I spent Chrstmas morning with Firstborn, lunch with Dace and Secondborn on a plane and Christmas dinner in Melbourne with Thirdborn, his fiance and her family.

We're staying in my son's new house, which is awsome. It is feezing and raining, which is also very cool (no pun intended).

But most of all, my gadget freak son has broadband.

Really, really fast, broadband.

And a 60 gig download limit.

I am im download heaven.

Perhaps there is a Santa after all:)

The stockings were hung
By the chimney with care
While Stevie was coughing up
Balls of cat hair.

JoJo was snarling
And hissing at Fluffy
While Mount Bruce leaped about
As if he was Buffy.

Second Born packed
For her trip on the plane.
While Liz the house-minder
Hugged Oscar again.

Dace, for once, was
At home with his mother.
Plotting world domination
From beneath the bed covers.

And Dudley the ghost
In a burst of compassion.
Remained still and silent,
After a fashion…

It’s Christmas in my house
So let’s raise the Moet
‘Cause when I drink plenty
I think I’m a poet.

Now enough of this blogging
And back to the drinking
There’s plenty more champers
For me to be sinking.

In the meantime, be happy
And full of good cheer
I’ll be back in a few days
In time for new year:)

Dace has discovered Doctor Who. Or, to be more specific, he has discovered I have Season One of the new series on DVD. And he loves it. He loves the Doctor. He adores Captain Jack.

But most of all, Dace loves the Garlics.

Nothing we do or say will convince Dace they are not Garlics. We’ve corrected him umpteen times, we’ve tried spelling D-A-L-E-K to him. Nothing works.

This child, who can say palaeontologist without thinking about it; this gifted seven-year-old who can rattle of nine-syllable dinosaur names like he's listing his favourite candy, cannot, for some reason, get it into his head that the most dire enemies of the Time Lords and Mankind alike, are the Daleks, not the Garlics.

He’s been running around the house all morning armed with toy machine gun, yelling “Exterminate! Exterminate!” and then shooting the evil Garlics invading our lounge room.

We choke every time he says it. Then he glares at us and says “are you teasing me?”

“Absolutely not,” we assure him. “You go ahead and kill the Garlics, sweetheart. We’re right behind you.”

“Good,” he says. “Because you know, Garlics can fly, nana. But if you whack them in the weapon eye, they go blind.”

I think I have a hernia now. It's not possible to have a conversation like this, keep a straight face, and not have something burst internally.

The Garlics are right, you know. I will be destroyed:)

The Aurealis Awards shortlist was announced this week, which are the Australian Sci-fi and Fantasy Awards.  I wasn't among the nominees, but that's hardly surprising, because I didn't actually have an Australian release this year to get nominated.

In fact, the only way my name was ever going to wind up on this year's list, was if I sent photos of the judges' children to them anonymously, with big red crosses on the kids' faces and "I know where you live" scrawled in red crayon across the back...

Hmmm... wonder if that will work the next time I get shortlisted.... muwahahahaha....

But I digress... the nominees are out and if you want to read the full list you can go here. You'd think the Aurealis Website would the be place to look, but they haven't updated their site yet. The source of this link is pretty reliable, so I'm hoping it's the right list. Gonna be a few people who've already cracked the champagne rather put out if it ain't. LOL

Congratulations to all the nominees. Being shortlisted is a great honour, recognition of your talent by your peers and - best of all - you get a cool little sticker for your book covers announcing you're a finalist:) That way everyone else knows how brilliant and talented you are, too:)

It's always a good thing to be shortlisted for any award. In fact, Stephen Higgins, who wrote a cutting series of artlicles a few years ago on how to write fantasy for the Aurealis Magazine, summed up the whole awards scenario in his golden rules.

Rule Number 4, in fact, quite clearly states...

(You can read the whole article here. I recommend it highly. It's a crack up)

And while I wish all the nominees well, personally, I hope Glenda Larke finally gets a nod. She's been nominated three years in a row ('cause she really is brilliant and talented), and deserves a win.

In the meantime, I might have to ring the printers. I'm wondering if I should get some stickers printed of my own. How does, "Winner of the NLS Award, 2006" sound?

No need for anybody to know NLS stand for Nicest Looking Sticker, is there?

Over the breakfast table this morning, Secondborn explained her dastardly scheme to win the A Grade Championships next year. In Table Tennis.

I’m not sure what disturbs me most, that she’s been planning this for weeks or the evil glimmer in her eye as she detailed her cunning plot.

You see, Secondborn has been playing table tennis for years. She was the Under 17 State Champion in 1997. She loves the game. Trains for it like she’s training for the Olympics (except for the going to the pub afterwards. I don’t think there are too many elite training programs that include getting sozzled every Tuesday and Thursday evening… hehehe).

In table tennis circles, the very mention of her name strikes fear into the hearts of her opponents. That’s right folks, my girl is known — in ping pong circles, at any rate — by the terrifying moniker… Fluffy.

Fluffy’s been off her game for a few years now. Between university and work, she hasn’t played seriously for about 6 years. Now she is home, however, this is all set to change. Fluffy is already back in training.

Trouble is, Fluffy isn’t 17 anymore. She is now a lot smarter, and somewhat less enthusiastic about running herself ragged in 40’ heat, all in pursuit of a little white ball. And because the table tennis scene in Alice Springs is very small, there’s no separate Women’s league, she has to play in the Men’s competition.

All this has led her to devise an evil plan, designed to run her opponents into the ground, while she gets to stand there and just watch them fall. She has, apparently, been laying awake at night for weeks, plotting a way to perfect her strategy.

The plan goes something like this… when those large and aggressive male players smash balls toward her at about 200 mph, she’s going to tap it back to them as softly as a kitten, dropping the ball just over the net. She will then simply stand back and watch her opponents cause themselves grievous bodily harm as they break the land speed record trying to get to the table. This has the added bonus of probably castrating her opponents on the edge of the table in the process, diving to get to the ball in the mere second and a half they’ll have before it bounces again.

Seriously. She has worked this out down to that level of precision. The speed they’ll need to run at, the time between bounces, the distance they have to cover, the angle and amount of the top spin she’ll need and the thickness of the rubber she’ll have to put on her bat…

All this, just to win at a sport where they call her Fluffy?

She is truly her mother’s daughter.

Muwahahahaha....