buter's BABY blog

Well, I dunno.

2007-11-24T23:13:00.000+11:00

So I'm still hanging around on Facebook and yes it's eating my life. Sad really. But if you know me and know me on FB then you've read my apology and so now you can all stop gloating and instead laugh over D™'s lack of resistance to it.

So anyway one of the time-wasting joys on FB is the "Are you like me" application where you rank 10 items from most true to least true, and see how well your choices match to your friends' choices. Sometimes it's eerie - the number of matches I have with Hiren is just uncanny. But I've just been sent a link to the "Your wildest dreams" quiz and I'm stuck.

If the choices are these:

.. and others in the same vein, then I have no idea. I honestly don't want any of these because each one has a significant downside, in my opinion. So maybe I should rank them in order of least- rather than most- wantedness ... but what really concerns me is that I don't think I have any "wildest dreams" - not that I have identified recently anyway. Have I really become so content with my lot? Or rather, does it just mean that I've lost my imagination and got stuck in the practical realities of day to day life with the peanut? What a sad thought.

I do have some dreams, but I wouldn't call them wild. I don't think FB has a quiz that has these answers, so I might as well blog about them :)

See Peanut grow into a lovely adult;
Go back to work and move ahead in my project management career;
Find some new books to read;
Have a long and happy life with D™, Peanut, and maybe a sibling for her;
Travel to France and spend maybe a month there;
Go skiing in Colorado, no, wait - just go skiing again, anywhere!!

These things aren't all that wild and most of them I have some control over and so I will be able to pretty much achieve them. Does that make me into a more boring person because I don't want to be a sports star or win a million dollars?

Sigh.

So that's where all the thought leaders went...

2007-10-22T09:20:00.000+10:00

Yeah, so you all know by now that I'm hanging around on FaceBook for no good reason that I can think of. I've had fun trawling the lists of groups though, like If You Can't Differentiate Between "Your" and "You're" You Deserve To Die and if 9039230293 people join this group it will still be lame.

But now I can relax, because according to an article in today's SMH,

"Facebook is becoming increasingly trendy ... It's where more of the thought leaders and influentials go."

So that's sorted then. It's good to be reminded that I'm an influential thought leader ... :)

Now, all those other thought leaders out there on Facebook, it's time to unite and take over the world, or something. One lame interest group at a time ...

Of love, and money

2007-10-10T12:41:00.000+10:00

You may have heard that the Australian Government in all its wisdom, provides a non-means-tested baby bonus payment of about $4000 for a newborn. They even go so far as to ensure 16-year-old mothers get the payment in a form of pension rather than a lump sum to make sure it's spent on the baby and not on booze or drugs or stolen by non-well-meaning relatives. Personally, I think it's a way for the Government to assuage its guilt over not creating better industrial relations provisions for parental leave.

It's a very sad thing that Australia's population growth from birth is so low. A sociologist I heard on the radio once said you can directly correlate the declining population growth with the rise in female education. It makes sense too, as potential mums are spending more time getting educated and starting careers, than starting families. But what's not being acknowledged by the Government is that those potential mothers are sticking to their careers for longer before having children because they need to save up money to be able to raise said kids, because once they leave to have the baby they are suddenly bereft of income. Then the Government wails about cost of childcare, and how they can't provide enough subsidised places for all the kids we're having, but mums have little choice but to go back to work so they can pay for the mortgage and all the bills as well as paying for childcare. It's rotten.

Some more enlightened nations have legislated parental benefits. Like, up to 2 years' paid leave from work - you can have your children, and still cover your mortgage repayments, and what's more you can choose when to go back to work, with the benefit that your child has had the chance to grow up a bit with at least one parent at home all the time, you're not entirely broke, and you can still go back to the same job you had before. Don't get me wrong, some employers here do offer a period of paid parental leave, in fact there are some very good places in that regard, but most only offer the minimum required by law. Which is, 12 months' leave. Unpaid. 12 months in total, that is, so if you happen to have some annual leave available and you choose to take that instead of unpaid leave, you still can't have more than 12 months away from your job. So in our case, I've had 1 month annual leave - before Peanut arrived - and I get 11 months with her before I lose my entitlement to go back to the same job. 11 months with no income, that is. Just to be clear, I wouldn't give up Peanut for anything, and I definitely wouldn't want to be back at work right now with her only 11 weeks old.

Oh, and the baby bonus? That went towards our private medical bills - we avoided the public hospital system for a reason.

to coin a phrase ... or a triple word score

2007-10-08T17:09:00.000+10:00

So, I finally gave in to peer pressure, or something, and signed myself up to facebook. I mean, what else do you do when the baby's gone to sleep? I'm counting this as my "me" time!

D™ threatened to disown me, but I said I'd take the baby if he did so he desisted for now. I think it's still potential though ... But I must say it's kind of fun trawling through finding people and seeing how they present themselves to the world... I've found most of my high school chums on there (they weren't exactly pressuring me, more like "don't join facebook, it's such a time sucker") and also friends from primary school as well as ex-colleagues and family. So it's kind of fun.

One set of pals started a scrabulous game with me, because I was dissing facebook and online scrabble so much. The starting word was "CURN".

I'm familiar with the word "KERN" as a term used in publishing, something about the spacing between letters, but what on earth is a CURN?

I asked the scrabulous dictionary and here's what I got:

Uh-huh. So it's like, a real word? And on a triple word score and everything!

I guess I shouldn't trust a dictionary written by someone who made up the word "scrabulous", right?

Anybody want a peanut?

2007-09-25T15:57:00.000+10:00

I think it's time to face facts and realise that buter's blog has to refocus. Since the arrival of the peanut (above) I realise I've spent very little time surfing the net for "fun geekery stuff" and loads of time surfing for "fun geeky baby stuff" ... so let this serve as the announcement of buter's baby blog.

The first post should of course set the tone for future stuff, and so you know I'm still the same person, albeit with a slightly different set of priorities now, we'll begin with some social commentary.

Since becoming parents, D™ and I have talked about all the new things we have to worry about. Schooling. Immunisations. Stranger Danger. Childhood Obesity. And not to forget, OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!!1!! ... that is, Netiquette.

We have found ourselves agreeing that DVDs aren't good babysitters, that the ABC is the only TV station that the peanut will need, and that computers don't belong in bedrooms. And we really really don't want to go down the path of censoring the internet. Instead, we agree it's better to educate our offspring in how to think for oneself: make decisions about what to see and what not to look for, based on reasoned decision making rather than because it's been removed from sight for you.

Actually this ties in with our perspective on alcohol as well. We don't think it works to ban all alcohol. Rather, educate the child, if they want to drink, then at home under parental supervision is much better than a Southern Comfort experience at 16.

So hopefully the peanut will grow up to be a healthy well-adjusted technosavvy moderate drinker who finds the internet as amusing as we do !

Ok, more, and probably cooler, baby posts to follow ...

say this 6 times before breakfast ...

2007-09-23T21:57:00.001+10:00

I seem to have run out of words so I'm going to make a habit of just posting funny things I find floating around the internet.

.... sigh.

heheh thud

2007-09-12T22:15:00.000+10:00

Some things just gotta be shared. (click on the image)

... found via a comments thread at cute overload.

baby elephant walk

2007-08-31T17:58:00.000+10:00

Ok, I know it's a hoppopitamus rather than a heffalump, but there isn't a baby hippo theme song :) ... and now I'm hoping that you have that tune running through your head ...

For those in the know, the reason for my lack of posts will be self evident, but let the above image serve as a reminder ....

Mars is lost to Lost but I've found the answers

2007-08-23T19:39:00.000+10:00

We watched Heroes recently - 23 episodes of fun and drama, highly recommended viewing btw. And since the ending of Season 3 of Veronica Mars and its subsequent cancellation, we are now hanging out for Season 2 of Heroes as well as hunting round for new TV to be interested in, which means I'm watching DVDs of Gilmore Girls and Buffy.

One of the lovely things about being home all day (apart from 24 hour Buffy marathons) is that I can wander around the internet to see what new wonders of interconnectedness are being created every day. And now it appears that Veronica Mars was going to appear on Lost but they lost her to Heroes and so there's even more reason to hang out for the new season. Yay for interconnectedness!!

But now I must pause and consider the possibility that I'm addicted to the internet. Luckily, though, one of my regular reads is Mind Hacks, and they've recently written that there's no such thing as internet addiction.

it's cold out there in the internet ...

2007-07-23T19:39:00.000+10:00

... so it's warming to find people that think like you don't you reckon? I've just come from the angriest's post about 1980's cartoons - and while I'm sure there are lots of people out there who watched the same ABC cartoons as I did, what with them being the national broadcaster and all, it's just, well - a bit friendly to meet up with one of them :)

Of course after that I contracted an earworm. "It's me Nono, small robot you know, friend of Ulysses" which was annoying enough in itself - except the only reason I know what an earworm is, is because of a comment on the above mentioned blog post, which led me to Wikipedia, which led me to the Maim That Tune site which guarantees to remove earworms by replacing them with hideous midis of even more appallingly earwormy tunes.

... which in turn led me to decide it was worth blogging about (after all, what's the point of a blog?!) and that led me to the Red Dwarf theme tune because even though they were talking about space (which is really big) I think the first verse kind of does for the internet too.

It's cold outside, no kind of atmosphere,
I'm all alone, more or less ...
Let me fly far away from here
Fun, fun, fun, in the sun, sun, sun ....

Learning to learn

2007-07-23T09:07:00.000+10:00

It's an interesting thing, to think about how you learn something. I'd go so far as to say, the way that you learn influences how you deal with unfamiliar situations. If you're a person who learns best by reading or by listening to someone else talking to you, it's possible that you handle new situations differently from someone who learns by doing. Even more than that, I bet it influences career choices too. If you learn by reading/listening you may be more likely to feel comfortable learning in an academic environment, i.e. university, than a vocational environment, so you're more likely to end up with a desk job than a trade. Maybe?

Anyway Lifehacker posed the question: find out how you learn. So I did the survey and discovered I'm a visual learner, but balanced verbal and non-verbal - I learn best from visual materials whether it's text or images, compared to learning by doing or by listening. Well, I knew that already! Anyone who's tried to give me directions will know that. I basically can't find my way there again if someone else has driven me there, or if they tell me the directions over the phone. If, however, they write them down (or I do) then I'm fine with it - ditto for map reading. That's what they're for after all!!

Since I'm not currently pursuing any academic learning, what does it matter what my learning style is, I hear you ask. Well, it's a funny thing but I think surveys that tell me about myself are more useful for telling me how to deal with other people than anything else. So, if I'm a visual learner and I write someone some instructions, I get frustrated when they don't seem to get it. After all, if it's written down that should be enough shouldn't it? But for many people, I guess it isn't really. So instead, maybe I need to figure out what *their* style is, and present the information accordingly. Or, to be brutally honest, the person receiving the information should know what their style is, and request the information accordingly. As in, I know I learn best by reading, so I ask for written information. Simple, eh?

... on rereading I realise there's some pent up bitterness in that last few sentences, you can tell that I may have had trouble training people in the past. Maybe I'm not such a good teacher as I am a learner :)

To start, press here

2007-07-20T15:20:00.001+10:00

I love Ikea instructions. There are no words, so they translate to any language with the same amount of ease. They always start with the things you need, and sometimes the ikea man has a helper - does that mean "You need a friend"? - I wonder if it's a comment on the sort of people who furnish their houses with ikea .... oh wait, that would be us.

So anyway you know how I was ranting about little boxes, well it seems Ikea has taken this to the next logical conclusion: flat-pack housing. It's not new (treehugger talked about it in 2005) but I've only just become aware of it. I wonder how many allen keys you need to assemble them? Arre they bigger than normal size? Do you need a friend too? Do you then have to assemble all the furniture (and is it fixed in place with tippskyd) and what happens if you put in a floor part upside down - does the furniture attach to the roof????

Side note: while researching links for this silly, silly post I've found out why Ikea instructions aren't in words: their word for an allen key is insexnyckel. Tell me that you'd take it seriously.

Rip Van Winkled

2007-07-19T14:41:00.000+10:00

So you know how Rip Van Winkle slept for 20 years only to return to his village all confuddled and messed about - well after watching the best movie in the world on average 2x per year since it was released, I empathise with ol' Rip after seeing this page (also linked from Cynical-C).

errr, thanks Jarv. This was a bad bad way to wake up ... :/

time sucker

2007-07-14T21:38:00.000+10:00

...

I'm not working at the moment.

I don't realise how little I've done each day until about noon - at which point I have some lunch, and then ponder going out, during another couple of games of solitaire, so sometimes it's about 3pm before I manage to even go outside.

I used to be such an organised, busy person. This time wasting thing is really weird and yet strangely comforting. There's just nothing that needs doing more than sitting here on the lounge with my feet up. Time enough to have things to worry about later.

... and it's back to the game.

A refined approach

2007-07-06T19:21:00.000+10:00

As we get better at the refinement we will be able to remove virgin rape from the process.

....errrr ?

