jamjar's blog

What personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble? 

My ability to leave until tomorrow what I can't be arsed doing today. The official term for this personality trait is "procrastination". I have spent my whole life staying up late the night before an essay is due, and exam is to be sat, a job is to be applied for, a deadline is to be met trying to get work I've left to the last possible minute done.

While this causes me much stress, and I suffer long hours of envy watching others who plan and execute their tasks in timely fashion in the weeks before deadlines (mostly I procrastinate my time away wishing I was this person) I have now decided that this will never happen.

Therefore, I have come up with a brilliant set of thoughts to justify my procrastination trait:

• I always have the most up-to-date information as I've only gathered it the night before
• I do have a good nose for knowing the very minimum amount of time I need to do something
• I can switch on my superworking powers very late at night and accelerate progress
• When I procrastinate I trick myself into doing "other" tasks so stuff still gets done

• friends thinking I don't care because I miss their birthdays
• partners thinking I'm stupid because I didn't pay the electricity bill early to gain a saving
• family thinking I can't make a decision because really, I just don't care enough yet (wait til I'm closer to the date)
• sleepless nights worrying and running risk analysis scenarios and potential outcomes

What do you love about where you live?
Submitted by Emu with a Clue.

Pretty much everything! I've lived here in Melbourne, Australia for a year. I share an apartment with a wonderful housemate/darling friend. Our view is East, overlooking the rooftops of old converted factories to the clock tower. We're not far from the river, and not far from the city. There are lots of little cafes and restaurants just around the corner, and there are trams there too if we want to go further afield.

Melbourne is an easy city to love.

Spring Saturday

What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.

1. not rewinding the tape and being growled by the video store guy the next time I hire a tape
2. putting the incorrect video in each case and being growled at by the video store guy the next time I hire a tape
3. being phoned by the video store guy because my tape is overdue for return
   
4. returning my tapes through the slot in the Video Store door to try and pretend it was before the set time and then having to pay a fine the next time I see the video store guy
5. having to pay for replacement tapes that were never returned before I'm allowed to rent another movie.

ah fun times.

What song best describes your current mood?
Submitted by Section31.

The Blowers Daughter by Damien Rice

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

Don't you hate it when you've made one of the best coffee of your week and drinking it while sitting on a cream couch and thinking how lucky you are that your flat mate actually left one cup when she moved out yesterday even though she took all the bowls, cutlery and all the cooking equipment, she was kind enough to leave that one strange, cafe au lait glass with it's stainless holder so you could have your soothing milky coffee without burning your fingers and while sitting in front of the heater on such a comfy couch and then you hear a strange sound that you know as soon as you hear it but in the time it takes to have that thought the bottom of your strange little cafe au lait glass in it's funny little stainless holder drops it's bottom followed almost instantly with it's scalding hot goodness all over your front and down your legs and all over the creamy fabric of the couch?

Yeh, me too.

If you could write a book about anything, what would it be about?

About how companies who reward individual performances result in people making short-term decisions that impact and *only* impact their ability to meet their Key Areas of Responsibility and aquire that annual bonus. A company who deals with this type of reward system can never ask prospective employees if they work well in a team, and they will never have people working for who them use an holistic approach to the business or the decisions they make.

What's your favorite song to sing karaoke-style?  If you don't have one, why not?

You know I've been singing at any given opportunity for quite some time now - although I haven't hogged a karaoke microphone for over a year - I'm still happy to discuss my song choices.

When I first sung Karaoke, it was with a couple of friends and we covered Neil Sedaka's Calendar Girls.  We were so good (and I loved it so much) the next few times we went to that bar we sang it again. Eventually I got brave enough to try on my own (and my partners-in-crime got annoyed because I sing so loud no one could hear them so refused to let me sing with them anymore) and sang Hey Big Spender - which I did very well (complete with boob shaking fantasticness) and with great hilarity (nothing to do with the boob shaking) from the audience.

After my grandmother's funeral, we all went down to the T&C Club in Waitara to cheer ourselves - and more importantly, my grandfather - with a few songs. That's where I discovered Connie Frances' Crazy.  Another good one is Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and King of the Road.

I don't mind that most people think karaoke is naff - I think being able to belt out a song is one of the most fun things to do.  It's so hard to find places where I can sing a whole song at the top of my lungs outside church (they wouldn't let me join the church choir those big meanies)

If you're ever in the mood and fancy a good sing-a-long, come grab me and we can sing King of the Road together - we'll have a great time!

What's your favorite way to keep in touch? Phone, snail mail, email, text message, Vox, _____ ?

blog blog blog BLOG.. BLOG!!

I don't like the phone. Well, okay, I do - when it's you and I get to talk for hours and hear your voice so close to my ear - but I hate answering the phone when I don't know who's on the other end. With my mobile phone I can see who's calling and that makes it worse if it's someone I'd rather not speak to. Phones are annoying - they have too many buttons and redirect to numbers I have nothing to do with (as with my work phone) but are too PIN locked and complicated to change. And the user manual is out-of-date. Stupid phones - don't use a phone to contact me, email is so much better.

But I don't email - I am a poor replier. Some poor people get miles-of-jamjar on email while others are pretty sure my email never reached me. I get all email - it's the best way to contact me - but I often don't respond.

Don't even get me started on text messaging - I am so ham-fisted that you are pretty lucky to get  a response from me.  I do like getting texts though, so keep sending them.

I *love* snail mail but am so unreliable with getting letters into the post that it's probably the very worst way to keep in touch with me.  I write replies to all my snail mails and even create brand new mails to send - but don't finish the task by *actually* sending the thing.

Vox is great, though I'm mostly relying on QotD for content so it's not the best way to keep in touch with me.

Recap: if you want to contact *me* do it via email, if you want to find out what I'm doing, check my blog / leave a comment (which sends to my email.. see?)!