Saturday, March 29, 2008

Earth Hour

I am currently observing Earth Hour.

Well, sort of.

I mean, I am using a computer. But I'm sitting in the dark. I haven't touched a light switch for 36 minutes and counting.

I was going to turn on my XBox except then I figured that using a high-wattage LCD screen with it would be even worse than using a PC and thus defeat the whole point of it. From what I gathered in the publicity reports, you're meant to sit for an hour in the darkness in a sort of contemplative silence.

Except seven minutes into Earth Hour, I got wholly sick of sitting in contemplative silence so I trodded downstairs to read bad fanfiction.

Anyway...our house is currently divided, as the upper storey is an Earth Hour zone (my mother is currently making phone calls by the light of a candle) and my father is enjoying his television program on the bottom storey with all the lights on.

My father, who actually drains the washing machine water to recycle precious H20, who demands I recycle frozen food boxes even if they have bits of frozen mozzarella stuck to them, who went out and swapped our showerheads for the Government water-saving ones, and who uses energy-saving globes with the creepy white alien light...has refused to observe Earth Hour.

To be honest, he does his bit for the environment every day by taking short showers, recycling water and such, whilst I am merely participating in a symbolic yet token gesture of global unity, and he's not really big on symbolism.

Except that this isn't just about turning off the lights for an hour. Apparently, it's about committing yourself to reducing 5% of your carbon emissions for the year, and that's certainly not an impossible target.

Post Earth Hour note: My mother said that using the computer during Earth Hour is really not observing Earth Hour- I suppose she has a point, but at least I did think about my own little environmental footprint for 60 minutes, unlike my neighbours- whom were obviously ignoring it, judging by the warm orange glow emanating from their curtained windows...

Friday, March 14, 2008

Stop Press

"Court convicts bear of stealing honey."

And this, friends, is why I do law.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

More City Driving Escapades/Movie Review: Juno

"In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with."

I loved Juno.

I saw it on Saturday night in pitch darkness at the Moonlight Cinema. It was quirky and bloody hilarious, although I think I MIGHT HAVE A PERMANENT ELBOW MARK IN THE SQUISHY FLESH OF MY RIGHT SIDE because my Alias-obsessed friend
Kris kept nudging me in the side everytime Jennifer Garner came onscreen, and she kept making this funny noise that I normally associate with hyperventilating.

(N.B to Kris: Hey, if I didn't embarrass you on my blog, what kind of friend would I be?!)

Anyway, it was all peachy once we were actually seated on picnic rugs in the botanical gardens, but we hadn't realised that the Moomba festival was also going on- and so parking was, to put in succinctly, an absolute bitch. My friend Loui drove us in, as I am possibly the worst city driver ever- in fact, I suck at reading maps full stop. I must say, I was in absolute awe of Louise's parking skills- she was driving The Family Car, which was a very large station wagon...a very large MANUAL station wagon.

We couldn't find a parking space ANYWHERE, even though we circled for 25 minutes like a big white station-wagon-esque bird of vehicular prey. Up down, up down, circling, through the slip lane, back again, three phone calls to Kris later...we attempted to park in a permit zone, we deliberated on whether we could get away with obstructing an old and unused driveway, and we ended up in a very tight residential court with no room to swing a cat, attempting to park whilst not blocking a residential driveway.

Louise ended up doing some kind of three-point correction which was nothing short of spectacular, if you minus the crunching sound of her towbar hitting something in the dark- and then, we heard a voice out of the darkness like an angel of parking mercy:

"Hey, did you guys want our space? We're moving out now."

And that was that.

Kris drove me back to the initial rendezvous spot where I'd gone in with Louise. She knew exactly where to go and exactly how to get there (one day I hope to achieve this kind of zen-like clarity) and off we went with no navigational problems whatsoever, singing blithely along to TLC, but with the windows rolled up because earlier in the night (or rather, early hours of the morning) someone had seen fit to throw a bottle at us as we were standing on a street corner. And pumping JoJo out of a little hatchback doesn't quite cut it with the hardcore teenage homies, even though the bass in Kristine's car is probably capable of moving one's bowels.

