Oh hi, I'm back. I arrived home on Monday night after three brilliant weeks and one godawful day in India (on the last day my brother and I had epic food poisoning and spent the day puking. Best way to end a trip, hm?). Refusing to allow one dodgy meal to ruin my trip, I can safely say it was a fantastic experience. I met some really great people and had a lot of fun, though sometimes it was a little difficult - it's a very intense place.

I also lost my phone unfortunately, but 3 has already sent me a replacement and I think I've managed to sort out my contacts (I backed up my old phone a while ago so most of my address book was recoverable), but I'm sure some people that I've missed will come out of the works. So if you message me and I reply to ask who it is, don't be offended!

I have many, many photos and I'll upload them to Flickr and Facebook soon but right now I just have to sift through them all and eliminate the crap.

The most awesome thing happened last night. I met a friend of a friend, in South Perth, Western Australia, who comes from the same small English town (population 6,500) as me. We went to the same primary school (at different times; he's older than me) and knew some of the same people (e.g. our postman) and everything. When he said he was from Winchester I was just thrilled that he would have even heard of Bishop's Waltham, but when I told him that's where I used to live, his face just froze with shock.

It was good to have a chat about the place, but alas! Now I'm feeling a bit homesick. I didn't go back to Hampshire the last time I went to England, so the next time I go I should really pay the area a visit.

The new Doctor Who special, "The Waters of Mars" will be on TV in England in mere hours. I should wait until it's on TV here. I really should - I think it will be on within a month. But I'll be in India, so I'm pretty tempted to try and download it in the next few days. Argh! I mean, if it IS on when I'm in India, I'll have to download it anyway (or, if it's still on iView, go to Sam's house and watch it legally... the morally superior option).

Lalala, I should be patient and hold off.

ETA: A search on Google provided the answer, apparently it will screen here 6 December. Maybe I had already had this conversation with the_moriarty? So it will still be on iView when I get home and therefore I will be good and I will wait.

The neighbours are having a party. I just saw two people get out of a car and piss on our front wall. What, the toilet inside the party house isn't good enough for you? I wanted to confront them, but then I would run the risk being attacked with urine, or of them taking retribution against the house later, when they've had 12 million beers. So I didn't.

On the upside, it seems they're keeping the music down.

...What am I? Sixty years old? My youth, sucked away by six years at law school.

I was just looking at my profile when I noticed that apparently, instead of attending Churcher's College, Petersfield between 1996 - 2001, I went to Kidbrooke Secondary School, Greenwich. Huh? Churcher's College has disappeared from the directory entirely it seems, and everyone who listed it as their school has been switched to Kidbrooke Secondary School.

I guess it doesn't really bother me, but I'm unsure whether to open a support request because I don't know how the schools thing works. When I added my primary school, because I was the first person, it was a couple of weeks before it was added to the directory because LJ said they had to verify it. Maybe Churcher's College requested to be removed? Can't think why they would though so it's more likely a glitch. Wacky.

Things I am doing right now:

- Revising lecture notes.
- Going over tutorial papers.
- Reading the 2002 Joint Form of General Conditions for the Sale of Land (sounds like a snooze fest, is a snooze fest).

Things I would rather be doing right now:

- Thinking about India.
- Reading about India.
- Planning what to take to India.
- Buying last minute supplies for India.
- Packing my bag for India.
- Being in India.

Just over three weeks to go!

India.

I finally worked out how to make my Gmail notifier make a sound upon receipt of new mail! Turns out CheckGmail has a website with all the answers. Now when I receive emails, it says "incoming", Worms Armageddon style. It can even make a sound for no email! Maybe Worms Armageddon's "bummer"? (NB I'm not going to do this because it checks my email every 5 minutes and it would be too many "bummers" to handle.)

