For the home:


I love these. It's kind of bean bag meets The Flintstones.




For the designer freak (I mean aficionado!):


I understand and believe in the quest for short run items and handmade goods. Quality rather than quantity. I also believe that there is an upper limit for what things are actually worth. A reasonably priced designer item can last for decades and provide the wearer with much happiness during this time. I just wouldn't pay $700 for a handbag. Call me weird but I really don't think any handbag is worth that much. These cute canvas bags are selling for $58 and are made by Pedido Tabique.




For the dot com mogul:


This is sooo nerdy that I had to include it. Is it an icon? Is it a usb drive?

Or perhaps you're a sushi person...

Colourful, fun and best of all silly, these usb drives are both lunch and storage. What more could you need?




For the beauty product nut:

These lip gloss sliding lip tins come in seven flavours and fit neatly in a purse or handbag.


I hope these ideas are a starting point to get you inspired for the coming season of giving!

technorati tags: eyes lips face sushi usb mini folder usb pedido tabique livingstones lounge

Picture this scene - you're at the 18th green, 5-10 metres away from the hole, holding on to the rope, watching Rod Pampling and Marcus Fraser battle out a sudden death playoff. The playoff results in a par for each player and they return to the 18th tee once more. Two more playoffs and holding your breath for around 20 minutes, Rod Pampling scores the winning shot. The crowd erupts into a colossal roar.

And some people say golf is boring.

The day was amazing, the food was incredibly expensive.

1 salad sandwich - $7.50

I ask you - it was two pieces of bread, a tiny bit of grated carrot, avocado dip and one small piece of lettuce. Was the bread gold plated?

The day was mind blowing, we were metres away from Robert Allenby, Rod Pampling and my partner nearly bumped into Peter Lonard as Lonard was coming out of the changing rooms. We watched Peter Senior (legend) putt on the 12th and Scott Hend tee off on the 13th.

Scott Hend hit the ball and we watched his long walk to his ball. Then we realised he wasn't stopping. He kept going, going and finally walked around to the back of the green, approximately 318 metres away. Holy crap, that's a long drive.

The realisation dawns when you actually watch these players in action. They-are-really-really-good. When you see it on TV, it doesn't quite have the same effect.

For the first time in my life I saw the presentation of the gold jacket and the trophy. If you love golf or are even just curious about golf, I suggest attending a tournament at least once.

technorati tags: Rod Pampling Wins Sportsbet Masters 2008 Huntingdale

It's that time of year again. The standouts from Choice Magazine Shonky Awards are as follows: 

Airobe Body Dryer It's basically a huge hairdryer for your body. It also seems to claim that it's environmentally friendly due to no longer needing to launder towels. Excuse me but when I have a shower I don't like to parade around without a towel with decent coverage. Must be my little quirk. For those of you who like to dance around in the nud in front of a huge hairdryer I have only one thing to say to you: You're weird, pal. 

Coles Steam Iron The purpose of an iron as I understand it is to smooth out creases in your clothing, giving you that "just laundered" look. The Coles steam iron, according to the results of Choice testing, sticks to clothes, increases creases (snigger!), and makes a big ol' steamy, watery, burny mess. If I wanted to do that to my clothes I would hang out in a steel foundry.

  Premium Mobile Services Industry

I'm not sure if anyone has heard about that guy who downloaded one episode of Prison Break and a few songs overseas and ran up a bill for around 35,000 pounds (see story here). This is a good example of how much these companies can charge for what is essentially useless content. I mean I have a phone, it rings numbers and sends texts. I don't need Kanye West's latest song as my ringtone, I don't need phone bling and I'd feel a little silly with a Harry Potter theme for my menu. I ask you, who really wants to watch an episode of Prison Break that much? And who wants to sit through the latest episode of Lost on a tiny phone screen? Here's an idea: record it, get your friends to record it, buy the DVD box set! Surely it will cost a lot less than 35,000 pounds. And parents can guard against their teenagers doing such dastardly things like downloading hotBabes4U by only allowing them to have a prepaid phone and recharging in small amounts. The recurring charges on a post-paid account can be devastating to all involved. And shame on these evil wrongdoers by targeting a naive audience and making it almost impossible to unsubscribe. 

