my aura is...

yellowThe brightest color in your aura is Yellow

Contrary to popular myth, auras are actually multi-colored energy fields that can be divided into seven primary layers. Having Yellow as your brightest color means that the third layer of your aura is the most vibrant.

You have exceptional abilities to engage in logical, concrete thinking. You tend to be particularly open-minded and enjoy exposure to new ideas, which positively impacts your attitude toward life.

How Bright Is Your Aura?

Current Mood: a little bored, but okay

movies: the da vinci code

the da vinci code - seek the truthI honestly can't say that I expected much from The Da Vinci Code (which, I know, seems to be a running theme with a lot of my movie experiences)...

And after it was all over, the best response I could come up with was "m'eh"...

It was just so... pedestrian, I guess is the best description... I actually quite enjoyed the book, but the movie never seemed to develop a sense of tension or anticipation or even threat or dread. I don't know whether that was because I remembered the plot from the book fairly closely, and so knew all the "twists" before they happened... but it just never seemed like there was much weight to what was going on. And on top of all of that, it ran for two and a half hours... so parts of it did seem to drag a little.

I said way back when I first heard about this movie that Tom Hanks was so completely and utterly wrong for the role of Robert Langdon (and given the list of possible alternatives they were looking at, I'm not sure they were convinced he was right either)... and I wasn't proved wrong... he wasn't bad per say... but I imagined Langdon having much more of a presence about him... which Hanks, complete with that appallingly bad hair, just lacks.

The overall casting did seem fairly scattered actually... I don't know whether it was the mix of "names" in the cast, or what, but I was pulled out of the moment a couple of times going "Oh look, it's you... and you..."! Having said that, Audrey Tautou was fairly good as Sophie (although not what I'd imagined when I read the book), and was probably one of the better casting decisions. Paul Bettany was interesting as the albino, even if his contacts did seem overly obvious and a little odd in a couple of scenes (although technically I don't know what the eyes of real albinos look like, so they could have been completely accurate for all I know)... and Paul kept flashing large amounts of skin, which was both attractive (the self inflicted wounds notwithstanding) and a little distracting (although not necessarily in a bad way)... and special cuteness mention goes to young Hugh Mitchell who played the young version of the albino very briefly in a flashback (and who I was extremely disturbed to discover played Colin Creevey in the second Harry Potter movie... fortunately that was four years ago, and the boy done grew up pretty... at least in albino makeup anyway).

The "history" segments were fairly interesting both from a visual standpoint and as a storytelling device, and, to be honest, those alone look like they could have cost more money and taken more time and effort than the rest of the movie put together... they did help to add some interest to what would otherwise have just been a bunch of people sitting around churning out huge chunks of exposition.

There also seemed to have been some fairly major deletions or changes from the original story, mostly for the sake of time in a lot of cases (two codex become one), but if my memory serves me correctly they not only revealed some of the twists earlier than in the book, but they also did a fair bit of messing around with the story at the end... enough to bug me, but not enough to actually ruin the story.

All in all, mildly interesting, but definitely not worth the title of "thriller"....

yani's rating: 1 crazed albino out of 5

bad phone

grrr bad phoneGrrrrr... bad phone... bad!

*mutter mutter mutter*

I went to charge my phone today, since it was nearly out of juice (always a good time, I know)... but after giving me the "Charging" message, it then came up with a "Not Charging" (or "Charging Failed" or something, I can't remember now)... so after trying it on two different chargers and every free socket in the house, I bit the bullet and took it into town to Optus World...

I also took my old phone with me, because I was already having visions of having to send my phone in for repairs, which, seeing as I've only had it for 13 days hardly seemed fair.

The blonde girly who served me (who did seem to have a fraction more of a clue than the Asian girly who served Ma and I originally) didn't have any more luck than me trying to get the phone to charge, and the end result was that I had two choices... I could either send it back under warranty to be repaired or get it replaced under the ELF (Early Life Failure... I think)... I decided to have it repaired, mostly because I figured it might actually take less time (since she told me they were out of stock of new phones)... so I changed my SIM card over and she started writing up the paperwork to send it off. Then neither of us could remember what the charging failure message was, so she went to plug it back in, just to check, without the SIM or anything.

AND THE DAMN THING STARTED CHARGING!

*mutter*

She said I could still send it off if I wanted to, but I decided to bring it home and see if it would do what it was told. And thus far, it's charging...

Of course I'm now completely paranoid, and keep checking that it's still charging every ten minutes or so...

Current Mood: don't do that to me!

further monday musings

First off I have to apologise, I pretty much neglected my blog last week... if it wasn't for the fact that I like to post something every day, then last week probably would have been a gaping hole. Sorry about that... to all, what is it, six of my regular readers... I'll try and do better this week. Part of the problem was that absolutely nothing of note happened last week... No movie, no Camera Club, no interesting phone calls (or lack of same), nothing... sure I saw J twice (once on Monday and again on Wednesday night), but it wasn't exactly blogworthy (especially Wednesday, since we sat around watching movies)...

Plus, as my rather pitiful attempt at poetry yesterday mentioned, I was actually feeling, not down exactly, but decidedly odd the whole weekend. I can only chalk it up to another bout of the Mean Reds ("The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of."). I don't know that it had any one cause, I think it was the sum total of a bunch of things again.

Keen eyed observers will have noticed that there's no Montage today... not even a random image like last week... well obviously, since nothing happened last week, there wasn't really very much to photograph (I did entertain the idea of doing a montage of the piles of Hard Rubbish around North Adelaide, but by the time I'd decided to do it, I was a day late, and it was all gone!)... so I had fully intended to try a different walking route this morning, just for today... but rather than my usual route, I was going to walk down to the River Torrens, and along the Riverbank Promenade (where Il Cielo che Danza was held back in March), taking enough photos to make a montage and then back up the hill and home again. But when I got up this morning, it was completely overcast, and proceeded to drizzle with that really fine misty rain for my whole walk, so I nixed that idea. When the weather starts behaving itself again I'll have to try it. I'm just not sure it will take as long as my normal walk does.

On Thursday night while shopping I discovered possibly the second best chocolate on the planet (Haighs being the best, and Lindt slipping to third place)... Cocolo Premium Organic Milk Chocolate... and the bonus is that it's a Fair Trade product, which means that farmers are paid a fair price for their product which then allows them to invest in their communities (and yes, I was paraphrasing from the back of the wrapper then). I originally heard about the Fair Trade stuff on my daily dose of Jay and the Doctor on Triple J during my walk a couple of weeks ago, and now that I've actually tried the chocolate, all I can say is YUM! On the down side, it is incredibly expensive... but I think it's worth it.

