Cake and birds; no floods

There was a spate of rain earlier last week, causing some crazy damage and over 50 people missing and 12 dead. Received an unexpected slew of concerned messages from Malaysia (including one from my high school English teacher!), feeling blessed. No flooding on the Coast and in fact, no more rain for now either.

C vs Chicken: *Mortal Kombat voice* Finish him!

(L - R): Cockatoos, gallahs, lorikeet. Birds galore!

A detour to Redlands Bay, after an impromptu trip to Sunnybank to satiate C's desire for duck. Very, very pleasant.

We were taking a stroll on Main Beach when we found a small crab. Now crabs are very jumpy creatures and tend to scuttle off at tiniest disturbance. So when we walked over to the inert crustacean and took an upclose picture, we assumed it was dead. My reaction was something akin to OMGITMOVEDITMOVED when it (very suddenly) did.

We also made a discovery - blue bottles pop, like scented napkin packets from Chinese restaurants, when stepped on. Not recommended for the bare-footed.

C and I made tiramisu. We feared mushiness, as purported by the reviews on the recipe and so halved the coffee and dipping time. The savioardi were just the right texture and the Frangelico (thank you Aunty Lil and Uncle Kev!) lent the cake a nice bite. It was the biggest cake we'd ever made and I truly didn't think believe we would ever finish it, but by golly, did my appetite prove my lack of faith wrong! The last square now awaits its fate on day 4.

Helped SC and DR on moving day. Being of a Completely Useless For Labour build, I was in charge of Tiger, their happy and playful kitty.

We set the mantis free. I guess he just wanted to make sure the photo we took of him was a nice one.

The cutest puppy ever. His last sleeping pose, the one I was trying to capture, was way cuter, with a snout and a paw pressed against the glass.

C finally sold my ancient Toshiba L300D laptop on eBay, for a rather handsome sum, I might add. With that, I managed to buy a brand new HP Mini 110-3538TU netbook, on which I'm blogging. Fortunately, I'm quite used to toggling between the iPod and laptop so the small size didn't take too long getting used to. The tiny keyboard however, is another story (apologies to everyone for IM typos).

I must add that this is awesome value for money at AUD388; this comes with 250GB of memory and a 6 cell battery (about 4.5 hours). And most netbooks are equal when it comes to other specs. Remember this people - it all boils down to battery life and looks.

This little spider was munching on a fly, with the carcasses of several prior conquests lending the web an ominous air.

Bird nest found today during a wandering ramble around the neighbourhood.