Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Stargate!

Well something really exciting happened on Wednesday night. My two favourite programs combined (sort of) to form a fantastic super-program. Or put simply Aqua Teen Hunger Force took off Stargate. Well actually it was a Fargate. Below you can see the Plutonians, Oglethorpe on the left and Emory on the right, standing next to the Fargate.



Here is a blurb of the episode (taken from this site).

"Emory and Oglethorpe travel across space and time through the "Fargate" (which is actually a copy of the Stargate) to steal the Aqua Teens' cable. In order to control which channel they watch, they use the Universal Remonster, a small robot made of several remote controls that accidentally wanders through the Fargate and ends up in the hands of the Aqua Teens. As Shake comes up with creative ways to abuse the Universal Remonster's powers (many of which revolve around terrorizing Meatwad), Frylock sets out to do a little investigating. He discovers the Fargate, and catches the cable-thieving Plutonians in the act. It turns out that they're completely high. Unsurprisingly, Emory and Oglethorpe behave exactly the same as when they're not on drugs."

Here's some quotations from the episode:

Oglethorp: We have successfully traveled beyond and across both space and time through the Fargate. To get free cable!

Emory: I think it's a Stargate?

Oglethorp: It's the Fargate! "F"! It's different from that movie, which I have never seen, so how would I copy it?

Emory: Chill, man. It's alright. Let's just turn it on.

Oglethorp: I just want to make sure that we are clear it's the Fargate. "Goes far." Get it? And there is no way it came from that movie or that syndicated series based on the movie.

Emory: But it sure was a good movie.

Oglethorp: Ya, yes it was. Turn on the TV, maybe it's on!

Isn't that just fantastic. I truely enjoyed reading this blog entry, and I was the one who compiled it, hope you all did too!

ps In other news I think I left my gloves at Mum and Dad's, determined not to let that stop me I now bike to work with my ball gloves on with socks over the top of them.

I choked on a ganster because I'm not a homosexual

Kirsty sent me this yesterday. You should all do it and write a comment on the blog with what you get (it's designed as an email forward but I think this will work). Hope everyone has a nice day!

Pick the month you were born:

January--I kicked
February--I loved
March--I smoked
April--I dry humped
May--I choked on
June--I murdered
July--I did the Macarena with
August--I had lunch with
September--I danced with
October--I sang to
November--I yelled at
December--I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a Mexican
6-------a gangster
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19-------myself
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a permanent marker
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:

White----------because I'm cool like that
Black-----------because that's how I roll.
Pink------------because I'm NOT a homosexual.
Red------------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green---------because I hate myself.
Purple---------because I'm cool.
Gray----------because I was drunk
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange-------because I hate my family.
Brown--------because I was high.
Other-------because I'm a ninja.
None--------because I cant control myself

Now type out the sentence you made and put it as a comment on my blog!

Not much to say

Good morning! Since I once again made it to work before 8.30 (8.15 to be exact) I thought I'd treat you all with an update.

So here's the update.

It's coming...

Hmm what to write.

This plan of updating had so much merit, and looks to be fizzling terribly.

Oh! I could tell you that my finger is sore from playing guitar. I'm quite happy about that, rebuilding the callouses I so diligent grew and maintained a few years ago. And yesterday in a unrelated finger incident when I got to work and took off my gloves I had somehow cut myself and was bleeding everywhere. Now this is unlike me to not feel a cut, normally I feel it then publish the fact to the whole world in search of sympathy, but since this cut had gone unnoticed for a good 10 minutes I could hardly claim I was in agonising pain and demand sympathy for it. So that was a waste of an injury. Though I did get a wee bit of sympathy from Kirsty on Andrew's blog, so that was good.

The weekend was ok. We had Amy and Andrew's going away dinner on Friday night. And Gran made Spanish cream and it was delicious, and Claire made a delicious cake too. And the whole night was very tasty. Then I went to the airport to say goodbye to Andrew in the morning and that was sad. The rest of the weekend was just filled with mucking around, watching Star Wars. I actually was a bit sick, really sore chest and throat and spent most of Saturday in bed. Also I had a three day weekend because Darren got Monday off work so I took it off too and we hung out at the mall pretending to be truancy officers. Actually I don't think he was pretending, he might have just been shopping, but I definitely was pretending in so much as I scowled at each kid I saw in uniform. Hehe.

Anyway:

What I'm reading: Farewell my lovely by Raymond Chandler
What I'm listening to: One Hot Minute by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
What I'm craving: Nothing at all
What I'm looking forward to: Cleaning the kitchen and buying jam (seriously I will feel so much better once the kitchen is clean).


:) See ya

List

As I lay awake at 6.12 this morning I decided to make a list. A list of the things I didn't want to be woken by at 6.10 in the morning. Here's what I came up with:

• My home phone beeping to tell me its battery is running flat

That's all I've got so far. Grrrrr.

In other news I had a lovely dinner at Kirsty and Nick's last night, Andrew, Hamish and Janet were there too (Darren was in Akaroa). Andrew is leaving tomorrow. How sad. Sob sob sob sniff sob sob sniff. If anyone hasn't already done so they can check out his blog by Clicking here or by following the "Don't click here" link, conveniently situated on your right. He's going to give me $5 for every pageload he gets that was referred to by my page (he doesn't know this yet though).

Happy Friday!

SO'S YOUR FACE

I am using the medium of blogging to challenge one Andrew Revell to undertake a task of momentously funny proportions, with a hint of danger and a possibility of being slapped, or maybe spat on. Andrew, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to say to one person in each country you visit on your European Tour (hehe that makes him sound like a rockstar) "so's your face" in a language that they will understand. This person is not allowed to be a person he is travelling with, and he can skip countries if he is there for less than a day.

To help Andrew complete this task I have sought expert advice and am providing some translations (most translate more directly to "your face is also" which means the same thing).

French: votre visage est aussi
German: Ihr Gesicht ist auch
Spanish: Su cara esta también
Italian: la vostra faccia è anche

NB: If anyone can provide improvements of these translations I will make sure Andrew gets them, and maybe someone knows some other European language, that would also be helpful. BUT no tricking Andrew, if you make him say "so's your monkey" that will not count, it must mean more or less "so's your face".

There is one question left.... Andrew will you accept this challenge?

In other news I decided it was time again to have 6 strings on my electric guitar so I set about changing them. Since I hadn't put a new string on at all since I bought it I decided to change them all.
Now soon after I had begun this task it quickly became apparent I had no idea what I was doing. I basically followed the string to see where to pull it out, ended unscrewing all sorts of bits of my guitar and finally sought expert advice from Darren, who does not play or own a guitar, and this was quite possibly the first time he'd ever touched an electric guitar in his life. He promptly turned the guitar over, unscrewed a panel on the back and had the old strings out. Duh Mindy. Oh well. I managed to put it all back together, with new strings, and I'm hoping when I plug it in it will still sound the same. I comforted by the fact when I put it all back together I had no pieces left over. Anyway that picture is exactly what my guitar looks like, a Squier Strat, not something to be incredibly proud of, but perfect for my needs.

Have a nice day everyone!

:) M

Confetti

Well Amy and I went to see a movie last night. And it was interesting, though not great, but not terrible. Like some movies are still ok but I can't stand to sit through them, but this movie was not so great but easy to sit and watch. Maybe that makes it good. Who knows? Anyway it was called confetti and had Martin Freeman in it, which Amy was so excited about but I didn't know him by name, but he's that guy from hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Love Actually and other movies I can't think of right now. Oh but if you like nudity, there was TONS which I was not expecting. The basic premise was there was a competition for the most original wedding, and there were three finalists and we watched the process of planning their wedding. One of the finalists are naturalists and so most of the time they were in shot they were naked, it was quite beautiful actually... :)

So about this picture I posted. I like posting pictures with my blog and I didn't have anything to post a picture on so I went to google images and typed "random" and this was one I got. I was quite impressed with it actually, maybe I'll do some research and tell you all tomorrow who these little guys are.

I don't have any other news. Darren was away last night. My toe, though not causing agony like it did that first day, does not seem to have improved at all.

Oh yeah I though I'd do one of these because I want to.

What I'm listening to: Stadium Arcadium by the Chili Peppers
What I'm reading: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Food I'm loving right now: Bread!
What I'm feeling: Tired as I slept terribly last night
What I'm craving: To go back to bed!

:)

Very Quickly

I really want to update as I have a lot to say but I also really want to get to work. So I'll try and give myself 3 minutes to update then do work. Damn I used a whole minute getting that picture of a loaf of bread on, which, lets be honest, probably wasn't really worth it.

So anyway I had a great weekend. We went out on Friday night to a party at what turned out to be a cool bar called Rootes, behind Minx on Lichfield Street which I would recommend you have a look at if you like those kind of things. Also we then went to the Mad Cow for a foam party, it was my first one and tons of fun!

