Welcome to the deep, dark & crazy world that is my imagination

I've seen the sky orange (namely if I remember when the bushfires were super bad) and have seen things outside be yellow since we moved here (where I nicknamed the sky the Simpsons) but this was the first time I'd seen the sky turn red. It was an awesome sight to behold. I thought you might like some pics to see what it was like at my place 6am this morning (and DUDE it was so windy it looked like a freaking tornado was coming outside - I seriously feared for my life going to work. And the inside of the train was covered in dirt also. Ew.)

( Pics here )

This is my official notice of absence. Unfortunately I was only just told what was happening and between school and work I will not be here for when our phone line shuts down so I cannot create any pretty graphics or the like.

I WILL OFFICIALLY BE ON HIATUS FROM NOW UNTIL 4TH APRIL
(or whenever the phone gets reconnected)

Please leave me any important info about what's going on with you guys (or the world I love in general) in comments to this post. For my best buddies who have my mobile - you can still reach me on that if needed. I may text a note or two to Twitter if I'm seriously bored.

I will let you know if I come back earlier - and can someone please keep an eye on Twicon for me and let me know if the world hates me and Jackson's photoshoot, etc. go on sale while I'm off? Thanks.

*MWAH* Love you all

LOL I'm slowly trying to catch up. So on the note of falling behind in everything...

I again had to play chauffeur to my brother and his friends (well, now the "new" girlfriend and her sister who he'd known for a while) and ferry everybody to the station to catch a train to Homebush Bay (of course I was left to work out all the finer details *sigh*). So we got as far as the station carpark when my brother asked if I remembered the tickets. Of course I'd forgotten, and it's not like he made the effort to get them beforehand, so I had to speed all the way home and leave them to buy a ticket at the station (cause it was faster with one person than carting all of them). Well I got as far as the opposite end of the carpark upon my return when I heard the train pull in. I dashed all the way across the asphalt running as fast as I could, including up the hill where I had to actually slow to a walk to be able to breathe again, and I saw the train was still sitting there at the station. I thought it was being considerate. So I ran the rest of the way up the hill, pushing myself to run when my legs felt like they were about to buckle beneath me, and I got within 3-4 metres when they closed the doors. Of course my awaiting companions looked at me like I was half crazy and I collapsed rather dramatically onto my knees on the concrete - mainly cause I really couldn't stand anymore, and I definately needed a whole lotta oxygen. So after the "weird family" comment got thrown around, I hauled myself up using the fence and my legs felt like string - completely unsupportive. So I told the others we had to grab a seat and we went around the corner onto the platform and sat down. We were being pestered by a local who nicely informed us we'd be waiting half an hour (like I could help the fact the doors closed on us - did she not see me run & collapse in her lurking?) and, um, well the other lot were all conversing with each other, and I was trying to breathe and get back to some kind of normal state that didn't require inhaling sharply (and thereby texting original_lie to whine and entertain me).

Anyway it seems that the trains ran more frequently or something at Lidcombe because they not only had the Nickelback concert at the Sydney Superdome, but Telstra Stadium (which was the main stadium for the Olympics) was holding an AFL match - Sydney Swans vs Geelong (um I'll guess Supercats but I'm not sure cause I don't actually follow AFL). Mind you the advantage to this was that there was food located outside the stadium and we hadn't had dinner... but we still didn't eat. We headed straight to the venue only to discover we were having bag checks and you had to throw out all food and drink (yet you could purchase these from INSIDE the venue if you wanted to pay a hefty price and wait in a massive queue for a good hour *rolls eyes*), and of course cameras weren't allowed. Well this proved to be interesting because my brother's friend brought her camera (despite the fact we weren't really sitting that close) so this ended up being stowed away in her younger sister's jacket.

