figured that my child's stature meant that the space taken up by the bath could become a bed with hidden storage.
It's like Tetris. But with real stuff to pack.
And so it distresses me that I'm worried about how I'm going to fit everything into my car. There were never any guitar or basket shaped blocks in Tetris and everything seems to have become bigger.
So I have had a practice pack-up. Not into my car as that would have required the assistance of my housemate, but I needed to know just how much stuff I was going to be dealing with. I wanted some idea of what kind of blocks I'd be dealing with.
And I'm very proud to announce that my computer harddrive case fits inside my grandmother's trunk exactly. Which means that the space behind the driver's seat will not be stupidly taken up by an object which prevents seat adjustment. I see it as a small victory over physics.
For the next 5 days I'm going to lie sleepless in bed holding an imaginary Gameboy as my posessions drop from the sky at increasing speed and I frantically spin and flip the boxes and bags and baskets around.
I may not be able to see out the back window, but damnit! I'm going to fit everything inside my car and achieve an amazingly high score.
pipstar @ 02:37 PM | link | Comments: ****
may 09, 2004
and then (iii)
Let's hope that today's spending spree is not the start of some appalling trend in my life.
I didn't spend that much money, but I had to get stuff before I leave for Adelaide. Things like some thankyou presents and brightly coloured handspun wool from the Chrysalis Steiner Shop in Bellingen.
I came home with a number (3) of large bags. And I resisted buying a number of extra, even more unnecessary items.
But I still spent over $70 on wool. I think that I came off lightly in the yarn department. I only ended up with 3 skeins of handspun, a bag of alpaca fleece and purple unspun wool for attempting felting with. I could have bought a skein in every colour of the rainbow. Twice.
Mmmm. knitting.
Wasn't I just writing about how much stuff I have to fit into my car?
And in the grand tradition of my And Then lists I'd like to present some things I intend to do:
- I'm going to practice yoga every second day at least and go to classes once a week. (I'd have practiced today but I was hungover and had a nap instead). And then,
- I really will go to French classes at the Alliance Francaise. And then,
- I'll also go to bellydancing classes. And then, because I have no time
- I'm not going to use the computer on weekends (no, really!). And then,
- I won't watch as much tv (an hour a day maximum!). And then,
- I'm going to make one stranger happy a day. And then,
- I'll write some more lists about the stuff I'm going to do. And then,
Not only will I have an absolutely fabulous career doing games programming ♥ but I'll have an absolutely fabulous personal life.
It's all go from here.
But first I have to fit my stuff into my car.
I'm now going to challenge the physical laws of volume and try and fit even more stuff into my grandmother's old trunk. And then I'll go to sleep.
♥ [have I mentioned how shit-scared I am of starting on the 24th? What happens when they realise I have retained only 10% of my C++ knowledge and know absolutely nothing about how a computer game is made!? And I read that an 80 hour week is not uncommon during a crunch week before a deadline.
When will I sleep?]
pipstar @ 01:22 AM | link | Comments: ****
may 06, 2004
heavy lifting
If it was hard enough fitting stuff into my car for the drive up to Coffs Harbour, it is going to be significantly more difficult fitting stuff in for the return to Adelaide.
I must now add:
- a large handmade basket (50×60cm)
- a new queen size quilt cover
- tarot cards
- two new necklaces
- a lomo camera
- about 10 extra books
- two handbags
- two tshirts
- wide legged pants
- two new black tops
- prints from about 6 rolls of film
- about 6 new cds
- a number of burnt cds
- about 5 dvds
- a large brown puffy jacket
- underwear
- socks
- bathers
Though from experience I know that I should now pack the heavy things into smaller boxes rather than putting all the heavy stuff such as cds, books, art supplies and craft gear into the one large trunk and then expecting two mortals to carry it successfully.
I really have to wonder why I brought my mum's acoustic guitar with me. I only practised once, and I gave up because playing guitar is painful and bar chords are the work of the devil. And now I have to fit it into my car and drive it home.
I am the laziest rockstar in waiting ever.
pipstar @ 06:17 PM | link | Comments: ****
may 04, 2004
top 20 australian books
Still on the topic of books, here's the ABC's list.
Oh dear, I'd better get going reading some more Australian authors...
"Cloudstreet" - Tim Winton
"A Fortunate Life" - AB Facey
"Dirt Music" - Tim Winton
"My Brother Jack" - George Johnston
"The Magic Pudding" - Norman Lindsay
"The Tree of Man" - Patrick White
"Seven Little Australians" - Ethel Turner
"The Fortunes of Richard Mahony" - Henry Handel Richardson
"Tomorrow When the War Began" - John Marsden
"My Place" - Sally Morgan
"Power Without Glory" - Frank Hardy
"Power of One" - Bryce Courtenay
"Oscar and Lucinda" - Peter Carey
"The Harp in the South" - Ruth Park
"Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" - May Gibbs
"Eucalyptus" - Murray Bail
"The Idea of Perfection" - Kate Grenville
"The Ancient Future" - Traci Harding
"I Can Jump Puddles" - Alan Marshall
"Voss" - Patrick White
pipstar @ 05:49 PM | link | Comments: ***
may 04, 2004
the book list.
a meme from kent.
* never finished
? the memories are hazy. possibly i've read it. or started it. or seen the film. or read a book by same author.
italics i want to read it, sooner rather than later.
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Catch-22, Joseph Heller *
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks ?
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier ?
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell ?*
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch, George Eliot
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Persuasion, Jane Austen ?
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm, George Orwell
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher ?
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
The Stand, Stephen King
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens ?
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
Mort, Terry Pratchett
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
The Magus, John Fowles
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
Perfume, Patrick Süskind
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Ulysses, James Joyce
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith ?
Holes, Louis Sachar
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons ?
Magician, Raymond E Feist
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Katherine, Anya Seton
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie ?
pipstar @ 03:31 PM | link | Comments: **
may 01, 2004
we set to sail on a clipper that's bound for south australia
The morning that I left Adelaide I stopped on Rundle St to buy some more henna powder and to pick up a cd which was missing from its case when I bought it at Big Star.
On the cover of the cd there's a sticker with my name and phone number on it and M.I.A underlined. Missing in Action. Quite appropriate for a cd with a song called _This Soldiering Life_.
I absolutely love this cd. Every song is just dying to be sung out loud in some grand singalong. Preferably whilst sailing. Because almost every song has a boat reference.
And while I was reading Peter Duck , Shanty for the Arethusa was stuck in my head.
We set to sail on a clipper that's bound for South Australia
The water's warm there, the natives dark and nubile.
But if you listen, quiet, you can hear the footsteps on the cross-trees
The ghosts of sailors passed, their spectral bodies clinging to the shrouds.
I'd love it if my little red car was a clipper, but despite that I'll be returning to my nubile natives soon. After the weather up here I think that I'll find the water and the air is actually quite cold.
Honestly, ghosts, spectral bodies, shrouds, Japanese geisha, chimbley sweeps and gypsy uncles... Can a band get any better?
© 2002 - 2007 Pippa Buchanan