101 in 1001: the wrap up

As I mentioned on Monday, my 101 in 1001 finished yesterday. So let's wrap this thing up, shall we?! I figured the easiest way to do this was to dump the entire list in here, and deal with each item individually. Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom if you just want the final statistics part!

1. Visit a new country DID IT. New Zealand in November.
2. Visit somewhere new in Australia On the Not Gonna Happen pile.
3. Host a dinner party DID IT.
4. Live offline for a weekend HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. As if. On the Not Gonna Happen pile.
5. Make jam DID IT.
6. Watch the AFI Top 100 Movies (2007 edition) I managed 66 out of 100, which I think is pretty damned good, considering how long and difficult to find a lot of them were!
7. Go out for New Year's DID IT. Sort of...
8. Meet a blog friend in real life DID IT SO MANY TIMES OMG.
9. Write a short story/novel DID IT.
10. Read 100 new books (100/100) DID IT AND THEN SOME. According to Goodreads, I've read 435 books since starting this challenge, and that doesn't include the ones that I reread multiple times.
11. Get my own domain for my blog DID IT.
12. Jog every day for a week (0/7) Not Gonna Happen pile.
13. Move out of home again Not Gonna Happen pile.
14. Buy a 50mm prime lens DID IT.
15. Lose 5kg DID IT.
16. Eat at 20 new restaurants (20/20) DID IT.
17. Try a new recipe once a week for a month (0/4) I was so close to having this one done - I'd done three weeks out of four and then completely forgot. Womp womp.
18. Reach 100 blog followers (100/100) DID IT.
19. Reach 500 blog posts (500/500) DID IT.
20. Put away $20 for each completed task Not Gonna Happen pile.
21. Get a job DID IT. Albeit a part time, could-end-at-any-moment job...
22. Make a piece of clothing by hand I was planning on doing this over the summer, but somehow it never quite happened. Womp womp.
23. Paint a room Not Gonna Happen pile.
24. Go to the opera Not Gonna Happen pile.
25. Go to the ballet DID IT.
26. Go to the symphony Not Gonna Happen pile.
27. Sing karaoke Not Gonna Happen pile.
28. Attend a blog conference DID IT.
29. Go back to ballet classes DID IT. (And then quit again, but shhhhhhhh)
30. Take a cooking class DID IT.
31. Host a guest blogger DID IT.
32. Buy a piece of original art Not Gonna Happen pile.
33. Teach Little Miss A to bake DID IT.
34. Learn a new piece on the piano Not Gonna Happen pile.
35. Watch sunrise and sunset on the same day DID IT.
36. Ride in a hot air balloon DID IT.
37. Go rock climbing DID IT.
38. Take a photography class Not Gonna Happen pile.
39. Clean out my closet DID IT.
40. Go to ten new museums (11/10) DID IT and then some.
41. Document 'a day in my life' in photos Yeah, I was putting this off for a day when I was actually going to be leaving the house and doing stuff. Unfortunately, on the days when that happened, I never remembered to take my camera. Fail.
42. See one of my favourite bands in concert DID IT.
43. Give money to a street performer. Something else that requires leaving the house. Whoops?
44. See a new musical DID IT.
45. Go on a roadtrip DID IT.
46. Make a list of 101 things that make me happy DID IT.
47. Make pasta from scratch Kind of tricky, as I don't own a pasta maker, and also because I'd have to make gluten free pasta on account of Mum. BUT I might try my hand at some gnocchi in a week or so. Too late for the challenge, but I'll still do it!
48. Voluntarily add to my superannuation Not Gonna Happen pile.
49. Voluntarily pay off some of my student debt Not Gonna Happen pile.
50. Plan a weekend getaway with friends Not Gonna Happen pile.
51. Attend a midnight premiere Not Gonna Happen pile.
52. See Geelong play a game at Kardinia Park Not Gonna Happen pile.
53. Write a guest post for another blog DID IT.
54. Print out my photos DID IT. I'm not 100% up to date, but I'm in a much better position than I was when I first started the challenge, so I say it counts!
55. Keep a food journal for a month DID IT.
56. Buy a new laptop DID IT (twice. Whoops.)
57. Host a themed party You could argue that the dinner party I held (see #3) was a themed party, because all the food and drink was Mexican. But I didn't decorate the house with sombreros or pinatas or anything, so I think I failed on this one.
58. Plant a herb garden A big fat fail. Technically we have a planter box full of mint and strawberries that used to also contain parsley and coriander. But I didn't plant it.
59. Follow one new blog a month (34/34) DID IT. There's a full list on the 101 in 1001 page, although they don't have links and a bunch of them are now dead, so...yeah.
60. Take a self portrait at least once a month (0/34) I failed this so hard. Also on the Not Gonna Happen pile.
61. Finish my cooking challenge Oy. This challenge was so much easier when I didn't have like five recipes left... Maybe I'll aim to finish this challenge by the end of the year.
62. Send someone a care package DID IT. I neglected to blog about it at the time because it was a surprise, but I sent Sweeney a care package a month or so ago.
63. Document every completed goal on my blog DID IT. See all those links all over the place? Yeah.
64. Post a vlog DID IT times fifty.
65. Keep a plant alive for a year DID IT.
66. Make a filled cake DID IT.
67. Buy a leather jacket Not Gonna Happen pile.
68. Go hiking DID IT.
69. Have high tea somewhere nice DID IT.
70. Go to a cricket match at the MCG DID IT.
71. Buy a new chest of drawers Not Gonna Happen pile.
72. Celebrate my second blogoversary with a giveaway DID IT.
73. Design a blog banner Not Gonna Happen pile, on account of Kim made my blog all pretty and stuff.
74. Design a blog button One day, I'll get around to doing this, I swear...
75. Try archery I still want to try this. But my local archery club's open session is at 10am on a Sunday, and the chances of me being up and dressed and out of the house by that time are slim to none!
76. Finish Lego Harry Potter on Wii DID IT.
77. Get business cards made for my blog DID IT.
78. Get my eyes tested Oof. I should really do this at some point in the next little while. But EYEBALL PHOBIA OMG.
79. Buy an expensive piece of jewellery for my 30th DID IT.
80. Go to a farmer's market DID IT.
81. Create a Facebook page for my blog DID IT (although now that only like 10% of people who like the page see your posts, I wonder what the point is...)
82. Wear a skirt or dress every day for a week Not Gonna Happen pile.
83. Read a book in a day (at least 250 pages) DID IT.
84. Adopt a dog Not Gonna Happen pile.
85. Print and frame some of my best photos I bought the frame like 2 years ago. I just need to work out which photos I want to put in it and get them printed (because of COURSE the frame takes 5x7 prints, not the standard 4x6)
86. Watch two movies at the cinema on the same day Didn't happen thanks to there not being two movies that I wanted to see out at the same time. Although I'm kind of tempted to do this with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the Lego Movie...
87. Go ice skating Womp womp. I thought about doing this when I was in DC last year, but we were told that we weren't allowed to... There are a couple of ice rinks in Melbourne though, it's just insanely pricey...
88. Go stargazing Another epic fail. I hoped that the clouds would clear when Ness and I were at Waitomo looking at glowworms, but I guess they don't call it the Land of the Long White Cloud for nothing!
89. Spend a rainy day watching movies in my PJs DID IT. I crossed off three AFI movies in one day thanks to this. Although one of them was Platoon, which caused immense trauma...
90. Influence someone to make a Day Zero list DID IT.
91. Make a list of 50 places I want to visit in my lifetime (50/50) DID IT.
92. Plan a kickarse 30th birthday DID IT.
93. Go to bed before 11pm every night for a fortnight (0/14) Not Gonna Happen pile.
94. Watch Doctor Who (the new ones) DID IT.
95. Make a playlist of 101 of my favourite songs (101/101) DID IT.
96. Save all coins smaller than 50c and go shopping at the end DID IT. You guys, I have $39.80. It's going to be the shortest shopping trip in history.
97. Take a picture for each letter of the alphabet (0/26) I had plans for like half the letters. I didn't once take a photo. Fail.
98. Go out for dinner to celebrate the end of the challenge (1 April 2014) I ate green chicken curry in front of My Kitchen Rules instead. Womp womp.
99. Try 5 new cocktails (5/5) DID IT.
100. Seriously investigate doing my PhD DID IT.
101. Donate $10 to charity for each unfinished goal Not Gonna Happen pile.

