Hmm. Ok, that seemed to work. Getting rather tired of lj's bad quality Scrapbook photos, so thought i'd go through Flickr instead. Been meaning to start this painting for a while - i do love a panorama. :) Was just going to do a reasonably realistic painting, but well, you can see how long that lasted! XD Been a bit pattern-mad since doing the wall in the last painting, now i am after daytime stars! Will prob get knocked back to very soft blue scar lines, much like my lodestone painting - which is also on my Flickr somewhere.

I have a 7 kilo cat lying on my typing arm, so i think i'll just leave this here for now. :)

Idea stolen from nixwilliams ! Go here and get yr own. :)








I wanted to get to name my hero too - "General Patched Pirate" is just silly, and doesn't take into account that he has wings and a bloody great thunderstorm on his chest. And what self-respecting pirate fights with a stick?? I wanted to call him "The Rainmaker" - he can fly up to the clouds around here and poke them with his stick to make it rain. Ah, wishful thinking... XD

Last night i decided that i needed some new icons, so i made some. Most of my icons were painting ones, so i thought what the hell, lets go to pop-culture for the next batch. :D I made a Nam-joo one (the archer from "The Host"), and some Twin Peaks ones (including one with Agent Denise Bryson!), and a Shaolin Soccer one (4th brother lightning hands). Aaah... now my lj feels all fresh and new again!

Awww.... found this tonight and got the biggest rush of nostalgia for Capoeira. Damn, i miss doing a martial art where music is such a central element. :-/



Oh, oh, here's another one that's not so tricks-based. This style of Capoeira looks like Regional as well, unlike the one above, which i think is Angola, a slower style.



This clip is really good at showing how the roda (playing ring) works. Man, i remember training for hours, and then getting a roda together and playing for another hour. It never stops, yr always moving... everyone takes turns playing with each other in short bursts. If you aren't playing in the ring, yr clapping and singing. It's awesome and exuberant and exhausting. I loved it so hard - until my knees went on me and i had to give it up. :( Knees, such fragile things!

Fuck shit shit. Current fire threats to Warburton and Tecoma/Belgrave. Only 6km from Warburton now. Belgrave South Narre Warren East and Selby in the path of the other blaze with a southerly wind change on the way. DDD:
A and her mob are ok for now (in Monbulk), but fuck sometimes i think she gets a bit blase about it. I don't want to hear "oh, we'll leave if it gets bad", i want to hear "yes, we have the cats in, we are packed and ready and listening to updates, we have a route mapped out for escape and we have hoses and buckets and mops and sprinkers ready in case we get caught".

Fucking summer, fucking bushfires, enough already! >:(


ps. aaaand, now we have fires in Daylesford, Bullato and Trentham as well. Ace. D:

edit 10.15pm: smelling smoke in the air now. CFA incident updates has the front at Coomora/Wheatsheaf, about 35km to the south of us.

edit 2.40am: Threats to Coomora, Wheatsheaf, Trentham, Bullarto, Lyonville, Musk, Little Hampton and Glenlyon have all been downgraded... YAY! :D Wind died right down about 12.30am, although it is still very smokey. About 90 CFA vehicles in attendence - they are going all out to stomp on this one before Friday's hot weather... fingers crossed!
Also, threats for Belgrave, Tecoma and the Dandenongs downgraded as well. :) Excellent! I might just sleep this morning, who knows.

Just finished reading "The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie. Fuck i love his books, even when i have no idea what he's banging on about. He does tell a good story, with enough characters and colour and perspectives to make yr head whirl. In "The Entchantress..." it's all about east vs west (a continuing theme with him), what it means to travel and the ways in which ppl find enough power to (re)invent themeselves, although being Rushdie, most of those ways seem shadowy and veiled in secrets and highly improbable. Oh, and the ruthlessness of rulers being so alike to the ruthlessness of lovers - "you are mine, until yr not". It's far short of his best, but still amazing, still lots to think about after putting it down, with some passages of prose that are truly beautiful. I like.

