salutations de paris

Well, I don't know that I'm really close enough to be worried about any damn punishment for non compliance in the homework stakes, but I will write anyway, but not about the long weekend because I don't have one. Although I do essentially have a long week.

I have been into the uni a couple of times though, and met with mon nouveau patron who seems like a very nice man, and took me out to a très delicieux 3 course lunch with wine!

As far as dirty frenchmen run-ins go, there have been several, I have had to pretend to speak neither french nor english and shrug my shoulders a bit a few times! But with the frenchies that aren't quite so dirty, I have been managing the french pretty well! Managed to have about a half hour converation avec un jeune homme in the jardin tuilleries mostly about les serpents en Australie! Also quite a few (non french) people in the hostel don't speak english so french is the langue du jour there as well.

I'll write more and post some photos when I get better access (when I'm up and running at uni etc) because at the moment I am in internet cafés and the euros are tick-tick-ticking by.

Hope everyone is well, and that those sheep get shorn!

Homework

This week’s homework pretty much applies to anyone NOT coming camping. (That trip will be documented by our very own SRF events reporter, Gretta, as per normal.)

Write 100-300 words on the following:

I may have missed a terrific camping trip but my long-weekend was…

Extra marks for pictures but not compulsory.

So there’s no confusion, we want responses from the following by Wednesday morning:
Jenny, Noodle, Bron, Suzy, Gabby, Brian, Good Nick if he decides not to come.

I will now open the floor to suggestions of suitable punishment for non-compliance...

Mystery of naked highway woman's trip or diary of a dumb blonde acts 1 & 2

Okay, Okay--I will write so you will all stop HASSLING me!!


I was going to write something funny but not in the mood today.....the last two weekends have been okay, but the weekend before last I had a major hissy fit because the washing machines were not working in my flat complex (I have a shared laundry) and somehow crossing Macleay Street and going to the Laundromat I managed to lose my beloved slipper (Gucci of course darling!) and the stupid wenches at the laundromat did not lift a finger to help me...anyway managed to find it after all but this weekend managed to melt them in my Mum's dryer...

OH THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIVETING ISN'T IT?????

Then last Monday I had a fight with my agent because she tried to hassle me into another six month lease and then on Sunday night my kitchen flooded because the flat upstairs had a blocked drian and all the electrics in my kitchen went. I yelled at Grant yesterday and spent most of the day in tears BECAUSE I AM just in REALLY REALLY BAD MOOD.....

I want the weekend

I want my boyfriend who I haven't seen in three weeks and

I want alcohol

And I want it all NOW!!!

PS: Sorry Nick I got all excited re the girl as I thought it was EVIL posting

I think I can

So I think I finally figured out this BLOG thing. I am making no promises however. As far as I know I could be typing this onto some hackers site as they are busily robbing what it left of my savings account.

Any hoo I think I have some very over due home work which is what did I do 2 week ends ago?

My memory is not what it used to be but as I recall I worked Saturday Night and Sunday 12-8. Did have Jenny's surprise dinner on the Friday night but I don't know if that really counts as every one was there.

My day today has been very exciting. I woke up at 10 to Brian parents who let me know that all ground floor windows in our house need to be bricked up. I am concerned that the neighbor's will start to think we are running a speed lab. This Landlord is fast becoming my least favorite, especially when I found out we are only living in our house by a the grace of a temporary occupancy order and that council could ask as to leave. I am getting tempted to remind our land lord about "full disclosure" and section 56 of the trade practices act grrrrrrrrr.

So I was walking along king street bumped into a nice blonde girl at one of the 12 pharmacies and have myself a lunch date.

That will do for my first post and I will end with yes my spelling and grammar suck. I am aware but if you all want to play the game of spot the error's go ahead......

Harvey Danger's new album

Hi all,

I know I am not the only fan of Harvey Danger out there, and I figured you might be interested to know that they have finally released their third album, Little by Little.

Harvey Danger is never going to be a huge band in Australia I think, I had a fair bit of trouble getting hold of their first two albums (in particular the second, which I only managed to get a legit copy of a few weeks ago and it has been out since 2000!)

But the third album is actually available as a free download from their website, and it is definitely worth a listen.

For those that aren't sure which band I am talking about, they are the guys who did that song called "Flagpole Sitta" (Paranoia paranoia everybody's coming to get me...) which invaded just about every teen movie soundtrack on the planet back in '98 or so. You would know it if you heard it, believe me...

