Charlotte's Blog

2003-08-06T18:57:00.000+10:00

I'm in Shanghai! Yay!

This place is amazing! So much so that I'm too excited to write it all down. I've been keeping a diary, so when I'm in Dushanzi, and not in a dingy little internet cafe (dungeon), i'll transcribe it. If you can be bothered reading...

The tripod blog is not operational, I'm afraid, but I will get an interactive blog up and running by the time I'm in Dushanzi. Promise.

It's hot and muggy, but tomorrow I board a nice airconditioned train for 51 hours... fun fun fun. seriously. this train trip was the anticipated highlight of the beginning of my adventure. I didn't realise how much fun I'd have in Shanghai...

That's all for now...

Love, Charlotte

2003-08-03T00:08:00.000+10:00

Seen Buffy, finally!

Oh! There is such a bittersweet feeling embueing me at this moment. I've just seen the last episode of Buffy. The very last, never to be reshot. It couldn't have ended better. I shall hold off on spoilers, as some of my gentle readers have not yet seen the final episodes (I had to skip ahead, as my travels will preclude any timely watching here in Australia...) but I will say that I feel satiated. Like I'm not left wanting it to end differently. I'm happy, and content.

Perhaps it is because I know that Angel will go on (with a character or two from Buffy), and also because I know that Joss will continue in his quest to get Our Beloved Firefly off the ground and running again.

All praise to Joss, The Almighty Yarn Spinner.

Good night, dear reader. Perhaps this will be my final entry, as I cannot indeed access blogger in China!

But I shall get someone to post a link from here to my new site/blog, wherever that will be...

Love, Charlotte

2003-07-31T00:41:00.000+10:00

Blogs and China

Gentle reader, we may have a problem. I'm told that China has interesting firewalls in place which restrict access to such sites as the one you are reading, and also my other blog and homepage. Alas, then, perhaps I shall be unable to blog from China, at least not from this blog or from the TravelBlog. But do not depair, dear friend, I shall endeavour to find an alternative while I am in China. At which point, I shall inform you immediately of the out come.

I promise...

Love, Charlotte

2003-07-19T20:10:00.000+10:00

Coldplayin all night

Saw Coldplay last night, not bad at all. The support was a surprising new find, they were called Betchadupa. I was thinking as I heard them that I'd not heard yummy live harmonies like that since Crowded House, the someone told me that the lead singer is Tim Finn's (as in Crowded House front man) son. Good stuff, went to find the cd today, predictably sold out all over the city, but managed to get the last copy at gaslight. God bless Gaslight.

Coldplay were a little dissappointing in their use of samples, though - during Yellow (much acoustic guitar), they had Chris (lead singer) dancing round, NOT playing guitar, but there was still guitar in the mix. A little upsetting for us (I was there with the lads from Lois, a big band outing) - we disapprove of sampling. It's cheating. The only time sampling is ok is if you're sampling string sounds, cause it's too hard to get the variables right in a stadium, and noone wants to have to tour with a chamber string orchestra...

But apart from that, the sound was pretty good, and the vibe on our side of the stadium was great - everyone standing up and dancing by the end of the night. Unlike the fuckers on the other side of the stadiums, sitting staidly, listening critically. You can still listen critically and have a boogie at the same time. I did. I wish they'd not perform Politik live though. They do it very badly. If you saw them at the last Grammys, you'd know wat I mean. One doesn't perform that kind of music, playing piano, headbanging like a metal head. It's just not on.

Not to mention the fact that Chris so oversings the song. But to give credit where credit's due, they did calm down later, and settle into the groove. He has an astronomical falsetto, that guy!

Love, Charlotte

2003-07-07T16:36:00.000+10:00

Welcome, Charlotte, to the world of cyber presence...

Finally, my website is vaguely ready. It's not complete, but it'll do. For the moment at least.

It's filled with junk, only a couple of photos, but all that will change once I get my digital camera in Shanghai.

