Bloggles

Hmm. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, hey? I blame the long and painfully drawn out process of looking for a job for my absence and lack of motivation. It has been sucking the life out of me How I wish I were back in the land of COWS (and not sheep, surprisingly!). Here are a few photos I’ve managed to scab off David’s Flickr.

Rotorua

We spent the firstleg of our trip in Rotorua where we got to experience the wonder of its geothermal activity (fart smell) and of course, the Redwoods Mountain Bike Park in Whakarewarewa Forest. It was soooo awesome. Think Stromlo but with trees and better! My favourite trails off the top of my head were: A-Trail, Be Rude Not To and definitely the Exit Trail. Bikes were hired and time was limited so we didn’t get to ride as many as we would have liked. Getting lost through Genesis and being unfit didn’t help but it was an excellent experience and I’d definitely love to go back one day if I happen to be down in NZ.

With his hired GT Force on our way into the park

Trying to navigate with our $5 waterproof map. It was hard at first but got easier as we got a feel for the place.

Me riding through the Tickler on my hired Norco. Saying I missed my Trance would be an understatement. Lagging behind means the person in front can stop to take pictures of you

On a more low key day, we visited the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. While there was an initial assault on our senses, the sights were worth it after some adjustment.

I forget what this was called. Maybe the “Champagne Pool”? All the minerals and what not made for awesome coloured water while the sulphur steaming out of it made for a very cool effect. Yes, my descriptive skills are at their all time high tonight!

This was the “Devil’s Home”. Radioactive-green coloured water in a crater. I think “Three-eyed Fish’s Home” would have been a better name!

Lady Knox Geyser. “When 9°C water meets 150°C waters”. Powwww! Mother Nature shooting her load.

And it wasn’t only in a nature park that you saw this kind of activity. This is a shot of a body of water that we had to ride over to get to the Redwoods. Don’t be alarmed if you see steam rising out of lakes or random holes in the ground – it’s quite normal around Rotorua.

And this concludes my post on Rotorua. I might surprise you all with other installments on the other parts of our NZ trip.

Woo! I just got a letter confirming my eligibility to gradaute in April along with details of my ceremony. I’m so excited!

Farewell UWS! Although I have looked forward to never setting foot on campus again, I have to admit that there are things I’ll miss… like the bummy lifestyle of being a university student and hanging around between classes. Although it wasn’t spectacular, I’ll also always remember the cafe – chai lattes, meat pies, potato wedges and burgers. Or the time I randomly spotted the words “black cock” scrawled on the desk during one of those horrendous Managing Employee Performance tutorials.

Au Revoir!

We were lucky enough to see Phoenix play last night at The Hordern. At the risk of sounding like a teenager, I have to say that they were FRICKEN AWWWWESOMMME!! Music sounds so much better live and loud and when the stage it’s coming from is ablaze with flashing coloured lights. I’m glad they didn’t disappoint. We heard old stuff as well as the new stuff and even a cover of Air’s Playground Love.  My favourite bit would have been their live rendition of If I Ever Feel Better and the round they did. A*MAZING! (ha! anyone remember that kid’s show on after school in the arvos?). We all got to hear our songs, even Thien who was hanging out to hear Funky Squaredance!

One thing that caught me by surprise was how big they actually are. I wasn’t expecting such a ‘huge’ show and the overabundance of teeny boppers but then what could I really expect? Everything is mainstream these days and suppose it all makes sense considering how catchy their music is. One thing that really pissed Rob and I off though, was hearing one teenage twat whine that she “only like[d] shit [she] c[ould] dance to” Well, Sweetheart, maybe you should stick to buying CD singles instead of coming to the whole fucking concert. Or maybe I should suggest, rather, that she stick to downloading singles off iTunes. Bitch, have some respect! Geez.