Anyway, give it a try, and if anyone is interested I have their other two albums available if you would like to borrow them.

Field Report: Buninyong

As some of you may know, I’ve been back home in Ye Olde Buninyong (about 1 ½ hours drive from Melbourne) since Saturday. Now, Buninyong doesn’t necessarily have a lot to offer. It was the first inland settlement in Vic, and has not changed all that much since then. The local pub doesn’t do trivia (it’s more a Sunday roast lunch kind of place) and it has been given away as the grand prize of both a Carlton Cold competition AND the local footy club raffle on separate occasions. Needless to say it doesn’t necessarily do a roaring trade.

The local Farmer’s Market, however, is apparently doing ‘well’. Its claim to fame as been a listing in the Good Weekend’s “10 things to do…” column, which had the local townspeople ‘overwhelmed with excitement’ according to one source.

The other prominent attraction that this ‘humble yet proud’ town has to offer is the annual Gold King Festival: “A two day festival of fun featuring family entertainment, fun run, art display, tug of war, street parade, market stalls, walks, Teddy Bears Picnic and much much more.” (I'm particularly disappointed that I wasn't around for the Teddy Bear's Picnic this year!) The festival culminates in the spectacular grand parade (pictured below) which townspeolple attend in 'incredible' numbers.
For more information, check http://www.buninyong.com/ ….
Buninyong – What a find!
Hope that you guys are having as much fun as I am!

Great Expectations

I come from two long lines of Pudding Masters. My mother, my mother's mother, my father's mother, my mother's mother's mother, my mother's father's mother, my father's mother's mother and so on. So many generations of women who could take a few handfuls of dried out fruit, some weevilly old flour and spice and whip up the crowning glory of any Christmas feast. Nay, festivity.

Though Christmas day be far too important for the newest woman in the gene pool (moi) to practise her puddinging, and the pudding recipe being far too revered for an any-old-day day, a very kind and goodly gentleman has provided the perfect opportunity- a sneaky early Christmas!

So the ritual began last night, continued this morning before work, now simmers tonight ready to dry before the final stage- the glorious heat and eat! I wish I could promise to you the same heavenly treat on Friday- the very epitome of celebratory dessert, that my family and I tuck into on Dec 25 but alas, it will merely be a pud by my own novice hands.

Behold the Melodic Marvellousness!

Well I've been holding off posting anything, because I was scared of being attacked by my peers for being a boring Nancy-pants. Suddenly I came to the realisation that I couldn't be any more boring than Richie, so I plucked up the courage to write a few lines.


As you may already be aware, my beloved gave me a Harmonica for my Birthday (well technically it's a Blues Harp) and I've been steadily annoying the neighbours and fellow Nuggets. The good news is, I'm bringing it to Quidong! I know you are all probably jumping for joy at this wonderful news, and frankly I can't wait to be sitting around the campfire after a hard day's shearing and mud-fighting, soothing your souls with a haunting melody. Well that's how it plays out in my mind anyway.

I guess I'm just hoping to one day be as good as my idols Howard Levy and Cara Cooke or as sharp as the boys from Harp Attack! One thing I have noticed since doing some google research on the blues harp is that everyone that plays it is a bit touched in the head. I have to admit this concerns me, as there is no information regarding which condition causes the other.



I also take requests, although there is no gaurantee of any resemblence to requested song apart from title.

Laura gets kicked off Idol

In case anyone is wondering why on earth I would post the results of Australian Idol, the answer is that Jenny made me promise to do it! So brace yourselves, you are all going to be living the idol experience through my eyes!

This week, Laura Gissara got booted from the competition. It's a shame in many respects (with the possible exception of the fact that she just wasn't a great singer). She copped a lot of shit over the past few weeks because she was voted in when they all expected Roxanne Lebrasse to get in. So everyone basically blamed her for being popular, and the judges have taken every opportunity to rip into her no matter what.

Of course, the girl that "should" have taken Laura's place, supposedly, then went on to the wildcard show, where the judges pick two to go through, and the public picks another. But do they put this singing sensation through? Do they bugger, they choose to put through a different two people, and thereby leaving Roxannes fate up to the public (you might wonder how they could do this if they thought she was so special, but read on!).

