The World Of Jadeey: April 2008



Just a lazy day

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I pretty much did nothing today so I don't have anything to blog about.

I got up and went to the gym this morning, but other than that it's been a lazy day around the house. It was raining a lot of the day so I didn't feel too bad doing nothing though.

The new episode of House played in America today... I'm excited and will be watching it later tonight. Yay for the writers strike being long over and for my shows coming back!! :-)

Musicians

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
You know how when people have been drinking they get their beer goggles on? Suddenly they find people attractive that they otherwise wouldn't. I've been realising over the last little while that I have a variation of beer goggles, but it's musician goggles.

I fall in love with musicians. ALL THE TIME. If you play an instrument or sing then I will fall in love with you. At least, I will while you are playing that instrument or singing. Once you're just a normal person again I'll probably get over it until next time you are in musician mode.

The other night I was out in town. A live band was playing and I was thinking about how hot all the members were. I decided they were a hell of a lot more attractive that any of the patrons that's for sure. The band took a break and went to the bar. I noticed the drummer, who I'd liked the look of a lot, while he was at the bar. I felt nothing. NOTHING. He got back on stage and suddenly I found him ridiculously attractive again.

It's a sickness.

Holidays

Monday, April 28, 2008
I hate how quickly holidays pass by. I've only got the rest of this week left and I'll probably spend most of it in at uni working on assignments anyway. Poos.

The 48Hours is coming up in a few weeks. That's the most exciting thing going on in my world at the moment. For someone who didn't really want to do it, and I didn't until Ingrid talked me into it, i'm now incredibly excited. Even though it's so stressful, it's also always a hell of a lot of fun.

Right-o I'm off to read more of Ian Wishart's book. (Which reminds me, my flatmate mentioned that I should clarify that thinking someone is a good writer, for me, doesn't equate to thinking they know what they are talking about. I'm always in publisher mode now so I look at actual writing style a lot. I know Ian Wishart is pretty full of it... But I still find the book interesting and well-written.)

Oh! Stephen Fleming was just on tv advertising fujitsu stuff. I do love that man.

The Sims 2

Sunday, April 27, 2008
In between editing chapters of the manuscript, tonight I've been playing Sims 2 on the Xbox. Today was the first day I've actually played it, despite having owned it since December. It's a weird game.

My sim has what is called in the game 'romantic aspirations'. I have no idea how this came about since I didn't choose that and you are supposed to be able to chose what aspirations your sim has, but whatever. So, my sim has romantic aspirations which means she just wants to get laid. Seriously. I started the game and it told me I needed to make friends with one of my housemates. As soon as I did that it told me to kiss that housemate. Once I did that it told me to make out with the housemate. Then it told me to make out with another housemate. And then a 3rd! Apparently sims with romantic aspirations need to get it from everyone they can. It's now telling me to have 'woohoo' with one of my housemates.... I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet (in the game). So weird.

I'm used to the sims games where you have to make your way up a career path, eventually you get married and have kids but that isn't a big part of it. In this game it seems to be. I'd gone through 5 days in this version before I finally managed to get a job. I got a job in the politics career path since that was the first thing offered to me, but apparently that's too much effort for my sim since all she wants to do is have sex, so I have to quit that job and get a job in fashion instead. I think I far prefer regular old Sims to be honest!

Zimbabwe

A couple of years ago I wrote a 20 page report on the political situation in Zimbabwe. It was for a sports management paper and my topic was the ethics of international cricketers refusing to tour Zimbabwe anymore. It required a huge amount of reading into the political situation and the history of Zimbabwe. It was fascinating and I'm really glad I chose it as a topic.

The re-count of votes in Zimbabwe is pretty much over now and Mugabe doesn't have a majority. Thank god for that. There's still a way to go before the MDC will be able to take over, but it now at least looks like that actually is going to happen.

I'm currently editing a manuscript that is being published in November. It's only about 130 pages, but for me that's an awful lot. I have to have my first edit completed by Thursday, I'm a bit scared because I still have a heck of a lot to go. In saying that, I better get back to actually doing it rather than just typing about it.

