Probably. Most of the time I can’t really think of much to post and even when I do, I have to admit, it’s usually nothing terribly important… or even interesting. The purpose of a blog is to be read. If I can’t keep my blog interesting or consistent enough to keep people coming back, I don’t really see the point of keeping Rav`N’s Realm going.

*shrug* maybe I’ll pick it up again in a few months, but probably not. *lol* having said that, in the past it’s usually after a post like this that I resume blogging activity. I wouldn’t really look for my hypocrisy to be repeated this time tho. I just can’t seam to drum up the enthusiasm. To the 2 or 3 people that have bothered to read my blog on a regular basis, thank you for your interest. Rodger, get on Facebook dammit. or I could just email you a pseudo-blog post if you really want

So, this is how the Americans get rid of a washed up whale carcass:

and this is how we cleaned up the carcass that washed up on one of our beaches today… After about 4 or so days of every damn news station reporting on the shark activity around the carcass and interviewing all sorts experts that kept reassuring everyone that it was completely normal for sharks to be found around such a large and easy food source…idiots. The only surprise was that there wasn’t more than 1 or 2 sharks following it.

In other news, Jad’s crowing about being in the news because he caught a NASTY little norovirus, thats got our hospitals all in a frenzy. Considering how, umm, explosive it was for him, I’m quite happy to have (thus far and hopefully permanently) avoided sharing in his notoriety. think I might pop a zinc tablet before bed over the next few days.

Woohoo! DAAS (thats the Doug Anthony All Stars) are FINALLY releasing a DVD. DAAS gold is a 2-disc set, due to be released on the 6th of Nov.

For all my non-Aussie readers, here is an example of their work (my favourite song of theirs is Commies for Christ, but I can’t find a clear enough version of that on you tube. Not that this is all that clear, but that was worse. Look it up tho, if Friends catches your fancy). Hehe, enjoy, my friends.

There is just something about Saturdays that seam to make people (especially Jad and I) spend money. I woke up on a Saturday morning about 3 weeks ago and promptly went out and bought a new computer. This morning we woke up, drove out to an aquarium store and contemplated buying a couple of 6″ tanks to keep some chiclids in. Jad used to have Jack Dempseys, Oscars and a Red Devil. He loves the Central American Chiclids and I grew to love them too. Never knew fish could be pets until I met “Ded Revil”. He had(s) so much personality. We found a store in Malaga that has all those and more. They even had an African chiclid, called a Frontosa, that i wouldn’t mind having, although it sounds very much less aggressive than the Americans. We were so tempted to buy a tank and some fish. But the $2000 (or more) price tag was just a bit more than we could afford, especially since I still haven’t gotten that suspension that my 180 needs (since we bought the new computer instead of the suspension). Ah well, maybe we should start putting some money aside, and maybe buy a tank sometime next year…early.

So we put a hold on the fish tank purchase, and went hunting for a new PC game to buy instead. This time fate was with our wallets and we couldn’t find one we liked (which was kind of expected anyway). Then Jad decided that he wanted to buy a fern or something for our study because it felt kind of sterile. So off we went to Bunnings (thats a hardware superstore-type thingy). $80 later we walked out with a cute little fern and a terracotta pot to put it in, and a whole bunch of weed killers and soil conditioners for me to do some gardening with.

So we spent a little, but not nearly as much as we could have. Now i just have to get off my arse and do some of that gardening. The plum and lemon trees in our backyard are flowering, so it’s probably a pretty good time to clear the weeds away from around them and give them a good dose of fertiliser.

Way back when I was studying I used to be a voracious reader. Even with assignments and exams and stuff I probably got through at least 1 book a week. Then I started working, got some money, got a life, found some computer games I enjoy, started a blog etc and pretty much stopped most of my recreational reading. I only started reading again after I got together with Jad and started sharing a computer with him. I couldn’t spend all my time after work on the computer anymore, so I started reading whenever Jad was using it. When we bought the new computer I wondered if I’d stop reading again, now that I can use a computer whenever I want. Well, so far so good; I spent some time on Sat reading and I’ll probably pick up a book later this evening too. Sure, I don’t finish a book anywhere near as fast as I used to. In fact it’ll probably take me a month or more to get through a book now, but at least I’m still reading.

