moved. (for now)

Blog has moved to sanlive.com.

Please update bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc. :)

Quality control

gg Premium cracker factory. I opened the packet and this was the top
cracker staring back at me.

Contemplative cat

Fortune cat

FORTUNE
CAT BRINGS YOU VERY BEST
WISHES MAY HAPPITY & HAPPY
HOCKS BE WITH YOU FOREVER

The Suite - Shenton Park

Afternoon snack

Good suit!

Winner

Pop pop Americano!

server switching and stuff

Waaaarrrgh~ my little website has the lurgy.

In the midst of some epic server switching. All my self-hosted sites, and all my friends' sites that I host may be down for a little bit. Sites affected:

• sanlive.com
• sandylovesyou.com
• powersugoi.net
• luna.powersugoi.net
• chael.powersugoi.net
• casadelfranco.com

Insiderhosting.com is great, by the way. :)

Good game - i'm very distracted

Wanna play?

It's called Fat Slice by some guy named AaronOfTomorrow. You cut pieces off a canvas, but you have to trap all the balls together, and you can't let them touch your cut line.

m-flo "one day"

english translation

Gustav and Drummond

An evening of wizardry ends as all evenings should.

Sleeping cat and pet human

Week 1

Week 1 at the new place has been lovely. New surrounds, new layout,
new things for the cats to look at.

Got a week off work too, to clean up, settle in, get some stuff
happening with the old apartment. Found a property manager, but have
yet to read all the paperwork she sent me. Baby steps... Really slow
ones.

Does anyone play Godfinger on iPhone/ipad? I'm looking for more
friends so I can complete one of the game challenges. Add me? I'm
stuckfox.

Naptime for cats

Yeap 2.

Yeap.

Dubstep War of the Worlds - lovely

War of the Worlds by erwtenpeller

Sunday evening, second last night here

We found a new place. Hooray!

It's been a drawn-out house-hunting adventure filled with false hopes, near misses and so many fucking forms. I hate forms. I don't understand why we don't just have a national database with everyone's info, where you can consent to one-off access for specific situations - rental applications, electoral roll, credit card verification. Security would never be an issue if you hire a shitload of ninjas, which also takes care of unemployment.

Fuck it, even that sounds like a lot of effort. I just don't want to fill in another form for awhile plzthx.

Spent the last week in packing mode; the last 2 afternoons actually packing. We don't have nearly as much stuff as I thought we did; as I did when we first moved in. I guess I've thrown a lot of things away since leaving the suburbs - clothes, toys, trinkets, letters, memories, dignity, youth...

It feels like a new life chapter is about to start, and I don't mean this in a romantic starry eyed way. It's more along the lines of "shit's going to be a bit different from now on, so you better adapt." I'm a little scared - I'm going to be paying rent and a mortgage, which means this place will need to be cleaned up quickly so it's fit for a tenant.

And there's lots to do. :[

On a less stressful note, found a cool iPhone app last week. It's called Stachetastic and it's amazing. I won't spoil it for you - go check it out for yourself.

Bye now. :)

How to remove blu-tac without ripping paint off

Use a wodge of blu-tac to remove residue, but instead of pulling or
rolling it off, just twist until it's all gone.

Just a pity I ripped off two chunks of paint before figuring this
out. :(

Moving day tomorrow. We found a new place. :) Wee!

Anyone seen this?

To fight influenza...

That was a goal.

That was Lampard's goal, you ridiculous ref. Score should be 2-2, world.

Not cool.

Not cool, England. Plug the gaps up. COME ON.

Watching GER v ENG

It's been a lovely weekend. Drinks and snacks at the Fetchtv (http://www.iinet.net.au/fetchtv) launch party on Friday; ended with a sore arm from foosball rage.

Finished ALL my writing course on Saturday and cleaned the bathroom. My word, it's so good to have time to clean. iiNet quiz night in the evening: my table won!!

Slotted in a pub lunch today, then more cleaning - laundry room and kitchen - and now here I am, enjoying the football, 12:09. COME ON, ENGLAND.

Looking forward to having my evenings back. Got a week of leave coming up in mid-July too. Life is pretty good this evening. Fingers crossed it stays that way for the next 80mins. :)

Trying out the new establishment

Grossvenor Hotel, Perth, c. 2010.

