I hadn’t realised I’d been gone so long. Wow, poor blog lol. Hmm now what excuses can I come up with. I was.. abducted by aliens and ever since I was dropped back onto earth again I’ve been taking part in a clinical study of abductees experiences. Or, I went on a soul searching journey whereupon I sank into a deep zen like meditation that lasted a week. I kinda wish some of that stuff had of happened you know. At least I’d have something of value to add to this groveling post.

I did however, go into hospital last week. More examinations to check out what is going on with my insides. It’s the third time I’ve been under anesthetic now in the last 6 months or so. I’m getting hooked on the stuff. It was, in fact, the first thing I muttered when I woke up in recovery. “That was cool..”

Been sitting here for most of the evening working on a few new skins for the site, contemplating separating my more personal matter into a separate ‘Journal’ type of thing, a photo log (with a difference, but I’m not divulging yet, ooo how ominous) and a hundred or so more ideas that don’t really make any sense yet. I’ll keep working on them though. In the meantime, just wanted to stir the waters again and confirm the fact that just because this is possibly the first week gone by with no word from moi, I am indeed alive and well ;)

I just popped out to check out what all the fuss was about. Seems Mars is a bit of a show stealer at the moment. At 8pm this evening, the planet was the closest it has been to Earth in more than 70,000 years. A mere 55.67 million kms away. That’s close? Ok in all seriousness, when you get all spacey minded (and not in the way that a majority of us do on a casual basis to avoid the mundane duties of life) then I guess It’s practically on our doorstep.

I tried to be cool and get a picture of it but, being the telephoto-less girlie that I am, it just kinda looks like a very bright speck of dust on the lens. There goes that idea. It was fairly big, in comparison to what it usually is and brighter, kind of like someone up there had their porch light on, subtle mood lighting.

I might actually head over to the Sydney Observatory and get a better look at it later on this week. I haven’t been there for a while Astronomy, another one to add to the list of aspirations.

I drove to three different Subways tonight trying to find one that had honey and oat bread, because that’s my favourite and I wasn’t in the mood for any other bread (yes I’m finicky) All of them were out, just had white bread or had nothing. How can you run a Subway if you have no bread?! Alright anyway, I had to deal with white, un-fascinating as it was.

That was our quick meal plan on the way home from Dad’s Birthday gathering this evening. Had the yummiest cake EVER. Mandarin cake I made it, was very proud of the fact. Anyway, Happy Birthday Dad again. I know I’ve already said it but I thought I’d add it in one more time before the day is over

Then I watched the Australian Idol ep I’d missed. That was pretty good actually. I’m surprised everyone was so high standard this time round. I’m going to announce my favourites right now and we will see if any of those got through in the end. I’m loving Millsie, how cool is this guy? and Paulini and Cosima, who I liked from day 1. Out of those three I wouldn’t know who to pick but they are my favs.

I’m just spilling out random thoughts at the moment because my day has been all over the place. Hope everyone else had a great weekend

Ok, on to one of my most favourite subjects

1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why?
There is just no way I can choose one. I’m talking more than ten here, more than fifty perhaps! So I’ll tell you a few of them. Matthew Good, unbelievably talented guy with not a single song written yet that I don’t like. Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes, raw poetry, every single song is an epic novel. Jason Mraz, who writes crazy cool songs that cheer me up. Jump, Little Children for Jay Clifford’s gorgeous voice.

See I could go on forever here. I’m adding Muse, Placebo, Silverchair and Incubus to that list because without mentioning them it would just be weird…

2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why?
I had to actually think about this one. Rather than pinpoint one I’m going to generalise. You know all these female solo acts coming out, who dance/sing/pout/wear practically nothing? Well to them. There’s too many of them, they’re boring, they all sound the same. Whatever happened to a good singing ability being the yay or nay instead of ‘Will she look good in that gold larmay halter top’?

3. If your favorite singer wasn’t in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
Well the reason I like these people is because of what they do, so if they didn’t do that, how would I gauge whether I still liked them, considering I don’t know them in person? Heh, so I guess that answer has to be, by default, no.

4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show?
Yep! I’ve seen lots of good shows, most recent was Superheist, which comes pretty close to being the best. They create amazing atmosphere. I’ve been concert deficient the past month.

5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from downloading free music?

Well you could just read my previous post just down there on a little dilemma I was having. Or you could read my rant about pop music too. Or I could just reiterate on it again I guess.. Ok, this is a little different anyway.

Downloading vs. purchasing. I do both. Mostly because I’m ultra fussy about my music and if I love a band I have to buy their CD, just to have it, maybe It’s a collector thing. On the other hand I’ll download songs to my hearts content without worrying about whether It’s right or not. I usually download to discover and try out new music.

I don’t think the RIAA has any right to stop people from downloading music, at all. All of the musicians I know are quite happy to have their songs heard freely, their music available freely. It’s the reason they create music in the first place. I pay for my fair share of music and I support artists financially at live events. The go betweens, RIAA, are just yet another money hungry corporation who care more about their bank balance than supporting the music they put themselves behind.

I haven’t been able to access the net for the past couple of days, I updated manually, am I dedicated or what? I’m not going into details, because I assure you a rant about the incompetency of Telstra may follow and it might just never end.

