The Season to….

It is amazing how much the change of season effects the use of a library…

Gone are the requests for books about how to make quilts and knitting – we are now getting queries about making ice-cream and summer crafts.  It is also a good time to start looking for books about your favourite summer sports.  Are you a sailor?  Do you love watching cricket?  Are you just starting to learn some new sports skills?  If so, why not come in and check our collection of sports books?  We have rule books as well as great biographies of a lot of the biggest sports stars!

Now we are in the last school term it is time to start thinking about how to fill those hot Summer days… What do you like to do in Spring and Summer that you wouldn’t think of doing at other times of the year?

Vegemite…yuck or yum??

I was thinking the other day about the new Vegemite product and how much people either love or loath the sandwich spread.

I have a confession. I hate Vegemite. I remember having to eat it at school one day because my mother accidently switched my lunch with my brothers… my teacher MADE me it! Ewww.

But I think that I might be lonely in my dislike of Vegemite. I couldn’t even imagine trying the new spread.  Cheese mixed in with Vegemite?? 

So I was wondering are there any recipes that could help me get over my dislike of the Australian icon?  Do you eat your Vegemite in an unusual way?  Tell us your vegemite secrets!

Friday five: Top five ideas for Halloween

I think in every post I’ve made recently I’ve commented on how quickly months and season are passing us by. And now it’s Halloween! In comparison to the States, Australia doesn’t go to much effort at all for Halloween, but it’s fun to have some spooky Halloween-ish treats, even if you’re not going to the fuss of trick-or-treating. I’ve found some wonderful things to make and do to celebrate this creepy occasion, some more appertising that the others.

5. Make a Halloween feast

There are so many fantastic recipes online for creepy yet tasty looking food. Try a monster meatloaf or some jack-o-lantern cupcakes. Look in the October edition of Delicious magazine (available from the library!) or look online. Epicurious have a whole collection of ideas, featuring some I’ve mentioned especially below.

4. Have a spooky movie marathon

Hire out a selection of scary movies and stay up late with your friends. If you’re like me and don’t really like to pay to be scared, chose older cult classics like the orginal Beetle juice,  Ghost busters, or Rocky Horror Picture Show, that are more funny than scary.

3. Make your friends some spiderweb cookies

I am a serious arachnaphobic, but I can make a slight allowance for things that are edible. You could make these as part of your Halloween feast, but these are too special to not mention them on their own. To make these cookies, simply ice some store bought biscuits with plain icing, swirl some black icing gel in a spiral over the top, and drag the icing with a toothpick to look like a spiderweb. Cheap and easy.

2. What’s better than a gingerbread house? A haunted gingerbread house!

 

A couple of years ago I made a gingerbread house for some friends for Christmas. As it was my first attempt at constructing any kind of giant, 3D edible object, it was a little… crooked. The fantastic thing about haunted gingerbread houses is that crooked works! The more slanty and unstable, the creepier it looks.

1. Host a Twilight party

 If you’re a Twilight fan, throwing a party for your friends is a fantastic idea for the ocassion. The best ideas I’ve seen have come from this blog: Hostess With the Mostest. All of the images for the labels and framed pictures are downloadable, so you can print them and stick them yourself!

Design Ambitions?

Would you like to win $5000:00? (Ummmm, yes!)

Calling all designers and those with a flair for art and stuff. The Big Visy Picture Design Competition is for you!

All you have to do is create a design on A3 paper which focuses on the importance recycling plays in protecting our environment. (No worries!) A cash prize of $5000 will be given to two students – one from a GC Primary School and one from a GC Secondary School. The winning student’s school and the three schools with the most entries will also receive $1000!

It’s open to all primary and secondary schools within the Gold Coast City Council area. Competition closes Thursday 22nd October 2009, 4pm. You can download the entry form here or simply write your name, school, age, address and contact # on the back of your artwork.

You’ve got nothing to lose! So hop to it!

Grab your flouros!

Co-ordinate your silly hats and practice your dance moves! The BIG DAY OUT lineup has been announced for 2010!

The first announcement looks pretty fab!

(In my preferencial order) Rise Against, Ladyhawke, Grinspoon, Dizzee Rascal, Peaches, Karnivool and Lily Allen. Some others you may know include Muse, The Mars Volta, Powderfinger and Calvin Harris. I’m really excited about seeing Rise Against again! And there’s got to be more great bands announced later.

Tickets go on sale for GC : Thursday, October 7

So start saving or get your Christmas present givers a nudge.

When : SUNDAY JANUARY 17th at GOLD COAST PARKLANDS – Smith Street Southport.

Tickets $140 (inc GST) +bf. Strict limit of 4 tickets per customer.  Available from Rockinghorse Records (Brisbane), Sunflower Pacific Fair (Broadbeach), Mosh Pit Music (Maroochydore), Ticketmaster outlets/Phonecharge 136 100, www.ticketmaster.com.au and from our website www.bigdayout.com
5,000 tickets will be withheld from initial sale for use in the online ballot allocation

I’ll see you in line for the toilets!

Up, Up and Away

Because I am on holiday – I’m actually getting a chance to catch up with movies that either I have wanted to see (and now can grab on dvd), or have just been released at the cinemas.

One of these new releases that I’m so glad I saw at the cinema is Up. A great new animated release from the team at Disney/Pixar.  Are you an animated movie fan?  What movie do you think would be interesting to see animated?? What movie would you like to see this school holiday???

