When the Cheshire emerges...

Things you may have missed from me this week:

Do the Coalition know what their Internet filter policy is? http://t.co/4xrjpUui68 #storify #ausvotes #auspol
— Katina V (@Katiinkaa) September 5, 2013

I lost count of how many times this photo popped up on my Twitter feed today because of its ease at becoming viral, but wow.

Photo: canberratimes.com.au

"One in every 150 English words posted on Twitter is spelt incorrectly, with missing apostrophes the most common grammar crime."

A statistic that is not surprising, but still pretty detrimental to the English language.

Part of my job as a sub-editor is proofing copy, and among that knowing things like my its vs it's and making corrections. I'm not flawless with this (to be fair, no one is), but I'm pretty damn good. And I get really annoyed when people get these things wrong. English isn't an easy language, but native speakers should have it down by the time they're out of year 2.

Other unnecessary apostrophes - no excuse. Sadly, I'm pretty sure I sent a page at work a couple of days ago only to see it had been changed and an apostrophe placed in a word (not its/it's) incorrectly by the time I got to putting it online. Deary me.

As a heavy Twitter user, it will be admitted that like the Telegraph (UK) article I got this information from says, I understand how easy it is to want to abbreviate.

Not that difficult for others, surely?

The article also said:

Twitter recently announced it counts an average of 400 million tweets posted by users every day, but it fared worst among all social networks for the quality of spelling and grammar.


Even U2 can't escape misspelt posts. Courtesy CBC





thelineofbestfit.com

Following on from my minor rediscovery of pop music, I realise this is old news - but the last two weeks have been hectic and I still want to mention the Daft Punk Wee Waa revelation. Wee Waa is about three-and-a-quarter hours' drive north from Dubbo, and I was pretty shocked and unsure if it was a joke - but intrigued. It's so close I could do it!

I even made the Narrabri Courier's coverage with my expression of interest to hear Random Access Memories on Twitter (top right of the diagram).

However, to my dismay tickets were put on sale and sold out too quickly for anyone to really realise. So it's a no go. They were about $35, and now they're selling for hundreds of dollars. Fail. Oh well.

What I really must point out is that wanting to go was, in a way, a pretty big deal.

I had a rather traumatic experience as a child where I rang to request a song on the Hot 30 Countdown (with Ugly Phil and Jackie O, that's how long ago we're talking) and was randomly asked to record an introduction to Daft Punk's One More Time for when it entered the countdown.

On hearing the broadcast and hearing someone else's name, I was distraught and confused, rang up and was put on hold to talk to producers but ended up hanging up. That particular song still gets to me sometimes.

I don't think I've ever told anyone that story. Wow.

***
It's not what's available or unavailable that determines your level of success and happiness; it's what you convince yourself is true.

If things aren't working, ask yourself, "In what way am I creating this? In what way can I change? What is the lesson?"

Today I had the day off, and I needed to get things done:

I hereby declare this day off as #getshitdoneday. It begins now, starting wiiith... cleaning the shower.
— Katina V (@Katiinkaa) March 26, 2013

While my list isn't ever really doable in just the one day (it's always ongoing), I made good headway with a couple of things I'd been meaning to do for a while.

Like cook. A reeeeally good, basic pasta.

Yeah, that's right. I hardly cooked last week because of a combination of returning to routine from holidays and being invited out to eat. Then this week so far hasn't been any better because of two ridiculously late nights, particularly last night which rather frustrated me:

Nearly two hours late out of work, forgot the mince there and have tomorrow off, take-away dinner's slowly coming. Why is it not tomorrow?
— Katina V (@Katiinkaa) March 25, 2013

That pretty much says it all. Including that Twitter can't get the time of any of my tweets right.

I'm soon to have a Get Shit Done Weekend if I so choose, with Good Friday actually being a public holiday for me(!) and then somehow landing the Sunday off. Three-day break! Do I stay home and do the nagging stuff or go somewhere? Decisions...

***

Things I learnt today:

1. I molt like crazy.
OK, so with long hair that's unavoidable. But I went over my quilt cover with the lint collector before washing it (best invention that), and the amount of hair and fluff was just incredible.

2. Flossing is boss.
I've been really good with my teeth lately, adding flossing twice a day to the regime - and again, I've always known the outcome, but as gross as this sounds there's nothing like seeing a particularly notable food particle come out onto the floss. Doing something right feels good.

3. I'm OK with job applications taking forever.
It's something I have to accept. And if they're jobs you really want to apply for it helps, and it's worth it. Yes, I applied for a few jobs today.

I might post a wrap of the final afterwards, but I'll be tweeting throughout so follow me @Katiinkaa to see my thoughts on the game if you're online.

As 2012 comes to an end, we often reflect on the highlights and low points. Yesterday was definitely a highlight, with my Twitter review of the past year.