Wii and Helen Clark

Saturday, April 26, 2008
I had a night of playing Wii tonight. It was so much fun! I was a lot better at Wii bowling than I am at regular bowling!! I really want one now, but unfortunately I'm just a poor student so I won't be buying one anytime soon. :(

I'm reading Ian Wishart's book on Helen Clark at the moment. It's really interesting, and disturbing. As a staunch Labour supporter, and someone who (in my opinion) is quite intelligent, I'm not silly enough to take everything written in it at face value. I do actually like Ian Wishart as a writer, but I'm aware that what I'm reading is, most often, not the full story. It worries me that there are probably a lot of people out there who will take it as 100% fact and not vote for Labour based on what they read.

I was going to write something more interesting about what I actually read in the book, but it's late and I'm about to watch a dvd so I won't today. Perhaps once I've actually finished the book I will. :)

48 Hours

Friday, April 25, 2008
Ingrid and I have spent a lot of the day trying to organise ourselves for the 48 Hours. We are currently lacking anyone to organise the music, so we're trying to do it ourselves. This involves trawling websites with royalty free music and trying to make enough notes about it that we can easily decide what music we want during editing stages. Not as easy as it sounds.

At the moment we're also on the hunt for actors. We had a few lined up that have since changed their minds and joined other teams. Bugger!

So, if anyone is keen to act or to organise the music for a film let me know!!!

The circus!

Thursday, April 24, 2008
Ingrid and I are taking her little brother and my nephew to the circus today. It's going to be awesome. I love the circus, as long as it doesn't have animals. (The one we're going to is a Weber Brothers one, they don't have animals.)

Before that we're going to an exhibit at Capital E on movie special FX.

What a fun day! :-)

Dinner

Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Ingrid and I went for dinner tonight at a Japanese BBQ place near our house. We've only been in there one other time and we were pretty much the only people there. We expected it to be the same tonight. When we first arrived there were only a couple of other people, but by the time we left the entire restaurant was almost full.

At first we were pleased for the restaurant that it was almost full. Then we realised that there was only 1 chef on. We finished our food just as the people next to us were being served there's. Not a single other person had eaten anything yet. There were about 8 other groups. And this is a restaurant where they cook it in front of you... So those poor people were all going to be waiting for their food for a long time.

Being the lovely people that we are, Ingrid and I both wished there was something we could do to help. But we couldn't. So we left instead.

It was yummy though! Glad we got served first!

Nothing to blog about

Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I hate when I have a total mind blank over what to blog about. I've had this blog window open for over an hour and can't think of anything. (I have been doing other stuff during that time)

We got some new block-mounted posters in our flat yesterday. We are now the proud owners of a Back to the Future, Brokeback Mountain and Joker poster. They look AWESOME!!!!!!

The Joker one really scares me. It looks like this:



We've had to position it so we aren't constantly looking at it. We were too scared. In some ways it's worse at the moment because it really gives me a fright when I catch sight of it suddenly.

It's one of the best posters in the whole world though. It looks fantastic.

Jizz soap

Monday, April 21, 2008
About 18 months ago I posted that the body-wash I used in the shower looked like semen... Once I ran out of that body-wash I didn't buy it again. It made me a little bit uncomfortable.

Now, though, the hand-soap in the bathrooms on my course look like semen! I made a joke about it in class the other day, didn't get a great response unfortunately. No-one else seemed to have noticed the resemblance. I don't know how they haven't noticed - I think about it every time I wash my hands.... Perhaps I'm the strange one?

Arrested Development

Sunday, April 20, 2008
Ingrid and I have been watching Arrested Development for the last little while. I'd never seen it before, but had heard that if you like The Office (which, obviously, I do) then you'll like Arrested Development. I LOVE it!

We're about half-way through season 2. Unfortunately it's only 3 seasons long. It sucks when great shows get cut off early. (I'm still bitter about the show Young Americans, it got canceled after only 1 season despite it being great.)

Right ho. Bedtime.

Washing machine troubles

Saturday, April 19, 2008
Last night before I went out I put some clothes in the washing machine. My plan was to get the clothes out when I got home and hang them on the drying rack. My plan was thrwarted when I arrived home to discover my clothes were, in fact, trapped in the machine. You see, we have a front-loading washing machine. The drain or something was blocked so it wasn't draining the water. Being a nice, expensive washing machine, the door wouldn't open if there was any water left in the machine. I panicked a bit for my clothes, but it was 3am so I decided to just go to bed.

