cyberspace junkyard

Brain Strain
I finally saw Matrix Reloaded! (I know, I know... about time, huh?) Predictably, I liked it, particularly the obsession inducing nature of the unanswered questions it posed. The action scenes were exceptionally... action packed. The characters didn't undergo too much development (lots were introduced that we have yet to really know, and the existing ones were the same as the first movie, except in different circumstances). My favourite new character would have to be the new ship operator, Link. Funny funny guy. Still, the purpose of this movie seemed to be as a link between the first and the third. Kinda like a "hey, you think the first movie was complex and you're smart enough to figure out what's going on, well, lookee here, some curve balls for ya, but nyah nyah nyah, I'm not going to give you the answers til the last movie".

It'll take me a while to gather my thoughts, but in the meantime, here's some sites with some interesting theories as to what it all means, and what will be revealed come Matrix Revolutions at the end of the year. Enjoy!

Matrix Secrets Revealed - the mother of all Matrix theory sites
Scott Manning's site - diagrams and all! Oh, this guy is thorough. Make sure you check out his second theory, all the misconceptions, and the transcripts. Nice.
Matrix Reloaded Discussion- not a hugely busy board, but quite comprehensive. Check out the My-Matrix-Theories.

My take on it is, read all you want, speculate all you want, just be prepared to have it all blown open in the third movie. :)

Room for Improvement, The Block, Changing Rooms...
I've been so inspired by those home renovations shows recently! Loving the chocolatey brown tones and earthy textures being used. Even managed to catch a glimpse of an Oprah home renovation show today on TV (I know, I know... the shame)

I couldn't sleep tonight, so stayed up to do a blog redesign. I've been wanting to try out a few things recently... transparent text box, earthy colours, and my favourite oriental lilies as the feature. It's a bit rough around the edges, but not bad for a couple of hours work! :)

Still have to work on converting all my commenting over to the new template, and the title graphic is coming, as soon as I get my hands on some decent software. Well, that, or more time.

It's rather invigorating to have a new look. Strange, but invigorating. Y'know, like a Swedish sauna where you jump out into the snow afterwards. Nite!

PS: forgotten what my old blog looked like? Here's a link!

Yay for freebies
Free tickets to the final dress rehearsal of Opera Australia's back to back short Rossini comedies 45 minutes before the show starts? Alright! Bring it on!

A lovely surprise (special thanks to my bro for his part in it) and a fun night.

Frequent Flyer
Grateful is what I'll be next Tuesday when I once again wing my way over to Adelaide, after finishing yet another two subjects this semester. A perfect time for a little seaside holiday. Oops, I mean business trip. I'll be leaving late on Thursday so I can have Friday back in Sydney, which means travelling on my own (utter bliss) on Thursday night, leaving the rest of my team to enjoy a day in our sister state without me. Most excellent.

I've been trying to get through Minority Report (yes, the lauded Tom Cruise flick) but I am really struggling through it. It's taken me 4 days to watch a grand total of about 50 minutes. Oh dear. For some reason, I'm just not getting into it. The only part that mildly amused me was Tom Cruise "conducting" his investigation with classical music playing. Priceless.

Edited: 27/6/03 12:06am
Made a big effort to watch the rest of Minority Report tonight. I'm happy to say it was good! Not a top ten flick, but a very enjoyable plot with quite a few twists and actors that didn't distract too much.

Monday Minute Mumbles
A cheery welcome to the new week, y'all! Blogging took a back seat last week due to, y'know, that thing called life. Annoying, isn't it? Weekly round-up...

Mon: work (ho-hum), locked myself in the basement with the other 2 songwriters and wrote the final track for the upcoming saltlight productions evangelistic album, This Way Up.
Tue: work, study, watched He Died with a Felafel in his hand, was non-plussed
Wed: work, finished lyrics for my final song, In God's eyes
Thu: recording bass and drums for the album (14.5 hours of it, to be exact!)
Fri: work, CG bible study
Sat: started looking at a philosophy subject I kinda enrolled in 15 weeks ago. Hmm... yes, well, moving on
Sun: church, lunch fellowship, oohed and aahed over some rather large TVs and some rather small digitial cameras at Grace Bros, visit to Sydney Uni library, watched bits of High Fidelity while still trying to work out what this philosophy subject was on about.

Which brings us of course, to Monday, where I have miraculously figured out the subject, and have planned to complete a take-home exam, 2 response papers and an essay. Why oh why oh why did I once think that full-time work and study was a fun idea?

 # posted by Vron @ 1:39 pm

Monday Mondegreen Mumbles
What is a mondegreen, I hear 99% of the population ask, while the other 1% nod knowingly?

Well, to put it simply, a mondegreen is when you mishear lyrics to a song and hence forth are subject to ridicule and hilarity at karoake nights and the like. In fact, here's an article about that very phenomenon. I am proud (well, embarrassed, really) to have my very own mondegreen, taken from Disney's A Little Mermaid. Ariel's line in Part of Your World is supposed to be "bet they don't reprimand their daughters | bright young women, sick of swimming | ready to stand" and I always thought she sang "pregnant women, sick of swimming".

In other news
Gould's (a divine second hand bookstore in Newtown) was graced with the presence of two, yes, TWO bookclubs yesterday, YABAC and ISBN. We did the trawling thing, and in my particular trawl (hee! loving the word trawl) I happened to pick up Elizabeth Gaskell's "Sylvia's Lovers". Let me just enlighten you as to what Gould's is. It is, like, the factory outlet of second hand bookstores. Not one of those little boutiques with a small range of books, cosy lighting and the warm, familiar smell of dustiness. Oh no, not Gould's. Gould's is housed in a huge warehouse sized building, shelf after shelf after shelf of books, some stacked three deep, on two levels. Second hand book heaven.