A couple of years ago, stupidly sucked in by the shiny prettiness of Vista, I installed it on my (at the time) new laptop. And for a while, we got along quite well - sure, Sims 2 didn't work very well any more, but Vista was pretty and nicer than XP (I still stand by my assertion that it was more user friendly than XP... apart from being slow and shit... eh whatever). Two years later, the honeymoon was over as my laptop became feeble minded and slow. I kid you not, it was taking 5 minutes or more just to open Word/OpenOffice from start up... not cool when you're already late for a lecture.

This culminated in me angrily tweeting something along the lines of "if vista doesn't stop being so shit, I'm going to seriously consider switching to linux." The Mac using Sam, always keen to get me away from Windows, took me at my word and procured an Ubuntu installation CD. So I actually installed it and it's pretty great. Firefox opens immediately instead of making me wait 10 minutes! I've been using it as my primary operating system for about four months now and the only complaint I have is that I still have to use Windows occasionally... for iTunes. Rhythmbox is kinda nasty, and Songbird, while being compatible with my iPod, has the major flaw of not being able to rip CDs. Yeah. I'm sure I could find another program but I'm lazy.

Anyway, now I'm disturbingly excited that the Ubuntu 9.10 Beta (Karmic Koala) is available and I want to upgrade but I can't risk it because it's nearly exam time.

I just went to my LibraryThing profile and discovered that I've won a book (ebook) to review! It's The Greenwood Legacy by Jacquelyn Cook. YAY FREE BOOK FOR ME. I've been signed up to and requesting books on the Early Reviewers thing for months and this is the first time I've been successful, so I'm pretty excited. I don't even care if the book turns out to be crap.

We recently removed an offensive tree from our back yard. I say offensive because it was progressively destroying our fence and had put its roots through our sewage outlet pipe, blocking it. And that was an unpleasant experience for all concerned. Anyway, this tree was a stubborn git and as well as ruining our house infrastructure, it was sapping the life from a nearby orange tree. Now that it's gone, the orange tree is blossoming (literally) and so hopefully there will be oranges this year.

Oranges.

I am seriously loving Life on Mars right now. My parents and brother are also loving it. My Dad is playing car watch for car's he's owned in the past - so far he's seen a Triumph Vitesse and a Triumph 2.5. The attention to detail is amazing! They even have old school footballs! Gene Hunt is a legend. It's nice to see a show actually being set in the North of England as well, though the Mancunian accents are pretty watered down.

Pretty excited about the BDO announcement tomorrow. Muse, please. Also, I've never been that big a fan of David Bowie (surprising, given my love of glam rock) but lately I've been hearing more of his stuff around the place and it's really grown on me. So here's hoping that rumour is true, even though Triple J has debunked it (only vaguely though; they could have been referring to any of the rumours).

I love Florence + The Machine.

I went to STA today to sort out the flight sitch (and also to get travel insurance which sadly worked out to be $75 more than expected, bugger) and was told that basically, a stopover of less than 50 minutes means that the flight operator won't guarantee you to depart on the connecting flights. Damn and blast I say! So STA is going to call Cathay Pacific and let me know our options. On the upside, because these changes are Cathay Pacific's fault, we shouldn't have to pay for changing our flights.

I'm having a fairly uneventful study break. I haven't really achieved much but that's what Sunday is for, right? I have picked up a new hobby though - geocaching. I can't really be bothered explaining (so lazy) but I will say it's pretty much like a big ol' game of hide and seek and a lot of fun. Especially when you are looking for a cache and bump into other geocachers (from Germany!) looking for the same thing. Good times! In the week or so since I found out about this I've found six. They're everywhere. Not really.

Right now I'm listening to Muse's new album on the triple j website. It's such a mixed bag - there are some songs that I really can't stand (I'm looking at you, "United States of Eurasia") and other songs that I feel like I should hate, but don't ("Undisclosed Desires" - it's so awful but I think I like it...). Overall, I think the album is better than the sum of its parts, but I've only listened to it all the way through once so far.