It took forever for Nickelback to come on stage. We were treated to a mass of rock numbers over the loudspeaker (my brother was super excited to hear Audioslave - it was like we were about to watch them LOL, and I was much the same when AC/DC came on but that's sort of because it applies to a few different ppl now). The bass was FAR too loud, it was going right through us and we were towards the back of the venue 2nd row from the back of the first elevation (um, to try and put this into perspective - the venue we were in is where the basketball was held so if u can imagine us being up the other end of the court from the loudspeakers - much like that. Can I also add that the one and only time I was ever in this venue all those years ago I despised it and vowed never to come back? I had to sacrifice that to see Nickelback again, but despite improvements my opinion did not change). The support band was also excessively loud, but that was fine because they were fairly good. They're an unsigned Sydney band called Ultimo. The lead singer was distinctly scottish (well - I actually thought I was listening to Dominic Monaghan and was humouring myself thinking how canadian_turtle would have loved this and pretending they were Driveshaft). It also had a bit of a new-INXS kind of feel to it to.

So, by about quarter past nine, we finally got the boys onto stage. Firstly can I say how much it is pissing me off lately that we've had to pay so much more for concerts only for them to start later and finish earlier? It's really aggravating, and especially for a band like this who have had multiple albums I don't think it would hurt anyone if they played for 2 hours (as used to be the case) and not just for a little over an hour.

They started with a bang (literally) and opened with "Animals". It was good but now we had some other problems rearing their heads. Well, actually, both the guitarist AND Chad sounded muchly off-key, and all of a sudden the music was not as loud as it had been the rest of the night. But I bit my tongue and waited and hoped that they were just getting settled. This is bound to happen sometimes. And I remember how awesome Nickelback was last time they were out here when I went which was why I was determined to go no matter where they were playing this time. Chad, thankfully, got himself sorted out by halfway through the second song. The guitarist, sadly, did not. And unfortunately this made a bad scenario for "Savin' Me" when the guitarist's microphone was up louder than Chad's. The way they structure some of the songs is have the drummer and the guitarist singing along to Chad for certain lines. Well when an off-key someone (who only successfully pulled off the "Hurry I'm fallin'" part which I'd say is his usual part) was more vocal through the front of house speakers than Chad, it kind of partly ruined the performance. I know I was sitting there saying "Someone needs to turn Chad's mike up" cause we could barely hear him :( You would think the engineers would know who the lead singer is, wouldn't you? *sigh*

There were other problems. Chad kept bitching about the airconditioner not working. He was mocking the venue people saying "Here's an idea. Why don't we let 15000 people FRY?" and then he told everyone to check next to their seats for the on button and was chuckling at himself and imitating people from the crowd checking and going "oh it's not next to me". Sad to say, Chad, whilst you were up there wiping your face, up where we were we were still in jackets. I think the lights were more the problem than the aircon.

The major problem though was the video. The band has a video sequence that runs in the background on the little big screens. Well we could tell before the show even started they were having probs with that. But it lasted 2.5 songs before it died - halfway through "Photograph" :( So all the personal photographs they were sharing to go with the lyrics kind of died, leaving us just to watch their images on the big screen (but, hey, they're spunky rock guys anyway so that was all fine). What I did like though in the video was they had managed to throw down these polaroids with different pictures which was EXACTLY what I had pictured the clip to look like. Unfortunately that's where the video stuffed up so I didn't get to see whether my vision had been broadened. I must applaud the video guys though for going to the greatest effort to make it look like there wasn't a problem. Chad didn't even notice until they wanted to do a tribute for a friend of his who was shot on stage playing his guitar at a concert last year (this is what "Side Of A Bullet" was about, and it made more sense and was far more poignant knowing this). With the lights out, Chad was trying to govern the situation as best he could telling us that it "looks like the video's taken a shit" and saying they'd be able to handle it without the video, and adding because he'd spent this whole time talking to us in the dark: "It'd be good if somebody COULD TURN ON THE LIGHTS!!!" They tried to make up for this by having another round of "Beer O'Clock" which is what my brother and I feared from last time - we had been in the first elevation (in a venue slightly smaller than this one) and they had thrown beer to the 2nd row in front of us. We didn't want to be covered in it, hence why we took seats again. Well we were far out of range this time with the ground floor appearing to be the widest reach that could be thrown there. Mind you I was rather pleased to have predicted this would happen again. They also shot out some "free shit" which canadian_turtle tells me were t-shirts from these air cannons. Chad said (in view of his complaining about it being so hot in the venue) that next time he was going to bring water cannons or, better yet, beer cannons. LOL