Glaceau Vitamin Water I am also a victim of this shonkiness. I have many times consumed this concoction, erroneously believing it to be providing me with some kind of health benefit. Now, through these awards I have discovered I have been consuming a third of the daily sugar requirement for an adult female. AND I've often been consuming one of these before my 1-2k walks. Talk about a false economy! I don't even have sugar in my dandelion coffee! Argh! I also discovered that these drinks contain less than 1% fruit juice and are packed with artificial colouring. Yet another product to drop from my list. *sigh* Thanks to Choice for exposing the shonkiness infiltrating our consumer goods. Keep up the good work!

 

 

technorati tags: Shonky Awards Choice Magazine

I was sorry to learn from Blogetiq that BlogMad is closing down on the 12th of December 2008.















It's a real pity because I know of many people (myself included!) who know and love the site and surf through blogs regularly to earn credits at a 1:1 ratio. I have noticed a number of sites are closing down including matched.co.uk and various others. I wonder if it is due in part to the credit crunch? Or credit splat more like it, since that's the noise it's going to make when it hits its rear end on the bottom of the ladder. Eeek! I hope this doesn't affect too many sites because the rise of interesting blogging resources is required more than ever. We need to know how screwed things are just as soon as events occur.

Fingers crossed we get ourselves out of this mess.

BlogMad - farewell old buddy, I'll miss the creds!! If I had a lazy bunch of US$ lying handy I'd buy the domain.

technorati tags: BlogMad closing down December 2008

Me - olive skin, dark brown hair. The mission - to become a blonde. (play mission impossible music here)

Many say that us olive-skinned people should never go blonde. Hairdressers often get a look of fear and dread wash over their faces before hastily asking:

"How about some lowlights instead?"

Hmm. Lowlights eh?

When you were a kid, and you wanted fairy floss at the amusement park and your parents gave you a wholemeal peanut butter sandwich instead, were you satisfied?

I think that answers my question, whatever that was.

The point I'm trying to make is this - when you want to go blonde, there is no substitute. It's like some kind of weird addiction. Once the idea manifests, it germinates and grows and pretty soon you are thinking of nothing but achieving your goal of ultimate blondeness.

I go to a Korean hairdresser. The staff think I am amusing for some reason, I'm not sure why. I like going to them because they do weird punk haircuts and pretty much anything is fair game. I asked my hairdresser to give me a colour called "ash blonde" all over. She didn't even blink - just started mixing up all this weird purple stuff. She told me it was a bad thing to use bleach. I recalled many times sitting out in the sun, hair wrapped in glad wrap, 30 percent bleach burning my scalp. It didn't seem that bad to me. $15 and it worked.

So, $240 and three and a half hours later, I found myself with the same burning scalp, the same feeling of dread and excitement for the moment when they were washing and drying my hair for the third and last time. The first time had resulted in a "oops, not light enough" moment. Then the stuff was reapplied and left for long enough for me to read three tabloid magazines in their entirety.

I'm not sure if it was the hair dye, but I felt my brain melting after yet another Britney article.

Then I thought of bald Britney and got the fear. What if it vaporises my hair? What if they wash it off and it all disappears down the sink?

Get a grip, girl - this is 2008. They don't let things like that happen anymore. Do they?

Finally, the colour was revealed. Not bad at all. Very blonde, a little too yellowy for my liking. Still, I had to get out of there. I could not stand waiting for another hour while Britney and Angelina danced in my head. No more!

I asked my hairdresser to write down the colour and products, in case someone else (perhaps someone cheaper) had to do the regrowth. She wrote down a whole bunch of words on a card but only one word jumped out at me. Bleach. Which makes what she had said earlier kind of...wrong.

A strange thing happened in the next day or so. My hair started to morph into a strange brassy colour. My partner affectionately referred to me as "Violet Crumble".

























For those of you who are not familiar with this tasty treat, honeycomb is nice for a chocky bar, not so much for a hair colour. My olive skin cannot tolerate any yellow or orange tones. Well, I had both. My partner wore sunglasses in reference to my hair. It wasn't even sunny! I had to do something, and fast.

I tried Decore Blonde Toner - it promised to tone down brassiness and cool the colour to a wearable shade.

Wrong!! It just made my hair a lovely shade of salmon.