I also got a pair of (women's) fluffy zebra print slippers on Thursday to keep my feet warm on these cold mornings we've been having... but enough said about those, the better... they are warm though (as well as being both bad and wrong... but men's slippers are SO boring).

I heard from Marc again on Saturday night, via a message on Gaydar... I'd technically given up on him, or rather I'd given up on my expectation one way or the other, as I hadn't heard from him since our playdate (other than a reply to the text message I sent him the day after)... I think that if I want to continue this whatever it is we have going, then having no expectations is probably going to be the best way for me not to do my head in. He calls, he calls... he doesn't, he doesn't...

Let's see how long I can actually put that into practice...

I did think about taking a little trip to the sauna on Sunday afternoon... supposedly, being the last Sunday of the month, it should have been Bears in the Mist again, but I actually couldn't find it mentioned anywhere (either on their website or in Blaze), so I'm not sure if it was actually on or not. Not that that would technically have stopped me one way or that other... but given the aforementioned weird mood I was in, I don't know that it actually would have been the best idea I've ever had. I chose, instead, to stay home and watched the overhyped Big Brother "special", Truth Lies and Eviction... sad, but true, I gave up possible sex for television... techncially I could have done both, but then I would have had to cut my sauna trip "short" (does four hours count as short?) to get home in time, so I just didn't bother. It would have been pleasant though, if only to get nice and toasty warm.

I have an annoying new neighbour... how, at another time and place, could conceivably be attractive, but is currently just annoying me (I have to say that this is not a new thing... my neighbours, although changing, different and varied have been annoying me ongoingly for about eight years now). He's possibly in his mid 20's, and is a skater... neither of which is bad... but he seems unable to actually leave the house without the skateboard... even if, like this morning, he's just going to check the mailbox... which happens to be right outside my window... and the concrete in the courtyard of my building is the kind with the seams between... which means I can hear the "brrrrrr-cachunk-brrrrrr-cachunk-brrrrrr-cachunk-brrrrrr-cachunk" of him rolling his way down the courtyard. And there he goes again while I'm typing this! Even worse yesterday was him "walking" the skateboard up the concrete... "clack-clack-clack-clack-clack"... from side to side so that he didn't have to put his foot down, but was still keeping momentum. Grrrrr... you, and your skanky trailer-trash girlfriend with the broken wrist... piss off! Although, on the plus side, and for no apparent reasont that I can see, he did completely tidy all the garden in the courtyard (no small feat) on Saturday... I just hope that that doesn't mean he's some kind of permanent "groundskeeper"... coz that's just going to bug me...

On a more pleasant note, I imagine I will be seeing J again tonight... Mythbusters Monday and all... and on Friday, his boy arrives, which should make for, if nothing else, a couple of entertaining posts.

Current Mood: odd

senryū sunday

My mood, odd
Is this the mean reds
Back again


"Senryū is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction"

Current Mood: crappy crap crap crap

i'm sushi...

You Are Japanese Food

Strange yet delicious.
Contrary to popular belief, you're not always eaten raw.


Current Mood: yeah... kinda beige actually

photo friday: crystal

chandelier crystalHard Rubbish Day in North Adelaide just amuses me...

During my walk at the beginning of the week I saw a fridge, a wheelchair, three computer monitors and a CPU, a washing machine, six green 60's style dining chairs, a phone, a headless concrete duck, a huge sheet of glass, a giant bag of potting mix, a door, a mirror and a chandelier...

And that's just the stuff I remember...

That's where the crystal came from though... the chandelier... it was the big one from right up at the top and I just snatched it off as I went past. I had intended to grab a few more crystals off of it on the following day, but alas, it wasn't there anymore.

It's currently hanging from the Dreamcatcher in my bedroom window and casting pretty rainbow patterns all over the bathroom door... I just wish it looked as bright and sparkly in the picture as it does hanging there...

Current Mood: doin okay

random gladiator hotness

This morning's Random Hotness comes via The Pretty Boys Club... I'm always up for a nice bit of "Random-Ancient-Culture Inspired Hotness", and the whole Roman/Gladiator vibe works just fine. I've seen the image on the right before, and for some reason I keep thinking that the images are from some kind of Nike campaign, but I have no idea.

gladiatorgladiator

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

a slow week...

Actually, not just a slow week thus far, but a fricken freezing one too...

So between the cold and the slow... not really a lot to blog about...

Dinner with J on Monday night was good... the stirfry worked out really well too, even if I do say so myself... but even though we hadn't chatted like that for a year, it was like nothing had actually changed... well, not a lot really...

He said I seemed different, but in a good way... but he couldn't define it for me any further than that. I think it could be partly the walking and partly the blogging... although I didn't actually tell him about the latter, just the walking... although we did touch on various things that I've blogged about... the mentor mode stuff specifically... as well as the fact that I adore him and am annoyed by him in equal quantities... which sounds harsh, but made sense given the conversation we were having at the time.

I think what he was picking up from he could have been as simple as the fact that I'm actually able to let all the stuff that swirls around my brain out (onto the blog mostly), and occasionally make some sense out of it. Which is so much more preferable to what I've done in the past...

Like I said... it's been freezing so far this week... this morning when I fired up the blog, my little Weather Punk in the side menu was telling me it was 4°C... and that was AFTER I'd gotten back from my walk... so I can only imagine how cold it must have been while I was out there.

See what I've been reduced to... blogging about the weather again...

Current Mood: cold feet

a swan?

You Were a Swan

You are a spiritual soul who sees into the future.
You are also good at interpreting dreams - those of yourself and others.

motionblur monday

motionblur 2006Originally I had intended this to be "mobile phone image monday"... but due to user error with the phone, the photo I took this morning on my walk wasn't suitable for posting... and rather than skipping an image completely (and because I don't have any Monday Montages laying around at present), which I think starts the week off on completely the wrong foot, I trolled through my digital archives to see what I had "lying around"... after I took the Light Play image back at the end March, I fooled around a little with my fairy lights and tried doing the same kind of images with them. This one came from me spinning around and around in one direction, then stopping, and spinning the other way... I think...

Like I said, I'm still getting used to my new phone... It's happened every time I've upgraded from one model to another... you've used the old version for two years solidly, you know what you're doing, how to do it, how to take the appropriate shortcuts, all the ins and outs... and then you get a new phone and you're completely clueless again for a while...

Just about everything that can be different with this new one is different... different style of headphones... different incoming message tone... in fact a completely different text messaging setup... then there's this whole split level keypad thing because it's a "slide" phone... and then there's the camera... The reason for the screwup this morning was because although my phone is set to take 1600x1200 images (so I can still shrink them down and keep some level of quality), as soon as you use the zoom it takes the image at a lower size... which just seems dumbass to me... but I guess I will have to get used to it (and avoid using the zoom at all costs).