Amy is going so so so soon. So is Andrew. How come everyone is leaving me? Is it my personal hygiene? (Hehe kidding I have excellent personal hygiene). Maybe it's nothing to do with me, and it's all about their life and plans and goals. Some people just have all the wrong priorities.

Also the most important thing I had to say was Klava had her baby. Baby Tessa. And she is so gorgeous. I just want to go visit them everyday. We saw her on Friday then Darren let me go back again on Sunday and I got to hold her again and she didn't cry at all. It was great. That was the best thing that happened on Sunday.

Anyway since I spent a whole minute putting the bread on I guess I may as well explain it. Well thanks to Earl I have a new hobby... bread making. And I'm not talking bread machine bread (which is great and fine if you have one) but I'm talking leaving it in the hot water cupboard, kneading it, the whole deal. Last week I was on a quest for the perfect French Stick, and I did not find it, but I made a pretty damn good one, it wasn't the recipe that made as much difference as the process I found. So that was the 2nd best thing that happened on Sunday.

Now bread making is so fun I would encourage you all to try it. Here is a recipe for you all to try (this is the easiest recipe ever and is the one that started it all for me):

1 330ml can of beer
2 2/3 cup of self raising flour (or add 1 1/4 tsp baking powder 1 1/4 tsp baking soda to normal flour)
1 1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 170
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.
3. Add half the beer and stir
4. And the other half of the beer and stir
5. Pour into a well greased loaf pan
6. Bake for 40-50 minutes

Then eat it! It's really yummy.

Ok better go now. Make bread all of you, it's so rewarding!

:)

Toe Update

Well my toe is doing much better, also I've learned to walk on just my heel and the ball of my foot. Thank you to everyone for their kind messages, advice and painkillers. And thanks to my Dad for ringing to apologise for laughing at me.

So today is an exciting day for my friend Klava, she's having her baby. Well she's getting induced... isn't that strange almost like planning what day your baby's birthday is going to be 10th of August is a pretty good date, I think I'd be happy with that if I were a baby. Anyway my thoughts are with her and I'm really hoping everything goes well.

I have terrible news, I missed Aqua Teen Hunger Force last night! For the first time! I'm gutted, but I'm planning on buying the dvds at some point so I guess I'll get to catch up. This is now my favourite program ever, it's great. I might have said this already so sorry if I'm repeating myself, but it's this program about a thing of fries (Frylock), a shake (Master Shake) and some meat (Meatwad) and they do stuff, and it's just fantastic. Truly wonderful :)

AND... there's a movie coming out! I think in September, here's what it's about (apparently): "The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Film for Theatres is an action-adventure epic that tackles the mysterious circumstances that brought Meatwad, Frylock and Master Shake together. An immortal piece of exercise equipment threatens the balance of galactic peace, and it is up to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force to run away from it. Complicating matters, the Plutonians team up with the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future for ultimate control of the deadly device." Doesn't that sound like something you'd want to watch!

Also we watched a really weird old movie on Tuesday - by old I mean 80's which is old to me! The Fly. It was highly recommended at our store and I'd say that's a risky call, I mean I did enjoy it but I'm not sure I'd be in the majority.

Right well work is busy at the moment which is great so I'd better get onto it.

:) M

You are lucky

I was going to post a picture of a little toe with this entry, but I had a look and they were all yucky. If only I had a really good digital camera on hand as my feet are stunning ;)

Well they were until something horrible happened last night. For some reason I was rushing through the lounge, in the dark and a crashed, no, smashed into one of our couches, and totally smushed my little toe. It is so sore, I couldn't believe it. I actually couldn't sleep I was in that much pain. This morning when I woke up it was all purple and puffy, luckily I had an appointment to go to the doctor anyway so while there I showed her my toe and she bandaged it up. She said it's probably cracked, but as it's one of the smaller toes they don't bother with x-rays or anything for them, they just heal themselves. But it hurts so much!!!!!

To add insult to injury (literal injury) as I had been to the doctor I was late for work and there were no car parks, so I had to park ages away! And limp/hobble in agony to work in the rain. Sob sob.

Now I can't run either which sucks. And driving actually hurts a lot too, it's my left foot and pressing down the clutch is horrible. So I've taken to driving everywhere in first. Just kidding.

I know I'm being a wuss, but I don't care.

Also yesterday I bought a random book, but then found out that it is third in a series of 3. Groan. I've found the first book of the series on trademe for $6 so that's good, now just need to track down the second one.

:)

Hello

Isn't this a lovely picture of a freesia. The answer is yes :)

This weekend wasn't so good as the last, though that would be hard as last weekend was so good. I did go to a party at Fenia's house, actually a few of our friends have been holding lingerie etc parties. Just like tupperware parties but selling much more interesting stuff. Although I will admit we probably really need more tupperware at the moment anyway! But yeah it's funny because someone will have a party then someone at the party will decide to hold their own party and it just keeps going like that.

What else happened in the weekend? Well Mum and Dad are making great progress with the house they are doing up. Darren and I are moving in as soon as it's done. It's looking great!

Also I watched Monster's Inc last night and it is a great movie. I'm so glad I bought it all those many years ago when I bought it. Ahhh :)

Also Andrew hasn't updated yet so he sucks! Haha!

Geese this was such a short post, but better it be short than I go on and on filling it up with boring stuff.

Oh I forgot the most important thing, the best part of my weekend! Well Darren and I went to bed at about, hmm, 6pm last night because Mum and Dad bought us an electric blanket so we figured the bed was the warmest place to be. Also neither of us had got around to chopping any wood so the rest of the house was really cold. So anyway I had my lovely cow pjs on and there's this sharp knock at the door. I was a bit worried because I look a bit funny in my cow pjs, and also I didn't have a great explanation as to why I was already wearing them at 7.25pm, so I was just hoping it was someone I know... and it was... it was Lara!!!!! What a lovely surprise. And she had a nice present for me, a just because present. A cool book by Michael Palin.

:)

Sigh

Manners

Hello,

We have a new person here at work that I have been helping a little bit. Now there is something amazing about this guy (if by chance he comes across this blog this is totally complimentary, I applaud you), he has manners. Proper manners. I am talking he stands up everytime me (a female) enters the room. I bet some people these days didn't even know guys were supposed to do that. Now in some circumstances I guess this isn't necessary, like in a movie theatre or a large open-plan office, but I reckon the rest of the time the rest of you just have no excuse. I'm going to start working on Darren. This is going to be a very difficult task but I have perserverence.

Speaking of Darren he's away in Akaroa building was supposed to get home tonight but now is staying another night. Boo hoo. I miss him. It's weird having just me in the house. And having to cook for just me. (But mwaha I've been cooking delicious things like broccoli and mushrooms, but now I'm all out of mushrooms). It's funny because how much you miss someone really depends on your mood I reckon, but also it's harder to be the one who stays behind than the one who goes, because for the one who stays behind they just live their daily life but with something missing, but the one who goes is having totally different experiences to normal. Don't get me wrong I'm not really sad and it's not tradgic or anything, just saying I miss him a bit.

Well that's all from me for today.

Um hi there

I added a new link on that lovely sidebar to your right. Don't use it. Definitely do not click on it. I am sure you will regret it. Please heed my warning.

My weekend was fantastic, and so I just have one thing to say about that. I TOLD YOU SO! I told you it was going to be great and it was! The only bad thing was when I got a blister. But I got free cake. What is better than free cake? Not much.

The cake was in celebration of Christchurch city's 150th birthday and it was of the carrot variety, with pineapple and walnuts and such delicious creamy icing. I remember when I made a carrot cake, that was delicious too. I love cream cheese icing.

I also love mushrooms. I had a wonderful epiphany the other day that just because Darren doesn't like mushrooms doesn't mean I can't just cook them and not serve them to him. And just like that my life went from average-good to GREAT. Mushrooms are yummy. They are like little puffballs of flavour goodness. I cooked them with a bit of garlic, butter, bacon and a dash of milk and sour cream and it was almost the yummiest thing I've ever had. Yum! I now have only 5 left but you can bet your bottom dollar I'm eating them tonight. Maybe with a chicken pasta.

Oh I almost forgot the new road safely theme of this blog. Everyone, drive on the left. Unless you live in America in which case definitely do not drive on the left. Oh and if you are on a one-way street you can drive on either side, but I'd recommend the left, just in case someone else forgets it's a one way. Right well I'm glad I could clear that up for all of you.

Love from Mindy

ps Don't use the link. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THAT LINK!

Road Rules

So I had the biggest victory of my life yesterday. Hmm well maybe not the biggest, the biggest might have been something a bit deeper like, well I can't think of anything so lets just assume this is the biggest. Thought, then it will make my life look very un-victorious. Oh well nevermind.