So, panicked by my salmon hair and the prospect of going out in public, I made it my mission to visit as many chemists as possible to get the right product. "Magic Silver White" was always the best toner for blonde hair. Now the product had been discontinued I was becoming slightly worried.

Thankfully I found Roux Fanci-Full Rinse in "silver lining" - amazingly it worked just as well as Magic Silver White and the Violet Crumble er... crumbled into a memory.

Result: Success!!













*phew!!*

I also found Magic Silver White on Ebay - it has been renamed "Brilliant Silver White". I ask you, a product is a favourite for years and they go and rename it so you can't find it easily! Anyway, the product is said to be true to the original formula and great for toning down brassiness. Highly recommended.

technorati tags: dark brown to blonde blonde toner magic silver white olive skin decore blondetoner roux fanci full rinse silver lining

Christmas has come a little early for me this year. I was thrilled to get the email announcing I had won the Lenovo Laptop from the DealsDirect Blogging competition.

The laptop arrived complete with Windows Vista Business, 1.66Ghz, 1G ram and 142 GB storage. (happy dance!)


The prizes were as follows:

Winner - One Lenovo Laptop

Runner Up - One 22" Monitor

10 X Runners Up win a 10MP Web Cam


Here is the laptop in all its glory:




A big thank you to DealsDirect. I am now a mobile blogger.


You can read the winning entry here.

technorati tags: deals direct blogging competition laptop

What do you get for the blogger who has everything? I know:

Just imagine the reaction from people you speak to everyday.
"Is she really? Did I say anything stupid? Incriminating? Oh sh!t, I mentioned the election!! Whatever will she write?"

What they don't realise is that I will be thinking "relax, I'm not blogging about you. Not unless you do anything that is spectacularly amusing or ridiculously silly. In fact, you are usually safe if you're not a customer service representative from any shopping outlet and you're not likely to be incredibly unhelpful or rude. You can relax now."




This is possibly the nerdiest t-shirt I have ever seen. With the exception of a select few, perhaps. But I love it. Because I am a nerd.





80s movie tees are back apparently.
I remember when anything 80s was so... well... 80s.
Wargames - the classic unbelievable nerd film. Like a computer with a 16k RAM card has the power to take over nuclear facilities and interact in an artificial intelligence capacity. "Would you like to play a game?" Yes, it's called "spot the plot hole".




Did I mention the nerdiest t-shirt of all time? I was wrong. P.S. if you get this, you are a nerd. If you laugh at it, you are also a geek.





And my favourite game of all time: Lemmings! Yaaaay! Such a simple concept - save a mass of suicidal lemmings using creative means like bridge building, hole digging, bashing and blocking.

If you miss this game (as I do!), you can play Lemmings right here, right now on your PC using this link: Play Lemmings in Your Browser

Ah, the nostalgia, the green hair... the bit where you kill all of them by blowing them up because you made a mistake... the guilt, the joys, the triumph...


The t-shirts can be found at teenormous.com / thinkgeek.com /mrcloud.com

technorati tags: I'm blogging this t-shirt wargames
play
lemmings
80s movies retro games

Recently I wrote about Freebies4Webmasters. I signed up, submitted 3 web pages for ad placement and gained approval. I was paid 10 pounds (around $20) after the first month and my blog post resulted in 10 referrals.

Then the problems started. My approved referrals should have earned me 100 pounds so far. Instead, my approved web pages mysteriously disappeared from the system around the time Freebies4Webmasters decided they were not accepting any new publishers.

I have been patient and tolerant up to this point but after 5 unanswered emails I am sensing a stone wall of scamminess.

I will keep the ads up for one more week, on the off chance I receive a reply. Kind of like Waiting for Godot. If I don't receive a response by then it will be bye bye Freebies4Webmasters. I feel quite cheated as I know many have received payments larger than the ones owed to me at this time. The exchange rate would have approximated to $233 plus around $10 per month as an automatic payment. Not happy. Needless to say I will not be recommending this site to fellow bloggers.

:-(

technorati tags: freebies4webmasters ads scam

I received a rather amusing email this morning - for a brief moment I thought it was for real. It is not unusual for me to get direct emails for various projects. However further reading exposed the extent of my wrongness:


I have a project I want you to run with us. It involves exportation of 100,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Kirkuk, Iraq.