One thing I do like is that I can now take ANY image I like and turn it into wallpaper for my phone... porn, famous works of art, Random Hotness, Photo Fridays, or any of my other photos... or anyone's photos really.... so long as it's croppable to 240x320, I can make it wallpaper... my phone jacks right into the computer and even has a program to create the wallpapers and send them across... scary!

Oh, and so baffled by the new technology was I last Thursday that after I'd fiddled with the new headphones and got the radio working and worked out where and what I was doing... I took the wrong set of keys off my keyring (Ma and I have the exact same brand of doorkey) and since I automatically set the top part of the lock so that it locks when I pull the door shut, I managed to lock myself out of the house.... at 7am... and my landlord's office doesn't open until 8:30, so I would have had about half an hour to kill after my walk. Instead I called Ma and she came down while I was walking, let herself in and waited for me to get back.

J is probably coming down to dinner tonight for Mythbusters Monday... It'll be just like old times... well, except that I'm going to do a big-ass stirfry... which reminds me, I should get some chicken out of the freezer... which just turned into veal, because I couldn't find the chicken to start with, and the veal is in a longer tray and is taking up more space...

I noticed this morning that my Parlour Palm is doing funny things... It's sent out these strange little alien tendril things... in two spots... and one of them has this very H.G. Wells-esk looking "four fingered hand" on the end of it... It almost looks like it's getting ready to either flower, or fruit or something... but I've never seen one of these do either... luckily I have an online buddy who happens to be trained in botany... so I'll have to ask her what the hell is going on...

Unfortunately there aren't really any new naked Big Brother links... just more of the same really...

Current Mood: a little chilly... again... but good

two

twoI was kinda all out of things to blog about today... even a rummage through other people's blogrolls and unfamiliar blogs didn't unearth anything to blog about, so I went looking through things I'd stuck in text files for that proverbial rainy day... and I found this... the Two Meme... not overly original, but it will do... it goes with the First, Four and Seven Meme's...

Two Names You Go By
1. yaniboy/yani
2. CaptainCrunch (for other random online purposes)

Two Parts of Your Heritage
1. English
2. Australian

Two Things That Scare You
1. Big woofly dogs
2. Confrontation

Two of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Digital camera
2. Mobile phone

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Livestrong bracelet
2. Glasses

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists (at the moment)
1. Pink
2. Lily Allen

Two Things You Want in a Relationship (other than Real Love)
1. Fun
2. Companionship

Two Physical Things that Appeal to You
1. Red hair/pale skin/freckles
2. Long fingers

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. Photography
2. Web design/Blogging

Two Things You Want Really Badly
1. Ongoing financial independance
2. Snuggles

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation
1. London
2. San Francisco

Two Things You Normally Wouldn't Admit
1. I often get bored giving blowjobs
2. I'm a big fraidy-cat

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now
1. My hand is cold
2. Whether J will be coming over for dinner and Mythbusters tomorrow night

Two Stores You Shop At
1. Borders
2. EzyDVD

Current Mood: overly non-committal

purple again...

intuitiveThe first color you chose reveals that you're feeling Intuitive today

For centuries, colors have been known for their energizing, calming and empowering qualities. In schools of psychology, a leading color theory suggests that your color preferences can also indicate what's on your subconscious mind. From your choices, here's what we found out about you. Like other people who choose Violet first, you might pick up on things before they're evident to others. The fact that you chose Violet first also indicates that others probably trust your perceptions and rely on your great instincts.

How rare is this color choice? 20% of test takers also chose Violet first, but less than 0.10% of test-takers share your exact 8-color sequence.

The Color Test

Current Mood: good but tired

photo friday: j-boi

art © jJ's back... safe and sound...

I didn't end up going to the airport to meet him, although I did think about it... he ended up calling me from Perth Airport and told me to meet him at his parent's place instead. So I zipped down there and ended up wandering back and forth on the footpath outside their place for at least half an hour. And because I'd forgotten exactly what kind of car his mum drives, I was paying attention to every car that went past.

He hasn't changed one single solitary little bit... not one... he doesn't even have a slight accent... it was like he'd never been away.

I didn't stay for long... figured I would say hey and then let him do the family thing tonight (even though he said to me on the phone that I was more or less family anyway)... I have no doubt that as soon as he's bored with his real family he'll want to come and hang out here.

And the painting (or at least a portion of it... I originally had the full shot up, but changed my mind and went with this cropped version instead)... that's my birthday present from J... he painted it himself... and then had to carry it in his suitcase on three planes (they wouldn't let him post it in London)... but it survived unscathed... well mostly... since it was still a little wet in spots, the pattern of the bubblewrap got printed onto the paint in at least one spot. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better birthday present... I mean, c'mon.... he made art for me!

Current Mood: very happy

random rough hotness

Sometimes my tastes run to the "pretty boy-next-door", like last week's Random Hotness... and other times it runs to what I like to call "light industrial"... tattooed, pierced, occasionally shaven headed and all around "bad boys" (the lighter end of rough trade basically). Which brings me to Michael Alago's book, Rough Gods... some of his models are a little bit too "heavy industrial" for my tastes, but these two guys, porn star Damon Dogg (on the left) and the mysterious Linus (on the right) are just right...

damon dogglinus

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

new phone

new phone, new phone... i have the black one on the right*does the new phone dance*.... New phone, new phone, new phone, new phone...

What a day though...

I dropped my car off for it's six monthly service at 9am, Ma picked me up at the dealership, we swung back past my place briefly, then went off for our second visit to Ikea... it scared me less this time, mostly because there were a metric ton less people (although there was still a small crowd around the doors before the store even opened at 10am), and we actually got into the restaurant (since we went there as soon as the store opened)... I tried Princess Cake... it's very green and mostly seems to be cream/fluff... interesting, but not the best thing I've ever eaten... wandered around randomly for about two and a half hours and came out with a $3 bowl and a pair of $1 bookends (although truthfully we really went there so that Ma could get the measurements for a kitchen bench she wants to buy)... so still a little scary...

Then we headed into town, picked up my order of The Breakfast Club and Weird Science from EzyDVD (woohoo... 80's flashbacks and Ilan Mitchell-Smith in his underpants), before heading down to Optus World to take a look at new mobiles since we were both pretty sure our contracts should have expired (and in the past the nice folks from Optus had actually contacted us about new phone, but this time, nothing). Turns out our contracts had expired last year, so we were definately due for new phones. After chatting with the perky Asian girl in the store we both decided to get the same phone (at least that way when Ma goes "How do I make my phone...?" I've got a running head start on the answer)... the Nokia 6280!

Sliding keypad, large colour display, 2 megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, music player and radio and Bluetooth connectivity... woo-freakin-hoo!

