Happy 100!
Not that I have much in the way of topics for this auspicious post, but Happy 100th Posting on my Antipodean – The Right Side Up blog!!! Yay!
I can’t even believe I’d have 100 posts in me. But it has taken about 8 months to get here. Not exactly one posting a day, but then I made up for some by posting 4 in a row yesterday! When I’m in the mood, I can talk the leg off an iron chair (is that an Oz phrase?). But when it comes to writing posts I have to have no distractions. Which is hard sometimes. Em’s a good multi-tasker, so she can write posts on her blog and do all the other things that have her sitting in front of a computer for 14 hours a day, whilst *I* cannot tolerate having music or the TV on while I’m trying to write stuff out. Until recently we were only using one computer as well, which meant there was a fight for time on the ‘net and because Em uses it far more than me, she naturally just “won out” on ‘net time. It was only when she’d go out for a few hours during the day or similar, that I’d spend more than 20 minutes on the ‘net. Now we have 2 computers set-up (which is SSSSOOOOOO bad), I am spending more and more time on the ‘net. Roughly about 5 hours a day. WAY too long, but you know the old adage…if you can’t beat them, join them. That’s pretty much what I’ve done. Also now ratings season is off on TV in the UK, so TV’s pretty bare at the moment. I think that’s where me and Em differ. She’s the Internet whore, I’m the TV whore. She’s rarely interested in TV these days, and only occasionally ACTUALLY sits on the sofa to watch something with me. Even if she IS interested in something, she might only still watch it from the computer chair, so attached like Velcro to it that she is! Oh, this has SO turned out into an anti-Em rant! lol Not anti-Em, but anti-Em – computer/Internet whore, really. It’s making me laugh referring to it as “Anti-Em”. Makes it sound like she’s from The Wizard of Oz “Oh, Aunty Em, Aunty Em”! In the very, VERY early days of our relationship I did call her “aunty”, before I got all love-struck and got the “hots” for her 🙂 But I digress. No I don’t. This is the most “nothing” post I’ve written! lol Anyway, here’s to another 100 posts and many more (hopefully with better topics, or at least posts WITH topics other than, “hey, I’ve written a load of posts!”). Photo supplied by Pin Shy Avenue under Creative Commons license.
Kitlers! Schnell!!!
Em was referred to this site by a blogging friend. It has photos of cats that look like Hitler…or Kitlers, as they are called. LOL
Some are just FREAKY! Check it out here.
Apologies
I was not myself yesterday, as my late night post revealed. I’m normally an eternal optimist. If not optimist, an optimistic realist anyway. I try not to let the “shittier” aspects of life get me down, but sometimes…
It’s not anything at all involving Em, and we are tight as. Sometimes you just need another person to talk to though. I was really needing that yesterday. Just feeling a little lonely, but not in the “I’m in the world all alone” kind of way. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain without it sounding embarrassing.
So anyway, bygones and all that. I hate being down. I went through a really long spell of it in 2006 and I don’t want to end up back there. There are many things in my life that I can actually be thankful for. The last thing I should be doing is indulging in self-pity.
And anyway, I have a special visitor here now (Kitty, the neighbours cat), so that’s helping me cheer up even more
🙂
Gone Is The Internet Age of The Pen-Pal.
I had someone contact me out of the blue recently (see comments on previous post) and thought it quite amazing. Especially since I don’t appear to get much traffic on my blog (not that I’m looking, it can be great to know you are almost totally anonymous with this thing, but feel there is SOMEONE listening). It made me reminisce for the lost art of the Internet pen-pal.
In the heady, early days of the Internet (invented many moons ago, but saw me on in 1997), there was no Facebook or My(gay)space. The people you met on the Internet tended to be people you didn’t know. I was the only person in my family to be on the Internet for about 2-3 years. And I was still living in Oz at the time, so there was no need to “keep up-to-date” with my family online. The people I met in these early days were all strangers, including Em. Back then, you seem to go on the Internet to meet new people. Have a new way of making pen-pals that didn’t involve putting a little spiel in a magazine and hope that 2 months later you’d get some response. People put their email addresses on pen-pal sites and met that way.