So here's the story. There is this dodgy T-intersection near work, where the lower part of the t has a 4m (at least) wide island in the middle of it. I have always wondered if the give way rules apply normally in this case. Here is an image of the normal give way rules where the dotted line means that car has to give way (I am the blue car):

Anyway I asked Earl at work and he said as the traffic island is so large and basically separates the one road into two one way roads he doesn't give way. I agreed with this policy and this is what I've been doing. Now a few days ago I did this and someone shook their fist at me. Because this is such a questionable intersection I thought it odd that someone would be so sure of themselves and the rule in this case that they actually got mad! Like if someone did what I didn't agree with I could see how that would happen and wouldn't get mad because it is a confusing intersection, but this person got mad. So then I decided to get to the bottom of this and started a poll. I asked Earl (again), Mum, Dad and Darren and we all agreed we didn't need to give way. Also if we did it would mean stopping at least 6m before you actually want to turn.

So then I got on the phone to the LTSA and they told me to ask my council, and so I rang the council and they told me to ask the LTSA, so I waited another day, rang the LTSA again and got a very helpful woman who really took her time to understand my question... and more importantly give me an answer! And guess what... I was right!!! The red car has to give way as the traffic island means it's not an uncontrolled intersection and the red car must give way. I made a picture of it to help you visualise. (Again the dotted line means that car has to give way).


So now I might ask the council to put a give way sign there so no one ever shakes there fist at me again!

Aren't I a geek?

In other news work is going ok, a bit slow at the moment. Things are going great at home, Darren hasn't been in Akaroa this week (yay!) , the fishie babies are good and my eye is still puffy and swollen.

I am going to have a great weekend. Hope you all do too!

Love
Mindy

2 New Babies!

Hi All,

I had a great time in the weekend. Over to Beth's with Jeremy, Charlotte and Jo on Friday night. Real nice time, ended up just talking till 2.30!

Then on Saturday we drove up to Hanmer as Mum and Dad had rented a house there. We went for a ride on those four person bikes which was fun. There were 7 of us so we got two and had races, even though the rules specifically banned doing so. But really what would have been the point otherwise!

Pools on Saturday night. They've grown a lot since the last time I was up there! Very nice and not so crowded, althought that might just have been because the rugby was on.

On Sunday we went round the back of Hanmer and found an awesome tobogganing slope so even though I hadn't bought any snow clothes that was tons and tons of fun.

Then when we got home we found two new baby guppies! Yay! They are in their wee isolation tank all safe from being eaten by other big nasty fishies.

Ok have a nice day everyone!

Love Mindy

Well...

I thought I should probably write a post this lunch hour. Since a lot has happened. To make it easier I'll just give you a bullet point list, also I like bullet point lists.

• My car finally died.
• I finally took my car to the fixer man (auto electrician) and he fixed it! And now it is all better!!!!
• My baby fishie called Frankie, is still doing great.
• I was sick at the beginning of last week and sicker at the beginning of this week, and I got real grumpy about it! I seem to be doing better now but still not running again yet.
• In combination with being sick my eyes and their red, itchy, flakyness got really bad, and on Monday and Tuesday I could hardly see the eyelids were so swollen (ok so I didn't say this would be a pleasant update).
• Today my eyes are finally starting to look normal again! But as I'm so excited I'll probably ruin it by putting makeup on them and making them worse again... but I miss wearing makeup! Weird eh?
• Oh also in combination with being sick I have some humungous mouth ulcers that make it hard to eat. (Ok no more gross body observations from now on).
• I bought a new dvd rom for my computer and installed it last night.
• Darren is now working on a job in Akaroa so he was away Monday and Tuesday nights and it's likely he'll be away a lot from now on, maybe even whole weeks. I got lonely but the house got clean.
  
• SCRUBS IS BACK ON TV!!!!!!!!!!!!
• My hair is no longer blonde. Or brown. It's kind of a purply-red. I suspect it will be a very dark brown by the end of the weekend.
• It is snowing and hailing today.
• I am selling Darren's games on trademe (it would be funny if this was without his permission, but it was his idea). Anyway we're putting the xbox ones on first and then we'll move to the pc ones. So if you like games check them out, there are tons more coming too I will add more tomorrow. There is a handy link to your left if you want to have a look at them.
  
• I have started making a teddy bear. He's going to be gorgeous!

Also I didn't want to put this on my list as it is not the same sort of thing as the other things but my best friend from primary school died last week. We lived next door to each other and spent almost everyday together from the ages of around 5 to 10. Then I went to a new school (she was a year behind me at school) and we sort of stopped being friends. So I haven't really seen her in 14 years. When I was at her funeral I sort of felt guilty about this but then not all friendships are supposed to last forever. Also we had such different life paths. But yeah it was very sad, and it was a lovely lovely funeral she obviously had lots of people who loved and admired her a lot. I saw my primary school principal which was nice. And Amy and Claire were there with us. It was weird seeing her parents too as obviously I'd spent a lot of time with them growing up.

Ok stay warm everyone!

Love
Mindy

Baby Update

Hi! Just a quick update. I went home at lunch time and checked on the baby and he/she is still doing well. Additionally I bought another 3 guppies (need to get the Mum pregnant again) and 3 neons as we've lost a couple in the last fortnight. They were on special, really cheap, got all those fish for $16! I've paid $12 for a single guppy before!

Here is a picture of guppy fry (that's what baby fish are called). My wee guy looks like this and is about 5mm long. Also I've found out that if it is a guy it won't get it's colours for awhile yet, so we'll wait and see. I'm hoping for a female though so she can have more babies.

New Family Member!!!!

Hi,

I know it's been awhile. And I'm sorry. But anyway I have some very exciting news. We have a new baby fishie!!! I looked in the tank last night and saw this tiny wee cutie swimming around!!! It's a guppy, not a colourful one unfortunately. But still!! It makes me feel a bit better too as fish tend to have babies only in favourable conditions and I've been a bit worried about the tank as so many fish have disappeared lately, and some have definitely died. But it must be ok if fish are reproducing! Now don't get too excited because unfortunately we don't have another tank so I can't take the baby out to raise it until it's big... this means the other fish might eat it, but I'm hoping it's a survivor!! It's survived all last night as it was still there this morning.

Other news, my parents have just been over to Australia (lucky things) and they bought me back some gorgeous perfume. Also a very cool bikini! Thanks Mum and Dad! We had Becky to stay with us (family dog) so that was fun. But she sneakily got on the bed a few times and made it a bit muddy. Also she whines like anything at tea time.

Oh Darren and I have been sick too which is yuck! But we're both a bit better now. But I have this horrible eye condition which cleared up for a bit but it's back (since getting sick) and my eyes are constantly stinging and itching. Poor me.

Also it's Darren and my 2.5 year anniversary today. Happy Anniversary hun!

:)
Mindy

In Auckland

Hi Doctor Nick! Hi Everybody!

Hello all. I'm in Auckland now. It was a beautiful day and Lara and I spent almost the entire day shopping. It was really fun and we ate lots of yummy food. And I tried about 50 pairs of jeans and finallly bought some. I hate buying jeans. I decided I'm going to try and find a person in the world who is exactly the same size as me and then rob them and steal all their clothes. Then I wouldn't have to go through all the hassle of trying on clothes and getting fed up and everything. Although, don't get me wrong I do really love my new jeans, I'm very happy with them.

Ok well I'm going to go and make the most of the time I have here with Lara and Lisa now.

Bye bye,
Mindy

Snow Again!

Well that's the second time this year I have driven to work in the snow! That is pretty out of the ordinary... normally we get our one day of snow per year, and we've already had two! Unfortunately I'm not too excited about it as it means its going to be another mare of a day for Darren who only has outside work to do on the building site... and while snow is fun to play in I can imagine that it isn't so fun to work in on a hill site, or any site at all for that matter. :(

I hope everyone is warm and happy wherever you are.

:)
Mindy

Surprise!!!

I think it's an extremely talented person who is able to surprise themselves. And I'm not talking a "I did really well in that test/race/game I totally surprised myself" I'm talking proper surprise like "Surprise! I've got a paid for holiday in Auckland for you this weekend!" I think if you can surprise yourself in that way that's really special. And guess what... that's what I did! I opened my diary yesterday and flipped to Friday to write something in... and lo and behold it said "going to Auckland". And so I got a huge surprise. This was because months and months ago I booked a trip to Auckland when the fares were cheap and then totally forgot about it. So now I'm all excited because I've got a totally unexpected trip to Auckland, plus I paid for it ages ago! Luckily my wonderful friend Lara who I am going to visit is much more on the ball than me and she didn't forget so she is actually going to be in town this weekend!



