We're back in town ..

It's always nice to spend time with the relatives ... here's DTM giving Alex some PC advice.


Lorne was lovely. You should all go there.

Holiday seizin'

It's Christmas party time - drink responsibly. Just have one, if you're driving.

In other news, I'll be beaching it at Lorne until the 28th December, just in time to miss the Falls Festival.

My new car (Maxx) will not be travelling with us, we are taking the Suby instead - because of all round touring comfort.

Anyway take it easy - I'll catch y'all later.

a fly can't bird, but a bird can fly

Ask me a riddle, and I reply
Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie.

When I was small, my daddy used to read books to me (yes, that's right, television used to be called books !) and he used to put in all the funny voices so I really saw the Red Queen, or the old Grandfather, or Badger, in my imagination.

One afternoon in my new free time I'm going to sit down with Winnie-the-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner , and the two books of poetry When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.

What a lovely way to spend a day!

-- from your local Bear of Very Little Brain.

What's with the weather?

I mean, it's going in the oddest cycles. 15 degrees at night, up to mid-20's during the day, gradually rising over the week to 33 - thirty-three?!?!?! on Saturday at which point we will have spectacular storms, and then back to 19 - nineteen!!!! on Sunday. At which point it goes up again gradually until 33 the following Saturday.


Do you think it's global warming? There's a popular (and probably misquoted) theory that weather patterns are due to a butterfly frapping its wings in the Amazon. But this article says that at least one species of flutterby is on the verge of extinction due to global warming. So I think it's actually all butterfly interspecies conflict. Eventually all that will be left is the species causing the weather, at which point they'll stop frapping their wings.

Oh wait, don't butterflies have to flap their wings to survive or something? Dang. That's obviously not a well-thought-out genocide plan.

how to calibrate a geek

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Chapman
Sent: Monday, 21 November 2005 10:19 PM
To: butercup
Subject: Top 20 Sci-Fi novels...

Link from Slashdot (featuring American Gods at number 17).

-----------------------------------
So anyway, rather than bore you with heading off to that link, there was a list of 20 sci-fi novels ranked according to how many geeks liked them. Of the top 20, I've read the following:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27)

and
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35) <<<-- I'm not sure if this is the one I finished, or the one I didn't. I borrowed 2 from the Michael named above, and damme if I can remember which one I liked less.

I'm obviously a geek. But the point is, I knew if I waited long enough, someone would make it easier for me to tell the universe what I like. The list from above, reordered according to my preferences, which can henceforth be used to calibrate my book reviews:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29)

BTW - I just finished American Gods, and I was disappointed. I think it comes down to the fact that Gaiman gives you too much. I could predict what a character would do next, or what would happen next, and it would be correct. I much preferred having to work a bit harder for the outcome, like in Quicksilver. Now that's an excellent book. Why isn't *it* in that top 20. Sheesh!

And come to think of it, there are other books by the writers in the "top 20" that I would put on *my* list anyway. I particularly liked The Number of the Beast by Heinlein, I mentioned Quicksilver (Stephenson) and I can't leave out The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. But anyway ... consider the calibration complete.

... here endeth the lesson, kids. Now go out and read.

it is time for some poetry

Crap joke in inbox
Rewritten as a haiku
And then sent to blog:

Man visits the zoo.
But there is only a dog.

It is a shitzu.

Thanks jarv. You rock.

domesticity

Ahh .. peace ...

It's 3.45pm on a Sunday afternoon. The birds are chirping happily, it's about 25 degrees with a bit of a breeze and I've just farewelled the last of my school friends who was here for brunch. Brunch!! It's 3.45pm!!

It's so good to be finished with the studying. For one thing I've been able to read Novels!! Although nothing stopped me from reading them during the MBA, I always felt like there was something else I should be doing instead. Matter of fact, there usually was!! But now I'm free, I have the results due in December sometime, and so now I can indulge in some essentially non-productive behaviour. Like ... reading novels! In fact I started my first post-MBA novel on Tuesday (after the Exam) .. and finished it this morning. [It was Neil Gaiman's American Gods, if you're interested. Very well written, but not as gripping as Neal Stephenson.]

I'm so happy to be able to relax on the couch, feet up, watching Buffy, with a glass of leftover bubbly and some brunchy nibbles. DTM's gone for a sing - maybe I'll have tetris-stacked the leftovers into the fridge by the time he gets back ... or maybe not. It's just so hard to get motivated ...

smells like green spirit

You recall I was wondering about the smell of freshly cut genetically engineered grass, among other things .. well thanks to the largish amount of rain we've had recently, and some well-timed sunshine, our lawn had its first haircut last weekend.

The entire of the saga can be viewed through flickr . Suffice to say, that lawn never stood a chance, 10 minutes and the lawn mower was victorious.

Posted by Picasa


And after all that, even if it did smell like freshly cut grass, we couldn't keep it. Someone already trademarked that smell - for tennis balls. *sigh*

hahahahahahahaha *sigh*

One of the many varied weird and wonderful places I regularly visit on the IntarWeb is The Sneeze - "half zine, half blog, half not good with fractions". The author - "Steve" - has an excellently twisted sense of humour that appeals to the weird in me.

And bizarrely, reading his blog reminds me eerily of my other pal Steve whom you may remember from such delights as our garage band, or the Princess Bride Underpants Substitution game.

Anyway today's Sneeze update (which funnily enough I was reading while having a sneezing fit ... hmmm..) is laff-out-loud hilarious. I just couldn't keep it to myself.

Follow the white rabbit and enjoy ...

but that, my children, would be cannibalism

One of the best movie quotes I've heard lately: Johnny Depp as Wacky Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Obviously these bears who ate their owner didn't see the movie. (and on a side note: eeew!)

Johnny Depp really is a fabbo actor. I only recently realised just how excellent he is. Apart from the above-linked excellent IMDB resource, his wikipedia entry shows some more of his coolness. Here's another hint as to the deppth [sic] of his coolness: He's going to play Jean-Dominique Bauby in the film adaptation of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. As Neo would say, "Woah".

Anyway I ranted about movie critics a while back. Last night I managed to watch a whole episode of Margaret and David "At The Movies". I've gotta say, I find myself trusting David a lot more than Margaret. He seems more my style, though being a critic sometimes what he says just makes *no* sense to me.

Last night they reviewed the new Pride and Prejudice, a Russian flick called Night Watch and a South African film called Yesterday. And they have convinced me to check out these films (if they come on for 8 bucks at cinebuzz anyway). There's my 8 cents for yesterday going to good use.

so very surveyed

10 Favourites...
Favourite Color: The first time I thought about a favourite colour it was red, deep crimson red. Then purple, and migrating on through to pink.
Favourite Food: Yes. I like food. It's my favourite.
Favourite Band/Singer: I don't really have one. I like 80's glam rock, musical theatre and jazz, so you tell me.
Favourite Song: Teddy Bears' Picnic
Favourite Movie: The Princess Bride (duh!)
Favourite Sport: Fencing, Fighting, Torture, Revenge, Pirates, True Love.
Favourite Season: Spring
Favourite Day Of the Week: Sunday
Favourite Ice Cream Flavour: Vanilla Bean gelato at Lello's - oo yum.
Favourite Time of Day: When I've just woken up, or am just about to fall asleep. Mm. Bed.