So, in total? I finished 58 of my 101 tasks, and have given myself a partial credit/"I'll do/finish this someday" for another 12. 25 of them ended up on the Not Gonna Happen pile due to changing circumstances or "WTF was I thinking??" or (mostly) a lack of money to actually be able to do them. Which leaves me with a grand total of FIVE TASKS that were a flat out fail. Which isn't too shabby when you look at it like that!

I'm still trying to decide whether or not I want to do another 101 in 1001 list. There were things that I really enjoyed about it. But I also ended up feeling guilty any time I went a month without crossing something off or when I knew something was going to be a fail. So I don't know. Maybe I'll switch to a Life List, like Deidre has, that can be constantly changing and evolving and which doesn't have a timeframe associated with it!

What do you think? 101 in 1001 or Life List?

K xx

Movie Monday - The final AFI edition

Tomorrow is the last day of my 101 in 1001 (WHAT?!?!?!?!?!), which means that tonight I'm watching my last movie from the AFI list. All in all, I've made it through 66 of the 100 movies on the list, which I think is fairly impressive considering I basically only started crossing them off last year! (I've also seen but not rewatched another 7 of them, meaning I've seen a total of 73. Definitely not too shabby!)

So, let's talk about the ones I've watched since January, shall we?

Vertigo
Excellent, as most of Hitchcock's stuff is. But also kind of insane? I mean, he basically brought every single event in that movie on himself. Plus, that whole "I'm going to turn you into a copy of a dead woman" thing is creep-tastic.

City Lights
Mostly fun, but some of the gags went on for a little longer than was strictly necessary. The ending was cute.

All About Eve

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Holy crap. Eve Harrington is kind of the epitome of a creepy fangirl. Bette Davis' acting was pretty excellent throughout. Good, but definitely not one I'd rewatch regularly.

Double Indemnity
Kind of great, and (rather unsurprisingly) reminiscent of playing LA Noire.