Technical stuff

In the studio with Mat (http://soundcloud.com/djnu) and Jerry (http://www.jerichomusic.com.au).

They're talking audio nerd stuff and I'm learning new words like 'upward compression' and some other word I've already forgotten.

Good run tonight; timing passable and pitch reasonable. I still get nervy when singing anywhere but the shower or doing dishes alone. But wow, did start feeling confident tonight. Maybe nerves are on their way out. :)

Hometime soon, to dinner and the football. Come on, England!!

Fly Away Rabbit - cute iPhone game

Rabbit dreams of being among the clouds. Touch the helium blocks to
remove them from his way.



But be careful - don't let him fly too fast or he might get lost!



Get game - so cute! I played it to help me fall asleep last night. :)

Working with designers - tips from Module 8

Wow, vindication. Having been on both sides of the writer vs designer briefing process, I can vouch for all of these. Check 'em out - excerpts from Module 8 of my writing course, "Writing for Public Relations 2":

Designers are visual people.

Designers tend to see copy as a visual element. They usually will not read the copy itself.

Designers are not mind readers.

If you have examples of the graphic style and mood you want, bring it to the briefing session.

Designers are not readers.

To a designer, the overall 'look and feel' of a piece is the critical issue. They generally will not proofread a finished piece - this is YOUR responsibility and your client's.

Designers are expensive.

This means you need to ensure your brief is precise and your copy is correct. Lack of discipline in this area on your part (or your client's) can more than quadruple the quoted price of a job.

That last one applies more to time than price where I work. Non-designers often underestimate the effort that goes into producing a 'simple' piece. Maybe we've submitted a plain black square in the middle of an A4 sheet of paper, but it took a hundred "two steps forward, one step back" steps through red squares, blue squares, red and blue squares cos that's more on-brand, how about a triangle, on second thought let's try the square again but in rainbow colours, etc. to get to that one black square.

The same goes for writing. The final version may be a simple one liner, but it takes a lot of consideration to word that one liner just right, in such a way that the audience will just get it in those few words. It's all in the delivery, which is sometimes referred to as kairos, for anyone interested. :)

Back to work I go...

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Another half-baked idea by dos4gw

How to deal with a sprained ankle.

This PSA blogpost is a little something to all my accident prone
friends. I'm no physio, but I've been lucky enough to sprain my ankle
TWICE every year since I started playing football 4 years ago.

It's no fun, being sore is shit, but I'm now a full bottle on managing
my injury.

Everything here are tips and lessons from my awesome physiotherapist
Gerard. I hope I've remembered the details right. If anyone knows
better and sees a mistake, lemme know and I'll editeditlala.

Hope you find this useful. :)

-- Ice ankle as soon as possible after injury. --

When a sprain occurs, your body sends a flood of histamines to enflame
the surrounding tissue, forming a puffy polyfilla padding.

Healing doesn't begin until the swelling goes away - ice helps to get
you to the healing stage faster. Anti-inflammatories (nurofen,
voltaren, etc.) work wonders too.

-- Get back on your feet as soon as you can. --

Gently, though. The idea is to retrain and recalibrate the muscle as
early as possible. Gets your muscle memory reinstated quickly and
starts the re-strengthening proccess.

Get the icepack on afterwards, to keep your ankle returning to the
healing process.

-- Do balancing exercises. --

Stand on your lame foot while brushing your teeth, while waiting for
coffee, while picking your nose.

When you go slightly off-balance, your ankles compensate to keep you
upright. Getting the balance calibration back in your ankle lessens
the risk of re-injury.

-- Find some caring friends to make sad faces at. --

This one's not from Gerard. It just makes me feel better when I'm
still sad after doing all the other stuff. :)

(This post is dedicated to SamE and Laura.)

what kind of idiot writes a draft?

In highschool, our teachers always made us write a draft of any stories or essays we did in class. I used to wonder, What kind of idiot needs to write a draft? Surely, any halfway-smart person knows what they want to say. Of course, when you're a teenager, you know everything, and I sure as hell knew then that I wasn't some dumbo writer who had to take a few goes.

Many, many failed assignments later, I discovered that I need to write a draft.

