Elsja Down Under

What to Read… What to Read? April 10, 2011

I need some more book recommendations. Since getting an iPad in October, I’ve been a reading bandit. Well, maybe not compared to some people- but I never used to be a massive reader. It would sometimes take me 2-3 months to get through a book. But since getting the iPad a little over 5 months ago, I’ve read 7 books. So now… what do I read next? I’m up for recommendations. I like mainstream fiction books that are highly rated. I wanted to read Love in the Time of Cholera but it’s not available on the Kindle or ibooks. Here’s what I HAVE read:

• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy – loved it!
• Heaven is for Real- sweet and powerful but only took 2 days to read
• Never Let me Go- kept me intrigued but overall it wasn’t fabulous
• The Help- loved it!
• Devil in the White City- half of it was great, the other half was boring
• Water for Elephants- really enjoyed it… especially knowing the movie with Robert Pattinson will be out soon.

Here are some pre-iPad books I read… The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Outliers, the Twilight books, several by Jodi Piccoult, several by Nicholas Sparks, Time Traveler’s Wife, Lovely Bones, Sarah’s Key…

So now I’m asking you… what should be next?

Working Girl November 5, 2010

You may all think I’ve seriously slacked off in the blogging department lately but it’s quite the contrary. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever blogged as much in my life as I have in the last 2 weeks, I just haven’t been blogging for THIS site.

It turns out that a big part of my awesome new job is to write lots and lots of blog posts articles; so, Ive been typing away day in and day out so we have some fun contet for our client websites. The main bulk of the posts have been fashion, celebrity and beauty blogs geared towards teenagers and young women. I’ve also done a few for a medical site as well. Not only am I blogging, but I’m getting paid to manage facebook contests where I personally have been given the task to choose winners from a bunch of girls leaving comments about what their favourite outfit is. I’ve already been able to liase with some great clients and PR companies and I’m loving it. I’m pretty sure this job is perfect for me. Blogging, Facebook, website building… not to metion I work with some seriously cool people and one ferocious little dog! Tonight we pushed a new blog live for a client and it’s great to start to see some of my work from the last 2 weeks published for the world to see. 

Of course not all of my work will always be as fun (and the commute home is a nightmare) but that’s the nature of business I suppose. It’s definitely been a great start to my new adventure down under.

My iPhone Makes me Happy October 18, 2010

It was a very happy happy day last week when my wonderful new iPhone came in the mail. I didn’t waste any time getting it all set up and I just can’t tell you how gitty this little piece of technology has made me. So far I definitely have some favourite apps. These include:

1.  Trip Planner – this little gem gives me all the ferry and bus schedules… amazing I tell you!
2. Google search – who doesn’t love the ability to search for things by simply taking a photo and/or asking a question? If you don’t have this app- get it! Asking a verbal question is SO much easier than typing it all out.
3. Foxtel- Ok so I haven’t actually used this yet but I absolutely love the fact that if I’m out for the night and realise I’ve forgotten to record my favourite show, I can just push a few buttons on my snazzy little phone and like magic, my show will be recorded and waiting for me when I get home.
4. Mobileme – yes, this is a ridiculously expensive program but I do believe it is worth it! Mail, calendar and contact syncing is pretty important to me so I’m loving this application.

What are your favourite apps??  Oh and speaking of contact syncing-  I’d also like to mention that while in the process of setting up my beautiful new phone, I was able to clean out all my contacts which just so happens to be # 15 on my 101 list. Who would have known that buying an iPhone would help me to achieve one of my goals? Win win!!

Stay tuned for more things that make me happy. There have been several over the last few weeks and I can’t wait to share them all with you!

Please Vote October 11, 2010

My brother-in-law Paul entered a contest to be the Australian voice for TomTom. It literally takes 3 seconds to vote and the best part is, they don’t require that you sign up or regsiter for anything. So, you don’t need to worry about spam!!

CLICK TO VOTE

You can vote once a day and he needs all the help he can get to catch up to some of the people who entered before him. If you feel so inclined, please share this with all your friends and family. I’m sure Paul would greatly appreciate it!!

Optus Customer Service: so far so good… October 5, 2010

Watch out world, I’m FINALLY getting with the times and becoming the proud owner of an iphone! There was a bit of a dilemma when we were trying to decide which provider to use so I did what I do best… I analyzed everything. I asked friends for recommendations on Facebook and Twitter, I called friends who have iphones, I created a massive spreadsheet that included a comparison of four different providers (roughly 2-3 plans per provider) AND I spoke to representatives for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone either on the phone or on wonderful online chat.

