How did we end up here?

Okay I've been pretty busy lately, so I've got a few movies that need reviewing that I'll blog about in the coming posts. For my first one, I'm going all the way back to mid-January yikes!


Birdman (2014)

8.1/10 on IMDb
93% on Rotten Tomatoes
As amazing as Christian Bale is as Batman, Michael Keaton was the one and only Batman for me during my childhood.

And here he is again, after so many years, playing Batman again.

I mean Birdman.

I mean how self-aware is this film? It's probably the most self-aware film that's ever been created.

Michael Keaton stars as Riggan, a washed-up actor known for his portrayal of the superhero Birdman. Yet after all these years here he is, suffering a mental breakdown as he struggles to show his full potential. While people recognise him as Birdman, he strives to be something more; he strives to be an actor with skill and versatility, not just an actor that played one role.

Sounds familiar? Well, it's pretty much the story of Michael Keaton's life here. I mean seriously, I haven't seen any other Keaton film apart from his Batman movies. It's just so self-aware! I love that about the film.

Even when they say that Riggan hasn't played Birdman since 1992, it's not just a random date pulled out of nowhere; that's the year that Batman Returns was released, the last year of the Michael Keaton Batman era.

And it's not just with Keaton; apparently even Edward Norton's character is a parody of his real self, as he has a reputation for being a very difficult actor to work with.

But let's get to the main feature of this film.

I don't know about you but I was pretty darn hyped up for a film that looked like it was done in one shot.

Alejandro Iñárritu did such an amazing job here; it was so mesmerising to see everything from a single shot; almost like we were following Riggan, like we were going up the steps to the balcony, almost as if we were there ourselves.

From IMDb: "Given the unusual style of filming long takes, Edward Norton and Michael Keaton kept a running tally of flubs made by the actors. Emma Stone made the most mistakes, Zach Galifianakis made the fewest."

Speaking of which, how awesome was Zach Galifianakis? Like he wasn't a complete idiot in this film. He wasn't even slightly an idiot! I was so surpised; I kept forgetting it was actually him.

And just as a side note, Emma Stone's eyes are HUGE in this film (Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler weren't kidding).

By the way, a lot of people praised Emma Stone, but I feel like she was just alright; like she was good, but nothing special. This film didn't really showcase any versatility or whatever in her, it just showed she's still a good actor.

My favourite part of the film, though, was... well I can't really say because it will ruin the moment, but here's what IMDb says about it:

~(Potential) SPOILER!~

When Riggan is on top of the building before he's about to start flying, a lady below asks if he's for real or if it's for a movie. Riggan replies that it's for a movie and the lady yells back that all the movies are full of s***. The woman was not part of the production.

Also, the ending was intriguing.

It's one of those endings that will spark (and has already sparked) much debate...

~SPOILER ON THE ENDING!~

This video explains it quite well, but I also drew a flow chart to kind of explain all the different possiblities:

(Click to enlarge)

Apart from that, another great thing about the film was the music. The way the opening credits come on, and the way that drummer plays his heart out throughout the film is fantastic.

So all in all, this film is completely legendary (thanks to Iñárritu and Keaton) and a definite must see!


By the way, at the cinemas, how cool are these Choc Top names:

Juno (2007)

7.6/10 on IMDb
94% on Rotten Tomatoes
I've always loved Ellen Page, ever since I saw her in X-Men as Kitty Pryde, so I don't know why I didn't watch Juno when it came out, but it's always been on my list.

I'm sure most know the general story of Juno MacGuff, the young teenager who finds herself pregnant. But I really didn't expect the film to go beyond that. I thought it was just a simplistic comedy about teenage pregnancy. Sure it was quite critically acclaimed and won a few awards, but I just thought that was acknowledging it's quirkiness and that it couldn't go any further as a movie.

Of course, I obviously didn't hear much about it going in, so I was quite surprised when I watched this film. While it's quite funny, it's sense of humour is pretty clever, and not the slapstick really stupid humour I was expecting. The storyline also gets a bit complicated, and Ellen page and Jennifer Garner were pretty great in this. Jennifer Garner actually made me tear up in that one really touching scene when she bumps into Juno at the mall.

I also didn't realise there was much of a cast to be honest. I knew Michael Cera was in it, but I had no idea about Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner and the others being in it.