It's not about knowing what to say, but knowing how to say it so the message is received in an adequately expressive and unambiguous way. It's the duty of every responsible writer to meet a reader halfway - and this translates to real life too. For instance, nothing shits me more at work than when people pull me in to answer a question that takes place midway through a conversation that they had in their head. Context is so important, and so easy to offer quickly with a bit of consideration before engaging.

This wasn't meant to turn into a half-arsed rant about irresponsible communication. I actually wanted to share my writing process. If you're interested, that is. ^.^

When I sit down to write - a Discoveryzone article, for example - I generally start with a planning doc; a scribble of notes about the aim of the article, the intended audience, a rough list of topics to cover and sites that seed the research process.

Next comes the 'streams of consciousness' draft. This is essentially a brainfart of facts, concepts and phrases that come out of the thinking process. My SOC drafts look quite different to the planning doc. For example, the original list of sites may change shape, shrink or grow during the SOC process. Topics may be added, removed or merged; whatever feels natural.

The final SOC draft will usually contain repetition and word-for-word splices from my research material, producing a flow that's quite rough and clumsy. SOC drafts are then tidied up to form a first draft, with more presentable, non-plagiarised flow and wording.

Subsequent drafts and edits follow, peer review, grammar assistance, Engrish removal, yeah you heard me... until finally, a final.

Like my arrogant highschool self, I firmly believe you don't need a process for good writing. Not one prescribed by others, anyway.

What I've ended up with here emerged over the course of a couple years, where I was getting paid to write properly for public consumption. It's organic, it suits me, and for you to write your best, I think you need to find your own way to do it.

That's it from me.

what i am going to do today: not much

1. wake up too early
2. go do the stupid stair climb
3. get 13 min 16 sec, worse that my first time evar
4. shower like a motherfucker
5. have the rest of the day to do sweet FA and maybe a bit of assignment

here, a picture:

the touchy-feely human parts of module 5

I love learning about the touchy-feely human bits of writing. Here are some interesting snippets from the module on corporate writing.

Baggage

Senders bring their feelings, attitudes, expectations, past experience and values to any communication. These can be indicated by their tone, their response to questions and so on. This 'personal baggage' can colour the way they encode their message.

The text then goes on to say how if you don't like a person you receive an email from, it's easy to be offended by what they've written. On the other hand, you could get a rude, abrupt message from someone but don't get offended because you have a pre-existing relationship.

Learning point:

People will not be aware of what baggage you bring to the communication process unless you tell them.

Noise


Noise is what you call the things that distracts you from communicating smoothly. Could be anything - loud traffic, building construction, being interrupted by the person you are speaking to, language difficulties, emotions, headaches, etc. Basically, if it's distracting you from the flow of understanding, it's noise.

Learning point:

Noise colours the communication process and can cause it to break down entirely.

Body language


I learned a couple years ago that only 15% of our total communication is done in words. The other 85% is a mix of body language, tone of voice, facial expression and stuff like that. It's all the stuff you kinda have to feel your way through when communicating with people.

Learning point:

When you write, many of these cues are missing, so you have to choose your words very carefully. You want to ensure that there is no confusion about what you are saying.

It still trips me out a bit how some people sound like total dickheads via email, but they're really genuine and cool in person. Guess the 'being careful' thing can make a huge difference.

Channel

Despite body language communicating heaps more at once, it's not necessarily better to do everything in person. I get this quite a bit actually - sometimes people will come up for a face-to-face conversation, when a text chat or email would probably work smoother and faster.

This section of the course gives a couple paragraphs of examples, so I won't quote them here. But to give you an idea, the exercise lists a few types of communication (survey results, staff churn, deadline notices, policy announcements, meeting confirmation, etc.) and asks us to match them with the appropriate communication channels (email, newsletter, meeting in person, posters, reports, etc.).

I'd always taken that sort of thing for granted, but having to think about it now gives a bit of shape to the gut feelings. Like how you'd use a regular publication to talk about run-of-the-mill stuff, but it would be better to use surprise!methods for super exciting or time sensitive stuff.

Context


Quick last one cos it's my bedtime...

Context: the shit that happens that might influence the way your message is understood. It's the vibe, basically. Before you communicate stuff, suss out how people are feeling.

For example, you may have good news about the tearoom refurbishment, but no one has seen your cheery email because they are still in shock at the retrenchments announced by the boss that morning.

