Posts Tagged ‘Photo’

Make sure you have a change of underpants because I’m about to say something profound say something…

Change all at once is hard. It’s a frightening prospect so easily put off indefinitely – I know from years of doing just that.

But that’s what this year has been all about for me. Change. Doing things I never thought I’d do. I started the year in a new city, moved into a new home, became more social less anti-social, started studying, was more spontaneous, got a crazy haircut, got an awesome jacket…

…Did other stuff.

You see the guy there in the photo? He didn’t exist this time last year. He’s a whole new person.

Well, almost. Believe me, I still make some of the same old mistakes. I still make some wrong decisions or say the wrong thing. I still fall into some of the same old habits.

I’m still under construction…

But then, aren’t we all?

Whilst sitting outside a cafe Saturday an odd thing happened. Quite unexpectedly, strange white egg-like things as cold as ice began falling from somewhere high in the stratosphere.

As I turned from my mildly warm coffee to watch the phenomena I realised that it must be step two in the current secret alien invasion of the Saucer People from the planet Saucer. Quickly, without anyone noticing, I stepped out into the cascading objects and used my lightning fast matrix-style reflexes to dodge all the falling pieces to pick myself a sample.

It would’ve been a faster discovery had my coffee been hot but unfortunately we were in a place with an inadequately skilled barista and had to make do with a slow melting of my sample in a luke warm cup of coffee. Slowly the ice melted away and as if from nowhere a pigeon exploded from my mildly heated coffee and flew out into the storm.

“Gadzooks!” I yelped.

Fortunately, everyone within the coffee-house thought I was performing a magic trick and applauded.

They couldn’t see the horror that was coming.

I took my date by the hand and with visions of the Bourne Identity coming to mind, I leapt into a small european car and began driving through traffic at high speeds as only small european cars can.

“Eeek!” She screamed from the passenger seat as we dodged yet another fire engine and rounded an ambulance and knocked over an old woman being helped across the street by a young scout.

I couldn’t quite hear what she said then, but it sounded like: “Oh my god! You’re so sexy, like an action hero!”

“I know.” I told her. “I know.”

Rain began pouring down. Sheets of water making it more and more difficult to see out the windscreen. I glanced out the side window at the crowds on the streets putting up umbrellas, they were getting a lot of the water but I knew that it was localized over us. They were trying to stop us. The bastards!

I had to stop quickly and I knew only one way to do it. I slammed on the brakes and twisted the steering wheel, turning the small european car into the nearest building. The front crumpled as we came to a complete stop against the wall of the building.

“Quick! Get out of the car!” I yelled, “I don’t want you getting hurt!”

She opened the door and fell out of the car, landing on some of the people that had heroically given their lives to help us stop the vehicle in time. She screamed.

“It’s okay,” I lifted her by the arm. “We’ll be harder to track on foot. they’ll never stop us.”

Then I shouted to the heavens: “Never!!”

The crowd was thick and soggy like a young child’s blanket after a nightmare but we broke through the masses, pushing old people left, young children right and I was forced to send an occupied stroller careening off into the street just to make it through.

I think one man in the crowd was coming to the realisation this was more than just bad weather because I heard him scream out: “You son-of-a-bitch!”

We rounded the corner and leapt up the stairs to Doctor Albarn’s office. He was the only one who would know what to do. I pulled the door open and let my date through first, a time of crisis is no reason to stop being a gentlemen, she looked at me with terrified, wild eyes. She had every reason to be frightened, the invasion was beginning.

I approached the nurses station and I told her to get Doctor Albarn.

“To what is this referring?” She asked casually.

“Are you mad woman?” I yelled, “Can’t you see what’s going on? Those aren’t hailstones outside! They’re cryogenically frozen pigeon embryos!”

She looked at me, obviously scared. She picked up the phone “Security!” she said.

I turned from her then. Thankfully she was easily convinced and was now getting security to surround the office. We couldn’t let the Saucer People from the planet Saucer to get into the planet Earth’s last line of defense against their invasion.