Either McDonalds has finally admitted there is something sinister behind the slightly evil-looking clown motif, or the comment above was taken out of context. You can figure it out for yourself, but meanwhile it seems the big D is going to use their own waste cooking oil to drive their trucks. Yep that's right, it's a new take on an old joke.

Q: What has 4 wheels and fries?
A: A Macca's truck driving on biodiesel.

Thankyou, thankyou. I'm here all week - try the veal.

morning cuppa

2007-07-05T07:48:00.000+10:00

The other day, listening to parent radio, they played a snippet of a song that had the lyric "pour myself a cup of ambition" and I thought, what a great blog post title (and I don't think I'm the only one). But then realising that I was on my way home from my last day of paid employment for a while I figured that I probably wasn't in the best place to be writing about ambitions.

But hey, after a few days bumming around I figure maybe I should use the time constructively and instead actually put some words down about my ambitions. I mean, just coz I'm not being paid right now doesn't mean that I don't have any ambitions, right?

So thinking about it, what kind of thing makes up an "ambition" instead of just a "I wanna do that thing" concept? Is it just that you want to have no regrets? No, because that falls under "I wanna do that" and in my book includes things like bungy jumping and skiing in the Northern Hemisphere. So maybe it's stuff like "I will feel more fulfilled as a person if I do that" .... but then that implies that I'm not satisfied with who I am, and that's not really true either.

Back to the start then, and google for ambition. You get career consultants. articles from TIME, other stuff all pointing to ambition being involved with your paid for employment. Does that mean that those of us who are bumming around at home have no ambition? Is that a bad thing? It seems like it should be a bad thing, seems vaguely negative in connotation.

Merriam-Webster says

1 a : an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power
b : desire to achieve a particular end

Hmm. So maybe it's usually all tied up with corporate or commercial achievements, but doesn't have to be. And it is all tied up with "I wanna do that" after all.

Well, I guess I will keep pondering it for a while.

Dangerous is my medium name

2007-06-29T11:40:00.000+10:00

I was going to call this post "Third time lucky" but found the other title more amusing.

So last night, D™ and I went to see Ocean's Thirteen at the moofies. It was much much much better than Ocean's Twelve (which sucked big time) and done with much the same style and slickness as Ocean's Eleven (which we loved, and watched on DVD, several times).

There's this excellent Mexican interlude where Casey Affleck as "young dumb white guy" is doing something mildly dangerous. His coworker says "Es peligroso". He replies with "Peligroso es mi nombre medio" (which had D™ in stitches in the first place), and translates as Dangerous is my medium name.

Apparently it should have been:
Peligro es mi segundo nombre

But seriously, Ocean's 13 is another sequel to a sequel where the sequel to the sequel is waaaay better than the sequel. It was the same with Pirates of the Caribbean - #2 was kind of boring and awful, seemed to be spending more time setting up for #3 than actually making any kind of story, but #3 was pretty fine.

And how about SpideyThree? Spidey was pretty good, SpideyTwo was average, and SpideyThree? Err... it was ok. Not in the same league as the other 3rd-part films we've seen lately.

Oh well. Next on the movie list - another sequel. I wonder if it follows the same rule.

watching the grass grow

2007-06-24T08:46:00.000+10:00

It's been raining a lot lately. So I've been watching Weeds. No, not the garden kind (though that happens too after rain) but the TV kind - a cute little show from the US about a housewife in one of those suburban communities where all the houses are rammed up next to one another and are all built according to the same set of plans. You know the ones. The theme song has been running through my head for *days* now and it's driving not just me but D™ insane. As he puts it, it's bad enough getting a song stuck in your head. It's so much worse when the song stuck is not the actual song but someone else's (i.e. mine) poor reproduction of it.

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes, all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same.

Of course the song was written about American suburban development but as in all things cheap and nasty we Australians have to follow suit. Think fast food - until the American franchises started here we had our own excellent burgers at all the local takeaway shops. Burgers should have salad on them. With beetroot. And fresh minced steak. Not plastic cheese in a sweet bun with a frozen semi-meat patty slapped on.

So I'm (still) really glad that we were able to move somewhere that isn't made of ticky tacky but is all bricky bricky. Even though we haven't got a lot of heating yet and as I write this I can see my breath. Indoors. At 9am. I have lots of warm clothes!

I can see my breath from here!

2007-06-22T08:42:00.001+10:00

Apparently this is the coldest Sydney winter for 8 years. Combine that with our recent moving house experience (from an air conditioned, carpeted townhouse to a double brick, polished floorboards, no heating, awesomely cute freestanding house) - it's *rooly* hard to get out of bed in the mornings.

AFAIK D™ is still *in* bed. He worked late last night on some photo editing for work and decided that entitles him to a sleep-in.

Sigh.

this space for rent

2007-06-19T11:54:00.000+10:00

So, I was just investigating some product purchasing for my company and came across this. I suppose it's a built-in geekometer or something. After all, how many products are out there that remind you on each weekly invoice how geeky you are?

... or is it just me ?

*sigh*

Upside down, Miss Jane

2007-06-01T14:18:00.003+10:00

It's a curious thing, that you'll be in a serious meeting or something, and then someone says something which triggers a quote from your childhood. I mean, how often do you say "Miss Jane" in response to someone saying "it's upside down"? Or maybe you say "by the rocket clock" when someone tells you the time .... all these things that just make their way into your subconscious.

So when smh published this story about map reading I couldn't stop thinking about Mr Squiggle. Could it be that the reason he could understand the upside-down squiggles but Miss Jane couldn't, was that Mr Squiggle, being a male, had a better ability to mentally rotate the image than Miss Jane? Was it in fact all a terrible reinforcement of a stereotype (which according to smh has now been discovered to be true)?

I must admit that it's taken me a while to be able to interpret maps without turning them around, but that I stopped doing it because if you turn it once, you have to keep turning it, and that just gets tedious - especially if you're driving! Eeek! But for the men who think it's illogical to turn the map around - I just want to say, you're turning it around in your head anyway, so what difference does it make (apart from less brain work) if you turn the map around physically?

Hey, don't satellite navigation systems turn around depending on your direction anyway? So does that mean they were designed for women or for men? Or does it indicate who they were designed by?

That could be a question for a later time folks.

Back to my rocket clock.

stalled ...

2007-05-26T08:48:00.000+10:00

-----Original Message-----
From: butercup
Sent: Thursday, 24 May 2007 10:22 AM
To: My mate

Mate,

So seeing as I've stalled on reading Moby Dick ... maybe I should get it sent to my phone instead ;)

-----Original Message-----
From: Buter's mate
Sent: Thursday, 24 May 2007 10:30 AM
To: butercup

"stalled" eh? that puts you in some good company I expect: it's probably one of the most famous books that no one has ever finished ;) (along with "Ulysses")

At what point does a book become "never finished" as opposed to "still being read, just on the shelf for a while"? I suppose if you discount textbooks, the "never finished" category must be used for books that you don't find appealing or enthralling enough to even want to finish. Now I'm one of those people who will stick with a book for a while to see if it gets better, but even so there's a fair list of books I've never finished .. which I will admit to, for the first time, right here:

Underworld by Don DeLillo - I got stuck at the decades-long description of the baseball game at the start.
The Bride Stripped Bare by "anonymous" - hilariously, even the wikipee entry isn't finished.
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkein - sorry, but I loathed history in high school so why would I want to read more history, even if it is about Middle-Earth ...
Swann's Way by Proust - oh, I tried so hard. I even went so far as to read Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life for encouragement. (yes, I did finish that one!) I've decided Proust changed my life, without having to read the whole book. Phew ..
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - I think I started this 3 or 4 times and just kept giving up. Since it turns out that the one person who kept recommending it to me had almost nothing in common with me I probably should have given up sooner.
A Song of Stone by Iain Banks - in fact most of Iain Banks' fiction or sci-fi work just turned me off. The only one I remember finishing (and reading again, incidentally) was Against a Dark Background.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind - just "eeeeew", really.
The Bible - since I'm being honest, I really tried to read this, I even got a "Read the Bible in a year"guide but it still ended up on the shelf as a "thing to do later". Maybe next year.

Ok, that's probably enough reminiscing, after all it's not really all that much fun to think about books that never made it for me .. time to go finish off The Decameron.

What rhymes with laugh?

2007-05-01T09:20:00.001+10:00

Or more specifically, what rhymes with laugh and also ends in - augh?

Girraugh.

Caugh.

Umm.

So, nothing much then.

Maybe a better question is what makes you laugh (and does it end in -augh) ?

Goethe said "Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable." So I wonder what you can infer from my list ...?

Ten things that make buter laugh:

I often find funny things when reading other peoples' blogs. If so, they tend to make it onto my bloglines. Like, say, bash.org.

Dilbert comics, some of the time. A wry "That's uncomfortably true" kind of laugh.

The rhyming scene from The Princess Bride. "No more rhymes now, I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?" Every time - gets a giggle or at least a grin. And that's a lot of times.

That time when Buffy says "You have but face" in Season 4. Or that time when Willow says "How come the sudden calisthenics, aren't you sort of naturally buff, Buff? Hee - buff, Buff". Or the time when Willow says "I'm Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel" Or .... bugger it. Just about any episode of Buffy has me sniggering, chortling, or holding my sides.

When Garion says Push. I know the link is in Finnish or Swedish or something but there is a complete quote in English there. Giggleworthy.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (the book and radio series), for the most part. More like my brain is amused and I'll smile than a real belly laugh but it consistently happens. The only scene in the movie where I laughed was when they all turned to wool and someone barfed. Hey! Baugh! Hee.

When people say inconsistent or wrong things and the newspaper prints it as if it was normal. Like when Bazza O'Fazza said that thing about the Easter Bunny, implying that it was the point of Easter.

Microfortnights, and other strange units of measurement.

In fact in line with that last one, I find lots of word games amusing. Here's another one.

And finally ... m yself, when I do something silly, especially if D™ starts laughing at me, then I start laughing at me, then I can't stop laughing at me until I collapse with exhaustion and breathlessness. That's a belly grabbing laugh

So. I await your analysis .....

Post inspired by the happiness project .... sometimes it's fun thinking about what makes you happy!

make 'em all long, I say

2007-04-21T07:26:00.000+10:00

You ever have one of those days where it seems you didn't sleep right, and you end up all fuzzy through the day?

Yeah, I had one of those yesterday.

I've decided therefore, that 5 days weeks are bad, we should have 4 day weeks for the main part, with the bonus that public holidays mean that we get a 3 day week every now and again.

This would solve so many problems!! There's the problem of long weekend traffic on the not-so-common 3-day weekends - Friday night traffic out of the CBD is utterly crapola and so if there was a 3 day weekend every week it wouldn't be so bad, since you wouldn't have 250,000 extra people all driving up to the Central Coast on that one long weekend, instead some of those people would drive up next weekend. Because they can. Of course you could say instead that every weekend the traffic will be utterly crapola, but I think that wouldn't happen. After all, we don't all drive up the coast every weekend already, why would we do it when we have a 3-day weekend every week? I'm sure it's only the specialness of the 3-day weekend that makes the traffic crapola.

Another problem solved would be the midweek hump day, commonly known as Wednesday, when weekends seem so far away in either direction. If you only have a 4-day week, no hump day, since on Tuesday the weekend was only a day or so ago, and on Wednesday, the weekend is only a day or so away! No hump day makes for no boring Wednesday-itis where all your coworkers look depressed because the weekend is so far away in both directions.

And here's a thing - having a 4-day week would help out all those Soccer mums - instead of losing a quarter to half of the weekend ferrying kids to and from school sports on a Saturday morning, and thus having less time to do grocery shopping, household cleaning and all that boring stuff, there would be the option to carry out the sport thing more spread out (no more 7am starts in winter...) or get it over with all on the one day and then *still* have a whole 2 days to do all the family catch-up stuff.

As for economic sense - since it seems most salaried workers in Australia work at least 10 hours a day anyway, but only get paid for 8, why not keep pay rates the same (i.e. paid for 40 hours) even though we're only working 4 days - that way we actually get paid for the hours we work, rather than the hours we are nominally employed for. Doesn't that sound fair? And maybe it would make the workplace more efficient too.

Look, to be fair, I think it would even work if we didn't all take the same 3rd day - some people take Friday and some Monday - the Sat/Sun common days are enough for sport, social events and all that, and meanwhile we all get our extra day.

Hey. I heard the public service can sort-of do this already with flexi time. Why isn't that standard for the rest of us?

now watch me disappear in a puff of ill-humoured smoke ..... grummble rummble grumf ..

well, dang!

2007-04-13T09:55:00.000+10:00

There are so many reasons the internet is cool. Forget the fact that D™ and I spent another evening sitting on the lounge next to each other with our separate laptops surfing the web. The thing is just a huge repository of good and useful geeky information.

Take for instance those mistyped URLs in your address bar. Because of the friendly way Firefox remembers your URLs and gives you autocompletion, the broken ones show up in the options list as well. Sometimes, they show up first. But all you have to do is shift+delete the b0rked one and it goes away. Noice, thanks Lifehacker.

