KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

My health was on the way up when I purchased a compact treadmill and rearranged my IKEA bedroom to fit it in. Then my new 15" Macbook Pro with retina display arrived and Diablo III happened so my health started to decline.

I've made a new rule that I can't play Diablo until after I've finished a session on the treadmill because I am not clever enough to rig it up like this genius who can only play Diablo III when he's moving on his treadmill. I want to go to there.
My 4 month work contract got extended by 6 months so I needed to do something before desk work turns my inner slob into my outer slob.  I love to walk and used to walk to and from work every day in Melbourne for nearly 2 hours a day. Moving back home to a 40 minute commute sitting on my arse while a car then a train does my work isn't helping with my expanding gut.

So I went on a hunt for a compact treadmill to fit in my crowded room. I found the Confidence Fitness Motorised Treadmill on oo.com.au.  Combined with a pair of 1kg dumbbells (teehee, that's a funny word) my new exercise routine is working a treat!

The machine's fairly quiet except for the way I stomp on it with my pigeon-toed, uneven legs. 97.6% of the human population is more lightfooted than I am though, so the average person would not consider this a loud machine. It's a basic machine - you can only adjust speed, not resistance or slope but it's perfect for speed-walking and light jogging. For your health!

Since moving from inner-city Melbourne (read: party town) to the outer-suburbs of Brisbane (read: sleepy town) I've started to catch up on about five years of TV show recommendations from friends. I thought I'd pass on their great recommendations to you.

Dexter is amazing. I love a show that keeps you guessing because it mindblowing plot twists and brilliant writing. Even though it's about a serial killer, the show isn't gory and doesn't go for cheap scares. In other words, people who need to watch horror movies at home on DVD because they feel stupid bringing their blanket and cat to the cinemas (like me) will have no anxiety attacks watching Dexter. The show is superbly done drama, thriller and action.

You'd think it'd be hard relating to a serial killing lead character but by the end of season 3 I was convinced I should marry a cold-blooded murderer. Seriously, think about it - he'd be the perfect husband because he doesn't want to be discovered and needs a happy family to use as a cover. The only downside would be if he decided it'd be better for him to kill off his family. That could suck.

Be warned: the season 6 cliffhanger is a doozie and will leave you reeling. At least if you watch it now, season 7 will drop at the start of October. My throat seized up and I nearly died (exaggeration) when I realised in June this year that I'd have to wait three whole months for what happens next.

Another warning: season 8 will be the last. They've plotted out the finale over season 7 & 8 and set it up during season 6 so methinks this well planned ending won't disappoint.

Dexter. Watch it!

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I've posted. You know how life sometimes just gets in the way... and by life I mean my life as a kung fu fighting monk in the Diablo 3 world of Sanctuary. Anyhoo, here we go:
I have a thing about generic greeting cards - that thing is: I don't like them. I prefer to pay the extra couple of bucks for a pop-up card or cards with personality or something that makes it that little bit different. After all, if some one deserves a card, they deserve a good card.

I also hate cards that have a generic message inside. I only use blank ones that force you to think about what you want to say to the person that you're going to give the card to. Seriously, take five minutes out of your life to put some thought and sincerity into the gift you're giving.

Or if you don't know what you want to say, buy something like this little gem I found in Australian National Geographic stores. They have snow globe gift cards with a tiny circle where you can just sign your name really big if you can't think of what to write. The joy someone will get from popping up this card is all they need - who cares what you had to say but couldn't!

I'll get off my greeting card high horse now. Please carry on.

Scented stationery probably isn't very grown up but I justify bringing scented pens to work because pens are much more grown up than scented colour and grey lead pencils. Introducing Smens 2.0 - the (slightly more) grown up version of the original Smencils.

For a little while these babies were only available in bulk (sets of 500 for fundraisers....ok, primary school fundraisers) and they finally became available in sets of 5 (one of each scent) a few weeks back. I got a couple of packs for my current work team because they're awesome writers who deserve nice stationery...ok, we're web editors and we don't really use pens but I needed an excuse to buy and smell the new range.

