Scarey movies

Blog Prompt: August 13 is Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday. In honor of his birthday, name the movie(s) that scare you the most.

I really don't like horror movies & have never watched a Hitchcock movie. A movie that has had a profound affect on me was The Fly. OMG watching that man turn into a fly just was too yucky for words & ever since I have a real aversion to flies.

Wow it's been such a long time

It's been such a long time that I have posted on this blog that I came back to find a big fat advert had taken over it.  What it did make me do is go back & start printing of the last 200 odd blog entries in case my blog should happen to disappear one day.  If anyone else has an advert like this taking over their blog take a look at the widgets on your sidebar.  I had a stat counter by neoworx as my stat counter & funnily enough it was a neoworx ad.

All I had to do was go into the blogger dashboard choose Layout & then look at my gadgets & remove the stat counter.

I hope that small piece of information helps someone else who has this problem.

Autumn card

Obviously I have a lot of either retired Stampin' Up! product or other scrapbook/stamping companies product sitting around in my craft room.  It seems a shame that I can't show everyone all that I make with these supplies so I decided to show you what I make with this type of product on this blog.

I made this card last year, it was part of a series of cards using the Lovely as a Tree stamp set.  That stamp set is very much current but the paper I used is no longer in the current Stampin' Up! Idea Book & catalogue. 

The leaves in Christchurch have not only started to turn but they are falling to the ground.  I wonder what the flooding is going to be like this autumn when we have a busted sewerage network & storm water drains can't hold all the rain let alone all the leaves that are blocking the drains.  So far I haven't seen any street sweepers come by to pick the leaves, they were on to it quickly last year but I suppose the City Council has more important issues than possible flooding due to a build up of leaves. 

Another season has arrived a timely reminder that life does go on no matter what. We just have to adjust ourselves to what mother nature throws at us.

It's been a long time!

It's been a very long time since I have posted to this blog.  Since the last post I have been to India with Scott while he was on business.  We finished the trip with a weekend in Singapore which was fantastic.  We came home to a house that was still standing & with minor damage despite having an earthquake.  We then went to Fiji as a family & the boys enjoyed being away from a shaky city. 

We all came back home & got into the 4th term of the school year which involved athletic sports & carol services & then it was holidays.  We spent the holidays in Wanaka & Christchurch, leaving Christchurch just after the aftershock on Boxing day.  Yet again it was good to be out of the city.

The new school year started with Brent deciding that he really would like to go into boarding, so that is what he is doing this year.  James is enjoying being the only child in the house most of the time.  The aftershocks had died down & we got complacent then on February 22 BANG!

Apparently it only lasted 23seconds but that was one of the most terrifying 23 seconds of my life.  One minute I was enjoying eating lunch in front of TV & the next the house started a gentle shake, then the power went off, which kind of freeked me out because that's never happened to me during any of the aftershocks.  Then just as I was pondering the significance of this happening the house started really shaking violently so violently that I couldn't walk without lurching to one side or the other.  Things on the TV cabinet fell to the floor, the sliding door that is our front door slid open, the door to the hot water cupboard just swang open.  It stoppped & the first thing I did was walk towards the table to get my cellphone only for the next one to hit.  It sent me scurrying with tears in my eyes to stand back under the doorway where I was before.  It stopped again & I ran to the table to get my cellphone only to have another shake so I was back under the doorway again.  At least this one was a lot smaller & I could just lean against the door frame & ring Scott to see if he was alright.  Of course everyone was doing the same thing so I couldn't get through.  I decided to text him instead & this was my message " Are you alright.I'm scared shitless & we have no power."  At 1:02pm I got the comforting message "I am ok, things are bad here in town"  Scott walked home from Cathedral Square & picked both boys up from school on the way.  It was a huge relief to have all of them home safe & sound.

The boys had a week & a half off school & then it was back to school & all the activities that were supposed to happen within the 10week term had to fit in the remaining 5 weeks.  Now we are very quickly coming to the end of the term.  The boys finish the term on Friday.

Blogosphere Book Circle - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Author: Jane Austen and Seth grahame-Smith
Published: Quirk Productions 2009

From the back cover:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.  As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life!   Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menacer, but she's soon distrcted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr Darcy.  What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilised sparring between the two young lovers- and even more violent sparring on the blood soaked battlefield.  Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of teh class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalisim, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

Well I rather disagree with the sentiment expressed in the last sentence of that blurb.  I am left wondering why anybody would want to change Pride & Prejudice & why he thinks it is better with sword fights & zombies in it.  I suppose I am a classical person & feel that classics should not be ripped off like this.  I don't think it improved the story at all having sword fights & zombies but then maybe Pride & Prejudice is too boring for male readers. Was the author trying to get more people to read a classic?  I don't know, plus having a Readers Discussion Guide at the back really rubbed me the wrong way.   I had to read Pride & Prejudice at school in English & I loved the book then, I loved the way Elizabeth fought with her words.

I really don't like this book & feel quite strongly that someone really shouldn't make money off totally taking someone else's work & just slightly adjusting it like this.  Maybe I don't get it, maybe he really was trying to poke fun at Pride & Prejudice, but why?  I am just glad that I didn't spend money on this book because it just felt like a cheap rip off of a classic & I can't see why it was a New York Times Best seller.

Robocup – Sunday 15 August

Meet Michaelbot!

This robot was created by Brent & two of his friends in robotics.  Brent is new to robotics & only took it up this year at school.  So far he hasn’t seemed greatly interested in it but I think yesterday may have sparked him a bit, thanks to the Robocup.  His team put this robot in the dance competition.  It would seem that the criteria for this competition is to build a robot or two (or more, more points are awarded to having more than 1 robot on the dance floor) & get it to move or dance inside a 1.8m square to music.  The actual design does not have to look at all humanoid, it could be made to look like a train, cats, a lion whatever the imagination can up with.

Brent’s robot was rather humanoid like & it was supposed to dance to Thriller by Michael Jackson.  It had a pretend microphone in its hand & was supposed to move it arms up & down while moving across the dance floor.  Unfortunately the first two attempts the poor robot fell on to it’s face & then on the last attempt it did stand upright & its arms moved up & down but it didn’t move around the dance floor.

I don’t think Brent was too disappointed but he was really interested in the other robots in the dance competition.  He is now worried that Christ’s College & St. Andrew’s don’t do robotics so he really doesn’t want to go to those secondary schools thanks very much.  However he is happy to know that Burnside high does & what’s even better is that we are in the zone for it & it is just down the road. 

Personally I think we’ll see what we can find in Singapore, maybe we can find a bargain on a Lego robot down Orchard Road. 

Blogosphere Book Circle - Replenishing the Earth

Title: Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1783 -1939
Author: James Belich

I found this book very heavy going.  It was both heavy to hold & very heavy reading.  So heavy reading that each night I would read about a page & then I was asleep with the book on top of my face.  I had the book for a month from the library but I never got it finished.  I must have got about halfway & then I had to return it again.  I have to say that I didn't check if I could renew it because really I had had enough, I needed some lighter reading. 

This book read like a text book that could possibly used for studying anthropology.  It was kind of interesting how so much of the Western world speaks English & not Dutch or Spanish or French, but really I was never so interested in it that I wanted to carry on reading it.

I gave it a crack but I have to say for the way I read books, entertainment these days, I'm done with serious studying, it really wasn't up my alley.