Friday Five: Top School Holiday Flicks

School holidays is almost here again and you are probably wondering what movies are out and what you might go see these holidays with your friends or family.

Here are the top five school holiday flicks for your viewing pleasure.

1.  3D UP

This new Disney Pixar movie sounds like a ‘must see’ school holiday flick.  If you liked Wall-E and other Disney  Pixar movies, chances are you are going to like this one.  It is packed with action, comedy, special visual effects and alot of heart.  I am definately going to check this one out!

2.  Aliens in the Attic

Action packed adventure story with aliens attacking whilst a family is away on holidays.  This is the funny tale of a battle between kids and aliens and the whole time their parents don’t even realise they have unwelcome visitors! Good for a laugh!

3.  G-Force

Who would have ever come up with the idea of a squad of top secret guinea pig agents? This movie looks hilarous with these outrageous spy guinea pigs trying to save the world from an evil billionaire!

4.  Imagine That

Imagine That stars the comedian Eddie Murphy who is a busy executive who doesn’t have much time for anything, including his 7 year old daughter.   This story takes a twist when Evan (Eddie Murphy) finds himself seeking advice from his daughter’s imaginary friends!

5.  Shorts

This is a tall tale of adventure from Robert Rodriguez, director of “Spy Kids” about 11 year old Toe Thompson and his discovery of a wish-granting rock that is causing dramas in his town of Black Falls.  Kids and adults alike will do anything to get their hands on it.  What will Toe do?

What is your favourite holiday movie?

Don’t dump it…Donate it!

Save the Gold Coast environment and recycle your mobile phone!

Dispose your unused mobile phones, BlackBerrys, Palm Pilots, iPods or PDAs responsibly by donating them at Gold Coast City Council drop-off points throughout the city.

This will help reduce the leakage of environmentally hazardous materials and raise $5.00 for WaterAid Australia or the Animal Welfare League. (It also helps our cousins, the great apes).

National Water Week is a national schedule of programs and events that encourage the protection, rehabilitation and improvement of water environments such as streams, wetlands, waterways, beaches, and estuaries.

Every item listed below is recycled through the Australian Recycling Program, an Australian mobile phone recycling program that helps clean up the environment.

• Mobile phones (batteries and accessories)
• BlackBerrys
• Palm Pilots
• iPods
• PDAs

Drop-off points for each charity:

• Coomera Police Station - 11 De Barnett Street, Coomera
  (8am-3pm, Monday to Friday)
• Office of Councillor Grant Pforr: Division 3
  - Corner Falkinder Avenue and Bayview Street, Paradise Point
• Runaway Bay Library – Lae Drive, Runaway Bay
• Southport Branch Office– 47 Nerang St, Southport
• Southport Library – Corner Garden and Lawson Streets, Southport
• Nerang Administration Centre
  – 833 Southport Nerang Road, Nerang
• Surfers Paradise Administration Centre
  – 135 Bundall Road, Bundall
• Robina Library– Robina Town Centre Drive, Robina
• Office of Councillor Greg Betts: Division 12
  - Corner Ocean Street and Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads
• Burleigh Heads Library
  - Corner Ocean Street and Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads
• Palm Beach Library – 11th Avenue, Palm Beach
• Coolangatta Library
  - Level 3, Showcase on the Beach, Griffith Street, Coolangatta

For more information visit here.

Tales from a werewolf princess

I picked up Jatta by Jenny Hale because of it’s gorgeously dramatic red, black and white cover (you know and I know, and the marketers know, that we all judge a book by its cover). In some ways it’s a classic fantasy (young adult members of the royal family of an alternate world nation go on a quest to save their father’s kingdom from a rival, aggressive nation) and in others it is refreshingly different – why shouldn’t the sheltered and timid little princess turn into a monster? and why shouldn’t the hero prince have nightmares about killing people? And as for the lord magician who will save  them all…?

If you like fastasy then Jatta is well worth reading – it’s nicely paced, with dark humour, and the werewolves and Undead of Dartith are different enough to avoid being supernatural stereotypes.  Have a look at the website for the book to find out more about the characters and the Aussie author.

Living in the past

Instead of just reading about times past, and wondering what it would be like to have lived then, some people take the next (we can call it logical) step and try to recreate as much of that time as possible.

If you’ve ever been to one of the medieval fairs in Brisbane or at the Abbey Museum near Bribie Island then you will have seen the Knights Guild of Wessex and Mercia and the members of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Loganlea based group – the Shire of Bacchus Wood – in action. Some of them will have been hitting each other with large bashy or pointy things and others would have been demonstrating the arts, crafts and culture of medieval times.

A little closer to home, up in the Hinterlands, there is a Viking group called Jorth Gar who enthusiastically demonstrate viking culture at an annual festival on Mt Tamborine (I’m not quite sure where they launch the longships…) I’m also not sure what other groups are around on the Gold Coast (but chances are good that there are more out there).

What really intrigues me about “living history” as a hobby, is not just the big investment of time and money that people put in making and buying authentic costumes, weaponry and other accessories. It’s the application of the immersion approach to learning – like moving to France so you can learn to speak French properly, but since you can’t really live in the past, they recreate a version of it around themselves. 

Maybe someone involved in one of the groups could comment further (and with more knowledge…) 

Meanwhile, I’m going to go and borrow the Lord of the Rings DVDs again – and watch hordes of people hitting each other with large bashy or pointy things.