Elsja Down Under

There Goes My Chance October 11, 2009

I’ve been quite bummed this weekend about something. About 2, maybe even 3 years ago, I came up with an idea for an invention. I thought this was a pretty damn good idea.

Fold-able/roll-up flip-flops. Why is this a good idea you ask? Because after wearing high heels for hours all night, all you want to do is put on some flats for the walk to the car, to the house, or to the next bar. I am one of those girls that carries my dirty flip-flop/thongs in my purse. Luckily I have a big purse which allows me to do this because my thongs aren’t tiny enough to fit in a small bag. But if they folded up into a small portable thong version, then they could fit in any bag… or even a coat pocket.

This was such a good idea. A good idea that I had first.

Maybe you don’t believe that I had this idea first. Well here is proof…

The guys (yes GUYS) that created these thongs thought of the idea a year ago.

“Former lawyer Ben Lipschitz, 25 stumbled on the idea for a pair of fold-up thongs on a night out a year ago when his girlfriend at the time was left sore and tired after a night in stilettos.”  The Daily Telegraph

A year ago.

Well, A YEAR AND A HALF ago I blogged about my invention idea here (and let me point out, I had been thinking about this much earlier than this post):

I guess I can’t bee too annoyed though. It’s my fault and my fault alone that I didn’t act on my brilliant idea when I had the chance. Andrew used to tell me I should look into it, Jen wanted to help and even came up with a cute name, but it was just so overwhelming! Where do you even start to try to figure out how to get a prototype made, how to pay for the prototype… surely I would have needed investor backing… and then how do you get that??  The list goes on and on. I just had NO idea where to start.I went as far as researching patents as you can see in my post above but that was where my research ended.

Now someone else will get rich. Someone else will say they invented something cool and they will always be known as the guys who created the awesome portable flip-flops. That could have been me. That might have been my one and only chance to invent something really cool and I blew it.

And no… I will not post a link to the site that sells the shoes. I just don’t think I’m ready to provide free advertising to someone who is going to capitalize on my brilliant idea.

FINALLY! September 21, 2009

Itunes FINALLY created a “wishlist” feature. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. For YEARS I’ve been saying they needed this option. I couldn’t even begin to count the the number of times I’ve been browsing and have come across a song or album I might want to buy- just not right at that moment- and I just wish I could add it to a wishlist. Well now I can! I am so happy. I had been putting off downloading the new version of itunes because it just takes forever to install. So today I went to download the first episode of Gossip Girl and it told me I HAD to install the new version. FIIIINE! But when I did, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right there in front of me was the very thing I had been wanting for sooo long! It really made my day!

I’ve already added numerous albums to this wonderful new list and as soon as I actually have some spare money, I am going to buy them.  Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me oh so happy.

Internet Issues September 2, 2009

So we have these stupid Internet download/upload limits. If you go over your limit- the company either starts to charge you OR it slows down SOOOO much. Ours slows down. We have 12G of usage per month and we’ve only gone over our limit a few times. I think twice we went over about a day before the end of our billing cycle because I downloaded too many TV shows. Once we went over about 4 days before the end of a cycle… that sucked.

Well yesterday our internet slowed down  A LOT! We had no idea what was going on. I knew we couldn’t have gone over our limits because we had 11 days left in the cycle AND I hadn’t downloaded ANY TV shows this month. So surely we couldn’t have exceeded the cap.

Or could we?

Turns out we did go over the limit… 11 days before the end of the cycle…7 days earlier than we have in the past…

Can you really go over your download limits from looking at too many wedding websites? This could be a problem!

Is it Weird? May 15, 2009

Today I ventured out of the apartment for a few hours to meet up with some fellow ex-pats. Is it weird that I’ve never met these people in person (until today), never have even talked to them at all (until today) and yet I still know so much about them? No talking on the phone, no emailing, no texting… yet I still know tons of details about their day to day lives. Welcome to the wonderful world of bloggers! Today I met fellow ex-pat bloggers Daisy and Lindsay (and her friend Emily). I missed out on meeting Erin at lunch but there’s always next time right?