Or, how about those times you're typing a long complicated email (or even a short frivolous one) in Outlook and you get all excited and hit *some* combination of keys that somehow just *sends* your email. Just like that. With no warning. After putting up with that for 2 years of using Outlook, I finally g00gled for it and found two things:

1. the mysterious shortcut is Ctrl+Enter. I know you can avoid weird automatic sending if you just don't fill in the address line of the email, but it's likely that your long complicated message is a reply so has a long complicated address line comprising To:, CC:, and BCC: lines so that's not always an option; and

2. There is a regedit to disable it. Ignore the stuff he says about Word unless you use Word as your email editor. Who does that? Seriously?

Yay Google.

Don't talk to me.

2007-04-11T13:29:00.000+10:00

I've discovered something today.

Stories published in newspapers are quite likely to only present one side of any given story and in this age of internet debate, the fact that I can't add a comment to any news story that I want to (unlike on a blog, for example) is quite annoying.

Anyway what's got me hot-n-bothered now is the Shlock! Horror! idea that technology is taking kids' time away from their parents. You can go read the whole thing, but here's the key quote:

The research by telco AAPT has revealed that 16 to 20-year-olds spend an average of 3.2 hours a day using technology.

This compares with just two hours of face-to-face communication spent with parents.

Almost half of the 1000 parents surveyed believed two hours was not enough time and would prefer about seven hours of face-to-face time with their children throughout the day.

Ok. But "telco AAPT" didn't ask, or didn't report, whether parents have ever been able to get 7 hours of face-to-face time with their children.

Wouldn't kids be diverting their time to playing outside, hanging out with friends, watching TV, hiding in their rooms, or on the phone, anyway? This is just a new way that they are not spending time with their parents. I'd be surprised if there are many families out there that get 7 hours of face to face time together daily where there is a TV, DVD player, VCR or even separate rooms for goodness' sake.

Jeez, D™ and I don't even get that. Not on weekdays anyway - maybe we get 4 hours a day? Some of which we spend watching TV so make that 3. Some of which is spent separate because of personal hygiene reasons, so make that 2.5. Some of which is spent separate because (for example) one of us is cooking and one is watering the garden. So make that 2. Oh dear. Technology has a lot to answer for doesn't it.

Although it is funny that the other day he said to me, "I read your blog at work because you're not there and it's like having a conversation with you." While being an alarmingly cute thing to say, it does support AAPT's other finding:

Despite this, almost 80 per cent believe technology has dramatically helped their family to stay in contact.

So there you go.

Edit:
D™ and I just spent about 1/2 an hour playing with Cozi. In the same room. With our backs to each other. In order to become more connected. Life's like that.

The story of Easter

2007-04-11T08:49:00.000+10:00

So, Premmia Iemma has sacked a minister for reasons which might be related to him being a man or might be related to domestic violence against women - "Australia says no" and all that. But Iemma denies the second reason, saying it's solely to replace a woman who left with a woman. (Isn't that positive discrimination anyway???)

The Liberal (and media) stance is that it's all about the domestic violence thing and that the press conference was a farce. Barry O'Farrell's comment though, is pure gold.

The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, said Mr Iemma's statement that the decision had nothing to do with the violence allegations was "like saying the Easter bunny's got nothing to do with Easter".

I guess Bazza O'Fazza hasn't heard of Jesus? Or maybe he was just emphasising that he actually agrees with ol' Morrie.

Either way, my opinion on the outcome of the last NSW state election is reinforced. It's just too too depressing. I'm in the 126% of people in NSW who don't like either party (from disapproval ratings of 59% for the incumbent and 67% for the opposition).

got the 411

2007-04-07T21:53:00.001+10:00

So, you might have heard at some point that one of my favourite flicks is Clueless, for several reasons, if you know me, you'll know why the film appeals, and if you don't know me or you haven't seen it then there's no point explaining it to you!

It's full of American cultural references that I didn't understand the first time I saw it, but because of clever writing that doesn't really matter - the context makes it obvious. But as I've gone through experiencing life (or at least experiencing the internet) I've come to understand more and more of it. I wouldn't say the references have enriched the movie, but I find it highly amusing that a film I saw in 1995 is the first time I heard some of these terms.

Ok, so rather than bore you any more with the slow slow workings of my mind, here's what I mean.

MEL : Which reminds me, where's your report card?

CHER : It's not ready yet.

MEL : What do you mean, "it's not ready yet?"

CHER : Well, some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy.

For years I thought she said the teachers were trying to lobe on her. No idea what that meant. But once I figured out the bidding thing on EBay, I got it.

And now, thanks to the Goog, I've finally got this line:

CHER : Here's the 411 on Mr. Hall. He's single, he's 47, and he earns minor duckets for a thankless job.

411 !! Information !! I get it !!

I still don't get "duckets" but at least the urban dictionary is always ready to offer a helping hand.

Oh, it's all very sad and ridiculous isn't it. But seriously, surely I'm not the only one out there who just lets things slide if you don't understand them, and if they don't seem that important. I mean, how often (in Australia) do you hear - or use - the term 411 in conversation? Really? So cultural references in film don't always translate, come to think of it, nor do they translate in books particularly well. How many non-Aussies find The Castle incomprehensible, for instance?

And then the other day I heard that the ad man who created the "shrimp on the barbie" campaign to send to America had passed away. But what got me was what the original campaign was about.

AD GUY 1 : How are we gonna advertise Oz to the Yanks?
AD GUY 2 : Guess we could invite them over for a couple of snags on the barbie?
AD GUY 1 : Hmm, good idea, but will they know what a snag is?
AD GUY 2 : Umm - "Banger on the barbie"?
AD GUY 1 : And we want to show that we have access to great seafood rather than just gristle and fat encased in sheep intestines. Might remind them that we're all convicts or something.
AD GUY 2 : Right. "Prawn on the barbie"?
AD GUY 1 : Prawn... prawn... would they know what that is?

And lo and behold, rather than reeducate the masses as to what a prawn is, they all come here wondering where all the shrimp are. No 411 there.

<sigh>

Tell me why I don't like Mondays

2007-04-03T21:50:00.000+10:00

You ever have one of those days when you shoulda just stayed in bed?

My Monday sucked - I agree, most Mondays suck, but especially when your day goes like this:

got to work, that bit was ok, thought "i'd better put some dollars into my keycard account" so logged in to ANZ, sent the transfer, all seemed hunky dory
called MBF to upgrade our hospital cover .. well that failed because apparently even though anyone with my mbf card can do it over the internet, I can't do it over the phone .. sheesh
went to eastgardens at lunch, but started by turning the wrong way out of the driveway..
finally managed to get there, so went to the ATM to get that cash I shoved into my keycard account, oh it seems I neglected to hit confirm at the new exciting second confirmation page of my internet banking so the extra cash was missing (at this point I should have given up)
went to Target to try to exchange a funky cardy that I bought on Saturday that D™ reckons was too big, the woman helpfully took it from me at the refunds counter and gave me an exchange note, then I spent 15 minutes getting lost in an unfamiliar Target and then finally walked out cardy-less because not only did they not have the cardy in my size they didn't even have it in the slightly wrong size ... or colour ... or anything ...
got takeaway for lunch, finally, and didn't really want it but I knew I needed it ...
nearly lost my car in the carpark, pretty much chose an aisle at random to walk down thinking I had ages to go to get to the car and then discovered it was on the other side of the aisle I'd chosen - purely by chance ...
got back to the work carpark and someone had taken my space .. had to randomly trawl for a spot in the sunny zone on a different level of the carpark to where I normally park
got back to the office, sat down and only managed to eat half the takeaway because it was just .. not very exciting ..
was putting the leftover in the fridge (this was about 1.50pm) when dude walks in looking like he wanted me for something, I said "what you after?" he said "that meeting you scheduled, I'm here" .... me: o_O ".... ? Oh. *That* meeting. Right. Let me just get my notebook ...."
had a meeting from 2- 3.50 at which point I had to leave in a hurry so I could get to target at Macquarie to try to find my bloody cardy ..
lost my car *again* as I walked to the wrong part of the carpark because I'd had to park elsewheres ...
finally on the road, heading the right way this time, I think I ran a red light at broadway ... all the other cars had stopped ... Hmmmm....
decided to take the bridge and new exciting tunnel, managed to get out before the M2 started (At which point I foolishly thought I'd made it through the day) - got to Mac in plenty of time ..
and went to target. They didn't have the cardy in either the good size or the slightly too big size. Asked the ladies at the exchange counter to ring around for me, no it's not at Parra or Carlingford, so as far as I'm concerned it's nowhere and I don't even have the too-big one, all I have is a bloody credit note.
Finally got home (didn't lose my car this time) through stupid "leaving north ryde heading west" traffic at which point it surely *had* to be over ...
posted the monster laptop sleeve story and then today I heard that the image didn't post properly from picasa and so had to fix it tonight!

I'm so glad that next week due to a religious observance, there is no Monday.

A monster ate my laptop ...

2007-04-02T20:10:00.000+10:00

A while ago I read about a place making monster sleeves for laptops, and at the time I thought "cool, kinda cute and quirky" ...

I described the concept to D™ and before you could say "Grr! Arrgh!" we were off to Spotlight to select fuzzy fabrics.

Unfortunately for the monster-in-waiting, you could then say Grr! Arrgh! a great number of times before I actually got connected to a sewing machine to create the fuzzy laptop muncher.

But .. it all came good in the end.

I feel like I have achieved something, if only giving birth to a monster. But that's still something!

Yes, I will take orders. Contact me if you want one and I'll see what I can do for you ;)

you know you're bored when ...

2007-04-02T19:54:00.000+10:00

... you decide to do one of those internetty quizzes because you saw it on a blog you tend to actually respect now and then just to fill up a blog post.

1. Where is your cell phone? Elsewhere.
2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend? Smashing.
3. Your hair? Comfortable.
4. Your mother? Practical.
5. Your father? Kind.
6. Your favourite item? Pendant.
7. Your dream last night? Snored.
8. Your favourite drink? Milk.
9. Your dream car? Silver.
10. The room you are in? Kitchen.
11. Your ex? Dull.
12. Your fear? Ignorance.
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Older.
14. Who did you hang out with last night? D™
15. What you're not? Infertile.
19. The last thing you did? Dinner.
20. What are you wearing? PJ's
22. Your favourite book? Magician.
23. The last thing you ate? Bread.
24. Your life? Full.
25. Your mood? Calm.
26. Your friends? Gorgeous.
27. What are you thinking about right now? Chocolate.
28. Your car? Maxy.
29. What are you doing at the moment? Wondering.
30. Your summer? Humid.
31. Your relationship status? Married.
32. What is on your tv? Mythbusters.
33. When is the last time you laughed? Now.
34. Last time you cried? Then.
35. School? Private.

Copy.
Paste.
Answer.
Questions.
In.
One.
Word.

I didn't know they could do that

2007-03-13T20:57:00.000+11:00

The internet is a fabulous place for finding info on the latest tech craze, why it's broken, where to get it fixed, or how to hack it yourself. One of the more popular sites to read about bleeding edge tech is Gizmodo ... not that I'm one of those 1337 h4x0rs what hang out there, but D™ has been known to send me links from it occasionally.

This post from a Gizmodo editor sums up why I don't frequent those sites much:

Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself. Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past. Complaining online about this stuff helps, but really, just stop buying it.

He goes on to say why "the market" is actually smarter than the early adopters - because "the market" is the mass of people who wait to see if something works before they buy it. Of course it's a bit circular, because without early adopters "the market" would be stuck, and without "the market", there would be nobody for the early adopters to thumb their noses at. (I know that's bad grammar, leave me alone).

Now I'm not much of an early tech adopter but I do read a lot of stuff on the Web - and my friends and family have been known to use my blog recommendations in their own surfing - so when I tell you that I've been following Giveaway Of The Day you will understand that to mean that I've been reading it for a few months now and decided now's the time to share.

A few days ago they offered an audio ripper/ CD maker piece of software. I believe the sell price was around US$20. For ages, I've been sort-of looking for something that will make a proper audio CD that will play in my car, from mp3 source files (from a CD that I promise I own, but have misplaced, and I happen to have the mp3s still hanging around). By sort-of looking I mean that I've not bothered to do any research at all, but since GOTD offered an audio specimen I decided to read about it and check out the feedback. So anyway they had this software, and I read about it and it seemed to do what I wanted it to. Then I read the comments. And this is the best part about GOTD - if you mine through the masses of "I don't want this" inane comments, you get some real gems of information that are actually useful. For this case, there were several mentions of other free softwares that would do the same, then about 3 or 4 (a high percentage, in other words) mentioned that your average CD/DVD software that came native on your average PC, or even Media Player would do this.

Woah. Media Player? Useful? Again? I'd already found that it was easy to create mp3s in Media Player as long as you mess with the default settings, but to reconvert back again? So I tried it. And it worked.

And that is why I added GOTD to my bloglines. Most of the time I don't want the software they are offering, but it's actually good to look through the comment threads if you're at all interested in the type of software on offer.