Overall, this film was a pleasant surprise, but I think it was still a bit too hyped up (maybe because I'm only watching it 7 years after it came out, maybe because I thought it was a full-on in-your-face comedy film, and maybe because all I heard about it was hype hype hype and more hype, instead of an actual plot or proper review). But in saying that, the comedic timing was great, and the balance between comedy and drama was well executed, and I would recommend it if you needed something to kill your time or if you ever came across it and weren't sure if you should give it a watch.


Also, for one week of February my house has been empty of parents.

My dad went to China for work and my mum Malaysia for holiday, so they've left me and my brother to fend for ourselves.

Fortunately, that was the week I stopped working so much, so I've had more time to cook.

Apart from the stuff my mum has pre-cooked and frozen (like curry and spaghetti sauce), I've been experimenting with random recipes I've always wanted to cook:

The chicken schnitzel was bought cold from Coles, but was still quite nice. The cheesy potato bake was delicious but took way longer than expected to actually make altogether (about an hour).

The chicken schnitzel was left over from the first time, so I cooked it again with baked stuffed potatoes, which are a classic that I've been doing ever since food tech days in year 9/10.
My dad came back about a week after my mum left, but because he can't cook I had to keep this up.

It was a good day in the Lim household where I discovered I still had a taco kit in my pantry that wasn't expired!

Then I started craving some Frankfurts and gravy so I got these hot dogs done, together with these frozen chips that I bought before but didn't get around to cooking.

Then I was in the mood for some creamy chicken fettucine, which is delicious because the main ingredient is Cream of Chicken condensed soup. Although I will say there is A LOT of food, and quite a bit of preparation for it. We were all quite full after.

Holiday Catch Up

I watched the last Hobbit the week it came out!

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

7.7/10 on IMDb
60% on Rotten Tomatoes
The last in the stretched-thin trilogy following the adventures of Bilbo Baggins. Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conundrum: Smaug has left his Lonely Mountain to bring destruction on the people of Lake Town. As Thorin proceeds to claim his Kingship back and rule over the Lonely Mountain, news spreads of his return and thus a battle takes place, consisting of five armies: The Dwarves, The Men, The Elves, The Orcs and The Wolves/Eagles (the identity of the fifth army is debated).

This was definitely the best Hobbit movie of the trilogy, which comes to no surprise since it was not only a battle movie, but it also had some great links that foreshadowed the events in Lord of the Rings. Another great thing about this was that it wasn't three hours long, and even though it was still stretched out (in the book there is almost no information on the battle; Bilbo gets knocked out then he hears about what happened very briefly), it definitely wasn't as stretched out as other scenes in the first two movies.

Sure, a whole movie dedicated to one battle can get tedious (to say the least), but after watching the first two films, you have no choice but to accept that this is just the way it has to be. Fortunately, there's some moments of drama and humour that break up the intense battle, which itself contains some great battle sequences to make it a definitely worthy film.

While the romance between Tauriel and Kili was a bit bizarre, it was still nice to see what happened here. The ending seriously got all my feels going. I especially loved some of the quotes from this movie, but unfortunately I have to put spoiler tags on some of them.

~SPOILERS!~

Tauriel:If this is love, I don't want it. Take it away, please! Why does it hurt so much?
Thranduil: Because it was real.

Saruman: Leave Sauron to me!
(Not really a spoiler but it takes away the magic if you know he's going to say this)

Dwalin: You sit here, in these vast halls, with a crown upon your head and yet you are lesser now than you have ever been.

I also made some banana bread these holidays!

I had three bananas that were super ripe and I definitely couldn't eat them all because I was the only one at home eating bananas, so I just spontaneously decided to make banana bread and it actually turned out quite alright.

It wasn't super dry or anything, but since banana bread is usually really really moist, it kinda felt like this was too dry (maybe because I didn't want to put too much butter in...)