We tried the mosh during the opening act (Miami Horror) but I think my stature (or lack thereof) and misanthropy got in the way of my enjoyment of it. I got pretty narky, having people constantly push in front of me and I wasn’t sure if it was because they thought I was some sort of easy target or if they were just cunty McCunts in general. It was all good once we headed to the stands for Phoenix though (thank you Paul’s neck for playing up and presenting me with the opportunity to extract myself from the shovefest that was the mosh!), but I will always be torn by the trade off between proximity (and the chance to bust out) and actually being able to SEE the performance. What does a girl of 153cm and 45kg do in these situations?

All in all, I had an excellent time and any voice I had left from being sick was definitely gone by the end of the night. But of course, it was worth it! I don’t have any photos but here’s a video from YouTube that someone took that night.

Purple Crème Comparison Mani

Excuse the terribly noisy photo, I got lazy and jacked the ISO up to 400 because I was having trouble keeping my hand still. As you can see, OPI PP and OPI CYDI? are very close. PP is slightly warmer/more red if you look closely but they are practically dupes to each other while the Misa (ring finger) was just in a darker, cooler and more blue league of its own.

Here we have (Index to Pinkie): OPI – Pamplona Purple, OPI – Can You Dig It?, Misa – Sorry Just Can’t Help It and OPI – Pamplona Purple.

Rimmel 60 seconds – Blue Me Away

I wore this colour for all of one day, I guess I wasn’t really in the mood for this one. It’s a lovely colour, though, blue with fine purple shimmer that would be highly visible in the sun. Unfortunately there was none of that when I took these pictures. Appearance aside, I noted that Rimmel’s claim to drying in 60 seconds actually affected my application of it – it would start drying before I was done but that’s probably just user-error because I’m still quite slow at painting.

Outdoors – overcast

An Indoor shot. The shimmer is slightly visible here on the index nail but very noticeable in good light in real life.

Essie – St Lucia Lilac

This is St Lucia Lilac which was good in two coats. Of course, it lived up to Essie’s notoriety of being streaky but I was pleased to find that it evened out nicely by the 2nd coat. I absolutely loooooved this colour and am ever so grateful to Michelyne over at Enamel Coated for sending this over to me in a give away she had a while ago. This is the polish that started a light pastel crème craze for me. I had previously steered clear of them in fears that they would turn out too stark against my skin but I loved this every minute I had it on. I still have China Glaze – Sun Showers to swatch which was a condition of entry for the comp but curiosity to try this one first bowled me over. Oops! Sun Showers is coming soon!

Outdoors – overcast

Indoor shot

And another against white paper. Yep, it’s lilac.

22.01.10 – Big Day Out

We battled it out with the heat to attend our first music festival together. While it wasn’t mine, it was a first for all the boys and for Nghi (but she isn’t really a stranger to these events). Glad we made it this time after our failed attempt last year. Muse was awesome and so was Calvin Harris (for the 10 mintues of his set that we actually endured the boiler Room for. It was just way too stuffy in there). I was surprised at how many fans Dizzee Rascal actually has. Wow, he packed out that stadium like a mother fucker. Here’s some proof that we went Grape Tropical Sno snow cones saved my life!

It was so hottttt. We spent alot of time trying to stay cool in the shade during the day.

Nghi and TN. You know, chillin’.

Paul Tang a.k.a Dumpster Boy!

Why, hello there! Nghi and I could spot the boys assuming their positions in the mosh while we chilled out in the grand stand.

Chilling out in said grand stand. More like sweating it out, actaully. SO. FOCKING. HOT.

The crowd getting ready to see Dizeee Rascal perform. Wow, it sure filled up!

Here we are waiting for Muse to come on. Powderfinger’s set seemed to last aaaaaaggges. LOL @ seedy Will & TN.

Yes, we were sitting amongst all that rubbish. And again, LOL @ bad ass Will.

Our first sweaty, dirty festival together. I was shiny with a slick of sweat all day. Groossssss. You don’t know how satisfying it was to shower that night. OHHHHH LAWWWD! CLEANLINESS!