</advertising>

Flood relief

2007-03-12T11:23:00.000+11:00

Recently received in email:

A major flood hit the Campbelltown area on Sunday March 4 with its main disaster point being Queen Street, Campbelltown.

Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering "Faaackinell".

The flood decimated the area causing approximately $30 worth of damage.

Several priceless collections of mementos from the Macquarie Fields Riots were damaged beyond repair.

Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their Centrelink cheques arrived.

The Macarthur Advertiser reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Campbelltown.

One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 17 year-old mother of 5 said "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Kevin and Jason,slept through it all."

Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal.

The Australian Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Bacardi-Breezers to the area to help the stricken locals.

Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including Health Care Cards, Jewellery from Kmart and Bone China from Big W.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster.

Clothing is most sought after - items most needed include: baseball caps, tracksuits, singlets (blue & white) white sport socks, reebok boots Any other items usually sold in Go -Lo or The Reject Shop.

Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.

Required foodstuffs urgently needed include:
Microwave meals, Baked beans, Ice cream, Chips, Fizzy drinks.

Donations: $15.00 will be taken to buy a packet of winny blue 25s and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

**Breaking news**
Campbelltown Uniting Church has cancelled their local "Nativity Display" due to their inability to find three wise men or a virgin.

The internet is a funny place ....

bargain shopping

2007-03-10T10:43:00.000+11:00

So the other day, I was merrily driving off to the stupormarket, or somewhere equally stimulating, when I saw a car for sale by the side of the road....

...

Well, I found it amusing anyway.

out with the old

2007-03-07T09:15:00.000+11:00

Yeah, I did it.

Nice to have a few hours to mess with the template, seeing as I'm home waiting till it's time to go to an appointment.

Reminds me of waiting to go to afternoon exams at uni. You never quite know when to leave, because you don't want to be late, but you don't want to be hanging around at uni for hours until the exam starts.

Oh well. Luckily futzing with my template has killed some time.

If you don't like it, suggest a different free template and I'll follow it up.

Electioneering

2007-02-21T08:43:00.001+11:00

I read the news today, oh boy ...
about a lucky man who made the grade
and though the news was about spam
Well I just had to gasp
I really could not grasp ...
John Howard's had a heart attack
He didn't know it but his use has changed
A crowd of newbies got trojans
We'd seen his face before
Nobody is really sure if Norton filters out pollies....*

If you're wondering what that cryptic message is about, well apparently there is a spam floating round in this electioneering year saying that PM John Howard has had a heart attack, and has a link to The Australian's website. Unfortunately for the n00bs out there, the link is actually not to The Australian but to a 404 not found page which attempts to look like the Aust's website, but is in fact a bad place which downloads a trojan to your machine. This then attempts to steal all your money. Kind of like the government, really.

What got me going about this though was the comment in the SMH coverage, "Political and religious emails are not subject to the scrutiny of the Spam Act" ... so ... we can't even complain about emails that we don't want and won't read and that clutter our inboxes if they appear to contain political or religious matters. I can see it now ...

Subject: Jesus saves...
Message: all the money that we Nigerians can send him. Give us your bank details and your Bible bar code so we can spread the largesse.

Subject: John Howard for your PM..
Message: You need a personal masseur don't you, well our hosts are well trained and all named after prominent political figures.

Sheesh.

*apologies to the Beatles ...

cubular bells

2007-02-09T09:13:00.001+11:00

I was just perusing my bloglines, as you do, for something to read, and came across photojojo's latest post about making cubular photos. I quite like photojojo for supplying my needs in photography: namely, to have stuff to talk to D™ about over dinner... Like the awesomeness of the GorillaPod (in our house, now known as the drillerpod, for reasons best left unexplored) which ended up being an awesome Christmas present for D™ - up till then I'd had the exciting options of socks, jocks, or a box (of nothing).

Anyway back onto photojojo, they also often post links to other sites - like the runningfromcamera dude. They just make me giggle, which is always a good side benefit of using the InterWeb.

So today they had this story about DIY cubular photos but they linked to a story from 2001 about cubular watermelons. Watermelons. Squared. For ¥10,000 each. That's about $105 aussie. Yikes! I like my watermelon round, if that's the price of cubed! Reminds me of that Donald Duck story about Square Aigs....

Which in turns puts me in mind of one of my dad's favourite jokes. Or is it one of my favourite dad jokes. Anyway.

Q: How do you know how many pies to buy for lunch?

.. wait for it ..

A: Oh, 2 Π R enough to go around.

Hehe.

a million billion gazillion penquins

2007-02-02T17:45:00.000+11:00

Do you remember that Far Side comic that had an individualistic penguin standing up in a crowded rookery singing "I just gotta be me!!!" ?

Ok so maybe it's just me but that's always stuck in my head. Anyway tonight D™ and I are planning to go see Happy Feet, yes, the penguin movie. According to my mum (who does not have English as her first language) they are actually penquins, which is a lot cuter. And she'd know seeing as she and my dad have just returned from the superduper Antarctica boat trip where they saw millyuns and billyuns of penquins eating, sleeping, ice sliding, swimming, regurgitating, basically anything short of flying. (duh).

Penquins seem to be a theme in today's media. There's March of the Pengs, Happy Feetsies, and now the book publisher has started a wiki called amillionpenguins where they have launched the somewhat ambitious project of the world's first web-based collaborative novel.

I don't know whether I feel it will succeed or fail. Maybe a bit of both - after all, wikipedia is the prime example of how web-based collaborative resources that "anyone can edit" can have truly good bits, and truly bad bits.

Oh well, I might read some of it one day so I'll reserve my judgement till then.

thinking funny ...

2007-01-18T13:53:00.001+11:00

So having written such a wimpy post last time, I'm in the utterly unenviable position of having to write a good one to make up for it, which I will feel much better about leaving to rot on the front page of the blog for a few days/weeks/months.

Unfortunately, I *still* don't have much useful to say. I read an article yesterday which talks about why men are funnier than women. The conclusion was that men have all this energy to spend on impressing women (or killing each other) in order to reproduce (which doesn't take much, now, does it) so there's oodles available for being funny, while women have essentially no energy left after saving it all for reproducing, so they don't bother.

Does anyone laugh when they read my blog? Am I funny? I think I might be funny = strange, but not funny = haha, at least not in the way of, say, Girl vs Pig. So I guess it might be true, and especially must be so, because one of my little-known New Year's Revosolutions is that I have decided to live by the statement "I found it on the internet, so it's true". Think about it.

it won!

2007-01-17T08:40:00.000+11:00

Oh, I know this is technically blogorrhoea, but it won!

I'm so happy, I can hardly contain myself (that's a quote, btw).

building upstairs

2007-01-16T08:50:00.001+11:00

I've shamelessly stolen a blog post title from jarv - because it's the internet, and I can - but luckily she doesn't have a copyright statement so I'll never get sued .... (fingers crossed) ...

Anyway in all the foofaraw and hullabaloo of the end of the year and the start of the new one, I've decided it's time for a spring (summer) clean of upstairs, you know the place, the home of memory and thought and repository of all weird electrical connections that make us who we are ...

See what I mean about needing a spring clean?

Other people might call it a new year's resolution, or revolution, or evolution, but I'm going for something that is a bit more thorough while at the same time knowing that it's going to have to be done again.

It's a focus thing. This year I'm going to focus on reading new things, rather than trying to stick to a genre with which I am already comfortable, I'm going to focus on being a calmer person, and I'm going to focus on keeping up with friends. I know I tried to do that last year, and I sort of did ok, but I'm going to try to keep it up! After all just because a new year resolution did ok in year n, doesn't mean you can't dust it off and keep going at it in year n+1 does it?

So to start off with, I've been reading a bunch of books by James Clavell. In my wild teenage years I read a whole bunch of old adventure/thriller books my dad had picked up when someone left his work - Desmond Bagley, Frederick Forsyth, that kind of stuff. I tried reading Clive Cussler when I moved in with D™, but after the first book you kind of know the formula so the second, third and etc books are a bit .. predictable. Since then (about 7 years ago) I've not picked up an adventure book let alone read a saga of them. Enter James Clavell. A dude at work suggested I read Sho-Gun, which is a tome, when I'd mentioned to him that I thoroughly enjoyed reading Musashi a while back.

I finished that over Christmas (at Lorne, the coldest wettest beach to spend an Australian summer, *ever*) and so perused the local (only) secondhand bookshop to find more. I ended up with King Rat and Whirlwind, but I'm still missing Tai-Pan, Noble House and Gai-Jin. I'll get there - these books are *good*. There's action, adventure, drama, all that, there's a whole lot of history, politics, real-world tie-ins, and they're well written into the bargain. So this weekend I'm going to another second hand bookstore to try to fill my James Clavell bookshelf.

After that I thought I might try to read Gormenghast again. I tried for the first time about 10 years ago. Maybe I have matured enough to try again. Or maybe I'll end up spending more time with friends instead. Who knows.

Edit: my horoscope today says:

******************************
This week January 15 through January 21

Aquarius

Thursday's New Moon falls in this same area of your chart, a subtle influence that allows you to see clearly how your thoughts, beliefs, and state of being affect your external world. You are in a state of rapid evolution.

Hmm.

Have yourself a mery little christmas

2006-12-21T14:21:00.000+11:00

Many many moons ago, when I was just a wee tyke, I used to listen to the Muppets singing Christmas Carols with John Denver (oh yes, Rocky Mountain John Denver) every Christmas. We had it on LP and we used to listen to a cassette recording all the way to Melbourne and back each year.Last Christmas I finally caved and bought the CD from Amazon BUT! It was so upsetting when it finally arrived and was missing several tracks. Maybe some doofus thought that they couldn't fit all 13 tracks on the CD so they only put on 10. What*ever* - though it had the joy of the Twelve Days (Badum dum dum) and the Christmas is Coming round (it's finished - oh, I knew that) and and and, figgy pudding (made with figs - and bacon!) it *didn't* have Rowlf singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, which I have to admit is probably my favouritest soppy Christmas song ever, especially when sung by Rowlf.

So imagine my joy when I discovered that this Christmas, Amazon has the limitededitiondigitallyremasteredspecialcollectorsversiononlyforashorttimerelease of Christmas with the Muppets which has all-thirteen-songs.

Now I have to go brave the christmas shopping crowds to see if I can find it before Christmas actually arrives.

Sigh.

Edit: Hiren is a legend.

Of books, and worms

2006-11-17T09:14:00.000+11:00

Jarv recently posted about her NaNoWriMo efforts - she's introduced me to the term dystopian novel.

After looking it up on wikipedia, I realise that I've actually read (and enjoyed) a lot of dystopian novels. That makes me feel all posh and educated (or something). But then, as Jarv said, I wouldn't necessarily want to go ahead with reading books just *because* they are in that category.

Someone told me recently that I must be a fast reader. Why? Because I have read so many books, that I must finish them quickly. Well, maybe. I guess I do read quite fast, which makes it less of an investment for me to re-read something.

I know I've done a list before, of sci-fi that I've read and appreciated, so you know how to calibrate against my taste in geekery. But you don't know my taste in novels overall. So here is a quick run-down of types of fiction I've enjoyed (in terms you don't have to look up on wikipedia). And if you're interested, I've read most of these several times, and continue to enjoy reading them.

1. Period social satire:
Jane Austen - Persuasion
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

2. Other worlds (fantasy):
JRR Tolkein - LOTR, specifically The Return of the King
Ursula le Guin - Earthsea, specifically A Wizard of Earthsea
Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of Her Dreams (Mordant's Need)

3. Science Fiction:
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
Isaac Asimov - Foundation (is this dystopian? probably?)
Douglas Adams - HHGTTG, of course

4. Assorted stuff that makes me *think*, and it can be pretty hard going sometimes:
Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver (and the others)
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore (but all the rest as well!)
Alain de Botton - Consolations of Philosophy

I leave it to you, faithful reader, to make your own opinions (and your own google/amazon/imdb searches).

What would Tuscany think?

2006-11-10T17:15:00.000+11:00

I was in the supermarket the other day, falling into a mild stupor over the choice of fruit juice (Should I get breakfast juice with A,C and E, or instead the one with Iron and Folate? Should I stick to Orange, or get Multi Carrot Berry Blend Plus+++ ?) Ok, so I might have been making those up, and even after I made my choice (because it was 2 bottles for $6 and that's 4.8L of juice so it works out to about 18 cents per glass, which is pretty darn cheap), I was shaking my head at myself for getting stuck on the Added Vitamins. I'm referring of course to the fact that there is no discernible nutritional or medical benefit in Added Vitamins in juice, because there just isn't a therapeutic dosage in there, and if you're really after those Added Vitamins you should either go and eat fruit/vege/meat/etc original source, or if you're lazy just buy some tablets.

Be that as it may, the stupor induced by the juice was nowhere near the stupor I fell into when considering the breakfast cereals. I had one item on my list - "boy cereal" which as we all know means cereal made of small boys. The stupor wasn't induced by the choice of cereals (I knew which one I wanted!) but by the conversation I overheard between Kylie** and Pammy** back at the juice.

