Fallen Angels

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Australian Healthcare System 101
What better time than when I'm sick to post about the Australian Healthcare System?

( Medicare )

( Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme )

( Private Health Insurance )

Obviously, I am biased on the subject of private health insurance, but I would personally never be without it. The private system is generally faster with less wait times, and it's good to know that if I need medical care it will be paid for.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Calvin Harris; I'm Not Alone

still sick
went home early yesterday, called in today. Recently back from the doctor's: she said to take tomorrow off as well and gave me a med cert. And to keep doing all the stuff I'm already doing, that is to say, keeping warm, resting, fluids, etc.

On my way home I was going to pop by a blood test place and finally get my initII diabetes gene-typing study blood test, but after circling the block three times and still not finding a parking space and realising that they closed for lunch in 5-10 minutes, I gave up and went back home. I guess I'll do that tomorrow...? If nothing else tomorrow I should be feeling better than today.

Current Mood: sick

I am sick and attempting not to be grumpy. My nose/throat is clogged and it is REALLY ANNOYING. The post office claims that they attempted to deliver a parcel for me at 8.00am this morning. I WAS HOME AT 8.00AM THIS MORNING AND YOU SURE DIDN'T. Now I have to go pick it up at the post office. I mean, sure that's like a block away around the corner, but it's still irritating because it is going to be really freaking cold tomorrow morning (see: winter) and I am SICK.

Current evening plans: cook dinner, eat dinner, go to bed.

[In other news my travel insurance came through all approved for my medical condition; now to look at US flights and book the Wincon hotel room! BUT LATER, WHEN I AM NOT IRRITATED AND SICK.]

Current Mood: sick

RIP Placeholder
So Placeholder died right as we moved to our current place - once I vaccumed out all the dust (*cough*)

trs80 [typekey.com] and I went through and tested everything to see what the problem was. Everything worked great in other machines - except the motherboard. Since Placeholder was put together in 2005, it's time for me to get another machine. I've even sourced a few parts already...

Buying off an UCCan:
Graphics - GTX280. 1GB GDDR3, 648mhz Core clock 2ghz mem clock
CPU - Core 2 E8600 (3.33ghz dual core)

The IT guy my work gets in (who I of course have made friends with) thinks he has 2GB of DDR2 RAM lying around that he is going to bring in if he finds it, which should take care of most of my RAM needs since I'm not going to be playing a lot of system-intensive games, and if I need more I can just buy some to match from Netplus.

I want to keep my case (Antec Sonata) because it has blue lights on the front of it and I like it and also I have many stickers on it <.< I will probably also get a second HDD but drives are cheap as chips nowadays; probably a SATA to match my first HDD, unless SATA have major problems when you have two of them, or something.

According to Chas, my power supply has very little chance of managing to run the graphics card I have, which means I'll need a replacement. If my case is an Antec, will I need to get an Antec power supply to ensure it fits properly, or can I get any brand PSU? Antec seem to have a reasonable range, although they jump straight from 550W to 750W.

Which just leaves the problem part in the first place, the motherboard. The UCCan I'm buying the graphics card and CPU off recommended I get an ASUS P5QL board. There are four showing on the Netplus website:
Asus P5QL-E Intel P43 DDR2 MB ExpGATE PCIE GLAN LGA775 Firewire ATX $179.00
Asus P5QL-EM Intel G43 MB DDR2 ExpGATE PCIE GLAN LGA775 HDMI ExpressGate X4500HD Video uATX $144.00
Asus P5QL-Pro Intel P43 DDR2 MB ExpGATE PCIE GLAN LGA775 ATX $169.00
Asus P5QL-SE Intel P43 DDR2 MB ExpGATE PCIE GLAN LGA775 ATX $119.00

Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the boards? I mean obvs it will need to be able to fit inside my case, but other than that I have no real idea which one is best. ^^;

Uhhhhh I think that's everything? obvs I already have monitor, DVD drive, peripherals/etc.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Presets; I know you (on repeat)