Nowadays, it seems you need to know all the people on the Internet first. Like with social networking. OK, you can poke someone randomly, and they may add you to their friend list, but it never steps beyond that. The only real interaction you have with people on Facebook or Gayspace (in my experience) is with people you ALREADY know. Friends and relatives. That’s great if you live vast distances from them (great for me, I live in the UK, my family are in Australia), but it wasn’t the initial intent I had for my use of the Internet nearly 11 years ago now. Of course I want to keep in touch with my family. That’s not what I’m implying. I just wish I could continue to meet new people as well.
I wanted it to meet NEW people. To get to know people from all round the world. I met one fantastic person as a result (Em) and we are still together all these years on. I made some other pen-pals as well, but you just end up losing contact with these people. I always feel my life is not anything particularly special, so I find it hard to keep pen-pals. I never know what to write and think people will get bored with me, so after a while I just never bother to reply. Or I just lose track of people. I’ve had a pen-pal for about 10 years now. He lives in another part of the UK. He emailed me around Xmas time. I said in an email that I’d respond to his email to me in more detail once Xmas was dealt with. Well, it’s now May, and I never did send that “more informative” email.
But I digress. The short end of the story is, I got my hopes up with this person. I was dubious at first that the post was just a ploy to promote their own blog, but considering the amount of traffic I get for my blog, that seemed HIGHLY unlikely. This person seemed really nice and genuine, and so I replied in the hope that we’d establish a rapport, get to know each other, and become pen-pals (or e-pals). I was SSSOOO looking forward to establishing a friendship. But lo and behold, nothing happened. Perhaps my email went to her spam box? Perhaps she’s even more like me than I imagined, and just can’t be arsed to reply? Perhaps I am INDEED so boring that she gave up after 1 email? I mean, if I can’t even get my partner to tear herself away from a computer screen to spend some time with me, what hope do I have?
So, perhaps I’ll just continue to use my blog, like I did my diaries when I was a teenager. An invisible friend. Someone (something) to air my feelings to. I just wish I had that return banter sometimes…
🙁
Chrissy’s cubby-hole.
This was how I found my baby girl last night when I went to bed. That is the view from the little void open from the wardrobe doors. Little Miss Princess was on the shelf where all the towels are, moulting her hair all over them.
Although she is a total minx, I love her to bits. OK everybody, after me… AAAWWWWW!Why ‘Antipodean – The Right Side Up’?
I was sitting around waiting for my turn on the Internet (yes, we are a one computer household – although I can write posts via my mobile phone) watching Em reading RSS feeds of blogs when I was noticing that most peoples blogs have “catchy” names, whereas I had the rather bland “Larelle’s Blog”. I was wondering what made these people choose a somewhat obscure name for their blog and so I thought to myself “what kind of ‘catchy’ title would I use for my blog?”. I use to stick with “Larelle’s Blog” because I was worried people who visit wouldn’t realise it was my blog, but the people who are coming to my blog from www.larelle.co.uk SHOULD know it’s me, so I thought “why not”! And so here’s what I came up with “Antipodean – The Right Side Up”. Don’t ask me why. I was just sitting there still waiting my turn, and it came into my head. I just like the word Antipodean (and that’s what us Aussies and Kiwis get called in the UK). I also thought that although I am Antipodean, I’m now (metaphorically) the right side up. I suppose I could’ve went for something inane like “Down Under Girl” or “Upside Down Girl”…but I wanted something arty-farty.
Bloggin’ Ain’t Easy Gov…
I live with a partner who is a voracious blogger, which is slightly intimidating as I also like to do my blogging, but more often than not, as you can see by the content, I am by no means voracious myself. I would dearly love to be though, but I have several problems hindering me.