What else is new? Our flights home from India were changed so that we only had 20 minutes in Hong Kong to get our next flight. They've been changed again so we now have 35 minutes but that's still not enough time! I'm going to see STA next week - I think we'll have to change our flights but because there is only one flight a day to Perth it looks like we might have to stopover in HK. Dammit. There's an earlier flight that leaves Bangkok to get to HK but we'd miss that one because the flight from Delhi now leaves at 4 am instead of 3 am. BLAGHH.

Of course, it might just be a refuelling stop to pick up more passengers, in which case we're fine. Does that seem likely? Fingers crossed...

I saw Up earlier. You have to go and see it, but to be honest, you don't need to go and see it in 3D.

I'm sick of this crappy weather.

Sam was the Director of Photography for Sugar Army's latest music video, check it out:

A new Muse song is floating around the internet (and it's been on the radio), so naturally I found it and had a listen. Oh my, I hate it. It's utterly ridiculous and sounds like a total Queen rip off (don't get me wrong, I love Queen, but this song brings nothing new to the table). I'm comforted by the fact that Matt Bellamy is quoted as saying that every time he hears the song he can't stop laughing, so maybe it's meant to be over the top crappiness. Maybe I just have no sense of humour. Seriously, "Supermassive Black Hole" is better than "United States of Eurasia". I've also heard the first 30 seconds of "Uprising", which I think will be the first single. I like it, but there are rumours that Matt Bellamy raps in it. I take this rumour with a pinch of salt.

ETA: Somehow my Mum has heard "United States of Eurasia" and quite likes it. My point exactly. It's a Queen song.

I went out for dinner for patternsofchaos' boyfriend's birthday last night and the restaurant (Santa Fe in Subiaco) kindly made use of those free standing gas heaters to stop us from freezing in the otherwise unheated function room. Good restaurant, by the way, not sure you could call their food traditional Mexican but whatever, it had a good vibe, reasonably priced set menu and really good mocktails (I'm sure the cocktails were excellent too but I had to drive). Anyway, I digress. The point is, when I got home, I realised my hair and clothes were kinda smoky, harking back to the days when smoking was allowed in pubs and clubs. How did we ever put up with that shit?!

Last weekend I booked a trip to India! I'm off for three weeks at the end of November. How exciting. I'm going with my brother, which is pretty wacky, but also not really. Let's face it, a sibling is pretty much a pre-arranged friend and travel bud. Of course, my brother has the added complication of Type 1 diabetes, but there's an travel insurance provider who covers that for free (thank you STA, we love you) and he's otherwise perfectly healthy. Gastro is a concern, but to be honest, I'm more prone to upset stomachs than he is.

Here's a map of where we're going:


Travelling anti clockwise from Delhi

Needless to say, I'm beyond excited, and I keep forgetting that I have to get through a whole semester of stupid uni first. I also have to cut down on my spending; I have plenty of money left after booking the trip, but the more money stashed away the better, so the plan is to save where possible, i.e. only go to the movies on cheap days, take own lunch to uni etc. Every little helps!

PS Just tried out LJ's new Location Detect thing - epic fail, it says I'm in Melbourne. Not very accurate then, considering Melbz is what, 3000 km away from Perth? Oh, it's based on IP address. Well that explains that then.

Scrap GST on tampons - Coles | Herald Sun

OK so this doesn't really affect me any more, being the money-saving, eco-friendly cup user that I am, but I'm interested to hear that Coles is taking 10% off feminine hygiene products to "absorb" the impact of the GST, in an attempt to bring the issue back into the spotlight. Alas, it's just one of their weekly specials and probably won't be permanent, which would make more impact. The cynic (realist) in me realises it's likely just a cheap marketing tool to get people shopping at Coles and talking about them (I guess it worked on me), but I still think it's a good thing to get discussion going again on this point.

