Seriously.

I never got why it takes so bloody long to get a prescription at the pharmacy here. It always takes forever. Why?? I have been sitting here for 20 minutes waiting for it. And I am the only one here!!! What are they doing?!? Does it take that long to find a box of pills?!?!

(sigh...)

Holy Moly.

We are in the second week of november. Here, it's meant to be the best time of year: Spring! It's supposed to be nice and warm, sunny, breezy and just plain wonderful.

But no.

Since saturday last week, we have had temperatures over 35 degrees every day. It will be a week tomorrow, which classifies this lunacy as an official heat wave. And a nasty one as well. It's been 40 for 3 days, and will be again until monday. Then, only 36, for a bit of 'relief'. Usually, we don't get heat like that until january.

My God. I thought I had a bit of time before the big heat hit!! Everyone was caught off guard. But this year, enough is enough. We went down to the air conditioning place on wednesday, and we are booked in.

November 30th, our world will change.
Ducted air. Air in every room in the house.

We shall be liberated!!!

Just in time for our holiday visitors...

My first market.

Dimanche dernier, j'ai pacté tous mes petits trucs et j'ai rencontré mon amie Bernadette au Port Adelaide Market. Bernadette a pris des cours de jewellery making a TAFE, la même école à laquelle je prends mes cours de upholstery. Elle a commencé à produire des trucs géniaux et m'a appris des nouvelles techniques que j'ai utilisées pour produire mes propres broches, colliers, boucles d'oreilles, etc. Ça fait longtemps que j'utilise des vieux boutons pour faire mes trucs, mais maintenant, grâce à Bernadette, je sais utiliser acrylique, métaux, et bois.

Elle a une petit shoppe sur Etsy depuis longtemps, et elle a un booth au Gilles St Markets en ville. Ce market là, ça fait des mois que j'essaie d'y avoir un espace, mais c'est un marché dur à percer. Il a fallu que j'ailles voir ailleurs, et c'est comme ça que nous nous sommes retrouvées à Port Adelaide. Elle et moi avons décidé de joindre nos forces et de se diviser un booth. Elle m'a même invité dans son espace à Gilles la prochaine fois qu'elle y est, dans trois semaines.


Dimanche, c'était notre première experience ensemble. Le problème, c'est qu'il faisait chaud. Trop chaud. L'été est arrivé d'un seul coup cette année, et nous sommes déjà dans une vague de chaleur incroyable. Alors il n'y avait personne. Nous avons vendu quelques trucs, mais rien comparativement à ce que Bernadette vend à Gilles. Nous avons aussi remarqué que Port Adelaide Markets n'est pas vraiment notre public-cible. Alors, nous n'y retournerons pas. Notre prochain market sera à Gilles, le 29 novembre. J'ai hâte de voir si mes trucs vendront. Bernadette a grande confiance. On verra bien.

D'ici là, je peux me réconforter du fait que même si notre journée à Port Adelaide a été incomfortable, trop chaude, et pas occupée, j'ai quand même appris des trucs pour améliorer mon booth. Et même si j'ai seulement vendu une paire de boucles d'oreilles et trois broches, c'était la première fois que je vendais quelque chose que j'avais fait à un parfait étranger. Et ça, c'est un bon feeling.

Short film.

Adelaide had a bad year.
One feature film. Only one shot in our state. One lonely one.
Thank God I worked on it!

So since June, not much is happening here. A few commercials, that's all, really.
The other movies that were supposed to shoot this year have been pushed to 2010.

In the meantime, I worked on a nice little short film with Nick last week, which was a lot of fun.I hadn't focus pulled in a while, and with a DOP like Mr. Matthews, you always get a run for your money. (85mm, wide open on super speeds (f1.3) anyone?!?! Yeah, try to focus pull a moving horse with less than half an inch of depth... Fun! And a sure fire way to get you back into the groove of it.)

There was lots of people to help us there, including a bunch of very helpful boys who are finishing their cinema degree at Flinders University. Another helper was a guy called Miles, taking stills with his handy Canon 5D. He took some good pics, and sent me one of my arm focus pulling the red. Nice.


So yeah, you can't tell it's me, but I know it is. So it's ok. I really don't have many pics of me working. So I'll take it.

Oldie.

An old photo I took of a fisherman working on the boat we were using as a film loading space while shooting Lucky Miles in Coffin Bay in 2006.

A first.

I went to the bank today. Our new branch just finished extensive renovations. Now, it's all spiffy and classy. When you walk in, a nice lady welcomes you and asks you what you need. Then, she directs you to one of the three sections.

One, the regular tellers. Nice counters and slick glass. And there's like five of them, so you never wait long. And they are super friendly.

Two, little kinds of booths with customer service experts. They can help you with anything. Credit health check, questions about mortages, credit cards, loans, you name it. Again, super helpful, super friendly.

Three, a lounge area with really cool chairs and an awsome sofa. Coffee table, coffee machine. Just in case God forbid you would have to wait five minutes to speak to a customer service person. They call you by your name, they don't rush you, and they are just fantastic.

I walked out of there pretty impressed. I deposited a check, got information about my upcoming new credit card, received confirmation about a remote access wireless debit and credit machine for my new small business, and learned about a new card that I can use when I come to Canada that act like a credit card, but that directly uses my money in Australia. All, in record time. See, usually, I would have hated talking finance and numbers and stuff, but not today. Everything was easy and pleasurable. I never felt that content walking out of a bank before.

Go Commonwealth Bank, go.

Some good in the news.

I was watching the news tonight.
They were talking about how when an organ is harvested from a donor, it only has four hours of 'life time' until it is no longer viable.

That basically means that if you need a heart and you live in Perth, for example, and you are critical, you can only get hearts that come from Adelaide or Darwin. It takes too long to fly a heart from Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns or Brisbane to Perth. The heart does not survive the long trip. So your chances of getting a heart are significantly reduced. Australia is just way too big. And there's nothing else around. So lots of people die waiting.

But this is what the news report was about.
Australians researchers have just discovered a cocktail of medication that when pumped through and organ, it doubles it's life span.
Which means that instead of four hours, the heart can now be viable for 8, 10, even 14 hours. And that is not only for hearts. Livers, lungs, kidneys and pancreas.

I thought that was just awsome.

Love it.

There is nothing like finding a clothing company that seem to make stuff that just FIT you. It can be a rare thing, and that's how my love story with the Gap began. Didn't matter how tall I got or how many pounds I put on here and there, their garments always seem to fit me comfortably and correctly. And I could afford them. Once you know the marked down cycles, you never buy full priced items ever again.

In Australia, nothing seems to fit me.
Everything is made to fit pre-teens that have no boobs and hips like a 12 year old boy.

Frustrating.

But lately, there's been a wave of nice Gap things on ebay, all new, and cheap, even for shipping. After finding a nice pair of shoes on the official website and sending the photo to my mom, she searched the Gaps around Montreal and found them for me, and sent them in my care package. It is just wonderful. It really made me realize how much I miss the Gap. But I can't ask my mother to do that all the time.

So that's when I went on ebay and found a dress, and a nice zip up top. Getting them in the mail was like Christmas. And they fit. Perfectly. How nice.