IMPORTANT
1. back from honeymoon (as of last night). pictures/etc later; thank you everyone for your lovely lovely comments and posts and emails and cards and everything and I will hopefully get around to replying to everyone. ♥

2. Sami got her settlement, which means that shortly Chas and I will be much more financially secure, which means that I am totally going to

winchestercon this year. !!!! WINPROM OMG. I kind of really want to take my wedding dress as my winprom dress :D

3. SO. Am now trying to think about how long I want to spend in the US this year (assuming I can get time off from work etc). Wincon is in Colorado on Oct 9 through 11. I can probably swing something like two weeks off - the important part is, who is up for a visit around then? Twins, Colorado is pretty west coast so I should be able to get over your way as well this time if you're up for it! Basically I need to work out a basic itinerary ie how long I will be staying in the US before I can look at flights and book leave from work.

4. Now to head off to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages so I can apply for my official marriage certificate so I can change my drivers' license and passport. Obvs the passport is the important one! ;)

Current Mood: tired

Live streaming is going to work, quality might be a bit youtube but it's going to work fine. It's almost certain that

tevriel is going to be babysitting the computer with the streaming; she will be on g.talk if you have problems/get stuck/what have you. She is sonnlich (at gmail) on g.talk, feel free to ping her/send her an email/etc if you can't view the live feed. (ps from sami: please do not ping her unless you actually have a problem, as she will be wanting to watch the wedding if everyone is okay.)

okay, shortly off to my parents' for the night.

Current Mood: stressed

Live Video Streaming
I just made a friendslocked post with the details of our live video streaming, which is very probably going ahead assuming all the hookup works! (cross your fingers)

ANYWAY. If you are not on my friendslist, not attending the wedding in person and would like to watch the the live feed, please comment here with your email address and I will email you the details. (If I am unlikely to recognise your livejournal username, you probably want to tell me who you are as well, because I draw the line at emailing details to internet randoms!)

AND NOW I AM GOING TO BED. GOODNIGHT.

Current Mood: tired

THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY
So, everyone remember this? (from here, which may be relevant to people's interests.)

ANYWAY. This needs to be remade with xi!kirk immediately. I NEED THIS LIKE I CANNOT EXPRESS.

Current Mood: tired

Somewhat disorganised
Just opened up tabs to my f.list back to skip=600. I know that I have a lot of RL things taking up my attention at the moment but I still feel bad for missing so much of my non-RL friends lives every time I fall behind. And at the same time I feel quite disconnected - I haven't seen an episode of SPN since

winchestercon (and yet, still almost completely unspoiled!) and I still haven't managed to see Star Trek yet (

tevriel and I are going to see it together at some point this coming week) so I can't read the latest squee and general chatter; at this point it is basically a certainly that I'm going to have to pull out of

capiron_bigbang because I am simply not going to have enough time and even if they did give me an extension, I will be on my honeymoon for the three weeks immediately after the due date, so to me an extension seems kind of pointless anyway; and I seem to always be tired, stressed and cranky so everything I have to do is just that much harder.

We still have no final decision regarding video streaming at the wedding: if you can help us out with a camera and/or your time please let us know so we know what options we have to consider.

FOURTEEN DAYS.

ps. I wrote a story for the recent yuri special of

bb_shousetsu! I am somewhat fond of it. I know that I am a bad person for not going through and reading everyone else's stories and commenting on them yet, but I also figure that not having the time to do basically anything else fun due to IRL stress sort of gets me a pass so far, and it is going to happen just as soon as I get the time. ^^;

Current Mood: stressed

OKAY. IMPORTANT WEDDING THINGS.
Firstly. Thank you everyone for your RSVPs! ♥ Just a couple of things to mention.

GIFT REGISTRY
Several of you have asked about the registry. It's at Karrinyup Shopping Centre in Perth. Now the bad news for interstate and international people is that you can't access the list online. I spoke to the Customer Service Desk today and they said that to get a copy of the registry you need to email them at <csd@karrinyup-centre.com.au> and ask for a copy of our gift registry - use our real names! (they will be printed on your invitation if you can't remember - don't ask for Vel'ithya!) The service desk will then email you a copy of the current registry with a cover note explaining how to go about ordering/paying for gifts.