Unfortunately, that brings us to the end of the story thus far. I’m presently waiting for Doctor Albarn’s return, locked in a small room to keep me hidden and safe from the invasion you’re witnessing now.

Oh, how I pity you all.

I’ll be updating when I can but until then keep a look out for the Saucer People and their frozen pigeon embryos!

About a month ago I was reading a book called Timequake. The premise of it (some of it anyway) was that time experienced something like an earthquake and everyone had to live the past ten years over again, doing everything exactly the same, changing not a single detail.

For that amount of time it seems terrifying. But, sometimes, maybe for a month or even just a week it would be good.

And sometimes, no matter how tiresome and energy consuming a week has been, you would do anything to live it all over again. Because the good bits were just that good.

Unfortunately, there is no repeat button on life. There are no convenient timequakes. You just have to keep moving forward and cross your fingers that what comes next is even better.

So, go on – cross your fingers.

DO IT!

I’m waiting…

So, it’s already been a whole fortnight since the big move. And what have I learned?

Not much.

I have learnt that the weather down here enjoys screwing with people. When I arrived the temperature was rising, by the second day I needed a fan just to cool down so I went and bought one.

The next morning I woke to find that the temperature had dropped. I would be needing to break out what little cold weather gear I brought with me – which was one long sleeve t-shirt. I would have to buy a new jacket sooner than expected. So that’s what i did, I also grabbed myself two more long sleeve shirts (It was a 60% off sale)…

The next day it was warm again. Not so much that I needed the fan, but just enough that I didn’t need a jacket.

The weather likes screwing with people down here.

I have also learnt (or re-learnt) that Job searching is a pain in the patootie. At this point I think I’ve sent my resume off to at least twenty odd places. I’ve applied for sales jobs, mail room jobs, reception jobs, front desk jobs, and even called up one place to get a job as a Paintball Referee.

So far it has all been to no avail, but no matter. Keep crossing those fingers (and anything else you can find) for me.

Also, in the previous two weeks, I’ve learnt about how funny Ugly Betty is… Especially season 2 (since that’s all I’ve seen).

Well, that’s it from me down here in Melbourne right now. On to the next two weeks where I’ll be job-getting and jacket-wearing soon enough.

P.s. Remember that you can buy Death, Dismemberment and a Little Bit of Sass here and now you can also become a fan on facebook – Over Here

I have some new photos posted up on Flickr, most of them like this one –

I’m hoping to take much more photos around Melbourne. It seems to be a very photogenic place… and this was taken just in the backyard of the place I’m staying at right now. My sister’s place…

Speaking of which, I should be doing the job search thing…

So, catch ya later.

I’ve decided to start putting my Flickr Account into use. So, you can check out all my pretty boring photos here

I also added a link on the sidebar.

Exciting!

AKA – A long post about what I’ve been up to lately…

Due to unforeseen circumstances, it looks as though I may not complete NaNoWriMo again this year.

I say “may” because there is still time left, and if I were to write just over 5000 words per day for the next week I might finish… Though a daily word target like that is highly unlikely to be hit around here. I haven’t even finished cleaning my place yet.

But I have come up with a list of ways to NOT get it finished. Here is the top ten things to do if you don’t want to finish NaNoWriMo this year.

Number Ten – Procrastinate.

…Obviously. Putting things off is a great way to not get things done and there are so many ways in which to do this.

A few personal favourites include watching Tv, cleaning, twittering, or even just going for a walk. All of these are a great way to push work away for a good chunk of time.

When all else fails, I like to use coffee as an excuse to put things off for a few minutes. This works well as I love my coffee and it sounds quite reasonable to say “I’ll get started right after a coffee”

Number Nine – Quit your job.

This sounds like a good idea, and in most ways it is.

But it won’t help you if you’re looking for more time to write. With so much extra time there is no longer any urgency to get any of it done. There is always time to do things later, you have all day tomorrow to catch up and next week you can work extra hard all week to make up for what you didn’t do this week.

I quit my job a few weeks ago. For other reasons, not to make time for writing, but I did think that with all that extra time and with a little tenacity I might be able to get a lot done.