These holidays I'm also volunteering as a Research Assistant for a Psychology student who's doing her PhD. It's 14 hours a week, meeting for 3 hours each week, but it's pretty flexible as I can just work from home most of the time. It's pretty much like doing an assessment, so I have to read lots of journal articles, do a summary of their findings, create a reference list and help write the introduction of her paper. Thankfully I don't get marked though, and everything I do goes through her eyes, since it's her PhD and she obviously wants it to be good. I was talking to a student who did this program last year and wanted to stay on even until now, and he said that it really helped with his assessments as it allowed him to read more efficiently, understand things better and write his assessments better. The supervisor is also super lovely and helpful so she's very happy to provide us volunteers with contacts that would help us learn more about Clinical Psychology. The topic she's working on is self-handicapping, which is super interesting for me, and I'm helping her with the self-esteem part of it, which I hope would really help my understanding of things when I head into Clinical Psych.

I haven't really started yet except reading some journal articles, but we only just met up last week. So I'm still going to be pretty busy these holidays, which is good since I'm no longer working (can't tutor because it's the holidays and Christmas season is over for my Christmas casual self at The Body Shop) and need to kill time.

I want to get back into cooking random stuff, painting/drawing random stuff and writing more of this story I'm working on, but I really haven't gotten the motivation back yet. So apart from that, my holidays haven't been really eventful.

- - - - -
And now, here are some movie reviews that I've been putting off for some time:

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

8.0/10 on IMDb
81% on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the book of the same name by John Green, the story tells of a teenage Hazel Grace Lancaster, who has been diagnosed with cancer since young. It follows pretty much the plot and tone of the book (which I loved), but for some reason I didn't really enjoy this movie. I think it was because of the forced pretentiousness of the characters which made me super uncomfortable and annoyed. I mean, the characters were pretentious in the book, and I guess that's why I felt a bit weird reading some of Augustus' dialogue, but seeing it acted out by a real person makes you really want to cringe. There was also not much of a way to understand what Hazel was thinking, which was one of the things that was great about the novel.

I will give them props on how they managed the ending though; I had a lot of feels during it. Shailene Woodley was pretty great during this; she looked completely different to her character in Divergent, and it did show her versatility as an actor.

And yet... I wouldn't rewatch this any time soon.


Divergent (2014)

6.8/10 on IMDb
41% on Rotten Tomatoes
Speaking of Divergent, I can't believe I never wrote a review on it. It's probably because I already wrote a review on the book and assumed I did one for the film.

As I said, this film also stars Shailene Woodley as the main character Tris. The story is set in a dystopian future with society divided into five factions based on a dominating personality trait: Abnegation (selflessness), Dauntless (bravery), Erudite (intellect), Candor (honesty), and Amity (friendliness). People who do not belong to just one faction are classed as Divergent. And as you guessed it, Tris is Divergent.

Sure enough the Divergents are in danger of being eliminated (executed), and so the story sets up the beginnings of a conspiracy against these Divergents that Tris must protect herself from.

Yet it's wrong to sell the story as that because in all honesty, most of the movie focuses on Tris' initiation after choosing to go to the Dauntless faction (at the age of 16, students take a test and then choose whether to stay in the faction their family is in, or leave their family permanently and choose another faction). The initiation comprises of mainly physical and mental training (the latter taking the form of fear simulations in which students must face their worst fears).

The novels themselves weren't at all fantastic (Hunger Games is so much better), so it was no surprise that this film wasn't that great. Sure it was good seeing how they actually created the world, painted the Dauntless faction and even the society's faction system, as well as seeing how they did the fear landscapes, but if the novel that it's based off doesn't have a strong plotline, then this won't either.

The second novel in the trilogy, Insurgent, was the best in my opinion, and even the trailer for it looks like they're changing a lot of things (just look at all the comments) to make it translate better on film, so it looks like it'll be an interesting one to watch out for. But for Divergent, I don't think I'd revisit it.


Sin City

8.1/10 on IMDb
78% on Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, this film tells the story of three characters thrown into dark situations all in the corrupt Basin City (aka Sin City).

I wasn't too sure about this film, but when I saw Sin City 2 coming out, I figured I should check it out. Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. While the main reason for being interested in it was the style of the film, since it's an adaptation of the graphic novel and therefore has stylistic black and white digitised imagery, I still really liked the plot of it. Sure, there was a lot of brutal violence and very sexual scenes (which my mum was very quick to complain about), but I think it was good because it added to the corruption, and even violent scenes weren't that violent because of its comic-book-like nature.