I've just discovered that my contact in Dushanzi is going away for a few weeks on holiday, and that my one link to the world I'm going to is out of action for that time. It makes me a trifle nervous, but we shall see. My one worry is that I'm not able to give exact arrival times at the train station at Urumuqi, because I'm not able to book the train till I get to Shanghai...

Scary.

I'll manage somehow, though...

Love, Charlotte

PS, this blog will shortly be retired, in favour of the new Travel'Blog that is linked to my webiste. The new improved blog is more like a livejournal, with spaces for you to put comments. Ideal, no?

2003-07-07T00:38:00.000+10:00

Well it's about frikkin time. Finally, after an 18 month drought that felt like about 10 years, I picked up on Friday night. Sexy bloke with a Wolverine thing going on in bed, once his perfectly coiffed do (ack) was messed up. Have come to the official conclusion that older men are better in bed.

However, although it was a mutually agreed casual shag, with possible but not essential future follow ups, this bloke had these wierd hang-ups about women getting too clingy. I tried to communicate that I am going to China in 28 days, and therefore am not looking to get attached to anyone. That infact, I was just after a good shag (and it was good, by the way!), but he didn't seem to get the message. I wasn't going to go so far as to say that, even though he was really terrific in the sack, his manner in general would definitely begin to irritate me over the long term. That would not have been good for his ego, especially after he went to such lengths to bolster mine over the course of the night.

But that is all besides the point. The point is that now it's out of my system for a little while at least. AND i'm desperately stiff now, due to the massive lack of use of certain muscles I'd forgotten I even had... I'm literally hobbling around the house. He did keep me up till 7 in the morning, after all.

I feel like I have whiplash.

2003-06-30T20:39:00.000+10:00

I've got a web site. It's very exciting, albeit not finished. And the best part? It's FREE!

I'll be able to give my teeming multitude of fan (singular, you know who you are!) pics of my travels, just as soon as I get me a digital camera. Shanghai, here I come!!

And then it's on to Dushanzi. I think my website needs a map of where I'm going. Yes yes.

Farscape calls. It's a bugger, I forget every other week, and that means that (as i'm up to the point where there are the two Crytons (confusing!)) I miss the whole Cryton/Erin story arc. I saw the ep where they FINALLY kissed, but not any since.

Dag nammit.

Ta ra, will write more soon. Need to do something about this website. Will post address when I've got rid of all the stoopid "add text here" boxes. That's right, I'm using a site builder. Give me time, and I'll get it done properly and design it myself...

Love, Charlotte

2003-06-29T23:17:00.000+10:00

35 Days to go

Been awhile, no? Why is it that many bloggers eem to start am entry with something to that effect? I think it's because we are all inherently lazy. I've been spending so much time on the couch knitting that my wrists are actually sore from RSI. Pretty sad, really.

What's even sadder is the impression that I get from my own inner psyche that I'm doing all this knitting for people who I want to like me. It's like bribery with beanie - I knit them one, and then they like me. I've not knitted ones for my closest friends (they love me anyway? Or just that they've not asked?).

I'm not entirely sure that this is entirely accurate, but It's like being accused of being flirt, when you're not even aware you're doing it - one gets paranoid.

Speaking of which, I had an end of financial year bash with the folks from work, and have a terrible feeling that I was flirting with one of my bosses. I was a bit drunk. And hey, he's cute. Doesn't matter that he's married with 3 kids. It's one of the first times, however, that I've woken up the next morning and suddenly remembered what I did, and felt silly. What's more, I have to go to work tomorrow morning with the knowledge that, other people at the office may cottoned on to the fact that I was unconsciously flirting with him.

Oh the shame. I've become my most despis'd thing.

The Compulsive Flirt.

And what's more, I don't even pick up with it! There is no justice in this world.

Love, Charlotte.

2003-05-08T18:06:00.000+10:00

The tangled web of fiction-reality...

I'm a victim of enforced idleness - this is my excuse for the following...

