Rule One: Never post when angry

Rule Two:  Always read everything twice before posting.
Rule Three:  Always read the entire contract from end to end before purchasing.
Rule Four:  Re-read Rules One-Three before posting.


I bought a new geeky toy.  Love it.  Sleek, slender, light, powerful.  Fun.  Convenient, easy to use.  Nice customisable features.... (plus, I got the black one, waaay more sexy than underpants white, right?)

Hmmm.  But wait... My new geeky toy appears to have a major design, ummmm, limitation.


Apparently the Vodafone Google bundled model was never designed to synch (i.e., talk to) a PC 'as a device', so any Apps (little programs that run on your phone) that depend on your synching your PC to your device, won't work.  For somebody like me who reads a lot of e-books, that is a seriously seriously poor piece of design.  Because this is 'new tech', there are only a couple of Apps on the market which will supply the required e-book reader, and the chosen App (which I might add is completely blameless in all this mess) just can't talk to 'temporary drive x:', it needs to talk to 'the device'.


And so, I have to say, I'm very cross.  Nobody from Vodafone bothered to tell me when I signed up for the damn plan that the phone couldn't synch with a PC 'as a device'.  They told me all about the good stuff, like Google Maps, Gmail, Synching your calender & contacts with Gmail, yes, indeedy, but did they mention it couldn't talk to a PC 'as a device'?  NosireeeBob.


Am I cross?  Very.  Did I mention that?  Oh yes.


So, I hear you say from the non-geek corner of the world, what's the big deal?  The PC will still see the device as a 'temporary drive x:, and you can load files to the drive for things like music.  Fine, but if the App requires the device to synch as 'a device', forget it, it just can't do it.


And the other thing that has really got me riled is that Google, whose big idea this all was, has about as much help as John Howard has heart - practically none.  Their website is as much use as a chocolate teapot, glass door in a toilet, screen door on a submarine*, [insert own 'useless' metaphor here].  It doesn't even mention that the HTC Magic is out on the market, branded Google, with all these Google apps 'bundled', as they say, and the help is non-existent.





C'mon, people, lift your game.  This is serious!

*Image & metaphor courtesy of here, thanks Baino.

Some kind of irony

Does anybody but me see some kind of weird irony in being asked to make a toy dog, less than a week after The Best Dog In The World has gone to Doggy Heaven?  Goodness me but life is weird.


Anyway, Mr Golightly's nephew, Master E, has a friend, Master L, who is having a birthday, and "could Aunty Golightly make a dog like mine, only for the Cronulla Sharks?"... Last year I made a dog for Master E in the colours of his favourite Football team (or a close, Joel Dewberry-type approximation thereof).  

For those of you out there not completely au fait with the NRL (oh, you too?), the colours are apparently blue, grey and white.  So, one did ones best, as they say somewhere else:

To be named, somewhat appropriately, "Sharkey".  I'm a bit cross with myself because I forgot to make him a collar, but as Master E's mother so wisely said "he'll never know".  Well, yes, but I will.  Next time, too, I will dig out the florist's wire & make the ears a bit more standy-uppy, but I quite like floppy-eared dogs.  Why wouldn't you?


And now, back to the disaster that is Australia Vs Pakistan.  Mr Golightly is off getting wet & miserable at the Cricket Ground today and very shortly I'm going to do the good wifey thing & make spaghetti for dinner.  He'll need something to cheer him up after Australia's performance today! 

Best Dog in the world... gone to Dog Heaven

My good friend Zeb.B.Dog has swum off to Dog Heaven, where, if there are any rewards for good behaviour in Doggy Life, there should be an endless supply of golf balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, hard rubber balls, soft stress balls, frisbees, sticks of all shapes and sizes, bread rolls to be eaten only on the carpet, raw turkey necks and bowls of other doggie's food, just waiting for her. No arthritis, no pain, no competition from the owners of that food, just lots of big fluffy dog beds, big dams full of warm water, birds to chase, passing walkers and joggers to bark at, and nobody to stop her, an endless supply of people to throw those sticks and balls and hand out the turkey necks on demand.