It was good seeing how all these characters intertwined, as well as seeing how corrupt humans can be. While fictional, it still emphasises real and human characteristics that exist today. The directing was great, and there was such a great cast as well, but I think the best features are the artistic nature of the film, as well as the cautions of human corruption. So in the end, this is a must see.

(Note: I actually wanted to watch Sin City 2 after I saw this to put them in the same blog post but I heard it was terrible so I haven't seen it yet.)

Prepping for Uni

Last holiday post (for now)!

This post is just going to be a lot of random little things because I haven't really been doing too much lately.

So if we reflect back on my holidays, I'm actually quite proud of myself. I was quite productive and explored a lot of new things. Hopefully I can keep this up during Uni though...

I'm still a bit annoyed I didn't do much artsy stuff besides scrapbooking (which I actually just finished today by the way! YAAY!)... I really wanted to draw and paint a lot these holidays. That was probably my only goal and I ended up doing everything else apart from that.

Oh but speaking of artsy stuff... I went to Daiso in Parramatta and browsed around and I saw this thing that is literally just a coil of material and they have instructions for you to weave a basket!

Because I think it's the sort of thing where you need quite a lot of time to do, I haven't gotten started on it yet. I've cut out all my strips but they've just been lying around on my desk, hopefully I get around to it soon and hopefully it doesn't turn out like my sock bear...

Needless to say, I stuffed that one up... (pun pun pun!)

I also bought some embellishment stickers from Daiso, which I think were totally not worth $2.80 but they were so pretty I couldn't resist. I think I managed to buy two of the very few items in Daiso that actually aren't worth it but hey, without people like me, Daiso wouldn't thrive so yeah.. next time you buy something from Daiso thank me for keeping their business alive.


What else is there?

My bro bought a few more board games but we've only played one called Pandemic.

I think this is the best game so far! The interesting thing about this game is that it's a co-operative game, meaning all the players actually work together to win against the board game.

As you can tell by the name, the game has to do with diseases spreading across the world, and you have to work together with other players to cure all four diseases. You get assigned role cards, each with their own special powers, and you get to move around the world treating and curing diseases. However, each round you need to infect at least two cities and this can cause outbreaks. If you get eight outbreaks, then you lose. You also lose when the deck runs out and when you run out of infections. The crazy thing is that every now and then you get Epidemics which increase the infection rate and intensify the infections. This probably doesn't make any sense but it's seriously such good fun I really loved it!


I also watched Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

This movie was...alright... I mean yeah it was a good enjoyable film but it's not great or anything. My family kept cringing at the British accents, but it added to the humour. Honestly, I'm really sick and tired of this Gemma Arterton acting in these types of movies (she acted as Io in Clash of the Titans as well). Her voice for some reason really unsettles me. Okay maybe it's the voice I'm sick and tired of and not this film genre. Actually no, I still don't like her because I feel like I keep seeing her in this sort of film and it's just annoying.

Another thing was that the ending totally didn't make sense to me. It just contradicted what they were saying the entire film like "NO! You can't possibly let this guy do this because if anyone does that then they will unleash all of Hell's Wrath!" But then at the end they're like "Yeah, nah..." and just do it anyway...

But yeah, it's a Disney family film so I suppose it's not meant to be an amazing film. It's funny in it's own way and Jake Gyllenhaal's muscles are highly defined (although I still can't find his face super attractive, there's something about his eyes that make him look very creepy and unnatural).


And speaking of movies, on Facebook, Civic had this instant win thing and I won a double pass for The Internship.

This was on like Thursday or something. The terms and conditions said to be used from 13 June 2013 until the end of the film's season. I was like "13TH OF JUNE?! THERE'S NO WAY IT'S STILL SHOWING!" And so I checked ALL NINE cinema companies and it was only showing in ONE HOYTS LOCATION! How ridiculous is that. I probably won't watch it because I ceebs anyway, I wouldn't even have entered if I knew it was a double pass to the Internship but oh wellz...


AND since we're going on films anyway, how cool is this behind-the-scenes shot of Django Unchained! YOU MUST MUST MUST CLICK ON IT TO ENLARGE THE PHOTO IT'S JUST AMAZING!

Ugh, that's so awesome! I love how in-character Leonardo DiCaprio gets!