This is a picture of a plane. Because that's how I'm going to get to Auckland, and I like to include wee pictures that are vaguely related to my story. Oh and a big sorry to Claire who I was going to go on a picnic with this weekend and now I have to cancel.

Very briefly my other news is I am now at 48 words per minute on Dvorak. I've started running again. And my car is quite sick... sometimes it just randomly won't start and it's unrelated to time of the day or weather conditions.

Ok have a great day!

Bye!
Mindy

Hello!

Hi to Auntie Anne if you're reading this :)

Busy Day

Well busy week really. We have a release going out of two systems on Monday and there's been a lot to get organised. What sucks is Darren has been having an incredibly busy time at work this week too, so we're both a bit washed out at the end of the day. Well should calm down soon. I actually don't mind it as the day goes by so much quicker.

So not much else going on at the moment. I tidied my room on Monday and it's stayed tidy all week. Darren is much tidier than me normally but I'm really showing him up this week. I think I'll try and keep my stuff tidy from now on... I think it's helping my mood which sounds silly but it's not.

Oh I had a really horrible dream last night!!! It was awful. Luckily Claire was there to look after me (in the dream that is) sometimes I feel more like Claire is my big sister (I'm 7 years older than her) and I guess that came through in the dream. Anyway the dream was about a snake. I was cleaning out my fish tank to get rid of the snails and I'd emptied almost all the water (which is something you never do in real life) and I found that there was this horrible snake in there. It was really gross - it's head looked like a cross between a cobra and the alien from Alien... the way it's mouth came out of it's head.

Anyway the point was there was this awful snake. And the dream went along the lines of me freaking out, then catching it in a bag, then it escaped then I caught it etc. Once I finally caught it I think I decided to sell it on trademe for $40. Which I think would be a bargain.

Don't have much planned for the weekend. The weather is supposed to be cold and wet so I think I'll spend a lot of time on the couch by the fire :)

Also if anyone out there likes reading blogs you should go and check out my friend Lindsey's: http://lindseyjojohnson.blogspot.com/ I love reading blogs even of people I don't know, coz after a while you get to know them!

Oh and Charmain has emailed me a couple of times and she made it to Italy safely :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

:)
Mindy

Just trying a thing

Hi! Just ignore this please :)

The Weather

Ok well now I don't need to train anymore the weather in Christchurch is beautiful. So everyone can thank me for that. It was my pleasure.


Anyway so sometime in May I finished watching Rome. But I can't talk about that too much as it's too sad. I was the saddest I've ever been watching anything... I was really deeply involved in the characters... perhaps because I'd watched each episode about 4 times before watching the final one. Needless to say I would definitely recommend it. But anyway after a significant and difficult mourning period Darren and I are back into Surface. And I'm really enjoying it... we're really at the nail-biter stage. For those of you who don't know Surface is basically about sea monsters... which sounds lame but it's not!


In other news it would be totally wrong of me not to say anything about the new Chili Peppers album. But there is too much to say so I'll just say it is a really awesome album... their best yet. They have just grown and developed so much and have so much talent... it's awesome.

Oh and in other other news I cooked my first corned beef on Monday and it was delicious. (I know I know, it's really not that hard). We had broccoli with it, carrots and roast potatoes, and of course white sauce. And today I haved corned beef sandwiches! Yum! Maybe I should become a chef. Or maybe not but it's funny how much I'm getting into cooking and baking now that I've left home, and I just had absolutely no interest when I was living at home and Mum would have loved me to help. Oh well.

:)
Mindy

Response

To be honest I was hoping for a more over whelming response to the re-birth of my blog... but then again I realise it may take awhile for me to earn the readers trust again after disappointing them so bitterly in the month of May.

So I now have bats in my ceiling! Not the cool black flying kind, but the warm pink insulating kind. I put them there. Darren helped. Ok so it was more like I helped Darren, but it still involved me climbing up a ladder and walking around in the dustiness that is our roof. It was fun, I felt like a builder. Although I realise nothing was actually built.

In other news I am still sick. But that's not very interesting.

Also in the uninteresting category is the fact that we got out a movie called the Void from the highly recommended section of our video shop and it was not very good at all. So now I don't trust United Video fendalton in their recommendations, but I will continue to shop there due to their excellent deals.

:)
Mindy

I did it!!!

I'm so proud of myself and I don't care if I shouldn't be because I think I should. I finished the half marathon and I ran the whole way (except for the drink stations as it's really hard to drink while you're still running). Up to last night I still wasn't sure if I was going to attempt it as my sinuses still were causing me grief... I couldn't even bike for 5 mins without my inhaler. But I didn't want to let Lara down and I'm so glad I did try. I ran with Lara up to 7km and we were going awesomely right on target for under 2 hours but then I had to do a reality check and I realised there was no way I would finish if I didn't slow down as my chest was really starting to hurt... so I said goodbye to Lara and slowed my pace and got my breathe back. Then it was just a case of convincing myself for the next 14km that I shouldn't just stop and go home and watch tv.

Anyway to cut a long story short I didn't stop and my parents surprised me by coming to cheer me on. So I ran the whole 21km!!! And now my feet really hurt. And also my hips. And my... actually that's about all that hurts.

So yay for me. I hope everyone else is having a good Queens birthday weekend!

Love from
Mindy

Oh ps I finished in 2 hours and about 15 minutes. Also Lara did brilliantly and did it in just over 2 hours!! I think 2 hours 2 minutes!!

Back!!!!!

Hey dudes,

I'm back!!!! With a vengence and a hunger for blood. Not really. But if I was an action star hero I would be.

So there's a reason I haven't posted in awhile. It's because I've been working so incredibly hard. Ha! Actually that is a little true, I have been working quite hard.

I've got so much to tell you all my little minions. But I might not get through all of it as I am working hard today too just having a short break. Incidentally the reason I'm writing right now is because Adam pointed out on his site that I hadn't updated for the entire month of May. This is a shocking effort as May is the most important month of the year (being both New Zealand music month and also my birthday). Now I'm not as big a New Zealand music supporter as I probably should be but I just realised I did actually buy some New Zealand music in May... Shihad - Love is the new hate. So good on me.

My birthday was fantastic thanks. I ran a 15km race to start the day off. I won. Just kidding... the person who won probably ran it in half the time I did. But I still did ok 1 hour 27 minutes. And in other running news the SBS marathon and half marathon is on this Sunday and I am running it - the half that is! That is 21km. Now this would be very difficult even in normal circumstances... but even worse for me as about three weeks ago I developed a cold which severely interrupted my training. So I did try and go for a few runs.... one every 3 days or so but they were terrible and hurt my chest. And I still hadn't recovered and also I have conjunctivitis and so went to the doctor yesterday and I actually have sinititus (apparently colds aren't supposed to last three weeks). The good news is I now have medicine and should be ok for Sunday but just a tiny bit undertrained.

My other piece of May news is that inspired by Kon I have learnt the dvorak keyboard (pictured above). I have had many tearing hair out moments, frustrated by my new inability to type, it almost felt like a piece of my brain was missing as I was a pretty fast typist before and to suddenly be slowed to 10 or less words per minute was horrible. The good news is I am now fluent and up to 40 words per minute which is still a little slow for my liking but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. For the record I don't have a new physical keyboard I still have the same old one... so when I press the key that says d I actually get an e on the screen and when I press j I actually get a h and so on... so when I get frustrated with the touch typing I can't even look at the keyboard for help!

I hope everyone is happy and well.

:)
Mindy

Continuation

This might be a little more brief than the first half of the story. But I'm so busy today!!!

On Saturday Bridget and I headed into town and did a little shopping. Number 1 on the agenda was a birthday present for Claire as her birthday was Sunday. I decided to get her a nice photo album for her to put her photography photos in as she's studying photography at school this year. We met up with Sarah and did more shopping. Sarah bought these gorgeous boots and I was very jealous, but managed to stick to my budget and refrain. My budget did allow me to buy one gift for myself however, I chose a book on human physiology and anatomy. It was reducing for $140 to
$35! It also proved to be the stupidest thing to buy as it was so heavy and I then had to lug it around for the rest of that day. Bridget bought one too so she's just as stupid as me ;)

We then went for a walk past Te Papa to the beach and got gelato. Yum! We also almost got blown away at this point, so I guess it was lucky I had the book to weigh me down. Then Sarah went home and Bridget and had a flying visit to Te Papa. Then home, to take off our shoes and curse the huge books we'd bought. We had a delicious Hell's pizza for dinner before braving the cold and heading to Sarah's for a party. The party was great... I spoke to some lovely people. We didn't end up staying too late as wanted to save ourselves $40 and get the train back rather than a taxi.