The Godfather Part II
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooored. It probably didn't help that I'd basically forgotten about all the events of The Godfather so I had very little idea of who any of the characters were or how they were connected... Plus, any time there was dialogue in Italian, I'd mostly tune out. At least The Godfather had that whole horse's head in a bed thing going for it...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Disney movies. This one was no exception. The girl who voiced Snow White reminded me FAR too much of Lena Lamont from Singin' in the Rain, which just made her dialogue and songs bizarrely hilarious. Also, it's a little creepy having her live happily ever after with a dude she saw once for like two minutes...

Annie Hall

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OH GOD SO BORING. And not even remotely funny. But then again, I hate Woody Allen with a fiery passion so this probably never stood a chance with me...

The Deer Hunter
FAR too long. The wedding scene could have been cut down by at least half an hour for starters... The Russian roulette scenes were tense, but the special effects used for the blood were rather laughable, which took away some of the shock value. As far as Vietnam War movies go, it was by far the least traumatic.

North by North-West

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At least three-quarters of the movie is just Cary Grant going "The fuck is happening? The fuck is this? The fuck are you? The fuck am I?" and it is MAGICAL. Especially his facial expressions while drunk driving.

Rocky
Ugh, more boxing. Although nowhere near as painful to watch as Raging Bull.

American Graffiti
Basically Grease without the singing. Weirdly plotless. Although at least it introduced the world to Harrison Ford.

Unforgiven
BORED BORED BORED BORED BORED. And then like ten minutes of Clint Eastwood being a BAMF.

All The President's Men

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Excellent. Robert Redford has fabulous hair. The ending was kind of odd though, having all the events happen exclusively via news updates on a typewriter...

The Apartment
Jack Lemmon is always excellent, and Shirley McClaine was rather spectacular too. Kind of a genius idea to make extra money by lending out your apartment. But I'm not sure I'd call it a comedy. It was pretty damned depressing...

Spartacus
SO EFFING LONG. Would have been infinitely better with decent editing. I mean, you could easily have edited an hour out of that movie without damaging on the plot... Aside from that, Kirk Douglas' haircut was HILARIOUS.

Platoon
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. I made it as far as their arrival in the village and then abandoned ship. I'm not willing to spend my life watching the "good guys" torture and massacre people. Add in rape jokes and you honestly couldn't pay me to watch the rest of this movie.

The French Connection
The chase scene was great. The rest of it was a little on the slow side.

Pulp Fiction

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I LOVE the segmented plot and how it all joins together in the end. Genius.

Ben-Hur
OH MY GOD THE LONGEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. And basically nothing happens except that Jesus turns up at convenient moments, and Charlton Heston gazes adoringly at other men.

Have you seen any of these? What did you think? And, perhaps most importantly, should I watch the rest of the movies on the list to finish it once and for all??

K xx

101 in 1001: the stuff that won't be happening

There are now a whopping 25 days left of my 101 in 1001 challenge (plus the six hours that are remaining of today, but that doesn't really count), and I still have a fairly staggering forty eight tasks that aren't completed. There will be a few more crossed off between now and 1 April, but a decent chunk of them definitely won't be finished.

The fact of the matter is that when I wrote this list, I wasn't anticipating going back to university. I wasn't expecting to spend the vast majority of the 1001 days without a job. I didn't foresee a world in which I'd be trying to break into a new field AGAIN. As a result, a decent number of the tasks require money, which is something that I'm lacking at the moment. There are other tasks which lie abandoned simply because I'm not the same person I was when I put them on the list. I look at them periodically and think "I should really do something about that...". And then I forget about it for another two months.

Still, I think the fact that I managed to cross off 52 tasks (thus far) is pretty damned good, given that a lot of them (i.e. "Read 100 new books") contained multiple parts!

So. Let's get to the stuff that won't be happening, shall we?

2. Visit somewhere new in Australia.
One of those pesky money requiring ones. I had this vague idea that it would be somewhere like Kangaroo Island or Broome. Instead, the most exciting new place I've been to in the past three years was Melbourne's western suburbs. And I'm not sure that even remotely counts.

4. Live offline for a weekend.
Bitch, please. Our internet went down a few weekends ago. I lasted two of the most boring hours of my life before I was ready to use my entire data allowance in one go.

12. Jog every day for a week.
I hate jogging/running. It hurts my knees and my boobs and it's one of the few remaining things that kicks in my exercise-induced asthma. Quite why I thought I should jog every day for a week is beyond me, considering the Couch to 5K is only three times a week... Anyway, I could cheat and jog leisurely around the block every day. But that's just cheating.

13. Move out of home again.
Requires paying rent, which requires having money, which requires having a job. Next.

20. Put away $20 for every completed task.
This was a nice idea. And maybe if I'd done it gradually, it would have worked. But to now come up with $1,040 is a bit of a big ask.

23. Paint a room.
This one was put on there because when I wrote the list, my little brother and his (now ex-)girlfriend were looking at buying a house. The houses they were looking at all needed a little bit of fixing up, which would have let me cross this one off the list. Then they gave up on looking for a house, and this task has languished pathetically ever since.

24. Go to the opera.
Two reasons why this hasn't happened: 1. Opera is expensive, 2. For some reason, I had it in my head that the opera in question would be The Marriage of Figaro. Rudely, Opera Australia (and Opera Victoria, for that matter) have refused to bow to my whim to see The Marriage of Figaro. And I haven't had the urge to fork out a fairly large sum of money to see any of the operas they've ACTUALLY staged.