9 Currents...
Current Mood: Content (though sleepy)
Current Taste: Tea
Current Clothes: Pyjamas
Current Desktop Picture: Scene of Lake Wakatipu with DTM in the foreground from our trip to Queenstown in July this year.
Current Toenail Color: Natural
Current Time: 10 pm
Current Surroundings: Dining room
Current Annoyance(s): Knowing I should be in bed right now but addicted to blogging!!
Current Thought: <blank>

8 Firsts...
First Best Friends: Susan, Sharon and Aida in primary school
First movie: Err. Superman, maybe, or The Empire Strikes Back.
First Screen Name: butercup
First Pet: Does a rock count?
First Piercing: Left ear. Or maybe the right one. The other followed shortly afterwards :)
First Crush: Robert Dean. He could talk like Donald Duck.
First Music You Remember Hearing: ABBA, or Rolf Harris, in a car on the way to Melbourne.
First Car: Never owned one. I drive around a lot in my mum's Camry, and DTM's Forester.

7 Lasts...
Last Cigarette: Never smoked. I held a cigarette for a friend once for about 30 seconds 4 years ago.
Last Drink: Alcoholic - a glass of Merlot last night. Non alcoholic - tea, see above.
Last Car Ride: I drove home from the station tonight, about 3.5 hours ago. As in long trips, to DTM's mum's place, an hour's drive, a couple of weeks ago.
Last food you ate: Homemade lemon tart. Yum.
Last Movie Seen: Serenity. So good.
Last Phone Call: To DTM to say I was coming home late, about 5.30pm tonight.
Last CD Played: Beatles, 1962-1966, Disc 2.

6 Have You Evers....
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: Nope.
Have You Ever Broken the Law: Speeding, sure.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Nope.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yep.
Have You Ever Been on TV: Yep. 10 seconds on Quantum because I was in the right place at the right time.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Not that I know of. If I've kissed you and I don't know you, don't tell me.

5 Things....
You're Wearing: Wedding ring, spectacles, left slipper, right slipper, hair tie.
Done Today: Messed round trying to find a bug in software for 8 hours. Emailed my sister-in-law. Bought a cup of coffee. Stepped on someone's toes on the train. Had a shower.
You Can Hear Right Now: Dishwasher doing its thing, the puter humming, random pops as my body goes to sleep, interior monologue, keys tapping ... What a stupid question.
You Can't Live Without: DTM, laughter, communicating with people, time to myself, time with friends.
You Do When You're Bored: Bake, blog, watch The Princess Bride, snooze, sing to myself

4 Places You've Been...
Hong Kong
Queenstown (NZ)
Manila (Philippines)
Toronto (Canada)

3 People You Can Tell Anything To...
DTM
My dad
My cousin (oh dear, I was meant to call him)


2 Choices...
1. Black or White: Black
2. Hot or Cold: Cold

1 Thing You Want to Do Before you die.
Be held by DTM (while watching the Princess Bride) (in bed)

Goodnight all...

A rose by any other name..

.. apparently, wouldn't smell as sweet, well not any more.

I've long suspected that ornamental roses, the ones you buy in the shops when you're apologising for not getting a better present, smell much less sweet than those you chop off someone's rosebush as you walk past. Finally someone got a grant to study the stinkiness of flowers, and discovered the biochemical reason behind it. Apparently the colour compounds come from the same precursors as the scent compounds, and hence if you dick with one, you dick with the other. So more colour=less smell, etc.

Thanks to BoingBoing now we all know the truth.

Another exciting piece of news is that we have grass!! Real grass (well probably highly genetically engineered, or at least cross-bred). It's allegedly engineered to cope well with the conditions in our backyard: i.e. a total of 2 hours of indirect sun per day as well as the everpresent drought. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I will be able to finally see the results of all DTM's hard work landscaping while he's been an otherwise jobless bum.


When we eventually cut the grass, I wonder if it will still smell like cut grass or if it will have lost its smell too (being genetically engineered).

reading, riting and ...

When I started this blogging thing, I thought periodically I might do a book review or talk about a film I'd seen or something. Obviously this hasn't happened much to date, but nobody seems to have been complaining. For another thing, I usually can't stand movie reviews. If it was made by an established critic, then I have no idea what they are talking about, as it usually sounds like they saw a completely different film to the rest of the world. And another thing, I strongly feel that the way we interact with the world, our attitude, philosophy, whatever, is made up of all the experiences we have had, and all the people we have interacted with, basically we are the sum of our lives; so if I'm reading a review written by someone whom I have never met, how am I to assess whether their viewpoint would mesh with my own, considering that they have had totally different experiences to mine?

That being said, I do take my friends' reviews into account: because I know them, I know in general terms how they see the world, and so I can basically calibrate their responses against my own philosophy. (By the way, if you say you didn't like The Princess Bride, rest assured that I will totally ignore your opinion as you're obviously an addlepated fool.)

So with those ideas as a disclaimer, now it's time for you, gentle readers, to grab a cup of tea and read my opinion of a book I read recently.

It's called "Three Views of Crystal Water" and it's by Katherine Govier and it's set against World War 2 and the American-Japanese conflict. But it's a story about people and how they react to the war and the racial tensions and all that. Kind of like Snow Falling on Cedars, only much less of a romance story. But the plot itself (though good) is not the gripping thing about this book. The author just has a fantastic way with words that sucks you in, I found it so intense that I actually had to put the book down and breathe every now and again. One of the things that really grabbed me is the way she describes some Japanese woodcuts. I love Japanese woodcuts, I'm sitting under a print of one right now .. I love looking into them and creating a story for the people I see in them. And get this - so does the protagonist in this book. So instantly I feel myself sucked into the story. It's a really great tale of how people really are just people, despite the largeness of war and current events, in the end it really is all about people.

I think one of the reasons I never write reviews is that it's hard to get my point across. Suffice it to say - if you like reading books that examine human relationships in the midst of massive events: then read this book. If not, then don't worry about it.

If you want to know what other books I like, so you can calibrate my review, I really enjoyed Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Like Three Views, they are intense, and all about people interacting amidst huge world changing events.

I've just signed up for the HarperCollins FirstLook program, by the way, so hopefully I will get more reviewing practice soon. I think I might need all the practice I can get!!

interruptus

I was just thinking of doing something... but wait, there was that other thing.. Oh and right, I had to just ...

Apparently, if you get interrupted while doing something your brain sets some kind of flag, telling you to remember that you got interrupted, and that triggers you to keep going back to check on it later so according to these people you actually will complete interrupted tasks more fully than those that you do all at once. Apparently this can be used to "explain" the current "craze" for multitasking. You work better when interrupted, therefore you should be interrupted more often, with more work, because when you're interrupted you have a greater chance of completing the work you were interrupted doing. Or something.

In other news they have discovered that the effect described above is totally nonexistent in males when it comes to housework.