And then Sunday we slept in. Yay! And there was a massive storm, and then blue skies after that so back to town for some kfc and then a coffee with Sarah. Then I popped on the bus and headed back to the airport and flew back to Christchurch.

The end.

Wellington!

Hello Loyal Readers!

Well I had a great weekend in Wellington. It is such a lovely city... I love visiting there. I don't know that I'd ever move there as I love having it on option as a place to visit ;) And also I love Christchurch so much and if I'm going to move away from my family then it would be further away like in another country. Maybe. Who knows. Anyway the point is I really like Wellington.

On Friday night Sarah and Bridget met me at the bus stop which I so intellligently managed to get off despite being on a bus route in a town I'd only visited once before and had really no idea where I was. Actually that's not true I had my little map and was following it counting the stops till I had to push the button. Turns out the airport bus driver was pretty clued up anyway (as you'd expect) and kindly told me when I should get off - even though I already knew thanks to my excellent navigational skills. But I thought it was kind of him anyway.

We then dropped my bags at a locker and proceeded to walk about a million miles to the other side of town where we had a lovely Indian meal at a restaurant that's name escapes me. Of particular note was the restaurant had these little devices with buttons at each table, and the buttons had labels like "ready to order", "need service", "ready to order drinks". We thought these were a brilliant idea, so we got right into the swing of things and they worked excellently... as soon as we pushed it the waiter was over! He was a cheerful fellow and Sarah was quite concerned that if we'd been too shy to push the button we would have been sitting there all night, but the waiter assured us that they still come and check your ready in the old fashioned way too.

We were all keen on a quiet early night in preparation for Sarah's flatmate's party on Saturday night, however it didn't turn out that quiet. We decided to gate-crash Bridget's work dinner/drinks that was being held at a nearby bar. Although it wasn't so much a gate-crashing as a "come come you have to join us, here have a drink, here have my seat" as Bridget turns out to work with lovely lovely people some of whom were quite drunk by the time we got there. Sarah did manage to head home at a respectable hour Bridget and I however got caught up in some interesting games with her two bosses husbands. Namely "think of a sexy person and we'll vote whether they are or not" which warped to "think of an Irish name and we'll vote whether it sucks or not" which warped to "think of an Arab name and we'll vote on it" etc. For quite sober me these games seemed a tiny bit pointless but hugely funny all the same!

Bridget and I then headed off to catch the train to her place and met this interesting bloke who wanted to discuss child raising and philosophy with Bridget. I was a bit tired to join in, and I thought he was a bit of an egg. Then we walked up Bridget's 210 steps to get to her house and went to bed!

I had better get going on some work now, so more of this story later.

The last thing I'll say for now it bloody steps!!@?>@#$#%&

:)
Mindy

Favourites

Hi,

Just thought I'd keep you up to date with what my favourite things are at the moment. Unfortunately because of the medium I'm choosing to communicate with you all I can't break out into sound of music style song, but that might just be for the best.

- Licourice
- The TV series Rome
- My fire
- Mashed potatoes
- Dani California
- Going to bed early
- Getting letters
- Just Juice Bubbles
- Marshmellow easter eggs
- Rainy days

That is all.

Went to the movies last night with Fenia, and also Klava and Gary but they saw a different movie. Klava has gotten so much more pregnant than she was when i last saw her three weeks ago, it's incredible, but she looks so good!

Don't have any other news.

Bye!

Mindy

Time for an Update

Hello!

I thought it was about time for an update. Although it will be a short one as I really want to start work.

My life has been average to good at the moment. I've got back into my running training this week... ie I've been for a run the past two days. So I feel pretty good about that, running was actually starting to be really uncomfortable prior to this I think a few weeks with only one run per week didn't do me any good. But I'm back on the wagon now.

Oh important news is I'm selling a fish tank for Darren's Mum. So if you want to buy it or check it out at least go to the convenient link on the right that says something like "buy my stuff". On a personal note I can highly recommend keeping tropical fish. They are almost as exciting as the TV to watch and a lot more rewarding. Plus after the initial expense up they are incredibly cheap to keep, must cheaper than most other pets I'd warrant.

Other news. Um. i'm heading to Wellington this weekend to visit with my good friends Sarah and Bridget. I'm so looking forward to that!

Also there are some exciting diggers and dirt shifting vehicles building a new carpark at work so they are quite exciting to watch.

That is all.

Love
Little Miss M

Quick Update

Hi All,

Well just quickly my life has been busy lately. Grandad's funeral things went from Wednesday through to Saturday morning with a lot of organising happening before that. The funeral was really nice, well actually I found it horribly sad but that's to be expected. Claire and Mum both spoke and they were so wonderful I was so proud of them and I'm sure Grandad would have been too. We had the funeral at St Andrews, the church at Rangi Ruru and if any of you have ever been there you'll know it's not a small church. It was completely full. They had to seat people in the choir seats... so I think that's about 600-700 people!

After the funeral we had a dinner at my parents house with people close to Grandad... and it was a good chance for everyone to get into his booze ;) Which we hardly made a dent on... but that might be because Uncle Jim spent another $600 on drinks for the night anyway! You'll be glad to know that Darren and I walked away with a bottle of ouzo, a bottle of Southern Comfort and some kid of tropical liqueur. I'm sure Grandad would have wanted us to have it. It was a nice night anyway not too sad after the sad funeral... one of those nights where you spend a great deal of time being introduced. I've never heard the words "this is my eldest" so many times in one event I don't think! Mum usually adds my name to the introduction, Dad sometimes doesn't... but mostly because if he told the other person my name, he'd have to tell me theirs and most of the time he has no idea what their name is!

The weekend was spent by my family going through Grandad's house. I spent a bit of time there but not too much. Darren and I did the city to surf on Sunday and that was really fun, but also tougher than I'd thought it would be so I've got lots of work to do before the half marathon! Sunday afternoon I had a nap. I was so rudely awoken by Darren to tell me the power had gone off! I know that's kind of exciting... but I don't think I really needed to get woken for it ;) It came on again in about half an hour.

Right well back at work now so I'd better get to it.

:)
Mindy

Hello

Sorry, this is a boring title for a post.

Oh and sorry you guys haven't had any news words for awhile. I hope you've been practising your other ones.

Well the reason I didn't write yesterday is because my Grandad passed away on Monday morning.

I don't really want to write much about it just at the moment. Maybe after his funeral I will. Anyway so I haven't been at work and I've been trying to help Mum out and stuff.

Thankyou to everyone I've told for your kind messages.

:)
M

ps I'm spending the morning scanning in photos of him for his funeral tomorrow and I found this lovely one of him so I've added it to the post.

Sore Arm!

Asphyxia

Pronunciation: as-'fik-sE-&, &s-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, stopping of the pulse, from a- + sphyzein to throb
: a lack of oxygen or excess of carbon dioxide in the body that is usually caused by interruption of breathing and that causes unconsciousness

Well there you go. There's your new word for today. Try and use it in a sentence and "Today I learnt a new word asphyxia." Doesn't count as a sentence.

So I had a good weekend. I spent all Friday in preparation of going home, pouring a bath, snuggling up and having an early night in bed and watching Rome. But then Darren gets home and tells me he's invited Fenia and Dan etc round. So I ended up going out... yes going into town! For the first time in AGES! It was tons of fun. Didn't see anyone I know which was strange but still an awesome time.

On Saturday I awoke too early and cleaned the whole house. Our house is SO lovely and clean now. I am so excited about living in this nice clean house. I even vacuumed. I also did the garden.

And now I can't even remember what else I did. Hmmm. This is bugging me. Oh well. I'm sure I went somewhere or something. Maybe I just watched Rome. It is getting upsetting and tense, but I think I'll stick it out and find out what happens.

Sunday I went and saw Kim. We got lunch and I had a souvlaki and it was way too big and then I felt really really full. I also did even more gardening and planted my bulbs. And that's about it.

Grandad is back in hospital again which is a bit sad. They think maybe this will be the last time he goes in. I miss not having him next door to go and say hello to each afternoon. And just seeing that he's still around, you know.

Oh and the reason I have a sore arm is because I banged it really hard on the edge of the sink. And now there's a big purple bruise.

:)
Mindy

Happy St Patrick's Day!

As an afterthought I realised it's St Patrick's Day!

Aspartame

Aspartame

Pronunciation: 'as-p&r-"tAm, &-'spär-"tAm
Function: noun
Etymology: aspartic acid + phenylalanine + methyl + ester
: a crystalline compound C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₅ that is a diamide synthesized from phenylalanine and aspartic acid and that is used as a low-calorie sweetener

Well even though I already knew the word aspartame I thought it would be on topic to put an official definition since today's topic isin factt aspartame.