If you are interested, email me.

Mr. Yan.


Hmm. Well thank you, Mr Yan, I appreciate your offer. As a humble blogger however, I do not happen to have room for 100,000 lazy barrels of crude oil in my garden shed. In fact, last time I checked I did not have room for a single barrel.

Why you would be still hoarding such a valuable resource is beyond me. You could have exported when oil prices were at their peak. I'm sorry, Mr Yan, you missed your chance. If you will just check the latest figures, the current price for oil is $61.04. What you should have done is tapped into your seemingly unlimited oil reserve in March 2008. $150 per barrel! Ah, the tragedy of hindsight.

Exporting from where? Iraq, you say. Gee, let me think...

Much as I would like to travel to a volatile region during wartime on the basis of a spam email, I think I'll pass. Thank you so much for your kind offer, not that I will respond because you are probably camping out in some evil hovel wherever on earth it is that spammers like to slither. But I can't help being a little disappointed. All my dreams of becoming an oil baroness. My backyard oil refinery will have to wait. *sigh*











Thus endeth my exploits at international business.

technorati tags: spam scam email crude oil

If you are like me, ie. camped in front of the computer wide eyed and open mouthed, watching the pretty blue and red colours appear across the states, you might like to view the incoming results for the US Election 2008 on the following links:


BBC News US Election 2008 Results Map

This map requires Flash, but you will see the results as the votes are counted state by state.



SBS World News US Election Results 2008

The SBS World news map features a zoom to individual states to see the breakdown of votes by county.



CNN US Election Results 2008

Updated frequently, detailed information state by state.



Business Day NZ Latest US Election Results 2008

Updated less frequently, this coverage contains text updates and election results map.



P.S. I have no fingernails left.

technorati tags: US Election Results Coverage 2008 Barack Obama Joe Biden John McCainSarah Palin

Ever have one of those mornings where you wake in fright after the most vivid nightmare you could possibly imagine, the water goes scalding hot in the shower and while you're in the shower the phone rings and then you get out because you're in a hurry and when you're doing your makeup a big blob of mascara gets on your lashes and you blink, sending the blob straight into your eyeball, and then the phone rings again and you're trying to talk while grasping for a tissue because you can't see anything except a big black blob and your eyes are watering and you're starving and you haven't even had a coffee yet?

Er...me neither.

technorati tags: personal adventures

HP 550 Business Notebook - FW384AT
Celeron T1400 / 1.73 GHz, RAM 1 GB, HDD 120 GB, CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo, Intel GMA X3100, WLAN : 802.11b/g, Vista Home Basic, 15.4" Widescreen TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA )


I'm amazed at how inexpensive HP notebooks are these days. Although it's not just HP, many other brands of notebooks are also bringing their prices down. The above model can be found for around $500 (US), whereas previously it may have been closer to $1000. But this is the beauty of technology, the prices continue to come down as the features go up. Perhaps a 256mb version two years ago was out of reach. I'm just waiting for that last little discount so I can get myself a roaring beast of a laptop. One that can launch shuttles and that sort of thing. Well, maybe not shuttles, I suppose Windows XP would do. Although I've been wanting to try Ubuntu since Windows hogs a lot of resources. I just need my favourite programs to create versions compatible with Ubuntu and I'll definitely give it a go.















Samsung CLP-315 Color Laser Printer
This model can now be found for under $200. However, the price of the printer is not the amount you should be focusing on.

When you are looking to buy portable printers, there are many factors to consider.
1. Size - is the footprint of your printer small enough to fit into your office/home office?

2. Consumables - some laser printers use an solid ink that sometimes can cost more than the printer itself. Make sure your needs are commensurate with the features and requirements of your printer. In other words, make sure you run the printer, not the other way around.

3. Electricity usage - unbeknownst to many people is that fact that some models of printer need to be left on all the time for different reasons including smoother running and ink conservation. In an era of global warming and financial crisis, this may not be the best investment. Make sure you find out these details before committing to a purchase.