Oh, ouch, that was a snide comment, no really DTM is great with housework. It's just that I've noticed if he (or other males I know) gets distracted in the middle of something, (generally anything that isn't paid work) it just sort of gets left by the wayside indefinitely. Whereas that interruptus effect is always running in most females I know. Keeping track of X number of things that need to be kept track of, it's just always running. What's more it's usually nested, so right now I've got the following set of instructions pootling along:

  • parents are on holidays, thus
    • check their watering system is working (1-off)
    • check their mail for bills that need paying while they're away (3 or 4 times) thus
      • go to their house thus
        • on the way go to Northside Produce market requiring
          • stop at ATM for cash then
          • drop off in-laws mail collected while they were away and then on to parents' place so
          • have access to broadband thus
        • return to in-laws as they weren't awake before then and
        • on the way home drop in on Becca and Ed and Louise requiring
          • pick up some lunch and flowers and
          • call DTM so he can meet me there.
gosh! Although now that I've written it all down there's bound to be something else to add... *sigh*

political commentary

I'm not normally one to express a political opinion.

This thing happening in the US though, it's pretty scary. The sheer amount of information available over the web covering all aspects of Hurricane Katrina is astounding. I've been keeping up with the news mainly via BoingBoing which is relaying blog posts and photoblogs from some people on the inside of the refugee shelters. It's freaky stuff. And kind of horrifying. You've got all these people who are now sitting around displaced, having lost their homes, livelihoods, probably friends, loved ones and all their worldly possessions, in short everything that makes them individuals ... they probably thought they were part of the greatest country in the world, and now they are all feeling like they have been sidelined by their government.

Well, hey, it sure looks that way doesn't it. I'm not going to add to all the political blogging mainly because I wouldn't know how to express my complete bewilderment ... I was following a "timeline of a disaster" and it just amazes me how the Administration knew the hurricane would come, they knew the extent of the impact, and they diverted funds from flood prevention and risk management.

So anyway, you can read tons of stuff about this on the web already. Why should I post anything about it? Well because I came across this image today, and thought, now that's worth preserving. I'm sure they meant it to refer to the Hurricane. Or did they?

If you can't read that clearly (or you've turned off images or something) it says in big bold letters "Bush: One of the worst disasters to hit the U.S."

Ahh.

who are you?

BBrainy
UUnforgettable
TTemperamental
EExtraordinary
RRadiant
CCharismatic
UUnusual
PPretty



Who are you?

Name Acronym Generator from Go-Quiz.com

You'll have to post your results in the comments ;)

on finishing things..

It's been a wild week for achieving stuff!

Firstly I did eventually finish that assignment, and it did get sent successfully. The nail-biting wait for the results has begun. Although the true nail-biting won't start till after the exam, I guess, as I have a lot riding on this one ;)

A post-assignment bakefest seemed in order. I love baking. It's one of those things that I could just do for days .. and have been known to do so, in the past. But during assignment and exam time I'm even more keen to bake, it's a procrastination thing I guess. Anyway the perfect excuse came up: My parents were having a dinner party and my job was to bring the dessert. So I thought about this... my speciality is a baked lemon cheesecake (most of you know how yummy that is) and I'm also quite partial to making chocolatey desserts. But the food theme was Vietnamese, so I decided to go for something not too heavy. What springs to mind when you think of "not too heavy" ..? Meringue!! Pavlova has to be my all-time least favourite dessert food, while it's my dad's all-time best favourite. Coupled with it being Father's Day and all, I thought of attempting to overcome my innate dislike and make a pav - but sense prevailed. After all how can you enjoy baking something you're not going to eat?

In keeping with the meringue theme though, and the aforementioned lemon speciality, I thought how about a lemon meringue pie!!! So I did it. With a lemon from DTM's grandparents' 50-year old lemon tree, so it was a real family effort :)


I've also achieved a personal milestone: I finally finished listening to EarthCore. It's just amazing. I really enjoyed the story, and I really like the way it finished. It was a mix of happy and tragic, and also left you hanging just a little bit so you could keep thinking about it later. The only thing I worry about, is that the monsters are called "rocktopi" like "octopi" but a single monster isn't a "rocktopus". That bothered me ;) but the rocktopi name is a very clever idea. So anyway now I've finally started listening to The Pocket and the Pendant in a concerted manner. I'm only in Chapter 2 so far, but it's very good. The background music is a nice touch. Michael recommends I also try out Morevi - so that's next on my list (who knows when I will get a chance to catch up on all this!!).

And finally, DTM is on stage again, that's not one of my personal achievements, but it's still pretty cool. He's in the Savoy Arts production of HMS Pinafore, playing the bosun (as he did for Berowra "a many moons ago"). I'm going to see it on Saturday (closing) night to show solidarity. It's a fun show.

So - in all I guess you could say .. I'm pretty happy right now !!


motivation and procrastination

First up, a moment to reminisce: once when I was very small, I must have been reading the dictionary and I learned a new word "procrastinate". I was really impressed with this word, because it seemed just right for me - put everything off till the last minute and then come through with flying colours. Well when I went to share this new exciting word it came out all wrong. I intended to say "Mummy, I know what I want to be when I grow up - a procrastinator!". But somehow my very little brain mixed that up and it came out "Mummy, I want to be a prostitute when I grow up!" My mummy nearly had a heart attack and told me to go read the dictionary again. And that's how I learned what a prostitute is.

So anyway, sprint forward through time to now, 2005, and I've been at school in some form or another almost continuously since 1980. Apart from a 2-year gap just after finishing my undergraduate degree, I've been studying for more-than-twenty-years. You'd be forgiven for thinking that that's impossible as I only look 16 years old - but really who am I kidding. The studying has aged me. But in that 20-or-so years I've been really good at procrastinating. Somehow I always seem to get everything done, but at the last minute. The most organised I ever was, was in Year 12 we had to do a writing folder over the course of 6 months and I started it 3 months before it was due. But that was actually fun.

So right now, I'm studying for my MBA, and this is my last semester ever. You'd think by now, having done an undergraduate degree, an honours year, and 11 subjects of my MBA, that I would have learned to not leave uni assignments to the last minute. For one thing they tend to need a fair bit of research and so you'd think it would be obvious to the assessor that I'd done it all in the last 2 weeks.

Being my last semester ever* of study is pretty cool, apart from the Pareto principle. That's something I learned about in Unit PDM303 - that old saying how you get 80% of the work done in the first 20% of the time, and the 20% that's left takes the remaining 80% of the time. Or that 20% effort puts in 80% of the work, or any other way you want to put it. What I'm trying to say, is that now that I'm eleven-twelfths (that's about 90%) of the way through my degree, the last 10% is mighty hard for me to get motivated about.

So anyway, my last assignment ever is due tonight. At midnight. I put the finishing touches to it on the train this morning at about 9.30am. So I was 14.5 hours ahead! Who ever said I was procrastinating? I'm just really sleepy from the late nights over the last 2 weeks... My last exam ever is on the 8th of November, people. So don't ask me to be friendly in the two weeks leading up to it because I'll be cramming ... yes, leaving all the studying to the last minute ;) ... can't wait to finish ... all I need is a pass this semester, that's all. A pass.