As I understand it, since Karrinyup is a multi-store shopping centre, you would then need to phone the individual store and make the purchase. Karrinyup does not deliver but what they do do (and I know this because this happened yesterday) is they call me and say 'there is a gift waiting to be collected at the customer service desk' and I go and pick it up (I sent my mum instead though!).

Now I get that an international phone call is irritating, especially given timezones and stuff and you would need to wrangle with the stores directly regarding buying things/etc. If you desperately want to get me a gift - AND I STRESS, YOU TOTALLY DON'T HAVE TO OKAY - and you can't manage to liase directly with the store you can get in touch with me or my mum and arrange to send money and something can be bought off the registry on your behalf. OR YOU CAN JUST SEND YOUR GOOD WISHES AND LOVE. ♥

That said, I should also clarify something about the registry - many of you (and I'm talking to people in Perth again now too) have been to weddings where the gift registry is a million-page affair with everything the couple might ever want or need or saw in passing in the store and thought they might as well put it down, it's a gift registry! Let me advise you right now - this is not one of those gift registries. Chas and I spent four several-hour trips in total trekking around the shopping centre, going from store to other store to the internet to the store to compare brands and prices and stuff, and if you've ever seen Chas shop (it takes him forty minutes to pick a pair of socks, okay, he puts even more thought into things that are going to last us the rest of our lives) you will understand that a lot of research went into brands and prices and making sure that the stuff that went down we actually want. Which I guess is a long-winded way of saying that if you're going to get us a gift, you don't have to wrack your brain for 'the perfect gift' - you can use the registry and cut out the stress! It's what it's for.

VIDEO STREAMING
Chas has been looking into getting streaming video for the wedding, so that people who can't be there personally can go to a website and watch it live (4pm for eastern staters, 2am for East Coast US, 11pm for West Coast US).
1. How many of you would be down with that? SHOW OF HANDS PLEASE.
2. We would need someone to volunteer a video camera (I understand the video camera needs to be hooked up to a computer that needs to have mobile broadband up and running for the streaming to work). Chas has the technical details, but I assume that your camera must be able to a)attach to a computer, and b)function while attached to a computer. ANY VOLUNTEERS?
3. Along the same lines, we would need someone to volunteer to video the ceremony (or babysit the camera, if it's on a stand/whatever). CAN BE THE SAME PERSON AS IN PREVIOUS QUESTION.

COMMENTING HERE IS FINE AND LOVELY.

Current Mood: trying not to be stressed
Current Music: Sheila Chandra; Sacred Stones

RSVP
Hey guys, technically the RSVP date is today so if you have yet to RSVP please do it real soon! You can RSVP via this post if you like.

THREE WEEKS.

Current Mood: busy

Origins: Deadpool I mean Wolverine
Yeah, it was pretty awesome!

...Okay let's talk Deadpool. He was kind of really really awesome and I would like to know where to start with reading comics for him. Suggestions/recommendations?

( spoilers, including for all the ending clips )

Sooo yeah! Talk to me about Deadpool. :D

Current Mood: headache :(

T-30 days and counting
Dear [Perth-based] Internet,

Chas and I are up to the formalwear/suit hire section of wedding organising and we have arranged to head into the city with our groomsmen tomorrow and have a look around at a few places. None of us know very much about suit hire; accordingly, if you have hired a suit recently (ie in the last few years, I guess!) would you recommend the place you got it? Could you please tell us about it? We know pretty much zero about formalwear places, so any help that people can give would be much appreciated.

Love,

myfyr and

velithya.

----

In other news, organisation of various things proceeds. We have mailed a bunch of harcopy invites to Chas' family and our further-away friends; we are doing up our electronic invite now and will be sending that out (hopefully) tonight. Our priest is coming over for dinner tonight again so we can discuss the ceremony and that sort of thing; next up is arranging the catering/food for the garden tea reception.

