General Chit-chat

Around Here

6 Comments Posted on May 15, 2015April 10, 2016 by Snoskred

It has been an eventful couple of weeks here in Snoskredland. So what is happening around here? I’m going to do a quick rundown of a few things we’ve been up to..

Eating: Loads of vegies. The Other Half said to me that if I steamed Brussels Sprouts for him, along with some carrots and cauliflower, he would eat them. So we’ve been having a huge bowl of vegies alongside some of our meals these past two weeks. I’ve discovered that I love Brussels sprouts myself. We went through 1kg of them in the last two weeks. I also get to put in some of my faves, like broccoli and mushrooms which he will not eat..

Loving: Having our wall art back up again. It has been freaking me out a little, which is odd coming from someone who sits with a full size skeleton in her lounge room. But it has been so long since we’ve had these things on our walls that it is taking some getting used to. I’ll put some of our wall art pics through this post.

Hating: “It’s a Mitsi” – no, teevee ad people, saying one line over and over does not create a catch phrase. Plus, way to go on the research front. Apparently there were ecstasy tablets named Mitsi a few years ago.

Watching: The final season of Mad Men. Season 6 of The Good Wife. Veep – I LOVE Veep! The new season of Deadliest Catch. Australia’s Next Top Model – I am a huge fan of Brittany.

Preparing: 8kg of chicken, cut up, foodsaved, and frozen in the space of an hour on Monday afternoon. It was $5.99 a kg, which is over half the price we normally pay. I have 3 bags for chicken and bacon pasta, 8 bags of chicken pieces for stir fries or Honey and Mustard chicken, plus several bags of chicken steaks for pepper chicken or chicken and sweetcorn soup.

Snacking: on carrots, and many apples I have in the fridge. Dawn is right with what she said in this post – be prepared – I find that if I have snacks and other items already prepped, I’m much less likely to eat things I shouldn’t.

Planning: Menus on a fortnightly basis.

Mourning: the loss of photos and other data – A bad thing happened to our server box.. :( It is way too technical to explain how we have it set up but I will give you a quick and basic overview. The Other Half uses a RAID array which is essentially 5 hard drives set up to work together, storing all our movies, TV shows, and photos.

We do have a lot of DVDs and blu-rays, in particular a lot of tv shows. Rather than store them on the DVDs like many people do, we took to keeping them digitally because we have setups that allow us to watch them on our tv screens without having to handle the DVDs at all. Better for the DVDs, longterm, and better for us to binge watch.

It has been fantastic to have it as a virtual library where you can flick through and pick what you feel like at the time. The backup to the virtual library is, of course, the DVDs. Except the photos, which we usually back up to a DVD every so often.. and it had been a while. Since 2008. :(

So of course the universe would choose this moment to have not one, not two, but THREE of the hard drives fail. When they fail, they try to backup all the information to the other disks, and they managed to do that with the tv shows, the movies, but not the photos.

We’ve lost quite a lot of images, and The Other Half has been kicking himself for not having backups, etc. I don’t see the point in doing that – it is done, they are lost, we have to build a bridge and get over it. Most importantly, we need to make a new plan for storing photos going forward.

food, General Chit-chat, get organised, television shows, wall art

A Truly Great Day

8 Comments Posted on April 19, 2015June 2, 2015 by Snoskred

A Sparkly Cow

Last week I had the flu, and I spent a couple of nights staying up so the other half could get an uninterrupted sleep, so my body clock is all out of whack again. Even so, we planned a few things for Saturday. I wanted to go over to Berry to take some photos of the place I’m planning to go to in the event of the Zombie Apocalypse, and I also wanted to drop into haven and space and Candleberries – two great shops you should not miss if you ever go to Berry..

First we dropped into haven and space where we picked up a replacement coffee mug for one we had broken, and two new designs. These mugs are gorgeous and they last a very long time. Priced at $4.95 per mug, they are also great value. The candles pictured were $4.50 each.

As it was past two, we decided to get a snack as well. We didn’t want too much as we were going out to dinner at 7. haven and space have opened up a cafe behind their new store called Sakana and I’d eaten there before when family was visiting, so we dropped in for a bowl of chips and a couple of iced coffees.

The iced coffees arrived in these magnificent tall glasses with my favorite colour blue around the rim. If you are reading this post here on my blog, see how that blue matches my blue background colour? :) ——> over there?

We dropped into Candleberries and picked up some wax melts and a new candle for The Other Half. Why yes, that melt set is scented salted caramel popcorn, and it does smell exactly like that. There’s also Home Sweet Home which will stay here and Black Cherry which will go off to my aunt in the next package along with the salted caramel popcorn. By the time she receives it, her cancer treatment will be nearly finished.