I don't want to write too much on the topic as there are numerous resources available on the web. But anyway I watched the documentary Sweet Misery, A Poisoned World about aspartame. It tells the stories of some people who have had severe medical conditions that have been caused by or contributed to by their excess intake of artificial sweeteners. Even more interesting is the story around how it became legalised and the politics around this. It is obvious that there was something suspicious going on.

Basically aspartame has effects on the brain. It has caused brain tumours in animals, and the documentary purports that it can be linked to other mental disorders. Relevant to me is that is has been linked to seratonin production. It hasformaldehydee as a by product which as I understand it is a poison that just hangs around and can't be processed by the body.

Here is a really good page opposing aspartame:

Dorway

It states that a recently released study conclusively links aspartame to cancer. You can read the press release here or the entire study here. Both links were taken from the dorway site.

And here is the official aspartame page supporting it:

Aspartame Information Service

So anyway I encourage everyone to have a look and make up their own mind. Like I said yesterday if there's this much controversy and people working very hard to prove this is a harmful chemical to humans then I have decided not to risk it, as I know I'm not getting any health benefits from diet coke anyway and so my health can only improve.

On a completely unrelated topic I was watching Rome again last night (the next episode) and it was GREAT! I am so loving this series. Anyway I remembered one particularly lovely quotation. Lucius is a Roman soldier who has been in Gaul for 8 years away from his wife, he just about to be reunited with her and a fellow soldier Titus Pullo is explaining why Lucius is so scared about going back to his wife: "What if she's lost her teeth? What is she's gone skinny? What if she's let some other man..." well the rest of the sentence isn't appropriate for my blog. But I thought it was so wonderful a man being worried about his wife getting skinny! I was so expecting him to say what if she's got fat? But no he was worried about her getting skinny. How times have changed.

Diet Coke

Cloister

Pronunciation: 'kloi-st&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English cloistre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin claustrum, from Latin, bar, bolt, from claudere to close -- more at CLOSE
1 a : a monastic establishment b : an area within a monastery or convent to which the religious are normally restricted c : monastic life d : a place or state of seclusion
2 : a covered passage on the side of a court usually having one side walled and the other an open arcade or colonnade
[cloister illustration]

Don't get me wrong cloister was obviously a very familar word to me, and I had some idea that it was referring to some kind of feature of old buildings but this is about me pinning words down. There are a huge number of words that I may understand when I'm reading or hearing them in context but if I was asked to define them I wouldn't be able to give a very accurate description. Thus I need to admit that I didn't know exactly what a cloister was, and now I do so I'm very happy. It's only 8.30 and I've already learnt something.

About diet coke. Now some of you may know that after hearing a documentary on the sweetener aspartame I decided to give up diet coke. I know there is a lot of hype about artificial sweeteners and not all of it may be true but my logic was this: even if aspartame isn't all that bad giving up diet coke is not going to hurt me. Even if I don't benefit from reducing my aspartame intake I probably will benefit from reducing my diet coke intake anyway. So yeah I gave up diet coke completely. And I used to drink quite a lot of it. Sometimes I'd have a can of it at work - maybe three times a week - and normally a couple of glasses of it after work.

So I gave it up and that was all fine, I didn't go through any withdrawal which I was quite surprised about as coke is my only source of caffine and I thought totally cutting caffine out of my diet might affect me, but I guess coke doesn't really have that much in it, and well, it didn't affect me so yay!

Now what happened though was after a while I got into the habit of occasionally having a can of real coke while at work. Because I've got no quarrel with sugar... but this became more and more frequent and so I decided I needed to stop having coke at work. Yesterday though I really wanted a cold drink, and while tap water is lovely, it's not all that cold. So I decided I have a diet coke. As most of the negative effects of aspartame only really apply for people who consume it in excess, so I thought one can once a week would be ok. But the thing was I didn't even enjoy it. And now I have no desire for a diet coke again! Isn't that great.

I encourage everyone to follow my example!

:)
Mindy

Congratulations!

Phlegmatic

Main Entry: phleg·mat·ic
Pronunciation: fleg-'ma-tik
Function: adjective
1 : resembling, consisting of, or producing the humor phlegm
2 : having or showing a slow and stolid temperament
synonym see IMPASSIVE- phleg·mat·i·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb

Wow you know I wondered if this word was just what it looked like, but then decided it probably wasn't but it was! Relating to phlegm I mean. But it's pronounced with a hard 'g' whereas phlegm isn't. Go figure. So anyway my nose is feeling rather phlegmatic this morning. Ew!

Anyway I forgot to say, or maybe I didn't forget but I haven't given it enough of a mention. Amy got into the University of British Columbia!!! She has applied to various American and Canadian universities to study there for a phd in economics and she got into this one. It's in Vancouver and I'm so proud of her. I think that's really awesome! She doesn't know if she'll go yet, but just getting accepted is a huge deal!

I went for another long run yesterday, about 50 minutes, but I found it so much harder than on Sunday. Not sure why, my theories are that my legs were sore and tired from biking and also it was a lot hotter yesterday afternoon. Hopefully next time I run it won't be so much of an effort.

Also I watched the first episode of Rome last night. It's another TV show downloaded by Simon at work (thanks!). Earl had been telling me how he's really enjoying it so I was glad I finally got to watch it, and I thought it was great! It was really well done, and interesting. Like you' were watching movie rather than a TV program, but shorter... which is good because I find most movies too long these days. And also I've only watched the first episode... there's more to come!!!!!!

Have a great day, hope it's not too phlegmatic.

:)
Mindy

New Words!

Hi!

I've decided to teach myself a new word everyday. And because I'm such a kind and caring and generous person I've decided to teach all of you that word as well. Today's word:

lachrymal

Main Entry: lach·ry·mal
Variant(s): or lac·ri·mal /'la-kr&-m&l/
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French lacrymal, from Medieval Latin lacrimalis, from Latin lacrima tear, from Old Latin dacrima, probably from Greek dakry -- more at TEAR

1 usually lacrimal : of, relating to, or being glands that produce tears
2 : of, relating to, or marked by tears

Isn't that interesting? I think so. What you might find interesting also is the number of words that I don't know that you do. Anyway stay tuned for tomorrow's word.

I don't really have much news. I watched a new TV program last night that Simon at work had downloaded (it's showing in America, or has been shown) called Surface and I thought it was ok. Also Auntie has gone back to the Chathams today and so Uncle Jim is left to take care of Grandad all by himself. I might keep an eye on him ;)

Hope you are all well.

Love
from
Mindy

My Weekend

Well I'm loving having my family living next door in Grandad's house. Don't know if I've said that already. I know it sounds a little lame but it is really really nice. I woke up Saturday morning, pottered around the house a little bit, had a bath and then decided to greet the outside world. So I open my door and look to the neighbours and see my Auntie opening her window upstairs and so we have a little neighbourly conversation and she informs me Uncle Jim is back in NZ again (staying at Grandad's house as is Auntie Annie). So I pop over and Alex, my cousin is also there, and Uncle Jim, Grandad of course and Auntie Annie. So I hang out there for awhile. Then my parents come over on their way to see Grandad so I go over again and pretty much hung out there all day.

Grandad seems to be doing ok. He's on oxygen all the time now. He has a machine with a big long tube attached so he can walk around like normal and everything. But he's seemed to be in a good mood most of the time, in good spirits. Mum told me though he's started planning his funeral. He wants Amy and me to be amoung his pallbearers which I think would be a great honour and I think it's really cool that he wants to depart slightly from the tradition of having male pallbearers. It's funny because I've told a few people about this, had a few discussions about it with Mum, Amy, Darren etc. And only now as I'm writing this does the thought make me cry. I think only now it just hit that for Grandad to be having a funeral he'd have to have died. Go figure. Sorry if this is all a bit morose for you but I'm just writing what I'm thinking about at the moment.

Anyway onto Sunday. Sunday was a great day. It was kind of rainy in the morning. So I decided to head outside and do some gardening. I did all the bits and pieces that I've been needing to do for awhile. Then I went and got out Monster and Underworld from the video shop and watched Monster with Amy. I also went for a big long run for an hour, and it was great. I ran out to the airport and around there for an hour in total and got back and felt like I could have even kept going a bit longer. I'm planning now on doing a half marathon in June so I reckon I'm almost half way.

Claire and Amy came round for fish and chips and fanta for dinner. I always like fish and chips best when it's with fanta. And the fish and chips were particularly good. It's on account of having a new fish and chip shop since we've shifted... Supreme Seafoods on Ilam Road is now my favourite. Darren and I watched Underworld which I quite enjoyed. But I'm all ready now for the sequel.

That my life for you then. All up to date.

Love
Mindy

U2 Show

Well U2 postponed their last ten tour dates yesterday afternoon which included the NZ concerts. For those not in NZ this was one of the biggest concerts we've seen in a long time... two concerts that both sold out like within an hour or something. But its very sad that they had to postpone and will affect a lot of people with plane tickets and hotel bookings. Just from the people I know Kim and Lennon were going, Amy and Tom were going, Lisa and Lara were going...