It's a cute little thing (it's the black version, like on the right of the picture), now I just have to work out how to use all the bells and whistles.

Anyway, after "impulse buying" the phones, we came home and played with them for a bit, before I made some dinner, then Ma dropped me off at the dealership to pick up my car and we both took off for our respective homes...

Current Mood: *new phone dance*

movies: mission impossible 3

mission impossible 3 - your mission, should you choose to accept it...Originally I hadn't intended on going to see Mission: Impossible III, but since The New World (which I originally wanted to see) doesn't seem to be playing anywhere in the state for some unknown reason, I had to settle for Cruisefest III...

Each MI movie seems to get further and further away from the original Mission Impossible concept as I remember it from the late 80's revival version... the original movie was possibly the closest, then the second was essentially a James Bond movie without the Bond... then this seems to just be a random action movie that happens to have MI additions.

While I (like a large proportion of the world I would imagine) am pretty much over Tom as a person, I have to give him his due... for the most part you actually forget all that TomKat nonsense during the movie... granted, you're not given a whole lot of time to actually do any thinking, but I don't know, given the movie, that that's necessarily a bad thing.

I am a fan of J.J. Abrams though, mostly from his work on Lost (although I have enjoyed the odd episode of Alias... I'm just not sure that he makes the transition from episodic teevee to feature film all that well.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was entertaining... and 100% action packed... and full of attractive (the edible Jonathan Rhys Meyers and, to a lesser degree, Billy Crudup), familiar (Ving Rhames, back again for a third paycheck) or unexpected (the actually surprisingly good "action version" of Keri Russell) casting... and the beautiful Michelle Monaghan gets another chance to shine (well, she does as much as she can with what she's given)... but, it was really all a bit been there, seen that, blown it all up before...

It almost felt as though they had taken the scripts from the first two movies and plucked out pieces of plot and then mashed them about a bit and filled in the gaps with random stock plot. And maybe they did... it had been offered to two other directors and been mangled around, sorry, in development at that stage, then it got further "development" after J.J. came on board... characters dropped, script rewritten... and while it does all hold together, when you do start to think about it after it's over and you can engage your brain again, it all feels like stuff we've seen before.

They didn't really even give the locations a chance to shine... Berlin, The Vatican City (or at least some part of Rome that doubled for it), Shanghai... there were no really amazingly lush visuals... yeah, one or two quick establishing shots, but that's about it... most of the rest of it seemed to have been filmed inside rooms or studio sets.

And I'm not really sure that having the movie start in the "present" before it "flashes back" to the start of the story was really the best way to handle it... I think keeping more of an element of surprise about what you think is going to happen would have worked a little better for this particular movie.

I was also disappointed that, without giving too much away, when Tom's character goes into the big impenetrable building to get the random plot device, they don't even bother showing us what happens inside... we get stuck outside in the van with the underused offsiders, Jonathan and Maggie Q...

And Muse was right... Tom does spend far too much time running in his movies... I think he spends about a quarter of MI3 (and most of that in the latter half) running in some form or another...

yani's rating: 2 Rabbit's Feet out of 5

montage monday: eyes

eyes 2000-2005Welcome to this week's installment of Monday Montage... I'm feeling almost unbearably perky this morning... it's amazing what a little decent nooky will do... although after all that (non-sexual) wrasslin' we did, I'm a little sore in spots this morning...

Today's Montage is all about eyes, obviously... but they're all eyes from shots that I've taken with various models and friends, sixteen eyes, sixteen models... One of the things I would really love to do if I ever won the lottery (right after I bought an apartment and a digital camera) would be to do a "world tour" visiting the home towns of certain bloggers and taking their photos...

I officially need a new title... yaniboy, shoekiller... I noticed when I was in town after my haircut on Friday, that the sole of my left shoe had come away from the shoe itself... that's the third pair of shoes I've "killed" since the end of March... I wore through the sole of the first pair... the innersole of the second pair came loose... and the sole of this pair just about came off completely...

Fortunately, because I'd "fessed up" to Ma about my walking after the "clown pants" incident a couple of weeks ago (I didn't want to say anything originally in case I didn't keep doing it, and then I just didn't say anything because, and this sounds dumb, she never asked the right questions... she never asked me directly, so I never said), when I told her about the shoe killing she took me out and bought me a "proper" pair of shoes for walking in.

Originally we looked, as always, in Target, but they didn't have anything that was quite right, so we ended up going to Rowe and Jarman, who, luckily, were having a sale, so I got a pair of Reebok SXT Cross Trainers, which had been $120, but were marked down to $60 (I nearly got Nikes, but they had originally been $80 and were only marked down to $70, but they were very pretty, white with a bigass swoosh on the side, and it was nearly a case of style over substance again) ...

Sunday was Mother's Day, but because I'd see Ma on Saturday and she actually doesn't particularly care about Mother's Day (partly, I think because she's originally English and is more used to the English version of the day), I didn't see her on Sunday. Luckily I managed to get Ma's present on Saturday, I already had it on order at one store, but we found it in a different store while we were shopping, so that made life easier.

Speaking of Ma, she's on leave this week, so we'll be doing the movie thing during the day on Tuesday, which should be fun. And then Wednesday, I'm going to end up spending the whole day with her because I have to drop my car in for a service and she's going to pick me up and drop me back at the dealership.

After I did my big post about BlueDragon yesterday I had a realisation... J comes back on Friday, which is also the 19th, which, it turns out, is the same date BD got here seven years ago... and J's plane gets in around noon... the same time that BD's plane got in... stoopid Universe...

jamie's stoopid headbandAnd speaking of stoopid... in my seemingly ongoing weekly Big Brother related post... which this week contains more than just random nudity... yesterday when I was on my way home from getting a paper, I happened to cross paths with a family on their way (I'm guessing) back to their car after being at the movies... and the boy, who must have been around ten years old, was wearing his own version of BB contestant Jamie's stoopid headband (shown to perfection by the big monkey himself on the right)... unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) his version wasn't just the band cut off from some old sweater, no, it was properly knitted (probably by his Gran) and hence didn't have the ragged edge to it... all I have to say is that if Jamie is being turned into a role model or fashion icon for Australia's pre-teen set, then the whole country is in serious trouble...

gaylord's stoopid eyebrowsBut that's not all the BB news... obviously this crop of housemates is so dull that they're already reduced to sending in the intruders... two women and one "uber-faggy" gay hairdresser with overly manicured eyebrows (see the horror, stage right)... more manicured than either of the female intruders in fact. Now, if there's one thing I can't stand, and that actually makes me physically ill, it's seeing gay men with overly manicured eyebrows... especially over-shaped or pencil thin eyebrows... it's just disgusting and just makes me want to slap the offender until he gets a clue. I have no problem with removing a monobrow or a little light manscaping... but when you're eyebrows look like they have been painted on, it's time to get a clue! And if "resident gay housemate" David gives this guy even a second look I'll be even more disturbed by his ongoing appallingly bad taste in men...

