Luke Carbis It’s more complicated than 42.

Sweeny Todd

One of my favourite musicals, Sweeney Todd, is coming to the screen! And for such a dark, twisted tale, who better a director than Tim Burton(!), and who better a Sweeney Todd than (alright!) Johnny Depp!This is going to be a MUST see! I can’t wait! Trailers on the jump.

Things You Didn’t Know

This, from ChrisHedgecock.com:

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is 'screeched'. 'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'. Almonds are members of the peach family.

Bali – Day 3

What’s all this?

10.10.07 – Luke

Today was about shopping.

After the usual sleep in, eat breakfast, swim, we sat in the pool drinking bintang and chandy. After that we decided to walk to the beach.

There are heaps of stalls along the way, and with the owners yelling out at you ‘good price’ or ‘morning price’ or ‘honeymoon price’, we were surprised to make it to Kuta square. There we did some shopping – I got a bintang shirt.

We looked around for a particular perfume for Melody, but despite help from the locals, we couldn’t find it.

Then we went looking at DVD’s. We found the store with the best price / range ratio, and picked out 48. It came to RP300,000 ($37.50). Then we realised that we didn’t have that much on us, and left backto the hotel for a pizza and drinks. Talia had a strawberry daiquiri, which she enjoyed immensely.

Another swim, and then we headed out again for hair ties and ear-rings. We returned with that, and a bit more (which was to be expected, I suppose).

Dinner at a restaurant on Bakun Sari street was interesting. I’ve never seen canaloni or lasagne served like that before.

Then we went for a lovely walk through Kuta square and along the beach. It was really lovely and gave us a new appreciation for Bali.

10.10.07 – Talia

After walking the streets and buying some things we decided to save our $ for the elephants 2morrow. But not before choosing 44 DVDs we wanted.

We actually chose DVDs @ every DVD store we went to and finally decided that we would buy them from a place where they were cheapest. About $1.20 a DVD.

We made our way to Kuta Square for this, an incredibly easy walk – just down the end of Bakung Sari street. We must have stopped walking just before so many times.

We spent lots of time in the pool which was quite nice. Later we went shopping with no $, and that was quite nice. We found a place 4 dinner that would compliment our limited budget and my cocktail of the day was a Blue Lagoon. I remember making them when I did my bar course.

So far I’ve had a tequila sunrise (to remember the 1st drink Luke ever bought me), a long island tea, a strawberry daiquiri, and the blue lagoon.

My aim is to try a different one every time we go out, because they’re so cheap here, and I’ll probably never have them in Australia.

Dinner was… interesting. Luke had Canelloni and I had lasagne -> very similar, and not much like what we’re use to. When we ordered I said 2 Luke, “Do you feel bas for ordering Italian food in Indonesia?” and then when it came out and we started 2 eat eat it we decided ‘no’ because it was actually something completely different.

We saw over 100 baby turtles in buckets @ the beach. SO cute. The man was telling us they’re having a ceremony 2moro and releasing them. We’re welcome to come along.

It’s still hot here, and it spits rain every so often. We’ve been buying bottled water -> 3000RP for 1L (about 40c).

xox

P.S. I also tried Luke’s white russian one night as well.

Being a House Husband

I’ve been looking for a job for a good couple of weeks now, and although I’ve had the occasional lead, I’m still looking.

So in between searching for jobs during the day (and facebook), I’ve been doing a lot of housework – particularly handy since we just moved in and the place is still in a little bit of a mess.

So I just wanted to say this: Man, I’m good.

Today Talia has some friends coming over, so she asked me to give everything a little bit of a tidy up.

I tidied up so good that I wished I had of taken before and after photos.

Now that everything in the living room , the kitchen, and the bedroom is tidy I feel very relieved, somehow it was like this burden on me to have it messy (a trait I probably inherited from my mother). I just have the office to go, but that’s twice as big a job as all other rooms put together, so that can wait for another day.

On the job front – I was emailed a contract today(!) to start as an independent computer repairmen. I think the way it works is ‘head office’ sends me clients, and I contact them to organise a time to visit them and look at their computers (or something like that). So it’s kinda my own business idea, but not having to get clients, and sort of being part of a bigger company.

I think the main positive point about this kind of job is that I can work when I like. The down side is I get paid per job, not an hourly rate – but it’s better than not being paid at all. It’s a little suss, I think, so just don’t get any hopes up for me yet!

Bali – Day 2

What’s all this?

09.10.07 – Luke

First thing we did after we got up was have breakfast. Here I am expecting a buffet. It was a small mound of ick.

No, it wasn’t that bad, but it definately wasn’t good.

After that, and a swim, we met Dana in the hotel lobby. He booked us in at a similar restaurant as the one we ate at last night, but with a 10% discount and free beer, for Saturday night. We leave at 5, to see the sunset.

He also booked us for Elephant riding on Thursday, and watersports on Monday. Oh, and there’s white-water rafting included with the elephants.

After that we went for a walk toward Kuta square, and did quite a lot of shopping and bargaining along the way.

