Nicholas

laurelleaf, posting in sydneysiders @ 9:18am: Hookah Pipes in the city?
Does anyone know where I could find a hookah and/or some flavoured tobacco close to the city? Thankyou!

waitingman @ 7:22pm: 2009 - A Year To Remember To Forget
Probably the last post for the year, given what the next 24 hours holds... more on that next year.

In summary:~ ( A year of losses & gains, both intentional & not so. )

penelly @ 2:03pm: "there's a zoo in... Western Plain land
... we can get there by the light of day"

I've uploaded part two of my NSW Holiday snaps to a new flickr set.

After Mudgee, we left the vineyards and headed west to Wellington to see the caves. It was a really hot day, but pleasantly cool once inside the caves. We went on two tours, into Cathedral Cave and also the smaller but more intricately beautiful Gaden Cave. The latter was a private tour because we were the only tourists there. :)


Cathedral Cave


The Altar, Cathedral Cave






cave coral:


So pretty!



And the next day we went to the zoo! Western Plains Zoo! It was a scorcher of a day - 38 degrees. We got there early, slipped-slopped-slapped and made sure we drank plenty of water. We also hired a golf buggy to get us around - much more fun than the car! The first half of the day we followed the track and went to lots of keeper talks and feedings. We had a quick lunch stop (it was too hot for anything except cold juice and icecreams) and were hot and exhausted and finished the full circuit of the zoo by about 2pm.

We saw meerkats!


And rhinos!


And giraffes, oh my!


And my favourite, elephants!!


Real ones!




And some hippos!




Zebras! Including a baby one!


And a baby buffalo too!



( bigger pics )

nimuroji, posting in learn_swedish @ 11:29am: Hejsan allihopa. God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

A funny video to practice your skånska listening comprehension

glittalogik, posting in sydneysiders @ 12:27pm: Tradie in Marrickville area
Hey guys, a DIY project ended up a bit over my head so I need someone to replaster my bathroom ceiling and possibly fix some other stuff while they're here. Kinda urgent =( Can anyone recommend someone?

_tortilla, posting in learn_swedish @ 10:13pm: Would you please help me in Swedish translation?

Hello dear guys!

I need some urgent help. Would you be so kind to translate the following phrase into Swedish?

"I know that you've loved me since you were a child and I'm really grateful for that. I wish all your dreams come true. You are a very gifted person, an outstanding girl. Hope you get everything you want. Love, N."

Thank's in advance!

potonica, posting in sydneysiders @ 12:41am: Hello can anyone recommend a good dentist in the Ryde area? My tooth is killing me and I am hoping to find someone that might be open.

Thanks and happy new year

puzzlement @ 12:30pm: Hermit's cave

For my loyal and devoted readers: I need to turn off the firehose so I'm taking something of a 'net vacation for a while, including but quite possibly not limited to Identica/Twitter/Facebook, mailing lists and blog comments. Phone and direct email will reach me (before I go into labour at least, which is likely not any day now).

Originally posted at http://puzzling.org/logs/thoughts/2009/December/28/hermit

lunaminor @ 10:47am:

mmsdj @ 12:52pm: "Peace on earth and goodwill to all men." "We're the US government. We don't *do* that!"

http://mmaster.deadjournal.com/667011.html

Christmas!

Things people gave me:
* Liz threw some money in for me buying myself a "12 Days Of Christmas" Lush pack
* Will gave me a scarf and brooch
* Parents gave me some wine glasses to use for parfait, some fabric with an IOU from my mother to turn it into a pair of pants, Band Hero, and the 2009 Chaser annual
* Chris gave me an XKCD book, the XKCD "Witty" tshirt, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and an iTunes gift card
* My nieces gave me a Lush pack

Did you get anything exciting?
-Mmaster

didz, posting in sydneysiders @ 12:02am: I bought a soundwave ticket and then I moved to Melbourne. I've just seen the timetable and I honestly cannot be arsed flying back to Sydney for that clusterfuck.

