has Ridley Scott EVER made a film without Russell Crowe?
Is $320 a week good or bad? I have no idea what is ideal. But this apartment means it's all to myself is sits right in the city.
This is a sample potential view:
But we all know they exaggerate things a bit.
Should I just go for it? Grab it? Rent it now while I have the chance?
It will set me free and give me the independence I need.
I just had a huge argument again now - it's either this or a trip overseas - but I think this I need more....
I saw our mailman today! I did, no really, it was magical! I always hear about it - this guy inserting the mail into our lion shaped mailbox. But today, I saw him!
Ok, so you think I'm nuts. Let me explain - I'm stuck at home today, not at work, at home for the first time in what feels like forever. 2003 I started work pretty much as soon as I got out of high school and have been working non-stop since, rarely taking the day off for anything. The last time I stayed home on a weekday was when I had an allergy attack leaving me temporarily blind by my own puffy face and today - a viral infection which saw me leave work early yesterday. I loathed leaving work but I felt like vomiting. I tried to do more and more thinking that over the day I would get better. WRONG. It just got worse, so I ended up finishing as much as possible and left at lunchtime.
I called work this morning double checking and triple checking with my other workmates that the work pending on my table won't be jeopordized if im not here. It's a paranoid thing I have going.
Anyway, slept it off all afternoon and most of today. Managed to get up and make a few phone calls to banks, agencies, my uni to organise graduation ceremony etc... that I could not otherwise do on a weekend.
And I saw our mailman. The last time I saw a mailman/mailwoman was back in primary school when we had a school strike!
I am still tired and buggered. My mum wants me to get out of bed to do some housework because no day is ever rest day. She's mumbling under her breath how I'm not getting paid to stay home and how I should have gone to work. But bugger it. She's going to complain anyway, just try to put up with it. I'll try to rest my eyes a bit now before I have to take the clothes out onto the line later. *sigh*
I want to stick a photo here but it's giving me a headache to sort through all that colour. So:
*imaginary photo here*
sorry.
Don't have time to post the full report, but as you can see we had a last minute costume change. My daughter ended up being only one of two dalmations (were loads of Pippi Longstockings - including one of the teachers) and my son the only Harry from Harry and the Bucket full of Dinosaurs (he decided he much preferred this to Puss in Boots). Unfortunately Mollie had to stay home so didn't get to come and march as Hairy McLary from Donaldsons Dairy as she would have liked.
Cô bé Ry hôm nay lần đầu tiên đi học.Buổi sáng thức dậy nghe mọi người nói là hôm nay đi học cũng thấy zui zui, nhung khi bà Tèo dẫn wa trường thì lại khóc wé trời lun. Bà Tèo phải ẳm về, sau đó nhờ có tui ha ha , ta đã dụ dỗ nó wa lại lớp học . Chị Ry nghe chị hai dụ dỗ hay qué thế là wa lớp lại. Chỉ khóc một chút thôi, xong lại tiếp tục chơi búp bê với bạn. Vậy là buổi đi học đầu tiên của chị ry nhà ta đã thành công tốt đẹp, về nhà còn kể tùm lum chuyện nữa. Không bík ngày mai có chịu đi học nữa không ha. Con ry đi học làm tui nhớ đến bài văn TÔI ĐI HỌC của nhà văn Thanh Tịnh. Một buổi sáng đầy sương thu và gió lạnh, Tèo âu yếm nắm tay Ry đi trên con đuờng đến trường dài và rộng, con đường ấy Ry nhà ta đã wen đi lại mua bánh lắm lần, nhưng hôm nay tự nhiên thấy lạ .Một sự kịên mới đã xảy, hôm nay Ry đi học. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A SEVERE female drought has gripped Mount Isa, but Mayor John Molony thinks he has the answer: send in the ugly girls.
Men outnumber women at a ratio of about five to one in the testosterone town and the female famine is taking its toll on young blokes, who call it the 'beer goggle capital of Australia."
"May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa," Cr Molony said.
"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness.
"Often those who are beauty-disadvantaged are uphappy with their lot.
"Some, in other places in Australia, need to proceed to Mount Isa where happiness awaits.
"And, really, beauty is only skin deep. Isn't there a fairy tale about an ugly duckling that evolves into a beautiful swan?"
The miners' mecca has traditionally been a man's world – and young fellas say living in the Isa is about earning money, not finding love.
In 2006 there were just 819 females aged 20-24 living in town, compared with 994 in 1996. While most blokes accept the female drought is "just the way it is out here" – they still have a few suggestions as to how to lure the ladies out west.
Builder Paul Woodlands, 25, said the pay for jobs traditionally filled by women did not seem to match what the blokes could earn and there was little incentive for women to stay in the remote town.
"I know a few women who have come out here to do hairdressing, but they left to go back to the coast because the pay was bad and there's not much to do," Mr Woodlands said.
"I think if they improved wages for those types of jobs, it might help.
"There's definitely a lack of beautiful women, blokes are not as picky – you take what you can get."
Grant Rollings, 26, dubbed the Isa "the beer goggle" capital of Australia.
He said blokes were far less choosy when it came to women, because they were few and far between.
Electrician Paul McDonald said his mates warned him not to bring his girlfriend to the Isa as she would become prey to the men.