Oh and did I mention I was working on it on the train? That's because I have me a cute new lappy. It's a Compaq Presario and it's a wiiiidescreen and it's entirely too cute for words. Now that the assignment's over I'm planning to watch Buffy DVDs on the train in the mornings :)

*The term last semester ever is here to placate DTM. He said recently if I have to do another semester of my MBA that it's divorce material. I've been using the MBA as an excuse to get out of housework for 5 years. I guess he's figured that out.

having got so far, it seems a pity to waste it

Yeah I know you've all been badgering me about updating my blog. Well here's an email update that may work, or may not, in which case you'd never know, but for that reason it's probably also going to be shorter than most. Just like me.

So anyway I was caught out recently saying "Bother!". Now this is not something that would normally catch me out, except that someone else said in response - Oh, it's Winnie the Pooh! And after I recovered from my double-take, I thought, hmmm, it really is Winnie-the-Pooh. Those who know me well (all 2 of you) know that most of my quotable quote repertoire comes from the Princess Bride or from Clueless, with a little bit of Buffy thrown in. But in fact I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a large chunk of my vocabulary that comes from Winnie the Pooh. After all, it was my favourite book to have read to me when I was little. As I got older I enjoyed Alice in Wonderland as well, but that's another story... (ooowww, bad punning..)

So anyway, back to "Oh Bother" and the quote that names this post. I wouldn't say it's my most favourite Pooh Bear story, because they're all good. But anyway this one, where Pooh gets stuck in a hole, is just funny.

"Having got so far, it seems a pity to waste it"

Ciao....

Smarter? Or just more Clarkly..


So one day recently I got new specs.

Of course the question most people ask is "do they make me look smarter" - but as you all know, I'm a highly intelligent person - adding spectacle-induced smarts would be sort-of redundant.

So noooo, what I went for is the Clark Kent effect. When I wear my specs, I'm a totally different person. See, here is my alter ego writing postcards from EnnZed .... because that's far too boring for super-me.


I had this flashback recently, about that Twisties ad, where there is a woman sitting in the cinema and she opens a packet of those cheesy munchies, and tall, dark and handsome steps out of the movie screen and walks down to her asking if he can have a Twistie.

When I mentioned it to my colleagues, they looked at me as if I was insane.

Then all of a sudden (2 weeks later) I realised that I was missing the vital ingredient - the name of the original movie where that happened!! Yes, folks, it was indeed

(drum roll please)

The Purple Rose of Cairo
!!

A flick by Woody Allen, starring Mia Farrow (of course) and Jeff Daniels. Whoever he was.

Obviously I recalled the film name because of the new specs.

[I don't think I want Twisties any more after going to their homepage:
"Twisties is the number one extruded snack brand with lots of tasty flavours and fun shapes to choose from. Twisties makes any snack time “FUN”tastic with all the guaranteed quality and freshness that Twisties is famous for."

Err... the number one extruded snack? When did I ask for truth in advertising? Was this written in Engrish?]

Back, mostly in one piece


Woohoo!!!! What a fantastic time we had over the last 2 weeks. I just know you all missed us terribly.

I had fun! Here's a pic of me with my teeny tiny skis. Yes, they are 150cm long, yes I know I'm a shorty.

So we skied at two places - the Remarkables and Cardrona, which was awesome. It was beautiful weather, there were hardly any people, and just so much interesting terrain/trails. You can follow my route on the trail map - I had a ball of a time, riding up one lift (MacDougall's), going across the mountain (Shaun's Way) to the next basin, skiing down to the base (Captain's Basin) then across the mountain (Comeback Trail) back again and riding up Whitestar to do it all again! The entire round trip was at least 30 minutes. So it was an excellent run. And my skiing has improved, though I'm still tentative on the blue runs ... as long as they're wide I'm ok!!

We also did a 4WD tour around some of the LOTR sites. Mostly it was "this patch of forest/river/hillside is very similar to one that was digitally enhanced and edited to appear as Lothlorien/Isengard/hillside in one of the LOTR films". It was an excellent way to see the countryside though, and a nice way to spend a morning. Tammy our driver was really knowledgeable about the countryside, the local flora, and history of everything we drove through.

Then we flew back to Sydney and overflew the entire of the southern/western suburbs. It's kind of sobering to come from a country with about 4 million people (plus or minus 100,000 Aussie tourists) back to a city with more than that. But if you don't have the contrast I guess it makes the holiday a bit less special. So - Queenstown was awesome, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone. If you want to know more juicy details just email me - if you wait for me to post it then you may be a long time waiting.

snow? whassat?

According to these people:

Snow is precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes. Since it is composed of small rough particles it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure.

According to me, however, snow is just white, cold stuff, that is excellent for skiing on, and is only one short sleep away from me :)

I'm looking forward to seeing the sun rise over the mountains. The high altitude makes everything doubly pretty (oh and the snow helps a bit too..!)


Sunrise over the Remarkables, from snow.co

So anyway, as we will be in Queenstown either skiing or sleeping for the next 2 weeks there may be very little in the way of blog updates for that period.

Will you miss me?

A couple of things to think about

FIVE FOUR SLEEPS TO GO ....

Being real busy at work right now because of my upcoming holiday I can't update this as much as I want. So I'll just keep the sleeps count up-to-date. You'll live.


Do you ever complain about not having the proper tools to do your job? Well pity the poor soldiers in Britain who have run out of blank ammo for training exercises. A little undignified for them, running around shouting "Bang!" and making that funny machine-gun sound "bdrdrdrdrdrdrdr...!!" (well , you try to type it!)

Anyway speaking of tools, I've been loathe to download and install iTunes 4.9 simply because my home puter is hardly ever connected to tha IntarWeb so there seemed little point to it - after all the major joy of iTunes 4.9 is the podcatching, right? So anyway tooling around on the internet a while ago I came across this little place called Odeo. They are offering a podcatcher and it's finally available in beta. Why Odeo over iTunes? Partly, the traditional geeky feeling of "you want to make me rely on your software, but I don't want to be forced into anything" and partly because they're new, small, and cute. Don't get me wrong, my puter is still hardly ever connected to the Net, but I like supporting the little guy. Sometimes they get big - look what happened to Google!! Other geeks agree with me, and publish specific ways to not use iTunes.

So today Odeo opened up for beta .. and I went to see what the fuss was about. First off, their front page is a whole lot friendlier ! No, really! I visited iTunes.com just to compare and it just doesn't make me want to explore further. Odeo reminds me of the HHGTTG - with large friendly writing on the cover, that kind of thing.

What's more they seem to (so far) emphasise independent podcasts over corporate ones. So the first place I visited was One Minute Vacations. This strikes me as an excellent project, kinda like PostSecret and Illustration Friday in that it's a community artistic effort. One Minute Vacations offers up to 60 seconds of recording (so each file is <2Mb, which is actually feasible on my dial-up connection) of some environment that is chosen to transport the listener out of their dreary existence for that short time. I like it!! So far I've only listened to the sound of a woman striking a bell and chanting in Japan, but it is sufficient. I'm hooked. I'll download their catcher tonight and hook my PC up to this podcatching net.