I was shopping for a training course a couple years ago and found a "Communications for Women" course next to a plain "Communications" course. The only difference between the two that I could find was that the "for Women" course had a module on good timing. As in, how to be a bit more aware of your surroundings before opening your mouth.

Bit funny, but probably not inappropriate. Sometimes it does feel like the mental filters momentarily switch off as soon as things get a bit exciting. Maybe we're just hardwired with stronger blurt reflexes, or maybe we're socially conditioned differently to boys? Or maybe it's nothing at all and I'm just seeing things, but nonetheless, there was a tailored piece of learning for professional females.

The learning point from the Context section is basically to ask yourself a bunch of sensitivity questions about your audience before you reach out.

I am sleepy now, good night. x

bachelor frog

Things I have eaten this weekend

1. Delicious chips at Armada at the Travelodge Hotel in town. One of
the best pub chips around, though the one at the Holiday Inn still
tops my 'most impressive' list. That was a good 5 or 6 years ago, but.
Haven't been there in awhile.

2. Dolsot Bibimbap at Myoung Ga. I live that place; it's run by a
happy Korean uncle who keeps the kitchen open right up til near
closing time. They do takeaway too, and he's really eager for you to
enjoy your at-home meal. Also good: they have grape, pear AND
strawberry BongBong. :D

3. Two fat Jesters pies for lunch after Saturday morning football.
Wicked reward after a 3win-1loss session.

4. Potato noodle for second lunch. This is the new best noodle in
town. Chewy like a bastard with superb default flavour, so you can add
whatever and it will still taste fantastic. I added lemon juice and
parsley; sour balanced the salty well. Man, I'm hungry again just
thinking about it.

5. Smoked salmon crackers for dinner. The more fibrous and wholemealy
the cracker, the better. Spread generous cream cheese, dip salmon in
lemon juice before applying. Add finely chopped tomato, thin carrot
slices, thin cucumber slices; sprinkle finely chopped parsley. Yum!

6. Fish fingers with 3 dipping sauces - thousand island, Caesar and
tomato. Must remember to add 5 extra minutes with oven 20 degrees
hotter - crumbs go crunchier.

7. HooRooRook noodles for breakfast. Another new best instant mee.
Korean style, no msg, yet still bloody tasty.

8. Open ham sandwich, blogged earlier today. Faaaark what a treat :)

9. Fish finger snack after outdoor football. Wee! Ranch sauce that
time, I think. It was the survival snack so we'd have enough energy to
think about dinner.

10. Beef stew!! No stock, no additives. Just tasty veggies, bit of
salt, herbs and spices. Really excited to experiment with not using
pre-made stuff. More a curiosity thing than for health reasons, but
would be nice if there were health bonuses alongside.

The spice I'm currently playing with is cardamom. It's tangy and warm,
so delicious on beef.

I have a leftover turnip, parsnip and mushrooms. Might get a new
bottle of random spice and make a soup. Sadly, soup and stew are the
only things I'm any good with.

The picture in this post isn't from this weekend, but from Wednesday
night. Tried the Beaufort Street Steakhouse; that was the charcuterie
platter. Delicious lavosh crackers with strange tasty mustard dip,
baby gherkins, capers, prosciutto, shaved pork, rabbit pot and warm
soft chorizo.

The steaks were quite remarkable too -cooked evenly all the way
through. Yummy sauce (pick from 4), small potato side (chips, mash or
jacket spud). A+ would patronize again.

Okay, pretty hungry now. Also getting sleepy. Oh yes, that's number
11: an antihistamine for good night's sleep.

Hasta mañana, everyone!

What an awesome treat!!

Best lunch evar <3

Winning lotto ticket

That's $28.65, for those who can't read Out Of Focus. Congrats, fuzz :)

what i'm studying tonight - loose sentences

Loose and periodic sentences tonight.

A loose sentence expresses the main idea first:

The girl wrote with incredible monotony, not realising how much it annoyed her readers.

A periodic sentence saves the main statement to the end:

Not realising how much it annoyed her readers, the girl wrote with incredible monotony.

In the loose sentence, the chief contention is clear from the start; in the periodic sentence, you must read to the end for the full meaning. Used too frequently, the periodic sentence can annoy the reader.

