Bucking the Block

Posted in Lifestyle by

It’s finally time for me to admit it- Guys, I have Writer’s Block, an illness that is easily as serious and debilitating as the Man Flu or the Clone-Killing Nanovirus. Scratch that. This is way more serious.

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In an effort to cure myself of this crippling ailment, I’ve spent the last month trawling the internet, reading as much as possible; everything from books and newspapers to the ingredients on the back of shampoo bottles in my shower (I don’t know what Methylisothiazolinone or chloromethylisothiazolinone are exactly, but apparently they’re bad for skin, or the ozone layer or something). I also spent a disgusting amount of time reading other people’s blogs, obnoxiously long Facebook statuses and tweets and in doing that discovered something: Writing is a lot like running.

The Tweeters of the world are sprinters: they cover a very short distance in a really quick time. Unlike those of us who tend to ramble on a bit, they have to get their point across in just 140 characters, including beginning, middle and end.

Then  there are the Facebook Fanatics who answer ‘What’s on your mind?’ with not just one, but every single thought they had that day. These are the literary hurdlers – longer distances, more of a challenge and more pressure to make their words interesting without being boring or repetitive.

Then there’s us, the bloggers who devote entire days to writing lengthy, somewhat sassy posts about everything from split-legged jeans to the state of Australian politics. We are the marathon runners. The mentally-fit and fabulous distance writers who take a while to get to the finish line, but make the read worth-while (if I may say so myself).

And these people are the triathletes that make the rest of us look lazy…

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I am hoping now that, having spent January wallowing in self pity, I am fully recovered and back in the writing game. Keep your fingers crossed for me though, guys. The last thing any of us want is a relapse!

– by Blaire Gillies (God it’s good to be writing that again. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of crossing the finish line!)

Happy Straya Day mate!

Posted in Lifestyle by

I know our beloved country day is wrapping up but I still thought I’d get in and wish everyone on behalf of Solstice Satisfaction a solid Australia Day, even if you live in another country.

As SolSat is based in Australia and the team are located in different cities, I can happily say that we are the fortunate ones who get to live in this wonderful country where you can say what you want, believe what you want and so on and so forth. Unless you’re calling a cop “a pig”. That is an arrestable offence.

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I sincerely hope you all had a beer or two, put on your best green and gold outfits – or red, white and blue outfits, as it were – and spent the day with loved ones. Just as a quick reminder to some who may have forgotten, here are some of the best things about being Australian:

What are some of the best things about being Australian…

[x] We are generally stereotyped as one of the most calm, collected and laidback cultures in the world. Why? Because we’re awesome, obviously.
[x] We have our own cool way of speaking English, called speaking “Strayan”. If you need a refresher on how to speak Strayan, we’ve got you covered.
[x] In Australia, we call mates “c-word that rhymes with punt” and we call c-word that rhymes with punts “mate”. Who else is cool enough to do that?
[x] Sprinting in thongs. If you can’t do it, you’re not Australian.
[x] We know that you do not actually cook shrimp on the barbie.
[x] Going to the shops in a daggy tank top, footy shorts and thongs, and it is completely socially acceptable.

Now to end this quick post, here are some of the few awesome Australia Day pictures I found on my Facebook timeline.

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Happy Straya Day!

– by The Black Widow

What I Miss About You, Bebo

Posted in Lifestyle by

I don’t know about you, but as a young youth growing up in Sydney (say between the ages of 13 and 16), the go to social networking site was Bebo. Sure, MySpace and Hi-5 were around back then, but Bebo was the one that all the cool kids went on.

Share the luv!

Share the luv!

Now, we have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and all of the above, and pretty much no one uses Bebo anymore. Why? Because Bebo simply became outdated. It’s the unfortunate truth with trends – they all go out of fashion eventually. Regardless of this – and my love for Facebook – there are several things that I miss about that good ol’ red B.

What I miss about you…

[x] Share the luv. How grand was it pestering people to give you “luv” so your little love heart count could top that of your high school rivals. I specifically remember having a pretty damn high luv count compared to those of my high school classmates and I always felt the need to brag about it. How did I get such a high number of luv? Via pestering, of course. And “luv for luv”.

[x] Flash boxes. Remember how you could have a video or some other form of “flash box” play on your Bebo profile? Wasn’t that the coolest thing ever? I remember my first flash box was Control Myself by LL Cool J ft. Jennifer Lopez. I don’t even know why; I didn’t even like that song that much. After, however, I managed to get Pacman into my flash box and became the coolest kid on the block. Subtle JLo reference. It just added that extra zing to your profile to establish just who the hell you were in the land of Bebo.