Everyone at work keeps telling me how calm I am for someone who's getting married pretty soon. I guess I'm not that stressed about things at the moment - we're not spending thousands and thousands of dollars on this (I read an article yesterday that said that last year, the average cost of an Australian wedding was $28,000. TWENTY EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS. ON AVERAGE. WHAT.) and the important things (ie my dress, shoes, hair and makeup. okay fine, and the priest and venue too) have all been arranged. Ask me how stressed I am in two weeks and that answer may change!

Should I do a countdown? Today is the first of May.

Current Mood: tired

Various
1. Have finished my SS*BB story (I think), currently clocking in at 6948 words. OMG WHAT IF IT SUCKS *nervous* Still need title and hilarious or awesome pseudonym. Story is due in this friday - have one week to beta. Will be sending it out to my usual two betas shortly - anyone else who wants to volunteer should speak now or forever hold their peace. I am excusing previously volunteered beta due to some unforseen and tragic circumstances, if you feel up to it let me know but I am not holding you to anything - you take care of yourself first okay ♥ (ps. I lit a candle for you at church today, I hope you are doing okay.)

2. We have finished selecting things for our gift registry! (probably.) Which means we can move onto finalising the guest list (read: finding the engagement party guest list, and adding on more people, until we run out of people) and invites.

3. Christ is risen! :)

4. My weekend hasn't really felt like a weekend so far... very glad tomorrow is a public holiday too. I plan to sleep in really a lot, and also spend a bunch of time relaxing, if I can.

5. Clearly I have spent too much time writing SS*BB tonight, because every time I finish a sentence or paragraph in this update window I automatically press Ctrl-S, and then have to cancel the little save html page prompt *facepalm*

6. Why do Livejournal and Gmail think I am still an hour ahead? I just checked and they both have me timezoned correctly in Australia/Perth, so I am a bit perplexed as to what is going on and how I can fix it. Do they think DST is still going, or something?

7. My other on-repeat song at the moment is The Presets - If I Know You which I heard on the radio and then had to lyric-search. That makes The Presets two for two on songs of theirs that I have heard and also liked! (youtube here (I think) for those who are interested.)

8. I saw Dragonball: Evolution on friday with

oliverm. Non-spoiler review: it was about as good as it could have been, and I certainly enjoyed myself! I mean, the opening made me go 'what' but the fight scenes were pretty good and I really liked the way they did ki and ki blasts. Also: MOVIE CONTAINS FANGIRL JAPANESE. Okay, so it wasn't fangirl Japanese but they do use a few random Japanese words for things. Which I actually don't have a problem with given the words they were using, I just think it's funnier to say it like that. I am happy to give a much more spoilery review/in depth description for any Dragonball fans who aren't sure if they want to see the movie or not, or definitely don't want to see it but would like to know what happens. (I may do this anyway).

9. SEVEN WEEKS.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Kevin Rudolf (feat. lil wayne); Let it Rock (on repeat)

icon meme
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

six icons from

gigglingkat:

1. My most recent addition to my icon line-up, and the best thing about last week: Marvel marrying Steve and Tony :3 This particular icon was made from a photoshopped scan that added in Tony's facial hair and a few other things and I love it a whole lot :D

2. The first of the three cosplay icons in the selection! Sol is one of my favourite characters and we took a bunch of character shots at Manifest. This is a cropped version of an end-of-battle shot where Sol loses (TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER).

3. I think it relevant to note the keywords for this icon: knocked up my crazy gear-boyfriend, oh god what have I done, wait he lays eggs?! :D:D:D poor Ky has such a lot to angst about!

4. Renoooooooooooooooooo \o/ I have almost no Reno photos from this con (wai-con 07), it's pretty sad! Reno would like to think the Reno icon goes with anything.

5. This is my fenced in/freedom icon. It's a cropped photo by a friend of mine, and I really like the colours in it.

6. HOPE/FREE OTP \o/ It's my totally worksafe OTP icon. GUESS WHAT'S HAPPENING OFF-SCREEN ;D

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Sami watching QI

GIP
I have a new 'wedding' icon. I FEEL THIS IS APPROPRIATE, GIVEN IT IS NOW OFFICIAL MARVEL CANON.