Interesting, huh? :)

I'm very tired. We won at outdoor indoor football tonight. Hooray! Was good to win against that team too, since we drew the last couple of times we played them. Had cannelloni for dinner, with spinach & rocket on the side.

And now, it's study time.

For you, some links:

• Letters & ligatures - lovely character map copypastey tool
• Turning old books into plant pots - nice idea for a hobby project
• Shoes of Prey - design your own shoes (via @snuff_man)
• The Cuddle Hormone: The Good & Bad of Oxytocin - one of many love chemicals

Tie me kangaroo down, sport - dnb remix

Primary school would have been way more fun remixed.

Thanks, dos4gw, for the link!

Chips' stick man

Artwork by @chipschipschips

Mood writing from Module 3

Yep, up to Module 3, about editing and grammar. There's lots of little holes in this one - topics that the heading & contents page suggest are covered, which are in fact either not covered or foggily covered. Perhaps these are "stretch" objectives, the way the Blue Screen of Death is "stretch" screensaver.

Here's an interesting snippet, not taken verbatim, from this part of the course. It's about the mood of verbs - how you convey feeling by the way you use a verb amidst the rest of the sentence.

There are three moods:

1. Indicative - where the verb makes a statement or asks a question:

She creates drama.

Does she create drama?

2. Imperative - gives a command or makes a request:

Have fun now!

Wash your hands in the sink.

3. Subjunctive - ...

The explanation gets a bit hazy here. It sounds like the subjunctive mood is where you are expressing possibility, doubt - stuff that's not a question, statement or direct order. So, like... daydream talk: "Oh, I wish this part of the course wasn't so dry and confusing."

As it stands, I am getting nervous. The assignments I've already handed in haven't yet been marked and returned. I need to work doubly-hard next week to get back on schedule. How excitement! Garr...

new wordpress theme, and it was probably a stomach bug

Made my very first evar Wordpress theme today. :) May I present SandySoft - still not fit for public distribution, but I hope to clean it up and list it, open source, whatevery, blah. All for you, my lovely dears. Experience it at sandylovesyou.com.

It's become a comforting habit, redesigning as a healthy distraction while on the mend. Sure beats lying in my own filth on the couch, watching Trailer Park Boys, for 2 days in a row. (Just the one day was fine.)

For anyone yet to be afflicted, or wondering if they may be getting sick, here's the official list of symptoms (gathered from friends who also got sick around the same time):

• Chills
• Fever
• Body aches
• Stomach cramps
• Sore kidneys
• Nausea/vomiting
• Evil poos
• Weakness/lethargy
• Loss of appetite
• Swollen glands

And stuff I found helpful:

• Carrot slices, cucumber slices & Salada crackers
• Canned Irish stew (just don't eat the meat bit until you feel better)
• Chamomile tea
• More Salada crackers
• Packet noodles (not spicy)
• 100Plus isotonic water
• LOTS OF WATER
• Mineral water, if normal water gets boring
• Yakult

Plus lots of sleep.

Worst time to be sick

This is the worst time to be sick. So much going on at work, at home,
arrrgh :((

Still not sure if it's flu or food poisoning; it's pretty horrible and
I just want it to go away. Mummy... :(

On the upside, it's nice to have a break. I keep daydreaming about
being 5 years old and my grandma taking care of me, feeding me rice
porridge with bovril and smelly Chinese medicine.

Tonight, I've eaten some canned Irish stew, salada crackers, cucumber
and carrot. And some sports water. Please please please, I'd like to
not be sick tomorrow. Please.

So very very tired, and why does my face hurt?

Went to dad's giant birthday dinner party on Friday night. And by
giant, I mean more than our regular "4 for noodles" evening. It was
good to see aunties and uncles who I haven't talked to in ages. Quite
overwhelmed, though - despite growing up with mum and dad's dinner
parties, I feel heaps more comfortable having quiet, reclusive time.
This better not be early onset Crazy Cat Lady-itis.

I had a glass of wine that was as old as me OMG!! It tasted like dates
mashed through a gym sock. Yum yum~

Not feeling well tonight. Ran almost a full game of football today,
and I'm really knackered. Feels like I've been beaten up, and now my
tummy is playing funny buggers. Will end this post now, but I have
some interesting links to share with you... tomorrow.