"Can Tuscany have apple juice or is it just orange juice she reacts to?"

Tuscany?

TUSCANY?

While I accept that maybe I'm just being a change-hating misanthrope, and that we often name places after people, I find the practice of naming people after places to be absurd.

Sorry. Tuscany? What's the child's nickname going to be? Annie? Or maybe if she has buck teeth she will be just "Tusk". Maybe when she's old enough she'll ask to be called by her middle name, "Helsinki".

Goodness me.

**I don't think these were their real names, but they could have been!

Radley!

2006-10-24T08:19:00.000+10:00

So, last Friday night D™ and I went on a ghost tour of the old Quarantine station at Manly. The guide was doing his very best to make us all spooked out, but I didn't see any ghosts. The tour was fun - and you learn a lot about the history of people arriving in Australia, and how hard it is to keep the country free from diseases (especially if you don't know how the disease is spread, or cured).

However even though we didn't see any ghosts I did have a weird feeling during parts of the trip. At the top of the hill is the hospital wing and we went inside one of the wards. On the verandah outside, I had the strangest feeling, like I was falling, or like something was about to happen, and then as we exited the ward I felt very queasy and had that weird feeling when you just *know* your blood pressure has suddenly dropped.

D™ reckons it's to do with the fact that we were on a peninsula and the wind was changing all the time. At the end of the tour a serious southerly change came up and sent us all inside to have a cup of tea, when the rest of the night was quite mild and humid. So maybe that was it. But the guide told us about others who have seen/felt ghosts on that site so .... /shrug/

But it makes me think about what it is that happens when you see (feel?) a ghost.

I think that a ghost might be an impression left behind by someone when they experienced strong emotion in a certain place. When we went to Wombeyan Caves (or Wombleyan, as I like to call them) we went on a guided tour. In one of the tunnels, the guide said "imagine the 18th and 19th-Century tours down here, ladies crawling along in their dresses and petticoats..." and I had such a massive freakout. The cave, the enclosed space, the darkness, flickering light, all that was fine. But the thought of all those people crawling about just unsettled me. I get the same weird feeling seeing the depressions in old sandstone steps behind Cadman's Cottage - from all the hundreds of thousands of people who have walked there since they were cut. So I'm weird that way, but maybe that's what I'm sensitive to - just the feeling of hundreds of years of people doing things in one spot.

So ... on the quarantine station tour, maybe that's what the weird feeling was - just knowing that hundreds/thousands of people had been processed there. But it was diluted by the modern touches so I was only partially spooked.

Add your ghost stories in the comments.

As daily and friendly as a pencil

2006-10-05T22:12:00.000+10:00

I was going to write something pithy and witty about how amused I was to hear about the impact that America's latest legislation had on college students. You know the story, they legislated to make sending money to offshore online casinos illegal, and now all these college students have to stop getting addicted to gambling and invest their hard-earned dollars (earned selling burgers, or whatever, to slightly richer college students, I guess) in more salubrious pursuits. Like drugs, or pornography, or file sharing, or whatever it is passes for fun these days.

But, instead I'd rather write about a book. Not just any book. A book my father read to me and his father ... waaait a second, that's a different book.

Someone told me recently that if I was looking for tomes, I should try my hand at the Great Amurrican Novel genre. I'd just read The Great Gatsby for the first time ever, so obviously I thought I knew it all. But anyway. He recommended Underworld ... yeeeaahhhh ... we have that. D™ and I have both tried to read it several times, and neither of us can get past the decades-long description of the baseball game at the start. It would be ironic if the whole book is all about the baseball game. We must just not have enough cultural similarities to "get it". When this friend went on to suggest The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, I thought ... hmm, if this is another so-called Great Amurrican Novel I'm gonna read it in Borders before I invest in it.

So the next time I went to Borders I looked for this Franzen fellow - he was there, all right, but no Corrections in sight. A couple of other random things were there, but I settled for Proust instead. You can't go wrong with a bit of Proust. That's pretty hard going though, sometimes I have the distinct impression that I'm swimming through rapidly setting jelly trying to get from one end of a sentence to the other. As soon as you lean one way you're totally off course and you have no idea where you started or where you'll end up. But, a great sense of achievement from just setting off though. Alain de Botton said, Proust will change your life - I'm coming to believe that. Even if you don't follow it all the way, just the exercise of paying attention to the descriptions will enrich your daily habitation. Proust can spend several pages describing the memory that the taste of tea-cake inspires in our hero. When I put the book down, I had the distinct feeling that I should be paying more attention to things that we normally just don't notice. The feeling you get from the first sip of tea in the morning. The sense of calm when the hot water in the shower first cascades over you. That impossible moment just before you open your eyes on a Sunday morning with the birds singing and the sun shining in the curtains. Even to exploring the feeling of not being able to remember something ... until it suddenly pops out at you. Case in point: Depeche Mode! I've been trying to remember that for hours!

And then .. I picked up a copy of The Corrections for cheap at the local book clearance. It's much easier going than Underworld. Franzen's sentence structure does tend towards the Proustian .. in that the sentences can go on forever, but he is poking fun at himself when he does it. Almost as if he is saying to himself "let's see how long I can carry this sentence on for without losing the thread." It's quite highly amusing to read about losing one's way in the middle of a sentence, likening Alfred's wandering mind to the sentence describing the wandering mind .. or something like that. The book is also not easy going, but I think it does deserve the term "Pretty good so far Amurrican Novel".

And coming from me, the book snob of the family, I think that's pretty high praise ... though it's still not as good as Quicksilver though (so far).

non-geeks, avert thine eyes

2006-09-15T14:15:00.000+10:00

I know I might risk alienating my readership. Oh well. Sometimes you just have to tell the world how geeky you are.

If you use Firefox then maybe you'll like this one. Sometimes I can't be bothered hunting through the list of bookmarks for the one I just know is there - like my bloglines, or smh or whatever. Well in FF you can set a keyword (or words) for your bookmark, that you can type in the address bar and you will just go there! So good.

Go to Bookmarks -> Manage bookmarks.

Right-Click on a bookmark name that you love like ... oooh, jarv's blog.

Then enter a keyword, say "Jarv".

Then save it.

You're done! Open a new FF tab (by Ctrl+t, dummy) and type "jarv" in the address bar.

It's Magic!

Today's geeky fact is brought to you by the Window+D key combo. Never lose your desktop again!

let's go home, I'm tired now

2006-09-05T09:56:00.000+10:00

You might think from my Monday that I was suffering from a weekend of shenanigans. But no...

Fri night - a lovely 2-hour train journey home. Bloody cancelled trains stupid telopea train line random connections missing grumble grumble. (oh, and D™ took the car to Canberra..)
Sat day - gave blood, did some book shopping, went to a baby shower in glebe (remind me next time that it's not a good idea to walk from central to glebe in 27-degree-heat after giving blood..) then got on the 6pm bus to go to canberra.
Sat night - weird woozy feeling not at all helped by sleeping on the floor in a house full of paint fumes. In Canberra.
Sun day - woke up cricknecked, painted Someone.Else's.House. all day. In Canberra. Then drove back to Sydney with D™, arrived home 8pm.
Sun night - got to bed around 9.30, woke up at 11.40 when a FIRE ENGINE was flashing its lights and reversing down the fire trail in the reserve opposite our bedroom window (random? maybe!) then woke again at 1.30 with the wind rising, then woke again at 5.20 with the kookaburras then finally woke -again- just after 6 to go to work.

*sigh*

today it's better. Had a good night's sleep, no fire engines, no kookaburras, and I've found this ... I love this one which made me actively chortle. Hehe. I just looked at it again and I chortled again. I love the internet. Time's a-wastin'! (that's in the declarative sense)

Oh and if you're curious about the books I bought - they were tomes:

Underground by Haruki Murakami.

Swann's Way by Proust.

On Seeing and Noticing by Alain de Botton.

ride 'em cowboy

2006-08-31T14:07:00.000+10:00

I don't understand yodelling. I don't understand how you do it, why you do it, and why you'd listen to it.

Wikipedia says:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln (originally Bavarian) meaning "to utter the syllable jo".

yoy

That being said, last night we were watching Spicks and Specks - which concluded with a demonstration of classical yodelling. What's that? You thought that meant "yodelling in the classical style" as opposed to "yodelling in the latest alternative-grunge-punk-hip/hop-folk-groove style"? No, no you're mistaken. It means yodelling to classical music. The yodeller yodelled her way through the William Tell Overture.

It was astounding.

As pastimes go though, I suppose her childhood of hanging around in mango trees, yodelling, is better than some. Me, I prefer listening to things other than yodels on my iriver. Did I mention that I don't own an iPod? Well these iPod covers almost make me want one. As Cher would say "I wonder if they have that in my size.."

ed: thought for the day - seeing as we all have blogs and we can be self-published geniuses all over the world, why is it so gratifying to see yourself linked on someone else's blog?

As D™ says:
Now you have to blog about being quoted in a blog and so the intenet fills up just that little bit more with junk.
*sigh*

they really are the works

2006-08-30T09:24:00.000+10:00

So last night I was telling D™ a story about my day. We wondered if it's just me that has weird things happen, or maybe it's just me who feels the need to share all the time.

See, I had to go get some USB memory sticks for work. There's an Officeworks on the way home from work so that's easy. I got into the store at about 5pm.

Then I went down to the tech section, and viewed the keys through the locked glass cabinet - picked out the one I wanted by eye. 1GB for $45, you can't beat that, especially when 512MB by the same manufacturer was $60. So then I wandered out of the tech section looking for someone to unlock the cabinet, instantly a helpful assistant in a yellow high-vis jacket came to my aid. Straight away, he gets the key, unlocks it, selects my USB keys (I needed 2 of them), then starts heading to the register.

I said, "oh, sorry, I also need to get some DVDs" .. so he takes me to the DVD section, I stand there with him (he's still holding my USB keys) and so I feel all rushed, anyway I pick some Sony DVD-Rs and he says "oh, they're just DVD-R, is that ok?" and I was "huh? Is there a difference between DVD-R and DVD+R?" and he says, "no, just that they're not DVD-RW" .. oh, right. Well D™ asked for DVD-R specifically so I guess he knew what he wanted. Anyway yellowjacket is now holding my 50 DVD-Rs and my USB keys. Then he starts heading for the register again.

"Oh, sorry, I also needed to get some CD cases." So he walks me to the CD case section, where luckily I already knew what I wanted and just grabbed them. Meanwhile he's still carrying my DVDs and my USB keys. This time when he starts heading for the register I follow him meekly. We get there and there's a queue, and the register attendant has just walked off with a wodge of $50 notes, presumably cashing out, but with customers still in line. So the yellowjacket looks at me, then waves at the manager, and sure enough, someone comes over and opens the next register. Yellowjacket takes my USB keys and DVDs and me over to the newly opened register, waits till he makes eye contact with the attendant, and then finally puts the USB keys down. Then turns to me and says "here you go, have a nice evening". I was back in Maxy and on the road by 5.15pm.

Now tell me, how many times have *you* been to Officeworks and got a parcel carrying service *inside* the store?

Is it just me?

out of focus, out of reality, out of Uranus

2006-08-28T14:48:00.000+10:00

Just to continue a theme, here's some light reading:

Pluto is the outermost planet of the solar system, and the end of the process of breaking down the reality structure of normal consciousness begun by Uranus.

Riiiight. So, after exiting Uranus it's quite likely that you'll lose your reality structure. Uh-huh. <nods>

So, if reality is broken down, does it really matter that Pluto is no longer considered a planet?

I guess not.

This week August 28 through September 3

Aquarius
<snip>

Mars also moves to square Pluto, and this could cause aggravation, possibly even some anger. Don't give way to your baser emotions. Try and diffuse the situation and see it from a more enlightened perspective.

Diffuse?

Come to think of it, I was feeling a little focused.

sorry for the toilet humour, it's that kind of day ...

"I had to cut it off" reports distressed 12-year-old

2006-08-25T08:53:00.000+10:00

Latest news: Pluto is not a planet.

After 76 years, poor lil' Pluto has been globally realigned and is no longer classified as a planet but instead is a Kuiper Belt Object. While slightly disturbing to astronomers, and potentially world-shaking to astrologers, I feel the impact of this change has been underestimated when you think of the thousands of school children currently making solar system models for school projects.

Think about it. You've worked hard for weeks, finding or making spheroids representing 9 planets and the sun .. you've been painting ping pong balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, maybe even the odd football for fun ... and then some random astronomy bunch decides to remove one!

This morning a 12-year old rang up parent radio and complained that her diorama, due today, would have to have Pluto removed in emergency surgery. What's more disturbing is that we just don't know whether her teacher knows about Pluto - will she be marked down for missing a planet?

But being pragmatic, I expect most 12-year olds will be happy that it's one less planet to memorise .

Let me see ...

Many Very Excellent Men Jump Straight Up Near Paris

now becomes

Many Very Excellent Men Just Said Utter Nonsense

I can live with that.

road rage

2006-08-24T09:12:00.000+10:00

I was going to write a post about how I'm such a perfect driver and everyone else out there should drive the way I want them to, but then re-read it and realised I sound like a total idiot, so I deleted it. And replaced it with a total ramble through the trackless waste that is my mind on coffee.

