A couple of weekends ago we spent some serious time tidying up my art room, which had become a bit of a mess and a dumping ground for stuff that did not have a proper home. We also hung up a lot of art on the walls – some of it in order to hide where the previous people had pulled the paint off the walls when they removed some of their art work, which is why this next photo might seem like a slightly odd way of hanging art –
The little frame you spy next to the tiger is specifically hiding one of those paint ripped off spots. Probably some people might think it is a weird way to display art, but those ripped off paint spots irritate me enormously and I actually kind of like the non-symmetrical aspect of this group of art.
Over on this side, it is more about where the studs were in the wall than trying to hide anything, because this side of the room has no ripped off paint areas.
This piece of art is an interesting one – it is actually similar to foil art and any photos I take do not really do it justice.
In that photo above you see some stuff I have left on the table to sort through and find new homes for. Also some sparkly contact paper which I found at Kmart. I’ve used it to make some stickers of my Denkyem stencil which I’ve put on my laptop –
There is also a strip of holographic duct tape that Sephy sent me once. If I recall correctly, he took me on a video walk of Walmart and when I saw this holographic duct tape I declared it must be posted to me. And so it was. Please excuse my still drying from just being wiped with an anti bacterial cloth laptop. :)
In part this little tidy up was inspired by adult colouring in books becoming a thing, which is inspiring me to get back into art again. But also, it was inspired by things like me not being able to find all my wrapping paper and gift bags. These have now all been placed into one box –
I love holographic things, as I think you can tell by the awesome 35 metre roll of wrap I bought from Costco. Here is a closer view of that!
There you have a little tour of my art room, and you can expect to see some new projects appear here on the blog.
5. My favourite icecream topping is ice magic with sherbet over the top – eg Wizz Fizz. Wendys used to make a choc top icecream dipped in sherbet which they called a choc fizz. It is almost impossible to eat without covering yourself in pink sherbet, so I strongly recommend hiding in a corner somewhere while you eat it, but it is so worth the mess.. :)
Want to play?
Just publish a post on your blog with some little known facts about yourself, and visit back here to post a link to your post. ;)
Recently here on the blog, we have seen a lot of very serious scam posts. However, I will like you to know that baiting the scammers can be a fun thing as well..
Today I have a blast from the past to share with you – please click through and read this blog post from October 2007 –
Ever since I was a baby, probably before I was even aware of it, I have been a plane spotter. I had grandparents who lived under the flight path in Adelaide, and the head office of the family business was also directly under the flight path – as in planes flying over so close you could almost touch them. My Nanna and Poppa were both crazy for planes and every single member of the family inherited this craziness.
There is just something special about a plane flying. The magical scientific mystery that it is even possible at all – that tonnes of metal can be lifted into the air – is awe inspiring and breath taking to watch.
So, Qantas were retiring the first 747-400, and they decided to donate it to a little known outfit known as HARS – or the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society – little known unless you are a plane spotter like me and thousands of other plane geeks in Australia to whom HARS is a well known awesome band of volunteers who have kept the Connie and many other planes flying or in tip top shape to be displayed to the public for many years now.
HARS have an excellent museum at the Illawarra Airport which will shortly be made all the greater for having the 747-400 VH-OJA “City of Canberra” on display.
This event was hyped up in the media and full respect to HARS because they deserve every single bit of media attention they can get.. but unfortunately, people are crazy and what happened was an example of sheer and utter lunacy.
It is not HARS fault, they had a plan. And they announced that plan very clearly in the days leading up to the event – where people could and could not be. However plans are just that, and there was no way in heck that anyone could have moved these people from the spots they had arrived at in the early hours of the morning.
We also had a plan, thinking that every man and his dog would want to be close to the end of the runway, we were going to the carpark of Hungry Jacks at Yallah. But when we got to the Yallah turn off? Gridlock. Nobody could go anywhere. The exit from the highway and the road that leads to Hungry Jacks was a carpark.
Though you cannot see it in the image, there were cars and people stopped on the bridge that goes across the highway there. It turned out that there were cars parked all through Haywards Bay – I bet the residents there were super pleased! People parked their cars and then walked off in search of what they thought was the best vantage spot.
Cars were just parking wherever they felt like it, including in the no stopping lane on the highway, or like this one we spotted as we were leaving – that black car there is parked, there is no owner with the vehicle. SRSLY?
I hate to be the one to tell these would be plane spotters – many of whom arrived at the airport this morning from 3am onwards in order to secure a decent vantage point – just one hour down the road in Sydney, large planes like this plus the A380 are landing all day every day, and you can get a lot closer and it is not nearly so crowded.