So apart from those little drawbacks it was all good. I was WAY impressed with the drummer (he's the new drummer who they sniped from Three Days Grace) and OMG he was so awesome. Apart from the fact he looked really cute (loved the little grin on his face and when he was singing *dies* I was so not arguing with the frequent camera shots he got), they gave him a drum solo which just went on forever - and I pretty much didn't mind. He is the best drummer in the universe. Seriously. I thought Vince from Invertigo was good - this guy beats him handsdown. He was playing the double-kick so fast that the movement was a blur. He was playing drums and flipping the sticks over the backs of BOTH his hands and, get this, he was doing it so fast they slowed the video down and you still couldn't be sure if you were seeing right because he was so damn fast.

All in all they missed 4 songs off the new album (which was a shame because 2 of those I REALLY love) and a few of the old singles. They did however play the bigger hits and it was nice that they finished with "Figured You Out" which is one of my favourite songs of theirs (And it was actually my favourite prior to this album when I went to the last concert).

Also I have to note in the hilarity of Chad two more things. He walked up the middle of the walkway and picked up a sign from the crowd saying "Now THIS is how you get someone's attention at a rock concert" Holding up the sign it read "TWINS 4 CHAD" and as he walked away he noted "unless that means you want to have my kids, in which case I'm going over here" LOL And secondly he kept proclaiming how they were going to be in Australia for two weeks and he wanted to get thoroughly smashed cause they were on holiday - and was mocking a whole manager/Nickelback convo where he was being told "First you're going to Germany" (to which he slapped a hand over his face and groaned) "then to New Zealand to do a show with the Rolling Stones, and then you're going to Australia" which he was all happy about and then realised what he said and turned around and said "I hope there aren't any Germans here - are there? I can see you all now, phoning the mother country saying 'we're never going to let them back into our country again'" and he laughed (and might I add his accent there sounded more Irish than German LOL).

Okay I think that's enough. Despite the problems in Sydney, it seems that everywhere else enjoyed themselves, and we did too. Ultimately I was thinking "If this band didn't have the songs to hold them up this show would have just died". It certainly tells you what the meaning of rock 'n' roll is really all about - the quality of the songs.

So I've just got back and sticking with the theme of overly updating the journal today (well, technically yesterday) I've decided to do this tiny little thing that won't be as massive as BSB cause my eyes are glazed and I'm not particularly mental atm *snicker*

To explain: I was not at all reluctant in going to see this man. I've seen him twice before with Matchbox 20 and never once has he let me down. He's an excellent showman, and he again proved that tonight. Rob Thomas is the ONLY person to ever make me cry in a concert, a time where I'm usually at the happiest, and seems to be the one person willing to cater to my 80s music obsession.

Opening with Something To Be, Rob instantly reminded me of why I love to watch him in concert. He has a certain presence as soon as he walks out on stage, one that makes you instantly bond with him and enjoy what he's singing as much as he is. Lively, animated, and downright funny, this man is certainly one to treasure. Every word that leaves his mouth you believe. You can feel the adoration and friendship stretch between him and the crowd, and he makes you more than comfortable to be there "celebrating life" as he put it.

It was when he launched into a rocked up rendition of "If You're Gone" that the crowd first went wild. It was strange to me that out of the many MANY old songs he played (nicely broken up between new songs, and he even threw one pre-Matchbox 20 song in he wrote *cough* 15 years ago *cough* which Russ & I knew was "Dear Joan" from Tabitha's Secret), that this be the one I instantly recognised. Partly because I love the clip, partly because I love the song, partly because I wrongly made it a song to listen to repeatedly when things went sour between me and one of my exes... and following that endeavour went to see the band in concert with him and a few friends and ended up balling my eyes out during it. So evil is this man though, you feel what he's singing, know he means it, and "3am" and "When The Heartache Ends" also had me biting my lip this time around trying to keep from spilling tears. Mind you he also gave a berating about being unhappy cause that's meant to be cool, and to look at the happy moments and realise they're happening and go "fuck, this is a happy moment!" (Jen & Russ also served to tease me at this point cause I was telling him to shutup and stop talking to me, even though I do do that) but he does believe the bad moments remind you of the happy ones. I can't say it works that way in my case.