The Good














The Living End
The first mighty chords blasted through Acer Arena, blowing the Veronica's eye makeup off. It worked. Everyone was awake and alert and ready for a night of great music. The Living End finally received a well-deserved ARIA for Best Rock Album. The band set the bar high in terms of performance and unfortunately many of the acts that followed crashed into this bar like that drunk Russian high jumper.

Nick Cave
Best Male Artist. The quality of the songwriting, the musicianship, the brilliance, the...
*whack!* sorry, I got carried away there for a moment.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
A beautiful, moving performance. I got teary and I realised that I couldn't even understand the words. The beauty of his music transcends language.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson
Keep on rattlin'!



The Bad

















Gabriella Cilmi
It's dangerous to be carrying six pointy glass things while drunk and balancing on heels. Please stop talking.

Delta Goodrem
Highest selling album ARIA. This speaks volumes (literally!) of the state of the Australian Music Industry. There must be more Australian 12 year old girls than I thought.





















The Veronicas
These miniature Elviras are giving me nightmares. Make the Leprechauns go away, mummy. I promise I'll be good.



The Ugly


The Presets
I can put on a dance beat and whine while holding my nose as well. I just don't make other people listen to it. Dressing up like a Muppet only makes it worse.



Surely this disturbing trend of bad music masquerading as something sophisticated must come to an end. It just requires a certain level of awareness from the general population. Perhaps the abomination of The Presets winning best album will be the last gasp of this rather tedious era. Prediction for ARIAs 2009 - more rock, less schlock.

technorati tags: ARIA Awards 2008 The Living End Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu Nick CaveKasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson Gabriella Cilmi Delta Goodrem The Veronicas Pink ThePresets

My partner and I were shocked and saddened last night to learn that Seve Ballesteros has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. He is true magician of the game, an inspiration to champion golfers and fans alike.

May you have the strength and support to make it through this difficult time. Here's to your speedy recovery, Seve. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you.

technorati tags: seve ballesteros

Often when something happens in my life that I don't enjoy, I tend to make an amusing post about it. It's my way of making lemonade out of lemons. Sometimes however, you just get lemons.

I was listening to my headphones in front of the computer. The song had ended so I took the earphones off to put them away. Without looking I reached into the wires of an air purifier with my hand still holding the earphones. My middle finger was the entry point and the charge went right through my body and down to my toes. If I had to describe it I would call it "being bitten by an electric eel underwater".

For hours afterwards I was unable to speak faster than 30 bpm and tingles and pains surged randomly through different parts of my body. The next day I was still speaking slowly and had pains in different regions of my head.

The most frightening moment was when I tried to use a computer and spent around a whole minute trying to figure out where the "copy" button is in Ctrl + copy. I felt like a complete dork when I realised it was just the "c" button. Considering I have been using computers since I was a kid, this was cause for concern.

The doctor did a multitude of tests of my reflexes and coordination. He wasn't entirely convinced I was ok, but he didn't want to alarm me either. Little did he know that underneath my vague and slow exterior was already a lot of panic and alarm. He ordered me to rest for a few days and get an Ambulance subscription. That didn't really fill me with optimism.

The next few nights were frightening as my heart was beating quickly and tingles and pains kept their random patterns going well into the small hours of the morning.

After I regained my energy after a couple of days, I tried yoga to get my circulation moving and exercise my muscles. Amazingly it worked so well that by the next day I was feeling like a new person.

I am pleased to say I am feeling back to normal apart from the occasional pain manifesting throughout various areas of my head. This is the first day I have blogged since the incident and I am happy to say I know how to use Ctrl + C again.

technorati tags: electrocution effect shock medical

The weather is totally unpredictable at the moment. One moment you feel like you need an air conditioner, the next you are freezing and are considering installing Gas Fires or Electric Fires to keep your house warm. HotPrice have years of experience in the area of installing gas and electric fires and can offer design and technical advice for your specific needs. Depending on the size of the room you are heating, you can decide between LPG fires, freestanding fires, cast iron fireplaces, Hole in the Wall Fires and other otions too numerous to mention. The well-known brands featured include those from Dimplex to Kinder to Smeg. The site includes a "Jargon Buster" section, which for me was quite useful as I don't exactly know the difference between a balanced flue and a fanned flue. This section is quite detailed so if you've ever wanted to know what the distinction is between a radiant gas fire and an outset fire, this might be a good place to start. The section on installation information specifies that it is important to find a CORGI registered installer to install your fireplace. According to this information, a non-CORGI installer runs the risk of causing damage to your fireplace or invalidating your guarantee, which is an undesirable situation to say the least. Hotprice do not carry out installations, however there is a link in the site where you can find a CORGI registered installer in locations throughout the United Kingdom.