And who knows, maybe I'll record my own One Minute Vacation next week in Queenstown. Mmm, the shushing of skis ...

Did I mention yet that it's five four sleeps to go? <grin>

I'm a smarty pants

Last semester I did a subject called "Business Planning for Innovation". This was one of those things where you had to analyse an innovation the company was thinking of exploiting, and devise a business plan that should take it to market and make truckloads of cash. Somehow the marker understood what I wrote about .. after two assignments I was sitting on a mark of about 65% for the total course (and there was still 30% to come from the exam).

So then there was this exam. My exam story is kinda funny. When I was doing the sample paper it took me ages to finally work out what the first question was asking. But once I understood, it was ok, I just hoped the real exam would be the same type of question. So I got to the exam (interspersed with random trials and tribulations related to that travel agent) sat down, read the instructions: "1 1/2 hours, answer Question 1 and then answer one of the following three questions". So I got started ... 45 minutes per question, sounds pretty straightforward.

.... Eventually I seemed to realise what Question 1 had actually been about, and scribbled some sort of conclusion, looked at the clock - 1 hour had passed!! Oh no!! So flipped to the next question (luckily I'd already picked the one to do ..) scrawled some amazingly incoherent answer, looked at the clock again ... hmm, that was 10 minutes. Waaaaiiit... time dilation or what?? I still have 20 minutes!! So then I tried to fit in some padding and explanations and proof that I actually did know what I was talking about, into the incoherent mess that was Question 2. Re-read Question 1 ... why not add another conclusion, since the first one seemed a bit confused ... time's up!

My confusion was obviously not shared by the marker :


Woah. (Just in case you need to know, HD = High Distinction, as in, the highest grade they give)

So, one subject to go. Somehow I have to continue to confuse the markers that my incoherence is in fact cleverly disguised genius.

Think it'll work? It would take a miracle!

I have become a bit of a geek

It's nearly home time and I'm watching some tests run on my 2nd monitor.

This leads me to a syllogism:

A. Running tests captures my mouse
B. If my mouse is captured I can only type in one other active window and can't change its focus
Therefore, C. I have a bit of time to update my blog before going home.

But, the blog entry will probably be strangely linkless (see point B) until I can get round to that tomorrow.

So anyway, I tooled around a little bit this afternoon with some funky-arse javascript to add a little dynamic countdown clock to the sidebar. See it? Innit cool? Anyways it's counting down the days and hours left before we go to Queenstown. I had to mess around in the code part of it first and then I actually read the javascript to work out how it worked, and .... well .. you know the rest.

I guess it's official.

I've become a bit of a geek.

But isn't the javascript cooOOOOooool ?!?!?!

And aren't you all just the teensiest bit jealous that I'm going skiing in (insert javascript here) 13 days and some hours?!!?

Hey another conclusion of the syllogism is that I'm just gonna keep typing here until the tests finish. Hehehe. Some truly random interior monologue is about to appear ... Oh wait, that's just normal.

Someone remarked to me once how strange it was that on the train all the commuters are essentially silent. People might cough, sniffle, turn pages in their newspapers, or maybe even you can hear music overflow from their crappy headphones (not from mine as they are excellent Sennheisers!!) ... and if someone actually has the audacity to hold a conversation, they kind of feel out of place. I mean, it's not as if it's a library, but that seems to be the general feeling. Or it could just be that we don't want to wake up the person snoring next to us ...

.. oop, tests over, and it's time to go home.

Links will appear later ... stay tuned!!

edit: links added, but they're pretty average - I guess it's a case of "you had to be there".

Not an electronic sausage

I was wondering if I should post something about the London bombings. It seems like it should be done. I got emails today from 2 of my high school friends who are actually in London and they and those they hold dear are all safe so that's a good thing.

But then I realised that, unlike this guy, I actually don't have any intelligent comment to offer. Not that the lack thereof has stopped me blogging before, but I'd rather not make a comment on something that is so important to so many people. I might be mistaken for trivialising something that is in the end, not so trivial.

Hiren probably summed it up as well as I could: "It seems like a vast majority of the people are a little miffed that the tube system has gone from bad to worse, and now they have someone they can really vent their anger at."

As I'm nowhere near Europe, let alone London I figure that's as good a summary as any. So my official blog on the matter is blank, containing not an electronic sausage.

So in other news, I'm a member of the Greater Union Cinebuzz Club. Amongst other things that I don't use, they promote a different $8 movie every week. So we went to see Mr and Mrs Smith last week and discovered 2 things :
- the $8 movie is more expensive than normal prices on tight-arse Tuesday
- tight-arse Tuesday in school holidays is packed!
Anyway I quite liked it, a bit of fun and some clever dialogue. In my opinion anyway. DTM said he spent the entire movie waiting for it to get started. I guess it's not on his top 10 flicks list.

Tonight we're going to see Batman Begins, coz guess what! It's this week's $8 movie!!

The only reason I'm obsessed with not paying full price for a movie is so I can fund my skiing habit. 2 weeks to go!!

Apparently I take requests...

-----Original Message-----
From: D™
Sent: Wednesday, 6 July 2005 8:40 AM
To: the other sexy ferret
Subject: hey more


hey cutes,
You haven't blogged about your iRiver yet!!

-------------------
Isn't he cute (part 2)

So, it seems that I take requests for blog entries :)

Yes, I got an iRiver H10 - it's fabbo. The story goes, that I was researching a new MP3 player for about a week. I checked out reviews from ZDNet, CNet, and PC World. I looked at prices at Tricky Dickie's, MP3Direct, and a couple other dodgy brothers online MP3 player stores as well as on eBay.

In the end I decided on the H10 :
  • it has a replaceable battery
  • the battery can be recharged from USB or via mains with the AC adapter supplied
  • it has maybe 12 hours play time
  • stores 5GB (I don't need 20GB+ and I already have a 128MB player - pshaw!)
  • has a colour screen, jpg compatible for those times when you just want to see a photo ...
  • no software required
  • supports MP3, WMA
  • and does voice recording just in case I want to have my own podcast.
So I told DTM about it, he checked the reviews on Amazon (just in case I had got it wrong) then went to JB Hi-Fi and they were selling it cheaper than anywhere else, and they had sold out, but he placed an order for me.

Then they got a shipment that afternoon!! And DTM picked it up, paid for it, and left it for me to find at home (he went away for the weekend and thought it would be a nice consolation prize). Hence, isn't he cute (part 2). Incidentally, JB Hi-Fi is now advertising the H10 on tv for a whole lot more than DTM paid for it. Timing is everything.

Anyway so since then I've been listening to a bunch of stuff. I tried a few podcasts, and so far I'm hooked on Dawn and Drew, Earthcore (the world's first podcast-only novel), and I also get some laughs from Slacker Astronomy. I tried a couple others, but nothing else really floats my boat so far. Oh and no, I'm not going to podcast just yet. I think writing this blog is just about the limit of my creativity, and definitely is the limit of what other people would find interesting about my thought processes ....

Anyway that'll do for now. A million links to follow.