Plus it's given me an idea for a self-portrait with a falcon perched on my shoulder. :)

Been reading quite a bit this year, which feels really good. After the breakdown in 2001-2, i pretty much stopped reading all fiction except Agatha Christie to get to sleep. But now the book-hunger is coming back a bit. Am crossing my fingers that it lasts this time!

Another book i recently read was "The Paper House", by Carlos Maria Dominguez. (with cute illustrations by Peter Sis!) It's very short, only 107 pages and fairly large type at that, but it is profoundly moving.It relates the travel of another book, Conrad's "The Shadowline", across continents and time - what happened to it, how it endured and how it was destroyed. And what books mean to us, and by extension, libraries also. And how important the ordering and protection of books is to Bibliophiles, often more important than the books themselves. And how linked reading is to music - the way ppl read books, the visual appeal of printing, of way the paragraphs orginise themselves into rythym and the reader's sensitivities to such things. And how books, their toughness and their fragility, their portability but also unweildiness - all this plus the repository of meaning and emotion too - can send ppl mad. And mortality. The book as a reminder and a talisman against a death that we know we must all succumb to in the end.
Anyway, it's a very quiet book, but an important book for those who care about such things, i think. It is lyrical and sad and sweet and true.

Now i'm off to read some Cynthia Ozick - "Collected Stories". I really enjoyed her "Puttermesser Papers", so i'm looking forward to it. :)


ps. sorry for starting so many sentences with "and", btw. It annoys me, but i just wanted to write down my reflections really quickly and that's the way it came out. D:

Damn.. i KNOW i had a copy of "Self Totalled" by the Cosmic Psychos around here somewhere. But i can't find it! And that's precisely what i want to listen to - over the top, short, hard agressive songs that i can slam dance around my bedroom to. D: Oh well. I am making do with Fear Factory and Rollins Band and Not from there and The Crow soundtrack, but it's not the same. And it's not even Monday night.

It's clear - i don't have enough heavy music. Pls, can ppl rec me some hardcore/metal/thrash/industrial/heavy grunge etc?? Failing that, what is the heaviest music that you like, and why do you like it? Is there a particular time or set of circumstances that makes you reach for it? Or is it an anytime kind of thing? I'm interested, i'd really like to know.

ps. btw i'm not wanting to listen to heavy stuff atm cause i'm depressed or angry or frustrated etc - i'm just in one of those moods where i've got a bit of stray energy to burn. (might be 'cause i've been doing really fine brush painting stuff all afternoon, and now i want some hard, crude, loud music as a bit of a counterbalance)

I love the whole "make yr own inspirational poster" thing you find on 4chan. So much of it is rubbish, or dumb, or offensive (mirroring society's thoughts and aspirations i guess), but every now and then you find something like this....



I don't know what the author intended with this, but i find it quite hilarious, in a wry sort of way.

This one's better tho:



:DDD

Watching the news tonight, this fella from Kinglake/Flowerdale was describing his escape from the fires. He told of how he was driving his car through the flames and embers started coming through the windows, setting the interior of the car on fire. He then said "I had a can of bourbon on me, so i put it (the flames in the car) out with that." XD

Now *that* is the Flowerdale i remember. Seriously, the times i travelled up there, i half-expected to be booked for driving sober sometimes. Oh dear. I don't know what to feel. :(

What else. Spent the day doing fuel reduction around the house. Filled our next door neighbours ute with the shrivelled leaves that have been stripped from the surrounding trees in the recent high winds. Nowhere near done yet - lots of work to keep me and B (my housemate and landlord) busy for the next few days. Roof and gutters tomorrow. B seems really stressed by the news of the fires. I'm worried about her, she's been suffering from physical and mental burnout for a while now, and this can't help.