Smens 2.0 come in mocha, wild berry, cinnamon (my fave), creamsicle and passion fruit. I'm sorry to say the scents aren't as delicious as the pencils. They also won't age as well as smencils, which unleash a fresh layer of scent after every sharpening. I probably won't get another set of pens (unless they release Smens 3.0 with longer lasting scents).

If you're looking for an environmentally friendly scented black ink pen then Smens 2.0 is the way to go. They are made from 100% recycled plastic and newspaper - even the individual tubes they come packaged in are made from biodegradable plastic.

Smens say it best: "Helping the planet, one pen at a time."

I'm training my nieces to like me through positive association with food, but they're not always hungry so I sometimes use cute, fuzzy animals instead. That's the main reason we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on Anzac Day this year in Fig Tree Pocket (Brisbane southside).

We saw the sheep dog show and fed lorikeets but the ultimate experience was feeding the kangaroos! Sure, koalas are cute and I'm glad they've got a sanctuary in Brisbane. But koalas are always sleepy little nuggets because it's so goddamn draining to digest eucalyptus leaves - they just lounge around looking dopey. People-friendly kangaroos, however, hop around eating food out of your hand!

Big Brother Pham went and got his hand pecked open by birds because he tried to feed them too. Sometimes I worry that half my nieces' genes come from his side of the Phamly. Here's hoping their mum comes from a self-preserving breed of human. That's her in the background of the photo by the way, with Baby Pham #3 in her belly!!

P.S. Don't judge Lone Pine by their website - the sanctuary is a much more beautiful place to visit than their verdana-loving white text on black background website: koala.net. Also, they have a photo of Jackie Chan holding a koala on their site. That earns 'em some good web karma points.

Since my current work contract got extended to the end of this year, I've been on a bit of a spending spree to celebrate continued income and consumerism. To be fair, I ordered the new 15" Macbook Pro with Retina Display when I thought I was going to join the unemployment line with all the other Queensland Government temp staff who lost their jobs on June 29th and wanted to spend 1 hour a day looking for work and the other 17 waking hours playing Diablo III.

Let's see... in the space of two weeks after learning the good news, I bought a compact treadmill, Karen Walker sunglasses, serviced Luigi, got me some new dresses, tops, shoes. Oh, and hundreds of dollars worth of baby things for Baby Pham to be. Most of those purchases are common (read: you won't care) but I did find something awesome that I have to share with you: the Columbia River Knife & Tool iNoxcase for iPhone 4/s.
Industrial designer Ryan Glasgow develops movable, modular houses and prosthetic hands in his spare time so I'm glad he thinks awesome iPhone and iPad cases are also ways to improve the quality of (my) life. While I really wanted the iNoxcase 360, which is much more self-photo friendly, I couldn't sacrifice the rainbow stainless steel finish that only comes in the 180. Who wants to see my face when they can look at the rainbow case anyway! Now that my phone is heavily protected from world, I need to figure out how I'm going to protect everything in my bag from my phone. My best idea so far is bubble wrap... I need more ideas.

I gotta keep this short and sweet for two reasons. Diablo III is downloading in the background and as soon as it's installed I will disappear into a gaming vortex and will emerge several weeks later looking like a disheveled vampire (picture yourself after 28 hour flight/travel then times that by four). Also, I have to try and pre-write as many blog posts as I can so Keep It In The Phamly doesn't fall victim to the Hell overlord.

The story of how I got the name jadestopthat is short and sweet. Well, it's not very sweet but it is short.

I went on tour with a band years ago to make a documentary (and website) to ace a university project. One of the guys got very sick of me pointing the camera in his face and he regularly told me so. From hours of footage I cut together a sequence where he says, "Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Stop it. Stop that. Jade, come on, stop that. Stop that! That's it, Jade, get out." It actually went on for a lot longer than that but I promised this story was short so I've edited it for your reading pleasure.

And that's all I have to say about @jadestopthat.