Diverse Ramblings

October approaches!

*this is a sticky post, and will remain at the top of the blog for now*

september fading;
karnival tal-bloggijiet
what will you submit?

That was me attempting a haiku, by the way ;-)

The end of the month has snuck up on me, and October will be here in a week's time four days two days - with it, the fourth edition of the Karnival :-)

The idea is simple, it's a round-up of posts submitted by Maltese bloggers (and we define this loosely as anyone who is Maltese, or lives in Malta, or otherwise has ties to Malta).

So have a look through your archives and pick a post (doesn't have to be a recent one), any post at all, for whatever reason you like. Literary merit not required. Just send me the link, either by leaving a comment on this post or by emailing me at ~~ maltagirl ~~ at ~~ gmail ~~ dot ~~ com.

The Karnival will go live some time on October 1st, so you have until then :-)

*goes off to trawl through the archives*

P.S. The nice folks over at blogcarnival.com have begun featuring the Karnival on their site. If you're interested in checking out other carnivals, there would be a good place to go.

Cinema, cinema, cinema

The other day Michael and I watched The Perfect Man at the cinema.

It wasn't anything special, a chick-flick that seemed mostly aimed at teens or even pre-teens (Hilary Duff, heh). An extremely predictable plot, but a pleasant way to spend two hours.

The funny thing was that I recognised several actors from TV series (not movies, like usual) for instance: Heather Locklear from Spin City, Mike O'Malley from Yes Dear and Caroline Rhea from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Biggest Loser.

The coolest part was when Duff says "Hey all you bloggers" heheheh... however she only has an online journal, not a blog. Oh well, I suppose that's l3373r than nothing ;-)

Three movies that I am REALLY looking forward to are Oliver Twist, Pride and Prejudice and Corpse Bride.

Well, really I was looking forward to Oliver because I hoped it was the musical version, but now I see that it's not... oh well, looks like it might be ok anyway :-)

From the trailer that we saw, it looks like they did a great job of casting Oliver - he reminds me of Mark Lester who played Oliver in the musical version that we used to rent on video when I was a kid (the video that also had Annie on the same tape).

*sings*

Oliver! Oliver! Never before has a boy wanted more!
Oliver! Oliver! Why ask for more when he knows what's in store?
There's a dark and winding staircase-without-any-bannister
We will throw him
Down and
Feed him on cockroaches served-in-a-cannister!

I wasn't planning on going to see Corpse Bride, but then when I saw the trailer I changed my mind. It looks like it has - *gasp* - a script that assumes that the audience has a level of intelligence greater than that of a coathanger.

I love witty scripts, don't you?

:-)

And then there's Pride and Prejudice... aaaaaaaah... this one sounds ok, AND it's got Dame Judi Dench in it (wow!) AND Emma Thompson (one of my favourite actresses) was a script consultant :-D when we finally get a new VCR I'm going to celebrate by watching all five hours of the BBC adaptation...

POP! goes the orchestra

Last year Michael and I went to see "The National Orchestra Goes Pop" and we loved it, so we were excited to see that they're doing it again this year.

Special guests include Nafra, how cool is that?

The concert is at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, at 8pm on Saturday the 8th of October. Seats are Lm5, Lm8 or Lm10, and you can buy tickets from Vodafone (B'kara), Orienta (Paola and Gozo),the Sliema Band Club, or the MCC itself.

You can book by calling the MCC at 25595751 or email bookings at mcc dot com dot mt.

Cards by candlelight

Our salvavita went insane last night, and was tripping every ten minutes - we couldn't find the source and apparently it's the box itself that's the problem.

Eventually Dad sorted it out, but in the meantime Little Sis and I resorted to our customary powercut pursuits...

(isn't it rather sad that we are used to powercuts? viva 2005...)

September weather

We had a huge thunderstorm this morning, sometime around 7am (I ignored it for as long as I could).

Some of the thunderclaps were really loud - they reminded me of the sound of my mother ripping up old sheets for rags, as opposed to the usual low rumble of a thunderstorm.

The salvavita tripped once during the storm (dad says it was a ground strike bouncing back up, not a direct hit, and the computer are safe *whew*) and once again afterwards (probably because of wet electrics somewhere) but it looks OK now.

Pity the Maltese children though, because today was the day that the primary and secondary schools started back, what a way to start the new school year! Oh well, it just adds to the usual first-day mayhem, and I just hope that there aren't too many kiddies who will be spending the day wearing wet socks and shoes.

Now, barely an hour after the rain stopped, we have blue skies - that's September for you :-)

No fair!

He talked to Sharon (twice!) and also to Antonio, but he refuses to talk to me... hah, and I was all excited about finally getting the a/pre/postmillennialism thing cleared up...

*sob*

How funny...

How's this for timing - today I found out that another couple in our church got engaged last week!

I had no idea that they were even about to! It never rains but it pours... it's even funnier since we four are the only unmarried twenty-somethings in the church (the other two tied the knot a few months ago).

And yes, I had a fine time showing off my ring this morning - I love how Michael's dad periodically asks me "Għadu jleqq?" to give me an excuse to flash it around again, heheheh.

Flypast

On the way to music practice today, I noticed planes doing acrobatics, and got a few (really bad quality) pictures. Then I remembered, of course, it's the airshow this weekend!

Caska has been following the airshow, and she has some great pictures in her blog, like this one of a spitfire!

Pass me the L plate

So, I am trying to get used to the idea of being engaged, and really enjoying sticking my hand in people's faces and showing off my ring, heheheh. Poor Little Sis has to endure that about once every two hours, miskina... and tomorrow morning, at church, surrounded by sixty people, I am going to be unbearable *snicker*

In the meantime, life goes on, and on Thursday I had my first driving lesson in, um, a while. I can't remember, I suppose it's been a couple of years. Michael had taken me to Ta' Qali a couple of times (can I just say that the man has the patience of Job?) but I had given up after my second lesson with supposedly-the-best-instructor-on-the-island because he had an errand to run and therefore had me driving through the (very narrow and car-packed) back streets of Sliema, which really put me off.

Also, what is it with the technique of brand new student gets into car and instructor says "Drive" and student has to ask about which pedal is the accelerator and which is the brake? Eh?

But my new instructor is good, he actually explains why to do certain things. Also, the car is fully equipped with pedals AND a steering wheel on his side of the car, so he was working the pedals and shifting the gears, and I was just trying to stay in the lane (not always successfully) while he also used his steering wheel to correct my meanderings.

Actually the poor guy spent most of the lesson going "Taħsadx l-istering! Taħsadx l-istering!".

Mind you, I think I will do a lot better next lesson, because (rather ironically) that evening Mike and I went to the cinema and watched Herbie: Fully Loaded and I took mental notes, muahahahaha...

At least I still remember the one very important thing that I learnt while manouvering in Ta' Qali with Mike - no matter how frustrated you are, it is never OK to take both hands off the steering wheel in order to gesticulate...

Guess what?

There's a particular part of our day in Gozo that doesn't appear in the previous post...

That would be the part where, at Ramla l-Ħamra, Michael proposed to me ;-)

Ta daaaaaa...