In better news, the Redesdale fire looks as though it will be completely encircled by containment lines tomorrow, and aircraft have mapped the hot spots within it's boundaries for the strike teams to deal with. It looks good to be under control in the next day or so. One down, 28 or something to go. :-/

Well, i got home safe last night. I waited until the wind died down, checked the cfa and vicroads sites to make sure that the Redesdale fire hadn't come too close to the Hwy, and set off about 1am. It was quite eerie. The roads were pretty much deserted, except for the flashing orange fire warning signs, which began about Gisborne and were placed at intervals all the way through to Malmsbury. I detoured through Kyneton and Malmsbury to stay as far south as possible, both townships were in black-out. Even though i didn't see any fire glow or smell any smoke, the riding conditions were quite scary - lots of branches blown over the road in spots. I was worried about animals being on the move, but i didn't see any. I got home about 3.30am - much longer than i usually take, but it's best to be careful.

Since getting back i've been listening to updates on the ABC and revising our fire plan with my housemate. The news coming out of the aftermath of yesterday is horrific. Kinglake - gone. Marysville -gone. Literally, towns have nothing left standing. I did recall lazily thinking yesterday that if the Kilmore fire got into the Clombinane and Mt Disapointment areas, it was going to go, but i never even conceived that it could result in so much loss, so much death. There is nothing around our area and the Redesdale fire looks like it could be contained by tomorrow, but we are looking very nervously to the hills behind us. It's just all so dry.

The other thing i want to do is track down a friend of mine who lives just outside Puckapunyal... we lost touch a few years ago, but she's often in my thoughts. She used to live in Kinglake, and then Flowerdale, and then Clombinane, so i know the area from visiting her and am very upset by these fires. I can't even begin to imagine how she's feeling. She's a cfa team leader, so she's probably out fighting those very fires. I do hope her and her g'friend are ok. And their horses - they are big animal ppl.

Fires going in my area:

Redesdale - grassfire - going - small - 4 tankers
edit: ended up being a 10000 hectare blaze that destroyed 12 houses and an unknown number of sheds. Contained as of Tues morning.

Quarry Hill Bendigo - wildfire - going - spot - 7 tankers
edit: turned into a large fire that destroyed 57 houses, over 100 sheds and killed one person. Contained on Monday.

Drummond North - grassfire - contained - 2 tankers

Yandoit - grassfire - safe - no tankers

From here:


Ooh, i don't like being away from home when it's this crazy.... DDD: I hope my Mr. Tris has found a cool place to hide.

I've been spending the last couple of days in Melb - it's been lovely and coolish until today. Now it is 40+ degrees (predicted to get to 44) and i am holed up in E's house with Maxie, listening to the wind howling about outside and wondering if i'm going to get blown off the road on the way home. I sincerely hope that this is the last 40 degree day for the summer, but somehow i doubt it. This summer has been off the charts - and that's from an ex-sandgroper who used to play cricket in weather like this! D:

I got a bit of a scare yesterday - I dropped in on the St. Kilda gallery (Vision Xstream) that is showing my work at the moment, and they had shut up! Moved! And with no forwarding address. DDD: The thought of losing 7 good pieces upset me a great deal, but i pushed down the panic and got on to emailing them last night. Trying not to think about the fact that this was my only way of contacting them.
Anyway. I did get a reply this morning from Jac (the gallery owner), a terse email saying she's been trying to get hold of me for ages and could i come round to the new premises to orginise pick up of work etc. Huh. She has my email and phone number -  i distinctly remember sticking one of my cards in her diary. >:( I mean hey, if she'd said that she'd been busy with the move and forgotton to get around to contacting everyone, or lost my details etc i would've been fine with that. I mean, disorginisation is my middle name, i can relate. But to go on about how many emails she's already sent me when i haven't received any and i've had no probs with my addy... well, whatever. I want to go down to check out the new space and find my work now. Maybe i'll poke my head outside and see just how hot it is...