That’s when we met this guy who gave us this little promo thing, and T won 1st prize. I was very suss when they said we could win $1000 AUD if we went with them to see a presentation (great marketing) but with the promise to take us back to Kuta Square (save us the walk), we went along, only to be told when wwe got there that we were too young.

So they paid for a lift back to Kuta square, we had a short look around and some Macca’s, then went to Kuta beach.

Talia, by this point, was sick of being hassled to buy something from every single passing Indonesian, so many “tidak terama kasih”’s  were uttered.

After a nice long walk along the beach, we got in a horse and cart and paid RP 50,000 (about $6) for a wonderful trip back to our hotel.

We sat by the pool for a while, and there was ab afternoon nap in there somewhere, then went for a walk to find a cheap feed.

After walking through some interesting backstreets, we chanced upon a small cheap restaurant. We ordered a beer, a lemonade, 3 spring rolls, two plates of noodles with chicken, and we paid RP36,000 ($4.50AUD)

I loved it, but it was a little too spicy for Talia.

Then we walked home and called it a day.

09.10.07 – Talia

After a rather hot night sleep it was no wonder we were awake quite early. I was looking forward to breakfast and after reading the ‘menu’ on the voucher, it was what I expected. But also, as I have come to expect in Bali, it wasn’t all… as I expected.

Bacon and eggs scrambled TOGETHER, and 3 pieces of watermellon, banana, and papaya in rows for fruit salad.

We met our tour man in the lobby and booked for elephants and rafting, water sports and a similar restaurant as the night before, but with free beer and 10% discount this time. We then had to seriously reassess our budget and wonder where the hell all the $ had gone so fast.

We went walking though, trying to find Kuta square. I’m still fairly disoriented in Bali, particularly because we’ve only been given 1 map of the area and it was very undetailed.

I definitely feel like we’re in the suburban part of Bali. We’re in Caloundra, instead of M’ba, if that makes sense.

After winning prizes in a scratchie hotel promo and being scooted off to the HQ only to be rejected because our fake (older) ages weren’t old enough, we got to Kuta Square. Saw Maccas (24-7 PLUS Delivery!!!) and many other familiar brands. It’s cheaper here, but not $20 cheap. $50 for a pair of Levis, so that’s pretty good.

Saw the digital version of my SLR and when we have a bit of $$ again I’ll call Dad and ask if he wants it. $800 approx.

The beach was grainy and I’m sick of being harassed, but as Luke said, you just have 2 get in the spirit of it.

Dinner was HOT and I didn’t really enjoy it, but we did go through where the people live, so that was really interesting.

Bali – Day 1

As most of you know, Talia and I just came back from our Bali honeymoon. We were even featured in the Sunshine Coast Daily as having a ‘romantic bali honeymoon’.

While we were there, Talia and I both wrote in a diary about each day. I’m going to post a new days entry each day, so here’s the first, for your enjoyment.

P.S. More photo’s can be seen on Facebook, here and here.

P.P.S. Read of our adventures on the jump (click the more… link)

Luke Carbis.com version 2.0

I’ve updated my home page to version 2.0.

Not many new things, just gotten rid of the things I don’t use anymore, and made a few style changes. Looks a little different.

Here’s what it used to look like: version 1.3 .

Hope you all like.

A blog a day.

A blog a day – that's what I promised.

I find motivation in the morning. It's 6am – and so far today I've folded the washing, done the washing up, dried the washing up, put it all away, cleaned the benches, had a shower, got dressed, ironed, had brekky, and read all my blogs. And I'm feeling quite good about myself.

Today is the second day of my trial at a new job. Best not to mention the name, as I found out from my job at Market Analyst. It's a little daunting.

And I feel a little anxious. After this blog post (and after sweeping the floor and watering the plants), I'm going to write up a plan of attack.

Maybe T will be awake by then to help me. So wish me luck!

On another note, I thought I might mention Chardonnay Sunday over at Rhys Rodgers website. Rhys is a great young author giving us sneak peeks at his up-coming book named 'This is not a book'. One of the stories in it is the story of Chardonnay – a girl with an upside down nose. He's telling a little more of the story every Sunday. Read it – it's great fun!

This blog writing thing is seriously detracting from my Avernum time.

New Beginnings

My wife, Talia, has convinced me to start blogging again.

So here’s my commitment:

1. Reorganise all my bookmarks in firefox (I LOVE doing this, secretly, but never have time to)

2. Start using del.icio.us again – so you should all subscribe to my delicious feed

3. Actively persue visitors

4. Reorganise my lukecarbis.com front page

5. Blog at least once every day

So that’s my post for today. I have a huge pimple on my nose that really really hurts and just won’t pop. See you later.

13 Steps to a Stress Free Day

Lately, I’ve been busy working on motivating myself, being more productive, and my own personal… zen (for lack of a better word).

Along with my own take on a moleskine GTD system (which I’ll cover later), I’ve developed an everyday check list to keep yourself productive, happy, and stress free.

1 Favour

Do something nice for someone. Doing this every day will help keep you feeling happy, content, and will help other people to appreciate you.