Anyway, we ended up next to a field in the middle of nowhere and yet not very far from the end of the runway, and we did get a couple of semi-decent shots.. though we had a lot of electrical wires to shoot around.
I’ve been flown over by all kinds of planes many times, so I was perfectly fine with not being right at the end of the runway for this one. We will go back to see the plane close up once they open it to the world. HARS estimates this will be in a month or so. I will be able to fulfill one of the items on my bucket list, which is to stand right next to a 747.
While we were there to see the plane fly over, my parents were at home expecting to be able to view this on news channels who had spoken about bringing the landing live to everyone – and when it came time for the landing? Nothing. They were airing a speech by Barack Obama instead. KTHX Obama, I know you are fascinating and all, but this was a special local moment which should have gone live to air.
Later on they discovered the landing was on Sky via the multichannel where you press red to see extra channels, and all you get is a tiny image and you can’t record it. Not cool, media people. Not cool at all.
Here is a video – they actually closed the highway for the landing and I think that was a good idea not for plane safety reasons but for people safety reasons, because there were just SO many people there.
It might be just me, but I still have great concerns about the apparent inability of people to enjoy a moment without having to use their phone, iPad, or various other means to capture it. And another video which gives you an idea of the large amount of people –
For other shots from the day –
This photo here sums up the absolute insanity of newbie plane spotters.
I have always been someone who says “three strikes and you’re out” – as in, if people cause a major issue or cross boundaries I have set, I have allowed them two more chances before I write them off forever – that means I “defriend” them and have nothing more to do with them..
Looking back across my 39 years, any time I have given someone a first chance, they have taken that second and third chance and if I have given them the opportunity, a fourth and fifth chance! Then I have had to remove them from my life, sometimes having to make difficult changes in my life in order to do this.
Sometimes the time between the first and third occasions can be a matter of years, which makes the “defriend” -ing difficult.
So, why on earth am I giving people a second and third chance? It has been my experience that the first chance tells me everything I need to know about what their future behaviour will be. Why put myself through the turmoil?
I now believe I have to rethink my three strikes policy, going forward. I think I have to change it to a “when people show you who they are, believe them” policy.
Does that mean in future I should stop at one chance?
I think what it really means is – one strike and I am very wary, two strikes, we’re done.
I’m just thinking about this in preparation for going back to school because I will meet new people there and I want to give them a decent opportunity to show me who they are. When they do, I intend to believe them the first time.
Some of you would know that I’ve been involved with AKMuckraker and The Mudflats since September, 2008. We’ve been through a lot in the past few years, many stressful situations which we have worked through together as well as the rest of The Mudflats Admin & Moderation team. I consider her to be a good friend.
AKMuckraker (Jeanne Devon) and her good friends Ken Morris and Frank Bailey (A former aide to Governor Palin) have collaborated together on a book. It was released yesterday in the USA.
Also released yesterday were several “tweets” from Rebecca Mansour, a current aide of Sarah Palin.
Though whether she is still an aide remains to be seen – Palin has a habit of throwing people under the bus for much less than Mansour is guilty of.
During the time I have worked with AKMuckraker, there have been times when she has shared confidences with me. Never in a million years would I think to share those with anyone else, not even the admin & mod team, without her express permission. Certainly not with someone I’ve never met whether or not I trusted them.
When someone tells me something and tells me to keep it in the vault, with me, it is LOCKED IN THAT DARNED VAULT and it isn’t coming out until that person tells me otherwise.
Mansour betrayed Sarah and her family, and thoroughly deserves to be thrown under the bus. When someone trusts you and allows you to be a part of their “inner circle” you have a responsibility to keep your mouth firmly zipped..
Even worse – if this is what she was saying to someone she never met, what the heck is she saying to people she knows?
Apparently the person who was tweeting with her had 122 tweets from her which he was willing to sell. The people he ended up giving them to (nobody would buy them) have not shared all of them but you can view the ones they did share here and here.
My personal favourites with the irony in bold –
19:23:35: Listen: I tell you things I wouldn’t tell anyone tho I have press hounding me for the info I tell you. I trust you even tho I’ve never met u
19:28:55: Nothing we can do when someone behaves stupidly.
I slept for what seemed like forever, because I was really tired and I felt like I was getting the flu, sore throat, nasty headache. I think it was something like 16 hours. But hopefully this will mean I am back on a somewhat normal schedule. I’ve been sleeping days and staying up nights for over a week now. If I am really honest with myself, I am a night person.
So if you’re wondering why you haven’t seen me on your blog and why I haven’t commented as I usually do, it’s because I was dreaming of being in this big bike race down a road that wasn’t finished yet with all the kids I hated from school.