This morning when I got up I hoped somehow the machine would magically be fixed. It wasn't. We had to call out the washing machine fix-it man to come out and fix it. He found that an underwire from a bra was caught in the pump. Neither Ingrid or I have lost an underwire that we can remember so I'm not sure what that was about. Perhaps it had been in there for a long time but just hadn't got caught in the pump before now... Ah Kat? Any chance you lost an underwire last year? If so I think I have it, but it's a bit mangled. :P

Okay, I'm off out again tonight. Yes, 2 nights in a row!! It is my holidays afterall, I may as well enjoy them!

Holidays!

Friday, April 18, 2008
That's right people, I am on HOLIDAY! For the next 2 weeks I plan to do very, very little. I can't wait!! I have a few assignments to do, but no work since there are no events on at the stadium in the next fortnight. So, of course, I'm going to be poor but I don't care.

Linc is coming down for a visit so I'll probably be spending most of my time with him. We plan to go the circus (woo! the circus!), horse riding and quite probably a couple of movies. Awesome stuff.

Tonight I'm going out for drinks with some people I haven't seen since the end of 7th form. I'm really looking forward to it.

Okay, must go and do the dishes.

Neanderthals spoke like Kiwis?

Thursday, April 17, 2008
I read an article today that claimed Neanderthals may have sounded like New Zealanders. The article actually really annoyed me. It says that scientists have used fossil evidence and voice synthasisers to get a simulation of what Neanderthals sounded like. Apparently the answer is that they sounded a little bit like New Zealanders.

It is stupid to say they sounded like New Zealanders. Apparently Neanderthals lacked the quantal vowel, meaning their e's sounded like i's because there is no distinction between how they say the two letters. It is from this part of the original article that the writer of the stuff.co.nz gets the idea that they may have sounded like Kiwis. Of course, we do have a very big defintion between our 'e' sound and our 'i' sound. I never hear someone with a New Zealand accent say 'bet' and think they've said 'bit'.

I'm guessing an Australian wrote the article. Australian's really don't hear the difference between our 'e' sound and our 'i' sound, unless they are used to talking to New Zealanders. But hey, I don't hear the difference when they say 'six' and 'sex', sounds like the exact same word to me. So suck on that Australians - you don't have a difference between your 'e' and 'i' sounds either! Maybe Neanderthals actually talked like Australians!

Writers vs editors

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A friend of mine posted a link on his facebook to this blog, which is actually a response to this article. I found both amusing and interesting since I've been both a writer and an editor.

For those of you who don't want to follow the links, they are about how editors see writers, how writers see editors and how both groups see themselves. They also comment on how those who are both writers and editors swing between all of the views.

Until this year I've pretty much solely been a writer. I did the occasional editing of friends' assignments, but that's about it. As a writer I was certainly of the opinion that editors were the devil. Whenever I wrote anything (oh who am I kidding, whenever I write anything even now) I am convinced that it is perfect. I know there is nothing an editor can do to it that would make it any better.

This year I've become an editor as well, I've spent at least a couple of days a week editing various works. I've got to say, as an editor, I suddenly become of the opinion that writers are idiots who don't even have a simple grasp of grammar and are far more verbose than they need to be. In my role as editor I always feel vastly superior to the writer whose work I'm editing.

In a week I can switch between editor and writer a few times in a row, actually sometimes in a day I'll switch between the two. The writer of one of the articles I linked to above says that being both writer and editor is often like having split-personality. I 100% agree. It's exactly like that!

Go read this

Kat wrote a brilliant blog today about inflation, global warming and oil prices. Everyone should go and read it. Now! She's completely right, we really do need to do start doing something.

You can find it here.

RIP

All 7 of the people missing after being swept down the river yesterday have died. 6 school kids and a school teacher. Apparently the teacher actually got out of the river safely but then jumped back in to try and rescue the other kids. And died in the attempt.

It's just such an awful, awful tragedy.