This post brought to you by HotPrice.

My new pedometer arrived yesterday from Ebay land. It is rather snazzy and very easy to set up. You just enter your weight, age, height and step length and it calculates how many calories you are burning throughout the day. I wear it clipped to my belt to remind me to walk more. It's a good incentive to walk instead of catching the tram one stop - you get to thinking "maybe I could add another k to my total!" It becomes a bit of a competition (albeit against yourself!)

Yesterday's tally: 8539 steps, 3.71km and 165.4 calories! - and I wasn't feeling too well that day!

Today so far: 3118 steps, 1.34km, 60.4 calories.

Apparently there were 200 calories in my breakfast banana. And my breakfast tamarillo had 40 calories. There is no danger in my eating more than one tamarillo because they taste a little - how should I say... tangy. I think that's how they are supposed to taste. They make me do the "just sucked on a lemon" look.

I think I could make a million by creating the "Tamarillo Diet" - it goes something like this:

Breakfast:
1 Tamarillo

Lunch
2 Tamarillo

Dinner
2 Tamarillo

Dessert
1 Tamarillo


I can just see the testimonials:

"I lost 50kg in six months!! And I no longer have a vitamin C deficiency!!"


Important note: Please do not try this diet at home. It is a joke. Then again, so are many of the other diets floating around Hollywood. The "Cabbage Soup" diet, the "eat nothing and pretend you're just really busy" diet, the "eat and then spend an unnaturally long time in the bathroom" diet, and then there is the diet followed by many a Hollywood celebrity which basically involves looking in the mirror for long periods and pouting.

It's probably more sensible to just eat a lot of fruit, vegetables, pasta and rice. And make sure you cook with extra virgin olive oil. After all, millions of Mediterraneans can't be wrong.


Pedometer price $4.95 plus $6.00 postage.
Verdict - Success!!

technorati tags: shop ebay pedometer walking exercise

The game was going so well. Elsternwick Golf Course, first nine holes. The sun was glinting from behind the clouds, my partner had just got his third ever birdie on the second hole and I was driving well. My short game was a bit sketchy but since this was our first game back after playing the Apollo Bay Golf Course, I wasn't too fazed.

Suddenly my scorecard showed consecutive bogeys. I was quite content. Another bogey on the seventh. Happy days.

We began the second nine with a relaxed and easy game.

And then it happened.

Before I go into the event in detail, I would like to make it clear that I am a normally well-adjusted person. I have been described as "even-tempered". Perhaps even "bubbly" at times.

Until my ball landed in the right side bunker at the 17th.

For some reason I had a feeling of dread as I approached the cavernous bunker. The lip seemed taller than me and for some reason I found this daunting.

"Remember the Jack Nicklaus book" A soothing voice said inside my head. I relaxed again. Then I seized up again. I couldn't remember. Whatever precious nuggets of genius Jack had imbued in my brain had somehow leaked out the other end, leaving a void of panic and terror.

I tried to remember as best I could - open the clubface, hit the sand behind the ball...

So far so good.

Then I struck the shot. My ball flew upwards, upwards and upwards.

Then it just stopped, cruelly wedging itself just below the lip of the bunker.

Something inside me snapped.

"Yaargh!" I ran up the side of the bunker and grunted, striking the ball hard enough to make it dribble back down into the position it had first landed.

"F@&#* ing sand!"
*THWACK*

The ball repeated its journey back down to my feet, leaving a rather pretty little bubble-pattern behind it.

For some reason this really offended me.

*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*

"Arrgh!! Yah!"



















In my mad fury of swinging and thwacking I realised that at least two of these particular shots were nowhere near the ball. They were aimed squarely at the sand for the sole purpose of revenge.

"Yiggh! Ack!! Raargh!!"
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*
*THWACK*

I could tell that my partner wanted to say something at this point but thought better of it.