Current Mood: still fairly perky, but maybe not as much as the beginning of this post

thoughts on bluedragon

blue dragonI mentioned in my kissing post the other day that there was a post somewhere in the wind about BlueDragon, but I just had to pin it down... it looks like this weekend is going to be all about big posts, so here goes...

The scary thing is that at this point in my relationship with him I still don't really quite know what category we fits into... we've been a little bit of everything to each other... friends, soulbrothers, long distance partners, ex-partners, lovers very briefly... and I guess I'm having trouble classifying what the current status of my relationship with him is, because we're not really one thing or another at this point.

We'll go with "friend" for the time being I guess, its not completely accurate, but it will do.

The other scary thing is that because I've kept all of his emails in the eight years we've been friends, I can actually give completely accurate dates about a lot of things... which is just too disturbing for words.

Anyway... BD and I "met" on 10 March 1998 (see, told you), when he sent me an email through a website I had just started, a fan site for a graphic novel series we both enjoyed... His original message was quite generic, just one of those "hi, how you doing" type things, so I sent him back an equally generic reply. Then we started with those "where are you, what do you do" type questions. Turned out he lived in Random Town, New Jersey, USA, but it wasn't the first time I'd chatted back and forth with someone half a world away, so we started this email friendship, even though, as far as I knew at that point, he was straight (he was certainly dating a woman at the time) and all it was going to be was an email buddy.

Then the flirting started... actually it started fairly early on, but I'm a huge flirt via email, way more so than I am in real life, and if someone flirts with me, I flirt back.

Eventually the truth came out, and after some gentle persuasion from me, so did he... or, at least, more out. And he and I just got, well, complicated... To be completely honest though, I think things would still have been complicated even if he had lived across the street... granted, it would have been a whole different set of problems than the "he lives halfway around the planet" set we were (and for better or worse, still are) dealing with, but still complicated.

It took about three months of chatting before BD told me he was in love with me... at which point I did what has become an unfortunately repeating pattern in our ongoing relationship and ran for the hills. One thing I will say about him, he doesn't give up, and while I technically wasn't talking to him, he still sent me a few emails. Eventually (four months later) I caved in and replied, but on the stipulation that we were just going to be friends.

We were mostly doing okay at that point, he finally stopped dating the woman, and I was assisting him to get in touch with his inner faygola... it was weird, because at that stage I was well past all that "everyone must know I'm a homosexual" stage, and he was just entering it, so I got to, once again, be all mentory...

Around the beginning of 1999 he decided that he was going to spend his vacation (and a huge chunk of change) that year by coming to visit me. I think at one point the original plan might have been for me to go to the US, but since he was living at home and had way more disposable income than I did, the plan got switched around.

By the time his visit was getting closer, we both knew that when he did make it here, there was no way that we weren't going to end up sleeping together (both literally in in the euphamistic sense). In the couple of months preceding his visit not only had our emailing back and forth increased to just about daily, but the flirting had too.

Then the fateful day arrived... Thursday, 19 May 1999 (yep, seven years ago next Friday, which I only just realised)... His visit was for ten days and we were both a bundle of nerves in the week leading up to the day. On the day itself, Ma was going to do the honours of picking him up from the airport and dropping him off at my place since I had to work, but at the last minute (and possibly because I was a big ball of nervous energy that morning) my boss at the time told me to take a couple of hours off, go pick him up and deposit him home, then come back into work.

Which I did... and that's where the first kiss came about. It was interesting actually, for reasons that I still don't understand I wasn't ready to rush into going "all the way" with him, and we actually decided put it off until the Wednesday after he arrived (we'd planned a whole date night, going out to dinner and all, and I had thought about stopping on the way home to get him some flowers, but he met me at work that night and walked home with me, so I had no chance, but when I walked in the door there was a vase with 6 red and 6 white roses sitting on my kitchen counter... all together now... awwwww), but on the Tuesday night we'd been to Marion with Ma (possibly to see a movie, I don't remember), and we were sitting in the back seat together on the way home and I just whispered in his ear that I wanted to take that extra step (although I think I described it a little more graphically at the time).

Even before that though, I couldn't keep my hands off him... we went out to lunch with some girls I used to work with and I held his hand in the cafe because I couldn't NOT touch him. Yeah, he annoyed me a little (complaining he was cold and running the heater while wandering around shirtless... grrr, put some clothes on dammit), and by the end of the ten days we really did need a break from each other (my apartment is just too damn small for two people on a regular basis), but having him here was great, and there are a bunch of memories (both G rated and X rated) that I hold onto fondly from his trip.

During his last couple of days here we started talking about the future... our future... and if we were going to spend it together, and what we were going to have to do to make that happen. In the end we decided to investigate the possibilities of him moving out here permanently, although I think we were both fairly nervous about the idea. And at the same time I made a commitment to start saving for a trip to the US to visit him. I started a separate savings account and everything so that I wouldn't spend the money I was supposed to be saving.

And then the bottom fell out of my world...

I got fired from the job I'd been in since the beginning of that year. I still don't like going into details, but while I didn't do anything illegal, it was still completely my own fault. Unfortunately though, because I was fairly ashamed of myself at the time, I closed up, not only about that, but a little in general, and started shutting BD out of my life...

So much so that he got involved with someone else online (which in itself was a comedy of errors, since as I discovered much later the person in question had lied to him all along, not only about their age, but also their gender and the whole relationship was just doomed even before it began). When he finally confessed to me about this other person in January 2000, predictably, I was less than pleased... and basically "broke up with him". I did give him one parting shot though, an uber-crafted email designed to hit every single one of his emotional buttons/sore spots... I figured if he was going to choose someone else over me, then there was no way I was going to make that easy for him to go.

At that point I was officially through with him... he sent me a few message on and off (to confess about "The Other Woman" and her deception amongst other things), but I didn't reply to any of them, I was completely and utterly done with the whole situation.

Then around August 2000, he sent me a message that read halfway between a goodbye message and a suicide note. And even with all the other crap that had gone on between us I couldn't sit idly by if he was thinking of killing himself, even if I was on the other side of the planet and couldn't physically do anything. So after a rather panicked phone call to Lownee to discuss what she thought about his message and whether I was overreacting or not, I emailed him back, taking a pretty hard line... in fact the first line of my email was "Don't you dare, you selfish little shit, don't you DARE kill yourself!"...