While I was asleep the other half went to work and got the plans for their new kitchen sorted out, then went to the pub and won a meat tray and $40 on the pokies. Seeing as this meat tray made its way here now that we have a bbq, I have pictures for you! ;)
So on todays agenda (Yay I finally have one!) is a nice drive – possibly to check the post office box and see if there’s more fake scammer checks for my check wall. It’s pretty windy so I am not sure a beach is in my future, we might go to Warrawong and maybe visit JB Hifi instead, and spend the found $40 on dvd’s – I have a shopping list! Undoubtedly I will leave it at home. I want to get a plate set for outside which is not ceramic. I like plastic myself, but melamine is an option.. ;) Then back here to cook meat and comment on 50 zillion blogs ;) Be good ya’all.
In order to tell you about this I have to go back in time. Back to May 2004, when we purchased a brand new car. And she’s gorgeous. Seriously. For the first few months, it was difficult to leave her in a carpark. I was always terrified someone would dent it. If someone just *looked* at my car the wrong way I wanted to rip off their head and shit down their neck. I was always giving people the evil eye.
By the start of 2005, I’d begun to relax about it a bit. The other half reversed it into things twice and we got the bumper bar replaced under insurance. In February of 2005 we drove the car on a big across Australia trip, from Adelaide to Canberra to Batemans Bay to Sydney to Tamworth to Dubbo to Cobar and back home. While in Sydney, we parked the car in a carpark for *15* minutes. When we came back, there was this HUGE dent in the passenger (my) door.
It was a shitty feeling. It still is a shitty feeling, because fixing it would cost a shitload for such a cosmetic thing and we haven’t done it and so every time I get in the car, I am faced with it. If I could find the person who did it, I do not know what I would do, but I know it wouldn’t be anything nice.
So today we went to get a gas bottle for the bbq. We parked the car and when I got out there was a huge flash of lightning so I got straight back in the car. I have a fear of lightning at petrol (gas for the American readers) stations. Yes, crazy I know. I was sitting there waiting and this car pulls up next to us. The chick in the front seat opens her door and bangs it into my car. I look at her, mouth open, look of shock on my face. The driver of the car sees me. The woman sees me. The woman proceeds to bang her door into my car a *second* time. I am horrified! I can’t believe she would do such a thing.
I get out of my car and walk around to look if she made a dent – by pure luck, she had not. She’s got out of the car by now and she says to me “We didn’t hit your car” I said “Yes, you did hit it, with your door, and you did it twice!” She waves a hand at me, sort of like talk to the hand, and walks off. I just stood there, absolutely fuming. If she had made a dent, I would probably have chased her and yelled at her, a lot. I may have even punched her. I’m not a violent person but SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR OTHERS PROPERTY, BIATCH!
I have never actually punched someone in anger. Unless you count pummelling my sister when we were growing up, but that was done with love. ;) So I don’t think it counts. But I seem to be getting more and more angry when I see stuff like this happen. Some people would say it’s just a car, don’t worry about it, it’s not worth it, but damn, I kinda think it is.
The other half saw the whole thing from inside the petrol station and he really thought we were going to get into a fight. I’m surprised though, normally he would have stormed out there and let her have a piece of his mind. I think maybe with couples if one of us is angry the other one tends to be calm.
Yeah I know, I said I wouldn’t do it. But this one isn’t so much about politics as a fact of life.
Kim Beazely is currently a shrinking man. According to a news article, he has lost 16kgs since the start of 2006. A lot of people seem to think losing weight will win him the next election. I have some bad news for those people..
Every week at the high school I went to, they had a speaker turn up and address the entire year. That was a fair bunch of people, as I’ve mentioned before, I went to a school with over 500 people in my year level alone. So these were held in the library with people squeezing into every space imaginable.
One day in year 10, a speaker from Flinders University gave a lecture entitled “Why fat people are dirty people”. By that time, I was not really that fat anymore. I had been a size 16 when I started that school in year 8, and those uniforms were literally swimming on me by now, I couldn’t wear them anymore..
I’d got down to a size 12 and realistically I was no bigger than anyone else there in the room, but I was still one of the “fat kids” and when I saw eyes begin to turn in my direction as this cruel man went on and on about fat people being dirty, I knew it would not matter if I was just skin and bones, those kids would always see me as one of the fat kids.
I mean, let us not even get into the fact that the school allowed this lecture to take place, because they should not have. That anyone should have been allowed to stand up there and say that to any group of kids is just wrong. It’s bad enough for a kid with a bit of extra weight in school. The teasing, the bullying, the nastiness, none of it is nice but it *is*. It exists. You can’t stop it. At least, not without automatic weapons, or bamboo canes applied to any kid saying something nasty, and that’s kind of taking it too far the other way.