[x] Top 16. You knew your relationship was real when you were in each others top 16. It was cool but also quite pressuring to establish your top 16 because if someone had you in their top 16 and the feelings weren’t reciprocated, well, that just made it awkward for everyone. Of course, to make sure this didn’t happen, there were always “I’ll put you in my top 16 if you put me in yours” conversations. Problem solved.

[x] Other halves. Aww. You had your friends, you had your top 16 friends, and then you had your other half. This person would get their own little space on your profile with a cute little message attached to them. The twelvies would always have their flavours of the week with “luv u bbygurl s2” which was awkward because they always broke up like five minutes after. I can happily say I had under five other halves and they were never romantic counterparts.

[x] Photo stealing. How annoying is it if you want to steal someone else’s picture on Facebook and then re-upload it onto your own profile? That’s a long tedious procedure if you ask me. Back on Bebo, all you had to do was select the picture you wanted to steal, click “Copy”, pick an album to put it in, and voila – it’s there. No bruises or scratches.

[x] Custom skins. What was originally made famous on MySpace became a big thing on Bebo. While we’ve become accustomed to the Facebook blue default skin and probably couldn’t care less about it, the cool thing about Bebo was the option to pick a cool profile skin and jazz it up a bit. I once dabbled in creating my own Bebo skins and came up with cool WWE Diva skins, like Mickie James and Torrie Wilson. Complete with “Made by Noah La’ulu” tag, of course.

With news that Bebo is making a comeback and will be better than before, may we see the return of luv sharing, flash boxes and other halves? Hopefully. However, I will give my honest journo’s opinion – I don’t see Bebo toppling Facebook at this point in time. It’ll be nice to see them try, though.

Much luv to all of you SolSatters!

– by The Black Widow

Review: Nobody But Him

Posted in Books, Entertainment by

So guys, I finally did it. I got around to finishing the romance novel I have been in the middle of for well over four months now. It’s not to say that the book was terrible, it was just because I lacked the motivation to finish off the novel. Oops.

Anywho, Nobody But Him by Victoria Purman is a romance novel set in the fictitious beachside town of Middle Point in SA, near Radelaide. The story features the two main characters, Julia Jones and Ryan Blackburn, as they encounter each other after years of trying to forget each other after that “one summer” that I’m sure everyone has had.

Follow the love story of Julia Jones and Ry Blackburn. You won't regret it!

Follow the love story of Julia Jones and Ry Blackburn. You won’t regret it!

I’m just gonna say it. There were too many mistakes in the novel that somehow made it past the editors that made it difficult for me to fully enjoy. The sub-editor in me did not approve in the slightest. I understand one mistake or two in the final copy because not everyone is perfect, but when the mistake count requires two hands, that’s when you know that someone stuffed up. With all due respect to Ms. Purman and her superiors, I really feel as if this problem should’ve been rectified before the novel hit the shelves. The wrong use of “your/you’re” was enough to do it for me.

Sub-editing aside, the storyline of it was okay. It didn’t wow me but it did make me feel that bubbly sensation inside when I am experiencing fictional love. The sprouting love, or re-love as it were, between Julia and Ry was inevitable and the developments of their relationship throughout the novel kept me reading on and on. I didn’t feel as if there were any other major stories in the book that were properly explored, but that just only shows you how important the relationship between Julia and Ry is.

I found the style of writing to be effective but I don’t think it suited my style of reading. The books I like to read and the style I like to write my novels in (shameless plug for My Best Friend and I) has action after action and quick, snappy dialogue. Nobody But Him had action and snappy dialogue but it also had a lot of detailed descriptions and imagery used in the book; the language used to illustrate these images was on point and it definitely added to the homely beach feel of Middle Point. However, because I have the attention span of a fly, I found myself lost in these words and I eventually skimmed the lovely descriptions to get to the main juice of the story – the love of Julia and Ry.

Victoria Purman managed to achieve something in this novel that not many other romance novelists manage to do – create a book heroine who isn’t a complete moron. I found myself actually liking Julia Jones, although she had her questionable moments. She wasn’t helpless or needy or whiney and was the epitome of a woman-in-charge. I liked that in her. Ry Blackburn was just a dreamboat, not gonna lie. I couldn’t help but picture Caleb Geppert in the role of Ry as I read this novel, and that is most definitely a good thing.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.0
Style of writing: 6.2
Overall: 6.6

Nobody But Him is a keeper and I have no regrets in purchasing this book and adding it to my nearly overflowing bookcase; however, I feel as if the entire novel could have been executed better, especially without the typos and grammatical errors. That’s just me talking, especially because I’m anal when it comes to grammar and spelling. I think all you SolSatters out there would enjoy this novel.

– by The Black Widow