Winter has well and truly passed through I think. I’m sitting here typing this with the window wide open, the most gorgeous breeze billowing the curtains, typing by candlelight, with patchouli and sandalwood scents lingering in the air. It has that summery feel about it. The kind I used to love when I still had my Suzuki Sierra. I loved that car! Picture of it is here, along with Tigger swinging from rear view mirror I had to get rid of it unfortunately. Anyway, driving along in Summer with the top down in that thing was amazing fun. I really will miss it. The warmer weather is bringing it all back.

Oh can’t forget the music. I found some really early Bright eyes & Cursive stuff that is pretty amazing, my playlist right now is made up entirely of it.

It’s my Dad’s birthday on Sunday. No dad I’m not going to let anything slip about plans/presents, I know you read this sometimes! So my dilemma is, what to get him? My dad is the hardest person on earth to buy gifts for. Just when you think you have a brilliant idea for a gift you realise he has it, or has something similar, or wouldn’t really want something like that anyway.

I have no idea what to get him. I need ideas. I don’t want to buy him socks. Although wait, after people avoiding the cliché gift of socks/tie/undies/handkerchiefs, maybe he has none of these now. Maybe that’s the perfect gift??

I doubt it, but it was worth the ten seconds of thought I spent on it. I guess I will wander around the plaza on Saturday like a little lost sheep, begging for inspiration.

When you were a kid it was easy. Dad got a hand painted portrait of himself or a coffee mug with “World’s best Dad” on it and they were always highly regarded. Heh, somehow I don’t think that would work quite the same way these days.

I’ve been wondering whether our landlord really exists. I’ve never heard from him, seen him, spoke to him. I don’t even know his/their name. All I know is the guy is a guy and he has a wife and he uhm, lives somewhere.

We’ve been here for a while now. Renting for about 4 years and in that time mystery man has done zero on upkeep or fixing all the things that just don’t work anymore. We’ve had a security door that isn’t ever since we moved in. The hot water system is dying, the side fence is falling down and the problem is, these things aren’t considered emergencies so we always get the same old reply. We will forward the request to the landlord and get back to you. So the last inspection, I handed the agent a huge list of all the stuff that needed doing and she said the usual forwarding spiel. I can just imagine mystery man’s face when he got that one!

That was a while ago now. Still haven’t heard anything.

September marks our anniversary. Oops, almost forgot. The blog and I have been together now for a year. Yep, it was back in September last year that we first met. It hasn’t always been pretty but we’ve stuck it out and here we are. We intend on snuggling up on the couch now for the remainder of the evening and reminiscing.

It feels like it was Friday two days ago and by reading this blog you might think it was too ;)

1. Is the name you have now the same name that’s on your birth certificate? If not, what’s changed?
It would be cool if it wasn’t. Not in a ‘I don’t like my name way’ because I do. But if I were an established writer with half a dozen pseudonyms or a rock star, that might be nice. That sounded like something I’d say when I was six. I wanna be a rock star!

2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be?
I’m happy with what I got, so if I could, I wouldn’t.

3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?)
I don’t think there is a fancy reason why I was named what I am. I think it was just one of those random things, flicking through baby name books and they thought Alina was a pretty name.(pronounced Aleena, for all those that were wondering)

4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why?
There’s a whole bunch of names I quite like. I’ll do this one a little later though.

5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com accurate? How or how isn’t it?
It’s fairly accurate, although a little broad in interpretation. Main points that I thought were correct,
* Others learn that you cannot be told what to do and you seldom change your mind once it is made up.
* You prefer situations that allow a degree of independence.
* When asked, you are able to give others good advice that you would probably not follow yourself, but must guard against being too opinionated in controversial matters.
* In a position dealing with the public, you could do well because of your friendly personality, interest in people, and desire to please.

As I said though. It’s a little broad. Those few points could apply to most people in different situations.

I’m back! Sorry for not pointing out the fact that I wouldn’t be here for the past week. I went away for a while. You know when you just need to get away from everything for a while and be somewhere where nobody knows you? Well I did and now I’m back feeling most refreshed

I came back to an inbox full of spam! I hate spam! Stop spamming me! Lately It’s been an absolute flood of foreign character emails. How did I get on that persons list? I can’t even read it people, stop sending them to me. Not that they read this, if they did they’d probably harvest all my other emails and set the spamage loose on those ones too. Blah, spam…

I’ve got to get to catching up with everyone now. I have a lot of reading to do. I missed my blog. I’m such a geek.

I bought a fancy new printer while I was seeking solace from life. A canon i250. I went out initially to pick up something very basic because my old one seems to have parted ways with its cable and refuses to print anymore. Some sort of artistic hissy fit.

Anyway, I was surprised to get a printer that does 4800*1200dpi for under 100 dollars. So I held my breath, bought it home, tested printing one of my digital snapshots on the sample glossy photo cards they include and I was stunned at how brilliant they are and flawless. I can’t see any pixel nastiness anywhere. I’m beginning to love canon product more and more. No doubt I was euphoric. I love when you get such good buys like that.

Ok onward I must go to catch up with everything again.