And one last film-related point! I didn't realise but Disney did a short film that was a sequel to Tangled!!!!! How did I not know this?!?!? Well, actually I do know how I did not know this, it came out together with Beauty and the Beast 3D (I think it was 3D but if not, it was one of those special things like Diamond Edition or whatever).

WATCH IT NOW!!!


UGH I LOVE TANGLED!! Rapunzel and Flynn Forever!!

And that's the end of my rant!


And now onto some cooking stuffs!

My great-uncle and my second cousin's birthdays are soon, so my great-aunt wanted me to make a dessert. I needed to try something different so I looked through my baking cookbook and I found something called Impossible Pies! The author said something like "These pies are more magical than impossible. You pour the pudding-like mixture into the pie pans and bake it and it separates into three layers: a base crust, a custard filling and a coconut topping."

I was like I NEED TO TRY THIS! Except I didn't want to fail on the day so I tried it out yesterday and OH MY GOODNESS IT WENT TERRIBLE!

Actually, it wasn't that bad, the taste is really good, it's just that I didn't realise the 'base crust' was going to still be sort of soft, and because I don't have a springform pan I just used a normal baking pan and when I flipped the impossible pie onto another plate, half of the soft crust layer separated and stayed in the pan! OH NOO!! I was so annoyed but good thing I didn't do that on the day! The first thing I did this morning was go to Kmart and get myself a springform pan! Actually the pack came with two so I'm happy now. Tomorrow I get to serve up a lovely impossible pie!

So here's a pic of the final thing:

And a close-up on the coconut on top:

And a badly unfocused image of the slice which doesn't really show you much but in real life you can distinctly see the base, custard filling and coconut topping!

Later maybe I'll take a photo of me making it, it's really easy, just whip everything up in a blender!


AND THAT'S IT!

Hope everyone has a lovely start to Uni!

Up next:

A Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire themed blog (I know I keep saying this, but it's coming up!)

More stories

More drawings

Most likely two songs (I have one song learnt but I sound really retarded in the recording so I'm not sure about that one, and I'm really close to finishing off this second song so hopefully I sound alright in that too otherwise there will be no songs blogged at all!)


And here's some links:

Shel Silverstein: The Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas

George Carlin: On assassination

Neil deGrasse Tyson: The most astounding fact

18 Amazing Facts About the Human Body

Multicolored Layered Paper Sculptures by Maud Vantours

First Uni Holidays!

YAY exams are finished! It wasn't as hectic as I thought it would be, having four exams in three days, with Psych and Business in the same day. It was acutally pretty good, I think I did alright. My biggest worry is Business - I'm not sure if I got enough to pass the course! But OH WELL what can I do?!

Anyway, so after exams were finished I finally cleaned my desk! Even the drawers, how exciting! And obviously I changed my blogskin as well! And in the process I got rid of my cbox, because it was filled with spam! I'm trying to get comments on the blogs, does anyone know how to do this?!

Also, I made new labels/tags for my blogs, including Artsy Fartsy, where all my drawings, paintings and even just simple non-serious artworks are, as well as Cooking Adventures, where all the stuff I have cooked is. Yay!



In my last blog post, I forgot to mention some cool things that happened during my blogging hiatus.

Most recently, I won a competition (again! Maybe next blog I'll tell you how to increase your chances of winning a competition!)to meet Justine Schofield from Masterchef Season One!! It was a private meet and greet before she did her cooking demonstration in North Rocks Westfield.

This is us two together!

She signed my cookbook I brought

As well as giving me one of her aprons that she signed herself!

And she was making crepes so she got me to help with her demonstration!

Here I am failing at flipping the crepe. I can't even flip a normal crepe or pancake in a light pan, let alone this heavy cast-iron non-crepe pan! =[

Another thing is for Diwan's 18th birthday I made him a mosaic!

This took so long!

I started early in January because I knew I was going to spend one month on holiday, and I obviously couldn't do it whilst on holiday!

His birthday was at the end of March so I thought I'd have plenty of time, I got all the easy bits out of the way before I went overseas and thought I could finish it easily in time for his birthday.

I was so wrong!

