Interesting view… my life in a timeline- well to some extent.

We rent at the moment, our house is a lovely three-bedroom two-storey home in Signature Estate in the suburb of Sanctuary Lakes, a western suburb of Melbourne. The house we live in is now for sale and it makes us a little sad, but also a little nervous. It’s time we finally buy a place of our own.

It means we’re really making the decision that we’ll be staying in Melbourne, which I suppose was never really a question. Melbourne is a great place and after three years here we’re happy to stay.

But there is a conundrum. Our house is for sale for $365,000 we’re now pre-approved for $300,000 because that is all we have asked for. We already have a home loan for a house in Sydney and don’t want to stretch ourselves too far. But I’m starting to wonder if $300,000 is going to get us a descent house.

Today we saw four houses via open house. Two were alright, but would need some work. Two were not nice at all, one of the two smelt really bad, the other looked to be missing whole parts of a wall and had a bathroom with floors that were probably in serious need of repair. One of the ok houses was too small, but the property looked good and the house was only $260,000. But it had a small lounge room and no dining room, we have a lot furniture.

So we’re not certain what to do. Borrow more, buy the house and stay where we are or keep looking around.

We saw one house, only from the outside, which looks promising. It’s at the end of road, right near the freeway. It’s also at the end of a schoolyard which is great cause when we’re at work the kids are at school and when we’re at home, school is out. It is also the ONLY house in that part of the street. It is the best placement even if there is some traffic noise you’d get used to it. We haven’t seen inside it so it could be a bust.

The other thing that is frustrating me at the moment is the way homes are priced. You can look at a home and love it and then see the price $280,000 to $330,000 a range of $50,000 which is pretty freaking huge and no home owner is going to take $280,000 for their home.

Why don’t home prices get listed like car prices, present it as, this is the house and this is the price for the house. I’m not into haggling and the fact that there is a possible movement of 50K is just madness. I just like to know how much a vendor wants, decided if I can or am willing to pay it and then pay or walk away. Surely it would be so much easier.

One house that we though was quite interesting, the one mentioned above all by itself, was taken off the market because of, as the sales person told us, a couple of thousand dollars. The owner knows what they want and no one has yet come to the party with the payment. But if you think the sales person is going to be honest with you and tell you what the owner wants you’d be sadly mistaken. When questioned he said “if you come in with a price of $290,000 the owner will take it”. He then when on to say “and offer of about $293,000 would secure the home”.

I’m thinking that after saying it was taken off the market over “a couple of thousand dollars” he should be better at providing an honest price. We know what our budget is, we don’t want to dance around. We just want to know how much it costs. It’s really not so hard.

I’ve been listening to Madonna’s Hard Candy on and off over the past few weeks, trying to get into it and I think it’s finally starting to sound good to me, but then music shouldn’t be this hard to like.

Don’t get me wrong, I love “4 Minutes”, “Candy Shop” and many of the other songs on the album but I feel that the album is less Madonna and more about her collaborators.

For instance the afore mentioned “Candy Shop” is written by and probably produced by Pharrell Williams, I don’t need the sleeve notes to tell me that, the song sounds very N.E.R.D. the phrasing is Pharrell all the way.

Then there is the hit single “4 Minutes” featuring Justin Timberlake and Timberland, a song that wouldn’t sound alien on a Justin Timberlake album.

I guess my feeling is, I’m not hearing a lot of “Madonna” in Hard Candy. But then maybe the thing is that people like Timberland have changed the face of music.

In the past a Producer would sit in the background, a single credit in the sleeve of the album, but these days they are laying down their own vocals and infiltrating the song of the artist. Perhaps without these infiltrations I would have more readily accepted this album as another Madonna reinvention.

It’s growing on me… I guess the other thing impacting my music of late is that I now travel to and from work with David and after 11 years together the one thing remains the same, our music tastes are very different with only the occasional overlap. So my ability to listen to new tunes has become somewhat limited.