They expected the public to put Roxanne through, and yet again were surprised when she came second and saw someone else voted into the top 12. So now they have fucked about with this girl who they thought was so deserving, they suddenly announce that they are bending the rules and putting Roxanne through ANYWAY, making it a top 13 not 12. So then the bastards announce that 2 people will go on the first night to make up for it (in other words, they essentially gave away someone else's place to Roxanne, even though she hadn't been chosen by the public).

But I digress... through out all of this, everyone gave poor Laura a really hard time for basically not being quite as good as the others but somehow getting voted in anyway. Rather than recognise her efforts, or encourage her, they just dumped shit all over her until the public put her out of her misery. And now they have.

Oh, and just so we are clear, Kyle Sanderland is a talentless cock with a vastly over inflated opinion of his own importance.

House of Nugget Housewarming photo gallery 3

House of Nugget Housewarming photo gallery 2

House of Nugget Housewarming photo gallery 1

Rest in Peace

Happy Birthday Jenny!

Safe Travels.

Happy Birthday Mattess!

Sydney Traffic report

I know it is 11.30pm on Friday night. I just got back from the pub and am waiting for Flit to finish his beer. Seeing as sport bores me I thought I'd post on this blog and vent a little of my frustration.

My current frustration is those damn automobiles known as UTES!

The curse of mankind...the evil of all evils (except 4WDs) and generally a massive pain in the neck!

I don't know how many of you drive in peak hour....but utes seem to be oblivious to traffic around them. They are either pea green or wee yellow and have an impractical hard cover on their tray or they are old and rickety with shiny metal trays and very dodgey rear visibility. The former tend to fly through traffic at break neck speed as if they are the only ones with a deadline and a V8 engine. The latter only seem to go at a top speed of 40km/hr even on freeways and have an undying need to drive in the right hand lane.


Either way utes are the curse of mankind. The wee coloured ones don't even look in the mirror (let alone their blindspot) yet they change lanes as regularly and as with as much reckless abandon as a fly over cake in summer. The rickety silver ones behave as though they are the only ones on the road...I don't think they even know how to look in their rear view mirrors!



My solution is to upgrade all UTEs to the wee coloured ones then tamper with their GPS system and lure them all (very fast like) to a large quarry somewhere in the western suburbs then blow them all to smithereens and allow the rest of us to drive in F@#KING peace!

THE END.

Virtual Diseases

When I first heard about this, I assumed it was a stunt done on purpose by Blizzard, but apparently not.

Blizzard has an online game similar to Everquest called World of Warcraft. They just introduced a new boss monster which can give players a nasty disease, which can spread to their allies. Of course, they didn't think about this but not everyone who was getting the disease was having it cured before returning to their towns. Now the disease has spread over a huge area of the gaming world where it was never supposed to go, and is pretty much killing any player which catches it unless they are a high enough level.

Check out the article here, it's pretty funny (if you're a total geek).

BLING!

The bling has arrived and its here to stay!

It took three weeks, a couple of blind dwarves and many a chisel deep deep down in the depths of Crows Nest to forge this masterpiece....

The jeweller said he hadn't heard anyone squeal in quite awhile....

Behold the beauty.....

NEWS!

Channel 10 has picked up my brother’s show for a 13 week series starting in about 4 weeks time!

They have already been in to do the yellow/blue button-pushing promos!

I think I smell a little like fame.

Playing with FIRE!

WOE BETIDE those who fail to complete homework!
I believe that this individual was being punished for a similar offence.....

Christmas appetizers

Hi all,

I am at a bit of a loss as to what to cook for starters next Friday. Does anyone have any requests? If there is something you traditionally have with your Christmas dinner, I would be happy to give it a shot.

The one exception to this is Matt, because as I have already told him several times, I refuse to cook and serve babies. It's more of an Easter meal...

Missing Homework

I demand BELLY SLAPS!

Say chees(y)!

My weekend was fairly uneventful after the splendourous festivities of Friday night. However, I did engage in a spot of photography on Sunday. You see, some friends of mine in Melbourne had this fantastic and very original idea to make a calendar of ourselves for the end of the year. Of course, Stephen Roberts has never done this, but if they ever wanted to we would be quite happy to share our very original and fantastic idea.
Anyway, below are the entries for Sarah and myself as they stand so far (they're still works in progress):

Sarah Poppins in her high-flying corporate capacity....

....and another day at the office for me.

