Merry Christmas - More Frequent Blogging In Future!

Hi everybody!

Look who has decided to make another all-too-rare appearance in the blogosphere. Yep, it's me and I'm hoping to change that rarity to more frequent in 2016. The thing is, I'm always trying to think of what to write for my blog. However, I seem to do long status updates on Facebook about how my weeks have been. Obviously, Social websites like Facebook and Twitter really shouldn't be used for such long posts. After all, people just want to glance at their News Feed on Facebook to see what is going on with their friends and family, and the majority of the time, I'm sure a lot of them won't have time to read long updates.

I think I understand the reason of Twitter's character limit at last. If people like me did lengthy posts on Twitter, it probably wouldn't be as popular, after all, that is what blogging is for. Yes, people will probably still want to skim through your blog to read the essentials, but if you want to pour your heart out into it, you can!

Anyway, earlier this year, Mum came up with this great idea that, rather than posting long posts on Facebook,  I should do it on my blog, which has been around for some time now, but feeling very neglected. As I told people on Facebook what I did throughout the week, she suggested that I just do it on here and put links on Facebook/Twitter when I do post. At first, I just wanted my family/friends to see it, but I realised that I pretty much share my frustrations and weekly thoughts on Facebook like I do on here, so why not merge them. Let's see if I can give my blog the love I give people on my Facebook posts.

In future, I'm going to try and post once a week or fortnightly. It is time to try and put a stop to this posting once or twice a year. This blog post was originally going to be about how this year has been for me, but I figured that I'll write that one throughout the week and will finalise and post it before the New Year. I will post each weekend, if I can. I really want to get this to work as I feel bad that my blog has been sitting online and getting stale with old information.

I want to keep my readers happy, both those who come to my blog and those who come from Facebook and Twitter links. If you're anyone I follow on Twitter and you've read this and would like to talk about my topic when I'm on Twitter, feel free! I'm always happy to converse. If you follow me on Facebook, feel free to comment on there also. Also, just letting people know, I don't use the Facebook chat feature, but if you want to leave me messages, feel free!

By the way, I hope you enjoy the new look of my blog. I thought the new look would make the text easier to read and it pays more attention to the photos in the post, not the big background. Please feel free to let me know what you think. We'll see if I stick with it, but I'm sure I will.

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I had a great Christmas Day with my family! Mum, my brothers Beau and Aaron, and I went over to my sister Michelle's place and spent the morning there, having a very nice Christmas Brunch. We had a little rain which kept things reasonably cool and we all had a really nice time! I had fun dancing with my nieces, Mikayla (5) and Maddy (3), to the music of Taylor Swift!  When we got back home in the afternoon, Mum and I watched an episode of the Smallville TV series I have on DVD, then we watched, Love Actually, a Christmas-themed movie.

For Christmas Dinner, Mum made a very delicious Vegan Roast with roast veggies, drizzled in Mint Sauce, along with a Vegan stuffing Mum made (picture above). I enjoyed every bit, it's definitely one of my favourite meals.

Also, Mum prepared a very delicious Christmas Dessert of Mango & Nutmeg Cheesecake sprinkled with crumbled Ginger Biscuits (picture above). It was very delicious and dairy-free! See, Vegans don't miss out at all and the bonus is that it is all cruelty-free! We ate dessert while watching another Christmas movie, Jingle All The Way.

A cheerful Christmas song for you all  - "Step Into Christmas" by Elton John

Until next time, take care, stay safe,
and I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

New Updated And Expanded ABBA Book In The Works By Carl Magnus Palm: ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions (Revised & Expanded)

Hi everyone!

As this is my first post for 2015, I just want to wish you all a Happy New Year! I hope the year goes well for you all!  I just want to try and keep this brief this time around because there's something I want to share with you all, especially if you're a big fan of ABBA, or even interested in music details.

Do you want to know the story behind ABBA's recordings, and how they came about, including recording secrets, unreleased songs and other things? Carl Magnus Palm, a notable ABBA historian, is planning to re-write his book "ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions"! Those fans and anyone else who know about the original book will know it was released back in 1994 and has sadly been out of print for several years. The new book will be called "ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions (Revised & Expanded)". As the  title says, the book is going to contain so much more information than what was featured in the original book. I've read a lot of high praises for the 1994 edition of the book by ABBA fans who have it and enjoy it!