London 2012 and Eurovision dominated conversation, while Luke, my Twitter BFF since January, was most involved in my discussions. Take a look if you like. It's a pretty graphic.

***

It's the end of 2012, so I'm going to reflect a bit about what my year's been like in a nutshell.

January brought about the Australian Open and its frustrations, the beginning of my year-long shoe watch (still yet to be completed on here I realise) and I wasn't sure about definite locations for my New Zealand trip. I embarked on that trip at the end of February, beforehand having discovered I was falling in love with reading all over again.

March was mostly holidaying still, while April brought about the return of the mullet in my life, realising my social experiments for Dubbo had largely failed and beginning a trip down memory lane from my epic 2011 adventure.

May. Wow. Introducing Julia and Luke somewhat to Eurovision during my 10th year of watching, being chosen as the runner-up for the Dubbo Showgirl and dramas within Fairfax made it a crazy month.

June was when I discovered online streaming (hel-lo Euro 2012) but July was when I received a crazy amount of hits for a photo I used of Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker (455 at time of writing), The Dark Knight Rises happened and the Olympics had started while home for my birthday.

The end of August marked my time at cadet camp as well as the end of a crazy two months of sports watching, then September got crazy in another way as I travelled from Dubbo to Adelaide and back by car. There are still entries to come on that, again, a result of recent developments.

I was tired in October, but still felt plenty was going on as I found I was allergic to running and then sided with most of Australian AFL fans on the Kurt Tippett saga. Oh, and I was mesmerised by the 7 Up series.

November saw the end of Big Brother's return and Stereosonic (my first festival in more than 12 months), not to mention the beginning of my recent blogging decline with photo issues. December hasn't been without its moments though, namely the prank call scandal, the end of the world and my quest to become a professional blogger for Expedia.com.au.

It's been a pretty huge year.

I've been blessed with the opportunity for more travel, both domestically and the great time in NZ. I've spent time with family and friends well, seeing as it doesn't come around much with my current location, and while there's been turmoil in the company, work's alright. I'm constantly learning about myself and others and that's all I can ask for.

I think 2013 has the potential to be my biggest year yet. I just have to utilise it early. Happy new year!

*For the record, I don't know what my favourite film of 2012 was. I'm yet to see The Hobbit and haven't had time to really assess it. But I think The Dark Knight Rises would be up there.

Like 2.3 million other Australians plus a lot more people worldwide, I watched last night's Australian Open mens final.  My lowdown concerns a number of factors encompassing the game, players and personal experience.

1. The hype

The Australian Open seriously delivered in 2012. Sam Stosur failed to live up to expectation as a top 10 player, but Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt tried their absolute hardest for the Aussies. And our number one seed in the boys juniors took out the title which is promising.

Hewitt's set off Djokovic had Australia on the edge of their seats. I've never really been a Hewitt hater, so I was happy to see him do so well before ultimately bowing out. I really felt for him on seeing the emotion on his face. And then since, I really enjoyed his commentary, he speaks well.

2. The WAGs

See my previous blog on the WAGs of the Australian Open. 'Nuff said.

3. The grunting

I managed to watch the womens final after my mind had decided that the tennis balls sound like that on impact. More opinion on that here. But in the mens final(s) I noticed that they are just as bad but on a lower octave (if that's the correct term).

4. The finals

The top four men made the semi's. That's something to say for the strength of The Untouchables isn't it? The skill shown by all four was incredible... the Sydney Morning Herald was succinct in saying Roger Federer can't get up to Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, while Andy Murray can't get there yet - but Federer's still got the brilliance. And this is from someone who has never really gone out of their way to watch him play.

5. Changing tastes

And here's where my personal view comes into it. I went into this Open obviously hoping the Aussies would do well, and looked forward to seeing the Roddicks and Baghdatis's of the circuit. The exciting personalities. But both of those exited early, and then after my WAG discovery, the last remaining Djoker started to get on my nerves a bit. I found myself going for Murray in the semi, while also going for Federer against Nadal.

And then in the final I found myself going for Nadal. Which has never happened before.

And so to...

6. THE FINAL.

I'll try and be brief. As we all know, it was AMAZING. The tennis was incredible from the outset, and some of the rallies five-and-a-half hours in were just miraculous. Being about 1am I was starting to doze off before they came back with those to blow me away and wanting more when Djokovic finally dropped to the ground victorious.

But there WERE things that irritated me. I've turned a bit on Djokovic yes, and last night didn't help his case. Now, I'm Orthodox too and respect the whole religion thing, but bringing the prayers onto the court is so unnecessary.

Then there was the Hulk moment. Sure, I get it. But really, it was like watching the cringy moment in Star Wars Episode III when Hayden Christensen's Darth Vader cries 'nooooooo' at finding out Luke's his son. Painful to watch.

