Friday, November 28, 2008

Love is having to say sorry sometimes...


They say that love is never having to say you're sorry.


I've recently learned that this quote comes from the movie "Love Story". It's a phrase that has always perplexed me. Sure actions speak louder than words but that doesn't mean that words don't play a part! You need both actions AND words!


Just because you love someone, doesn't mean you will always behave in a perfect way towards them. We are all human after all. So if I do something wrong to a loved one, why shouldn't I be expected to say sorry? Even if that person tells me "don’t worry about it" or "you didn't have to say anything" we both know that yeah, I really DID need to say sorry.


And if you really love someone, and you've hurt them by something you've said or done, wouldn't you want to clear the air by saying sorry? Sure, we don't NEED to, it's not like the other person is not going to love you back forever, but it sure does help if you can vocalise as well.

Words without actions are empty but actions without words are also lacking.
Bottom line, be good to each other!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Visiting the neighbours

Recently our very kind neighbours invited us to dinner at their place. They wanted to spend a bit of time with Deno's dad before he returns to Las Vegas. We'd never been to dinner there before so I wanted to make a nice impression. Deno bought a couple of bottles of wine and I made a cake. I'd bought a new, special cake tin and as usual, didn't follow a recipe, but just put in lots of nice tasting things like blackberries, melted white chocolate and bananas….

To go with the blackberry theme, I put some reddish colouring in the icing… it looked pretty I thought..

Anyhow, so we have a lovely dinner there and after the dinner plates are cleared, our neighbour brings out this magnificent looking pavlova topped with tons of strawberries, and blueberries! It looked stunning!

Sarah and Josh looked at the pavlova then looked back to my cake and said, "Mum that cake makes yours look like a finger bun"

Sigh.

But they were right so I couldn't say anything! Still, my cake was eaten too… and they were both ymmy cakes, just yummy in different ways!



Thursday, November 20, 2008

But which way is your brain facing?

He's not going to be happy about me mentioning this but…


A few nights ago, Deno and I were sitting on the couch contemplating our tv viewing schedule. We've recently bought a TiVo unit and we're still on a bit of a high with the different things that we can do with it. Is it worth the price? I'm not sure but that's not what I want to write about


Deno gets a bit frazzled over things like the "TiVo Suggestions" thing. The TiVo will record programs it thinks you might be interested in. I'm pretty sure that anything you schedule would take priority over a tivo suggestion but Deno is worried that there wouldn't be enough room on the hard drive and something we wanted to watch would get deleted…


So with that thought in mind, and being annoyed at just having seen the huge list of recorded tivo suggestions, we're sitting on the couch about to start watching something we did actually record.


For no reason at all, the tivo starts rewinding instead of forwarding through our show! We'd wanted to pass through the ads. Deno't couldn't understand it!
He looked down at the remote, yes he was pushing the right button to forward through the show.. But it was going BACKWARDS??? How could this be!
His mind, always ready to think he's been had, started thinking about what a crock this whole Tivo thing is and they better take the unit back if it's not going to work right when he discovers….



He was holding the remote backwards, pointing it to himself rather than at the tv. The buttons were all in reverse order so he was pressing rewind instead of forward.




Funny little Deno! You're so cute when you make those human mistakes!








Sunday, November 16, 2008

On both ends of the call centre line


Throughout the course of my working day, I take calls from Queensland, Victoria, NSW and South Australia. Usually we can see where the caller is calling from but sometimes if a customer has been transferred we can't see that information so we have to as
k;

"What sta
te are you calling from?"
And if I were the customer who'd just been transferred from department to department I think I'd answer
"A disheveled s
tate"





Don't you just hate those call centres that make you virtually jump through hoops to get to finally speak to an operator? Doesn't it drive you insane? And yet all the call centres use the same methods! As if pushing this button to get this section or that button to get that section isn't bad enough, some of them have started employing the voice activated commands.

"Simply state the reason for your call" the very optomistic recorded voice says.
No matter how simply I say the words, it's never interpreted right by the system.
One time I was having a bit of an argument with this recorded voice and Deno happened to come down as I was screaming "Operator; Operator; Operator" into the phone.

It wasn't a pretty sight and no, I didn't get to speak to the operator, the recorded voice said "I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that. Please repeat the reason for your call in a few words"

And I hung up. Defeated.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Physic Readings Available For A Fee

Ah yes, another day full of fun phone calls.


As you may know, my job involves taking customer enquiries about their bills. I had one very persistant lady this morning who kept asking me a series of questions over and over again. I was so tempted to say,
"No matter how many times you ask me, the answer will still be the same"
Then she asked me how much her next bill was going to be.
Really?

What I should have said was "$954.36"

No doubt, she would have freaked at the amount, probably saying something like "why so high???"

To which I would have had to reply "Because I've added my physic reading fee on top of that"

Seriously, the number of people who ask me how much their next bill is going to be is astounding.