But after this lecture it got plenty worse, especially for the largest kid in the year, a boy named Andrew who despite his outer shell was an incredible artist. He did some amazing work but nobody ever saw that, and the treatment he got caused him to become an extremely angry individual. Any teasing directed his way would generally be met by swearing and then later, punching.
He spent a lot of time in detention, with me and the deputy principal who died. I wish I could have called him my friend, but he was so busy building walls to stop people from getting close enough to him that they could hurt him, there was no chance of breaking through. And I understood that, because I’d had to do that myself at times.
Fat kids know that the outer shell really isn’t that important, because we know on the inside there’s plenty we have to offer. But in an environment where everyone sees only the outer shell, and makes judgements based only on that, you are never given that opportunity.
So when I left that school at the end of year 11, I was down to a size 10. I didn’t really like myself at that size at all. I’ll be honest with you. When I looked in the mirror all I saw was these enormous cheekbones that models would probably have killed for, but I did not like them. I thought I looked like a skeleton, and quite ill.
But moving to a new school, things changed entirely for me. I was accepted into the “in crowd”, got the lead in the year 12 play, and I was driving by this time so I didn’t have my own car but I had pretty much the use of my parents car, and it was an adult campus so it had a much more mature attitude towards things. I did subjects I really enjoyed instead of what the school forced you into (photography, media studies, catering and cooking, drama, stuff like that) and it was a great year.
None of those kids ever knew that at my old school I was considered one of the fat kids. But when the outer shell looked acceptable to them, I had a much better chance of them seeing what was on the inside, and that had not changed at all – I was still me. I was that same me at the previous school. It’s just nobody gave me a chance there.
I hate to say it, but it’s the truth – Kim Beazely is going to find the Australian public just the same. He can lose all the weight he wants. He can be stick thin, but it will do him no good, and it will not win him any elections. He will *always* be the fat kid, except to those of us who were fat when we went to school, who can see the inner shell. And statistically there’s probably not that many of us out there – there will be more and more as the years go on, but most schools only had a few back when I went to school.
So this does not bode too well for the ALP, because I don’t believe the Australian public will ever elect Kim Beazely, regardless of what weight he is. The damage is already done. I sincerely believe that supporters of the ALP have to realise they are never going to be elected with Kim Beazely at the helm. *and* I know it’s not fair, you know it’s not fair, but it *IS* – and that’s the bottom line. But..
Who do they have, who is stick thin? Who also knows plenty about the environment, a major concern for increasingly more Australians? Who may be bald, but the public don’t hold that against you like they hold once being overweight against you.
10 things you probably didnt know about Snoskred, in no particular order.
1. I currently have over 10,000 unread messages from scammers in my inboxes as I type this.
2. I used to go to church, a long long time ago! Only because the pastor had a South African accent, which I am absolutely a sucker for. He could have stood up there and read the back of cereal boxes and I would never have noticed.
3. Returning from my best friend’s wedding, I’d had those acrylic nails done and on boarding the plane I had this bag I was trying to stow under the seat when the person sitting next to me shoved me forwards. My thumbnail caught the edge of the seat and literally snapped in half, tearing off my real nail underneath. The inconsiderate bastard did not even notice, but the person standing behind him did.
I was tapped on the shoulder and this voice I recognised immediately offered me a bandaid – it was Mark Owen, one of my favourite boyband members. It was actually the second time we’d met – the first time was in a lift when Take That toured my home town and we stayed in their hotel.
4. I once dated a man with no hair. Literally. Not even eyebrows. And no, he did not draw them on, either. ;)
5. I used to install car stereos and compete in car audio competitions. My car measured 126db and one of my customers won third place in the car audio nationals.
6. How I got into scambaiting was, a scammer sent an email to my own personal inbox. I googled, and found a scambaiting website, and the rest is history. In my first ever scambait, I recorded over 10 hours of audio with that scammer – most of it he called me, so he paid a lot of money to have me as his wife. :)
7. I have two nephews and one niece.
8. I love sorbet and gelati.
9. I was recently pictured holding Fluffy the Anaconda ;) I love snakes.
10. I have this yellow Caroma bathroom stool which gets used for all kinds of things around the house. Since I was a baby there has always been a Caroma bathroom stool in any house I have lived in.
So there you go. And if you’re reading this, you’ve been officially tagged, and it’s your turn to tell us all 10 things we don’t know about you.. Leave a comment and I’ll link to your 10 things here for everyone else reading this to see.. ;)