I realise it's not sold out so I'm selling it for $120. I can probably arrange a friend (Hi leighroy__!) to do an exchange or I can post it ~buy it now~ on ebay and legitimise a money transfer/post transaction. I just want to get rid of it so let me know what you prefer.

PS Melbourne really is better~

fearofpeas, posting in sydneysiders @ 2:05pm: better yet... any supermarkets open... anywhere... today?

halp!

snuck @ 9:21am: Crikey it's Christmas
Merry Christmas to you all! May God's love and peace reign, may your wishes come true (in true chinese proverb style) and we all be rolling in Christmas lurve.

My day was long, good and long. Mr Wonderful and I were up at stupid o'clock. So we puttered off to the paddock with leftover cake and iced coffees for breakfast and watched Peg run around the barren landscape that is the cleared land for a shed and office.

Then we came back and opened presents. Apparently giving a knife is unlucky? Hrm... I likes the knife.  And my brother gave me the CWA cookbook (smarty pants), and I got some awesome garden gnomes. And a fat cow butter dish. Awesomeness.

Puttered up to T's parentals house for more grift and grab, and hung about until nearly lunchtime. Thought about going to church - but I've not been to church out here yet (it's a very small town, with four churches, and I'm sure there's something a bit 'strange' about it all), I need to work up some courage ;). T and I made a jumbo garden salad, and had the usual over stuffed Xmas lunch at the parentals, rolling home about 3 to sleep it off.

More food about 7pm, home for some Mad Men (another Xmas loot haul) and in bed by 9.30.

Sooooo tired. Nice day. Good peoples. :)

astrovisionary, posting in sydneysiders @ 11:34am: boxing day
Are pubs/bottlos open today?

possum_anemore, posting in sydneysiders @ 9:23am: open xmas?
there's bound to be somethings open today

does anyone know what would / defiantly will be open today - besides petrol stations?

in the city area?

cecille_abril, posting in learn_swedish @ 11:09pm: Hej!
I' m a newcomer.

Vad heter du? - Jag heter Sophie

Varifrån kommer du? - Jag är ryss men bor i Ukraine

I hur många år har du studerat svenska? - 1 år.

Varför studerar du svenska? -  Det vet jag inte, det var min nyck. ;-)

Vad tycker du om det? - Det är lik tysk men inte så svår.

Vilka språk behärskar du? - Jag kann ryska, ukrainska, engelska; grunderna tysk, italiensk och kan förstå  spanska.

Om du vill, berätta lite mer om dig själv: jag är lat ;-)

GOD JUL!

mmsdj @ 11:55am: *bounces*

http://mmaster.deadjournal.com/666721.html

(8) Santa never maaaade it into NOoooRAD! (8)

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

:D!
-Mmaster

syaldia @ 6:18am: So, uh, that took about 2 hours longer than I expected...

Actually, I'm happy with it. I think it's pretty and should look good, provided it fits. Please, please, please fit.

I feel a little bad for cornaryn, since I plan to be up in an hour...

snuck @ 11:58am: An a-typical typical day in the day of the snuck
Today is pretty typical, but different.

Last night Mr Wonderful and his brother and father went and put jilgie nets in... so this morning we went and hauled them out (the farm is about 25km away, and has a series of dams etc on it that are perfect for yabbies/jilgies).  Crayfish were $20 each (thawed, so cannot keep them 'safe' for an hour's drive back to the house yesterday), or the haul of two whole buckets of these, fresh straight from the dam? Is there even a choice? We'd have enough there for about 10 people to be stuffed full as a goog on them, and given there were so many, I suspect the dams are getting over populated (and the jilgies will stop growing bigger) so we'll have to eat more and more.

Back at my house by about 10am to pop a gluten free christmas fruit cake in the oven (mmm nearly time to pull it out)... and then trim the 'dog's lamb' from groceries the other day (all the butcher's offcuts, and bits of bone etc for the dawg) and put that in the freezer (mmm meat popsicles), sort the meat from the butchers the other day into serving sizes and pop that in the freezer. Get a dozen chicken legs out of the freezer (for T's family will eat here tonight).... T vaccumed (hate job!) and I cleaned the kitchen, including the griller of doom.