If you would like to make a request for a future blog entry, send it to butercup at gmail dot com and maybe, just maybe, I'll pay attention to it.

anti-rant - P of K is A-Ok

I think I'm married to the cutest person in the world.

-----Original Message-----
From: DTM
Sent: Tuesday, 5 July 2005 2:46 PM
To: the other sexy ferret
Subject: hey


Before you get bitten on the arse by karma, you better chuck P of Kensington into your blog to make up for your travel.com.au rant. P of K's service is pretty amazing.

bodum dum

--

So the story goes, that on Friday we decided we needed a 12-cup coffee plunger. And I had just so happened to receive the Peters of Kensington e-newsletter with their latest specials, and Bodum was on sale. So we picked out the one we wanted, I ordered online, and put in my credit card details, and put in DTM's office for the delivery place. Their receipt said "you'll get the goodies in your hot little hands in 3-10 business days".

And lo and behold!!! 2, count them, 2 business days later it's arrived! How's that for service. Mmmm, coffee's on tonight :)

By the way, we have previously ordered an excellent Scanpan saute pan and a massive suitcase from P of K and every time we have been really happy with their service. They rock.

And why is he the cutest person in the world?

1. In the Muppets Christmas with John Denver Miss Piggy sings the line "5 goooolden rings, badum bum bum".
2. I referred to this in an email to DTM saying "we should buy a 12-cup bodum dum dum".
3. He emailed me as above inferring that the plunger had arrived by signing it "bodum dum".

That record is like 20 years old and we never listened to it together, but we both know it and quote it to each other.

Now that's cute.

Super Six weekend away

Wow, we had a fabulous time over the weekend. Eating and drinking with friends is one of the most enjoyable ways to spend a weekend.

So, the super six booked a cottage in the Hunter Valley - drove up on Friday night and stayed in the lovely Woodlane Cottages just outside Cessnock.

Vic's excellent lasagne started our consumption of goodies for the weekend.... the end of the night was signalled by finishing (and starting) a bottle of Verona 8 year old Tawny Port in combination with Michael's waffles with Old English Toffee syrup - yummmm.

We then had a relaxing (read: slightly hung-over) Saturday morning breakfast. By 12 we were on the road and visited several wineries ... Calais, Bimbadgen, Blueberry Hill, Audrey Wilkinson, and the cheese factory at McGuigan's. We stopped for devonshire teas at the Hunter Valley Village and also perused some of the local art galleries.

By that time it felt like dinner so we went back to the cottage and had risotto for dinner followed by Lyndon's butterscotch pudding. Mmmmmm yummm. Drank some of the wine we bought, as well as more port.

Sunday ... we were less hung over, but still quite relaxed, so we ended up on the road at 12 again - visited Binnorie Dairy (cheeses! yum!!), Mistletoe, the Small Winemakers Centre (to refill our decanters of Verona Port), Peppertree and Ernest Hill.

I think we visited more wineries but I can't recall them all. The bestest ones were definitely Calais, Audrey Wilkinson and Ernest Hill. We were treated really well there, the atmosphere at each place was lovely, and the wines were fabulous.

We did take photos, but I'm too apathetic to post them - maybe later.

Oh and - WELCOME to my newest readers, the rest of the super six - Vic, Michael, Bac and Nick. Have fun!!

Edit - DTM just sent me a pic of our only-slightly-hung-over breakfast on Saturday. Thanks to Bac and Nick for the excellent bacon-n-sausages-n-eggs-n-mushrooms-n-tomatoes. I buttered the toast.


Round the table: Michael, Bac, DTM, Vic, me and Nick.

A really yummy, easy pudding for surprising your friends on a weekend away.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk together:

  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 1/2 cup caster sugar
  • pinch salt
Stir in and mix till smooth:
  • 60g melted unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup milk
Put batter into a greased pudding bowl / casserole dish/ whatever.

On the stove, heat gently till smooth:
  • 30 g unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons golden syrup
Once melted, heat till boiling and then pour over the top of the batter.

Bake the pudding for approx 40 minutes, until the puddingy bit is cooked. You want to have the sauce sort of runny, it's still ok if the sauce goes like jelly but it's definitely overcooked if the sauce turns into toffee.

Serve with ice cream. This quantity serves maybe 3 people, 4 if you're not greedy.
I doubled it when I used it at the super six weekend away.

I got my 1000th hit today !!

Yeah I know what you're all thinking, that I made 998 of those and the other 2 were from my significant other.

But NO!!

I'm going to estimate (on a completely unfounded basis) that I made only 450 of those hits and the rest were from Michael (who is not my significant other) hitting the reload button 550 times.

Other famous 1000th hits ... can be found by searching google. Man some people write bunkum when they hit 1000. Not that I think I'm an exception.

Today's syllogism:
1. Tom Cruise is a nutjob.
2. Michael said, "Katie Holmes would never go out with a nutjob". (Of course he was trying to prove that point 1 is false)
3. Therefore Katie Holmes is not going out with Tom Cruise.

QED.

What is the world coming to?

So we've all heard that Britons are no longer drinking quite as much tea, now it seems the colonials are following suit with Australians no longer drinking quite as much beer. In fact according to this article at Reuters, Aussies aged 15 & up are consuming only 109.9 litres of beer per person in 2004, down from 114.6 litres in 2003.

..... waaaaaaaaiiit a minute. 15 and up?? What?!?!? There are underage drinkers who are drinking about 110 litres of beer every year before they are legally allowed to?

Anyway, apparently Aussies are drinking more of the wines and ready mixed spirits-in-a-can than ever before, but we still slog our way through about the same level of regular unmixed spirits-in-a-bottle.

Now I have a couple of things to say about this. (surprise, surprise!)
Firstly, I-don't-drink-beer. So someone, somewhere is drinking 220 litres a year to cover my lack of input.
Secondly, the results come from the Australian Bureau of Sadistics. As in, they come from maybe census data, or possibly from market research commissioned by the ABS and conducted over the phone, so you're talking about results from only those people who actually answered. And generally speaking, lots of people hang up on market research surveys (especially conducted by people from NESB). How do we know that the results aren't skewed by some other socioeconomic force that dictates who actually answers these things? Oh right, we don't.

Which brings me to my final point:
Most people use statistics like a drunk guy uses a lamppost.
As in, for support, not for illumination.
(no, that's not my quote, here's a source)

See you when the mud dries.
(a quote from my mate Pete - apt as it's finally raining)

trip planning goes up a notch

I might have mentioned sometime before about how I am a regular user of the 131500 trip planner - it helps me sort out going to and from work, visiting people after work, all that stuff. I'm sure most cities have an equivalent, it's just that this one happens to be useful to moi as Miss Piggy would say.

So anyway I went there recently and they are trialling a new site design!! Wow, sez I, let's check this out. I like it!! It's tasteful - and get this - without being gaudy.

So I submitted them some feedback on their little feedback form. Just to say it's tasteful, and to suggest adding another "search" button at the top of the trip planner form for those who are too lazy to scroll down (like me).

Anyway within an hour or so I got a personal response from their webby people who assure me it will go to their IT department for consideration in the eventual rollout.