Back to Gaskell, though (who also wrote Wives and Daughters, which I love). Somehow, amongst the hundreds, nay tens of thousands of books on offer, this one caught my eye and I picked it up. I opened it casually, hoping to start skimming through it to see something that would catch my interest and thereby induce me to take advantage of the $4.95 price and make a purchase. The book fell open to page 91 where I read, in utter amazement, Sylvia declaring that if she were to "write a letter at all [to Phillip], it would be filled with nothing but Abednego, Abednego, Abednego!" (paraphrase). For those of you who don't make the connection, Abednego is my surname! I kid you not.

Don't even get me started on my "88" coincidences of late.

PP: saltlight productions' band recording of This Way Up is starting on Thursday! Excitement plus! Also, please pray for me personally as I consider what to do next year with work (whether or not to take voluntary redudancy, apply for redeployment somewhere else in the organisation, or contest my duplicate role)
BV: Hebrews 10:19-23 "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."

Friday the 13th
Oooh... black Friday. What a perfect day for the weather to be gloriously sunny! It would have been a little spine-chilling had yesterday's thick blanket of fog been around this morning. Just goes to show that age-old traditions really don't have much in them after all, huh?

Today has been a rather dismal day at work though. Everyone seems to be going around with a heavy heart knowing that we're all due to hop on the merry-go-round of "justify your job". I don't quite know how I feel about it yet. I think that the senior management has taken the easy way out - dumping everyone into a pool of skills and let them sort themselves out by applying for jobs. I can't comprehend how some managers care so little for the people that work for them and don't even take the time to find out what it is you do day to day. It's not so much disappointing for me (I'll just happily plod along where-ever I am!) but to see others who have been in this organisation for over a decade be shunted aside with everyone else makes me quickly lose respect for those doing the shunting.

Ah well, that's life in the corporate world, I suppose. It might be draining, but my aim is to keep everyone's spirits up and use these uncertain times to seize every opportunity to talk about what is certain, namely the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have a lovely weekend, all! Mine will be filled with saltlight admin (darn this executive producer thing), teaching, church and a couple of small social meals. Au revoir!

Mwuahahaha
EvilVron has gotten another of her friends addicted to Melanie Rawn's Exiles series. Gone the way of the dodo are sleep, work and all other non-important existential factors for her. Ah, the power of a good fantasy book.

In other news, we've had 2 rehearsals within the space of 3 days for This Way Up - the first CD produced by saltlight productions. How awesome does original music sound, when played by talented musos and when the gospel just reaches out and slaps you in the face? *sigh* I can't wait until the launch, later in the year. A few weeks ago, I couldn't even imagine getting into the recording studio, and yet here we are, a week out from our first session, with a really strong CD in the making and a launch looming, larger than life.

Whoopie doo, it's been a while since the good ole alliteration popped up in one my posts. Hee!

Monday Mumbles
Just a quick note today - I have never been more thankful to be in my early twenties than right now, after spending 24 hours with a bunch of fifteen and sixteen year olds who were at our house for my brother's big birthday party. The girls from church are great, at least I know them a little better now than just a name and a face. The boys are a bit blurry (apart from my bro's best friends, who I know quite well) and the others are well, let's just say I lost count after twelve.

Off to the airport to see off one of my best buddies, who is going to Cambodia for 15 months.

Wowowow
In line with my non-fantasy reading strategy of late, I've been devouring Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring. It is absolutely fantastic. I couldn't put it down. I was so surprised how much I enjoyed it, as it's not my usual fare. It is classified as historical fiction and weaves a haunting, painstakingly descriptive story about the painter Vermeer and the back story to one of his paintings in particular.

Do I sound like I'm giving a book review? Probably, but who cares, Girl with a Pearl Earring has rocketed onto my all time favourite list and in typical Vron fashion, I've found out all I can about Vermeer, the novel and the upcoming movie starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johanssen as the main characters.

Bliss.

Craving
Haven't bought a CD in a while (see, I am a good girl!) but really really really really wanting Bernadette Peters' Annie Get Your Gun. If only my birthday were this month instead of December. Not even I, the self-proclaimed Master of Justification, can find an obscure reason to buy it for myself. Oh well, give me a few more days, I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Monday Morning Mumbles
29 minutes past midnight. A first for monday mumbles!
You would think that 4 teenage boys, one of whom turned sixteen today, tucking into the seafood buffet at Sheraton on the Park would make for an interesting experience, and you wouldn't be wrong. All looking dashing in suits and colour co-ordinated shirts, each with instructions to eat as much as they could possibly fit in, and everyone surprisingly well behaved. It was my brother's first time at the Botanica Brasserie (one of my all time favourite restaurants) where I decided to spoil him for his birthday. I figured that I could just buy him a computer game or something, but in 5 years time, he's more likely to remember the night he spent his sweet sixteen with his three best friends and his family at a 5 star hotel than a few flashing graphics and sound effects. That having been said, mum did shell out for a new video card and some extra RAM, so he had the best of both worlds, really!

*sigh* They grow up so quickly. Gosh, I sound old.

PP: I feel like I'm swimming the 18th lap in a 1500m freestyle race. Pushing for what seems like an eternity already and yet with a long way to go. It's just everything at the moment - saltlight, work, study, ministry, relationships, family and all the other little things that make life interesting. I'm still loving a lot of what I have the opportunity to do, but in the midst of it all, I'm itching to go overseas on a short-term mission in the next 18-24 months. I'm praying for focus, drive and allowing time to spoil myself and spend time with God and with my own thoughts, and just take one day at a time.
BV: Matthew 28:16-20 "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."