So Friday the Optus online chat guy told me that if I ordered my iphone online, I’d get it in 3-5 days. Not bad considering Vodafone said I’d have it in 4-6 weeks!! (Another bonus point for optus!) After consulting with Andrew on Saturday, we decided that Optus was the way to go. Telstra was a close second but only because Ben and Mike gave them good reviews. To be honest, Telstra’s plans are rubbish! Vodafone has some of the worst customer service known to man so I was not too sad to be leaving them. I didn’t hear much about Virgin so I just decided to not waste my time there.

I promptly went online to try to order my phone. I went through the entire ordering process only to have the “we are processing your order” message stay on the screen for about 5 minutes before it timed out. I  tried about five more times before sadly giving up after I received a  message saying I needed to call customer service to provide more info. Well, I couldn’t do that because they are closed on the weekends. Not only that… it was also a long weekend due to the holiday so I had to wait THREE days!! I told Andrew I felt like a kid on Christmas who just got a really cool toy to play with but my parents forgot to buy batteries.

FINALLY this afternoon I was able to call to speak to someone. Well, the not-so-helpful customer service rep quickly dismissed my request and said “you couldn’t order one because we are out of stock.” That’s it. No explanation, no estimate as to when they would get more… nothing. Any question I asked was practically ignored and he simply said he couldn’t help. I was deflated. I don’t understand why they had so much stock on Friday and NONE after a weekend where NO ONE could have called up to order one.

You are probably wondering why I think Optus has good customer service after this guy was such a tool. Well, I just refused to just accept his answer. I noticed on the Optus site that I could “Tweet” my customer service question or request. So, I did… and I got a response right away. I was pointed in the direction of a site to enter my query, so I did… and I got another response right away.

Then a guy name Julz called me and after speaking to him and another guy, Craig, I was promptly set up with a new phone plan and my brand spanking new iphone 4 will be here by Friday. I’m so excited.

I’m so thankful for the latest trends in using social media as customer service. No longer do we have to sit on phone forever with our questions and complaints. I just sent a quick little message and my questions were quickly answered. Good job Optus (just get rid of that first guy I spoke to)!!

Now Vodafone– there’s a company with a pile of crap for customer service. I had to call this morning to deal with a pretty major technical  issue and I was on the phone with the idiots for about an hour before my issue was FINALLY resolved. I will NOT miss them.

Social Media Education September 27, 2010

In an effort to increase my knowledge base and enhance my technological skills,I am turning to the Internet to increase what I know about social media. I  am fully aware that others label me an “Internet nerd” so why not put my nerdy talents to good use and look at getting into social media? Let’s face it- I met my husband online by using my geeky social-networking skills; so, why not expand on these talents so that I can use them in other productive ways?

I’ve already dealt with quite a bit of traditional and social marketing through my current job over the last 5 years so by no means am I a stranger to it all… but I’d love to take my experience to the next level. So as my first step in my new social media exploration I’ve cavedand joined Twitter. If you care to follow me you can find me here: @elsjahancock.

If anyone out there has any good website/blog or twitter  recommendations for me- I’d love to hear them!

Thanks and happy tweeting!

Wedding Blogs September 13, 2010

In case anyone is interested, our wedding has been featured on a few blogs.

First we have our fabulous photographer’s blog- Mark Brook Photography. They did such a GREAT job with our photos. I’ve only seen the sneak peak of shots they’ve put up on their blog and I simply cannot wait to see the rest of the pictures! I know they will be wonderful.

Secondly we have the pleasure of being featured on Destination Inspirations, a great blog all about destination weddings. I was thrilled to see this via the Mark Brooke site today:

Thanks to our fantastic photographers for capturing “blog-worthy” photos.

Stache on a Stick July 4, 2010

Can someone please explain the stache on a stick phenomena? I don’t get it. Props and costumes I get… but why the paper mustaches on sticks? How did this become so popular? I’m mostly confused by the alarming number of wedding stache photos. When I am in my wedding dress looking beautiful, I don’t want to ruin it with a hideous piece of black paper or fur on my face. I feel like I’ve been left out of some worldwide inside joke. Can someone please explain?

Coolest Proposal Ever June 22, 2010

Ok… so Andrew was sweet and romantic when he proposed- but this guy gets props for what I think is the absolute coolest proposal ever!!