Neat! Watch-this-space...

(disclaimer: I don't get paid by CityRail, in fact I pay for the privilege of using their service!! And if the trial site goes down it's not my fault so don't tell me about it.)

p.s. It's nice to not be ranting for a change, innit?!

Dinner in Melbourne

We had a nice time in Melbourne. We had the typical Yu family eat-a-thon, starting from the 3 breakfasts on Sunday (one at the airport, one on the plane, and one when we arrived) through to the 7-course post-funeral dinner on Tuesday night.

Alex set us all a fine example by eating fruit at every meal, and sometimes eating more fruit than everyone else combined .. he polished off two serving plates of fruit at the above mentioned feast.

And here he is with the final piece of watermelon. How many 2-year olds do you know who can say "canteloupe"?



He's so cute. I think I want one.

Going to Melbourne

Yep, as you know by now, I'm heading to Melbourne to see the family and catch up with everyone. It's a bit of a sad time as we are going to farewell the patriarch of the Yu family, my Grandfather.

The last time I saw my Grandfather was September 2004, when most of the clan headed off to Hong Kong for his 90th birthday. Most of us stayed at the Miramar Hotel - although there was also a contingent who squished into the family flat on the 12th floor of 72 Nathan Rd. DTM and I went for about a week and saw some sights, played at Ocean Park, did some shopping, and of course had a bit to do with the big party.

And when I say big - there were over a hundred people at Grandfather's birthday celebrations - family aside, he had a lot to do with the business community of Hong Kong. What was amazing was that throughout all the preparations, Grandfather seemed to be essentially dozing - but when the time came he gave a speech ex tempore which had all these high-level hard nosed Hong Kong corporate types blinking back the tears. I don't understand Cantonese but the gist (as told to me afterwards by my aunt) was that he was talking about how Hong Kong had changed and what things he thought were good and what he thought about the future of business in Hong Kong.

So 4 generations of Yus are gathering in Melbourne over the next few days, together with representatives of the massively extended family - yes, we expect it will be huge, though not quite as huge nor as rowdy as the last time we all got together. It's times like these that you really appreciate family. The Yu family, though scattered round the globe, is still close in spirit and I'm so glad we are all coming together at this time. It's time to say farewell to our beloved father/grandfather/great-grandfather figure. I hope we have made him proud of what his family has become.

Remember to stop and smell the roses, people. Life ends, for all of us. You have to appreciate what you have in front of you right now.

In appreciation..


Grandfather in 1977
In Appreciation of
His Guidance and Support
Throughout our Lives
to
Yu Look Yau
On the Occasion of His 90th Birthday
With Love and Good Wishes
From his Children,
Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren

1982

2004


fragile ...

So the vista team went out for dinner last night - which was excellent. We had a 6-course degustation at a fabbo restaurant in Surry Hills called alio. And there was the pub beforehand, some excellent wine during dinner and then the pub again afterwards.

So I'm not exactly hale and hearty this morning - a little fragile - but I'm coping. And hey, just as well we went out on a school night so I can waste a work day feeling fragile as opposed to wasting part of my weekend, right?

I'm so glad I left the other place and came to work here :)

{burgers}

online travel services

<rant>
Those of you who have been keeping track of me will know that I'm pretty involved with the whole online travel arrangements thing. I've researched our ski trip to NZ (7 weeks to go...!!) online, as well as researching the travel agents themselves online. I've selected and booked a place to stay in the Hunter Valley for the super six weekend away. I've been known to book flights to Melbourne (and we fly to Melbourne a lot!) online as well.

In all that I've found some pretty damn fine travel agents/comparison tools. Like the NZ holiday cost generator (pity it only works for the one company, but fine nonetheless). That's a very neat one. Also I've used Air New Zealand, Qantas, and Virgin Blue's online trip planners. And speaking of trip planners where would I be without the excellent CityRail trip planner (well I'd probably be right here still, but it's made life much easier!) And for comparing prices I've tried zuji, webjet, and travel.com.au. And using the comparisonators is so much easier than investigating each individual airline!!

About those last - a quick review. Zuji is tedious as it's international based and far too busy with extraneous flash movies playing all over the place.
I like webjet but it is very slooooooow to load/search/respond.
travel.com.au seems lovely - as it's fast to load and search but I had major problems with things that shouldn't have been an issue!!

Here's why I'm not using travel.com.au any more:


  1. after registering, if you close the page, when you reopen it there's no place to login!! Nope, not at all, not until after you run a whole new flight search - then the login comes up.

  2. I stupidly messed up the credit card details (though I'm sure there was something funny going on there) and they sent me an email telling me it was all bad - fine - and telling me to fix it ... so back to the website (try to login -see point 1 - argh!) but can't find anywhere to update the credit card details for an existing booking - so go to call them...

  3. heeeey, the number to call isn't in the email they sent me!! ... back to the *&$^!%# website to find out their contact number.

  4. ring them and they say "oh no, of course you can't do that - but I can update it for you.."

  5. fine, so they fix it - apparently. She said they would send the e-ticket straight away.
    ... and 5 hours later the e-ticket hadn't arrived

    • So I emailed them. Again.

  6. Eventually they emailed me 2 copies of the e-ticket. (what's that, in case I lose one?)
</rant>

Conclusion? I'll persevere with webjet. Despite being a bit slow, it does Australian domestic and international flights and it's really easy to find the login button!!!

Coronet peak at dawn

oh man!!

How lovely does it look!! Coronet Peak, sunrise, today .. it's beautiful. This is the M1 view - the bit that I'm skiing down as soon as we get there. Only 7 weeks to go and we'll be on the plane heading over to Queenstown .... wheeeEEEeeee!!


Check out the rest of the snow cams at SnowCo Posted by Hello

p.s. ... it's currently -2 in Queenstown - brrr!!!

Ruminations

Well, I wasn't chewing my cud on the train exactly, but I did have one of those excellent foam cups from my morning coffee so while munching on that I was thinking about .. well .. stuff ...

Firstly, the best ever name for nail polish - which I happened to apply during the weekend - is Posh Trash. Now it looks like a lovely mushroomy colour, kinda shiny and stuff, and while not exactly trashy I wouldn't call it Posh. So it's got a perfectly inapplicable name.

At this point I was going to go on and on about names, or something, but I've got nothing original to add right now. So too bad.

But other things I'm ruminating about are .. trying to get to Melbourne to see my grandfather (who's just contracted pneumonia), sorting out my credit card changeover (farewell ANZ, hello HSBC), exactly what kind of MP3 player I should get (should I go for one over $300 to get the tax back when we go to NZ or should I just get a cheaper one?), oh and where the super six are going to stay in July. And wondering if the unlucky couple who has to sleep in the sofa bed in the loungeroom will have to curtail any nightly rumpy pumpy action or if the other two couples will just join in. I think about lots of weird stuff (TM) on the train.

Edit : the super six weekend has moved to a place with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, thank goodness. I chose this place for the bedrooms, despite the incredibly overengineered inefficient bandwidth-hogging website. Click the link if you dare!