"Graghph!!"
*THWACK*

Finally the ball came popping up out of the bunker and landed on the green, quite close to the pin. A lovely shot.

I took this as the final insult. I stormed out of the mangled bunker (apologies to the greenskeepers and other staff) and stood on the lip, panting maniacally.

"Ruh!"
I threw my cap down in disgust and stormed off to get my putter.

On this rather lonely walk back to my bag I was thinking "Wow... people actually do throw their hats down when they do a bad shot. Then I realised that I had done exactly fifteen bad shots and got mad again. I finished my putt and as we were walking to the next hole I muttered "What did you get?"

"A par." My partner replied. "You?"
"Eighteen."

I was almost immediately calm again. For some reason the sand was out of reach and so was my fury.

My partner sensed this was a good time to speak.
"Er, you know that thing... in the bunker?"

"Yes?"

"Your left arm was bent."

(*Argh!*)

Unfortunately I had managed to forget the most basic rule. "Keep your left arm as straight as you can". I must have looked like a deranged woodcutter.

I have learned so much from this experience. I have realised that you can't, simply can't lose your cool at any time on a golf course.

Not even to take out your revenge on an inanimate object.

technorati tags: golf bunker rage sand wedge elsternwick

If you are anything like me, you probably have a multitude of books lying around. It may be that there are some that are taking up valuable shelf room.

There are a number of options, various places you can Sell TextBooks both in the real world and online. If you are looking to sell your books quickly and at a guaranteed price, you may want to check out SellBackYourBook.com

It works like this:

You enter the ISBN number of up to 20 books in the box and click "price books"















You will then see a list of books and the prices offered. If you are happy with the prices, you can reserve the price and sell your books. I think one of the advantages of a site such as this is the immediacy of the offers. If I were to sell by other means I may be waiting a week to find out if someone is remotely interested in the books I have to offer. For example, there may be a rush on "The Secret" and the demand for crime and thriller books is down. The only way to find out is to check for yourself. I was surprised at some of the books that were and weren't in demand. For example, the latest Harry Potter book was not in demand. Neither was War and Peace or The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Strange. However the latest book about Sarah Palin (titled "Sarah") is in demand, so is "Change We Can Believe In - Barack Obama". The demand appears to change from time to time, as various books wane in popularity and then come back in vogue.

This post brought to you by Sell Back Your Book

If you are like me, you may have a bunch of clothing you just bought on Ebay - perhaps it's not the right size, right colour, or maybe it just doesn't suit you. I usually resell the clothing or donate them to the Brotherhood / Red Cross bins.

A post by Megan at Imaginif brought my attention to fund raising needs in Mapoon's isolated Aboriginal community in Cape York (far North Queensland, Australia).

Nai-Beguta Agama Aboriginal Corporation in Mapoon urgently requires donations of clothing and accessories in order to extend their Community Building. This will include room for a youth worker, counselling rooms and training space.

I will now be donating my extraneous Ebay purchases to assist this fund raising effort. If 1,000,000 items of clothing were donated and sold for $1, the target of $1,000,000 would be reached. I hope we can all work together to assist this effort.




















Send clothing and accessory donations to:

Imaginif,
30 James St,
North Cairns,
QLD 4870.

The clothing will be transported approximately 800km from Cairns to New Mapoon via Sea Swift, a shipping company servicing remote areas.

technorati tags: australia aboriginal community new mapoon raise funds donate

My dream Sunday Bag had a conniption recently. I was walking from the 10th to the 11th hole (really the 1st and 2nd as it was a nine hole golf course!) and it happened.

My 7 club bag had six clubs in the main compartment and a water bottle in the zip pocket but nevertheless the strap decided to give way.

*SPROIING!!*

So all of a sudden I am walking on a forty-five degree angle trying to keep the bag upright.

My partner looked at me quizzically.

I muttered "don't ask", loping along on the same forty-five degree angle.

For the rest of the round I had to grip the top of the bag to stop the clubs from falling out. My hand started to cramp by time we finished playing.

So, I visited a sewing store and bought the tools I will be needing for my repair job.

A canvas needle:













And extremely heavy duty cotton from Russia.













I don't know why it specifically needs to be Russian cotton but the lady in the sewing store insisted it was the strongest and best quality. And I don't want to take any chances of this strap breaking free and the same thing happening during a round.

