StumbleUpon | advena's blog posts

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/36998238/

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:39:59 -0700

I was quite slow to notice there was yet another new stumble upon version. Unfortunately I have now. Predictably I hate it. Each new version is worse than the previous one. The latest one seems designed to suppress all individual creativity and personality - apparently we are not here to produce we are here to consume! If there was a network that was like SU was 5 years ago I would go there instead.

What bizarre business model is it that observes what the end user is doing with a product and then takes whatever steps necessary to stamp it out?

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/36924300/

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:29:16 -0700

Happy Diwali! I like the sentiment of this celebration. I'll be tipping my hat to the occasion by cooking a bunch of veggie curries and lighting some candles.

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/35239962/

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:25:19 -0700

Hanging out with the pelicans today - I love pelicans. Sadly I only had my crappy phone camera with me. I was close enough to get brushed by a pelican's wing whilst taking the batch of photos these are from. They are very tame. They were very interested in the fisherman's fish - and he was kind enough to do some demonstration fish throwing for me

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/34493112/

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:10:46 -0700

I didn't stumble the page because this is from an advert - I just love this room, and I would love to go to Rajasthan.

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/34416129/

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:44:36 -0700

Holy crap - a tsunami warning for NSW.

Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology

MEDIA:
NO USE OF STANDARD EMERGENCY WARNING SIGNAL [SEWS]
TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE AND FREQUENT BROADCAST
********************************************************************************

TSUNAMI WARNING NUMBER 3 FOR PARTS OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre [JATWC] at
09:25 PM EST on Wednesday 15 July 2009

********************************************************************************

TSUNAMI THREAT TO THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

********************************************************************************
SUMMARY:

Tsunami warning for the marine environment for parts of NEW SOUTH WALES.

Threatened areas extend from Gabo Island to Seal Rocks including Batemans Bay,
Bellambi, Botany Bay, Gabo Island, Jervis Bay, Kiama, Merimbula, Montague
Island, Moruya, Moruya Heads, Narooma, Nelson Bay, Norah Head, Shell Harbour,
Sydney Harbour, Ulladulla and Wollongong.

Possibility of DANGEROUS WAVES, STRONG OCEAN CURRENTS AND SOME LOCALISED
OVERFLOW ONTO THE IMMEDIATE FORESHORE for several hours from 09:45 pm [EST]
Wednesday.

Although major evacuations are not required, people are advised to get out of
the water and move away from the immediate water's edge.

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/34331719/

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:52:18 -0700

Atomic fabric and cymatic patterns

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/34157808/

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:45:13 -0700

A little questionnaire from Jude - but I'm blathering on at such length that I will have to post it in parts.

1 Do you live in a city (large or small), rural area, suburbs, metropolis or what?

I moved to a small town called Woy Woy from Sydney in March. I love it, I wish I'd done it years ago although it probably happened at the right time really. What blows my mind is how many more ameneties there are here that I can get to - 2nd hand clothes shops, 2nd hand book shops, a library, cafes etc. I would have had to take two trains to get to any of these things where I was living in Sydney.

Woy Woy is 90kms North of Sydney and is on the North side of a peninsula where the Hawkesbury river meets the sea. It is a very water oriented place - it developed quite slowly because it was difficult to build roads here. Development was courtesy of the railway line, which necessitated the building of the mile long Woy Woy tunnel in 1884-86. Most local transportation was by boat. Umina beach is at the South end of the peninsula and Ettalong is on the Eastern side - these are really just areas where there is a main street with shops, but they have their own character. You can circumnavigate the entire peninsula on a bicycle in about an hour. On the Western (landward) side there is a high ridge which is part of Brisbane Waters national park. This runs the entire length of the peninsula There is a bridge northwards across to Kariong and another eastwards bridge to Daley's point and Bouddi national park. There are still only three roads onto the peninsula and it is a lot easier to get here by train than by car. There is only one tall building on the entire peninsula, everything else is low rise and delightfully human scaled. The one tall building - the Ettalong Club - sticks out like a sore thumb.

Do you tell anything very personal on your SU pages or do you make a point of not doing so (or adopt an attitude somewhere in between)?

I tend not to - although I do drop something very personal about every two years or so. I don't know why I don't reveal more of myself - I am very private in real life but don't feel the need to be that way on the net. Perhaps I think there is nothing interesting to say about me, or I don't know what would interest people, or I'm afraid of being perceived as narcissistic or I can't pin myself down enough to make any declarations or all of the above.