On the way back to the car we spotted these cows in a window. It is lucky the shop was not open, is all I can say.

We went out to dinner at our usual Chinese restaurant with my parents, my Uncle and his wife, and two other friends my parents know from work. When we arrived at the bowling club there was quite an impressive band setup including a sound desk and a proper drum kit which said “The Villains” on it.. Little did we know at the time what an amazing performance would come to us as a surprise.

The club was absolutely packed with people – I think it is the last weekend of School Holidays here and it is always packed in school holidays but not usually to this extent. My uncle reported back to us after one of his smoke breaks that he was talking to someone outside and that they had said this particular band had people coming from places somewhat far away – they had groupies following them.

Who knew Darth Vader was also a musician?

After dinner we could not get a seat out in the club, every seat was taken. We ended up in their function room off to the back, and we could see the band members in costume. They took to the stage a little after 8:30 and we all headed out into the room to see the band kick off with a performance of an Icehouse song called Walls which sounded more like a Pink Floyd song, it was just amazing. The sound setup was brilliant, the music was incredible, and the band was engaging and captivating.

The singer was dressed as The Riddler and he had a microphone stand with a question mark in it. I believe we had The Penguin as the keyboard player, The Joker as the bass player, The Devil as the drummer, and the most notable mention goes to Darth Vader as the lead guitarist. His costume must have been a total sweatbox, but he never removed any part of it, and he played in it for over 2 hours – with a short break in the middle. Plus instead of heading directly outside on his break, he took off into the crowd to let them pose for photos with him – and his lightsaber.

I have for you a short video clip of the Darth Vader guitarist. :) This was taken during Down Under by Men At Work. You will notice he is marching, despite being wrapped in much quilted fabric. This is some serious costume dedication right here.

When they took a break, we talked about leaving because one or two had an early morning the next day, but we all decided this band was too good to leave. And in the latter half of their show, even The Other Half got up and danced which happens so rarely I cannot recall another such incident!

I completely understand why they have groupies following them, and I could see myself doing the same thing. They are due back at our club in August and we will definitely be there. None of the videos on their website do true justice to this band. You have to be there in person.

When they left the stage we were among the very vocal crowd shouting for an encore, and they came back on with two band members in white coats and performed “She Blinded Me with Science” – a bizarre choice but we all loved it.

The final song they played was Underneath the Radar by Underworld, a song I have always disliked, but they made me love it. And that speaks many volumes. Most of the music was songs from the early 80’s and music I had on records, back in the days of records, music we played on Saturday mornings to clean the house, and music my friends and I used to create dances for.

They played music from bands like Depeche Mode, Madness, Split Enz, the ever wonderful and unforgettable “don’t you forget about me” by Simple Minds made famous by The Breakfast Club movie, and even a song from The Cure! It was one of my favourites too, Inbetween Days. There were a couple of newer songs, most notably Pretty Vegas which I knew from Rockstar: INXS and Mr Brightside by The Killers.

By the time we got home, I was so tired I went to bed at a reasonable hour for the first time this week. And can you believe, entry to the bowling club is free. We pay the tiny amount of $11 each year to be a member, and that allows the member many benefits, such as using the boat ramp, the courtesy bus, and various other awesomes.

General Chit-chat, Happy Snoskred, Home, music, Snoskred hearts

Bits and Bobbles

2 Comments Posted on April 11, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

I got sucked in by the Facebook games. Seriously, who the hell am I, and where did Snoskred go? :)

It isn’t that bad – I really love Farm Heroes Saga but I flat out refuse to pay for anything. If I can’t get through the level with my own talent and skill and the occasional extra they give me just for visiting every day, then I’ll keep trying until I can get through. Sometimes it takes me several days to pass a level. I don’t usually play it during the day – I like to play is around 9:30pm during my mind wind down time..

Bunnings Bits

Today we went to the local Bunnings store to pick up some plasterboard. The Other Half is going to make a ceiling in his man cave shed this weekend. We picked up the ute from my parents place and I saw rain off in the distance but it looked like it was going in another direction.

So we drove over, parked in the trade bay next to the plasterboard, locked the car and went off to find assorted sundries like Liquid Nails and gap filler. Having got those, we paid for everything we wanted at the trade desk, and wandered over to load 15 sheets of plasterboard into the ute, while a staff member stood there watching us instead of helping.