26. Go to the symphony.
See reason 1 above. Also an adapted version of reason 2, wherein I wasn't interested enough in anything they were doing to go. Except for the Doctor Who Spectacular, and I didn't realise that was on until it was sold out. Womp womp.

27. Sing karaoke.
I think I forgot about the part where I can barely talk in front of a group of more than three people without combusting in embarrassment. God only knows why I thought I could sing karaoke...

32. Buy an original piece of art.
I still really REALLY want to do this. But art costs money. Are you starting to see a trend here??

34. Learn a new piece on the piano.
I think Past!Kirsti had big ideas of getting back into music and mental images of something resembling Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley. Present!Kirsti acknowledges that she doesn't remember how to read bass clef, was never very good at piano anyway, and doesn't have the motivation to practice. Plus, our piano hasn't been tuned in at least 10 years.

38. Take a photography class.
I could take one online for free, but I'm pretty sure that I'd learn more being in a room with other people and actually getting feedback on my photos. Which would cost money.

48. Voluntarily add to my superannuation.
Look, I could have added like $20 to my super and called it done. But that wasn't the original idea, so it's not going to happen.

49. Voluntarily pay off some of my student debt.
LOL, WHOOPS. Instead of paying some of it off, I added $30,000 to it. My bad...

50. Plan a weekend getaway with friends.
I'm not actually convinced that I'm a weekend getaway person... Plus, given that most of the friends I would actually go on a weekend getaway with live Places That Are Not Melbourne (Or, Indeed, Australia), this would be more than a little tricky.

51. Attend a midnight premiere.
I don't think I thought about the fact that a midnight premiere would finish at like 2.30am, and that I'm basically allergic to leaving the house any later than 7.30.

52. See Geelong play a game at Kardinia Park.
Tickets for Geelong home games are basically as scarce as hen's teeth unless you're a member. Sad panda.

60. Take a self portrait at least once a month.
I failed this one in the very first month of my challenge. I haven't really gotten any better.

67. Buy a leather jacket.
One that would have been a lot easier if the trend for leather jackets in recent years hadn't involved zips that run diagonally from one hip to the opposite shoulder, a look that REALLY doesn't work when you have boobs.

71. Buy a new chest of drawers. 
Not only does this cost money, but I realised that it would basically be wasted money because my chest of drawers is basically empty.

73. Design a blog banner.
Why would I, when Kim designed me such a pretty pretty blog??

82. Wear a skirt or dress every day for a week.
Um. I have no idea why I put this on here. I think I was still in the wake of marvelling at the fact that Kat did Frocktober. I, on the other hand, basically hate skirts and dresses. I own like three skirts and four dresses, all but two of which are too fancy for everyday wear.

84. Adopt a dog.
I would dearly love to do this. But I don't have the money to feed or groom a dog, let alone taking it to the vet. And it would be enormously unfair on my parents, given that most rental properties in Australia don't allow pets...

93. Go to bed before 11pm every night for a fortnight.
Well this was just stupid. Every WEEKNIGHT for a fortnight would have made sense. But every night?? Considering I don't get up until after 10am most weekends, I would have been staring at the ceiling until 2am on a couple of nights in here. I do still think I need to go to bed earlier, though...

101. Donate $10 to charity for each unfinished goal.
Uh, yeah, I don't have $480. Even not including the ones here and even if I cross off a couple more tasks in the next couple of weeks, I won't have the money to do this. Sorry, charity. I'll make it up to you...

Welp. At least a 25% failure rate. That's pretty terrible.

Have you ever given up on goals?

K xx

101 in 1001 #46

Sometimes, you need to focus on the little things in life. I'm not going to lie - a good portion of this list is kind of ridiculous. But sometimes you need a little bit of ridiculous in your life. Especially if it makes you happy.

101 things that make me happy
1. Tom Hiddleston (please, like you expected anything else)
2. Puppies (see above)

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3. Hanson's "Give a Little"
4. Emails from Lor and Sweeney
5. Chocolate
6. The feeling of relief you get when you take off a pair of tights
7. North and South
8. Emails from Sara
9. The soundtrack to Les Miserables (yes, I'm aware that it's kind of weird that this would make me happy)
10. New books by favourite authors
11. Travel
12. The cast of Supernatural being adorable dorks
13. The Avengers
14. Big Thunder Mountain Railway
15. Red pandas

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16. Free wifi. Especially while travelling
17. Community
18. Ridiculous taxidermy
19. Baking
20. Eurovision
21. David Tennant
22. Emails from Kim
23. Roast potatoes
24. Doctor Who (until it doesn't...)
25. Vlogging
26. The theme from Jurassic Park
27. Fountain pens

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28. Snark Squad
29. Emails from Gina
30. Awesome historical discoveries (i.e. Richard III)
31. The Oxford comma
32. Sleepy Hollow
33. Fog
34. Super secret ice cream
35. The first day of spring. (not the first day first day. But the first day that FEELS like spring)
36. Figure skating (watching it, I mean)
37. Chocolate pudding
38. The Basics
39. Body Combat

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40. Harry Potter
41. New shoes
42. The smell of books
43. Trips to the movies
44. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
45. Dessert Day
46. New passport stamps
47. WTF Evolution
48. Scouting for Girls
49. Snail mail
50. Lego Marvel
51. John and Hank Green
52. The feeling you get when you hand in an assignment and know that you never have to think about that topic again
53. Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I mean, come on.