It was so hard to find the time to do it, because I knew that to do it properly, I had to be:
1) In the mood
2) Able to concentrate
3) Free for a few hours (at least two)

The last week of February I was still tired from returning to Australia, so I didn't do too much, then after that was uni! Even though we didn't have many assessments and all that I felt so mentally drained, this stuff was tiring work!

HERE'S HOW I DID IT (skip if you're not interested, it's kinda long):

I first got a picture of Diwan and used Photoshop to pixellate the different sections of the picture.
Then I got an A3 piece of cardboard and measured it and determined what the sizes of my squares were going to be.
I drew it all up, got myself some double-sided sticky tape and paint sample cards from Bunnings (I know, how cheap of me, but I tried it with coloured paper and I just couldn't get it right because I needed several different tones that were similar to each other!).

THEN THE HARD PART.

At first I did the mosaic section by section, so the large bits like the hair and the background were done first, then the medium-sized squares in the face. That was easy but super tedious: measuring, ruling lines, cutting squares, cutting sticky tape, arranging colours until it looks alright, peeling and sticking.

The ear was a bit trickier because squares were getting a bit smaller and even a millimeter of a difference was WAY TOO BIG.

The right eye (to us it's the left one) was crazy because the squares were so small! I started using tweezers to hold the cardboard so I could cut it, then because the squares were so small I had to put the sticky tape on the cardboard first and use the tweezers to place it down.

That eye and the edge of the face were about the same size but for some reason the edge of the face was SO HARD. I think it's because there were sooo many. I couldn't possibly divide it up by section because the colours were too similar and all over the place, so instead I divided it by colour! I got a lot of paper and drew out the section, numbered each square and grouped numbers according to similar colours. Then I coded the numbers to what colour of the paint samples I needed them to be. Some colours I first separated had to be joined again because of the limited amount of colours I had, even though I had quite a lot of different tones!

The lips were the hardest of that. It is so hard to get lips right! Even when drawing, one slightly darker shade and the guy just looks so stupid. One slightly smaller line and the guy looks too feminine. So when I was doing the lips, I did it once and it took me at least 3 hours. I looked at it from afar (the only good way to judge how something like this is going) and he looked like the biggest derp! The lips were too big and dark! I realised I didn't actually have the colours I needed so I went back to Bunnings and got more reddy-purply-pinky colours. To make sure I didn't have to come back again to get colours I was missing, I just went crazy and got all these colours in different tones, I picked out some pinkier, lighter colours than I thought was needed, and even some darker, more maroon-type colours than I thought was needed.

It turns out I needed some of them, because when you put a colour like bright pink next to a dull pink, it seems really really bright, but when you put it next to a brown or something, it might actually appear a bit duller than you hoped it would! Especially when the squares are so small and can't really make an impact!

So yeh I just ripped off all the stuff I did for the lips (ALL THREE HOURS BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS GONE!) and I re-did it!

AND FINALLY IT WAS DONE!

I bought a frame for it and he really enjoyed it! He hung it up in his room (or so he says). I'm so glad! It took so long and at the end of each session I had a massive headache and my eyes were straining and my hands were so tired and my brain was gone.

If anyone would ask me to do it again, I wouldn't. But it was definitely worth it!



OKAY THAT'S THE END OF THAT SUPER BORING AND LONG PROCESS!

Coming up in the next few blogs:

-Reviews on lots of stuff including board games, tv, movies and more!
-The blog about weed I mentioned before (I shall start continuing my research soon!)
-Stories, drawings and songs (MAYBE!)



And ah, the beloved links!

30 Random Surprising Facts

Differences Between Art

How to Make a Baby

Top 75 Pictures of the Day for 2012
It's long but it's worth it!

16 Striking Gifs of Chemical Physical Reactions

UPDATE

So seeing as I haven't blogged in over a week, this is going to be a looooooooooong post! Like SUPER DUPER long; so long that you will die of old age before finishing the post.

And to begin this long update of my week!

SUNDAY.

25/11/12: The fambam went to the city to have dinner at a restaurant called Waterfront at Campbell's Cove in celebration of my broskies and I finishing our exams! This was my entree, Bruschetta, it was quite lovely.

We bought FAMILY FUNDAY SUNDAY tickets so we could save money on travelling so we took the bus to the city then walked allllllllllll the way to The Rocks then Campbell's Cove and I was so tired, and I saw like sooooo many people there, they were having a wedding there.