This loading job seemed to take a very long time and by the time we’d loaded all the sheets in, suddenly it was raining outside. So I was tasked with finding a tarp. Several more unhelpful staff members sent me off to incorrect places. The very worst was the bloke I asked who sent me right down to the other end of the store – only to discover that we were standing in the aisle where the tarps lived when I asked him! I did find an excellent tarp in the end.

When looking for rope in the ute, I discovered two octopus straps. I thought these had been outlawed and banned years ago. But today they were perfect for our purpose – it wasn’t until we undid them that we nearly killed ourselves.

Book Bobs

My e-reader ran out of battery the other day. It has been a long time since I have picked up a physical book. I picked up one of the heavier books that I own – Aircraft Accident Analysis: Final Reports by James Walters and Robert Sumwalt – and almost right away I remembered why I love my tablet book reader so much now. It is light. I just tap it to turn the page. It can stand up by itself due to the case I own, and I can read in the dark.

Blogging for Books

One of the bloggers I read linked to Blogging for Books. I headed over to check it out and discovered that Aussies can participate via ebooks, so I signed up. I also joined up over at Netgalley.

You might see the occasional – or even regular – book review(s) here on the blog. My first book from Blogging for Books is Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey. I am really looking forward to reading this. As the weather for the weekend looks not optimal, I might spend some serious time reading.

I am not a diver myself but I have read several books about diving now and find them to be oddly fascinating. There are two I would strongly recommend if you want to give a new kind of book a try. The first is Diving into Darkness which is also known as Raising the Dead in some places..

I picked this book up at the $5 book store purely because the cover grabbed me, then I turned it over and the blurb made me want to read the book right then and there. I took it home and read it from cover to cover, only stopping for necessary bodily functions when they could no longer be ignored. That is the kind of reader I am. This is also why I limit the books I read at bedtime if I have to be somewhere the next day. :)

Australian Story did a show “To Boldly Go” about this diving story back in 2005 but truly, the book is amazing, and I would recommend reading that first if you can source it. I especially loved how the author explained diving so I – a non diver – could understand it.

The second diving book I would recommend is Shadow Divers – which in researching for this post, I discovered Peter Weir is involved with making a movie about it, though it is still in development.

While I was creating my profile at Netgalley, I wrote something which I thought I would share here with you as well. Here it is :)

The story of Snoskred and books –

I have been reading books for over 35 years now. Favourite books when I was a child included

– Enid Blyton – in particular the Faraway Tree books
– Elinor Brent-Dyer – the Chalet School books
– E.L Konigsberg – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler started me dreaming about running away to the local Museum.

Favourites now include –

– Jane Austen – these are my relaxing books, I read them when I have to get up on time the next day.
– John Grisham – The early works, not such a fan of the newer stuff. I have good (but lengthy so won’t bore you with that here) reasons.
– Stephen King – The favourite would be The Dead Zone, followed by The Stand, and then a multitude of books fight it out for 3rd place.
– John J Nance – His aviation thrillers are amazing, can’t put down rollercoaster rides, I *highly* recommend this author if you have not read anything by him.

Other names that appear often on my bookshelves and in my e-reader include – Michael Crichton – Robin Cook – Anne Rice – Michael Connelly – Jeff Lindsay – Agatha Christie – Jodi Picoult – Thomas Harris – and many, many more.

Non fiction my interests are biographies, aviation – in particular crash investigation books – true crime as long as there are no scary photos – books about science or going to the moon, and other books which have come to me as a surprise eg- books about diving, submarines, interesting history books..

My book tastes are wide and varied. I’ll read anything once but if I like it, I’ll read it again and again, and seek out other books by the same author.

What are your bits and bobbles?

About Snoskred, blogging for books, books, Gaming, General Chit-chat

Update Week

4 Comments Posted on December 15, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

What I’m Doing – Exercising

There has been a significant addition to my living space. You might remember how it was before – my living space.

I recently got the all clear from the lung specialist to get back into exercise and while I have a elliptical here already, I did not want to start with that. It has been a year since I have done any significant exercise and jumping onto the elliptical right away would be the best way to get myself injured. So I borrowed this treadmill from my parents – it was gathering dust at their place anyway.

I started out easy but within a relatively short time I was walking 5kms a day and I felt like I had to limit myself to that, because I could easily have walked for hours of an evening while watching tv..

This past week, I cranked up the pace a little and it went like this – Sunday 5km – Monday 6km – Tuesday 7km -Wednesday 8km – Thursday 9km – Friday 10km. Over the space of 6 days I walked 45km. By Friday I had a super awesome blister on my right ankle so I took the weekend off from walking, but I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

What I’m Thinking – Positives

River posted some thoughts yesterday which got me thinking.