So there you have it! Fresh off the press. Besides this, I spent pretty much the rest of my weekend being fed by Sarah's mum, who is still hell-bent on the idea of fattening me up. Let her try!!!

The Compulsory Weekend Roundup!

Friday: After half a day of conference (the last of three), half a day of beer and lawn bowls, a fantastic close to the week (for my stocks) and an afternoon nap I was ready for Jenny's celebration, which I won't fill you in on - but feel free to let me know what happenned as I was asleep and Shari can't remeber some of it ;)

Saturday: A day of sitting round in the garage cutting, sanding,drilling and watching the mid-day movie (Encino man) on my tiny garage TV (yes, I am slowly moving into the garage). Envigurated by my fix of Pauly Shore, I made the trip to Cambelltown for some dinking, cards and conversation (clear spirits only after my alcholic week - Monday was my last sober day). Who ever taught me spoons, the Cambelltown group salutes you.


Sunday: Tax time.... forced myself out of bed early for the trip up to Newport to see Mum and do my taxes. With the obligitory stop for Upper Crust pies on the way.

And then, as payment for doing my taxes, I took mum to see Wallace and Grommit - A Puntastic comedy that will curdle your carrots, petrify your parsnips, shock your string beans, terrorize your tomatos and chill you to the marrow. One of the best light hearted laughs I've had in a while.

Then craming the last bits of the weekend full, we did the food shop for the week and settled in for the sunday night movie.

Monday: I just had to include Monday as well as ....... I got a big raise today! Yeah. So whoever I got for Secret Santis is going to get twice as many crapy presents and I'll have to shout everyone at the pub a beer to celebrate.

Sheep, anyone?

My dad has 5 double-fleeced sheep in need of shearing on the long weekend. Anyone up for the challenge/education?

Farewell to the Swede....Viking style

Anybody who is anybody was there. It was the gala event of the century. A veritable who's who of the Stephen Roberts Foundation. The farewell of our beloved Swede who is travelling to the land of baguettes and bollie!

The Venue: The Gourmet Viking
The Date: 16th September 2005



Contrary to this photo, there was no actual viking on the menu.

We ate, drank and were merry....

Mostly we ate meat with sides of meat and some meat sauce, the occaisional egg was thrown in and of course a few pickled herrings. The wine flowed freely and the camera didn't seem to stop clicking. For a moment I felt a pang of sympathy for the other diners in the restaurant...

Then the atmosphere, horned helmets and wine kicked in and all sympathy flew out the window. You were all there so I feel it is probably more necessary to show you the photographic evidnce rather than give you a blow by blow account....

Enjoy...


The girl of the moment showing us how it's done!


Scary Viking types...


ummm...sorry Lady..it had to be posted


awww...aren't they sweet...


I don't think I can comment on this one...


It was a fabulous night. We'll miss our wonderful girl, but she always has a home here with us at the Stephen Roberts Foundation.

Christmas Cave... Hurrah!

Who were we kidding? As if anything Matt could do was ever actually going to get in the way of an opportunity for me to talk about myself...

This weekend, the mammoth preparations for Christmas in September began in ernest. We went to what is apparently Australia's largest Christmas store, the Christmas Cave. And it was glorious! Above is a shot of the outside. Pretty humble compared to the festive magnificence which we found inside.

We both wondered what the staff turnover must be like, once we got inside. Suzy and I were ready to kill ourselves after listening to an hour or so of christmas carols, so I can only imagine the soul crushing despair that people who work there all day every day feel. I am sure they aren't particularly merry, that's for damn sure.

I also discovered one of the worst christmas-related tragedies of all time! Suzy has never had a christmas stocking! Luckily Christmas Cave was to the rescue, here is a pic of Suzy choosing the stocking she wanted (I've taught her well)

Well I won't give away too much about what we got, I think it would be better if it is all burnt into your retina when you step through the threshold on the 30th. We spent ages going through all the various rooms, and picking out the finest-cheapest-gaudiest trinkets and banners to make this a Christmas in September like no other.

Some of the treasures we (unfortunately) had to walk past included an 8ft Santa Homer, electric-blue fake trees and possibly the coolest thing we saw in the shop: A battery operated santa suit that inflates to make itself extra huge (picture one of those sumo suits, but SANTA).

Here is a picture of the haul we ended up with. Believe me, the house is going to be overflowing with festive crap come the 30th of September!