Whether he had actually intended to kill himself or not I'm still not sure, I think it had crossed his mind, but he hadn't attempted anything, and while I can't say that my letter stopped him I think his email was a cry for help, whether he recognises it or not. That was the point that we started emailing again though. Kind of slowly and tentatively at first, it was over a month before either of us started using opening salutations in the emails... I don't even remember why now, but it just seemed appropriate at the time.

We got back into a fairly regular emailing groove for a while, for two years actually... but then we started rehashing old traumas and drama and having the same discussions and arguments over and over again... and we both said some hurtful things and there was a lot of anger there, so in the end, I just stopped writing.

But as we know, everything happens for a reason (and the Universe likes to mess with me), and on Lownee's birthday that year (which would make it 19 December 2003, which was after she and Ludo had disappeared out of my life) my brain exploded...

I'd set my mobile phone to give me reminders on people's birthdays, and when my phone went off at work that morning, telling me it was Lownee's birthday, I just sat there for a couple of minutes looking at it. I thought about her a couple of times on and off through the day, and when I got home, I opened my mailbox and found a card from BlueDragon's mother... which had a little letter in it, the last line of which said something along the lines of "BD is still alone".

That was enough to make me lose it, but what made it about a million times worse is that the one person I wanted to call and discuss it with was Lownee. Who else would get it, who else had I run to for every other major mindfuck about BD... Lownee... and I couldn't.... which of course, made it worse. And that was about the time my brain exploded and I just dissolved into a puddle.

I ended up calling Ma and bitching, crying and talking to her for a good long while, when, because it was December and stinking hot I threw myself in the shower to cool off before sitting down at the computer and checking my email.

And guess who the first email was from? Yep, that's right... BlueDragon...

The final act in my own personal three act Greek tragedy....

But, since the universe was obviously trying to tell me something, I both read it, and then replied.

And since then we've been pretty good for the most part. One or other of us gets really slack (okay, its mostly me) and doesn't write for a couple of months, but we haven't had a major falling out (at least that I can remember or find in my emails) since then.

I still love him (although I'm not in love with him) and he still bugs the crap out of me on occasion... and I do sometimes wonder that if I was actually supposed to be with ANYONE on this turn of the wheel, whether it was meant to be him... but then I figure if that had been the case then it would have happened already... right? At the same time I actually wonder whether it's him, or the idea of him that I'm still so attached to... and that's one I still can't answer.

Current Mood: pretty contented i have to say

playtime with marc

bryan and tyler by howard roffmanWell, that was interesting...

After all the associated drama-rama involved in actually getting Marc here, tonight was a highly enjoyable evening... I'm hoping it didn't end on a slightly sour note (which is kind of the way I feel right now), but the rest of it was quite enjoyable...

I'd been in a vague state of random nerves since about 3:30 this afternoon, and by about 5, I'd had enough of it, so I stuck The Emperor's New Groove, which I got today, in the DVD player to kill the hour and a half before Marc was due to get here... it actually worked really well, completely distracted me from, well, myself basically, and so when he SMS'ed me just before the movie ended saying he was on his way I was doing okay.

Unfortunately there was a gap of time between the movie ending and him arriving that led to me doing my usual pacing around and occasional curtain peeking... I can't help it... I'm not a patient person.

Anyhow, he arrived pretty much on time (as always, point to him) and we did the brief banter thing about the apartment and how he went the wrong way on my street, etc... and then he gave me some cheesily appropriate opening line that I could respond to by kissing him, and things progressed from the living room to the bedroom.

Its interesting... I'm kind of stuck for words about the sex... don't get me wrong, it was enjoyable, but it possibly wasn't the best part of the evening... if I'm being completely and totally 100% honest, it wasn't even the best sex I've ever had (although defining what and when the best sex I've ever had was may be an ordeal in itself, although there are two possible finalists that spring to mind)... but luckily it was the thing that I quoted in a previous post about "friends with benefits"...

The advantages of friends with privileges is that sex is easy and comfortable, without all the pressures and limitations of a relationship.

Maybe it's just because we've already gotten that "getting to know you" sex out of the way at the sauna... maybe it's because I'm approaching this as a true "friends with benefits" scenario rather than just as a casual hookup, but after an initial (and I'll admit, typical) moment of unease on my part, the sex was exactly that... easy and comfortable... and fun. Yes, we're each still learning what the other likes (and conversely, doesn't like), but I had no qualms about pointing him in appropriate directions (like biting my neck, which after I initially said he could do it, he said "but my teeth are sharp", and I replied "so?" to which he countered with "it'll hurt", and I replied "so?"... although I doubt that the marks that he did leave will even last the weekend... amateur *grin*), or quizzing him on certain practices and issues, or just diving in when and where it felt appropriate.

Interestingly, while the sex wasn't in the top ten, I would have to rate my orgasm as amongst the more intense (although whether it was a direct result of the effort and actions I did to achieve it or not, I don't know... which sounds odd, but I actually can't word it any better than that right now, and I know that I mean)... I actually couldn't do very much but kneel and breathe for a good couple of minutes afterwards... and I think it was only because of a straying (and unintentionally tickling) hand from Marc that I actually regained my powers of speech.

We did the post-coital snuggle after that, but because he wouldn't stop either attempting to tickle me, or after that mostly failed, blowing raspberries on any part of me he could reach, our snuggle turned into a wrestling match, with me trying to stop him from tickling and raspberrying, and, in the end, succeeding thanks to my double jointed wrists and hands and flexible legs (not to mention my both height and weight advantage over him). That was actually really fun, completely unsexual, even though we were both naked, but enjoyable in a whole other way (that really stupid and childish way mostly).

Having said that though, I may have tweaked my back slightly (not completely his fault, since I think I tweaked it initially sitting in my car this afternoon), and either stretched or tweaked my wrist, since that is bugging me at the moment.

Oh this weak and feeble shell, how I curse thee... or something...

At any rate, we got slightly overheated from all the rasslin' (well, him more than me, since I'm, as he put it, like a big hot water bottle... I do have a very warm body temp normally and can put out a lot of heat in the right situation), and he decided he was going to go outside and have a smoke break (and I'm repeating again, big point off from his overall score for that) which, in the end, actually made a natural act break between the "bedroom playtime" and the "living room friend time". I was actually surprise to find, when I checked the clock on the microwave, that we'd been in the bedroom for about an hour and a half... between the sexin' and the rasslin'... not bad really...

The one downside to having a buddy like my buddy J, is that all conversations you have with other people, you have an unfortunate tendency to use the conversations with J as the measuring scale everyone else gets rated against.