Currently I’m worming my way through Terry Pratchett’s “Pyramids”. I’ve also had James May’s “Notes from the Hard Shoulder” sitting on my bedside table for months and months now. I’m supposed to be reading it to/with Jad, but he so rarely seams to feel like reading (or being read to). The man is such a Team Fortress 2 junkie.

So, I was looking at my blog stats yesterday to see how many visitors I get (a surprising amount more than I thought) and if people are finding their way here through search engines, what keyword and phrases they’ve used to find me. I see people posting all the time about these strange and porn-related search phrases people have used to find their blogs. Not so with Rav`N’s Realm. All the keywords and phrases people have used to come here are quite PG, and in fact my post on sharks vs polar bears appears to be the major attractor, accounting for just over 1/3 of my search engine traffic (most of them used keywords and phrases related to “Greenland shark”). I guess there aren’t many online resources for shark information, especially about something like the Greenland shark, which is quite hard to study really, considering the fact that they live deep under frozen over waters. *Lol* maybe I should considering writing more shark-related posts.

… Well, not so much really, but at their price they’d better be relatively comfy at least. I’ve been looking for a pair of chunky platform boots for a while now. Its pretty hard to find shoes that my tiny little feet can fit into, so I’ve been searching for over a year. I was just about to give up and pay the $200-$300 (whenever I could afford THAT) that a goth store would ask for boots like that when, almost by accident, I found a pair in the style I’d been chasing, in a size that fits me. YAY! My new Red Pepper “Oggle”s cost me AU$110. They’re the most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought (the price of about 3 of any of my other shoes put together would probably add up to the price of those boots). In fact, the only item of clothing I own that cost more than that is the sheepskin suede leather jacket my mum bought me a couple of years ago. But I don’t really care, I’ve finally got a relatively comfy pair of “going out” shoes in a style that I love. Yeah, between that and the new computer it’s been a splurgy kinda month for my.
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So I just found out that the USS Kitty Hawk is being retired. The last of America’s conventionally powered carriers and the oldest carrier in their fleet, the Kitty hawk is back for good in the US after a 10 year stint in Japan, and will be decommissioned next year. She is being replaced by the nuclear-powered USS George Washington.
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Soooo, yesterday I woke up really wanting to spend most of the weekend playing civ 4. Except, I knew this wasn’t going to happen since Jad would need the computer, or face dying of boredom. I finally got really sick of us having to share one computer, so I check my bank balance, decided it looked ok and we went out and bought “me” a new computer. Except, of course all I want to do with it is play civ, while Jad plays online FPS games and such, so what really happened is he got a new computer and I got our old one that we bought at the start of ‘07. I guess since he plays such high-end games I’m always going to get the hand-me-down computer (*lol* and mum will get the hand-me-down from me… what’ll she ever do with our kind of graphics cards?). But thats ok, because even tho it is our “old” computer this one is still nothing to sniff at (I don’t actually think there is a game out there that this computer couldn’t run competently), and it is one hell of a lot better than the previous computers I’ve use at home. So now my bank balance is down to it’s bare minimum again (ah, it was nice having some money in there for a bit), but we’ll both be able to use our computers whenever we wish and we’ve got a shiny new 24″ LCD monitor… Oooooooh! Tehehe ironically since we spent half of yesterday shopping for computer bits, the rest of the day putting together the new computer, and then half of today arranging our study, I still haven’t actually played civ yet. But I’ll get to it after making this post.
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This is what Ron (our housemate) needs to buy for his cat, since he’s too lazy to change the poor thing’s kitty litter. We came home to find that she’d completely ruined one of our couch cushions by soaking it through with cat pee… Least the couches were free.
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