54. #snarkathon
55. Chair dancing
56. Mexipalooza
57. Making lists
58. Rockstar tram catching (by which I mean that you get to the tram stop just as the tram pulls up but don't have to run)
59. Toasted marshmallows
60. Robert Downey Junior
61. Otters
62. Pitch Perfect
63. A new diary every January
64. Reading
65. Officeworks

It's basically Heaven.

66. Yorkshire pudding
67. Firefly
68. New stationery
69. Hot chocolate
70. New nail polish
71. Blog comments (ahem)
72. Open fires
73. Pizza
74. Joss Whedon's Twitter account
75. Shake
76. Ballet
77. Caprese salad

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78. Elementary
79. Body Pump
80. Pulling the exact right number of pegs out of the container when hanging washing
81. The Wilfair books
82. VEDA
83. She's the Man
84. That one time I beat Little Miss A at Monopoly (which may sound like a dick thing to say, but it's only ever happened once. The girl is a Monopoly MACHINE)
85. Veronica Mars
86. Beer battered steak fries and aeoli
87. Silly memories with old friends
88. Thunderstorms

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89. The Princess Bride
90. Stephanie Perkins books
91. Haribo Tangfastics
92. Postcards
93. Once More With Feeling
94. Trips to the zoo
95. Amazing libraries
96. Hilarious Google search terms leading to my blog
97. Black Books
98. Rainbow Rowell books
99. Mediavengers
100. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
101. Pasta

What little things make YOU happy?

K xx

101 in 1001 #1

Well, hello! I had every intention of starting to tell you guys all about my trip on Wednesday, and then I ended up spending a hundred years writing selection criteria responses and the next thing I knew, it was 10.30pm. And then I was going to do the same yesterday, but I ended up spending the afternoon Hulk smashing the planet because of the Buffy episode that we were covering on Snark Squad today, which has been the cause of many MANY ranty "WTF IS THIS EPISODE???" emails between Lor, Sweeney, and myself.

ANYWAY. As it's now after 6pm on a Friday night, I'm too lazy to start telling you about my trip in detail. So instead, I shall tell you this: that my trip crossed off the very first thing on my 101 in 1001 list(!!) - to visit a new country. Sure, I've flown through Auckland a bunch of times, but I'd never actually left the airport or cleared passport control. And now I have! Not that I have the stamp to prove it... *sad panda*

I promise I'll start telling you about my trip really soon. But in the meantime, here's some purdy pictures to prove that I actually left the country:

Auckland

HOBBITON!

The Champagne Pool

Mt Ngauruhoe

Wellington

Have good weekends, y'all.

K xx

101 in 1001 #69

On Friday, my mum and I headed into the city for her VERY belated birthday present (her birthday's in August) - afternoon tea at The Hotel Windsor. I'd completely forgotten that I'd put "have high tea somewhere nice" on my Day Zero list until I was writing my post last week about seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. YAY HAPPY COINCIDENCE.

Interestingly, since writing my Day Zero list, I have discovered that high tea is the poor people term for such an event, on the basis that it was all fancy compared to their regular lives. And while it may have been fancy compared to my regular life, I'm going to go ahead and call it afternoon tea like rich people did back in the day, because I went to snooty private school and I can. Or something.

ANYWAY.

That's The Hotel Windsor. It was built in 1883 and started its life as The Grand. It's pretty much opposite State Parliament at the swanky end of the CBD.

And here's what they presented us with when we sat down:

Yes, we got one of those EACH. Mum, as you can see, got a slightly different one to me because hers was all gluten free. Five finger sandwiches, five petit fours, and two scones. Plus, a glass of bubbly each. And fourteen different kinds of tea.

Hello, deliciousness. Two eclairs - one caramel, one lamington, a lemon meringue pie, a mille feuille and a teeny tiny piece of sacher torte. And yes, I ate all of them and then regretted it.

But I honestly think my favourite part was the scones. With a healthy dose of raspberry jam and clotted cream added, they. were. TO DIE FOR. I'm not usually a big fan of scones - they make your teeth squeaky for some weird reason - but for these? I instantly changed my assessment of scones. And no, there are no pictures of said scones because I was too busy shoving them in my face. Sorry not sorry.

Hell, even the TEA was enjoyable and I'm not a tea drinker. Okay, so I had peppermint tea, which isn't *really* tea, but whatever...

Anyway, I'm thinking that I may have to try out the afternoon tea spreads at other fancy hotels around Melbourne. You know, for comparative purposes...

Have you been to a proper afternoon tea?

K xx

101 in 1001 #42

On Sunday night, I crossed something else off my Day Zero list - to see one of my favourite bands in concert. I admit, when I put this on the list, I was anticipating that it would be a big name band like Green Day or The Offspring. Alas, such bands seem completely uninterested in touring Australia. The Gin Blossoms and Everclear both toured earlier in the year, but I couldn't find anyone willing to subject themselves to the 90s awesomeness. Womp womp.

So when I saw a couple of months ago that Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were going to be touring Australia, I obviously turned to Twitter looking for someone else who was equally excited about the prospect of seeing a punk cover band. And luckily for me, I found someone - my BFF Kat's younger sister, Megan!