I'm not a huge U2 fan myself but I do think it's sad (including for the band as the postponement was due to a family illness). And I thought this was a nice idea which I got from Adam's update and he got it from Shane and Sarah's site.

"Why doesn't someone organise a huge U2 party that weekend regardless?

It would be as simple as simply posting on a site (like this) that there will be a huge gathering of U2 fans, on the Auckland waterfront (viaduct) on Sat the 18th starting 9pm. Then, they could ask anyone reading the site (like you) to forward the link on to U2 fans they know will be in Auckland that day (as you are about to do).

With the power of the internet, the story of this party should travel far enough to get a lot of people down to the Viaduct on Sat night.

Just to add to the fun, U2 fans present should be told to wear a black top as a sign of Goodwill to the band over their family members ilness and the postponing of the concert - and as a sign that we really want them to come back to NZ (and not just cancel the concert).

So, forward this post on! And we'll see you all on at the Vidauct next Sat night!"

Tristan and Isolde

Well I went to see Tristan and Isolde with Amy last night (it's a movie). This movie was picked randomly by me based on a shortlist Amy gave me, so I thought given her shortlist any were bound to be good, and this was. I sat down and said to Amy, if this is as bad as Casanova then I'm never going to the movies again. But luckily I was convinced within the first thirty seconds that I was going to like this movie. And I really did. It was a medieval love story but had enough fighting to keep me interested. The characters were convincing and the actors almost flawless (IU think these days I'm sensitve to un-convincing characters). It was based on some old English legend/tale/story thing. But yes I enjoyed it.

Also last night I went along to this running group with Rach. I was a little nervous about the actual running and pace as I've never run with anyone other than Lara and Darren before, but turns out it was fine. So we ran all the way round Hagley park (almost) which was about 40 minutes worth. Then afterwards there was a meeting for a Chch half-marathon training group which I ended up going along to, and so now I think I'll probably end up doing a half marathon in June. Which I'm incredibly excited about!!

Tonight is pizza with Kim and Co to celebrate her and Lennon going away. Just kidding we'll be mourning her leaving, but celebrating her new job and new phase of their life :) Should be fun.

Love from
Little Miss Mindy

Holy Cow!

Another update today! I bet you guys are all falling off your seats! I know I am. Well I did, but then I had to get back up because I couldn't reach the keyboard.

I popped over to Grandads before when Mum and Dad were visiting. He is looking much better now he is home again. He has a wee oxygen machine, and was sitting looking much more like the Grandad I know with a gin and tonic in his hand.

Work was great today. Very busy. We have finally started our new project... my project! This is the one I went over to England to get requirements for. It finally got approved last week I think, and I finished my current job yesterday and started the new one today. It's all very exciting. And time just flies by at work when I'm busy. Towards the end of last year the days were dragging incredibly badly.

So I don't have much other news. Oh yeah I though Casanova sucked. You didn't even need to watch it to figure out what was going to happen. It was predictable and unoriginal. This was disappointing to me as I liked quite a few of the actors in it and consequently felt sorry for them for being in such a dumb movie. However, Jo and Dan who saw it with us liked it so it might just be me.

Right bye!
Love
Mindy

Celebration

Look!!!!!

I'm updating in the middle of the day! How VERY exciting! I can now access blogs from work again!

What happened was accidentally I clicked on one of my favourites which was a blog and low and behold to my surprise it loaded! So I thought "well well well this is very interesting" and now as you can see I'm taking full advantage of the situation.

So it's lunchtime. Which is exciting. If you can't tell I'm quite excitable today.

Oh first my sad news. I'm stupid. I really wanted to do this surfing introductory lesson which was yesterday but I forgot to register in time. I guess I've been busy and there's been a lot going on. So I missed out on that, but I take full responsibility as it was all my fault.

In other news, in leiu of surfing I went for a run with Lara yesterday and it was very fun. We talked the whole time so it was more just like having a chat and you forgot you were running. So anyway we had a good chat.

I also saw Kirsty and Andrew last night. And that was fun. Kirsty called Andrew and she-mail and me a whore. Good times.

So anyway hope you all come and read my blog now I can update it again. And leave a comment. I will be!

Love
Mindy

Monday

Hi!

Well the weekend has just been. And now it's gone. It was ok. It was freezing cold here on Saturday. So cold I almost froze solid. Just kidding. Not that cold at all. But we did light our fire and it was so toasty and warm in our house. Although I suppose we're probably not allowed to light fires yet (we have a restricted fire season I think). Oh well someone will just have to sue me.

I went and saw Grandad on Sunday. He was doing ok. He has a tube draining the liquid out from around his lungs, and so he has to carry a container around with him to collect the fluid in which is a bit weird to see. But he was good. He had quite a few visitors.

What else happened in the weekend. Well I saw Lara, that was lovely. We went for a walk in the park and played on the swings and the round-a-bout. But it made me feel giddy. I guess I just don't have the stomach I used to have in my younger days.

Well I'm off to the movies tonight. Casanova. I will give you a full report tomorrow.

Love
Mindy

Back by popular demand

Due the the overwhelming response to my last blog entry (2 whole comments! A record for this year almost) I have decided to write another.

Well I realised I neglected to say anything at all about how the party went in the weekend. It was great! Thanks so much to everybody for coming. There was a big mix of people, and a lot of people turned up who I wasn't expecting. I feel like I was rushing around a lot, so if anyone feels like I neglected them I'm really sorry and I'll try harder the next time I have a party. Which may actually happen again. I've been a little shy of parties lately but I almost feel like I could do it again.

No news from my Grandad today. Which is good news :) I'll ring home soon and see what's happening and probably go visit him tomorrow, or in the weekend sometime.

Work is going well at the moment. Nothing very interesting happened today tho. Although I did push two of my couches together at lunch time and almost had a sleep on them. By almost had a sleep I mean I lay down reading a Monty Python book and got very sleepy.

I have a complaint to make. It's very cold at the moment. I don't think there's any reason for it to be this cold. So I demand it not be. My fingers got frozen on my bike on the way to work this morning.

In movie news I watched the 40 year old virgin on Tuesday, it was quite funny, and last Friday I went to Aeon Flux which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also went to Robbies for dinner prior to the movie and I thought it was ok. I like going there though as it's quite cheap and normally there's something on the menu I feel like. I usually feel like things that are accompanied by chips I'm not the world's biggest gourmet eater or anything.

Also I want to see Andrew and Kirsty soon. So someone should remind me to organise something with them.

Love from
Mindy

New Post!!

Hello Everybody,

Well it's been kind of a sad week. I won't write about all of it because I'm not sure that's it's right to publish it on my blog - I can't think that it's particularly wrong but I don't feel comfortable because it affects other people a lot more than me. But also to do with me my Grandad is very sick. He's got cancer, and he was in hospital last week but came home just before the weekend, but now he's got sick again and is back in hospital. I've only cried about it once so far which is a bit strange, but I guess he's alive now and generally ok. I cried when Mum rang me up and told me that he was deteriorating and would probably continue to deteriorate very quickly. And I just started thinking about what a wonderful man he is. He's been absolutely wonderful to me and all my family. He is always always doing things for other people. Always bring around food to all his children... like cheeses and yummy stuff. He gave me a box of tuna when I moved into my first flat. But not just his family, he always puts himself out for other people all time. He's on lots of committees and voluntary things like, just always busy. A lot of people will really miss him.

In other news I got a new digital camera, which is exactly the same as the other one so the pictures still aren't great but it's mostly for Darren just to use on his building sites so for $30 I'm not going to complain. It arrived this morning so I decided to test it by taking a few pictures of my new office to show people. One is of the nice little couch area in my office, and the other is my little corner and door out to my balcony.

I don't really have much other news. Lost is on at the moment, so I'm kinda watching it, well listening to it at least. I went for a run when I got home, but not a very long one. I also went home to visit Mum and Dad, actually that's not true I knew they wouldn't be home because they were at the hospital. But I did hang out with Amy for a bit. And stole one of Claire's snack bars. And checking out their pantry I was reminded how they always have stale bread in it. Funny isn't it. They always have at least two bread bags with only one or two pieces of bread left and they're all stale.

Well that's all from me!

Remember to tell the people you love that you love them.

:)
Mindy

Thursday

Well today was Thursday and for some reason it really sucked. But I'm over it now.

I've already said you should all come to my party, and I'd like to reiterate that. Additionally you should all go and check out Adam and Nick's website... it's extremely entertaining. Plus they've act ually updated it this week! (After a rather extended dry spell). But anyway you'll find a convenient link to the aforementioned site on your right.

