Life through Talisen tinted glasses...

And don't forget...

2008-11-05T09:30:48Z

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

David Attenborough!

2008-08-16T21:54:57Z

We just got back from going to see Sir David Attenborough give a talk on Wallace (co-theorist on the Theory of Evolution) and Birds of Paradise, and it was *amazing*. Not only was the subject material interesting, but David is an excellent orator and had the audience enthralled by his manner, and highly entertained. His mannerisms are exactly like those in the documentaries that I have watched numerous times, and it was wonderful watching him talk.

But that's not all! He also held a signing in the theatre after the event, and though we already own his "Life on Earth" and "Life on Air" books, we bought another Life on Air to get it signed (all the proceeds went toward bird conservation, which was fantastic). I really enjoyed the chance to meet this great man, and hope he has many years left of entertaining and informing us in the future.

Yay!

A long delay

2008-07-21T18:18:11Z

Well, it's been a long time since I created a post along the lines of what I've been up to. It's been a very busy time, both with fun items and with work as well. Rather than write an extremely long winded post about what I've been up to, I'll do a nifty bullet point summary for the last few months ;)

What I did on my last few months

My parents came over to the UK and visited us! It was great having them over, and although we had to work for most of the time they were over, we still managed to take some time off and travel around with them. I took a week off, and we all caught the Eurostar (my first time, lots of fun!) over to Brussels and then legged it off to Brugge, which was a very beautiful city with lots of really good Belgian beer. From there, we picked up our car, and drove up to the Netherlands, looking at the flowers in Keukenhof and staying in Haarlem. A drive from Haarlem to Vianden (in Luxembourg) via lunch in Germany was a real treat, and Vianden was just awesome with its very own Dracula-style castle overlooking the town in the valley. I really liked the flowing hills of Luxembourg - very pretty.

While my folks were over, we went for a weekend over in Norfolk, checking out some of the seaside towns over there. I think I still prefer white sand beaches! (There was one beach, that would have been lovely if the sun was fully out and the wind wasn't blowing a gale!)

A little bit prior to my folks coming over was Emma's conference in Copenhagen, and I met her after the conference on a friday night (after turning the wrong way out of the railway station, and ending up in the red light district). I really enjoyed Copenhagen (more good beer!) and we caught a train up to Helsingor (made famous as the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet), which was very awesome. The sound (water sound) that it sits on was a major passage for shipping trade, and the King, who sometimes took residence in the castle, demanded that ships not only pay his taxes, but also lowered their flags as a salute. Apparently if the ship didn't lower the flags, the King's gunners would fire a warning shot across the bow of the offending ship, and the flags were lowered pretty damn quick smart. Double thumbs up for Denmark, in my mind.

All of the travel managed to take its toll on my health, and I picked up a bout of Glandular Fever while over in Europe. Suffice to say, not at all pleasant, with the aching bones and the shivering, and generally feeling like crap. For some reason, the virus didn't attack my glands but instead went straight for my liver, with the wonderful effect that I can only now have one cup of coffee a day, and no alcohol at all for the next two months (at least, could be up to 6). Not thrilled ;)

Emma's dad and his wife came over to stay with us for a long weekend, which was fantastic, and we all drove over to Wales together, staying in a house near Merthyr Tydfil. We saw some beautiful countryside and rented a canal boat (a small electric one) that we piloted down a canal for a couple of hours to a pub, before heading back again. On the way back, the battery started conking out, and swans began to overtake us! Luckily, we limped back into port before the boat died, and drove back home.

During the time that I was ill, I managed to write my very first commercial proposal, which was accepted, and I now have the management of one of my company's projects. It's an interesting experience, but can at times be stressful. I was just impressed that I was able to write a proposal while in the full swing of glandular fever!

The UK has slowly bloomed from the stick-like appearance of winter (which I happen to love, for the coldness) into the lush spring and summer that we're now appreciating. While it is still chilly on occasion (the temperature here, mid-summer, is almost identical to Brisbane's mid-winter), the trees look so beautiful with all their leaves. I can understand now why people in the colder climes have folklore such as the Green Man and rebirth stories. The birds are also flying around, and we get a lot of swifts around here, and also had the pleasure of seeing skylarks flying around.