That was until I…

Number Eight – Burn your hand

A great way to keep yourself from writing is to incapacitate yourself. And what could be more laborious and slow than typing with one hand? I mean apart from typing with no hands.

Nothing. Exactly.

So that’s what I did.

This happened to me one night while saving a box of kittens from a burning building, I was set upon by a group of ninjas and robots… and robot ninjas. They were all packing microwave meals, overcooked and only seconds out of the microwave. They demanded the box of kittens and when I didn’t comply they began throwing the meals at me. I managed to dodge most of them except one, which gave me second degree burns on the fingers and palm of my left hand.

I swear all that is true… Except the building, the kittens, the ninjas, the robots and the robot ninjas.

Number Seven – Watch Television.

I know I put this under number ten as a form of procrastination but there are two reasons that it needs it’s own spot.

For one, Television is the enemy of creativity. It really is.

Just by having it on you’re slowing yourself down, but added to that it dulls the creative process. I’ve always found that days in which I watch less television, I get alot more (and better) work done. Unfortunately television works much like any addiction in that unless you cut yourself off from it completely, including all access to it, then it will slowly and inevitably creep back into your life.

And I’m not ready to do that just yet.

Maybe after this season of Dollhouse has finished…

And the second reason this got it’s own entry – I accidentally miscounted and when I realised I didn’t have something for seven this was the first thing I came up with.

Number Six – Get Tattoed

A great way to spend a sunday afternoon, having needles stuck in your arm and/or leg and leaving deposits of ink there. Ah, good times.

Got two done myself last week… After six years since my last tattoo, I finally got around to getting some new ones.

And if you wanted to waste a little more time you can do what I did and walk to the tattoo parlor. Then, once the tattooing is done, you can find out that you’re in some backwards place that doesn’t have eftpos and so you’ll need to spend some more time walking to the shopping centre down the road. All in all, I spent about an hour and a half walking that day.

** A haircut could be substituted here if you prefer not to get tattooed… Or you can do what I did and get a haircut aswell.

Number Five – Buy a new computer

Who doesn’t like a new toy? Especially a nice big-ass super-expensive one like this –

This is my spanky new bitchin’ all-in-one touchscreen multimedia high definition yada yada computer. Ain’t she sweet? The touch screen is fun to play with. It’s heaps big monitor-wise and it’s all new and pretty.

The best thing about new toys like this?

You can spend all day just setting it up. Installing all your favourite programs and getting all the settings to how you like them and so on. I’m still not finished doing all that.

Number Four – Have a personal life

I’ve been trying this out lately. Doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’ve learned that there is nothing better to get in the way of writing than to have a personal life. Especially one as disasterous as mine.

People lie, people betray, people confuse and humiliate, people leave voids and people leave sorrow.

And you can’t control them or understand them like you do the characters you’re writing.

Bastards.

Number Three – Work on plot

Stop and think about your plot. Are things flowing as you want them too? Is the right information revealed at the right stage? Which scene goes next? Is the story moving to slow? Or too fast? And so on…

This is a great wait to slow down your writing. And if you really think about it, it may stop you altogether.

I did this. I decided to do a bit of plot planning, starting with listing all the scenes/elements that I wanted in my story. I came up with a list of 105 things, and it’s still growing… much more slowly now but still it’s growing.

Here’s a wordle of the list -

(because I haven’t posted a wordle in a while)

Anyway, working on the plot always seems to lead to –

Number Two – Starting from scratch.

Yeah, I’ve started to do this…

Well, I will when I’ve finished with everything else on this list. I’m still working on the plot a bit more. I’m going to put all of the elements/scenes that I listed in order and then write more on each one… and all the rest of it. You know how plotting is.

Writing is like eating soup with a fork, only you keep missing the bowl and stabbing yourself in the forehead.

Number One –

Instead of writing the story, write a top ten list about how to fail at writing the story.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a top ten list. It’s more of a ‘first ten things I thought of that I’ve been doing lately instead of working on NaNoWriMo’ list…

There are probably more that I could think of but I have some writing to do… So I’m going for a nap now.