Even though she wasn't mine, she felt like mine. She loved to sneak up behind you and stick her head under your arm and toss her head, and too bad if you had a glass of wine in your hand. She loved to drop wet sticky slimey balls at your feet for you to throw, especially if you were sitting with something that needed clean hands. She loved to stand right next to you after she'd been in the dam, and shake all that lovely cold water all over you. She wanted all your attention, and she was worth it. She was smart and funny and if she loved you, you knew it.

She was my friend and I'm going to miss her.

Ham, anyone?

Not to be too 'scroogely' about it, but this year we didn't inflate the tree.  We didn't spend money on a real tree, we didn't go to the shops & buy a fake one.  We didn't string tinsel or lights, or sparkly baubles.  I did put two holly leaves & a berry onto the leg of the froggie doorknocker, just to get into the spirit of the thing, and I made these


[insert picture here].


Damn, the pictures are still on the camera.  Which is at the Boxes.  Where we were on Boxes Day, and where we will be on Friday night to celebrate NYE, very quietly.  Our tradition, for at least the last five years, has been to spend the evening with Dr & Mrs Box, eating, drinking & playing something wild like Scrabble, or Monopoly, or even Anti-Monopoly, having a 'relatively' early night, then going out somewhere really nice for lunch the next day:

And so it shall be in 2010.


Also, I can't believe we're still eating ham.  And we weren't even the originators of the ham.  That privilege went to my lovely SIL, who certainly made the business requirement of 'supply too much ham at Christmas' achievable.


I got some lovely gifts, MWH* outdid himself this year, aided by the wonderful 'wish list' facilities at various online retailers.  This particular gift has been pilloried by friends and family alike, and I can't work out why - it's fantastic for people who travel a lot, and who don't want to drag phone and camera battery chargers around with them wherever they go:

And then there were the books:

  

All guaranteed to keep me busy for a while... but I have made a solemn vow that I am doing absolutely no sewing of any kind until I go through the small but perfectly formed room and find some things to put into the 'Destash Sale from Hell (IIBIHWID*) - the sight of piles of fabric on the floor of the SBPFR have made me realise that, sadly, it's not like the TARDIS, and I can't keep shoving fabric in it without it starting to bulge at the seams... so, the sale.

I'm only going to get rid of dress-making fabric, though, I have no desire to make clothes for myself anymore - I'd be happy to make stuff for the little kids though, although Miss A is now 12 & no longer interested in homemade anything - although she's not actually overt about it, she was quite happy that the pencil case I gave her for Christmas came from Kinokuniya, and not from my own fair hands... 

Master E, on the other hand, was quite happy to finally get his hands on these:

 

which is pretty good, considering he also had one of those new-fangled skateboards with only two wheels to occupy him for most of the day!

And now, gentle reader, the cricket has adjourned for tea, and I am off to make myself a ham-free lunch!

*If I believed in Hell, which I don't

OMG, somebody pour me onto the couch...

Sound familiar?  Well, the birthday party for MWH was a big success, but I feel like I need a week of sleep... I had Friday off & picked up my friend Kaz from the nearest railway station at 9.00am, then we didn't stop until about 9.30pm that night.  Then we started again the next morning at 7.00am, and poured the last guests down the driveway that night at about 11.00pm... 


MWH got some lovely gifts...

about 5 pairs of thongs - that's about a pair a year for him.  Also about 6 different varieties of beer, some wine and a bottle of, get this, Green Fairy Absinthe... thongs may also be known as 'flip flops' to some of you, and maybe 'Jandals' to others... some of our more classy friends left the price tag on - $6.97 for a pair of nasty rubber black things that have a really bad rubbery smell for the first six months of their lives... and he loves them.

And in the interim, I had about 5 parcels arrive, including 5 yards of this:

 which I think I'm going to turn into a tablecloth & napkins...