If you suffer from road rage, or even just if you're human, you must read the Consolations of Philosphy (it must be good, my mum likes it), which has an interesting thing to say about other people: you have to remember that they aren't doing what they do *just* to annoy you. They are doing it because they just don't care about you nearly as much as they care about themselves. Just like you. So deal with it.

Speaking of dealing with things, our lunchtime poker game has experienced tragedy of a sort that is hard to recover from: the 2 of clubs has a tear in it. I guess that's what's known as a marked card. Put that together with our "if you've got a pair of twos, go all-in" rule and you end up with an interesting game.

Meanwhile my favourite sister-in-law is getting on a plane tonight to go to Europe. I'm insanely jealous, not about Europe (though I'd love to visit there one day) but because we haven't had our annual ski trip this year due to house-bound imperatives like renovating, and house-hunting. Have a nice time Mandy and don't forget to email us, at least once!

what? A trouper?

2006-08-17T13:49:00.000+10:00

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. It looks wrong. It should be trooper shouldn't it?

Apparently not .

Speaking of trooping though, the other day I caught the train from Telopea with a dozen hand-picked fellow commuters. Not that it was my hand doing the picking, but they all chose to be there that morning.

I've caught that train before, and you come to recognise people on the platform. Commuters, you see them every day, but you never say anything to them, that would be weird.

Like, the guy with the soccer ball.

And the lady in the long black coat.

And the Chinese guys who park their car opposite the petrol station in the closest parking spot to the station. I only mention them because they're the only people I've ever seen who actually drive to Telopea Station. Everyone else walks. If you have a car, you'd drive to a different station, at the very least. Telopea is just above the arse-end of stations (as in, it's one stop closer to the city than Carlingford station).

So anyway, I always see these two well-dressed business ladies, probably in their early to mid twenties. They have immaculate hair and very classy outfits, usually a skirt with a business jacket, and spiky heel shoes of course. They always arrive together. And then get on the train together. And then sit together. And then listen to their (singular) iPod together. Yes, one ear each. And then chat together till about Rosehill (2, maybe 3 stops along).

And then they fall asleep. Together. With their heads tilted. Together.

I can only assume that they doze off while thinking "mustn't.. pull.. earpod.. out.." which is why their heads always rest together.

It's very cute.

easily accessible, yet profoundly complex

2006-08-08T09:07:00.000+10:00

If you like reading a book that makes you
a. go, "what the...?", and yet
b. fly along for the ride, and then
c. daydream *really* strange things

then you must read Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Best. Murakami. Ever.

And then, you will agree why it's been nominated for best novel in the World Fantasy Awards this year.

Don't look at me like that - I'm not the one who follows these things, I just follow other people's blogs and they tell me all I need to know.

...

Just like you.

a tourist in my own town

2006-08-03T14:09:00.000+10:00

Someone commented to me recently, that I do weird things for someone who's lived in Sydney all their life. I was waxing lyrical about a coffee and chocolate tour DTM and I went on one Saturday morning. More about the tour later. Much, much more!

But the thing is, I guess I do explore Sydney doing touristy type things, because I love my city, I love going in and feeling the buzz, I love seeing the old buildings and I love having stories to tell about all the places you see. Like, "here is a sculpture that looks like a public urinal". "And here is one that doesn't". Stuff like that.

I also like to try seeing things with new eyes every now and again. And seeing as we're not going on holidays till (at least) the reno is finished, (at which time we will buy a new house, and then we will have a new mortgage and we won't be able to go on holidays anyway till 2099), by turning on my "see Sydney with new eyes" ability, it's just like being on holidays in a new city without all the hassle of passports and language barriers. I'm sure at this point all my well-travelled friends and acquaintances will jump on me saying this city or that mountain is "like, waaay better than Sydney", but that's not the issue. What I'm trying to say is, we often don't appreciate things we have right here, and I'm one of the people who wants to try that. That is, in lieu of using passports and language skills to travel, because - well, see above about renovations and mortgages. (Speaking of which, why does the credit card company offer me *more* credit when interest rates just went up? Isn't that just like handing a waterbottle to someone who's drowning in the ocean?)

Aaaaanyway, a very close friend gave me a couple of vouchers for this coffee and chocolate tasting tour of Sydney. Mmm, coffee. Mmmmmmm, chocolate. Here's the rundown:

You start at the Strand Arcade with a cup of coffee then go touring round Sydney's CBD visiting chocolate shops (and sampling! Oh, the samples!). We started at Haigh's - and I very nearly stopped there, I love Haigh's. Oh, the truffles. Oh, the dark chocolate buttons. Oh, the divine hand made chocolates. Oh, the friendly staff. Oh, oh oh ....
Then we visited Darrell Lea (ok, I'm not that much of a tourist here, I must say it bored me), Jeff de Bruges (oh my, it's expensive!), Lindt (mmm, Lindt balls) and the DJ's food hall chocolate store ... which, while conveniently located opposite Max Brenner's, was not our final stop ... no, we ended up at the Sheraton on the Park having a very civilised final cup of coffee.

Chocolate samples, and the two hot drinks, were included in the tour, as well as discounted shopping at all the stores we visited and loads of interesting tales about that good brown stuff. I must say, after 2 1/2 hours of nothing but chocolate, really really good chocolate notwithstanding, I was choc-full! But oh so happy - in fact the entire tour group were getting on very very well by the end ... must have been those endorphins!

Next weekend DTM and I are going on a dinner cruise round Sydney Harbour. Maybe this time I'll take photos .... naaah, I'm a local, why would I need to do that? hehe.

ever had the problem where ...

2006-08-01T15:29:00.000+10:00

you plugged in your H10 and your USB memory stick at the same time and windows gave the H10 drive letter E: and then tried to give your USB stick drive letter F: except that F: is a network drive, so ever after the USB stick although recognised, is unreachable because it's still trying to connect to F: ?

Well now I know how to fix it.

:)

If I had categories, this would be filed under "miscellaneous geekery". Coming soon: how to make categories. Or I could just copy what's out there ;)

betas are bad for you and they rot your teeth

2006-07-28T15:41:00.000+10:00

That last comment about using writely reminded me of the last time I experienced the joys of beta software.

Here is a transcription of a conversation that took place between D™ and me recently. Hang on, that implies there was actual talking going on that needed to be transcribed. In fact this was an email conversation. Anyway, whatever, here goes:

1. Me

YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY

my links now work.

bloody stupid IE7 beta preview thing.

If you have:
1. Firefox as your default browser
2. MS Outlook 2000 (presumably also outlook express) - maybe other versions, whatever
3. IE7 beta 2 installed
4. Oh but then you have to reset FF as your default browser coz IE doesn't even ask, it just sets itself...
then: when you click a link in outlook you either get nothing, nada, zip zilch, not a thing, or you get an explorer window into C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\1033\nt - wtf?

So then after a little bit of a hunt around MS forums I thought it might be something in MAPI or DDE or some such, but without running registry-killing fixmapi I thought I'll just check the forums. And lo and behold someone else had it. Love the internet.

So now I've uninstalled IE7 and things are all better. You can shove your beta software up your arse, microsoft. (uninstalling IE7 returns me to IE6 and I can cope with that thankyou very much).

2. D™

two words
well 2 acronyms
. . . well 6 words . . .
and some punctuation

ie7? wtf?

3. Me

yessm? didn't you know about microsoft's attempt at tabbed browser goodness? internet exploiter 7 (which is now in beta2, whatever that is).

Remind me again why I don't use beta software.

:)

4. D™

Because you write betas and you know what unwholesome goodness goes into them
And besides, betas are bad for you and they rot your teeth.

He's full of wisdom.

a better way to spend your money

2006-07-28T09:24:00.000+10:00

The other night, $1.2million was the winning bid at an auction for a Victoria Cross and assorted other medals of an Aussie soldier killed in WWI. Or was he a kiwi. Anyway, a big deal is being made of this record amount being paid. And a bigger deal is being made of the anonymous patron who is going to generously loan the medals to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for permanent display.

What I want to know is, who was the previous owner. The person who put the medals *up* for auction. They get $1.2million and they laugh all the way to the bank. Wouldn't it have been better all round if they'd loaned the medals to the War Memorial in the first place?

Then the mysterious War Memorial patron could spend his $1.2million (or perhaps a wee bit more) to upgrade Caves House and preserve some 340-million-year-old Australian heritage instead of this paltry 90-odd year stuff.

Seriously though folks, if you're looking for somewhere to spend your $1.2million you can't go past this place. It's not a shopping blog, and frankly, it's shall-I-say awesome. D™ reckons he can hear my voice when he goes there, either because they write in a style not dissimilar to my own, or because I'm usually talking to him while he's surfing.

Hmmm.

edit: I posted this using writely and it garbled my $ symbols into a very long weird looking string of characters. Remind me again to stop using beta software.

Trompe l'oeil - but not the mind

2006-07-19T21:25:00.000+10:00

A totally fun aspect to living in Telopea is the absolute mind boggling astoundingness of the daily commuter train to the city. There's 1, count them, one, (which by the way is neo spelled backwards) train that goes direct from our little station all the way into bustling Sydney town without having to stop and cool your heels, your backside, and other important parts, at Clyde for 20 minutes waiting for a connection. So if you've got any brains in your head, you'll either buy a dinosaur, or you'll make sure that you get to the station in plenty of time to get on the commuter train.

Once you've arrived at the station, with nothing to do apart from fight with the ticket machine, you might stand at the railing watching cars, err dinosaurs, go past. And if you do, you can't fail to notice the big ol' gazebo summerhouse thing...

Or is it?

Yes well I've been staring at it for nearly a year's worth of train trips and I still don't know what the tank thing is for.

Here's a close up in case you thought it really was a summerhouse:

Yeah. Didn't think so.

the drugs don't work

2006-06-30T10:31:00.000+10:00

... well, if they don't make it worse, at the very least they don't make it all better either. My loyal following will recall that I've had headaches off-n-on since about March this year, and that the headache when it comes will last for days, and nothing seems to relieve it. Painkilling medication doesn't actually "kill" the pain, just makes it so that though you can feel it, it's not ruling your life.

I could review the painkillers I've been taking in terms of their headache removability:
1. aspirin, pretty commonly regarded as "good for what ails ya" but in fact it's only really good for hangovers or dehydration headaches. Not for my special kind. But at least it didn't make it worse ...

2. paracetamol, always recommended as a first choice after aspirin, but didn't have a huge impact on the headache either.

3. ibuprofen, well this was not too bad. The neurologist recommended taking it as soon as the headache started and it seemed to reduce its severity - but then I'd have to take another dose or combine with another drug for full functionality so it's not awesome - but a good standby and very cheap.

4. "nurofen tension headache" - this is ibuprofen lysine. The pharmacist (whom I asked for advice, as you're meant to) said "oh, well it works better than normal nurofen because it's targeted specifically for the tension headache." Funnily enough the package next to it, " Migraine pain" was the same dosage and same everything except "targeted specifically for the migraine headache". She knew nothing, so I researched it a little bit and it's meant to act faster than straight ibuprofen. It was ok, acting faster is fine but the net effect was the same as the regular stuff. And it's twice as expensive as homebrand ibuprofen which brings its rating down to

5. prodeine forte (a strong paracetamol/codeine blend also marketed as panadeine forte) - wow, now we're getting into the strong stuff. Its main side effect is incredible wooziness, though it's also very effective at helping you ignore the pain. In fact you can ignore just about anything! So I would recommend taking it if the pain is stopping you sleeping, but that's about it. And then the sleep you do get when you have taken one, is pretty weird (you'll notice the same effect with codral night time tablets) so it gets

6. tramadol ( Zydol, or Tramal) - or as I like to call them, "tiny little capsules of joy". These were the most effective, least side-effective of all the drugs I tried. They work reasonably fast, you can combine them with nurofen, and they don't cause any weird drowsiness or hallucinations. So two thumbs up and from me.

Unfortunately as you'd probably gathered from the title of the post, in the end though the drugs weren't solving the problem, only addressing the symptom. I'd been to see my GP a couple of times, with no conclusive diagnosis, a neurologist who said it *might* be a migraine brought about from muscle tension, and I'd had CT and MRI scans which showed nothing abnormal. So despite being reassured that there wasn't anything wrong, and being about $600 poorer for the knowledge, in fact I still didn't know anything at all. (Relax, this story has a happy ending - I went to medicare and got nearly $400 back so I'm only $200 poorer after all.)

So this week when I had a debilitating headache on Tuesday, I went to a physio recommended to me by a good friend. The physio poked me in my neck and said "does it hurt here?". When I recovered from the intense pain of said poking, she informed me that the headache was probably referred from tension in my neck and that my neck shouldn't actually feel like a solid lump of bone but should feel like the soft tissue which it in fact is. When I told her I'd been renovating and this so far involved repainting our house, she said "well there's your problem" and told me to stop painting for a few weeks. (what a pity!)