Though he claimed the divorce rate is skyrocketing in Mount Isa, after 12 months he is still happily attached.
Fly-in, fly-out miner Luke Eastgate, 22, hinted that while there were women around, many were not the type to take home to meet your mother.
"There are a small number of professionals, like school teachers and nurses, but it's more of an open set-up, it's difficult to find a girlfriend in this town and keep her."
Mr Eastgate said many young professionals were in Mount Isa for a short time to start their career before they moved back to larger cities.
The story which of course comes from Sydney's Daily Telegraph (also known as the Daily Terror) is accompanied by a photo of America Ferrara dressed as Ugly Betty superimposed over a photo over a Mt Isa landscape, the most notable feature of which is a very phallic, billowing smoke stack. The caption under the photograph says "Ugly Betty ... would be welcome in Mt Isa". Words fail me!
This is the updated version of my favourite cookbook. I received a copy as a wedding gift from my best schoolfriend, J, who is a marvellous cook (she is the person I ring up for any cooking advice I need). As well as being a cookbook, it is also like an encyclopeadia about food. I particularly like how it is arranged in alphabetical order by produce so if you have say, a tonne of tomatoes, you just turn to the tomato section for ideas on what to do with them. It also has cross-referencing in the margins so if there is a recipe using tomatoes in the chilli section, you can still find it easily. My most successful recipes from this book have been the lemon tart and the banana cake but I have also referred to it for lots of other things over the years. Someone else has reviewed this book on her blog here.
In the past few years however, the Cooks Companion has been taken over by the Presbyterian-Methodist Women's Union Cookbook, also given to me by my friend, J. Like the Cooks Companion, it is pretty light on for pictures (actually only has line drawings of some of the dishes) but is really good for those basic things you don't like to admit to not being able to do, like roast a chicken. I also find it great for when I pull a note out of one of my kids' schoolbags at 8pm on a weeknight that says "cakes and biscuits needed at school for a cake stall tomorrow". Most of the recipes only contain a few ingredients so good for rustling something up in a hurry without going to the shops. It has saved my skin numerous times on that kind of thing!
Show us something gold, silver, or bronze.
Some (golden) lemon butter I made yesterday using some of the lemons from the lemon tree we received as a wedding present more than 10 years ago. I used my grandmother's recipe but instead of faffing around with double saucepans and constant stirring, I just tossed all the ingredients into the bread maker, turned it onto the jam setting and let it cook itself! Here is the list of ingredients (which I doubled):
- 1 large cup of sugar
- 2 oz or 50g of butter or margarine
- juice of 2-3 lemons
- grated peel
ETA: For those without a breadmaker, you ideally need a double saucepan and at least an hour to spare. If you don't have a double saucepan, you can boil water in a large saucepan and place the ingredients in a smaller saucepan, put that into the large sauce and stir for one hour until the mix thickens, taking care especially not to get streaks of egg in it (this was always my downfall when I did it this way).
In honour of Indonesian Independence Day yesterday, I had a bit of a photoshoot with my favourite Indonesian wayang character, Petruk.
Petruk looks pretty ugly but he is actually very funny and wise. He is from the Ponokawan family who serve and provide wise counsel to the noble Pendawas. They are often descibed as clowns but this is a bit misleading. They are actually more like the fools in Shakespeare plays, dressing up wisdom in humour. Here is an explanation from a really good wayang site I found:
Although they are only servants with ugly faces and disproportional bodies, but they are very wise and good advisers. ...
They are joking most of the time and ridicule each other but they reflect wisdom and truth. Ponokawan (pono means clear vision, clever and Kawan means companion, who are clever with clear vision, can give a wise advice.
This Petruk is particularly special to me as he was a farewell gift from my Indonesian supervisor, Mas (big brother) Yappi, when I finished my term working at an Indonesian government office in Jakarta. I also relate to him as a public servant with the job of advising those more senior to me. This sometimes means stating the unpopular but in a way that is easier for someone in power to swallow. While most of the wayang stories are traditional epics from India, Petruk often echoes the thoughts of the dalang (puppeteer) by providing humourous commentary on current events. This is illustrated in this story of a wayang performance put on in an area of Central Java recently devastated by earthquake. The story is called Petruk as Counsellor and includes the following anecdote.
If you believe in laughter therapy (and I do after seeing that performance), it must have been a very healing 35 nights for Klaten. Ki Purbo had the crowds alternately laughing harder than they must have laughed in months, and then listening intently to what Semar had to say about life and facing its challenges. He must have been a real spokesman for what the crowd was thinking as Petruk (Semar’s son, the clown who often speaks the dhalang’s own thoughts) spoke at length, hands on his hips, about the inequity of the situation and then wondered, not mincing any words, about the relief efforts. He got many cheers and applause. You could tell the crowd was feeling someone was finally speaking for them. He had the pesindhen and others describe in public what they were doing when the quake hit and you could tell everyone was thinking about their own experiences. I’ve heard that it’s also therapeutic for everyone to gather and tell each other their experiences of a trauma.
My kids also like Petruk as he puts on impromptu shows in the lounge room sometimes. They don't find him scary as they are so used to his funny face and lanky body. You can't really see from the photos but he has a few chips to his paintwork from being dropped on the floor a few times. Usually though he just sits in the corner of the lounge room (propped up in his special wooden stand) keeping a wise eye on everyone.
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