Weather

Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The weather has been so bad up north that a man and his horse were killed when they were struck by lightning and a bunch of people are missing after being swept away down a river. It's awful. When I was younger our neighbour's horse got killed by a lightning strike. It was a horrible, horrible thing to happen. Sometimes, even without people, the world can be a very scary place.

Okay, I'm going to go to bed. I need to catch up on a bit of sleep because I have bibliographic referencing first up in class tomorrow morning and it's pretty hard to stay awake for an hour and a half of that. I need all the sleep I can get in preparation!

I'm such a nerd

Monday, April 14, 2008
I've been discovering over the last couple of months that I'm not very well-read. I love reading, but since I left high school I haven't done as much of it as I used to. I used to read anything that was put in front of me, but now it takes an actual interest for me to pick up a book and read it. I've been trying to change that since I really do miss reading.

When I was in my 2nd year at university I thought about switching to a politics major. I'd always had an interest in politics anyway, and I had a crush on a guy who was doing it, John. (Heh, seems I have a bit of at thing for John's.) I decided against it, but I've always kind of regretted that. I think I would have found it pretty damn interesting. I've certainly become interested in reading books with a political bent these days.

Another thing I thought about studying, and wish I had, is history. I'd hated social studies at school and that was the main reason I decided against history at uni. (Well, and that I had no idea what I would do with a history degree... About as much as i've done with my psyc, film and management probably!) Again, I've become very interested in history books recently.

Haha the other day I read a book about American Presidents throughout history. See, that was a good book to choose because it fulfilled both the criteria of being a history book and political book. The problem I seem to have is that I should be reading about New Zealand history, but I find that pretty boring. I'm much more interested in British and American history. Maybe because we learnt about New Zealand's history back at school (admittidly we didn't learn a lot) so it has a sort of been there, done that feel. I'm not sure.

But, yeah, I'm a total nerd. Who else, but a nerd, would happily read non-fiction books in their spare time?!?

Homework

Sunday, April 13, 2008
I've been working on my assignment this evening. It's an assessment of an unpublished manuscript. Basically, I've had to read the manuscript and now give my opinion on whether or not it should be published.

I know this is one of the lowest of the low jobs in publishing but boy is it fun! I know I must be in the right industry if I enjoy one of the lowest jobs fun! For someone who loves reading as much as I do it's pretty bloody perfect.

I've got the shakes at the moment. I have no idea why. I had them last night too. My hands won't stop shaking. Clearly I'm having withdrawls for something I'm addicted to. It's beyond me what though! I've had mountain dew today and that's about the only thing I can think of that I'm addicted to!

Okay, I'm off to clean the bathroom (that's my job for this weekend) and then I'll do a bit more work on my assignment and go to bed. Bring on the holidays next week! Woo!

Random things

Saturday, April 12, 2008
I washed my sheets today. That was a very good thing. Unfortunately it means my bed is currently unmade. I hate having to go and make my bed. I don't know why I hate it so much, it's so easy. Heh apparently I really am the laziest person in the world!

When I first arrived back in Wellington after a year away I had become allergic to my cat. I was always a little bit allergic to cats, but usually it took a lot of cuddling to inspire an allergic reaction in me. When I came back after not having a cat for a year, though, even giving Felix a quick pat on the head would make my throat scratchy and my eyes bloodshot. It was horrible. I'm slowly getting past it. I'm still pretty allergic to him, but now it takes about 15 minutes to get a reaction. I'm hoping that sometime soon it's back to the hour or so it used to be.

I saw a woman doing a ridiculously funny run today. If you've seen Friends, then just picture Phoebe's run. This woman ran like that, except without her arms in the air. Her legs totally kicked out to the sides and she had a full-on wobble going on. It was really funny. And she did look like she was enjoying herself so that was good. :-)

Giraffe!

Friday, April 11, 2008
I saw a giraffe today and I didn't even have to go to the zoo! I caught the train in this morning. Whenever I catch the train I love to walk along the waterfront up to my class. This morning I was happily walking along listening to my iPod. I saw a whole group of people avidly watching some guys load a huge box onto a truck. I had no idea what they were doing or why people were so interested. I've got to say I've never found the loading of a truck particularly thrilling.