So here I am, two physio treatments later and drug free and loving it. I'm going back for more treatments quite possibly for the next couple of months as there are neck, shoulder and back muscle issues that she has yet to deal with. But in general ... I'd say it's a good outcome! And for the physio!

megaphone diplomacy*

2006-06-08T20:26:00.000+10:00

or, how to spot a nerd at 5 paces ...

This story revolves around my love of parent radio, you know, the radio station that parents listen to when driving the kids to school, because it has a nice mix of news, current affairs, opinion and music. See when I was a kid, it seemed pretty boring. Then I discovered JJJ and "rebellion" of a kind ... and then Adam Spencer left JJJ and I was adrift in a sea of podcasts and MP3s on my iRiver. Ah! But then I found Adam again on the aforementioned parent radio ... then started listening to other programs there ... and decided that the mix of news, current affairs, opinions and - well - Adam's choice in music - really suited me! So here I am, a triplej convert (or maybe I'm just getting old ..) and the other day I was listening to the Drive show and there was a segment about fake movie reviews, someone was trying to guess which of a series of wildly improbable descriptions was the real movie review.

One of the reviews was for the movie "Dummy" (1979) which turned out to be "A deaf and dumb young man is accused of murdering a prostitute and defended by a deaf lawyer, starring LeVar Burton as the young man" (rather than "Babies see red when clinical research into pacifiers gets contaminated").... waaaaaaiiiiit a minute. Isn't LeVar Burton that guy who was in Star Trek? Wow, turns out he did a lot more stuff than that.

So anyway they had fake reviews for other films, one of which was "A hairdresser sets up shop in the trenches of WWI" - which was referenced in an episode of Black Books that we watched the other night. The world really is fundamentally interconnected**.

... but wait, there's more ...

The inspiration for this blog was that I was sitting watching other people play poker (because I had lost already) and somehow, somewhere, someone said something about "Potemkin" .... and I said - that's the name of the Starship in the episode where there were 2 Will Rikers ... *gulp* ... instantly I was hounded about the depth of my nerdiness, not only did I know of Will Riker, but I know the names of the starships in the episodes ... at least I didn't know the episode name, I had to google for it. So I did, and that led me to LeVar Burton, which led me to Dummy, which led me to Black Books, which led me to ... well, wherever we are.

Oh and btw - in that episode of Star Trek, Will Riker wins a hand of poker (with Worf and Data) with a full house. And then plays against himself and there's a whole lotta bluffing .... but anyway - I believe we have come full circle.

I am going to take my nerdiness off to bed now.

*megaphone diplomacy has nothing to do with this blog entry, but it was mentioned on parent radio recently. And I liked the term.

** oh and hey, it's funny how the java thingammy that shows how all weblogs are fundamentally interconnected, has failed because there are too many blogs. Hehe.

Be vewy vewy quiet ....

2006-06-05T15:18:00.000+10:00

.... we're hunting WABBITS!

Last night we played a game of Trivial Pursuit - those two words that meant so much back in 1983 have been revamped with a shiny new board. Whoever came up with the idea to change the names of the categories should be shot though, because whatever "GT" is (Gran Turismo, maybe?) it's still full of sport questions... but I digress.

One of the questions we had was what is the common name of Sylvilagus palustris hefneri - well it seems Hugh Hefner has had a species of Rabbit named after him. Isn't that interesting. I wonder if the writers of the new Tribble Forsooth used Wikipedia as their main information resource. That, and the Big Print Guide to the Sydney Olympics ....

And of course the inevitable controversy arose - should they be called "Pie" or "Cheese" or just the boring "Wedge"? When I played it was always Cheese. But D™ thinks it should be Pie. And the rules say Wedge. So who knows, but at least it's consistently about food.

In unrelated news, yesterday a young man was taken to Goulburn Hospital suffering a gunshot wound to the thigh. Apparently his dad mistook him for a rabbit, or something.

Son: "Dad, what are we hunting again? Rabbits, or ducks?"
Dad: "DUCK, SON"

*kapow*

A bit blurry at the edges

2006-05-09T19:11:00.000+10:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 7 May 2006 21:26:44 -0700
Subject: Weekly Horoscope
To: butercup

************************************************************
This week May 8 through May 14

Aquarius

Mars continues to move through your health zone and is spurring you on to greater things. You want more for yourself, and you also want to look better and feel more wonderful than you have in some time. The Sun squares Neptune on Wednesday which may blur the edges of reality and make it more difficult to find out what is fact and what is fiction. You could also be the one blurring the edges of reality because you aren't prepared to take a stand - so check out your attitude if you have a problem with someone.

************************************************************

It seems that this week I'm going a bit soft at the edges, but that I'd like to feel more wonderful that usual. I'm not sure exactly what that's all about, because I make a point of being happy in my skin - and not to spend too much time regretting things I can't change. That being the case, though, I am obviously willing to better myself - q.v. recent completion of one MBA.

The thing about horrorscopes, is that I firmly (or blurrily) believe that we make our own come true. If you read one of these things, and that changes your outlook so that you (for example) take a stand where you have a problem with someone, then you can either say "wow, my horoscope came true!" or you can get real, and understand that all it's doing is reminding you to look at everything you encounter and maybe squeeze some opportunities from that.

So this week, I guess I should sharpen up. Time to focus those blurry edges and become even more wonderful than I have been to date.

... oh wait, maybe that's because I haven't put in my contact lenses today.

Hypnotic Hypnerotomachia

2006-05-07T22:32:00.000+10:00

The last man on earth walks into a bar.
What does he say?

Drink, I'd like another bartender.

I'm reading a book called The Rule of Four, which has been described as "The Da Vinci Code for people with brains" ... which in itself was enough of a recommendation for me to read it. It's about some Princeton students delving into a 15th Century mystery hidden within the Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii. Dare ya to say *that* 10-times-fast.

(deep breath) that that that that that that that that that that

Although I'm not going to devolve into a book review here, you should know that this book is truly astounding. It covers Renaissance theories of art, philosophy, music, mathematics, and religion, all while preparing a final graduate thesis at Princeton. But even apart from that, it surprises me with genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, like the joke above. If I haven't convinced you to check it out, then I give up.

If you'd done as I asked, and calibrated yourself according to my sci-fi top 10 books, then you still won't know why I liked this book so much.

So here, for your literary amusement and edification (edifiction?), is my mostly-not-sci-fi top 10 book list. To make it on the list, the book must be well written, thought provoking, and above all, readable more than once. Depending on my mood, the order of books in the list will change, but this is the order in which they sprang to mind... (tonight ...)

The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
Anything in the Sherlock Holmes Canon (Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Return of the King (JRR Tolkein) - yes, the third book. I know what I'm talking about.
the Mordant's Need duo (Stephen Donaldson)
The Number of the Beast (Robert Heinlein)
Kafka On The Shore (Haruki Murakami)
Quicksilver (Neal Stephenson)
His Dark Materials trilogy (Philip Pullman)
Persuasion (Jane Austen)
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

There you have it. Another list. I haven't finished The Rule of Four yet, so I can't tell you if it will make it onto my "must read again" list. But it was definitely worth all $4.95 to get it at the clearance table at the local bookstore. Did I ever tell you my failsafe for picking a book to buy? I call it "The Middle Page Test". Open the book in the store, at a random page somewhere in the middle, and determine if the paragraphs you read there make you want to read more. If yes, it passes The Middle Page Test. If no, then put it down and pick up the next one. If it's not well written enough to make you want to read on from some random page, then it's not worth starting.

Oh and it makes for a nice glitch in the matrix when you come across that Middle Page later on.

Me and my dinosaur

2006-05-03T09:28:00.000+10:00

I recently became the proud owner of a dinosaur. A bright blue, shiny four-wheeled dinosaur. It's a mode of transport that unashamedly uses non-renewable resources and contributes to greenhouse gases, blah blah blah, but it's also cute and enables me to get to and from work, appointments, or shopping centres fairly consistently. If I was to rely on public transport (another dinosaur, only slower) then I'd either never get anywhere, or if I did go places, I wouldn't carry anything. But the fact of the matter is, it's time for the internal combustion engine to evolve. Into something that's more efficient at converting even deader dinosaurs into propulsion. Or something that converts a less non-renewable resource. Or whatever.

Seeing as about 10 million* of the 4 million people who live in Sydney** own at least 1 car*** and drive it to work every day, it's not surprising that almost everyone you talk to about driving, complains about the high fuel prices at the moment. Something like $1.40/L is about the average this week. There are ads for those current affairs shows where they promise to "find Sydney's cheapest fuel" or "expose politicians worsening Sydney's fuel crisis" or whatever. But the fact of the matter is - oil is a global commodity. Developing nations rely on oil for all that development they are doing. Developed nations - which should know better - consistently don't bother to research alternative fuel sources, because as soon as prices drop, public awareness drops, and governments divert funds to whatever is higher on the political impact scale. A columnist recently said that higher prices at the petrol pump are actually a good thing - because they spur research into alternatives, for one thing. Why is this the first column saying "hey guys, think about the environment! If petrol's too expensive for you, catch the train!".

I don't get why people complain about petrol prices, and why do people expect the government to "fix it", and by "fixing it" do things like lowering fuel taxes, lowering or at least not raising, interest rates, lowering personal taxes, blah blah. Why not "fix it" by researching alternatives. Or making roads more suitable for public transport and much less suitable for personal cars. Or offering more alternatives to being "at work" (maybe improve broadband infrastructure so more people can telecompute for more time). Think outside the box? Or car?

I'd like to add more content here, but time's a wasting, so go read that column from SMH. Meanwhile, I'm a normal person. So until it's more uncomfortable for me to sit in my cosy blue dinosaur than not to, I'm going to carpark my way to work, shops and other places. With the other 9,999,999 car drivers in Sydney. Hang the expense.

* Didn't you read my post on statistics before?
** See note 1.
*** See note 2.

who's where

2006-04-19T09:04:00.000+10:00

So the other night, I watched about 10 minutes of Cold Case before giving up on it, but it was a veritable who's who of where are they now. Cast members from one of my favourite TV shows that's no longer being made and from my favouritest movie ever were in it, as well as a cast member who left one my least favouritest TV shows ever to go make movies ...

Are you confused?

The episode was Volunteers.

Buffy's Amber Benson was there, ok as "dead body", but she had a couple lines at the start before she got shot. Hmm, she got shot in Buffy too. For Buffy fans out there, she's now dating the dude who played Warren. Who shot her. Now *that's* irony.

Then there was the chick who plays Shannon in Lost (in a brown wig)... the wig threw me, that and the fact that I can't stand Lost ... but I recognised her eventually ....

And the evil Prince - yes, Humperdinck from The Princess Bride (Chris Sarandon) was a sleazy Life Coach. You could just see him telling his pupils "I always think everything is a trap. Which is why I'm still alive." ... And prefacing every claim with "Unless I am wrong, and I am never wrong ..."

And (I can't resist one more..) "I knew it! I knew you were bluffing! I knew he was .. <gulp> bluffing"

So, once again, credit for this post's inspiration goes to The Man. He's so helpful.

-----Original Message-----
From: D™
Sent: Tuesday, 18 April 2006 1:40 PM
To: butercup
Subject: Re: that cold case show

Cold case, sounds like a blog entry to me, since you are card carrying, buffy and princess bride, FANatic and very anti-lost.

Priceless.

2006-04-11T19:42:00.000+10:00

Overheard outside the Art Gallery on Saturday:

Mummy: "So what do you think priceless means?"
Junior: "Priceless is when something is so expensive even Nanny can't afford it"

- cue Mummy peeing her pants. As did several assorted bystanders.

Anyway so I was at the Art Gallery on Saturday to absorb some culture, or at least some secondhand pretentiousness by seeing the Archie-bowls with Jarv. I could have it completely wrong, but it seemed that people were there just so they could say "I went to see the Archibowls". They clustered around the paintings, made "hmmm" sounds and stroked their chins, then exited with alacrity - without seeing any of the other exhibitions ... like the Wynne prize, which is one of Australia's longest running art prizes ...

But what really bugged me is that they cluster so *close* around the pictures. These things are about 12 square metres!! How on earth can you absorb the impact when you're 20cm from them? What, are you critiquing the brushwork? Geez people, for some things it's actually better to be a bit *further* away from the action.

[deep breath]
<mantra>
I must remember that every single person in the Art Gallery has their own problems, their own inspirations, their own concerns. I can't project myself onto them in order to understand their motives. Just because I wouldn't do the same things as them doesn't make them any less worthy of respect. It's a lesson in patience.
</mantra>

Gaily Tipping, Lightly Sipping, Come the Maidens to the Slip Inn

2006-04-08T08:07:00.000+10:00

Oh dear. I've hijacked a line from HMS Pinafore for a post title. No matter how much I resist, the damn musicals have permeated my reality matrix.

So anyway, last night DTM and I sat around sipping cocktails in the Monkey Bar before going to see Phoenix's latest production. Okay it's not the Slip Inn of the title, but it's still an establishment that serves alcohol, and maybe a Danish Prince will turn up there one day....