*rocks out*

Current Mood: tired but cheeful
Current Music: The Presets; I know you (on repeat)

Pictures
Man it took me a while to work out how to turn on the "I am photographing something really small" setting on my camera. The first lot of photos I took of my engagement ring were all totally blurry and I had to take a few more this evening. Anyway some of them turned out reasonably okay! And you can have all of them, even the one with the wonky flash because it makes the sapphires glow. For reference, the ring is about 5mm wide (here's a longer shot of my whole hand for size comparison), and the band around the back (not pictured) is just plain.

They're dark blue Australian sapphires, and they look black a lot of the time, but in the sunlight especially they will catch the light and just shine beautifully. I have already picked up a nervous habit of just fiddling with my ring absently which I should really try and cut out I suppose! I'm just not used to wearing jewellery all the time.

The jeweller was Rohan Jewellery on Oxford Street and I highly recommend them to anyone looking to have a piece of jewellery designed! I phoned once to see what their opening hours were and to see if they designed rings, and the lady on the phone asked my name in the course of conversation. The next day when Chas and I turned up, the lady on the desk asked if I was [my name], and we were immediately taken in with a designer who took detailed notes and was also very friendly and helpful. Every single staff member I dealt with was a pleasure to speak to, up to and including Rohan himself.

The coolest part is that Rohan's 'stamp' isn't a stamp - it's a ruby (apparently he calls it the 'Rohan ruby'). So set into the inside of the bands on all three of the rings we had made (they did our wedding bands as well) is a tiny little ruby.

In other wedding news, we have booked a venue! Indoor and outdoor locations in case it rains and we need to get undercover, and it's very pretty. :) We've also made a start on picking out things for our gift registry and will be attempting to sort out a guest list over the weekend so we can start getting invites done.

*breathes*

Current Mood: exhausted

back on the internet. sort of. have read back on my f.list a bit but I'm not catching up for my entire absense; if there's something I should know that you've posted on/since 14th March you should tell me about it, or I probably won't see it.

our phone line is still not working.

I fail at being social tonight. Sorry for not attending parteh, I just wasn't feeling up to it. :| Happy birthday anyway, I hope you had a good time!

I have so much stuff to do tomorrow it's not funny :|

still stalled on ssbb story. must push through and get it finished already so I can throw it into beta. Also: STEVE/TONY BIGBANG. :psy:

don't talk to me about wedding planning.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Valkyrie Profile website background music

Various
1. riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing :3 Yes, photos to come :3 It's weird wearing a piece of jewellery all the time, but I assume I will get used to it ;)

2. We have some sort of line fault in the phone line, so while the phone is plugged in we're not getting any dial tone and can't make calls. Telstra should be sending someone out today to check the exchange. Still no (proper) internet, maybe later this week? Although the phone will have to be fixed first. (♥

theducks)

3. My meeting with the first flower lady went very well; I have another meeting with a second lady next monday, after which I will decide which flower lady I want to go with. The first lady was certainly very good, very professional and understood everything I was trying to get across, so we will see if the second lady is just as good!

4. Had my wedding dress fitting on saturday :3 The seamstress is going to take it in at the back and a little at the bodice, take up the hem, and put on thicker straps. I get it back about two weeks before the wedding.

5. I now have 4500 words of my SS*BB story, after putting the first 1200 words aside and starting over at a different point in the story <.< You can tell it works much better now, since I wrote those 4500 words in only two sittings. ~~Also it's now in present tense, which I seem to like much better~~ I, uh, might be scratching around for a yuri-familiar beta in a week or two, since I have no idea what I'm doing with this particular scene I'm up to. ^^;

Current Mood: tired

SO. MUCH. WEEDING.

Phone was switched on today (wednesday). Although I have no idea what our phone number is. Internet will apparently be through in 5-7 (working) days. *claws at walls*

Tomorrow I have to drive to Success! (yeah, it's a suburb, or something, idek)

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Chas and Dave watching anime