There was a few covers and mini-covers thrown in (the latter between finishing a song - "You Can Call Me Al" & "Maria Maria" during his encore presentation of "Smooth" to complete the Santana-fest) He opened the encore with "Wonderwall" but it was his rendition of David Bowie's 80s hit "Let's Dance" that had me jumping around like nothing else. Yes I'm an 80s music freak. I practically screamed last concert when he did Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me" from the Breakfast Club... and have been obsessed with that song ever since. I proclaimed during the Bowie number that I loved Rob because Rob loved 80s music and loved covering it for us (or catering to me if I can be so selfish).

He loves Sydney. He didn't have to tell us like the many many times he did, he shows us by coming back so frequently. It makes us love him all the more, that someone actually thinks about us guys down here and doesn't go "screw that, it's too far away" like most other artists. I've ranted many times before that they all seem so scared to cross the equator like they're going to blow up or something, but people who come here can tell you how beautiful and wonderful our country is and that THEY managed to survive.

So really there was many terrific points to the concert, and Rob Thomas is such a showman with or without the rest of the Matchbox 20 band - he never fails to impress. He catered to my request of "Push", and we even had an onstage proposal at the onset of the encore. Mind you the "this is my girlfriend, I want you to be my wife" shortness of it all left me feeling slightly sorry for the girl. You know what I think? Screw the trying to make it special using outward circumstances. Yeah, sure it's nice and will make things very memorable, but am I a complete hopeless romantic if I say I want a decent proposal if someone was going to ask me that? I want them to TELL ME what I mean to them. I want them to GIVE me a reason to marry them. And seriously give it a while before you ask. My brother's friend asked a girl he'd been seeing for less than 3 weeks to marry him, and she said yes. How can you base a whole relationship on 3 weeks? How can you expect that to last, to know that they're the one that's meant for you? Okay so maybe I sound like I have commitment problems or am overly demanding... truth is I'm not. But it's so annoying... I just keep expecting everything to be right, to know, to let destiny and fate have their way. I base way too much on hope.

And my review's turned into a rant. Damn. Ok well there wasn't actually much else to say about the concert. Support band The Hamptons were pretty good, I bought their CD which 2 of them signed during the in-between break. Meh that's all.

Alrighty, decided I might as well do this now. Haven't got Melly boo here to entertain me cause she's entertaining some kiddies instead ;)

So, let's see, after crashing at about 3am (a good hour after I had planned to go to bed - see what your buddies do for u ;) ), I managed to drag myself outta bed around 11 something AM with a whopper of a headache. This, for the most part, confused me because it's not like I slept in. There was a good 8 hour sleep there (which is scientiffically a predisposed normal day of sleep, something I very rarely get) so there was no excuse for oversleeping or anything. Hmm.

So I got to chat to El this morning seconds b4 she headed to bed, which was pretty nifty. Can't even really remember what we were discussing. Oh, quizzes, that was one. Um I think movies was in there somewhere. I remember her telling me how cold she was. And I remember how we were saying what a fantastic writer Mel is. And how much I loved everyone... see I was making myself cry again. Gee I'm sad, I think I haven't spent a day not crying over the past week! But, u know, great way to cheer yourself up is accidentally knock a bunch of CDs flying and have U2 reset your computer for u by falling on the keyboard. So that interrupted the deep & meanigful convo, but u know it had me laughing instead of crying so that was all good. That's about it, I'm blanking on the rest. Quite sad being as it was only 5 or 6 hours ago. LOL.

So back to fanfic land. After I tried to please my mother by doing what she said, cleaning my room for a good hour and a half to the tunes of Goo Goo Dolls (and, yes, may I say I discovered some more tunage for my Bianca fic *grin*), I wandered back to my computer to attempt this thing. Opened up the wrong file to type in, but luckily I realised what I was doing and fixed that quick smart. So glad I have Chris-Crossed on my computer now, made it incredibly easy to find the parts of the episode I needed. Namely little Bianca, and Bianca crashing her home (although I'm not putting that bit in yet, I was trying to get a good grip on the personality of the mother). Interesting fact though which I realised during my 10 min interval of hanging the washing out - we spend so much time focused on Chris that sometimes we forget or don't realise what's going on with the other characters. Today's thoughtage alerted me to the fact that Bianca actually did change the future as well - providing her mother with some wise words of wisdom about not lying to her. Interestingly enough, I think that backs up my version of Bianca, the nicer version not the completely cold one. So now I don't feel so bad about the fact that I can make her actually care about other ppl. I knew it was in her, just from the future scenes, but all the puzzle pieces didn't click together until I realised that just before. If her mother hadn't lied to her, she wouldn't be as cold or agressive as she has become, so I'm pretty glad about that. Actually I probably shouldn't ramble about it in here cause if I let it escape my head it might hinder the imagination factor.