I also had to find this album as it is not yet available on the Australian iTunes Store even though it was released on April 28.

And the final word, I’m glad “Beat Goes On” was reworked from the previously *leaked* version that surfaced last year.

Yeah we did it, we bought Wii Fit tonight. And it’s fun and funny.

The first time it weighs you it measures your weight and figures out your BMI, the little Wii Fit avitar on the screen then declares you (well me) obese and then adjusts the look of your Mii accordingly. Needless to say my Mii is a little more pudgy than I want it to be, but then it is a good representation of the real me and something I’m working on.

The Wii Fit board is both bigger and heavier than I expected, but at least it fits my large feet with only minimal overhang. The games are fun and engaging and you really do feel like you’re working out, especially when you’re doing the hula-hoops and trying to catch more as the Miis throw them to you.

I think Nintendo are on a winner. The Wii is already a huge success, but I’m sure that Wii Fit will make it all the more fun for everyone. One thing to note, we bought our Wii Fit at Target in Hoppers Crossing, they had about 20 units of the game in the cabinet and five Wii Consoles too.

The second installment in th AVP franchise (AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem) is the first one I’ve watched. For some reason I still haven’t found the time to watch the first and I came by Requiem during a recent look around the net.

So far (yes I’m writing while I watch) I think that the dark scenes are too dark. You would have to watch this movie in a cinema or like I am at 6 am in the morning. And the movie switches too quickly between scenes of light and dark so your eyes have little time to adjust and you miss a fair bit of detail; but then maybe that’s the point. So you don’t see that the aliens and the predator are just men in suits.

The only other complaint I would have about this movie is supposed to be Alien verses Predator and they spend an awful lot of time trying to make us feel emotion for the human victims. Sometimes you get a minute and a half of “heartfelt” dialogue and next thing you know these two characters you didn’t know two minutes ago are dead, either the Predator his blown their head off or an alien has put his inner mouth through the victim’s head.

And inexplicably the predator uses the blue goop to hide the alien’s kills and dead face-huggers, but skins a victim and hangs him from a tree? I guess they are trying to stay true to the lore of Predator, but the scale of the movie doesn’t allow them to as much as they probably should.

It’s not a completely bad movie, but had I paid $16.50 to see it in a cinema I may have felt ripped off, or maybe I would have enjoyed it more being more completely immersed in the film in a completely dark environment.

If I was scoring the movie I’d probably give it a six out of ten. Maybe I’ll check it out again on Blu-ray when the local video store gets it in, see what 1080p does for it.

Sure I’m late to the party and Janet’s new album, Discipline, has been out for about two months now but I’ve been busy and to be honest on first listen I wasn’t really excited about this album… now I can’t get enough of it.

I’ve always loved Miss Jackson, I think she is one of the most under-rated stars of today’s music scene. I wonder if the controversy that has hit brother Michael in the past few years has had an impact on her too.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that Discipline is to be the best album of the year. Madonna’s album Hard Candy has failed to impress me, so far I don’t see too many singles from that one. Mariah’s was so-so and I’m still waiting on new albums from Alanis and Cyndi.

From Discipline I see Feedback (well that’s not hard it already is a single), Luv, Rollercoaster, So Much Betta, The 1 (featuring Missy Elliot), What’s Ur Name, oh hell all of the songs on the album are great and the ones here are definitely single-worthy.

Give it a listen but I’ll share a secret with you, I haven’t bought it yet. I’ve been burnt by every Janet Jackson album since “Janet”. Being a fan I run out and buy it the day it is released, only to have a “Special Edition” released a month of two later. I have spent, and continue to spend a LOT of money on music, but I’m sick of record companies hitting the fans with their crap marketing tactics. So I’ll gladly buy the album, as soon as I’m comfortable to believe that I won’t have to buy it twice.