Further ruminating at this stage was cut short by wondering if I should change trains at West Ryde to get the express. {yes all that previous thinking took place between Eastwood and West Ryde - I have a busy brain, so - meh!} So I got up, then there was an announcement saying the express was late, so I wandered down and found a different seat. So then I had no more excuses and had to open my bag and encounter Economics.

Oh boy that was fun. A rumination killer if ever there was one. NPVs, FVs, IRR, B/C ratios and now I have to apply it to business planning.

erg!

oh and btw - if you're worried about any potential toxic side effects of munching the foam cup - it's ok, I checked it out.

The land of apathy

Returning from the land of apathy is a funny thing.

I had this massive assignment to do, so I was spending a lot of time doing that. And then when it was finally over, I couldn't be less interested in sitting in front of the puter writing anything -let alone blogging about my insignificant little life. I mean really, what do I do that's so different, how am I adding to the world of thoughts and ideas that is the internet.

Anyway after a prolonged bout of apathy/indifference/disinclination to share anything with my loyal subscribers .. I'm back.

Here's some lessons for you:
1. finishing a big project that has been taking all your heart and soul for a period of time, is likely to lead to apathy
2. if it doesn't lead to apathy it will probably lead to illness of some kind (another reason I've been disinclined to post - my head was hurting!!)
3. apathy and illness, combined, are a powerful force for darkness.

I spent most of my time off work (I was sick, remember?) lying on the lounge under a doona, drinking tea, snoozing, or watching Season 2 of Buffy. I particularly enjoyed watching Innocence with the commentary by Joss Whedon. Someone told me that his commentaries are hilarious - and they are!! So that was fun. Then my head hurted again (yes that is a word) and I slept.

Things are less hurty now. That's a good thing. I have an exam on 17th June, that's a bad thing, but then only -one-more-subject- and I'm finished my degree!! I think I'll stop studying for a while after that. What am I going to do with all my free time?

Feel free to post suggestions :)

I'll have what they're having

Full story at Reuters.

A Seoul restaurant (yes, they serve Korean barbecue!!) is basking in fame after being stampeded by 3 rampaging elephants. Say what? Well apparently the Oliphaunts got loose from the zoo and they decided it might be nice to chow down on some carrots (which, by the way, do not improve your vision) at the restaurant.

The owner used the insurance payout to rebuild and rename her restaurant to "Restaurant where elephants have been". Well, it's gotta be a unique drawing card!!

Apparently her new "elephant set" consisting on a whole lot of vegetables (but no elephants) is real popular now too.

So, it just goes to show that ... in every crowd of elephants there is a silver lining. Or something.

Do they really believe Americans can do *that*?

Here's a story that will surprise and amaze.

Russian lake disappears, baffling villagers

Thu May 19, 2005 05:57 PM BST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled on Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.


... well, hmmm. What I am thinking is
a) how did the trees fly under the ground
b) .. and how did he know they did!!
c) ... and why does he think it would be dangerous .. I think the "official" knows more than he is telling!!

Portraiture

Once upon a time there was a garage band ...

Steve and DTM and Karen and I used to jam in Steve's den under his parents' place in Padstow. Steve played guitar and wrote all our songs, DTM played guitar, (some rhythm, some lead), Karen played the drums and I played bass. Nobody sang.

Steve had a 4-track so we recorded our songs for posterity. Recently I dug the tape out and got the songs converted to mp3s so now through the magic of the internet you can all hear our stuff. It's not so bad, though you can tell how we were still pretty inexperienced. And no, none of us has continued playing, so we're still in the land of the non-performing.

Anyway listen and enjoy (right click to save, left click to just listen).

1. conversation

2. for janine

3. mistral

Feel free to leave reviews :)


Edit: Music runs in the family, here is Alex Yu singing "Do the Hot Potato" .... maybe he should have joined our band!!

Mother's Day

We went to Bicentennial Park in Homebush yesterday for Mother's Day (a week late, but that worked out for everyone..)


It was lovely weather!! From L-R, Charles, Stuart, Pop (seated), Nan, Rhoda, Christine, me, Mandy and then Lyndon lying down. DTM is taking the photo (duh!)


Mandy and I prepared a lot of food - yum yum ..


and we even managed to smile some of the time!!


I made a gluten free cheesecake for dessert (and played with picasa - pretty isn't it!)


of course it was all a bit much for some - Lyndon catches a few Z's .. Posted by Hello

It was heaps of fun, and I think the mothers all enjoyed themselves. We didn't have much for dinner though!! :)

Star Wars III opens this week?

Yeah, I know, this Thursday, yada yada. Well, no I'm not in line to see it on May 19, I don't have my tickets yet, whatever. Last night Episode II was on telly and Daniel was watching it with headphones, so I couldn't hear anything - and oh boy Hayden Christensen's acting skills are bottom of the barrel. It shows up even more when you can't hear him.

Anyway I read this review of the screening at Cannes over the weekend. Turns out that Hayden's acting has improved according to the moviegoers, although he was still upstaged by the CGI battle scenes. Well, it'd be pretty hard going to outshine monster effects like those.

I guess I will go and see it, it's one of those things you have to do, after coming all this way with George Lucas I might as well go the rest of the way. And after all that review said it was as good as Empire - which means it might actually be worth the 15 bucks.

We have paving!!!

So for those who knew our side/back yard, we used to have your basic swamp. Now it's paved!!! Yay!! No more wading through the mud to hang the washing!!

Enjoy...


The ex-swamp a.k.a. Path to front door.

Ahh ... a new picnic area. Somewhere for the table to live (you can see it down the end of the garden, yes looks like a big doughnut).


We have garden edging!! Note the scrappy turf, we will update it to some kind of shade-loving variety so maybe it will grow.


... and the clothes won't fall in the mud anymore !!! :) Posted by Hello
Lots of spare pavers just-in-case ..

Now we just have to turf the remainder of the lawn and tidy up the garden beds and we will have a lovely exterior.

Next reno job? oh dear, the bathrooms. *sigh*

Sorry it's been so long!

Yeah I know, you've all been dying for the latest update. Well I hope not literally.

Here's a list of games that you might want to check out while you wait for the next blog update ;)

bored at work?? Try throwing paper into a circular filing cabinet. I suck at this game too. My top score was 6. Yes, a whole 6. Notice how much the paper resembles a ball, hence my spectacular lack of skills here. (thanks to DTM for that one)

How about playing 20 Questions against a learning computer? Kind of an AI .. neural intelligence thing. (yay for BoingBoing and a blogline feed!!)

What about a self-referential multiple choice test? I haven't had the time to actually play this yet, but a quick read of the questions proves that it might be a load of fun. (I think this was also BoingBoing, if not it was LifeHacker)

Or you could always amuse yourself playing that good old standby smack the pingu or other yetisports.

My favourite ever game - spank the monkey - is still there and if you play it with sound it still rocks. Try to get over 200 mph to get the nifty music !!

And if I ever get around to it, my next blog entry will rock. Even more than the music on spank the monkey.

I like this story about women's social networks, and I have nothing else to add to it.

Oh go away, just hit the "next blog" button if you want more interesting things to read!!

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