I try to write positive letters or emails to companies and people fairly regularly and I wonder if maybe this is something which could work as a linkup, maybe once a month or so. I’ll ruminate some more on this and probably launch something in January. It would be a monthly link up thing, I think.

I think it would be something amazing to start a movement of positive feedback. We all are quick to complain when things are wrong, but how many of us send a note to the companies that make products we trust, use daily, and rely on?

The Inlinkz thing I use for the Shoe Sundays is pretty simple to use, and I can leave them open forever, so maybe I’ll do one and see if people want to link up with their positive company feedback, and whether or not they get a response as well.

What I’m Considering – Checking In

I try to visit the blogs I read and leave comments as often as I can however you may have noticed a drop off in my comments lately – first of all, check your spam bin because I might be in there – here’s how to check your spam bin on WordPress, scroll down to please note – and second of all, I was commented out by the end of November.

I’m planning a January visiting blogs spree, and I’m going to try leaving a comment as well as leaving an actual note if possible, via an email address or contact form. This is harder than you might suspect. The amount of people blogging without an email address or contact me form is way higher than it should be. :(

If you are wanting to know how to put your email address out in the open without attracting significant spam, try writing it like this – snoskred {at} gmail {dot} com <-- that one will reach me, by the way.

What I’m Obsessed With – Moonbase Inc

The Other Half was trying to talk me out of playing Candy Crush Saga, which I had only recently tried out and I got stuck on this one level, I can’t beat it no matter what I do. It is *infuriating* which is not what a game should be, in my opinion. :( And it keeps telling me to buy boosts so I can win the level and I flat out refuse to do that.

So he showed me this neat little Moonbase Inc game, which is completely free, you can play on your Android tablet or phone. I have it on both. :) It is that awesome. I would actually pay for this game.

About Snoskred, exercise, Gaming, General Chit-chat, power of positive thought

Counting Down!

Leave a comment Posted on October 24, 2011May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

My good friend Sephy who I have never met in person arrives in Australia this weekend. We have multiple plans of awesomeness, and at the end of that we fly off to Hawaii with my parents – Sephy on his way home to the US, and me for a happy holiday and shopping trip..

I’ll try to put some pics up of our antics touring various places in Australia and certainly you will hear all about the shopping in Hawaii. :)

Happy moments for all! ;)

The garden is looking very awesome and I’ll update with some pics later this week when I have a moment..

General Chit-chat, Sephyroth, travel

Welcome back to me!

2 Comments Posted on May 16, 2011May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

pa311801

So it has been a while.. ;)

In the past 12 months, I have –

– Got a brand new awesome car
– Went back to school part time
– Worked at 2 elections
– Worked for a month cleaning motels
– Got a new part time job
– Had friends move in with us from overseas
– Moved house to a new place much bigger due to the above
– Had friends from overseas move out
– Bought a new coffee machine after 10 years of loyal service from the old one
– Became the owner of a fish named Sushi the emo fish
– Held a funeral for Sushi the emo fish after he committed fish suicide
– Travelled to Hawaii for a holiday
– Visited Sydney a few times for overnight stays

So there has been a lot going on. ;)

I might have some things to say, so I might be back for a bit. :)

About Snoskred, General Chit-chat, travel

Too Many

Leave a comment Posted on April 24, 2010May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Yes, it has been a while – not because I have nothing to say, but because I have far too much to say and not enough time and energy to say it.. :)

Recently we did a redesign of The Mudflats. I was very nervous about this however it turned out awesomely.

There has been much kayaking, many summer type outings, a lot of cooking and chores done. We went on holidays back to Twin Waters at Maroochydore. We went to Adelaide for a flying visit to go to the birthday of a very good friend.

My nephews have been to visit a couple of times, and we went to visit them. We took them to Laser Skirmish which was awesome fun. I used to go to the laser skirmish in Adelaide when I was probly mid teens and they had an overnight lock in session, you would stay there overnight and play laser skirmish the whole time.

Serverguy dropped in from Japan, and got hisself married to a gorgeous and awesome lady. They visited us here and we spent several days “toodling” as my mother likes to call it, eg visiting local beaches, markets, little towns with shops, winerys. The other half is sadly not cut out for toodling, it exhausted him!

While in Sydney we took them to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and managed to get charged $32 for parking, for a total of maybe 20 minutes. The place we parked was I believe the Opera House parking lot. They had a sign saying flat rate parking for $15 when we entered, and yet when we left the machine charged us $32. It seems the flat rate was for the night before. Well how about getting rid of the signs then, geniuses?

