Christmas is, indeed, a time of joy. Every couple of years or so, Michael or I spy a dog costume so hilarious that it must be purchased. In the past, Mel has endured a witch costume, reindeer costume, and various football jerseys, but she is very cunning and extremely determined, and always manages to escape.

In fact, when she had surgery on her front paws and was taped up in some medical-strength plaster tape (one blue paw, one green), despite the pain of her missing dew claws, she chewed her way out.

Yes, she is the master. Until now. Observe.






The Japanese really do know how to engineer things to last. And Mel was incredibly unimpressed, so much so that she wouldn't come near either of us for the next few hours...

Having just come home from dinner with JM's bookclub, I am now more certain than ever that a Thai restaurant is no place for democracy.

There are too many choices to be made for everyone to express preference.

Say for example, there are 6 noodle choices, 6 sauce choices, and 6 meat/"meat" choices; that's already 216 possible options. Then if there are 6 people at dinner, it balloons, and you end up with thousands of possibilities, all vying for a place on the table. Yet, my belly remains empty while they are debated.

No. In such cases, ordering should be autocratic, someone should just take charge. And I am determined that next time it shall be me.

One of the amazing things (allegedly) about the Overland Track is the wide range of plants and animals in the region, especially the ones that are endemic to Tasmania. However, while we were hiking, I spent the majority of my time looking at my feet, trying to make sure I didn't slip and fall on my ass.

At one point, while I attempted to climb over a log in the rain, I took my eyes off my feet momentarily. And then I fell on my ass. Well actually, I fell on my shoulder, but that's not my point.

One of the amazing things about consistently looking at your feet though, is that there are some interesting things down on the ground anyway. Just don't ask me what the rest of it looked like...

Mountain Pinkberries


Assorted lichens. Although, I do concede that these were, in fact, growing on trees, not on the ground.




Wombat by proxy.


An evil looking wallaby. Even more evil looking in JM's photos because it has a bad case of the red eye, and so it looks possessed by the devil, when in fact it was only possessed by an extremely large and cute (if not a little squashed) looking joey.

And another plant of some kind...


There was also an echinda sighting, but I didn't see it. Too busy looking at my feet.

As always, more photos here.

I arrived in Armidale on Friday, and upon getting off the plane discovered that none of my fancy gadgets* work in this blackhole, there was no food in the house, I was without transport, and somehow in the course of the day I spent $60 on taxis. And the dog is really very bloody hairy.

I was seized by the horrible thought that this was all a terrible idea, and I will surely go mad** in the three months that I will be here. But then I started to look at some photos that had been hidden in the depths of my camera because we all know that escapism as a general tool is a fantastic way to ward off maddness.

In between playing with Aperture and trying to figure out how exactly its folder heirarchy works, and finally concluding that Photoshop has better editing tools, perhaps making the incredibly time-consuming migration from iPhoto over to Aperture in itself a terrible idea,*** I found this.****


And was reminded that beautiful things are happening all the time, if you just open your eyes and stick your head very far out the window.


The end...


*That would be my phone and my mobile broadband, because Telstra is some kind of...of... argh. Bad. Equal. Opportunity. Business. Provider. What the fuck use is a 3G network in regional areas if Telstra is the only provider that works on it?! Can you answer me that?? No. You cannot. I was sitting in a cafe with someone on Saturday, thank christ a cafe that serves soy chai latte,** who also has an iPhone. He had full 3G reception and I had 2 bars of edge. EDGE. You can't even access bloody email on edge, and that makes me angry. Even angrier making is that there is a Vodafone store in Armidale. And WHY, since there's not even a signal in the middle of bloody town. Bloody bloody bloody. Ahem.

**Madder

***In that regard I believe I have changed my mind, because although it took me some time to figure it out (which was possibly because of my refusal to look at the tutorials, because they are, obviously, a waste of time), it is clearly a better management tool, and perhaps the editing suite will grow on me. But either way, I have restored my copy of Photoshop (I lost it migrating from iBook to MacBook), so it doesn't matter overly much. And I found a copy of Illustrator as well, so now I can play with vectors in my spare time.

****Which, incidentally, has much more vivid colour when I'm looking at the master version in Aperture. Perhaps you're meant to save in a particular way or some such to preserve the original. Who knows, I'm sure time will tell, but it did somewhat dull the picture, and make the whole post sort of...pointless...

*****Because I am a pretentious wanker, though not a pretentious wanker in this vein, more just in a snobby city way because it's funny and it outrages my mum :D And also, I do realise that soy chai latte is an insult to coffee, but that's only if you think it's supposed to be a kind of coffee and forget the fact that it's extremely yummy.

It's true, I am still living. I know there were moments where we all doubted the likelihood of that outcome. And yet, I have photographic evidence of me hiking, looking rugged, and generally being out-doorsy. Observe:





There are many more photos here, as usual, and more to come because I plan to steal some of Jen's. I think the Overland Track does deserve a post of its own, but right now I'm snacking and watching season 3 of Dr Who. I had to get the out-doorsiness out of my system, and this morning's manicure/pedicure hasn't quite done the job.

Oh, by the way, did I mention it was amazing and beautiful?