So on Sunday night, after much flailing with excitement over Twitter in the days preceding, we headed into the Corner Hotel. It was a decidedly weird crowd, with everyone from 50-somethings to 18 year olds, from full-blown plaid-wearing, mohawk-having punks to a woman in a suit and heels who looked like she'd come straight from church. So...that was interesting.

The show, however, was pretty fantastic. I was a little disappointed that they didn't do my all time favourite - The Boxer - and that they didn't play Friday On My Mind, which seems like an enormous oversight on their Australian tour. But overall, it was a lot of fun. They played a lot of their older stuff (which I far prefer to their newer ukulele-filled stuff), including Leaving on a Jet Plane, Only the Good Die Young, Mandy, Rocket Man, Over the Rainbow, and Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard.

Their running joke between songs was "This next one's a cover", which had the girl in front of us - a non-punk fan who'd been dragged along by her boyfriend - incredibly confused.

Anyway, it was a pretty spectacular concert, despite the incredibly tall men who kept ending up directly in front of us... It's definitely worth going to see Me First and the Gimme Gimmes in concert if you ever get the chance!

YAY SUPER SHITTY PHONE PHOTO

K xx

Movie Monday: AFI 100 Years 100 Films Edition, Take 2

So I ran out of time to watch a movie this weekend, thank to marathoning my way through several discs of Supernatural season 8, hanging out with Little Miss A, and attending a concert last night that I'll discuss in more detail later in the week. So I figured that I'd update you on my thoughts about the next ten movies that I've crossed off the AFI's 100 Years 100 Films list in the past six weeks or so.

#4 - Raging Bull
I'm not really a big fan of boxing, and pretty much all I learnt from watching this movie is that boxers (or at least Jake la Motta) are kind of epic douchebags. Robert de Niro was pretty damned convincing in the role though.

#8 - Schindler's List

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OH MY GOD, THIS WAS BRUTAL. I ugly cried non-stop for at least the last half hour of the movie. And ugly cried to the point where I was a giant mess of snot and tears and grossness because the tissues were on the other side of the room, and I didn't want to take my eyes off the screen.

#12 - The Searchers
Westerns aren't really my thing, so it's probably not a huge surprise that I didn't really enjoy this movie. It was okay, I guess, but pretty dated. Like, "we cast a German guy as the Native American chief" kind of dated...

#15 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

WTF. Also, source.

What in the actual fuck did I just watch??? I seriously have no idea what that was. Literally nothing happened until the 90 minute mark, and the remaining million hours of the film made precisely zero sense... Then again, I've yet to find a Kubrick movie that I actually really liked, and space movies aren't really my thing, so it's probably not a surprise that I didn't enjoy it.

#18 - The General
Surprisingly enjoyable, if more than a little ridiculous. It was my first experience with a silent movie, so I spent a good chunk of it feeling like it was insanely overacted. But at times, it was completely and utterly hilarious and I was in fits of hysterics on the floor over it.

#36 - The Bridge on the River Kwai

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Really really long, but really fabulous. Alec Guinness was phenomenal. And I spent a decent chunk of time screaming at the television in the last 15 minutes or so.

#43 - Midnight Cowboy
Oh, goodness. I don't know what I was expecting from this, but it CERTAINLY wasn't Jon Voight playing a male prostitute and hanging out with a seriously squirrelly Dustin Hoffman. The whole thing was kind of bizarre, to be honest.

#46 - It Happened One Night

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Kind of great, although the female lead had completely INSANE eyebrows, and Clark Gable was sort of an asshat. Albeit kind of a dreamy one.

#47 - A Streetcar Named Desire
I'm not entirely sure how I was supposed to feel about this. I hated every single character with a fiery passion, and the plot was pretty bonkers. On the plus side, Marlon Brando had some fabulous biceps...

#48 - Rear Window

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Sheer perfection from start to finish. And if someone wants to bring me Grace Kelly's entire wardrobe, that'd be fabulous.

#71 - Saving Private Ryan
The opening nearly killed me. It was indescribably brutal, and deserved all its Oscars, and I totally cried like a baby at the end.

So there you have it. 42 down, 58 to go...

Do you agree with my assessments? Disagree? Which ones? And why?

K xx

101 in 1001 #16

I realised a couple of days ago that I managed to cross another item off my 101 in 1001 list without even realising it - I've now been to twenty restaurants (of the non-chain variety) that I'd never been to before!

Mamasita, Melbourne 25/7/2011
My first meeting with the lovely Deidre. It's hard to believe it was only two years ago! I recommend going for lunch if you don't want to wait in the queue for a hundred years.

Russian Tea Time, Chicago 20/8/2011
With Hello Wisconsin and her husband, when I was in town for the 20SB Summit. I pretty much didn't need to eat for a week afterwards.

Mister Bianco, Kew 27/1/2012
A "thanks for letting me stay with you for, like, ever" dinner courtesy of a family friend. The food was pretty great.

Chinese Jin Dumpling House, Kew 30/5/2012
In which Char and I went out for lunch and ate pretty much all the dumplings in the whole of Melbourne. They were delicious. And, unlike the infamous Shanghai Dumpling, didn't give us food poisoning. WIN.