- I don’t really leave the house much.
- I don’t have a big social network of friends.
- Due mostly to points 1 & 2 I don’t really have many “events” going on in my life, and of those that ARE going on I tend not to want to speak of them on this blog for fear it may offend or upset a member of my family.
So, what is there left to talk about? I could do as my partner does I suppose and pick topical things going on in the world, but more often than not I don’t really have an opinion on things and if I did, why would I think my opinion is so important that I should write about it in my blog? It may be narcissistic, but I think blogs are about yourself, right? Then again, if that were true, there would be MANY boring blogs out there…and let’s face it guys, there ARE plenty of boring blogs around, you’re reading one now (if you lasted this long).
One last factor is that I’ve got to blog when the mood takes me, but I need a quiet place, void of distractions in which I can think of what I want to write. My partner can write blog posts while there is a TV and radio on, while I’m talking and that cat’s meowing. I just can’t do it in all that distraction. I’m only being able to successfully complete this post because my partner’s out, and the cat’s asleep on the lounge and I have NO electronic equipment on to distract me. It’s the same when I read.
So, given the distractions and lack of topics, I’m surprised I blog at all. I dearly wish I could blog more though – even if it WAS just about birds!
It’s been a LONG time.
Hello Everyone,
I have been away for just over 4 months. I went to Australia and had all intention of writing about my travels in another blog I created called “Return 2 Oz”, but I ended up with the most DISMAL Internet connection in Oz. Let me tell you now, if you are planning to stay in Oz for an extended period, and are looking to use an ISP while there, on my recommendation, do NOT use Brown Bear Internet. I thought it was a good deal. It was $9.90 a month for 160mb of use, then something like 5 cents a MB for exceeding that, capped at $16.95. I thought I wouldn’t go over the monthly usage and I didn’t in the end because it was almost unusable! I would have to dial in several times as I continued to be disconnected after around 3 minutes. And the connection…although I know it’s dial-up and I expected it to be slow…MY LORD, was it SSSLLLLOOOOWWW!! As a consequence I didn’t spend any real time on the Internet when I was there as the experience was just beyond infuriating.
I think I only made one blog entry while I was Oz. Not exactly productive.
As a result, there is much to catch up on. I will get to it over the next coupe of weeks. Not much to report really. I spent most of my time at my mums house just wasting the days away.
I am actually doing it…
…and staying at it!
I think this wordpress thing is so good. I made a pledge to myself on my “43 things” page that I’d become a better blogger. It started at my Yahoo 360* site. That improved my blogging proficiency, but I think once I moved to here that I really got going. I used to have a “blogger” account (it’s like a swear word now). I don’t understand why Google wanted it! I’m sorry, but WordPress poops all over blogger! Anyway, on blogger I’d make like about three entries in one week, then couldn’t be bothered to keep it going.
Then someone on 43 things contacted me about something. I noticed they had a Yahoo 360 account and so I went and had a look. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing at Yahoo 360 at first. I found it really confusing, but once I got the hang of how it worked, I began to blog regularly. It really started me on the blogging road. But I wanted more. I wanted more flexibility – and 360 just didn’t offer that. So Em suggested WordPress to me (which is odd as she hadn’t used it herself yet – and has only just started using it now). I looked, and although it also took a bit of getting used to, this is now my mainstay! I love the way you can structure a site on here. I love the idea of pages and posts and that you can have a static page, so it becomes very web site looking.
I’ve been hosting my own web sites for ages. But only this year have I realised with sites like this, you can just buy a domain name (rather affordably) and link it to a WordPress page, and it saves all the hassle involved in hosting a full web site, which is bloody time consuming!!
I now, as a regular blogger, feel deserving of my title as “Time Magazine – Person of the Year” 2006. It’s a great honour. So, thank you Time, for giving me this great honour. I am very humbled. I would like to thank my mum, Em, the cat…………………..