When I reached the box I could see that it had "Wellington Zoo, giraffe" written on the side. Wondering if it could possibly be an actual giraffe I walked to where the people were standing watching. When I turned around, sure enough, I could see a giraffe head through a hole in the top of the box.

It was awesome. And unexpected. Which just made it more awesome really. Yay for giraffes!

Comedy

Thursday, April 10, 2008
I went to a comedy gig at San Fran tonight. It was pretty good actually, but because of it I almosst had to get punished. You see, it's now 11.22pm and I had to rush away very quickly to ensure I got this blog done before midnight.

Anyway, about the gig. We went along to see a guy Ingrid went to primary school with. He was okay, but definitely not the best. I was all worried when she asked me how it went, just in case she was offended that I only thought it was okay and not great. Thankfully she was in agreement with me. Phew. Situations like that can be so awkward. Like when someone you've just met points across the room and says, "See that guy over there?". You see the loser she's pointing to and say, "The loser in the corner? Yeah I see him." She looks at you coldly, "That's my husband." Shit!!!! Not a mistake you want to make. (No, I've never made quite that mistake, but it's been close.)

Okay, I'm going to head to bed. Gotta get up early for class (as usual) and, at this rate, getting up is going to be a tough ask.

Until tomorrow...

The Office is back!!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008
My favourite show in the whole wide world is back in 2 days. That's right! The Office will be back Friday afternoon New Zealand time. Yay!!!!!

My laptop is being very annoying. When I first got it I used to have a problem that, while I was typing, the cursor would jump all over the place. This meant that if I wasn't looking I'd often be typing in the middle of another word. I thought I'd fixed the problem by changing my touchpad settings to not activate the touchpad for a certain length of time after I stop typing. This worked for a while, but now seems to have stopped working. Grrrr.

I feel like watching something but I can't decide what. Sometimes having so many dvds in such a burden! :P

FREEZING

Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Wow it's cold today! Like, seriously cold. I know it's only going to get colder, but I don't like it.

I think I'll need to take a hot-water-bottle to bed with me tonight.

I went to The Other Boleyn Girl tonight with my mum. I'd already seen it, but thought mum would enjoy it. I was right, she did.

Okay, it's early night for me. I'm freaking exhausted! (Yeah, I'm getting old.)

48 Hours

Monday, April 07, 2008
Me and Ingrid decided today that we are going to enter the 48Hours film competition. I've done it twice before, a couple of years ago. I didn't actually think I was ever going to do the competition again. It's a long, hard, bloody exhausting weekend for not a lot of reward (unless you're one of the 10 in the finals). It is a hell of a lot of fun though, and you feel pretty damn good about yourself when you get to watch your film on the big screen. (Everyone who completes a film within the 48 hours has it screened, even if it's total bollocks.)

I'm really excited about the fact that we're going to do it. Both times I've done it previously my team has managed to get a completed film in. Both times I've been absolutely shattered because I've helped with the writing, I've directed and I've edited. This has meant virtually zero sleep. This year I plan to help with the writing and do the editing, but leave the directing to Ingrid. Let's hope this means I get some sleep!

RIP Derek Lovell

Sunday, April 06, 2008
This was one of those weekends that passed way too fast. I really feel like I could use another day off.

There was a fire in Hamilton last night that killed a firefighter. Another 7 are still in hospital, one of those is still in critical condition. It's awful. My dad said it's the first death of a firefighter caused by a fire in the 35 years he's been in the Fire Service. (wow he's been in the service a long time! Go dad!) That's a pretty good track record for them, but it means it's sent them all into a lot of shock.

I'm really glad my dad is now high enough up in the Fire Service that he doesn't attend fires (and hasn't for a number of years). I'd be feeling very stressed about him going to work right now if he still had to go into burning buildings.

My heart really goes out to all the families of firefighters who are still going to fight fires, to the families of those injured in the Hamilton fire, and to the family of Derek Lovell.

Daylight Saving

Saturday, April 05, 2008
Wow, I was very worried I wasn't going to get home in time to blog before midnight. I meant to do it before I left for work this afternoon but it completely slipped my mind.
Luckily work finished early so I am here blogging with plenty of time to go. :-)

It's daylight saving tonight. I like this daylight saving because it means I get an extra hours sleep. It doesn't really make a difference to me since I don't actually have to be anywhere tomorrow, but I far prefer it to when we lose an hour of sleep.