No cool change for us it seems. D:

Fri 24-44
Sat 25-42
Sun 21-39
Mon 22-38

Now pls excuse me while i go and crawl underneath my rock again

Happy Chinese new year to everyone btw. :)

Can you eat too much fruit? Because at the moment that seems to be pretty much my entire diet, as far as solid food goes anyway. (in ambient temperature that exceeds one's own body temp, it seems that minimum digestion is called for!) Today it was:

a punnet of frozen raspberries
half a pinapple
5 nectarines
and an apple.

Hmm, i feel like i'd like a bananna now.

But i'm kind of liking the hot weather today... gives me an excuse to laze away the afternoon in nothing but my boxers, drinking beer and playing FPS games. Certainly too hot for anything else. The game of the moment being "The Lord of the RIngs" computer game, kindly given to me byriotqueerfemme  as a birthday present! Ah, she knows me so well... :) The game isn't bad, it's basically a sword fighting button masher. The best bits are the visuals - the shifting from the movie cuts to the game environment is really neat, the first time i was sitting back and watching the intro, thinking "isn't he supposed to be doing something about now? OH." (scrambles madly for controls) XD

Oh, and speaking of birthday loot! Check this out:



What an amazing quilt, hey? My Mum made it. :) It's mega-warm though, so i won't be able to use it for a while. Bit of a theme this year with winter birthday gifts - A knitted me an awesome pair of bicycle/archery arm warmers too! I love hand-made gifts.

ps. 100 push-ups is still going... finished week 2 yesterday. It might be my hopeful imagination, but i think my arms are getting a bit bigger already! Exhaustion test tomorrow, wish me luck! :-o

So, last 2 sets were 14, 16, 12, 12, 21 (90 secs break between) and then 16, 17, 14, 14, 20 (120 sec breaks).

The 200 crunches program i only started properly yesterday... bad me! *smacks hand* Set was 15, 18, 10, 10, 15 (60 sec breaks). Goodness i hate crunches.

I am so not looking forward to the week ahead... 40+ degrees until Sunday at the least! This is not going to help my already tending-towards-nocturnal habits.

Well. I had a birthday on the weekend, and it was a great deal of fun! Friday/Saturday was spent with Crystalseraph, talking and sleeping and marvelling over cooked vegetarian breakfasts and  ogling him in his awesome military re-enactment pants. Ah, uniforms, one of my many weaknesses...
Sunday saw me back at home for my actual birthday, hanging out at the archery club for most of the day. Restripped the fletchings from my newly made-up arrows, as half of them were stuck on crookedly in my first attempt. *sigh* Fletching is such a fiddly business. I got a good tip tho - wrap small squares of plastic bag around the fletch *before* you put it in the jig, that way the glue doesn't stick to the jig and pull the fletch loose when it comes time to unclamp. Yay for low-tech solutions. :) In the evening i made nori rolls for my birthday party. In the process i found that i was low on nori papers, necessitating a trip to the stupidmarket, where i discovered that everyone else had the same idea as me and no sushi-making ingredients were to be found! I have to say that i was quite tickled by the thought that everyone was making sushi for Australia day. And i did manage to find a pack of nori wrappers in the organic section, so i didn't shop in vain. :) Also btw, arborio rice works really well as sushi rice.

Now, about the party. It was A's idea, bless her. She mentioned that in the entire time that her and S had lived in their place, they had never had a pool party, and would i like to help remedy this by having a birthday pool party at their place? But of course i would! Well, actually i was a little more ambivilent about it... i do like parties, particularly parties with awesome ppl involved, but i don't especially like being the point of a party. And i felt a little embaressed by the amount of effort A and S went to... the food, and there was a  homemade cake! :-o And offering to put ppl up for the night if needed etc. I don't know, i liked it, but i felt a bit uncomfortable about it too. Sad, 'cause i love doing or making stuff for ppl i care about, so why do i have so much trouble accepting gifts myself? :-/
Anyway, the party itself was great. :) Small but awesome. First to arrive were not_in_denial  and kirby1024  with riotqueerfemme , and a couple of hours later lukadragon  and W dropped in too. S stayed for a little while to begin with, and then took off to E's. Vast quantities of chips and nibblies were consumed before the braving of the sub-zero temperatures of the pool, although to be fair, it was pretty nice once you got in and splashed about for a bit. lukadragon and W impressed with their staying power once the sun departed poolside, and A and kirby1024 delighted with their aquatic re-creation of the chariot race in Ben Hur! And afterward there was more food and drink. The mandarin and strawberry sponge cake was acclaimed by all, and Xbox car crash games ended a very pleasant afternoon/evening. Yay!