The Curry Club Cafe, Richmond 27/6/2012
Dinner with uni friends en route to a very awkward evening of inadvertent hilariousness.

Hairy Canary, Melbourne 11/8/2012
Catch up with school friends. Delicious pizza, amazing cocktails.

Cider House, Fitzroy 6/8/2012
Blogger lunch with Deidre, Katie and Ruby. As discussed previously, deciding between the 120 possible options of chips nearly killed us.

Chocolate Buddha, Federation Square 18/12/2012
Dinner and cider and awesome conversations (yes, Pacey Witter was involved) with Pretzel Thief.

Mitsitam Cafe, Washington D.C. 11/1/2013
The cafe at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. Incredible. I wish I'd had the time and money to try everything.

Pedro's, Phoenix 30/1/2013
Mexipalooza with Gina and M. AMAZINGNESS.

Mimi's, Canterbury 8/3/2013
Friday night dinner with the parentals. Good food, but really noisy.

Miss Chu, South Yarra 23/3/2013
A post rehearsal lunch with my little brother C and a few others from choir. Holy crap, it was good.

Cafe Gaia, South Yarra 30/3/2013
Breakfast with C and Paulie. The quinoa porridge was kind of incredible.

Amigos, Melbourne 27/4/2013
My birthday dinner with friends. How can you go wrong with happy hour, nachos, fajitas and churros?!

The Quarter, Melbourne 29/4/2013
With my BFF, Nikki, after a morning of traipsing around the Australian Centre for the Moving Image's exhibition of Hollywood costumes.

Tazio, Melbourne 29/6/2013
Dinner with the parentals and family friends prior to C's farewell drinks. Great antipasto.

Rockpool, Melbourne 30/6/2013
C's farewell dinner. Holy hell, the food was amazing. It's insanely expensive, but totally worth it. I highly recommend the potato and cabbage gratin as a sidedish. It was DIVINE.

Fred Young's, Kew 3/7/2013
We had a family brunch here en route to drop C off at the airport for his flight to London.

Geppetto's, Kew 3/8/2013
Friday night dinner with the parentals and Little Miss A. The Nutella pizza is to die for.

Cafe Republic, South Yarra 28/8/2013
Dinner for my uncle's birthday. Average food, terrible service.

39 tasks down, FAR too many still to go before 1 April. EEK!!

K xx

Movie Monday: AFI 100 Years 100 Films edition

So you guys probably know that one of the things I have on my Day Zero list is to watch all 100 films on the AFI's 2007 version of their 100 Years, 100 Films list. I've now ploughed my way through around a third of them, and as I've not had time to prepare a proper post today (VEDA is still taking up pretty much all of my time), I figured that I'd tell you what I thought of them! The numbers against each movie are their rankings in the AFI list.

#1 - Citizen Kane

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Totally not what I was expecting. Orsen Welles was pretty fabulous, considering he acted in, wrote and directed it and he was only like 27. But at the end of the day, the story wasn't all that exciting.

#2 - The Godfather
I've always found this movie kind of confusing - it seems to dump you into the middle of the action with no idea of who anyone is, and as a result I have a hard time keeping the characters straight. I can tell you one thing though - Michael Corleone is a douchebag.

#3 - Casablanca
I'm not a huge fan of Humphrey Bogart for unspecified reasons. There's just something about him that doesn't quite gel for me. Anyway, despite that, I kind of love this movie.

#5 - Singin' in the Rain
YES OMG PERFECT MOVIE IS PERFECT SO MUCH LOVE. I could watch it every single day and never get bored. Appropriately, I'm seeing the stage version on Thursday night.

#6 - Gone with the Wind

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REALLY FREAKING LONG. And the ending was a total anticlimax. Like, throw things at the walls because "THAT'S HOW IT ENDS?!" kind of anticlimax. But I didn't hate it as much as I remembered.

#7 - Lawrence of Arabia 
SO. FREAKING. LONG. Also, not particularly exciting. Not really a fan. The music was good though?

#10 - The Wizard of Oz
FAR more awesome than I remembered. And also a lot shorter. Weird.

#13 - Star Wars Episode IV
I love everything about this film. Provided it's the original theatrical version and not the crappy remastered one.

#14 - Psycho
Awesomeness. Love every second of it. Anthony Perkins is so brilliantly EVERYTHING.

#16 - Sunset Boulevard

She gives new meaning to "crazy eyes". Also, source.

AMAZING. That's all there is to it.

#17 - The Graduate
This generally made me uncomfortable. I blame the Snark Squad's 50 Shades recaps... The ending was kind of odd, but at least the music was good?

#22 - Some Like It Hot
Pure perfection.

#24 - ET
I was TERRIFIED of this movie as a child. As a 30 year old? It's still terrifying. And pretty crap because it's now insanely dated. Mini Drew Barrymore was an unexpected highlight.

#27 - High Noon
Not entirely what I expected, and I'm still not 100% sure about what was happening in some parts.

#31 - The Maltese Falcon

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Another one that wasn't what I was expecting. It was okay, but a little confusing.

#38 - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 
Bizarre, from start to finish. Humphrey Bogart does an excellent job of being batshit crazy.

#39 - Dr Strangelove
Totally and utterly bonkers, but also pretty great.

#40 - The Sound of Music 
SO much longer than I remembered, but filled with the most amazing facial expressions. Christopher Plummer gives crazy good bitchface.