I always get really stressed if I have something important, like work or an appointment, to do on the Sunday morning of daylight saving. I always panic that I've got it wrong and it's not actually daylight saving at all, or that I put my clock the wrong way or something. I've never actually mucked it up, but it's been fairly close. I was absolutely convinced last Saturday that it was daylight saving. It was only because I checked on the internet before I changed my clocks that I realised I was a week early. (I had wondered why I hadn't seen it advertised anywhere, although I haven't this week either. IS it daylight saving this week? I'm sure it is!)

Wombat rape

Friday, April 04, 2008
I'm sure you've all heard about the guy who rung the 111 claiming that he was being raped by a wombat (apparently it made news sites around the world). I just read tonight that he was actually ringing 111 because he wanted to talk to the police about the fact that they were 'leaning' on one of his family members. (What is this, a bad cop film?) He was told that he needed to have an actual emergency to call 111 so he claimed that he was being raped by a wombat.

Later that same day the guy rung up and sarcastically told the operator that the wombat had 'pulled out'. He told them that, other than aquiring and Australian accent, he was unharmed by the wombat. See, when I first heard the story I thought the guy was crazy or on drugs or something. I'm kind of disappointed that it turns out the guy was just being a dick cos he was angry at the operator.

If you want to read the actual story, which is a whole lot better than what I just wrote, go here

Man I'm glad it's the weekend. I'm so sleepy! I've gotta work tomorrow, but only a short shift so that's good.

Ten things I hate about you

Thursday, April 03, 2008
Well, I'm actually not going to list them here because you read this blog.... But there are 10 things, more than 10 really.

Why do I keep someone in my life who has more than 10 things I hate about them? For a few reasons I guess. Partly a fear of change, partly because you can probably find 10 things to hate about most people and I do have way more than 10 things I like about you and partly because I don't know how to say the words that would make you leave my life.

When it really comes down to it, I'm a wimp. But I'm trying really hard to change that.

Language

Wednesday, April 02, 2008
I was reading an article the other day about language and spelling. In particular the article was about the future of the English language. The main premise of the article was that in 15-20 years all English-speaking countries will have the same spelling.

As it is, I don't tend to notice when something is spelt with American spelling unless I'm really concentrating. If asked I could spell most words in our spelling our American spelling, I read so much that it isn't hard for me. As the most powerful country in the world of course spelling will follow the American's version.

If the article is right, it means the Brits and us Kiwis, among others, are going to have to spell colour as color; centre and center; favourite as favorite; labour as labor; recognise as recognize; and so on. It's not the worst change in the world but it saddens me nonethelesss. I think I'll really miss the letter U. (argh I'm such an editor now - I just hit publish and saw the letter U sitting all by itself on the last line. That's called a widow and is very unacceptable in the publishing world. It really annoyed me seeing it there!)

April Fools Day II

Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Haha so after I posted yesterday Derek came up with a great idea to prank Ingrid with. She was out for the evening so we had plenty of time to prepare, which was good since it did take a while.

Derek's suggestion was that we fake an email to her about something. He's a computer geek so he knows how to do all the faking magic. All I had to do was come up with a topic and then write the thing. We thought about an email that said Tom Hanks was coming to New Zealand and she could see him somehow. The logistics of the who would have sent her such an email were a bit difficult though. Couple that with the fact that I know I personally would be angry rather than amused if I thought I had the chance to meet one of my celebrity crushes then found out it was a joke, and we realised it wasn't such a good idea.

We then came up with the idea of doing a fake stuff.co.nz webpage that I would just load up on my computer to show her. Our first thought was to make it that Tom Hanks was dead. We decided against that when we realised that might actually make her cry. Finally I hit upon the perfect topic. We wrote an article all about how V was going to be banned in New Zealand by the end of the year. Sure enough, when she read it she was upset (but not enough to cry), I quickly told her it was a joke and she was pretty amused.

And that, my friends, was the extent of my pranking on April Fools Day. Better than I do most years though. (Also, I safely made it through the day without being pranked. Yay.)