23 - get an ipod

this is the story of how i was coerced into doing this 101 thing.

i'm a total apple newb, and it became shockingly apparent this year as we travel long distances in the car and as a passenger i am occasionally asked to adjust the songs, forcing me to ask questions like 'how do you go to the next song?'. so my friend convinced me that i should get an ipod. i went online and wanted mine inscribed, but couldn't think of a non-lame message from me to me, so she offered to 'buy' it for me in exchange for some other similarly valued gift, and my participation. what was the inscription?

65 - keep a diary of 2009

run along now... nothing to see here...

miscalculated

awww i just watched streetcar named desire (1951) but it doesn't fit anywhere on my 101 :( boooo.

anyway, i liked it. unsettling, but intriguing.

16 - stay in a 5* hotel

last friday i had a course on oral surgery which was held at the langham hotel - ranked #1 in mebourne according to tripadvisor. we decided it was time to spoil ourselves (not that we usually deprive ourselves) and booked a table at oyster for dinner, and a room at the langham. it was to be a night of luxury - fresh oysters, delicious grilled fish, gorgeous hotel with complimentary hot chocolates on arrival, king bed, and the richest chocolate mousse from the room service menu. We also ordered a banana split - topped with pistachios no less! peanuts are clearly far too pedestrian.

the only downer to the evening was the bitter cold of melbourne streets, and the unchivalrous boys we had dinner with who ignored our unsubtle hints to give us a lift to our car which was parked a few blocks away.

11 - build a snowman

there was never enough time in europe to build a snowman, so this winter, being so close to the snow, i was determined to realise my dream. there's even a snow wombat.

25 - get the herd/hilltop hoods cds

some time in first/second year i got interested in aussie hiphop and was actually listening to jjj's hiphop show a lot. then at barry and franklin st reception was pretty bad so we drifted apart. this year, i've found that the only breakfast show that i have access to while driving my car in the morning that i don't cringe at is on jjj (country radio ads are consistently worse than frank walker's from national tiles, and one of them still does prank calls and secret sounds), which got be back into the hiphop a bit.

so i popped into jb again and picked up the herd (summerland) and hilltop hoods (the hard road). i found them under skiphop - a very endearing term :)

90 - carve a cusp in amalgam

occasionally i see people come into the dental surgery with such shocking oral hygiene (ie non-existant) that i think resin composites will just not last in that mouth. so for ages i was whacking the ol' fuji ix in everywhere, until i figured i should just learn to use amalgam properly. a few weeks ago i had some time out to observe another dentist work for a day, and got some pointers about carving. a few days later, i had to do a cuspal coverage of an upper molar. as i took the band off, my nurse said 'very nice! that's a work of art!' because for once my amalgam had a cusp! it wasn't actually thaaat nice, but a cusp is a cusp :)

he also suggested sketching more teeth to understand the anatomy (uhh.. yeah i'll do that later).

20 - get a portrait lens

22 Aug 09. my work demands as a freelance photographer had increased significantly this year, with one patron particularly eager to preserve the memories of her culinary endeavours. it was time to up the ante, so i invested in a portrait lens. canon 50mm f/1.4 in case you were interested. these were the inaugural experimental shots. and one of me and my new baby.

 

24 - get air supply cd

a few weeks ago i got an email about air supply's comeback tour in melbourne, and started youtubing their clips. their 70s/80s classicism was undeniably awesome. the next weekend i was in melbourne i dropped into jb and picked up a best of album for $7.99 and struck it off my list. it has been playing in my car non-stop ever since :) sadly the album doesn't have 'without you' (can't liiiiiiiive... if living is without youuuuu) but it does have 'two less lonely people in the world'.

now let's see if i can work out how to embed youtube videos...

i love puns

in case you hadn't noticed, victorian refers to both my life-long fixation with historical england (makers of some fiiiiine ironwork) and my current location. originally i was going to use this picture as my background -

as it would highlight the reference to 'tales of the arabian nights', jam packed with crazy life lessons. PLUS it is actually a photo taken in Taiwan of all places - my homeland. i stole it from a girl on flikr. i ran the idea past a friend who gave me a confounded look and denounced it as working on toooo many levels... so i have dumbed it down a notch. but i couldn't let my wit go unnoticed so i've digressed significantly from the primary purpose of this blog to explain myself :P

anyway, this blogging thing is hard work. i'm going to take a break.

02 - keep a 101 blog

i was determined to make this inaugural post a thrilling start to captivate my readership, but i ran into some problems editing the textbox in the title image and am consequently fatigued. for now, just be satisfied that this blog exists and i can cross #2 off my list.