buter's BABY blog

.. 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).

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!!

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
          
          • update blog
          • download pocket and pendant chap 12 then
      • 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*

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.

B	Brainy
U	Unforgettable
T	Temperamental
E	Extraordinary
R	Radiant
C	Charismatic
U	Unusual
P	Pretty

Who are you?

Name Acronym Generator from Go-Quiz.com

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

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 !!