I only started reading Lindsay’s blog recently, so I’m not totally up to date on her life, but is it weird that as we walked around the Botanical gardens, I had conversations with Daisy about the guys she’s dated and her uni program? Is it weird that I knew all about the horrible blister on her foot? Is it weird that she was talking to me about the birds that visit my apartment everyday?

Is it weird that a foreign guy stopped us and asked us if  we would mind standing on his back as he laid on the grass while someone else took a picture?

Huh?

Yes, that actually happened. Here was how the conversation went:

Weird guy: Excuse me, are you all travelers? (detected our accents I suppose)

Us: ummmmm uuhhh yeah (hard to answer that one because yes, we are foreign but no, we’re not really “travelers”).

*** we suspect he is about to ask us for directions or something normal, but no… no such luck.***

Weird guy: I’m wondering if you might be able to help me. I’m trying to get a photo (pulling out fancy camera) but it’s kind of hard to get.  I basically want the photo of me lying on the grass with 2 people standing on my back.

Us:    …

Weird guy: You know, like I’m “down under”

Us:    …

Weird guy: I’ll give you $20 between the  four of you.

All of us: Uhhh ummm… ok???

Elsja and Daisy: Oh they can do it (pointing to Lindsay and Emily), they are the smallest!!

Weird guy: Oh how about one of you  (Lindsay/Emily) and one of you (Elsja/Daisy)

Daisy: She’ll do it (pointing to me), she’s shorter! (thanks by the way)

So, we decided to help the guy out. Either he was a really artsy person who genuinely wanted to get a shot to send back home of him “down under” OR he was a complete freak who gets turned on by REALLY weird things. Either way, it wasn’t going to hurt us to help him out. At least we have a funny story to tell now. Oh… and all of us were quite curious- why did he ask us if we were travelers? Wouldn’t local Aussies be better candidates if he wanted to be “down under”? Maybe he’s been told off by too many of them already. Seriously, have any of you out there ever had a weirder request from a stranger? If so, I’d love to hear it!

Lastly, while I’m on the topic of all things weird, I’d like to comment on this tree.  Amanda and Stephen took these photos last week and I didn’t think much of them until I actually went and saw the tree today.

First of all, this tree really DOES mysteriously drop random branches, I saw it happen with my own two eyes. Weird. But what’s even weirder is the sign. I hadn’t really thought about this until some guy pointed it out today. “This tree may drop branches without warning.”

Without warning?

Really? 

Is there any OTHER way this may occur? Like would the tree have some branch dropping alarm to notify you of falling branches? Would some guy sit in the tree all day to yell at people when one was about to fall?

Wouldn’t “This tree may drop branches” suffice?

Now I’m back to my normal apartment where I am doing normal work and am about to eat a normal dinner. Maybe later one of my neighbors will come ask me if I would mind putting on some rollerskates and helping them paint their living room. That wouldn’t be weird at all.

Mint April 20, 2009

I discovered an awesome new website yesterday.

MINT

It’s a cool site where you can add all of your checking and savings accounts, credit cards, student loans, car loans, investments and property info as well as track your spending and budget all in ONE place. It’s sweet!! I just linked up all my accounts and there they all are… right on one page.

The interface is pretty clean and easy to use- check it out below (don’t mind all the orange lines where my account totals would be). It imports all your transaction data and gives you cool charts to track spending and allows you to create custom budgets. You can set up notifications to let you know when payments clear, when you go over budget, etc.

My only gripe is that I can’t link up any of my aussie accounts. So, in all reality- this site does me little good since all my purchases and bills are paid here; however, since it is such a cool site, I thought I’d write about it for any people in the US who may be looking for some cool (and free) financial/budgeting software.