I bought a bike! It's a very lightweight Specialized hybrid, with a very convenient shimano gear changing mechanism, mostly operated by trigger finger and thumb. I was surprised by how much I enjoy bike riding, and we've taken a few small trips up through the reserve close by, and also over to the next closest town, where we have a pub dinner before riding back. I really love it over here!

On the weekend we drove up to Bridlington, and saw some puffins! They are very cute with their 'breeding beak', which is striped in reds, oranges, blues and whites. They're kinda smaller than I pictured, and look very cute as they race over the water, wings flapping furiously.

So that's the major points of what we've been up to recently, although not totally inclusive. I'm going to try to write more (although the number of times I've written that... ;) ).

Have a good one!

Russia - Eurovision?

2008-05-24T22:22:16Z

My. God.

Russia just won the Eurovision Song Contest?? WTF??

And here I was, hoping that boy bands (even though their representative was a one-man boy band) were finally on the way out.

*sigh*

I liked Greece, Serbia, Bosnia & Hercegovina (for the most awesome weirdness) and Norway was good too. The UK entry was very good, being of a disco funk beat, but unfortunately didn't score well. And the commentator, Terry Wogan, was very funny and acerbic. Next year, I'll have to go to a party for it :)

Hope you all had a great night too!

Another quickie

2008-01-07T22:09:18Z

Just finished watching Next, which is a great movie with Nicholas Cage in it. See it if you haven't already :)

I'm still coughing and spluttering as this head cold refuses to depart. Apart from that, the world is fairly peachy.

Just a quick post for tonight...seeya tomorrow!

Free range children, and sausages (not quite what you're thinking)

2008-01-05T17:55:59Z

Today was a very enjoyable day.

As far as first sentences go, I think that one is a good one to have in your diary. It started with waking up to find that the day was absolutely gorgeous, and that the depressing cloudy weather for the last week or so has finally buggered off; an icy blue winter's sky with a headless tree sitting outside my window promised much.

Which is ironic, as I spent the first 5 or so hours of the day playing World of Warcraft inside ;) I'd seen a rather nifty cloak, the [Bogstrok Scale Cloak] for my feral druid bear tank in the Slave Pens instance, and I really wanted to give it a shot. So logging onto the game and seeing most of my guildies, I quickly organised a Slave Pens run. We slew the boss with the cloak, but it didn't drop. Luckily for me, the server then rebooted on a rolling restart, and we decided to do it again...and it dropped! So, with a Major Armor enchant on it (+120 armour), it now suits by bear tanking efforts well indeed. All in all, a very fun instance.

After the WoW effort, emmaco and I went out for a drive to check out a local farm shop. It was quite good in the array of meats, and I loved the sign on the driveway - "Warning: Free Range children and animals". Ended up getting some pork and sage sausages and free range chicken breast. Should be sampling some of that for dinner, so looking forward to it immensely.

Continuing on the drive, we headed up to Bedford to check out some computer gear (in the market for a new graphics card - eye on the nVidia 8800GT, which looks awesome), and then heading home we stopped in at a pub at Moggerhanger called the Guinea. It was really nicely done out in the restauranty area, so I'm going to have to take the folks out there when they come over for a sunday lunch.

All in all, a really nice day so far. Also watched the start of the first series of Heroes last night - looks very cool, and am looking forward to seeing more of it.

Snow, but no.

2008-01-03T19:12:42Z

Unfortunately, the snow that was forecast for today didn't eventuate in all its glory, although we did get a couple of small flurries of tiny snow particles at work which was quite cute to watch. Apparently it didn't get completely cold enough for snow - it only hit around zero degrees, which just didn't cut the mustard in this case. As the weather for the remainder of the week is predicted to be around 5 or 6 (Warm! ;) ), I don't think I'll be seeing snow for at least another couple of weeks.

I've got the curtains open though, and a keen eye out, just in case...

New Years, and a single resolution

2008-01-01T18:43:41Z

Happy New Years!

Last night was spent most enjoyably, having dinner with an old mate and her partner at our local indian restaurant, followed by much geeky enjoyment introducing emmaco to the old Star Trek: The Next Generation tv series. It's been a while (read: 10 years, at least) since I last saw the series, and it's amusing how hammy (in some sections) the acting is, and also how overbearing the music is in some places. I can't remember ever thinking that when the show came out, so I wonder when it was that I started developing a sense of appreciation for subtlety in composition.

