No Nose Smiley :)

I've always used the noseless or no-nose smiley and emoticon, i.e. this one :).  It's simple, it's cute and it's more efficient!  No stretching of the fingers to get to the hyphen, two characters. There have been articles saying that a nosed smiley gets more dates .  I wouldn't know as I've been married for over 10 years.  My argument is that people who work in IT tend to use the noseless one.  Maybe it's geek culture?  Maybe it's just more efficient or it's just the way things are done.  No stats to back me up but I'm sure there are plenty of debates on the interwebs about it. Whilst the origins of the emoticon started with the nose, I believe evolution and efficiency has morphed into the no nose smiley. Enough said on this topic as everyone will have their own opinion, but I do believe it affects my perception of a person if I see a nosed smiley vs a no nose smiley. I have a greater affinity to those without noses!  I'm sure it works ...

I was extolling the virtues and use of the no nose smiley :) with a friend who uses the nose smiley :-) Anyway after much bantering and ribbing and having a smiley 'fight' on facebook, whatsapp and email with variations of smileys I posted on a meetup profile that I was the "Advocate of the No Nose Smiley" (mainly because S (whom I was having this bantering with) was also going to be at the meetup. As a stupid prank I've decided to register the domain NoNoseSmiley.com and move my personal blog so I can take on the mantle of the No Nose Smiley Advocate.

Howes Valley is now for sale... Again. We decided to try a Sydney agent Cutcliffe and have informed Ray White in Singleton. We only realized the agreement had lapsed end of December!  But they had continued to list the property which was good. Anyway it's all now with Cutcliffe. I tried to increase awareness by building a blog which I've neglected but may try and spend a few hours fixing it and publishing over this long weekend. We'll be going up to the property to do some Weed and Feed. Last time we went up we saw there was some fruit including passion fruit!  And the usual figs which never seem to make it!

It's been a while since I've blogged here... Mainly as I have too many blogs to update these days!  99interns is the most regular as there is accountability, Oddswop is neglected as there is too much happening and my house blog is often updated as I'm so engaged!  I tried doing a blurt out blog on oddstart but that didn't last long. Too few hours per day. I do think maybe a social media platform will work better. Maybe I should be using g+ for that type of thing? Worth thinking about. Today is the start of new beginnings. Any day is or hour or minute. But with an earlier start due to daylight savings ending it feels good....

We're about to rip up our old brushwood fencing and really wanted to find a better end to it than burning it (up at Howes Valley in the appropriate season) or throwing it away. I wonder if there are any ideas people have on upcycling it. A quick google didn't yield anything but chances are I didn't search for the right term.  I'm sure it'd make a great decorating idea.  We even succumbed to the twigs in a vase at some stage but it never really looked right... Some options I can think of: - make a xmas wreath out of it (I think I missed the season though!) - weave a basket ?? - create a bin enclosure with brushwood - thatch a roof Hmm... they all seem quite ridiculous. Would love any ideas of what I can do with this stuff.

After doing a bit of Googling it does seem that there is a lot of information about the Aldi Expressi Coffee machine but not that much about the flavour pods. I thought I'd pop some of our initial comments here about what we have found after about a month's of usage. Firstly about the machine... it's great in producing very consistent coffee. Coffee snobs may laugh at it but it produces consistently good coffee often much better than some of the cafes around. We're very wussy in our coffee drinking habits and tend to like: Instant = Nescafe Gold Blend or Moccona Vanilla Ground Coffee = Illy Medium Roast or Gloria Jeans flavoured coffee (Vanilla or Hazelnut) We have our coffees with milk so YMMV.  When I'm out I tend to go for a Soy Mocha... So... the flavours we like the best are: Perugia (strength 5) - smooth with no bitter aftertaste Tauro (strength 5) - another smooth one Milano (strength 10) -- very smooth and not as strong as the number seems to ...

Social media and eDMs are all happening next week.  But I'm excited... as www.oddswop.com.au is alive! Andre, Dave and myself celebrated today over lunch after a Product brainstorming session around our communities model.  There's more at the Oddstart blog as well.