If you would like to see this book come to fruition, please click here to go to the Kickstarter page and find out more about the book.  Anyone who has any of ABBA's CD/DVD releases over the past 20 years will know that Carl Magnus Palm has been quite active at providing very informative liner notes, even getting interviews with the ABBA members and providing interesting facts about each ABBA album. I'm pretty sure this book will be totally worth the money he is asking for, especially for quite detailed info that I'm sure any ABBA fan/music historian will want to read about! This will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own this book, as far as I know, it's limited edition and is only available through the Kickstarter page above. If the funds aren't raised, the book will not be written.  Carl Magnus Palm is doing this because he is passionate and wants to do it for us fans alike!

If you want to know about Carl Magnus Palm and everything he has done over the years, mainly ABBA-related, you can go to his official website. Trust me, I go there regularly and always find it a joy to go through all ABBA related stuff he has!

I'm sorry I've left this so late, I only just discovered it myself.

I'll be back soon with another post.  Until then, I wish you all the best for the upcoming week, and take care, whatever you do and wherever you live. Stay safe and well!

A New Item Added To My Music Collection!

Hi everyone, 

I thought I'd share with you all my most recent purchase, which arrived in the post last week. For people who don't know, Elton John, my most favourite singer, released a brand new studio album in September.  The album is called "The Diving Board" and I bought the 15 track Standard Edition of the album on release day.  However, I had to wait a while to get what I'm going to show you now.....are you ready for it?! 

"The Diving Board - Super Deluxe Edition"! 

I'm very excited!

"The Diving Board - Super Deluxe Edition" comes in a nice size box that feels like it was done on canvas. 

It is a Limited Edition, only 5000 (I'm unsure if that's per country or all up), it even shows you on the back what number it is. I have 2653/5000! 

When you open the box, there's a black ribbon there to help lift the box contents out. The box contains the 15-track double vinyl LP in a gatefold sleeve, a print of the picture used for the album cover and a nice hard-cover book, which has the 19-track extended CD and bonus DVD, featuring Elton live at Capitol Studios in the back.

I feel it is nicely packaged together, I actually thought that the CD and DVD would be in the digipack version you see at the stores labelled as the Deluxe Edition but I was proven wrong. Had they done what I thought, the CD/DVD case would have been sliding loosely around the inside of the box.  

If you're an Elton fan and you don't have the album yet, I suggest you get this as soon as you can. 

Stay tuned for my review of "The Diving Board".

R.I.P. Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy's first novel. Picture coutesy of www.qbd.com.au.

Hi everyone! 

Sorry for the length of time it has been since my last post. I'll try to post more regularly.

A few weeks ago, I thought I'd visit the website of Maeve Binchy, an author who's books I've enjoyed for the last 10 years.  I was shocked to find on the home page of that site that Maeve had passed away back in July 2012. I instantly felt sad as I've read quite a few of Maeve's books and have really enjoyed them! It also brought back the memories of when I first heard of Maeve Binchy and her great stories.

I first became interested in Maeve Binchy's novels back in 2002 while I was in my final year of high school. I somehow heard of a Brisbane radio station called 4RPH, which is a radio station for the print handicapped. When I tried the station for the first time one night, I discovered that at 9 o'clock every weeknight, they had a book reading segment for half an hour called Late Night Story, where they do unabridged serialised bookreading. That night, the story was Maeve Binchy's Light A Penny Candle, read by Kate Binchy, Maeve's cousin. Sadly, I missed the beginning of the story, which must have been many nights before. When I heard the story, I was hooked, and kept listening every night! A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd tune into 4RPH again and I heard they were reading Maeve's book "Silver Wedding"! Sadly, I keep missing it each night, now they're no longer reading that one.

Since that first night listening to 4RPH, I've read many of Maeve Binchy's books: Firefly Summer, Circle Of Friends, The Copper Beech, Evening Class, Tara Road and Minding Frankie, just to name a few. I would recommend all the books I have read. Maeve's final book, A Week In Winter, will be released in November 2012 for some countries or sometime in 2013 for others. I am looking forward to reading it and telling you what I think, though I won't spoil the story for you!

If you'd like to find out more about Maeve Binchy and all her books and other works, I recommend you explore her official website (link above and in the side under Sites I Like to Visit). You may also want to read more about her on Wikipedia's Maeve Binchy page. You can also read a nice obituary about Maeve.  I thought I'd also share with you 2 videos I just found on YouTube, part 1 (above) and part 2 (below) of Maeve Binchy's life story.

R.I.P. Maeve. You will be sorely missed by your family, friends and fans, but your stories will live on forever!