Not that musical melodrama is a bad thing - I mean, look at Holst's Planet masterpieces, especially Mars, God of War. Incredibly heavy-handed, but beautifully done and called for.

Anyway, after the ST:TNG we chilled out on some Veronica Mars, which is awesome. Also during this time was much champagne appreciation. We saw the new year in with texting and celebration, and missed having seafood and going swimming as we would have in Australia with our friends.

So, the new year is upon us - 2008 will hopefully be a happy year for everyone. I've got some good thoughts and plans for this year, and my single resolution for this year is to write an entry on LJ every day, whether friends-locked or not. I've had well-intentioned diaries in the past, which I found while preparing to move to the UK. Stressing the well-intentioned part - most of the diaries had two or three entries and a lot of dust. So hopefully, me being on the computer every day, will make this year's diary a little more fleshed out ;)

So hope your new years was fun and hangover-free, and the year ahead a grand one!

WoW, and the day

2007-12-30T19:10:26Z

Today was a day of WoWing. My darling SO headed into London to meet one of her favourite authors and friends from an LJ community, so I got to be very lazy and played World of Warcraft all day. As I'm originally from Australia, I play on the US server of Muradin, and due to time zone differences don't get to play with my Aussie mates for long periods of time anymore (like doing spontaneous instances). Today was an exception though, and it was awesome.

As soon as I jumped on, I joined a group of guildies and we headed out to Redridge with our n00bish characters for questing. After kicking several shades of Orcish arse (we're Alliance, if you didn't guess), some retired for dinner, and then I put up the suggestion of doing a Blood Furnace run, and we shortly headed off. I'd never run Blood Furnace, let along tank it, so it was a new one for me. I found it quite enjoyable, and several decent pieces of equipment dropped including the [Bloody Surgeon's Mitts] for our priest and the [Mindfire Waistband] for our mage. We're still a fairly young guild, so new pieces for our peeps are always welcomed!

We had one wipe on the run due to miscommunication, so no biggie :)

Afterwards, we decided to see how quickly a group of 4 level 60+ peeps could do a DM/VC run, which turned out to be 6 mins 48 seconds, which isn't bad when only one of the characters had any decent AoE. We were laughing the whole way through it though, which was great :)

We then turned our attention to the Stockades, and blitzed through that in 4 mins 57 seconds. Gnomeregan was next to go down, with all bosses cleared in a leisurely 14 mins.

All in all, a great day, and my high level character Teldra is now a 63, and almost half way through. Most satisfying!

Sleet/snow!

2007-11-18T19:39:21Z

It's sleeting/snowing! Right outside my window!

It started off light, but now it's actually coming down in quite a moderate fall. I don't think it's actually snow, as it tends to melt shortly after touching the ground/my hand, but..

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!

It's such a beautiful scene...I'll have to see what it's like when I wake up. My first sleet/snow where I'm actually living. :)

This has to go in the WTF area...

2007-11-13T18:01:49Z

Man hurt using gun to change tyre

A US man has injured himself in both legs after attempting to loosen a stiff wheel-nut by blasting it with his gun.

The rest of the article.

Source: BBC

talisen @ 2007-11-01T07:45:00

2007-11-01T07:48:57Z

Driving into work in mid Autumn is a wonderful experience - the mist rising off the fields, the sun lazily rising over the clouds, and frost on the grass. Looking outside, it's also very foggy in the car park. Of course, being in a warm car and office always helps ;)

Didn't get many trick or treaters last night. Not entirely unsurprised, as I didn't know how much of a custom it is in the UK (it's not in Australia) and so we prepared for it nevertheless. So now...we have a bunch of mars, milky way and crunchie bars to get through.

By the end of the week I'll be saying "No...more....chocolate...." ;)

Mist!

2007-09-13T11:54:24Z

It was so misty this morning! I was sitting at the computer, and suddenly this wall of mist just swept up the street and blanketed everything. The sort of day you want to go back and snuggle into bed for!

Sweating? In the UK?

2007-09-06T14:29:37Z

It seems weird that I'm sitting in the car (in the sun) in the UK, at the start of Autumn, and I'm actually feeling a prickling of sweat. I'm in the UK! ;)

Also, we've been buying plants and stuff for our (going to be) garden, and yesterday I went out and bought a Lupin and a beautiful dwarf Japanese Maple. It's great being able to get all different plants than what I could get back home, and hopefully the maple will look gorgeous as it turns through the seasons. On that note, a lot of trees are just starting to do the whole Autumn turning thing now. Looks gorgeous!