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/34159436/

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 04:41:15 -0700

3 How do you rate yourself in terms of attractiveness, sex appeal and marketability (in the real, face-to-face, world)?

Interesting you should ask, as I am in the midst of changing right now. I am rebelling against myself and what I have become. I'm bloody bored of myself. I realised that I had forgotten what fun was, and I was feeling about as sexy as a bowl of porridge.

I have been here 3 months and have yet to go in a new clothes shop, although I did go to the 2nd hand clothes shops for the first time this weekend - I have decided to try some things I haven't tried in years - namely wearing skirts and high heels. I bought 2 short (!) skirts at the weekend for the princely sums of $7 and $3 and some red stiletto boots for $8. I am at the looking at them stage at the moment because I'm afraid to wear them! I am working up the courage...

I don't know if I'm attractive - I really have no idea. I never had any trouble pulling when I was single, but I haven't been single for a decade. I'm 5.6 and a size 8 (US 6). I'm 45 but this seems to surprise some people. My hairdresser said he thought I was 31 but he may have been bullshitting me. I'm completely unable to assess my own attractiveness - I could look like Mr Potato Head for all I know.

As for marketability - I'm not sure I know what that means but given that I couldn't sell ice cream in the Sahara I'd probably rate myself zero there.

4 What do or did you use the computer for besides SU?

Communicating, watching DVDs, listening to music, occasionally playing Sim City but mostly I love the internet and the idea that I can look into anything I can think of.

5 Have you ever experienced serious loss or a very difficult period in your life?

Yes lots, but the first and the worst was being sent to a Victorian boarding school when I was 10 (as in belonging to the Victorian era rather than in Victoria). For three years it was straw mattresses, up at 6am bed at 7pm, and no modern media like TV, radio or magazines. The weekly entertainment was the headmistress reading a chapter of Dickens (or similar) on a Saturday evening followed by her playing some classical music on the piano whilst we sewed hassocks for the church. No privacy - shared baths, not being allowed to shut the door when you peed - and you were made to get up at 8pm and 9pm to pee with a queue of people watching you. They made you drink Boots family shampoo if you swore or used a sarcastic tone of voice. When I got depressed aged 11 they started giving me someone else's valium prescription.

So I had a Victorian childhood for 3 years in the 70s. The subsequent boarding school was less bad and was at least mixed gender but was still a boarding school.

After that I only lived at home for 6 months then moved to Brighton aged 17 and discovered heroin. Had a heroin problem from ages 17 to 21 but got myself off it. My mother died when I was 22 - it was awful but I didn't relapse because I had changed my circle of friends to non-smackhead ones. There was an interval of relative calm for about the next 8 years, where aside from outbreaks of depression I travelled and went to University. Then it all went pear shaped again when I was about 30 and married a violent alcoholic who ran a pub - this was the other worst three years of my life and I drank too much myself and did too much coke. I don't think I was an alcoholic as I didn't have any trouble stopping - actually it was a relief. I escaped the marriage by coming to Australia.

Things have been much calmer for the 11 years I have been here. The only traumas being more bouts of depression, being diagnosed with Hep C and undergoing the (very difficult) treatment that cured me and seems to have cured me of depression too.

No more traumas until my Dad died in May. So this is where I find myself aged 45 - drug free, teetotal and bored of myself.

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/33147839/

Wed, 27 May 2009 19:39:09 -0700

http://advena.stumbleupon.com/review/33147823/

Wed, 27 May 2009 19:38:15 -0700

My Dad: Geoffrey John Thomas
8th February 1935 - 25th May 2009.

The whole family stayed with Dad day and night for 5 days. We held on to him, and sang to him - songs he used to sing to my sister and I when we were little, songs that were the soundtrack to happier times and songs we all love. We cried and told funny Dad stories and laughed. We took it in turns to sleep for a couple of hours a night. If there is such a thing as a good death, Dad had one.

This is a poem my Dad wrote after my Mum's death in 1986. My niece has made it into a song, which I hear every time I read it.

Silence

After she went
When the sympathetic departed
He stood helpless,
Embarrassed in grief,
Clumsy in the inability
Sprung upon him
The house, which hummed quietly,
Fuelled with order, oiled with meaning
Stationary, silent now
Dissembled in an instant
Wounded in every room. Defenceless.
Her glasses on the desk, eyeless
Her straw hat in a shaft of sunlight
Gripped his throat.
His reason told him that any pain
So bad, must end.
But the walls and windows, furniture
And doors, told him it never would.
He was at once aware that
He had known of this awfulness
Waiting for him, all his life.
Non-death, bleeding without dying
Facing the worst enemy – Silence.