In comparison to Loui's reversing skills, I was forced to drive my version of The Family Car on Sunday morning- which is a freaking MASSIVE Ford. My dad had taken my hatchback but neglected to reverse the car out- which sits on what is actually a little patch of grass which is at a perfect NINETY DEGREE ANGLE to the driveway. To further complicate things everything is bordered by some concrete steps and a rather painful edge of decorative rocks. It's like one of those horrible trigonometry problems where you have to calculate the angles of reversing.

I can do it in any other small car (albeit with MUCH difficulty) but The Family Car.

The only good thing about the Family Car is that when people see the P plates, and see my Death-Star sized car ("Look at the size of that thing!") coupled with the fact that when they squint, there is a terrified looking female Asian driver clutching the steering wheel...they give me space.

It's like being one of the Four Horsemen of the Vehicular Apocalypse. If I had to choose three other fellow Horsemen, they'd be Old Person Driver, Bloody Volvo Driver and Stupid-Young-Man-With-Subwoofer Driver. (Honourable mentions to people who own a Dodge. How the hell do you get enough fuel to run that TANK?!)

Anyway...so I was running late for work as I had to open up the store- and I had spent ten minutes looking for my hatchback's keys and freaking out when I saw the garage was empty before remembering Dad had taken it- and so I was very stressed. And then I hear this almighty CRUNCH and oooh look, I think that was the back fence.

No wuckers, Daphne. We'll just try it again, but slooooower...

...CRUNCH. CRACKLE.

There is now a rather nice little fissure in the wooden slats of our fence, except my mum insists that it was there before already, so no one actually cared.

In the end, I had to call Mum and get her to come down and reverse it for me. Which was pathetic, but necessary.

And that, friends, is why I like to drive hatchbacks.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

The Joys of Real Player

I just only realised that RealPlayer 11 downloads videos from YouTube.

Free.

For offline viewing.

I've only just discovered this. And I feel like such a n00b.

However, I am now regretting discovering this, as this means that I can waste my download quota (and my study time) downloading lots and lots of clips. It's going to be worse than Facebook. In fact, I am considering getting a timer fixed onto the screen of my computer just so I can monitor my internet usage, as I am spending entirely too much time on this machine.

However, I felt like slightly less of a n00b when I realised that my Dad's PC was probably running RealPlayer 10.5 or under, which is why I never discovered this feature...and it never occurred to me to download a third media viewer on this PC, y'know, just in case Windows Media Player and iTunes fail. And who uses Real Player anyway?! Except my uni, which is why I had to download it in the first place...

And now I'm rambling again. But I'm so excited I just had to share :D

Now I can watch "Dick in a Box" over and over...and sing along!!!

N.B (I know that this probably belongs on Technobabblement but no one's going to notice it there, so I am announcing it over here!)

Monday, March 3, 2008

Work Ethics

Labour Day is not a university holiday.

I almost wept from the sheer injustice of it all, as I have lectures on that day.

And then I thought very hard about this, and realised...

Lectures are not compulsory.

Duh.

We are 'expected' to attend. It doesn't mean I HAVE to attend.

Right?!

Because that is 2.5 my normal pay rate. That is $30/hr as opposed to $12. That is $200.

Versus two and a half hours of lectures. Which are TAPED and put up ONLINE.

However, I was also faced with a slight moral dilemma. Which is stupid, because I once skipped out on a three hour lecture to have a picnic in the park, and didn't feel a twinge of guilt. But there are actually staff who CAN work on Monday and I am thus taking their shift away from them.

However, I am the youngest member of the team. This means I am also have the lowest pay rate of anyone else on the staff. I have already been compensated for my managerial stint with the prime weekend shifts...but frankly, I do more work than anyone else and I get paid less. So screw that, I'm taking this shift and I AM GOING TO TAKE MY $200 (-15% tax) and I am going to....

...give it to my mother to pay back the $2800 HECS debt I owe her.

Perhaps this is why she encouraged me to skip uni and go to work instead. I really did think she'd be the voice of moral reason.

In fact, she brought up a very valid point:

Mum: If you skip the lecture, can you catch up?
Me: Actually, they're all taped and put up online for me to download.
Mum: Oh. So...why do you even go to lectures then?

*silence*

And that is my deep and profound the question for the day.


Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Way That I Love You (With Knives!)

I was pottering around on YouTube when I discovered this new video from Ashanti:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hayE_ZP0rI&feature=user

I like to think of this as a homicidal version of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable".

I love it.