I also think I partly know why some of the conversations with J have gone on into the very wee small hours of the morning, because it's only once you've talked through all the superficial drivel that you get to the good stuff... which is kind of how the conversation went with Marc and I, but we didn't get to as much of the good stuff as I would have liked. And I take full responsibility for my part in that... I probably could have steered the conversation in that direction earlier, but I just didn't. What I did find interesting was that I found myself quoting various things I've written here almost word for word... like I said in one of my earlier posts about Marc, a lot of the stuff in my brain has already been aired out and given some semblance of order thanks to the blog, so, for the most part, I was able to articulate myself better than if I'd just been flying off the cuff.

One thing that does annoy me about Marc though... and that is him cutting me off partway through a story and telling a story of his own that gets us to a tangent place from where we were that then it's really difficult to come back from (J and I do that too, but we do what we call "The Billy Connolly Effect", where we tend to go back and finish off each of the abandoned conversations at the end). That, and the fact that once or twice it almost felt as though we were talking at cross purposes, or he wasn't always getting where I was coming from... but then I do talk a million miles an hour on occasion, and my brain is wired up in a singularly unique way and sometimes it does take a little while for people to get used to that.

And for the record, I did end up asking him the two questions I mentioned in my last post about him... namely, was he imposing a "time limit" on our time so he had an "escape"... and was he planning on heading to the sauna after he left here. I almost didn't... not because I chickened out, but because, after having spent the evening with him, they actually didn't seem as important as they did a couple of days ago. To be honest, the time limit one just seemed dumb after part of the conversation we'd had (and it turned out he actually left just after 10:30, an hour later than he had initially mentioned), but it was actually the second question that threw me for a slightly loop. It was answered, but I never actually asked it. It had floated around my brain, and I just though "I actually don't need to ask this", which is what I said to Marc, that it wasn't an important enough question to actually ask... but then he proceeded to answer it as though I'd just verbalised the question. And he did it without skipping a beat. Turns out that he had thought about it, but had decided against it because he needed the sleep (the cynic in me wonders if he did actually go or not, but without evidence to the contrary I can only go with what he tells me).

Where I initially thought the evening ended on a sour note (but I'm now not thinking that it really matters all that much) was when I asked him if he would consider spending the night at some stage... I asked partly for two reasons, the first being completely selfish, it's been a really long time since I did have anyone stay the night, and it would just be nice... and secondly (but, if I'm being completely honest, the much lesser reason) that I'd enjoyed tonight and would enjoy spending the night with him. Unfortunately I'm still not perfect at reading him yet, at least before I've verbalised something, and if I'd actually let myself think about it I probably wouldn't have asked.

I think (okay, thats not true, I pretty much know) that he's had more than a couple of bad experiences with people getting too attached to him too soon, because that was part of what he said to me, that it was too early to ask that question (although I don't agree, since I like to work on a "If you don't ask, you don't get" basis... even though asking for it doesn't mean I get it), and that, for him, that would be a much bigger step than actually coming over (since even getting him over here was the first big step)... I kinda doubt it will make him pull away from this whole thing we've finally gotten started... and I'm hoping that he enjoyed tonight enough to come back for more (which I think he did).

Do I think I'll develop "the wrong kind" of feelings for him and overcomplicate things... I think the jury is still out on that one, but at this stage I wouldn't think it's a high likelihood, I still believe there's enough about him that will keep me sufficiently at bay and stop me from getting over attatched... but you never know I guess.

Current Mood: sleepy and fairly contented

my ben and jerry's flavour is...

You Are "In a Crunch" Ice Cream

The perfect combo: a completely nuts person who likes to be touched


Current Mood:
nervous about tonight, but how accurate is this quiz...

photo friday: building art

building art 2006I took this while I was in town getting my hair cut this morning...

It's on what used to be the David Jones building, and I have no idea if it has a name, but between the statue and the facade of the building it's actually quite striking.

This is unfortunately the best angle I could get of it, since there's a tree and a phonebox in the way that stopped me from getting more "head on" to it.

Current Mood: looking forward to tomorrow...

ongoing hair adventures

You know, it's been two whole months since I last had my hair done! And if I'm being completely honest, it had actually started looking a little ratty around the edges before I went off to work for a week, but I figured that if I could actually wait the extra week, then I could afford to have it coloured and cut...

I was originally hoping I could go tomorrow morning, but when I went in to book last week, some rude person had already booked my hairdressing girly, Tink, for first thing Saturday, so I had to settle for first thing this morning.

As usual this morning, the walk came first, and I got home around 8:10, jumped in the shower, and to my horror, when I jumped out of the shower again it was smack on 8:30... which was the time I wanted to leave and catch the bus into the city. So I dressed at turbo speed and took off to catch the bus. Luckily one rocked up just after I got to the stop, and I was actually in the city with 10 mintues to spare (just enough time to go and grab an Iced Coffee) before my 9am appointment. Phew...

Turns out I wasn't the only one running almost nearly late... when I got to the hairdressers, the door was open, but there was nobody around, and the door buzzer thing didn't go off when I went inside... I called out hello, and eventually Tink appeared from the basement... she'd gotten in a little later than usual, and it turned out that at least three of the other staff were going to be off, and, like me, she hadn't even had time for breakfast...

It was nice having the place to ourselves for a bit (even if she did have to keep stopping to answer the phone)... but being that it was a weekday morning, when the other customers did start to come in, they were mostly little old ladies having their weekly perm or whatever...

Anyway, when Tink asked what we were doing, I told her that we were pretty much going with the same cut and colour as we have in previous sessions, but that I wanted to try going a little lighter with the colour... but not a lot... just something subtle... she suggested we get rid of the half 6%, and go with with half 9A half 510, 9% developer... which I decided sounded like a plan... and I also asked her to make the cut a little more textured, which she did.

The colour didn't turn out half bad actually, it's a little lighter than I expected, but it almost exactly matches my very pale eyebrows, so it still looks natural, which has always been the point.

And while my colour was doing it's thing, Tink was chatting to the little old lady next to me, and I found out that she's leaving for at least three months, possibly for good... grrrr... and just when I had her trained to do my hair the way I like. That seems to happen with me and hairdressers all the time... in fact, the last time it happened, when Rachael went to Scotland, that's when I got Tink... looks like I'll be going back to Rachael, at least until she has her baby... and hopefully, if Tink is coming back, she'll be back when Rachael does go on maternity leave...

Current Mood: new hair... yaaay

space cadet reprise

space cadet repriseOn Monday I mentioned that Marc was supposed to call me Monday or Tuesday...

I didn't hear from him Monday night... I didn't hear from him while I was at Camera Club on Tuesday night... I didn't hear from him last night...