Wash the dishes. Empty, clean and reset two mouse traps (mmmm the dead things saga continues), take the rubbish out... It's almost 12, in a moment I'll be making lunch.

Never ending chores. Other days it will be different chores. Add in a couple of kms walk a day, twice daily to keep the mutt happy, and this afternoon we'll probably play some talisman with Jason (T's brother), and then cook for the family...

Tomorrow I've got take just a salad up thankfully.

Busy. Typical day. Only thing 'not typical' here would be the yabbies/jilgies. And that's likely to become 'typical' soon. Trips to the farm are frequent though.

Off to put the washing in the machine.

syaldia @ 10:36am: So, yeah, I found my Christmas cheer.

Does anyone else have those moments where you're just kinda in love with everything? I used to think that tied into my mania.¹ I've gotten my handful of random presents and last minute plans out of the way, bought what should be the last of my presents for family, and need to get around to canceling the amazon prime trial that I was really, really happy to have this week.

The Christmas cookie exchange went really well. There were more people than I expected, but I did eventually calm down. I even managed to never go into actual hiding.² I ended up taking a tin of what we kept to the receptionists at the clinic yesterday, because cookies are yummy but we do not need to keep that many in the house. I still have peanut butter balls and peppermint patties that haven't been dipped yet... maybe tomorrow?

I have a few presents that need to be finished because some people can't stay out of my craft room long enough for me to both convince the sewing machine not to hate me and get work done (also because I procrastinate like whoa and haven't been quite all there lately, with anxiety from work things). I need to get a few pieces of jewelry done, as well - but if I can get in the right frame of mind, a few pieces shouldn't take more than an hour to put together. Especially if I stick to something easy, like earrings (and have all the pieces I need, please let me be able to find everything). The ratio of wrapped to unfinished on my gift spreadsheet is a little worrying, but I think I can do this. I also need to make sure I have everything for pumpkin cinnamon rolls to make for christmas morning, and see if mom wants us to bring any food things for christmas dinner. Busy busy busy... we get out of work early today, but I feel weird leaving when the majority of my floor can't.

I came up with a new knitting project last night, to be started after the sewing marathon preceding Twelfth Night. This is bad because I don't actually enjoy knitting, but I really want to do this. It'll be shiny. At least it involves spinning first, which'll make me happy. As long as I don't have to learn anything new³, everything should be okay.


---

1. Current theory is that I don't have bipolar, and atypical depression looks more likely. I could type a lot here, but the summary is that I don't really do manic (and hypomanic/drug reactions are possibly more accurate labels for past events) and I don't have a current diagnosis.
2. Constantly moving to the room with fewer people in it doesn't count as hiding. Also, our current kitchen is not possible to hide in - it's too open, which is annoying as that's my usual place to hide.
3. Like purling. Hah.

snuck @ 8:28pm: Two sleeps to go...

Normally Christmas isn't very normal for me.

This year I'm sort of 'starting' a new family - I'm spending it with T and his family. Normally I'd spend it with my 'life long' family of others.

We have a lovely Xmas tree (T doesn't understand the Chanel maxim "look in the mirror and take one thing off", so it's a little overdone :P), we have a piglet of a puppy to take care of (the finding of dead things continues), there is the massive hoardes of his family descending.

And in time I need to decide where my own family fits in... How I might spend time with and fit in the kidlet sisterette, the bro and his family and my own family. I think we'll need to work out our own family traditions.