The other most unfortunate news of the day is that our internet was down. We only have a limited amount of sites we can access anyway (no you tube, facebook or myspace) but it helps pass the time and keep sanity intact…

Unfortunately with the internet being down for most of the day, sanity was not always attainable. In fact, I didn't realise how much I relied on it until it was no longer available.

I couldn't check my hotmail! I may have had extremely important mail waiting for me (see entry about email addiction!!!) but I would not have known!
It was torturous.

Hopefully this situation with the internet being down will only be temporary and everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

Fingers Crossed.


Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Where's the pause button?


The movie "Click" was one of those that I ended up falling asleep to but I think I got the gist of it.
Even though the moral of the story was important and definitely thought provoking, I often find myself wishing I had a remote control for my life.

How many times have I been sitting with someone who is going on and on and on about something I'm not even remotely interested in. For some reason, this person has no idea that they're boring me to tears so they continue... My mind will wander at some point of their babble and I'll find myself thinking
"Just endure it, in one hour you'll be somewhere else entirely" or something similar.



Before watching the movie "Click" I would have said it would be great to hit the "fast forward" button and relieve myself of the boring agony sooner, but now I'd say I'd rather a "pause" button so that I can pause my life, and bring it back to life when I'm very far away from the blabberer.

Seriously though, wouldn't it be cool to be able to rewind certain parts of your life? That great gig you went to, you and your partners first date, the moment after your kids were born? (But definitely not during the birthing process itself!)

I don't really want to wish my life away, always looking forward to the
next thing, but I do want to be smart enough not to be caught in a situation I don't want to be in!

I guess I'll have to be happy with that until someone really does come up with a Life Remote!




Saturday, November 8, 2008

Birds!!!

Our roof must be very comfy for birds because it's at about this time of year that we hear the tip tap of little bird feet, and the flutter of their wings up in the room. It's especially noticeable when we're trying to go to sleep...

So Deno decided today was the day to see what the hell was going on up there and to set those birds free (restoring our sanity in the process)



Unfortunately our roof is not the easiest to get around in and Deno is not the littlest guy around... and those birds had made their home in the furtherest corner...

In the end, Deno decided it was better to go in through the outside by taking a panel out..



We had a box ready and five little colourful parrots were safely snuck inside!

They were making the most strange sound!! You'll be able to hear it in the video footage I've got below.




The poor things were so frightened but they're so beautiful!!!


Deno got up close and personal!




Now watch our video clip! In the first bit, you can hear the strange sounds they make!







Friday, November 7, 2008

"I've just got to check my email"

Although we all have some degree of insecurity, I'm secure enough to admit freely that I'm addicted to email.


Why I feel the need to be in constant communication with so many people is a blog for another day (and one I'm not particularly interested in) but it gives me great pleasure to see that little envelope in my task bar.

I've got mail!

Someone is giving me news!

I've got another opportunity to write another email to someone!

That is particularly important when it's a slow day at work and I'm looking for something to do…

And there's nothing more disappointing in getting your hopes up when you see that envelope in the task bar, only to discover that it's actually junk mail that you've received!Grrr to junk mail!

I have my regular faithful friends who email me back and forth who I would assume are as addicted as I am and you know what, I'm not going to apologise for it! It's something I like doing! I like communicating through email. It's something I enjoy!

How many times have you heard someone say "I don't talk to people on the computer, if I have something to say I'll pick up the phone and call them" and there's nothing wrong with that either, but the tone these words are said in is often one of "I'm not as socially retarded as people who spend all their time communicating through the computer".
If I didn't have a social life, then yeah, it would be a problem but I do so, I'll continue to enjoy my little email addiction!


I must admit, my email addiction is stronger at work than at home and that probably has something to do with my looking for something to distract myself from doing actual work… but even at home I find myself wandering over the computer just to check….


Oh! A new email! Who could this one be from?




Thursday, November 6, 2008

Movember is just Ewww Month



Look I get the whole point of movember and think it's a cause that is in much need of continual support but I've been absolutely dreading it.

Why?

You don't really have to ask do you?

Moustaches are just disgusting.



And yeah I get the jokiness of it and if it were a once off thing, I could get behind it too but do I really have to see an abundance of these awful fuzzy growths this month?

There's a large group of men doing it at work and I commend them the effort and as I've already said, the promotion of the cause but ugh! I have to look at them!

Think about it, what do you think when you see a moustached man? I see some body who is so set in his ways that he refuses to acknowledge that moustaches should have been left in the seventies when they were somewhat acceptable (I was too young to be offended by them in the 70's!)

I would mention the porn star link but I think the type of man who enjoys his moustache, also enjoys that porn star link.
Ewww.



I walked into work today for the first time this month and noticed several guys with fuzz on their face. One of them looked like he'd glued a catepillar above his top lip. I can't believe they'd be happy to go through the month like that! I don't get it! Others who said they were participating barely had any visual evidence of it.





Now just to be clear, everything I've said about that fuzziness above the top lip in this blog does NOT apply to the sexy goatie. (Love you honey)


I love a goatie and a beard can be ok but nothing else is more gross or more old fashioned than a moustache!!



But I do hope they raise a lot of money.