And I swear, before Lost started tonight (and, if I'm being completely honest, on and off all day today in various forms), I was thinking... if I say I'm going to call someone, I call them, when I said I was going to call them (usually), or, if I completely wuss out, I usually send them a text message... I really should be going back to the "He's Just Not That Into You" thing... if he was interested in hooking up, or even just being friends, he would have called... so forget that whole thing, just let it go... and ACTUALLY let it go this time... not like last time...

Then after Lost was over, I came back to the computer to goof off for a bit before I went to bed, and I got a text message. From Marc. Asking if it was okay to call.

Bloody men.

I texted him back to tell him that any time before 10:30 was usually good, then hooked the hands free kit up to the phone so I could chat comfortably. After we got the hello's out of the way, he apologised straight off for not calling (again)... and I have to admit, I did the polite thing and just went "that's okay"... which it really wasn't, but we can have that conversation later, after we've had some more sex. To be completely honest I just let him talk for the most part... not that I didn't reply appropriately, I just let him talk (sometimes you learn more just by letting them talk... of course, sometimes you don't, but sometimes it's a good bullshit detector).

Eventually he mentioned that he had wanted to get together this week (as was the plan originally if had called me when he said he was going to), and since Sunday was out (Mother's Day), he wondered what I was up to on Saturday. Saturday late afternoon/evening/night was fine (although last week when it was cold and raining elephants and hippos and I was really in need of a snugglebuddy would have been better), but then suddenly he was checking what his parents were doing (he's staying with them at the moment), and seemed to be inviting me to his place, and was mentioning some weird card game...

I nearly let him babble on about it, but the back part of my brain (you know, the bit in charge of sex, the unevolved caveman bit) was busy screaming at the top of its primitive lungs "THIS IS NOT WHAT WE ASKED FOR"... so I stopped him and basically told him that I had envisioned a rather more "fleshy" meeting than the one he was outlining, and that I didn't know that I was ready to meet his parents just yet anyway (yeah, lets try and avoid that one for as long as humanly possible, shall we).

And then I was, once again, brutally honest and overly direct about how I'd imagined this playtime would go... and that I was all for having interesting, meaningful and deep conversation... but AFTER the sex. Since it's taken nearly a month and a half to get to this stage of actually getting him through the door to my apartment, there is no way on earth I'm not having sex with him this time... I'm just really, really lucky he appreciates the direct approach.

So, Saturday evening he's coming here... it's interesting though, given what I said on Monday about me thinking that he wanted to play "in a controlled fashion, at least the first time, so that he has an out if he needs one as far as time goes"... I think I was pretty much dead on... since he's talking about coming over until around 9:30 so he can still go home and chill out. I am wondering though whether he will go home, or off to the sauna... since that seems to be his regular Saturday night routine... suppose it depends how good the sex is...

And don't think I won't ask him both of those things... but not until AFTER the sex, obviously...

Saturday looks like it could be an interesting evening... does mean I'll have to spend tomorrow afternoon and Saturday morning making sure my place is tidy though...

Current Mood: excited about saturday, but still unsure about all the drama

random teddy hotness

Today's Random Hotness actually comes courtesy of last Saturday's Video Hits... I was lazing around on my sofa, watching the music videos, when suddenly Teddy Geiger appeared on my screen.

I couldn't tell you what his song was called, but I was instantly captured by his eyes... he has the best eyes! I have to say though that he looks better in motion than in photos. And it looks like I'm not the only one who noticed him this week, given he got a mention over at Tottyworld too...

teddy geigerteddy geiger

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

what's on my bookshelves

what's on my bookshelves 2006I'm a sucker for a decent meme... and I'm even more of a sucker for anything book related...

Which is why I couldn't go past the What's On Your Bookshelves? meme that Andrew posted yesterday...

Unfortunately due to size restrictions (ie my apartment is tiny) I a) wasn't able to take just one shot to include my two bookshelves, and b) don't have as many books as I once did... although there is still a smallish (kinda) overflow living in a trunk at Ma's place... there is one other bookcase (just to the left of the CD rack) that is mostly full of DVD's but the bottom shelf of which has a lot of my large books, photography stuff for the most part.

Before I get to the books I will point out that the two Buddhas, the Laughing Buddha on the left and the multi-armed Buddha on the right, have appeared in posts before, as has the glitter lamp behind the multi-armed Buddha... the two Buddhas both sit on my stereo speakers, which flank my teevee, which is between the two bookshelves (you can see a tiny corner of it at the bottom left of the right hand pic).

And yes, there are pieces of tape on my fairy lights... that's to remind me which of the bulbs have blown... I must get around to replacing them someday...

And yes, that obviously is a naked male headless, armless and legless pseudo-Classical statue on the bottom right... another Cheap As Chips find... I think it was around $15, and although it looks like it's made of plaster, it's actually metal (and hollow).

But onto the books...

The left bookcase is "the good stuff"... the right bookcase is "the other stuff"...

Going down the shelves, some of the highlights of the left bookcase are.... top shelf, Laurell K Hamilton's pretty much entire Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry collection... second shelf, Harry Potter and assorted gay photo books, particularly stuff by Howard Roffman... third shelf, almost completely Terry Pratchett's Discworld series... fourth shelf, the collected works of Matthew Reilly and Armistead Maupin's Tales series... fifth shelf is fairly random... bottom shelf, although it's hard to see, on the left hand side there are my folders containing my photographic portfolio and negatives, and on the right, a pile of old DNA magazines.

On the right bookcase... the top shelf is completely Anne McCaffrey, although to be honest, a large section of those are going to be "donated" to Ma (possibly on Mother's Day), since I'm kind of over them... second shelf, my incomplete Katharine Kerr collection including Daggerspell, the book I mentioned in my reincarnation post... on the third shelf we have a mixture of things, including (the blue book next to the big lime green one) my "bible" when it comes to all things astrology, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need (which looks like it's out in a new edition according to Amazon.com... woohoo) and on the right side of that shelf, under a glass dome we have my collectible figure of Oz (Seth Green) from Buffy, this way he doesn't get dusty, and right next to him is my collection of bookmarks (I like to change bookmarks when I start a new book)... the fourth shelf has a lot of Agatha Christie... the fifth shelf is random again, although it does contain a couple of my Anne Rice books, and tucked away in the corner on the right hand side are my old Noddy books... and on the bottom shelf, a box of comics, my unused mini photo albums and a pile of random stuff...

And yes, for the record (and I did mention this once before), all my books are arranged from tallest on the left, to the shortest on the right on each shelf, and all the books are lined up with the edge of the shelf...

Eddy... don't say anything... not a damn word... you have no moral highground here...

Want to know something funny... for the vast majority of time while I was writing this meme, I could (and still can) smell old paper... you know, that old book smell, musty but comforting... and I have no idea where it's coming from! Weird!

Current Mood: feeling geeky