 

Also, I found this other site- THRIVE. It is a very similar concept and actually looks a bit cooler to me- but once I discovered that I couldn’t link my Aussie accounts there either, I didn’t even bother joining.

Hopefully one day they will add the ability to link to international banks and then I will be very, very happy!

Goodbye Summer March 31, 2009

 

It’s official… well, technically it’s been official since the beginning of March- but today it really felt like the start of Autumn. Actually, it felt like winter but whatever. The rain was pouring down, the wind was blowing and we cooked a great big pot of homemade vegetable soup for dinner. Yum.

Usually when Autumn starts I have many things to look forward to. Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas is right around the corner. Do you know what happens in an Australian Autumn? NOTHING. That’s right… nothing. Oh… well Easter happens, but it’s not like I really want Easter pumpkins instead of Easter baskets, baby chicks, peeps and spring flowers. And did you know that there are NO white eggs in Australia? Do you know what that means? You can’t dye eggs! You can paint them I suppose, but it doesn’t really matter because they just give chocolate eggs here. No baskets filled with plastic grass and cute toys and candy… just giant chocolate eggs. I don’t even love chocolate all that much. I’d rather have colorful plastic eggs filled with pink and yellow candy corn and jelly beans. Ok, ok… maybe I need time to adjust, this will be my first Easter away from home in California so cut me some slack.

So what will I do this Autumn without Halloween and Thanksgiving to fill my time and stomach? I’ll have to eat plenty of laksa and Tom Yum soup. Warm and toasty in my belly during the chilly weather . I’ll break out the scarves, beanies, jackets, boots and my favorite cozy Nap blanket! I really do prefer cold-weather clothing much more than summer clothing so that’s a good thing, right? So bring on Autumn! I suppose I’m ready to say goodbye to Summer, but ask me again in June when it’s freezing and I probably will take back that statement.

Oooh… and Autumn may be brining one more great thing to Sydney… But more on that in a later blog. In the meantime, please enjoy my lovely collage that I made to celebrate the new season.

Xobni February 24, 2009

Ok… nerd alert!

For any of you who use Outlook… I want to tell you about the coolest plug-in application EVER. So I just downloaded it and already I’m in love. Thanks to my geeky boss/brother-in-law for showing me this little gem.

So Xobni… no idea how to say it- but it’s basically an application that sits on the side of your outlook and does all kinds of cool things. If I click on an email I wrote to Andrew, all of Andrew’s contact info shows up on the right. It shows me his picture that I have saved in outlook, his phone number, his skype info, etc. It shows me his email rank (of course he’s #1) And it also shows other people in his network (people that he’s ccd on emails to me or vice versa). Then it pulls up the most recent emails from him and the latest files he’s sent me as well.

Already so cool, right?

That’s not all… it pulls in data from facebook, linkedin and other networking sites. SO… if I don’t have a picture saved for the person in my outlook- it actually pulls their picture from facebook!! How cool is that? So when I click on Natasha, it shows me her facebook picture and asks me if I want to sign in to facebook to view her page. Once I allow facebook to access the application- then it actually will show the person’s status, photos and there’s a little “add” button in case you aren’t friends with them yet.

It’s pretty intersting as well because I have emails from work people and people on forums that I’m a member on and if I click on one of their emails, I can see their picture as long as they have facebook. Pretty crazy that I can access random people’s details that easily… but I suppose they’re the ones who put it out all over the internet for the world to see, right?

So lastly, the final cool thing I will post on (because to be honest, I haven’t used it enough to find other cool stuff yet) is the search feature. Searching for an email in outlook is kind of a nightmare, but just type a few words into the search bar on Xobni and you get a real time search of all the emails with those words. Looking for an email from a specific person? Type their name in and a few other key words. It’s fantastic!

 Me likey.