#50 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
While I love this movie, I still don't entirely understand why they'd put Fellowship on the list over the other two, which were FAR more interesting in my opinion. The Two Towers is my personal favourite, but about 90% of that is due to Legolas sliding down the stairs on a shield.

#51 - West Side Story

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Meh. I'm not a big fan of Romeo and Juliet (it's about two idiotic teenagers who've known each other for five minutes. It's not romantic. It's just creepy), so it's probably not surprising that this doesn't do much for me. It just felt long and overly dramatic, and the songs never seemed to quite fit.

#54 - M*A*S*H*
Holy crap, this movie is awesome. I loved every single minute of it, particularly the football scene. Donald Sutherland is perfect as Hawkeye.

#56 - Jaws
Considering how awful the special effects are, this has actually aged surprisingly well.

#66 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
SO. MUCH. AWESOMENESS.

#73 - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Pretty freaking fabulous.

#74 - The Silence of the Lambs

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Not nearly as terrifying as I'd always imagined. Also kind of fabulous. Although I wouldn't watch it over and over, that's for sure...

#75 - In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier is a total BAMF. That is all.

#76 - Forrest Gump
I remember really hating this in the past. While I still found Forrest to be an insanely annoying character, I enjoyed this far more on the rewatch.

#83 - Titanic
Sorry not sorry - I really hate this movie. It's long and boring and gives me precisely zero feels. It actually pained me to devote three and a bit hours of my life to watching it again.

#89 - The Sixth Sense
Still surprisingly terrifying in parts, even if you know what's coming. Also, considering how young he was, Haley Joel Osment is kind of incredible.

#92 - Goodfellas

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Kind of fabulous and not really what I was expecting.

#99 - Toy Story
YES. GOOD. WHEDON IS A GENIUS. Sassy Woody is sassy. Need to buy this on DVD immediately and watch it over and over because it's made of win.

So there you have it. 31 down, 69 to go...

Which assessments do you agree/disagree with?!

K xx

Judgey McJudgerson and the early morning adventure

Previously: the bestest girls' night of EVER. You should be jealous you weren't there. Seriously. It was THAT good.

The following morning, Gina and I were up at stupid o'clock. Actually, I think it was WORSE than stupid o'clock. It was stupid o'clock's older brother, Oh God Why Did We Think This Was A Good Idea O'Clock.  Seeing as how it's now the better part of five months later, I can't remember exactly what time we had to get up. But it started with a 5. *shudder*

At OGWDWTTWAGI O'Clock plus 20 minutes, we not only had ourselves up, dressed and in the car, but also all three of Gina's kids who were insanely confused about what was going on. Some time after that, we dropped the kids off with Gina's sister, and continued on our way to our early morning adventure. Five minutes before we were supposed to be there, we got a phone call asking if we were still coming. Uh, yes? Five minutes after that, we got another phone call asking if we were still coming. Yes, we were late. There was traffic. We told you that we were like seven minutes away, and you STILL phoned a third time to make sure we were actually coming. Seriously, people? Seriously??

ANYWAY. Eventually we arrived at our destination, and were promptly hustled into a van where we discovered that we were the youngest people there by a good thirty years. And that everyone was staring at us with an expression of disapproval.

Something like this. Also, source.

Of course, once we were safely in the very back of the van, we proceeded to pull out our phones and have the following conversation via text message:

Gina: I feel like everyone is judging us.
Me: Obviously. They're all a hundred.
Gina: Seriously. Why is that????
Me: Bucket lists left to the last minute?
Gina: Truth.
Me: We're bad people.
Gina: Also truth.

And then we started giggling, and had to stop texting before the Judgmental Old People picked up on it.

After driving for a millionty years like half an hour, we finally arrived at our destination. And then had to stand around in the early morning Phoenix chill while everything was unloaded and set up. Oh, you'd like to know what we were doing? Sure!

HOT AIR BALLOONING.

The actual hot air ballooning part wasn't nearly as exhilarating as we thought it would be - it barely felt like you were moving. But it WAS seriously cool and very pretty and more or less worth getting up at the crack of dawn. Warning: things are about to get photo heavy. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Incidentally, #36 on my 101 in 1001 list was "Ride in a hot air balloon". CHECK.

Oh, and because you haven't already had enough photos, here's me and Gina shortly before take off:

Complete with old lady who didn't know whose camera
was being used at that particular time... 

After picking the kids up and having a delicious lunch of Chipotle, we headed back to the house for a spontaneous Dessert Day - tres leches cake. We whipped it up pretty quickly, but then found ourselves confronted with a line in the recipe that said "Refrigerate overnight". Womp womp.

It was pretty delicious the next day though

That night, we headed out to something we'd been planning for months - Mexipalooza. In short, we went out and ate a crapton of Mexican food for dinner because when in Phoenix and all that. Sadly, Eileen had to do work nonsense and was unable to join us. But M. was there, and between all of us, I think we probably ate about half the Mexican food in the whole of Arizona. And it was delicious. So delicious that I neglected to take pictures of any of it.

And then we headed home to nurse our food babies.

Up next, we FINALLY come to the end of my trip! I leave Phoenix for Los Angeles, and hang out with Sweeney for a couple of hours, because OBVIOUSLY.

K xx