Seriously, I would hate to have my wedding in such an open public place; everyone can look into one of your most personal and precious moments in life and speculate and it's just not at all fun.

So this is a shot of the view:

And I was so happy I could take pics of the pirate ship was there because I LOVE pirate ships and my mum was all like "YOU ARE SHAKING AND IT'S GOING TO BE BLURRY" but I took soooo many good close-ups of it =]:

And this is the sign of our restaurant, it's the first one in the block although....

As you can see from this picture, there are four restaurants in this block and surprise, surprise THEY'RE ALL OWNED BY THE SAME PEOPLE!

See how my menu is from Wolfies... That's so clever, the owners must be SO RICH!!

So we were the first ones in the restaurant....

Then we got our entrees (my Bruschetta, my dad and bro's Seafood Platter for Two, my mum's Oyster Kilpatrick):

And then in the midst of it, some Brazilian dancers came out to entertain the wedding guests that were waiting outside, and like honestly... I can tell why they were dancing for a random gig at a restaurant and not actually dancing in a proper like....gig or anything... The chick in the purple seriously had like zero idea what she was doing, half the time she was just looking around slightly lost. Meanwhile, the chick in the yellow was hugeeeeee. Like okay, maybe she's not actually like obese or anything, but the thong that she was wearing was so small around her hips, it fully cut into her fat and she had this huge muffin top. I wasn't able to take any pics of her like directly front on or back on so you can't really see how fat she is, but just take my word for it =]

And then our mains came, I had garlic prawns, it was DELIGHTFUL but so much of the sauce was left because its like really buttery and fattening and just... it just makes you feel like you have diabetes...

My dad's fish and chips and my bro's fish....thing... I don't know what it was...

And then dessert came, my bro and mum had the assorted Gelato and Icecream, and I had Creme Brulee (and could not help but think of my creative) but I totally forgot about taking a picture of it, so here is a lame picture of it eaten already =[

So then we left, and we had an Entertainment Book Discount for it that's why we went.

Then we walked around Campbell's Cove for a bit and under the Harbour Bridge.

There is this new Art Rock Face Carving thing that looks really cool...

Me and my bro under the Harbour Bridge... you can see people climbing it!!! There were three groups along the side that we saw.

Then we had a look at the cannons under the Harbour Bridge which I found amazing cuz I love old stuff like that. But I think my bro only liked it because it reminded him of Arsenal...

And then in the trees right in front of the cannons we came across these weird tree that appeared to have a bucket slammed into it... Luckily I am the genius in the family and I postulated the notion that it was for grafting purposes and my family was like "AAAAAAAAH yesssss". I'm jsut that smart.

And then we did a bit more walking around; too many photos have been posted so this will be the last photo of Sunday:

AND THAT WAS SUNDAY,

NOW MONDAY.

26/11/12: Wasn't that exciting. I started making a bracelet for Diwan's Christmas present out of some stuff that I had lying around. At this stage it's not yet complete, but it's a manly bracelet... you know...it's brown...

27/11/12: I touched the piano again. The last time was in music class with Mr. Wong in Year 8, but that doesn't count. And then the time before that was before I quit piano in Grade 4 which i think coincidentally coincided with Year 4? I'm learning Vienna by Billy Joel because the song is beautiful.

28/11/12: I went to Kaveh's place to make macarons with him. It was both our first times, so we weren't expecting much. Then I went to his place and... well... his kitchen is very small and old... and lacking supplies. In the end though, these are pretty good macarons for a first time, a dodgy kitchen, no spatula, no thermometer, lazy cheating on the procedure, replacement ingredients... oh, and an oven that kept turning off when it got 'too hot'... which begs the question why is it even an oven if it produces heat but then turns off when it does so?

Other notable pictures... 4 macarons joined together and it looked like a moustache to me!

And me doing the Kaveh face with a macaron:

The macarons we made were half plain macaron shell, half chocolate macaron shell with caramel and chocolate filling.

29/11/12: Watched Skyfall! It was seriously so good and intense! You must watch it I can't say anymore! Ohhhh except the opening sequence was so good, the song with Adele is AMAZING!

