Archives for January 2006

Wishing hard I was going to BlogHer ’06

January 31, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

Are you a female blogger and want to connect with other women bloggers. Well you can do so at the BlogHer conference if you can get to it in the United States.

It would be a tall order for me arranging childcare and the money to get there. It did cross my mind to try and get work to pay but that would be pushing it also.

If, like me, you can’t get to the actual conference you’ll just have to get your BlogHer fix via their vamped up website. Last year it was full of information and this year even more so.

I would suggest you get on over there and see what it’s all about for yourself.

Sharing the sharing

January 30, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

These days for me to buy a CD is a luxury but I will still buy one if I really like the artist or the soundtrack. My latest purchase was Franz Ferdinand’s ‘You Could Have it so Much Better’ which I really enjoy. These purchases are few and far between as you might note if you look at my not very often updated What’s wearing out the CD player on the right.

Even though I don’t buy that many CD’s I’ve still managed to accumulate a bit of a collection, too many to fit in my 60 capacity CD holder. Even so I’ve been wishing I were exposed to more music. I don’t listen to the radio that much and even if I do and I like a song that I hear I hardly ever know who the artist is. Some of my close friends are really into their music and I get to hear some new music that way but I’ve been looking for another way to hear new music.

I finally found it today in the form of a website/blog called 3hive. It’s a website put together by six men who link to legally downloadable MP3s from around the internet. As they say,

"Record labels and artists put free, full-length MP3s on their websites in hopes that you will download, listen, and enjoy what you hear enough to buy the album, attend the live show, wear the t-shirt…and, of course, tell your friends. So, here we are telling you, our friends — the rest is up to you."

I’ve only had a little browse – there’s lots of material to get through and a recent entry has some Eagle*Seagulls which I’ve enjoyed.

I look forward to sinking my teeth into this website to expand my music horizons and legally (which I like) download some MP3s. Good on em for doing the hard work for me.

I just wondered…..

January 27, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

I was driving along today and had to stop at an intersection where I looked up and there was a clock, prominently placed next to a sign for a funeral parlour. Here in Adelaide there are usually big clocks at funeral parlours and I don’t know why that is.

Dead people so obviously don’t need or want to know the time and neither, most likely, do their relatives who have to visit these places to organise funerals.

Nothing more, just wondered is all.

Safe driving

January 25, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

From the beginning of this year there have been quite a few fatal car accidents in South Australia alone (12 people dead as of 19 January which is high for this time of year). The year started with four people killed not far from where I was at Maitland on New Year’s Day. It was a wet day and at a guess someone came around the curve too fast and ended up on the other side of the road in the oncoming car’s path.

Then about two weeks ago there was a bus crash in Egypt that claimed the lives of six Australians and there are differing reports as to why the bus crashed. Initially it was said that the driver swerved to avoid something and because the road was wet the bus rolled. I also read last week that the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel momentarily.

Reading this reminded me of being on buses in India. If you catch a bus in India you are risking your life in many cases. When we were in India we didn’t catch the bus that often and the last bus trip we did became the last bus trip because the driver was drinking home-made whisky out of a bottle during the journey and overtaking on hills and corners. Even with the valium I’d procured especially for that journey I still prayed that we would make it in one piece. We did.

After that we thought we’d catch a plane because it would be quicker and hopefully safer but the seat on the Air India plane I was assigned to was obviously defective so I moved. Luckily it was only a one hour flight and we didn’t have too much time to think about crashing.

One of the first bus trips we did was a local and quite short trip where we sat on top of the bus. Inside the bus was really packed and we thought, why not, let’s do it. We paid 2 rupees for someone to haul our backpacks to the top of the bus then we climbed up also. An Indian man sitting near us told us when to duck to avoid overhanging tree branches. This would have been the most pleasant bus trip we took because we didn’t have to put up with the dreadful Indian music that was played on most other buses that music via headphones from a Walkman wouldn’t even drown out.

With a bus trip not long after this one I found out why there were two metal bars running along each side of many buses we saw. Another bus overtook us and got too close so we side-swiped each other. It was nothing serious and nobody was injured. Both the buses stopped along the side of the road and a fight between the bus drivers and hangers on ensued. I asked another passenger why they were arguing and he said that the other bus driver was accusing ours of being rash. I couldn’t quite understand this as it was the other bus that was overtaking us, so if anyone was being rash it was him.

We were there for some time while the bus drivers, and anyone else who wanted an argument, yelled at each other about the incident but at least we got to say hallo to some kids nearby who allowed us to take this photo. Indians seem to love having their photo taken and they love taking photos. Even to the point of standing behind two people sunbathing on a beach while their mate takes a photo of all of us.