Anyway, let's get onto some funness. More quizzes!


Your Heart is Grey


What Color is Your Heart?
brought to you by Quizilla

LMAO speaking of Bianca.... ok, no, really I think this is pretty spot on. It's hilarious actually. I love it. Ok I shouldn't have mentioned that girl's name... now I'm travelling back into those thoughts of how much personal experience I can invest in the girl. Must save that for later. I'm seriously not up to that bit yet. I don't know why my imagination insists on writing scenes that are much further down the track than where I actually am at the moment. Grr. Thankfully I got 2 pages completed for the next update now though. Only another four to go *rolls eyes*


hand holding - you like to be in constant physical
contact with your special someone but you don't
want to take things too quickly.


What Sign of Affection Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Awwww. Okay, I admit, I do take things pretty slowly. What can I say, I suck? LOL. No I guess it's just everything has to be meanigful for me, and perfect, and yeah I just like someone to always be there. *hugz*


PASSIONATE LOVER. You love to love, always looking
for a relationship. You cannot live without it.
Your lover must be passionate and you want
that you and your partner melt into each other.
He/She should not try to take the domination .
You dont want a relationship without passion,
and the sexuality plays a big part. The first
moment you meet him/her is one of the most
important. There has to be something between
you , you cannot explain. From the first moment
on everything must fix. But when this passion
disappears you disappear to. For you it is
better to leave than to see your love
restrained.



~THE big LOVE TEST!! What do you need? With PICS! For girls and boys!~
brought to you by Quizilla

Um... ok. LOL. Okay, so I'll admit something's got to be there in the first place. But as far as the rest goes, I'll let u know when I've actually had a decent relationship ;) haha.


You're a romantic girl. You're kind, caring,
loveing, and peaceful. You spend a lot of your
time dreaming and you're not afraid to express
deep emotion, whether it be in a poem, diary,
or words. You hope for love and affection from
your prince charming. I have a feeling he will
come around soon.


What kind of girl are you? (with pix!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh and the quiz gives me good news - my guy's only just around the corner! Wohoo! LOL. Doubt I should believe that when nameless horoscopes and stuff have been saying the same thing for years... but, anyway, we all knew I was a romantic - I scored 80% on that in the quiz last update ;)


You,re a very depressed, lonely person. Something
happened to you that changed your point of view
on life or maybe you always been this way. You
don't have any friends because you dont see the
point in making them they will just leave
anyway so why bother or maybe you just dont
want them. But try and stay positive there are
people who love you, so dont push them away
they just want to help. You might be scared to
make friends because you think they might hurt
you, but they won't, good friends always stay
together so try and make some.


Whats Your Personality(with PICS)
brought to you by Quizilla

Um, ok, maybe possible once... but now I have my beautiful net friends *hugglies* who I love to death and I'm not pushing them away. Nope, not ever, not for any money in the world. So of course now reality people hate me and think I'm unsociable (note people, just argued with my mother over this only 10 mins ago).

So can I say I'm a little annoyed with the fact that my family keep planning things without me? They were going to go out to dinner, and of course I just get told about it today. I don't get asked to do things, I get told to do them. But I've just been informed they're not going now. It was for my parents anniversary (seriously, do I have to be there? It's not like they even care about it themselves!) but cause I didn't want to go suddenly the whole world falls apart and it's my fault again. *sigh* Well I suppose u can tell I'm peeved. Apparently I can't stay away from this computer (um, ppl please remind me - where was I for about 3 hours last night? Where was I this morning? And where am I going tonight - ie. movies with Russ to see Hide & Seek @ 9:30pm). Argh. Ok, well, that's enough from me.