What do your families do, and how do they manage the multiple siblings, in laws, families etc?
 

metacruft @ 4:30pm: Airing of Smoothie Grievance
So I'm cruisin the menu of a non-franchise juice bar this morning, looking for some breakfast, when I spy "Pine Delight Smoothie! Pineapple with yoghurt and ginger". "Gee!" I think to myself, "Gee! I like smoothies, and I like pineapple, and I even like ginger! You don't usually see pineapple smoothies on the menu, and I like so much about it, I'd be a fool not to try it." Right? Right. I'd have to be an idiot not to give it a go. As the nice girl at the juice bar is making my smoothie, I think to myself that probably the reason pineapple smoothies are so rare is that it must be hard to stop the pineapple juice curdling the yoghurt. Still, these guys must have the secret down pat, cos it's up there on the sign, bold as brass bollocks. I was snapped out of my contemplative reverie by Juice Bar Girl asking if I'd like ice in my smoothie. "Uh, sure. Let's have some ice in it."

Smoothie girl finishes mixing drink, plonks drink down on counter and says "I don't have any ice, sorry." I do a double take, decide that enjoying the surreality of the ice paradox is the best reaction I could choose, smile and pay.

Tasting the smoothie, I find it has curdled. It's sour and lumpy, and I drink a fair bit of it before chucking it out.

Happy Festivus!* Don't forget to air your grievances and wrestle the head of your household to submission for luck.

*Yeah, I'm on the Festivus bandwagon until a better secular, less-commercialised summer solstice holiday comes along.

mmsdj @ 9:57pm: Life. Be in it.

http://mmaster.deadjournal.com/666589.html

* Mum: We need to pick up some turkey from the shops, for Christmas dinner.
Mm: Are you going to pick up some grease, as well?

* UTS is interesting. They rejected my eRequest, yet pushed what I wanted through. Except that they didn't include Stats as an elective, and instead shoved it on the end (so I still had one elective remaining). When I rang the Student Centre, the girl was like, "That's really weird, I don't know what they've done." Then she fixed it, thank goodness.

* My passport application that I rushed about completing on Friday has now been processed. Much quicker than I anticipated.

* It's two days till Christmas.

It 9am too early to go back to bed? I have a headache.
-Mmaster

mmsdj @ 12:30pm:

http://mmaster.deadjournal.com/666299.html

Grarrgrgh.

Tonight, for no apparent reason, my eyesight started going incredibly wonky. Initially, there was this bright spot as though I'd been staring at a lightglobe. I blinked a few times, and it switched from that to this sparkly curve at the left hand side of my vision - as though I was looking through crinkled cellophane or something. I'd hold my hand up beside me and be unable to see the fingers, because the sparkles were blocking the vision.

It went away within half an hour or so, but it has me a little spooked, so I'm going to head to the optometrist tomorrow morning and see if they have any bright notions. Chris was suggesting that it was exhaustion catching up with me (as he points at the bags under my eyes).

When I got home, I told Mum about it. She said it had been happening to her for years, and no-one had ever given her a satisfactory explanation. ...That sounds promising. "The closest thing I've ever had to a suggestion was that it was a migraine without the actual headache." ...Right.


Also on tomorrow morning's agenda: hopefully actually get my passport application submitted. I was sitting on it because it hadn't been filled out, and then because I couldn't afford it - but now both of those have been fixed, so I have to take it in and find out what else is wrong. Whee...


Arranging my day is going to be made more interesting by the fact that there is a bus strike, just to get in the way of everything, so I'm going to have to either catch a train or a cab into the city - while carrying Khet. Oh dear.

I guess I should heed Chris' concern and head to bed soon. I just want to finish reading a couple of things before I crash - assuming I can stay awake that long, anyway.
-Mmaster

EDIT: Back from OPSM. According to the optometrist, after having checked for evidence of anything more serious, it was probably a visual migraine. "If it starts happening close together, see your GP." Right-o.

syaldia @ 2:54pm: Why has it never occured to me before to use the private setting on lj to log my thoughts after therapy? I do so on paper sometimes, but paper journals still kinda of weird me out and I tend to either keep up with them, so I'm writing on random sheets of paper that get put in odd places. Now I just need to cart my laptop with me on those days. Sometimes I am the dumb.