Horses

2007-09-05T12:31:27Z

It's pretty cool when you're sitting in a little English town, gently leeching the local wireless internet, and you hear some clop-clop-clop sounds. You look up, and there is a horse and rider moseying down through the main square. Just thought I'd share.

Setting up the phone line with BT has been a bit of a nightmare, and now we can't get broadband from Orange, due to distance from the exchange (despite being told we could). So I'm doing lots of research on British internet providers. Anyone have any tips, for or against?

Successfully moved...well...mostly! ;)

2007-08-27T11:23:56Z

Hi Guys!

It's been a while since my last entry, although this one has a very good reason behind it. We've finally starting getting settled into life in England, after having moved from Australia to a quiet little town near Emma's work (cue Belle's song from Beauty and the Beast). We left on the 30th of July, heading over to England by way of Japan, with a night's stopover there. It was just like I remember from a previous stopover, and everything was just so....cute. But very cool :)

Arriving into Heathrow on the arvo of the 31st, we picked up a Seat Altera which the car hire company had upgraded us to as the other car we ordered had some mechanical fault. Didn't bother us, and we were soon driving up to Sheffield to stay with my rellies, who were, as usual wonderful. So since then, it's been a psychotic three weeks searching for a place to live, buying all of the necessities, setting up lots of flat pack furniture (in the style of Ikea) and getting lots of stuff delivered. In some respects it seems to be taking a lot longer to get basic amenities like a phone line installed over here (including £125 just to connect the line!), and double the time to get broadband connected. Still, as it has become a commonplace phrase, we just have to suck it up. Very much looking forward to getting our netz connected back up again though, so we have some connection to the long-distance world again!

This weekend has been the last long weekend (called Bank Holiday weekends over here) for the year, although the first for us. It was gorgeous and sunshining, so we made the most of it and headed over to Cambridge to get the feel of the town and have a look at some of the colleges there. I may say, that I am heartily impressed. Cambridge has a beautiful feeling to it, and despite the hordes of tourists there as lunchtime neared, I believe that it would be a spectacular place to study in. Lots of nice cafes, and King's College Chapel is mindbogglingly and vastly beautiful. You can't step inside without the feeling that your soul is expanding to fill the ornate chamber. If you want to see it on TV, they usually have christmas carols from King's College Chapel broadcast on the ABC (for those in Australia) at Chrissy time.

Sunday was another venturing day, this time heading out to Buckingham and the nearby Stowe Gardens, which is a large landscaped park with a surprising number of grecian-style buildings and temples dotted around the greenery. It's a tranquil place, or I'd imagine it would be more so in the 18th century, with fewer people (of course, I'm not blind to the fact that I'm a tourist as well ;) ). Lots of families there, lots of picnics taking place, and they allow dogs on leashes which is a wonderful place to take your dog for a walk. I think there were two buildings that particularly caught my fancy - one was the Temple of British Worthies, with busts of some of the people that the creator felt left an indelible mark on the history of Britain, and also the Queen's Temple, which is used for music performances (from peering into the room). A very enjoyable day out, and we took some picnic foods with us, sat on a rarely used pathway, and ate in peace.

I'll put some piccies up over at my Flickr account, so go over and take a look at my Cambridge shots (Stowe Gardens to go up shortly).

Hope you're well!

Today

2007-07-17T03:11:12Z

Today was kinda interesting. Well, it still is, given that it's not over. It was one of those gorgeously blue sky days that make you want to just sit outside all day and wander the streets (like Kane, from Kung-Fu). It's days like these that make it really hard to leave Australia ;)

Another couple of things:

1. The Christadelphian Church on Lutwyche Rd had a sign up saying "Intelligent Design or the Bible?" as their topic for the week. Perhaps they forgot that scientific theory...what was it called...? That's right...Evolution. I know they're a church group (nothing wrong with that), but if you're going to be looking at possibilities, shouldn't evolution be discussed as well?

2. A Crow was in a tree as I was walking towards Lutwyche Rd, making that weird Predator-style "toc-toc-toc-toc-toc" noises. And it kept doing it. Freaky ;)

3. Morroccan Spice and Walnut dip is still for the win. I bought some today after heading out to an area near my old home, and it was great with warm bread stick.