Just started week 2 of the plan. All is going well, although my left wrist ached a bit when i was doing my sets last night. Just an old injury playing up i think, but i should keep my eye on it i suppose.

Anyway, these have been my sets for the last week:

16/1 - 10, 12, 8, 8, 22(max)
18/1 - 11, 15, 9, 10, 20(max)
21/1 - 14, 14, 10, 10, 20(max)

One minute breaks between all sets, as per usual. I think it gets harder from here, as the perscribed breaks get a bit longer. :-o

Oh, and i thought i should do the 200 sit-ups program as well... why not. I did the initial test last night - 25 crunches! Rather humbling. Oh well, so i've got about 175 to make up then. :) I think i need to look at my crunch technique, as my neck was getting sore, even after so few reps. They say to "lightly support" the head from just behind the ears, which i kinda didn't do - i just touched my ears. Something to practice for next time.

Had an interesting discussion with A tonight. I was upset, and she said, "yeah, well, you've been depressed for quite some time now." And when she said it, i realised how true it was. It explains my lack of resilience, not going to training, the crap memory, the dodgy sleeping patterns. I've just tried to paper it over with keeping myself busy, but it's not working. I am actually depressed.

Shit, what do i do now.

My reactions to things the last couple of days have been really off. Even as i'm saying things, i can't quite believe that they are coming out of my mouth. I'm really sorry, to anyone who i've offended in that time.

Oh and yes, i started bleeding today. Again, a huge shock. Why am i always surprised about this? And i can never remember when it's due to happen, despite being pretty regular. When i mentioned this to A, she said "yeah, you might not know when yr due, but i certainly do." lol.

Oh no! D: crystalseraph  is really quite unwell... from his symptoms (rebound pain in lower right quadrent, fever etc), it sounds like appendicitus. Thankfully the lovely riotqueerfemme  came to the rescue on her dashing white charger (ok, ok, in her beaten-up station wagon!) and carted him off to hospital. Phew! Last i heard, he was being triaged, but that was about an hour ago. I shall ring in a minute to see how they are getting on. Finger's x'ed that he is ok and being looked after.

If it is appendicitus i won't be at all surprised... it struck me down during my honours year as well. D:

Edit next day: Well, he's ok, sort of. For some bizarro reason the Alfred didn't have an ultrasound technician, so he was sent home to contact his GP about having an ultrasound. Fucking hospitals! Idk, just wait and see i guess. :(

Edit day after that: Fucking fuck fuck doctors. I don't even know what to say. >:(

Tris scratched my face last night, the bugger. >:-( He was desperate to get out and go fighting/hunting but i wouldn't let him, so he resorted to tearing round the house all big eyed, and having battles to the death with corners of the carpet. I ignored him, until he came up to me whilst i was reading in bed and yowled most demandingly. As i turned to face him, he just launched at my face and gave me a swat! Well, that tore it. I yelled and chased him round the house until i had him cornered under my desk and gave him a smack on the nose for his troubles. I think he realised the moment he did it that he'd gone too far, poor little mite. I guess i just ought to be a bit more mindful of his "big eyed fevers". *sigh*

( Cut for poss triggering images of terrible facial wounds inflicted by a savage beast! )

What else. Push-up regimen going well. Last nights sets were 10, 12, 8, 8 and 22.

Right, i'm off to a picnic in the bot gardens now. My contribution is left-over chilli pancakes and maple syrup - i hope ppl like them as much as i do!