I can't finish off without a little taster of what to look forward to, just to whet your appetite for the (not)yule time fun to come. BEHOLD SANTA CLAWS (I just thought that up! I'm amazing!)

Aww isn't he cute?

Dog Politics

Some of you know buzz, our refined and genteel dog with puffy breeches and a fine white stately mane. He prefers not to get his feet wet, demands dinner to be cut up and secretly likes bath time. (His new farming alter-ego, the wild, rabbit-eating ball of burrs, does not make it back the 4 hour drive to Sydney.)

On Saturday, my grandmother brought her two dogs to stay, the last in a long line of rough, tough, lean and mean border collies who ate dog-meal from old hub caps, spent their nights chained to a tractor tire and were lucky to be invited into the house yard. These gnarled old dogs have killed feral cats, can delicately control the movement of 100 head of stroppy cattle and now have visitors to their new town home nervously calling out to Grandma from the front gate.

But this weekend...Gypsy, the timid savage, is keeping to herself in the furthest corner of the room.

Troy, the alpha male, is making himself quite comfortable and quite in charge of the humans.

Buzz is decidedly peeved. He has given up attempts to defend his territory and now claims to be 'King of Outside', at least whenever the other dogs are inside.

Disclaimer: When I gave out the homework last week, I had no idea that I was about to have the most average, run-of-the-mill, uninteresting weekend for a long while. That is if you exclude the SRF bits, of course.

My last week of uni!!!

This is my first contribution, how exciting!

I had my last day of uni yesterday, and i thought you'd all be dying to know. Only 4 weeks of prac (in sydney) and one exam after that and im done with uni forever! again!

This is a picture of me with my flatmates in our new uniform ready to take on the world of catheters and sputum! Cant wait!

Secret Santa's have been sent

Well, everyone should now have their secret santa assignments sitting in their email in-trays. Let me know if you don't get yours!

Eat our Dust O'Leary!

Walking in Kelly's on Thursday night there was an air of hopelessness......how could we even have a chance with a 9 point handicap? Mr Trivia Man had decided a few weeks previously that the SRF was not going to win every week and he was going to make sure of it.....unbeknown to us, we were docked 6 points as a handicap for winning one week, he then continued over the next few weeks to dock our score by however much we had won by the week before and this week our handicap was up to 9!


9 points! there was no way we'd overcome that one. There were a few teams in the comp who gave us a run for our money (when they showed up) and we were sure they'd triumph over us with this disadvantage.

The first round began.....name the last 6 British PMs, name 2 asian countries beginning with L, who sang these two versions of this song, which arm did Nelson lose?

So far so good...we were tracking well, with confident answers and little conflict.....we were on our way to overcoming the handicap...

First round ends.....scores are tallied....O'Leary announces.....we're in 4th place...no suprises there (bloody 9 points!).....

PERFECT ROUND! Huge suprise there......we looked and looked again and yes it was true....we had correctly answered every single question......with our 9 points lost we still had a score of 30! we couldn't believe it......the air of hopelessness lifted and we were careful not to replace it wth cockiness......what would round 2 bring now?

The triumphant first round team.....with our perfect round score sheet!



Second round and we were in 4th place, a place we expected to be due to our massive handicap (and I'm not talking about Matt), the questions were hard, the sweat was on the brow, the discussions were deep and thought provoking. Is Sri Lanka on the Bay of Bengal and if it is, then where is Cambodia? What is the third Bond film with a body part in the title? Who sang that song and what year was it released?

Time and again the SRF were stumped. We thought for sure we had cocked up royal and there would be no free drinks for next week.

Time came for us to call "COPY" and hand in the answers we had sweated over.... would we come in 4th still? or had we slipped to 5th or worse...6th? the beers were drunk nervously, the nails were bitten to the quick....

A drunk loser broke the tension by pissing off O'Leary at the joker board.....

All answers were tallied and the scores were read out....39, 42, 46, 48, 51, 53, 55, 55, 58, 59...

59 was the winning score.......59 was the SRF's score!

WHAT??!! How??? Huh!?

Confusion reigned supreme...were our competitors that stoopid or were we better than we thought?

We had won by 10 points......amazing...there was much whooping and cheering...followed by a small tickettape parade and the keys to the city were handed over. The SRF had triumped against the odds!

The Victorious Team! Unfortunately we now have a 10 point handicap for next week....will SRF be able to do it again? stay tuned.....