And hey, if you really want to put an end to GST payments on tampons, switch to a cup ;P

PS if you want to keep your sanity, don't read the comments on that article... One jerk wrote "So women will be calling for a removal of any tax on condoms, or any other male associated product too will they ? Didnt think so pay up and shut up."

Get your facts (and punctuation) right. Condoms are GST free. Also... Lol that condoms are of course only ever bought by men. And on that note, tampons and pads are bought by men all the time for their wives, partners, daughters... People don't seem to realise this tax affects the combined household income of everyone who lives with a woman of child bearing age.

ETA: seems I should get MY facts right - this article says Coles is making the price cuts permanent.

God what an awful weekend. I spent Friday night and all of Saturday morning in the emergency department at Royal Perth Hospital thanks to a head on bicycle collision. Worst bike ride ever. My Dad and I were cycling back to Maylands from East Perth along the riverside cycle path, which is mostly frequented by people teaching their kids to ride a bike (because it's flat and safely away from traffic) and people walking their dogs.

The sun was behind me, there was a shady patch ahead of me and I was cycling alongside my Dad, which is usually fine because the path is generally wide enough for that, and when someone is coming the other way, you move. All of a sudden, I saw another cyclist in front of me who must have been cycling 30kmh or more. I guess he didn't see me because of the low sun and I didn't see him because of my sunglasses and the shade and his goddamn speed. By the time we did see each other, it was too late. Next thing I know, I'm flat on my back with two bikes on top of me and a blinding headache, and he was sitting in a puddle of blood with a huge gash on his forehead and half his earlobe hanging off.

He wasn't wearing a helmet so I'd say he got off quite lightly, but he probably wouldn't have the cuts if he had been wearing one. My helmet is a mess - it's covered with cracks (one which almost goes all the way through) and I have corresponding bumps and bruises on my head (including a lovely one that makes my forehead look grimy). I really think if I hadn't been wearing it I would've at least been covered with gashes like the other cyclist and possibly had a fractured skull. Quite frankly I'm amazed he didn't have worse injuries. We were both very lucky.

Anyway, cue ambulance, then hospital, then waiting, then urine tests (to make sure I wasn't peeing blood), then a tetanus shot for a slight scratch on my knee. I wasn't due for tetanus again til next year, but hey, who's going to pass up free vaccination? NOT ME. There was a lot of waiting around, but everyone at RPH was lovely and very thorough.

For some reason I got my own room on the observation ward (score!). The food in hospital really is as bad as they say. They asked me if I wanted Corn Flakes or porridge for breakfast, and I said CF to be on the safe side. I was given porridge anyway and it tasted like glue. I had half a teaspoon of it, gave up and ate my soggy cold toast and drank the worst cup of tea EVER instead. Then just as they were about to let me out, I just had to throw up a little, so that added another hour's wait onto my stay. But all food complaints aside, I can't stress enough how excellent the staff were.

Now I'm home, bruised, with every muscle in my body aching, and I still have a bit of a headache, but at least I'm alright. Now I need to replace it and fix my bike, which was surprisingly unscathed - I think only the front wheel will need replacing but I'm going to take it to a bike shop for a look. The other guy's bike was a mangled mess, according to my Dad. Serves him right for going so fast - totally inappropriate on that track which is shared by pedestrians. Admittedly, I probably shouldn't have been riding alongside my Dad so really we're both to blame I guess. We shared an ambulance... I hope that means we also share the cost of it!

When I first got my iLiad, the world was my oyster as far as ebook purchases were concerned. This was a good thing because not only were ebooks from US stores much cheaper, there was a greater range available (the selection on the Dymocks website is pitiful). Life was good. In the last couple of months however, it seems that the powers that be have cottoned on to this international purchasing behaviour and stamped it out. Copyright and distribution issues, ya know. Woe!

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It looks like my uses of Homer will now be limited to case law reading and whatever free ebooks I can legally scrounge. This makes me very, very sad. In the meantime, I suppose I'll just have to hope that this situation is somehow resolved. Doubt it.