Tea Cozies February 10, 2009

My mom is trying to sell some of her super cute Tea Cozies and bread warmers/hot pads so I thought I’d help her out by posting this as many places as I can. Tea cozies are nifty little “sweaters” that you use to keep your pots of tea warm and toasty. She just made me my first tea cozy ever last month and it actually makes me want to drink more tea… just so I can use it.
She currently has several patterns “in stock” but also takes custom orders. The brown and green one I have shown here was a custom order placed by me I sent her a few pictures of some fabric ideas and she was able to go out and create exactly what I was envisioning.

Check out the full album of possible options here:

TEA COZY ALBUM

They are fully reversible and prices currently range from $25-30. She also will take custom orders based on colors/fabrics/detailing that you choose. Prices vary for custom designs.

Also- for anyone in Austrlalia, she’ll be coming down under at the begining of March- so if you’re interested, let me know ASAP so she can bring any selected cozies with her.

And Now for Some Google Searches October 14, 2008

This is always a fun game…

For the last week, the top Google searches that lead people to my blog are:

4. 2008 NRL Grand Final Pre Game – boring… but at least I’m being found on Aussie searches now

3. Qantas Pilot Newport Marriott – another boring search, however my blog was ranked number one on this search. Anytime my blog ranks number one on a search engine for anything other than “Elsja” is a happy day for me.

2. Family toilet Slave stories. Ok… I don’t know what is worse- this one or the “Lesbian toilet slave stories” search from a few weeks ago. I’m going to have to say that I think this one is worse. And I think it’s great that now that I’ve posted about this a few times, I’ll be even higher up on search results for this bullshit.

And my favorite…

1. Lime Poo. It’s just funny.

Google Searching September 19, 2008

So all my blogging friends always have these great stories of how people find their sites. With our traffic trackers, we are able to see what people type into google before they click on the links to our pages. Until today, no one has ever typed ANYTHING interesting into google to find my site. The most common search term that leads people to me is Arnold Schwarzenegger… all due to a photo I used of him in one of my “sweaty men at the gym are gross” posts… go figure. But today, there was a real winner!

Someone googled: “Lesbian toilet slave stories”

Seriously… what is wrong with people??? Naturally, I was very curious as to how that search actually lead them to my site. I mean, I don’t really remember writing any lesbian toilet slave stories recently.

Well leave it up to good ol’ SPAM commenting to bring me readers. I used to get really annoyed with these bullshit comments. I’ve spent hours upon hours deleting them left and right and there’s just no way to make them stop. But now I’ve realized something…Spam comments on my blog like “black girls deep throat” and “women flashing their panties” are actually bringing traffic to my site!! Probably not the type of people I want reading my blog, but traffic nonetheless.

Maybe I’ll leave a few of those random comments up from time to time. Never know what kind of freaks they will attract!

A Work in Progress July 24, 2008

So my geeky forum is still a work in progress… BUT… it’s up and running! Woohoo. I still have a lot to learn and things to modify but I figure I may as well put it out there so people can start checking it out!

Like I said before, 99.999% of you will have no interest in this forum whatsoever- BUT, if any of you happen to stumble upon this blog (or even read it regularly) and know someone who is dating or married to a pilot, please please please pass along the following link.

www.lovemypilot.com

The girl who runs the ex-pat forum I’m a member of said it took her forum years to really take off, so I have to be patient. At least it can be a hobby and something to keep me busy (not that I really need to spend any more time on the internet). Yay nerdy Elsja!

A New Project July 22, 2008

I’ve started a new project. I’ve migrated into uber geekdom by starting my own nerdy online forum. I’ve been inspired by my other geeky Americans in Australia forum so I decided I’d create my own place to waste time online! It’s still a work in progress, but it’s coming along. Unfortunately I’d say 100% of my readers (all 10 of you) will really have no interest in my nerd club whatsoever. That is because it is tailored to people who are dating or are married to pilots. Hey… I didn’t really have any other topics that I could think of. This will take the time I waste on the internet to a whole new level. I don’t exactly know what I’m getting myself into here… but hey- it can be a hobby of sorts. I even bought a domain name. Now I just have to find people who actually want to join!