4. I'm starting to find myself pre-emptively homesick. Which is very sad. Still excited about going though. Sadly excited, all at the same time.

Yeah, that's about it.

The End is Nigh!

2007-06-02T08:25:00Z

I'm just returned home from seeing the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I'd have to say that it was pretty good, and of course, Johnny Depp was absolutely brilliant as the slightly-eccentric slightly-camp Captain Jack Sparrow. I didn't mind Orlando Bloom in this one either, as he seemed to have gotten over his almost emo portrayal of William Turner. Kiera Knightley was good too, although her "Go Pirates!" speech left me feeling like she should have half of her face painted blue.

The plot ended up more convoluted than Davy Jones's tentacled beard. I think this one fit comfortably into the yay-swashbuckling-pirates-arrrrghhh-swords-action movie, with quite a lot of comedic value. The stone-crabs were extremely well done, and the special effects were wonderfully sublime. I believe that a simpler storyline would have done a little better than the highly-faceted plot though.

In the end, if you like Johnny Depp as Capt'n Jack, and love a good pirates movie, go see it - it's well worth it.

Seen a few times now...

2007-04-27T08:08:23Z

What do you think? Suitable?

Return of the Darwin Bound.

2007-04-09T08:57:06Z

Well, we've just returned from our trip to Darwin, in the Northern Territory, Australia. It was absolutely brilliant! The weather stayed fair, very warm and muggy, although none of the top end's storms that we wished to see. In addition to Darwin, we did the drive over to Kakadu National Park, where a scenic flight and cruise through crocodile-infested wetlands was on the agenda.

I'll do a small write-up tomorrow, after I've loaded up the photos.

Hope you had a happy Easter!

Cool bird experience

2007-03-12T21:56:25Z

Yesterday arvo, emmaco and I were coming back from a short walk around the neighbourhood, and came in through the back gate into our units (the units back onto parkland). Turning the corner to the side of the apartments, there was a sudden large flapping in front of us, and we saw a large (probably close to 70-80cm tall) white-faced heron sitting on the fence next to us, giving us the beady-eye going-over. It obviously concluded we weren't a threat, so it hopped down into the grasses next door (it's a tiny fence) and proceeded to hunt among the grasses, long neck swaying and stretching to see grubs.

They're really graceful, and very very pretty. It's nice to have those sort of encounters in your backyard.

talisen @ 2007-03-07T22:08:00

2007-03-07T12:09:34Z

If there's any CD I own that makes me want to start composing, it would be Joss Whedon's Buffy "Once more with feeling" soundtrack. I don't know why, but as I'm singing it, it just makes me want to be creative.

What works for you?

Wow....

2007-02-26T11:44:05Z

Well, I'm back from an absolutely stunning New Zealand holiday, which made for an absolutely relaxed Elliot, despite driving almost 3000 kms in 9 days. It was great!

I'll post a larger post on what we got up to in NZ sometime later.

Everyone has been very prolific! I've read through 30 LJ friend's pages, and still haven't reached the time when I left.

Take care, speak soon!

Ahh, summer!

2007-01-30T00:37:57Z

It appears that summer is finally here. It's gotten incredibly muggy, sitting at around the 80-95% humidity mark, and last night we had our first purely electrical storm (which is always a trademark of an Australian summer storm in Brisbane).

Just hopping off the computer at 11:30pm last night, and I saw a flash, which looked strangely like a camera flash. As really really incredibly good looking as I am (woo for Zoolander ;) ), I figured that it wasn't actually someone taking photos of me, so I had a bit of a look around. After searching around, I found that there was some rather spectacular intra-cloud lightning arcing above me. So I watched it for a while, cause it's just beautiful.

Later on, at about 1:30am, there was a very violent storm, with copious amounts of rain and lightning. I managed to raise my head from the pillow momentarily, think "brilliant", and let the rain lull me back to sleep.

I love aussie summer storms :)

talisen @ 2007-01-24T20:46:00

2007-01-24T10:48:08Z

It's been a while since I posted, so really, I just wanted to say that I'm still alive and working hard. I shall endeavour to put up a decent post at some stage over the long weekend (yay for long Australia Day weekends!), and let you know what I've been up to.

Take care folks!