30/11/12: Went to Bondi. It wasn't even that hot. Which was okay for me I guess because I really dislike going into the water at beaches because I'm scared of that feeling of getting water up my nose because I had a really bad dream of sinking and drowning when I was about 3 or 4 years old. Don't get me wrong, I can swim, it's just much more comfortable when waves aren't crashing all around you. When we went to get some lunch, there was this giant "snowglobe" where they were taking pictures inside for free and it was done by Target!

It was honestly super hot inside it, and their 'snow' was just ripped plastic bags (as I pointed out to the others but they didn't believe me until I picked it up and showed them), which is pretty bad for the environment. Shame on you Target. Actually I should write them a complaint letter. I'll do so later.

A group shot, Daniel was putting on his sunnies to pose for it but I didn't realise...

Then we hit up Moo for some burgers, it wasn't anything amazing, I had the Wagyu Beef one and yeh it was like dry and not that great.

1/12/12: Yay it's December, meaning 23 days until my birthday, but it's also Word AIDS Day! I volunteered to sell Red Ribbons to raise funds for AIDS and was selling them along Pitt St Mall in the open area from 10:30am to 1:00pm.

I didn't bring my memory card for my camera so for the other pictures of me actually out I had to make do with dodgy phone pictures I'm sorry.

This was the box of merchandise I was selling. It got so tiring carrying everyone's coins and just walking up and down that little open section.

And then at QVB there was this amazing hand-painted bauble shop...

I ended up buying one of the most beautiful baubles ever:

Sorry these are really dark pictures.

But now I'm gonna put up the Christmas tree! YAY!

And then Pamela and I went to Pancakes on the Rocks... at Darling Harbour. I had the Macadamia pancake one and Pamela had the Chocolate Black Forest one and it was soooooo rich in chocolate I thought I was going to die after that first bit I took of it!

Then we walked around, I went to Typo and saw some amazing cards. I ended up impulse buying 3 cards because it was 3 for $10.

But first what does "TBFTE" and "IYKWIM" and "JICYDKTTFN" mean?

But nevermind... the next card told me what to do...

But it didn't help much because well, I got "To Be Fair" but I don't get the other "TE"; but I got "If You Know What I Mean"; "J" I'm not too sure, "ICYDK" is apaparently "Icy Dick" according to Google but I'm not too sure, and apparently "TTFN" means "Ta Ta For Now"? Anyone care to shed some light?

Andddd the last one is pretty much how I live my computer life.

2/12/12: Not a very eventful day but my mum couldn't be bothered to cook dinner so we went to Flemington and had some food at a random Asian shop. I had Salt and Pepper Prawns and I didn't realise it was cooked whole. I hate whole prawns. I hate ripping their heads off and peeling their skins and touching their legs and pulling out their poo line. So my mum did it all for me.

3/12/12: Took another shot at macarons. Made them all chocolate this time. They seem better than before (last time, the chocolate was way too dense).

Some other angles.

I was getting so frustrated because my mum forgot to buy piping bags and I didn't check beforehand to see what ziplock bags we had so I had to use the tiniest ziplock bag and it was soo annoying to use, I was getting macaron mixture all over my hands repeatedly, the ziplock bags kept bursting and it was getting on my nerves. There was a tiny bit of mixture left so I put them in the mini cupcake pan and just tried it out...hahaha

4/12/12: Went out to Towers and I forgot to bring my camera again. I forgot to take photos until I was jsut about to go and catch my bus but there was this woman who was just lying on the floor next to the tables in the KFC side of the foodcourt. There were like two security men with her and a cleaner and she was resting her head on a bag. I went into the toilets under the stairs and when I came out they had set up a tent around her. It looked like she fell but I wasn't sure. She also had two schoolkids (presumably hers) around her. This reminded me of the time my mum reversed into the local shops' car park and some old lady was in the gutter and accused my mum of reversing and hitting her; my mum was even taken to court but by the judge's attitude, the judge probably deemed it a waste of time and my mum just reckons the old woman wanted compensation.

At long last, we've reached the end of this post. Congrats on not dying yet.

acceptable shade of grey

the best halloween costumes of 2012
goldeneye looks like matt kan

melted wood sculptures

the dirty etymology of 9 everyday words

quilling art

the evolution of our spines and speech

what it's like to have no internet

calendar of meaningful dates