I do a lot of driving. I live out of town, you know how it is. I get bored while driving, so I imagine things to keep me sane and interested and awake. I've been doing this since me most teenybopper days, back when I was in love with Donnie Wahlberg from New Kids On The Block (not everyone is born with good taste, some only develop it on leaving highschool). I used to imagine that I'd found him, injured and unconcious, by the side of the road, and that I'd helped him and that we became fast friends. Florence Nightingale syndrome, but from the opposite end. Or something.

This imagining-meeting-famous-people fetish of mine developed over the years, to become more like imagine-meeting-fictional-characters instead, as I came to understand that actors and personalities were no way near as attractive as the characters who had been designed, written to be good, steadfast, loyal, all-round-jolly-good-sports. Each show I'd get hooked on, each book I'd read, I'd imagine what it would be like to meet that set of characters, and how they would react to me.

So anyway, last night, I was driving (as I often do), and began to imagine how the music of my band would go down in Anne McCaffrey's Pern, in the Harper Hall. Then I thought, well, if i can get all of us to Harper Hall, why not get some other characters there as well. I wanted to see how these characters would interact not only with me, but with each other, on a strange world. Being the utterly logical person that I am, and not given to flights of fancy, I decided that in order for this to happen, we would all need to have some way of existing in the same 'verse. For example, how do the members of SG-1 get to meet and interact with the crew of Serenity, with a third set of characters in their own setting? I wrestled with this concept for all of several seconds, before coming up with the worst type of StarTrek/Sliders solution:

You see, every story that has ever been told on this planet has actually happened - Elsewhere. In a parallel universe, in billions of parallel universes. The story is channelled though the ultimate trans-dimensional medium - the Writer. Therefore, for the characters of my favorite shows and books to meet and interact, all it would require would be some freak rift in time/space, and KAZAM! it would happen.

So kazam it was, and all of a sudden, I find myself on Pern with my band, with SG-1, and with the crew of Serenity. But it's no fun if only I know what's going on - if i let on that I knew them all, then they'd all blame ME for putting them in this strange setting, especially if I'm the only one who recognises Pern. My solution? Simple.

In fact, in this parallel set of realities, the flow of stories doesn't just pass from other dimensions to this one. They pass back the other way, and between each other too. So instead of this world being the hub of an influx of stories channelled by Writers (notice the capital "W"), the worlds are infact all part of a WEB of interweaving, interflowing stories. So they look at each other, they look at us (the Pernese Harpers included), and there is a ripple of recognition. They all watched/read stories about the rest of us in our own world.

Hell, even O'Neil recognises me, ME! At one point, I tell him that on my world, the actor who is him also had another famous role, that of Macgyver. He laughs, and says that in his world, Macgyver is played by someone else (remember that Stargate SG-1 recognises the existence of said show, see Carter's comment - "it took us YEARS to macgyver a [dial home device]").

On reading the above, I'm worried that you, dear reader, may be doubting my sanity. But then again, the only one who actually READS this blog is Matt, and he knows i'm insane, so really, I have nothing to worry about.

In any case, I now have a driving daydream to fall back on whenever I'm getting too bored.

Cheers for now,

Love, Charlotte

2003-04-25T13:24:00.000+10:00

OK, I found this on the Firefly forum. Most amusing. Sorry it's been such a long time, I've been a tad busy, and sick. But you'll enjoy this!

http://somethingawful.com/nointelligence/

I had a bit of a snigger, I'll admit.

Love, Charlotte

2003-03-31T23:06:00.000+10:00

On Procrastination

It's a wonderful thing. In fact, I'm quite certain that this entry would not exist without it, and by that, I mean that it wouldn't just not be an entry on procrastination because without procrastination the concept wouldn't exist, but because without procrastination, I'd not be writing an entry here at all...

Orphan Frequently Only Once, I say, and if you don't get the Gilbert ans Sullivan reference, get some culture into ya!

2003-03-31T20:35:00.000+10:00

The First Entry

This is it. I'm a blogger. I have my own space to express myself to the world without them butting in and hijacking what I have to say.

I see this blog, and hereby call it... This Blog.

From this vantage, I shall educate the uneducated about the important things, like... Firefly and navel lint.

You know. The important stuff.

Love, Charlotte