I’ll let you all know when it’s up and running. I don’t know why I’ll let you know since none of you have any interest unless you date a pilot. But still… I’ll let you know. Just because.

Ok you can all start making fun of me now.

I Love the Internet November 20, 2007

Maybe I’m just slow- but I just discovered igoogle.

This is the best thing ever!!! I’ve always kinda wished there was something like this and now there is- in fact, there probably has been for a long time, but I just didn’t pay any attention. Needless to say, I stumbled upon igoogle today and I’m hooked. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a customizable page (I make it my home page) where you can add calendars, mapquest, weather, and news. But that’s not all- for those of you who have facebook- you will be familiar with adding applications to your page. Well with igoogle, it is very similar. You can add gidgets or gadgets or something and so you can have all these fun tools on your homepage and you can lay it out however you want. I’ve added a few things to my home page that I use every day- like my bookmarks, a currency converter, recipe finders, etc.

You can also customize the skin/theme of the page. I selected some China background and after I selected it it asked me where I am located. Evidently, the sun will dynamically set on the theme as the sun sets in my own backyard! Fancy stuff!

I also added a link on my page to the video feeds from my other new favorite site:

Start Cooking

Now this website is exciting as well. I can cook, but I never really learned “the basics.” I can create fancy pasta and stir fry dishes nearly from scratch, yet I find myself asking my mom stupid questions like- how long do you bake a potato?

Soooo this site has tons of super fun and easy tips for beginers and a lot of useful ideas and hints just for every day cooking needs. Thanks to my friend’s sister Megan for turning me on to this site. Jen’s probably been aware of it for months since she’s a big blog reader- but I’m a little slower at these things!

Yay for fun geeky internet finds.

So Much to Do… August 12, 2007

While moving is exciting and fun, it is also hard work. And moving to a different country is even freaking harder. People probably dont realize all that I must do… just be glad you don’t have to do all this stuff!!

1. Buy a ticket

2. Plan shipping for all my stuff, arranging for shipping insurance and hiring movers to pack everything. This also includes creating an itinerary of everything I own- EVERYTHING! Also including how much each item costs, and also once these things are packed I have to write down what is in each and every box). FYI- so far this list consists of over 150 items. Imagine writing down every fork, pillow and sheet you own. UGH! Oh and I won’t go into all the forms I need to fill out!

3. Buy transformers so I can plug in my American TV. (electrical please… when I went to radioshack they thought I was talking about Optimus Prime).  And no, you can’t just use those little plug adaptors- that would be too easy. No no, you have to buy transformers with specific voltage, wattage and other crap. Andrew and I still can’t figure out why votage and plug shapes are different in every dang country.

4. Figure out my health insurance situation. I won’t even explain this one…

5. Phones: I will be buying a skype in number (714) so that friends and family can call me for free. I also need to create a skype account for my parents and buy them a skype phone and then buy myself one too when I get to Sydney. I will need to get a new cell phone once I’m there.

6. And then there was the issue of what to do with my car… that was a stressful one… but thankfully it is allllll situated now

7. Hiring someone new at my work since I will be leaving. Hopefully that one will be completed early this week! I’ll still be working, but only part time- and obvioulsy I won’t be working from the office

8. Get a new bank account that will allow me to withdraw money in Australia without charging me a shitload of fees for using “non Bank of America ATMs”. But that won’t even solve my problem of getting charged every time I use a debit card to buy groceries and crap so I will  also need to get an Australian account once I am there.

Seriously… that’s not even all… but I figure you’ve probably all been bored reading this. 

So on that note, I’ll show you all my new painting that I painted for my future bedroom (I also threw in a picture of the new bedding I bought too.)

Wine Charms July 28, 2007

I’m finally posting some pics. I still don’t love them, but they were my first, well technically 2nd attempt at making cute wine charms. I still don’t think I’ve found an idea that really works for me but I said I would post pictures, so I am. Now I need a dinner party to use them at.