I've been facebooked - and I got a camera!

I've finally succumbed to those of you who've been prompting me to join Facebook. I was originally turned off by the site's aggressive cookie setting, but I've been reconciled by B2's rousing endorsement - i.e. "It's just like myspace but it doesn't make your eyeballs bleed". Nice. Doesn't seem too bad. Only been looking at it for 10 minutes, my eyeballs aren't bleeding yet.

Much more importantly, I've got my own camera! I'm very excited - B2 and I have been sharing a camera since we got married, and that has had a few MAJOR drawbacks
(1) It's a reasonably high end camera, so it's hard to just shove it in your bag to take over to the family dinner for happy snaps
(2) I rarely get to use it. It wasn't that B2 hogged it, as such. He just always liked to use the manual settings, so when I got it the screen would be too dark, or something, and then he'd try to tell me that I should adjust this setting or that setting, and then the people/birds/whatever I wanted to photograph had gotten bored and wandered/flown off.
So now I've got my own camera, which is great. It's a nice, small, simple thing that fits just fine in my handbag and I've been going nuts with it...I'll get around to uploading the photo's soon.

Also, there's been this promising development in the media: Sydney Morning Herald - Health Check for TV As a slightly anal person who knows a reasonable amount about medicine, and especially first-aid, I have been known to walk out on television shows and movies because of the inaccuracy of the medicine they're performing...especially when it works. My skin's crawling just thinking about it.

So moves like this will be a great boon to me, the other nerds like me out there, and all of the poor relatives and friends who've had to listen to us shouting "Aargh! That's ridiculous! That would never work in real life!". Most of all folks, please remember - random punches of the sternum will probably only bruise the corpse. It's regular pressing down on it that'll help.

Melbourne trip

We went to Melbourne over Easter, to catch up with friends and family. Had a fantastic time. We stayed with Kavitha, who showed us around the city like a true sport. It was really good to catch up with her; she seems to be really enjoying Melbourne, and is very much at home there. I think it's really funny that she's settled in Auburn (for those not in the know, she used to live in Auburn in Sydney), though about the only thing the two suburbs have in common is their name.

On the Sunday we went to mass at Father Bob's church, which was quite an education in how... differently... a priest can run a service. It was pretty challenging, but very educational, especially spiritually. Some of the messages have taken a day or two to sink in. I think B2 mainly enjoyed the, er, performance. Still, it was really nice to have him there. Tips to cross-religious couples out there: take some time to share with your partner about their faith, even if you don't share their faith. It's worth it.

After the mass, we went for a quick stroll around South Melbourne markets, and then headed on down to the Mornington Peninsula to catch up with my cousin Fiona. I hadn't seen her in over two years (since our wedding day, to be precise), so it was really good to catch up with her and finally meet her partner Jim, who exceeded the reports I'd heard of what a lovely, friendly guy he is. I was having such a great time I forgot to take any photos that day, and even more surprising, so did B2.

Yes. I got to take photos over the weekend. Most of them even all by myself without someone looking over my shoulder telling me how to frame it :P. I haven't done much photography in the last few years, so I really enjoyed it. My bent is playing with the framing and focus of the shot. Some of the results are here. This is one of my favourites:

And so is this, even though it's been incredibly over-done:

And for work peeps, here's one of Jones Bay Wharf looking over-shadowed by the city (B2's got a funky version of it he touched up):

There was a shop along the way to Auburn station called Marco fabrics...even the style of the place reminded me of someone I know...

I also had a bit of fun with images from the emergency procedures card on the plane. Guys, do pay attention to the pre-flight safety instructions, and read the card like they tell you to. In the right frame of mind, it can be very amusing. Plus then you'll be all fresh on what to do "in the unlikely event of an emergency".