So what have I done this evening.

- Come home
- Went to visit Grandad (next door neighbour), Mum and Dad were there so had a wee chat.
- Opened my mail which turned out to be this awesome pair of jeans I bought off trademe. They are wicked... and they fit me! How exciting is that.
- Cooked tea (roast chicken with potatoes and salad).
- Ate tea
- Sat down at my computer and decided not to buy a digital camera tonight

That's a fascinating insight into the my life, the life of Melinda J Marshall.

What's in store for me tonight

- Probably play some darts in the garage (although I really suck!)
- Watch an episode of the outer limits, or maybe stargate Atlantis
- Brush my teeth
- Read my book (dark star safari by Paul Theroux, I've read it before and can highly recommend it).

And that's all.

Isn't that sad.

What I really wanted to do tonight is go and buy some new running shoes. But I didn't. Because I thought I should wait until the end of the month, and today was pay day and I don't want to end up with no money in a month's time as usually happens.

Love
Mindy

Party!!!!

Hello Everyone!

In case you haven't heard we're having a house warming party! If you want to know the address email me, and I'll reply. Of course I'm going to email everybody who I want to come... but I realise there may be some of you out there deperate for an invite and it just aint gonna happen unless you ask for one ;) Hehe.

Anyway everybody remember February 25th 2006 big party Mindy and Darren's house 7.30. BYO drinks, and we'll provide carrots and dip. Maybe. Hope to see tons of you there!

Had a pretty good weekend this weekend. Had Mike's going away party which unfortunately I could only stop in at as I had to meet up with Lara to go to Nick's 24th birthday. It was great to see Lara... and Nick for that matter! I hadn't seen him for ages! Since Adam's birthday infact. So yeah Nick had a party at Adam's house and it was really fun and I got to tal kto Adam too. And now I'm excited because a lot of the people who write on my blog - or used to - will all get to meet each other if they come to the house warming!

Also Darren made an awesome picnic table on Sunday. If you come to my party you can all see it!

Also on a sadder note I found out from my Mum that my best friend from when I was a kid is sick and dying. Which is so strage. I haven't even spoken to her in 13 years and probably won't... but just strange to realise how very far apart we are considering from when we were 6-10 we saw each other every single day of the year.

My Grandad is sick in hospital at the moment so we went to visit him. But he seemed quite cheery and down to earth about everything so that was good. He has cancer... lots around his lungs and so he's having trouble breathing without help. My Uncle from Australia is in town too so I caught up with him. And my other Uncle from the Chatham Islands was also very sick and in hospital (he's getting better now) so all his family are here in Christchurch too. Actually living over the fence from me in Grandad's house.

Right off to write the invitation email now!

Love
Mindy

Hello!

Refusing to be perturbed by the lack of comments on my last post I have decided to write another.

So anyway exciting things happening this week:

- Sardar started at work. I'm finding it fine sharing an office. Especially when it's just a kick ass office.
- Also in work news we had a training session today which was really fun... like being back at uni, except more fun.
- Sad news my Uncle is in hospital with a virus. He's going to be ok but has to be on a drip for two weeks.
- Happy news Darren and I are having our house warming next Saturday!
- It's Nick's actual birthday on Saturday... he's going to have a super fun party at Adam's house.
- Lara's coming to Christchurch this weekend too! And she'll be going to Nick's birthday... yay!
- Also Mike's having a going away party on Saturday night also so it'll be two parties in one night.
- It was Valentines Day yesterday. We had a lovely dinner at home (I cooked my first roast chicken) and it was just a super nice evening.

I think that's about it.

Oh yeah Adam the fish is doing really well now. I was worried about him for awhile as he had torn fins and hung out around the heater but he seems really perky now. Nick is fat as always. And Kirsty the shark is SO fat. He's the fattest fish I've ever seen. I've got photos of them so I'll post them up soon.

Love to all,

:)
M

It's me!!!!!

Hello,

I'm online again. Isn't that WONDERFUL! I installed a modem into my new computer today and so finally I can do internet stuff from home, which is great since I can't do it from work anymore.

So news....

Well Adam and Nick haven't updated their page for over a week. So I'm quite depressed about that.

Oh big news is Darren and I are having a house warming. On the 25th February! It's going to be great. So if you live in Christchurch or are visiting Christchurch around that time then you should come.

Other news... I shifted offices at work as I now have to share with the "new guy", which is going to be interesting. On the plus side I now get a kick-ass office with a balcony and I won't get lonely, but on the negative I now don't have a whole office to myself. But I had it to myself today and that was kinda of fun.

Um what else. Well we haven't got any new fish now, but we have about 3 billion snails in the tank. And Kirsty the shark is SO fat. It's incredible.

Well I will try and think of something that's actually interesting to say and I will write again real soon.

Love from Little Miss Mindy

Sad

sad
Originally uploaded by Omfu.

Hello Everyone,

I have a lot of news. And I was going to post photos today but something terrible happened so I'm not in the mood. Bubbles died. I don't know how, I was talking on the phone and looked in the tank and she was floating upside down :( It was awful, just terrible. Darren tried to revive her by jiggling her round a bit but she just wouldn't ressurrect (I don't know where her loyalty to me is!). So then he chopped her up and fed her to one of his plants. I guess we may as well not waste her. But this morning I saw he'd left her wee head on the window sill, obviously trying to rile me up. Sigh. Maybe I will bury it in the garden. Yes I think so.

Also this morning I was watching TV (Johnny Bravo) and there was a knock at the door, so I go to see who it is, and there's a calling card from a courier! They didn't even wait for me to open the door! Stupid man, I ran out after his van and waved my arms and yelled but he just ignored me. Anyway it's getting redelivered tomorrow... I bet you it's my computer stuff! Woo!

Also yesterday I got my cycle computer. So last night (before I was in mourning) I was biking all around the place measuring how far I was going, and how fast. I'm not very fast, I'd say my average crusing speed is 22.4km/h which is pretty damn slow. But then again a lot faster than running or walking! And I did get up to 30km/h when I was trying hard. And I biked to work this morning and that's 3.68km, so that's really not very far at all!

I hope there's more computer bits waiting for me when I get home. Oh no! I just realised it's forecast to change to a southerly so it'll probably rain. Looks like I'll be biking home in the rain. Oh well! At least it's only 3.68km!

:)
M

Biking

helmet
Originally uploaded by Omfu.

Well I did it! And loved it! I biked to work this morning. It took me a grand total of 10 minutes (I'd allowed half an hour) biking really is a lot faster than walking!

And this isn't my helmet it's just a random helmet I found on google as it's on topic. But in other exciting news I'll probably be getting my photos from the weekend developed over the weekend and will try and scan some and post them up.

Oh yeah I haven't written about the weekend! It was AWESOME! The Big Day Out was great... Darren loved it too, and it was great to have a wonderful boydguard in the mosh pit. Which brings me to the point I am getting older, or maybe just lazier, as I only partook in one mosh pit this big day out (the Mars Volta of course!) they just dono't appeal to me as much anymore. Plus I'm short so I still can't really see even when I'm right up the front. I actually have a better chance when I'm a wee way back. So the Mars Volta were absolutely brilliant, 6 thumbs up, I can't believe how good they are. Other stand out acts were Shihad (despite confusing me by wishing everyone a Happy New Years Eve!), and the Living End.

Also it was SO SO SO nice seeing Lara. I had a few dramas over the weekend including losing my wallet (which had the tickets in it) and it was ncie to have her hugs. But I found the wallet! Well more accurately it got handed in to the police. And we went to Karekare beach (I think that's how it's spelt) and it was lovely. It's been ages since I've just spent a day at the beach.

Also Darren and I went to Rainbow's End and went on all the rides and had a great time. Once I got over feeling a bit sick. Honestly some of the scary rides don't scare me they just give me motion sickness.

Right well I'd really really better get to work now.

:)
M

Sigh

LittleMissMindyBall
Originally uploaded by Omfu.

Hi there,

I stayed up too late last night and now I'm tired. And by too late I mean 11.10pm, which really isn't that late at all. But the rabbit woke me up this morning. Stupid rabbit. So I went out to check on it, and there was a huge white tail spider crawling in the hutch. I hope the rabbit didn't get bitten. I'm not sure there's anything I could do if it did.

Also I'm going to start biking to work. Now I'm quite excited about this. I borrowed a bike off Mum and Dad's (it's one they found in the pond at Jellie Park) and even went and bought a helmet yesterday at lunch time in preparation for the big day today. But Darren took his car to work this morning, and the garage key is with his car keys so I couldn't get into the garage to get the bike. Which is sad.

Also my computer died for a second time last night. I was playing a game and it just crashed and won't turn on again now. So that is sad as well.

:)
M