The other thing that annoys me, particularly with Janet and Cyndi, there is always a Japanese edition of the album that contains songs that are not, and will not be readily available here in Australia. What’s with that? It’s out there, I want it, I should be able to buy it. Instead I am forced to steal the music, what kind of fan would I be if I didn’t?

Oh and Janet’s website sucks. Catch the album on iTunes (Australian Store Link)

So today was my and David’s anniversary, this year we celebrate 11 years of non-wedded bliss. One day we’ll get married but it’s not yet legal… thanks Australia.

But honestly, I’ve been blessed and wouldn’t wish for my life to be any other way.

I’m sure I’ve told the story before, but it seems many are still surprised when I tell them how David and I met so I guess no one has read it yet.

Basically we met on the Internet, back in the days of IRC, we spent around six months chatting online before we actually met. Back then I was working for Optus and he for Westpac Bank. Back then I was 23 and he 20. The day we met, was the day I knew he was the one; I moved in that day and haven’t left since (of course we’ve moved about six times since then).

It seems like a long time ago, but the time has flown. There are days when I don’t remember life before David and I tell you I’m not missing anything that came before him.

He is my greatest love and he makes me happy every day. I don’t believe I remember a single day the he hasn’t made me laugh.

Thanks David for the last 11 years. Let’s see how many, many more we have in us.

Above is my graph for my first ever Nike+iPod Run/Walk.

I got a little gypped (no offense to honest Gypsies) as you can see my chart only records a run of 2.69 km, while David’s says he ran much further at 4.65 km. Not sure what I was doing wrong. It said it was paired and started recording my stuff at the start but then nothin’.

I am so sore right now, but it is more related to a pain in my upper back / chest I’ve had for the past week or so that I’ve done nothing about. It hurts when I breathe deeply, swallow large mouthfuls or bend over the wrong way. It has also stopped me from sleeping properly, I guess it is something I’ll have to get checked out early next week if it doesn’t go away.

But yeah, I bought a refurbed iPod Nano (second gen, 2GB, silver) cause the Nike+iPod only work with the Nano, it cost $109 plus the Nike attachment at $48. And believe me, with all the iPods I own, I’ve never (until now) owned a Nano. Strange but true.

Let’s see how my progress goes.

Today I made a purchase, a new Crumpler bag for my camera gear. I have a Lowepro bag that has held me in good stead for a while but with the purchase of my 70-200 2.8 L-series and my latest camera purhcase of my Canon Speedlite 430EX the poor Lowepro wasn’t really working for me, not to mention the bag has started to show a little wear and tear.

I went with the Crumpler bag because I’ve had two computer bags from Crumpler in the past, in fact I now have a spare computer bag becuase the Crumpler I chose, the Whickey and Cox, also holds my 15 in. MacBook Pro. The Crumpler bags hold up well to my unique brand of ownership where I don’t always treat my bags as nice as I could.

The Whickey and Cox is awesome, it has a lot of room for my camera gear, holds (as I said) my laptop and it also zips up at the back which means the opening is actually against my back for extra security.

The woman who served me, at the Crumpler department in Myer Melbourne City store, was awesome. She got down on the floor with me to show me the bag in its entirety, the same way I would hit the floor and play lego with my Nephews and Niece. It was cool.

David tells me that this is my last bag I am allowed to buy for some time, at $235 I’m sure I understand, but wonder if he thinks that I’ve bought more bags than I really have in the last 11 years.

So that’s my latest purchase, my Crumpler “the Whickey and Cox” Camera Bag. And my gods do I hate the Crumpler website, it is the crappest website ever, at least they make great bags.

Well for me at least.

Received word yesterday at work that I will be able to take my photography further.

As the official photographers of the AFL GSP Images is awesome at what they do, and if all goes to plan, I’ll be taking some photos with them outside of my standard work hours. They not only provide photography to the AFL, they also had photographers on track at the Grand Prix and will soon be branching out into other areas.

To say I’m excited about the undertaking is an understatement. Taking photos is after all what I want to do.