We were lucky we escaped this one and other bus trips we took in India with just some nerves and time lost, and not our lives or serious injury. I think the man who told me the bus driver had been rash was correct about drivers in general. Many drivers are very rash, and don’t consider the conditions under which they drive, or other drivers out on the road who want to make it to their destination safely.

The media and the police do reiterate time and time again about adjusting your driving for the conditions your travelling in, not to speed, not to drive while tired, and not to drink drive but still people persist in doing this. I think once some people get behind the wheel of a vehicle, the rational part of their brain goes and the ‘I must get there and get there as quickly as possible’ part takes over.

Quite a few bikes and a pretty hot day

January 23, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

I wasn’t that keen on venturing out into the heat yesterday but had pre-arranged to go to the Tour Down Under in the city yesterday so off we went with lots of water and sunscreen. I’m not into cycling but it’s hard not to get caught up in the fever of it all, particularly when I’m involved with it through work.

It turned out to be a good day. I was in a corporate stand with my work and took JJ along with me as my date. It’s getting much easier to go out with him now that he’s getting older. I don’t have to worry about nappies and prams so much, if at all anymore, and that’s gotta be good.

It was a really good atmosphere trackside and I managed to get some photos with my point and shoot digital. I saw the official photographers there with their lenses that practically needed a trolley to be carried around and felt somewhat inferior.

It was hot initially but we had spray bottles with water to keep cool and it was fun getting some free merchandise stuff before the race began. A big hit with JJ was a whistle. I thought I was going to have to confiscate it but he was really good in listening to me and only blowing it when the cyclists went past.

He loved the race so much, and had so much fun that every cyclist we saw after that JJ was adamant they were from the race and as soon as we got home he got his bike (with trainer wheels) and rode really fast alongside the house. He even rode over the orange tree he told me.

I’ve uploaded my photos

Day of the let downs

January 22, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

Yesterday was one of those days where nothing went right and I ended up feeling really let down – mostly undeservedly so.

First of all I was supposed to get a phone call and then a visit from someone, which never eventuated. There could be a good excuse I guess, but barring serious injury or death I can’t see a reason why a phone call to say they couldn’t come round wasn’t in order. Even if my phone number had been lost he could have got it off someone if he’d really tried.

Next, my sister came round to pick up her dog that’s always at my place because she can’t leave it at her place when she’s not there. The deal, when her dog started hanging out at my place just over two years ago, was that she would return the favour by babysitting JJ every now and again. It was a long time ago that she actually babysat, by the way, for reasons I will divulge in a minute.

I’d primed her a few months ago that I needed her to have JJ for one or two nights at the end of February, the last time I mentioned this was last week. When I brought it up yet again last night, she said that she couldn’t because she was going to help out at a car show in the town where her new boyfriend lives, four hours from Adelaide. I got a bit cross at this stage and reminded her repeatedly that I had told her about this some time ago and that she should honour her commitment. Her excuse was that I hadn’t written it down for her. I will keep at her because it’s not good enough. Sure, I know that she’s newly in love and everything gets put to the side when you’ve got a new boyfriend and you aren’t quite thinking with your head, but your heart.

Then I dropped JJ off at family day care as I had a dinner to go to and my babysitter is pregnant for the third time and I even, stupidly, felt a bit let down by that because she will not be able to babysit for me for a while. Selfish I know but that’s how I felt.

Last, but by no means least, the weather has been a let down, or a depressing, contributing factor. We’re in the midst of a heatwave here. It’s the fourth day, today, of temperatures at over 40 degrees celcius. It’s bloody hot, too hot to do anything outside really. The thing is, it’s the Tour Down Under this week and madmen have been riding their bikes for 3 hours plus in this heat. I don’t know how they do it. JJ and myself are going to the race today and the thought of sitting out in the heat isn’t doing much for me but at least I won’t be on a bike racing around a track.

I’d like to perk up, really I would.

Thanks to my dog I went for a swim today

January 19, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

Towards the end of last year I hooked up with a couple of local women and their dogs at the nearby oval when we all walk our dogs. We all go there around the same time which is how I met them so do laps of the oval together.

They both live quite close to me and one of them has a pool at her house. I had given her my phone number over the holidays incase she was going to the beach with her dog, we might like to join her. This didn’t happen. But tonight when I got home from work there was a message from her asking if JJ and I would like to go for a swim in her pool. Would we? Yes we would. It was 38 degrees celsius here today and this is about the fourth day of that with more hot days to come.

We got changed straight away and drove the two blocks to her house. Very lazy I know but too hot to contemplate walking.

We had a very pleasant swim and she’s extended the invitation to come round whenever. She might regret it.

So, if it wasn’t for my dog (who got left at home by the way) this wouldn’t have happened.