Feb
28
2009
It appears that now is a good time to get into the property market. If you have a job, and money for a deposit (or access to it), of course. Interest rates are low, the market is kind of low… and if you pick the right neighbourhood, your weekly repayments can be barely higher and sometimes even the same as rental costs, which are ridiculously high right now…
Of course, this is only vague speculation in a personal sense, even if everyone else is doing it. I went out with my brother this morning to look at an apartment he might buy. He’s in the market now, being in a rather different position to me. Starting small of course, but good for him. We checked out the place, and he liked it but will keep looking.
If I get into this, it will be something much bigger, but still surprisingly manageable, though there’s a million hurdles to encounter for the initial startup and deposit.
And yes, this has partially come from having a hideously bad real estate manager, and a somewhat poor house to live in (again), and wondering if right now we can do better. Still such a long way to go, but maybe…
Feb
27
2009
Currently in a work sense, I’m really not doing Fridays very well…
Day’s too long, work is too overdone, and not enough gets done anyway.
Work-wise, it’s all crazy… I’d rather be doing the new things, but the old things just take up all the time.
And lunchtime is party time on Fridays, which is great, but it cuts down on the work time as well. Can’t really complain about that, wouldn’t want to change it.
But the end of the work day never comes, and I’m always the last one there… I can change it if I organise it of course…
And damn you Channel Ten for putting The Simpsons on Friday night for some stupid reason! The only night of the week I’m almost always home well after 7.30pm… typical! More reasons to download…
Feb
26
2009
This is what I call productivity:
On the train, to and from work, I wrote 2100 words of my new fiction project. About 1100 in the morning, and another thousand on the way home.
Quite happy with that. Making good progress on this new thing…
Then… at work, I was able to spend nearly the whole day working on the new site. I seemed to learn more PHP than ever before, get further into the Wordpress system, and I actually ended the day solving several problems and really feeling like I learned many things.
Which isn’t that common at work, unfortunately.
But today was… productive. On all counts. Nice.
Feb
24
2009
Watched the Oscars last night, doing my usual semi-inexplicable obsessive view of the whole event. For the first time ever they were shown live here, in mid afternoon, and then repeated at night in a cutdown version. That probably explains why I missed the writing categories…
It was largely as expected win-wise, with Sean Penn nabbing Best Actor being the only surprise, and even that was only slightly surprising. Supporting Actress was up in the air, but Penelope Cruz wasn’t that surprising. Slumdog Millionaire roared to victory with eight wins, Benjamin Button got three (nothing major though), and Milk and Dark Knight got two each. Anything else got just one, which spread things out quite well.
Heath Ledger was the unopposed winner for Supporting Actor, and his family made probably the best speech of the night — quiet, dignified and moving. Sean Penn’s speech was surprisingly good as well — “I know how hard I made it to appreciate me” — best line of the night.The animated sequence around the Best Animated Feature was a hoot — and Wall-E was a worthy winner there too.
Hugh Jackman was great as host –laconical and laid back and fun, but also different with the song and dance bit. Good change of pace for the show… and I really liked Jon Stewart last year because I’m a fan!
I’m just a suck for something like the Oscars, even though I’m horribly behind on my movie watching. I usually make the winners my attempted viewing choices for the rest of the year, but I haven’t even got through last year’s, so who am I to talk?
But just seeing creative people being rewarded, especially the lesser known techie types, and seeing them talk about their dreams, and what drove them in their youth… that’s good stuff. Makes you think about why you, or anyone, gets into that field. Gets me every year.
Feb
22
2009
Will went to his first karate lesson today, at a local class at a nearby high school. We had someone over a week ago advertising them, and after some thought we decided it might be a good idea for him to get involved. Some fun activity, help his coordination and concentration, and so on.
So I took him down there today, with all talk on Kung Fu Panda. Apparently he watched it at kindy recently, and since we convinced him it’s similar, it’s his main frame of reference, which is cute and likely not that far off.
The people running the class were nice, and Will was the smallest kid there by miles. Went an hour and a half, but Will only lasted an hour, and his concentration half that. No matter — he had a great time even though he was only partially following proceedings. He was such a kid… running around, laughing all the time. He looked so … little… compared to everyone else there, which is almost new for me, considering I don’t have the same comparison usually.
But the teacher was encouraging, and Will did get a few moves, and they were understanding because they knew he was so young and they didn’t expect much. Will even got an encouragement award at the end (along with a bunch of other kids), which was cute, and led us to Macca’s later in the day for a free kid’s meal. We hopefully won’t get that too often… but it was a nice reward for him.
What did surprise me was the adults in the class too — I had assumed it was a kids class. It might even be right for me to join up as well and learn the whole thing with Will. Now that’s a father/son activity 
Feb
21
2009
Well, it’s my mother’s birthday today… no mentions of age of course. Drove over for a brief hello and some present giving before they went out for dinner. Got Mum a digital photo frame, mostly for pics of us and the kids… should be handy
Speaking of pictures, we took Will and Alex for some “proper” pictures this morning. Should turn out well, but as always, it’s the before and after that was difficult! More of the usual shopping thing with that… no harm.
I’m constantly amazed at Will’s ability to go from one shop to another, looking at roughly the same set of movies, and being endlessly fascinated every time. And freaking out everytime I make him leave…
But he loves his movies, so it doesn’t worry me too much
Feb
20
2009
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New awards from Mr Skin, with the best in film and TV from last year.
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Nice post on the many definitions of YA books and writing.