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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Our living room currently looks like a cardboard factory exploded in it. How can you cover an entire living room with the packaging for one little computer? Everything came packaged in a bag, within a box, within a box. Why does everything have to be double boxed? Is that really necessary? Especially when at least one of each set of boxes is made from some pretty solid material. So solid in fact, that the box our Corsair 620w power supply came in has now become my footrest. Its the perfect height and can’t possibly crumple under my weight unless I stomped on it or something.

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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Well, I’m off to visit some of Jad’s relatives in the country for the weekend. 4 dogs, 4 kids, 1 house. Hmm… this is gonna be interesting. I’ve got the camera batteries charged and everything tho so, as long as I don’t forget to take the camera, I should have some pictures to post when we get back.