In the meantime, my partner repaired my bag with black gaffer tape - he reinforced it crossways on the inside of the bag, then wrapped one long piece around the edge of the lip. To date it has held quite well, it even survived a round in Apollo Bay.

But now the time has come to get the needle and thread out and sew the bag back together. I only hope I can remove the sticky residue from the top of the bag in time for my next round.

technorati tags: golf sunday bag repair gaffer tape

Sometimes I like to get ideas from online shopping outlets and use the pictures to piece together a room or an area. This way I can see if certain objects work with one another in a certain space (the magic of Photoshop!). It might be finding the right Living Room Furniture to go with your walls or rugs, it could be Bedroom Furniture to suit a certain size or shaped room, or it could be setting up the spare room with Office Furniture to create your own space.















While I'm shopping or browsing online, I usually go to the clearance section first in case a bargain is laying in wait for me. Sometimes you can save hundreds of dollars just by checking out the online bargain bins!

The concept of a bargain bin is vastly different in an online context. At your standard city department stores you can fossick through the bargain bins and find a lot of junk for cheap prices. Very rarely have I found the item I want by sifting through a bargain bin. The online bargain bin is a different animal. You can fit a desk, a chair or even a bed in these virtual bargain bins. The concept of size is relinquished. Glass coffee tables can reside with wooden outdoor furniture and conference tables. The mind boggles. Sometimes bargain bin hunters can get free shipping or other deals. It just depends on when you look.

Dropper # of drops cheapdanny 31 1993 Honda Civic Blog 17 Lap Band Progress 15 Free Printable Fun 14 The house that Koen & Claire (re)built.com 13 The Inspired Self 12 Monkey Fables And Tales 11 QShifter Hobbies 10 Theme lib dot com 9 Nice2All 8

Thanks to all droppers! I have enjoyed visiting your blogs too! I think Entrecard works when people actually read the articles and leave comments rather than dropping like a mad panda. I have found a lot of new bloggers that would otherwise have been undiscovered - hooray for the Monkey!

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I like sleep. Many people have told me I sleep a lot. That's true. In fact, I could probably sleep for my country. I don't know if there's some kind of worldwide sleep off - I think I could probably bring back the gold. According to statistics, the average human spends a third of their time in bed. For me it might be a bit longer. So it makes sense to buy the right mattress. You don't want to find yourself with a crick in your neck or a Quasimodo walk ("The Bells! The Bells!") when you rise and shine to greet the world in the morning. You want to smile and bound out of bed full of energy and ready to go on that 1km run. Or in my case, swear, mumble and whack the alarm clock until it stops bothering me. So my next mattress will be a super amazing one, a luxury mattress. Life's too short to settle for second (or third!) best when it comes to something as important as sleeping. While looking for an affordable luxury mattress, I checked off the important features - motion separation so your partner doesn't disturb you when they toss and turn all night, durable springs and beautiful materials like cashmere and wool. This collection features Advanced Pocketing Coil springs for durability and flexibility to contour to your shape. For more information click here.

UPDATE: SCAM ALERT!

This turned out to be a nice idea right up until the time they stopped paying me. The website stopped receiving applications, stopped paying people and generally started acting scammy. At the time they closed up shop, they owed me around $250.00 

Avoid like typhoid...

Recently I trialled a passive income stream called freebies4webmasters that seems to have turned out to be profitable. I was skeptical at first - actually, I was skeptical right up until the time that the payment appeared in my account. Now that the money is there I can't argue with it.

The process is simple - you put a code on your blog displaying a rather unobtrusive ad on 3 different pages. If you have a blog with more than 3 posts or a website with more than 3 pages this is very simple. Then the fun begins.

Firstly, you are paid 10 pounds (Oh joy for the exchange rate!) for signing up.

Secondly, you are paid 5 pounds per month for leaving the ad code on your site. You don't have to do anything else.

You can put the code on multiple sites if they are approved, thus doubling your income or tripling it or more!

You have nothing to lose so why not give it a try? It's a good place to start if you have never earned money from your site.

SCAM ALERT!!!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Despite initially making an initial amount money from this company, they have since shut down and hightailed it with around $200 still owed to me. Don't bother!!!

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