Woah Baby May 9, 2010

I think when you’re in a serious relationship, you tend to wonder what your future children will look like. Ok, maybe that’s only me- I’m sure Andrew NEVER thinks about that. I always worry that our kids will be hideous little snots or they will each pick up our worst traits and end up quite ugly. So Imagine how interested I became when I realized I actually could find out how cute our future brats will be. After reading Daisy’s hilarious post about how her boyfriend so kindly morphed her with a dog to see what “their” children would look like, of COURSE I would have to try this out for myself (minus the dog photo).

I tried it with a few different pictures and got a few different outcomes. So without further ado, meet our children (please note, there are 3 here but there will not be 3 children popping out of this uterus unless I unluckily become a breeder of twins the second time around).

Not sure what’s going on with the hair on this one… but she (yes she) is pretty damn cute. I think this one looks like me when I was little.

This one has some creepy glossy eyes but she’s pretty cute as well.

This kid is probably my least favorite- there’s something weird about his mouth, but I suppose he’s not ugly.

I guess according to weird internet morphing sites, our kids won’t be half bad after all.

There Goes My Chance October 11, 2009

I’ve been quite bummed this weekend about something. About 2, maybe even 3 years ago, I came up with an idea for an invention. I thought this was a pretty damn good idea.

Fold-able/roll-up flip-flops. Why is this a good idea you ask? Because after wearing high heels for hours all night, all you want to do is put on some flats for the walk to the car, to the house, or to the next bar. I am one of those girls that carries my dirty flip-flop/thongs in my purse. Luckily I have a big purse which allows me to do this because my thongs aren’t tiny enough to fit in a small bag. But if they folded up into a small portable thong version, then they could fit in any bag… or even a coat pocket.

This was such a good idea. A good idea that I had first.

Maybe you don’t believe that I had this idea first. Well here is proof…

The guys (yes GUYS) that created these thongs thought of the idea a year ago.

“Former lawyer Ben Lipschitz, 25 stumbled on the idea for a pair of fold-up thongs on a night out a year ago when his girlfriend at the time was left sore and tired after a night in stilettos.”  The Daily Telegraph

A year ago.

Well, A YEAR AND A HALF ago I blogged about my invention idea here (and let me point out, I had been thinking about this much earlier than this post):

I guess I can’t bee too annoyed though. It’s my fault and my fault alone that I didn’t act on my brilliant idea when I had the chance. Andrew used to tell me I should look into it, Jen wanted to help and even came up with a cute name, but it was just so overwhelming! Where do you even start to try to figure out how to get a prototype made, how to pay for the prototype… surely I would have needed investor backing… and then how do you get that??  The list goes on and on. I just had NO idea where to start.I went as far as researching patents as you can see in my post above but that was where my research ended.

Now someone else will get rich. Someone else will say they invented something cool and they will always be known as the guys who created the awesome portable flip-flops. That could have been me. That might have been my one and only chance to invent something really cool and I blew it.

And no… I will not post a link to the site that sells the shoes. I just don’t think I’m ready to provide free advertising to someone who is going to capitalize on my brilliant idea.

FINALLY! September 21, 2009

Itunes FINALLY created a “wishlist” feature. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. For YEARS I’ve been saying they needed this option. I couldn’t even begin to count the the number of times I’ve been browsing and have come across a song or album I might want to buy- just not right at that moment- and I just wish I could add it to a wishlist. Well now I can! I am so happy. I had been putting off downloading the new version of itunes because it just takes forever to install. So today I went to download the first episode of Gossip Girl and it told me I HAD to install the new version. FIIIINE! But when I did, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right there in front of me was the very thing I had been wanting for sooo long! It really made my day!

I’ve already added numerous albums to this wonderful new list and as soon as I actually have some spare money, I am going to buy them.  Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me oh so happy.

Internet Issues September 2, 2009

So we have these stupid Internet download/upload limits. If you go over your limit- the company either starts to charge you OR it slows down SOOOO much. Ours slows down. We have 12G of usage per month and we’ve only gone over our limit a few times. I think twice we went over about a day before the end of our billing cycle because I downloaded too many TV shows. Once we went over about 4 days before the end of a cycle… that sucked.

Well yesterday our internet slowed down  A LOT! We had no idea what was going on. I knew we couldn’t have gone over our limits because we had 11 days left in the cycle AND I hadn’t downloaded ANY TV shows this month. So surely we couldn’t have exceeded the cap.

Or could we?

Turns out we did go over the limit… 11 days before the end of the cycle…7 days earlier than we have in the past…

Can you really go over your download limits from looking at too many wedding websites? This could be a problem!