Although I will say I don’t mind paying it because the 20 minutes we spent there was somewhat magical. There was a dj playing in the bar right next to where we ended up and the music was awesome. I kinda wish we’d stayed for longer.

Now the plan is for me to get a car. In some ways I like this plan, it will be handy for doing my local errands and I think I will try to get out for a beach walk each day. The best beach to walk on is quite a few kms away from here even though we back onto the water, that water doesn’t feature any beaches.

In some ways I do not like this plan – we have one garage and I’m going to have to learn to reverse into it. For this reason I am trying to get the smallest car imaginable. The other question is, do I want a manual or an automatic? I can’t quite decide.

The other half found a game on Wii that I have become quite addicted to. It is called Rune Factory Frontier.

We have had some visits from lizards recently and the cats have been encountering them in the garage as a surprise. I am not certain whether they like this surprise or are scared by it. They fluff up for hours afterwards and jump at anything touching them.

There is a new icecream shop not far from here which has gelati and it is awesome. For anyone reading this who is actually in Sydney, you want to go to this website – Pure Gelato. They deliver! And they have a massive range of flavours. And they have a learn to make gelato night. I want to go to that! ;)

Tonight we are off to Sydney to pick up some family who will be visiting for a few days. We’ve done the Sydney/Home run quite a bit lately.

Oh, and here is something *incredible*. Last weekend the nephews were visiting, and the oldest nephew had just got a new pair of skate shoes. Very pretty they were also. I liked them a lot, and I thought just for fun I would try them on. THEY FREAKING FIT ME. He is maybe 14? And I have size 10/11 womens feet, which is like a 8/9 mens. Jeebus!

It seems to me that with all the earthquakes, volcanoes, and the fact that my nephew now has feet the same size as me, that the end of the world is nigh. Prepare yourselves for eternity, or whatever they reckon happens next! ;)

family, General Chit-chat, stuff

Is Like Hi! ;)

Leave a comment Posted on May 8, 2009May 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Hai!

Where did I vanish to? It has been a busy couple weeks here. I’ve been helping get the new I Heart The Mudflats site up and going, reading books, baking, aromatherapy and menu planning. ;)

Doesn’t the site look cool? ;)

zeflats

Each morning I wake with a lime and spearmint blend of oils, and as the day goes on I add patchouli and things like grapefruit, tangerine, mandarin or lemongrass.

I have been baking cheesecake brownies which are to die for – and biscuits of various kinds.

I have been planning the menu to the point that we are shopping once every two weeks at Aldi with a very small brands we can’t quite let go of shop at Woolworths. I am actually surprised at my talent and skill of planning – I only need to go and buy fresh bread and milk in between shops. ;)

Oh, I did not mention my little i-phone games addiction, did I? Nope. Excellent escape! ;)

General Chit-chat, stuff

Craizy Time!

5 Comments Posted on January 25, 2009May 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Hey guys.. it has been a busy December/January.. I’ve begun to study for a diploma, we’ve been kayaking a lot, exercising religiously for an hour a day plus various other projects have been keeping me busy.

If you want to read about some of our kayaking with pics, head on over to The Mudflats Kayak Club. I think there’s about 4 posts in there from me with different pics.

It doesn’t look like it is going to get less busy anytime soon, but I will try to post some quick bits and pieces when I have a little more time. ;)

General Chit-chat, no doom happened

Email Shenanigans

Leave a comment Posted on May 11, 2007January 10, 2015 by Snoskred

I got an email some time ago, but it only just *arrived* in my inbox today. That’s because Gmail put it in the spam box. I wish I could delete the spam box. :( I don’t usually check the box associated with this blog, it forwards to my main account. When I went in there today to reply to a mail that had missed the spam box, there were 305 spam emails sitting there. Its only by luck that this mail didn’t get deleted because usually gmail deletes the spam after 30 days.

It was from someone who reads this blog politely requesting a blog link trade. I went over and read his blog and I really liked it, so it’s now in the list of blogs I read which happens to be way down in the sidebar. I must clean that out soon. The owner of it wisely is not giving his real name – if only everyone on the internet were so careful! ;)

I have been so incredibly not good about putting all the links I want to put in my sidebar. You guys, I read like 129 blogs in my google reader. I have not linked to them all. I just don’t have time, I am really busy with projects – and reading blogs, by the look of things. ;)

There may be a new project which I will want to talk about here some, soon. It’s a task I have put off and put off for ages, but now I am beginning to accept that this task must be done in order for there to be a decent future.

General Chit-chat, google reader