Also this, from here:

in the red, the brown & the green - can't wait to do something with it, and this:

which is a pattern for the perfect monogram - I could make one of these for just about everybody I know, as the perfect custom-made gift - from here.

But now, I have to go off & finish the christmas tree decorations I'm making for my friend Deb - she just gave me a Christmas Tree shaped dish, which I've used as the template for Christmas tree shaped decorations - filled mostly with wadding, but with some cloves for that nice northern hemisphere Christmas smell you never get in Australia!

And, because it's only 4 nights before Christmas, I thought a little animal festivity might be nice as an incentive to get the Decorations finished!

"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
"On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

"To the sewing machine! Stay away from the Mall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!*

Although, we are in the midst of summer, so this might be a better option - I dare you to go there!

*Unsurprisingly, not the original lyics.

Two strands of thread...

And then last night...I made some lavender bags as gifts for my colleagues - it's amazing how much lavender one of these things actually takes - I use a 25ml scoop - which in theory should equate to 25 grams, a litre of water weighing a kilo and all, and one of these takes three scoops!  


Anyway, I've ordered more from lovely Christine at Ratho Lavender, who doesn't have a website of her own (but she should!), but who can be contacted via this link.  Her lavender has the most distinctive smell of any lavender I've ever bought, and all my customers comment on how fantastic it is - so I'm really happy that she can get more to me before Christmas - lavender bags make a simple but effective gift (hint!)!  


Oh yeah, the gifts!

and all wrapped up and ready to go:

I love 5" squares, they are the most versatile things - coasters, lavender bags, jumbo lavender bags, frog components, lavender pyramids etc etc... every one of these is made from a single 5" square - fabulous.


and then... I love finding new blogs - but it does make me think, "is there anybody out there who doesn't blog anymore?"... I just found this one, via Etsy, of course, when I was looking, as I do every single day, at the beautiful, the bizarre, the ridiculous, the fantastic, the incredibly cheap and the amazingly expensive things for sale...

Anyway, I've added two new blogs in the past two days, and I'm thinking... what the hell, a third new one won't take up any more time to read... and it's an embroiderer's blog, which is a nice change amongst all us common sewers and knitters.. so check it out!

And now, I'm multi-tasking at the moment, partly watching Stargate Universe, which has just started - it's looking a bit grim at the moment, but we'll see - also we'll see if Channel 10 gives it a better run than Channel 7, who eventually relegated Stargate to 11.00pm on a Thursday night - and partly doing this blog - but the strain is starting to tell - so it's off to the Universe... more when I remember the dialling sequence for Earth!

Living treasures... made of paper

Have you seen this?

Amazingly clever.

Today, gentle reader, I sally forth to purchase innumerable paper serviettes, plastic forks (although I will hold out for bamboo if I can find them), paper plates (the sturdy kind), Stock, onions, spices, and a whole other bunch of non-perishable stuff for The Big Event, which is MWH's 50th birthday BBQ, on Saturday. He's so funny, he doesn't want "a party", so no cake, balloons or streamer-like decorations, just 40 good friends and lots of beautiful food cooked by this clever man, seen here doing things with our amazing early Christless Dinner, which he cooked, in its entirety, on the BBQ!

And then I'm going to make something with these:

which I originally bought to make this:

but instead used red dress making weight linen, from the SWICTBTWBBHNYBCAS*, and lined it with this (gotta love that Deer Valley!):

Excuse my fingers. I had to take this in the office (note the Eclipse mints tin on the desk waiting to be recycled) because, although I got up at 5.00am to finish it, I forgot to take a picture of it before I left home. And, I hear you say, why did you have your camera in the office? Doesn't everybody carry their camera around all the time? No, actually. I had it with me because we were going off to yet our office Christmas lunch on Friday, and I wanted to take photographs of the other side of where we were going to be on Saturday!

Beautiful.

*Stash Which Is Claimed To Be The World's Biggest But Has Not Yet Been Confirmed As Such