Is it Weird? May 15, 2009

Today I ventured out of the apartment for a few hours to meet up with some fellow ex-pats. Is it weird that I’ve never met these people in person (until today), never have even talked to them at all (until today) and yet I still know so much about them? No talking on the phone, no emailing, no texting… yet I still know tons of details about their day to day lives. Welcome to the wonderful world of bloggers! Today I met fellow ex-pat bloggers Daisy and Lindsay (and her friend Emily). I missed out on meeting Erin at lunch but there’s always next time right?

I only started reading Lindsay’s blog recently, so I’m not totally up to date on her life, but is it weird that as we walked around the Botanical gardens, I had conversations with Daisy about the guys she’s dated and her uni program? Is it weird that I knew all about the horrible blister on her foot? Is it weird that she was talking to me about the birds that visit my apartment everyday?

Is it weird that a foreign guy stopped us and asked us if  we would mind standing on his back as he laid on the grass while someone else took a picture?

Huh?

Yes, that actually happened. Here was how the conversation went:

Weird guy: Excuse me, are you all travelers? (detected our accents I suppose)

Us: ummmmm uuhhh yeah (hard to answer that one because yes, we are foreign but no, we’re not really “travelers”).

*** we suspect he is about to ask us for directions or something normal, but no… no such luck.***

Weird guy: I’m wondering if you might be able to help me. I’m trying to get a photo (pulling out fancy camera) but it’s kind of hard to get.  I basically want the photo of me lying on the grass with 2 people standing on my back.

Us:    …

Weird guy: You know, like I’m “down under”

Us:    …

Weird guy: I’ll give you $20 between the  four of you.

All of us: Uhhh ummm… ok???

Elsja and Daisy: Oh they can do it (pointing to Lindsay and Emily), they are the smallest!!

Weird guy: Oh how about one of you  (Lindsay/Emily) and one of you (Elsja/Daisy)

Daisy: She’ll do it (pointing to me), she’s shorter! (thanks by the way)

So, we decided to help the guy out. Either he was a really artsy person who genuinely wanted to get a shot to send back home of him “down under” OR he was a complete freak who gets turned on by REALLY weird things. Either way, it wasn’t going to hurt us to help him out. At least we have a funny story to tell now. Oh… and all of us were quite curious- why did he ask us if we were travelers? Wouldn’t local Aussies be better candidates if he wanted to be “down under”? Maybe he’s been told off by too many of them already. Seriously, have any of you out there ever had a weirder request from a stranger? If so, I’d love to hear it!

Lastly, while I’m on the topic of all things weird, I’d like to comment on this tree.  Amanda and Stephen took these photos last week and I didn’t think much of them until I actually went and saw the tree today.

First of all, this tree really DOES mysteriously drop random branches, I saw it happen with my own two eyes. Weird. But what’s even weirder is the sign. I hadn’t really thought about this until some guy pointed it out today. “This tree may drop branches without warning.”

Without warning?

Really? 

Is there any OTHER way this may occur? Like would the tree have some branch dropping alarm to notify you of falling branches? Would some guy sit in the tree all day to yell at people when one was about to fall?

Wouldn’t “This tree may drop branches” suffice?

Now I’m back to my normal apartment where I am doing normal work and am about to eat a normal dinner. Maybe later one of my neighbors will come ask me if I would mind putting on some rollerskates and helping them paint their living room. That wouldn’t be weird at all.

Mint April 20, 2009

I discovered an awesome new website yesterday.

MINT

It’s a cool site where you can add all of your checking and savings accounts, credit cards, student loans, car loans, investments and property info as well as track your spending and budget all in ONE place. It’s sweet!! I just linked up all my accounts and there they all are… right on one page.

The interface is pretty clean and easy to use- check it out below (don’t mind all the orange lines where my account totals would be). It imports all your transaction data and gives you cool charts to track spending and allows you to create custom budgets. You can set up notifications to let you know when payments clear, when you go over budget, etc.

My only gripe is that I can’t link up any of my aussie accounts. So, in all reality- this site does me little good since all my purchases and bills are paid here; however, since it is such a cool site, I thought I’d write about it for any people in the US who may be looking for some cool (and free) financial/budgeting software.

 

Also, I found this other site- THRIVE. It is a very similar concept and actually looks a bit cooler to me- but once I discovered that I couldn’t link my Aussie accounts there either, I didn’t even bother joining.

Hopefully one day they will add the ability to link to international banks and then I will be very, very happy!