To be fair, he IS the world's best. Either would have been worthy winners. But I was cheering for Nadal, and really sad at seeing his disappointment. Like, really sad. Looking forward to jumping on his bandwagon in 2012 to see if he can crack Djokovic. It was a game for the ages, fitting for the 100th anniversary of the mens final. So fitting.

7. Twitter

My viewing was accompanied by fierce Tweeting throughout, and managing to be mentioned by @AustralianOpen twice as well as making a solid Twitter BFF from Portland, Oregon, USA, it was a definite highlight alongside the wonderful play unfolding. Twitter on events like this is amazing. My new motto is #sleepisfortheweak, I am inspired by the people of the world.

8. Over for another year

Came home tonight to see TBA on the TV guide... how depressing. Over for another year already. This year has told me more than ever that I need to go, so I WILL be at Melbourne Park in 2013.

There have been a few things that have recently inspired me to do what I've always said I'm going to do, and I'm going to do it now in my latest pledge - I will keep this blog REGULAR! One form of inspiration was a Tweet from a follower of mine who tried spruiking me to his followers. It read: "@Katiinkaa has an irregular but interesting blog..." before a link. So that means people DO read what I write sometimes. Which is awesome. And what good samaritanism too, total champ. @Noelinho, if you read this, thanks.

Now that I'm in Dubbo and settled with good Internet, I can finally uphold this idea.

Might as well start this regularity with a general update on my life as it is at this point in time... working as a journalist is a challenge every day. There are some days where everything falls into place and you bang things out and it's easy-peasy. Some where you find yourself starting well with contacts and then hitting a roadblock. Or vice-versa. And then there are days where it's 3pm and you don't have at least one submitted story. Those days are the pits.

Opposing all that, last week was the best yet. Week 10 didn't feel like a stellar week but there were major milestones. My first week of court reporting without assistance. Hitting 2.5 months and no longer being the new(est) kid on the block. And outside of work, finally uploading all my Europe photos onto Facebook. Which was a frickin' long time coming, but I follow through with these things.

But the biggest thing that affected me was realising (yet again) that you can't have it all. In this case I was very proud to discover five out of six of our front pages (Monday-Saturday) featured my stories. At the same time certain things or people in my life were lacking - for example, not being able to go properly with anyone who's followed my journey to celebrate. But you take what good you can get with gusto. And for me, the career is obviously a worthy focus right now.

For those non-writers out there, what do you think makes a good front-page story? If you had a choice what would YOU write about?

Dear Diary,

What a night of football we saw. How incredibly unlucky for the Poms. What a match-up it turned out to be. Germany vs England ended up being the game of the tournament so far - but not for all the right reasons. The refereeing continues to bring a blight to the game and its constant mentioning warrants more pressing questions.

Hoping for an England win, the 2-0 lead to Germany wasn't looking good. But two minutes of brilliance and the Poms were suddenly back in the game. But for Lampard's strike to unbelievably be called out shocked even us neutrals. Heck, Andy Roddick was even having a go at FIFA left, right and centre via Twitter. A great strike from at least thirty yards out, and it ends up playing out as the opposite to the debatable goal from the '66 Final.

A real shame to find they couldn't swing the momentum their way for most of the second half. The decision obviously affected them and only in the last 15 minutes did they look like making a serious threat again. Rooney made almost no impact, and their defence had to work too hard just to keep up. The 'Golden Generation' have had their day.

Hours of sleep: 3.5. Woke up for the second half of Argentina vs Mexico before going to work. Tevez's goal was awesome.

The winning song came from a country to have only previously won once in the 55-year history. Germany’s Lena appealed with a Goth/Avril Lavigne look and the weirdest mix of accents to win with ‘Satellite’, which was undoubtedly one of the better songs of the night. Although having said that, it’d be interesting to listen to a different artist’s version. Greece, Iceland and Azerbaijan were also personal favourites. There’s no doubt that most of the time the voters get the overall winner right – but what they vote otherwise is often debatable. But in a year when the songs aren’t what they’re cracked up to be, what do you do – vote for looks?

If any year was one to vote for the hottest singer, 2010 was it. The calibre of genetically-lucky guys and girls was unlike anything previously seen in Eurovision before. However, voters still thought with their political heads over their hearts, which saw the UK’s Dubovie, Israel’s Harel Skaat, Norway’s Didrik Solli-Tangen and even Cyprus’ Welsh singer (say what?!) Jon Lilygreen fail. The ladies fared a bit better; Azerbaijan’s Safura, Georgia’s Sofia Nizharadze and Armenia’s Eva Rivas all with top-10 finishes. Regardless of their singing abilities (or lack of; some were actually quite shocking), it was a visual treat.