Being a bar, on a Friday night, there was the typical "Froiday Noight Footeee" on the screens with associated garbled noise blaring from the overhead speakers. One of the more annoying things about Froiday Noight Footeee in Sydney (or maybe Australia..) is that it spawns "Tipping Competitions". These things might be more interesting if they actually involved tipping of say, cows, or tipping as in gratuity, but in fact it's not. It's about picking the teams which will win over a given weekend of the annual Footeee season. Highly interesting, I know.

So despite my sport-free world, somehow I got roped into joining a tipplefootle competition at my place of work. I'm still not sure how it happened. I think I'm just too nice. The first week, I made a little bit of effort and chose teams based on which uniform I liked best. The second week, I used the "randomiser" function of the tipping service provider. Both methods provided very average results (I got less than 50% right). So I've got a new theory: the team name that comes earlier in the alphabet is going to win. It's less effort than choosing the uniforms, and more thought than bonking on the "randomise me" button. I figure it's a nice compromise, and anything over 50% right is a bonus.

The other annoying thing about Froiday Noight Footeee is the way it overwhelms almost any medium of news or current affairs on Fridays .... but that's another rant.

I'm going to see the Archies today. I think that will be a good antidote to Footeee Tipping.

Je ne suis plus un homme

2006-03-31T08:05:00.000+11:00

Michael is known for complaining that the English language is imprecise, and there are far too many words which can be misunderstood. For instance, a word may have two (or more) distinct meanings dependent on context. Also, there are many words that sound the same, so in spoken conversation you can get all confused. Like what? you ask. Let's consider an ordinary conversation:

Me: Hi Michael
Michael: High.
Me: Did you have a great weekend?
Michael: My weak end was grate. Ewe?
Me: Err.. good, thanks. Would you like a cup of tea?
Michael: Yes, I wood like tee.

... and so on.

<<warning - if you don't understand French, you're likely to be extremely bored by the next bit. Go read Dilbert instead. Today's wit: "[A marketing biathlon is] where you ski up to people who don't buy your crap and shoot them".>>

Consider this poem.

Suivez le guide!

LE GUIDE

Suivez le guide !

UN TOURISTE

Je suis le guide.

SON CHIEN

Je suis mon maître.

UNE JOLIE FEMME

Je suis le guide.
Donc je ne suis pas une femme
puisque je suis un homme.

LE TOURISTE

Je suis cette jolie femme.

SON CHIEN

Et moi aussi, je suis cette femme,
puisque je suis mon maître.

LE GUIDE

Suivez le guide.
Moi , je ne suis pas le guide,
puisque je suis le guide.

LE TOURISTE

Je voudrais bien savoir qui est cette jolie femme que je suis.

SON CHIEN

Je ne suis pas mon maître,
puisque je suis mon maître
et que cela m'ennuie.

LA JOLIE FEMME

Je suis le guide, je suis la foule,
je suis un régime, je suis la mode,
je ne suis plus une enfant... Oh ! J'en ai assez !
Je ne suis plus personne.

(elle disparaît.)

LE GUIDE

Oh ! J'en ai assez !
Je démissionne.

(il disparaît.)

LE TOURISTE

Oh ! Je ne suis plus le guide,
je ne suis plus un homme,
je ne suis plus une femme,
je ne suis plus rien.

(il disparaît.)

LE CHIEN

Enfin ! Je ne suis plus mon maître,
donc je suis mon maître
et je ne visiterai pas les châteaux de la Loire !

Jacques Prévert

It's very funny if you understand French. The humour is a play on the words "je suis" which can mean "I am" or "I am following" - it doesn't really translate into English, but you get the idea, right? Ok you can go back to Dilbert now.

(Je disparais.)

That's what I like about RU

2006-03-29T14:31:00.000+11:00

A little while ago I tried to write a complete post about the RU486 controversy in Australia. The story goes like this:

1. Drug availability in Australia is generally regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration
2. The Federal Health Minister, (currently Tony Abbott), has veto power over "restricted goods" of which one happens to be RU486
3. The aforementioned RU486 induces abortion
4. Proposed legislation before Federal Parliament would remove the Health Minister's veto power, effectively giving the TGA final say over introduction of all drugs, not just the "non-restricted" ones.

Add some content-free media circus performers and you get
Conclusion: Tony Abbot wants to have a say in abortion.

Does anyone else see the problem with this? As Buffy said, "your logic does not resemble our Earth logic".

Anyway my original post was going to be some pithy remarks about how the TGA is best placed to make decisions on drugs, and it should *never* be in parliamentary hands because at least the TGA has a better chance of finding out the real science behind the drugs where the MPs are influenced by/able to cast blame on the amorphous mass of "public opinion" or "the electorate" or "lobby groups" (or "plain pig-headedness"). And that the debate was not, and never was, about whether the Government Controls Abortion, and the planned usage of any particular drug shouldn't even be considered in the debate.

Luckily it was all over by the time I had barely started the post, so I never had to try to finish it or massage it into some kind of shape suitable for publishing. And the decision? That the TGA should make the final decision about drug introduction to the Australian market. And all thanks to those level-headed politicians who actually seemed to be voting in the best interests of the country rather than today's favourite lobby group. (I'm not referring to Tony Abbot, of course).

But! It seems that the aforementioned media circus has finally realised this! At least - they have finally published some comments from real medical professionals saying that RU486 is not about abortion, it's about more control over reproduction, and by the way that parliamentary debate wasn't about RU486 at all so can we please just get on with it?

Ahh. It's times like these I wonder if I really need a blog. The world seems to be able to sort itself out without me.

Messing about in boats

2006-03-28T19:31:00.000+11:00

We have a guest poster today. The man behind the grander spanner and co-producer of the story of my life that is buter's blog.

Yes folks, it's time for (drum roll please) D™'s first story.

So it was another tri-annual, super fun, Super6, waterskiing weekend last weekend. The story being 3 couples, of whom a disproportionate third supply both the place to stay and the boat to ski behind whilst the other 2 thirds supply alcohol (not while boating of course), good company and good looks. The favourite spot is the Wisemans Ferry area of the Hawkesbury river north of Sydney. Through several years of trial and error we have discovered that the best time to ski there is March, towards the end is better for cooler days but the water is a fairly consistent 24°C and extremely pleasant for a dip or a ski. The middle of the day also coincided with the ebb tide for the river and some of the finest water anyone had ever seen. Michael helpfully stated that if anyone had trouble skiing it can only have been due to their complete lack of talent.

The flavour of the weekend this time was wakeboarding. It's usually a mixture of 1 and 2 ski waterskiing with some wakeboarding. This time it was pure wakeboarding and with spectacular results. Great leaps were made by the 3 n00bs with Nicko actually landing the aforementioned great leap. Michael maintained the grade with wake clearing leaps (from a the toe-side approach) and mastered both the mid-air and cross-wake switch. D™ made lots of holes in the water with his head and is on the waiting list for a new spleen. The People's Choice award went to Vic (Vodkatoria) C. After a previous wakeboarding effort which ended badly with a cranium-first-entry and ringing ears, she sucked it in, got up first go and made great strides towards wakeboarding greatness. Other on-water entertainment included two girls mudwrestling in the black mud exposed by the low tides of the weekend and the extraordinarily good conditions.

The downside of the weekend was the affirmation that a weekend of boating is great for everyone except the owner of the boat. A dislodged accelerator spring made for interesting boarding for Michael when the boat took off with much-gusto before unceremoniously dumping him when Vic killed the engine to prevent him trying to wakeboard at 80km/h (the boat's top speed). But more was in store the next day when a suspected overheated engine stranded Power Play on the quiet side of the river, 3 km from the boat ramp and against the tide. Paddling provided extremely trivial headway and after 45 minutes of failed attempts at flagging, help arrived when we were rescued, Bundaberg-Rum-style, by a boat of beauties and enough engine to get us back to the ramp in 20 minutes. Our saviours refused payment upon condition of upholding the boat code and returning the favour if required, and we were as always happy to oblige. We found a really nifty use for plastic money too. You can swim with it.

And to round off the day, the electric winch on the boat trailer conked out with the boat halfway out of the water. Thankfully the backup hand winch came to the rescue but left Michael with quite a to-do-list and more proof that boats are fun, but they are also money pits.

.... or as I like to put it, we were just messing about in boats.

For the record, the mudwrestlers were not the two girly girls whose complete lack of talent at wakeboarding was entirely due to not even trying.

Sporting festivals

2006-03-16T12:19:00.000+11:00

Yep, it's that time. The 'Friendly Games' have started in Melbourne. You all know I'm not really a sports freak. In fact my only skill probably lies in fooling people into thinking I can fence. That came to a head when I was appointed a competition president for the fencing portion of the World Junior Modern Pentathlon a couple of years ago. After that, fencing seems to have gone by the wayside.

Anyway, today's story is about .. "which games?" "The Commonwealth Games". So being a non-sporting person, I always approach the television coverage with cynicism. All those youthful athletic sweaty bodies, all that competitiveness and ambition ... but then when I sit down and watch it, something comes over me .... seeing the competitors from the low-profile nations entering the stadium ... there's the team that took 9 days to travel to the Games because they had to catch the mail ship out to England and fly from there (they have to leave before the closing ceremony to catch the mail ship back) ... there's the team that had no uniforms until Channel 9 organised some for them ..

It's like, these really are a friendly competition. Apart from all the winning, and stuff, there's a whole bunch of people who are just so glad to be there, representing their country. It's a very warm'n'fuzzy feeling to see their faces when they entered the MCG and all 80,000 people cheered for them. In some cases that's probably more than their entire population! As someone said, these countries are sub-olympic microdots on the face of the earth, and this is their only chance to shine. In spite of - or perhaps because of - the missing Americans, Chinese and Eastern Europeans, these Games are more about fun than winning. Or it could just be that we all had to learn English ... so the teams and officials can actually all converse reasonably freely in the same language. (Is that why the Americans don't come?)

Well, except for Australia. For us, it's still all about the winning. Isn't it?

Defragmenting the reality matrix

2006-03-02T21:00:00.000+11:00

No, I don't know what it means either. But tonight I was at a loss for things to not watch on telly, so I whacked in the ol' Serenity DVD. If you haven't heard of Serenity, shame on you, and if you've heard of it but you haven't seen it, shame on you twice over.

But, gratuitous movie links aside, very early on in the film, oh about 6 minutes in, one character says "The neural stripping does tend to fragment their own reality matrix".

Errr, what? Of course this is an endearing bit of pseudotechnopsychobabble on the part of Joss Whedon (or some hack) but the term has lodged itself securely in my reality matrix and it's doing its part to fragment what's left there.

It's like, I am exposed to so much information and so many new ideas, every day, that I don't have time to process them all adequately. And so they either go into weird dreams about peaches and Clueless, or they just float around in my subconscious, taking up valuable real estate, and giving me a vague sense of always having forgotten something. Or of someone watching me. (I get mixed up sometimes.) But what tends to happen is that I feel a bit - well - fragmented. I think making blog posts serves as a way to mildly defrag the reality matrix. A chance to say some random things that were inspired by other random things, and let it all just flow.

Speaking of flow, here's a segue into some more random thoughts. I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel a little swamped by all the "stuff" there is out there on the InterWeb. There's so much information, so many jokes, so many games, so much weather... just so much, well, stuff. It's hard to sift through and find things that are not only interesting on first read, but that remain interesting, and are worth revisiting.

For instance, there are approximately 6.5 billion people on this planet*. From all those people, how many blogs do you think there might be that are actually creative enough to draw in passers-by, and of the creative ones, how many that manage to maintain that without degenerating into stories about "grilled cheese and potty training"? Speaking of reading blogs, the story I linked by WSJ just there, has some funny statistics which you should read if you have the time (or the attention span).

I feel much better now. I think the reality matrix is no longer quite so fragmented, (apart from a few minor glitches) so I shall bid you adieu.

Have fun storming the castle.

* from this point on, approximately 87.4% of the statistics are made up. Including this one.

Content is the key

2006-03-01T21:22:00.000+11:00

What makes a blog or a book worth reading?
What makes a podcast or a radio program worth listening to?
What makes a TV show or movie worth watching and then buying the DVD so you can watch it again and again?

You guessed it folks, the answer is - "content".

I've recently started listening to an excellent podcast called The Daily Breakfast. It's produced by a fellow called Father Roderick who happens to be a Catholic priest in Amersfoort, a town in The Netherlands.

If you've been a loyal reader of this blog you will recall that I mentioned my philosophy of religious tolerance - why then, you ask, am I listening to a Catholic podcast? Well first off, it's not about Catholicism per se. It just happens to be produced by a Catholic priest. Secondly, my philosophy of tolerance means that I will be happy to listen to podcasts by practitioners of any religion - as long as they satisfy one key requirement - good content.

That's the thing, folks. Content is key. Fr Roderick knows this. He advocated it in one of the podcasts I listened to this morning. (I think from early January). His podcast is informative, easy going, and interesting. Which is just what I need sitting in my car in the Victoria Road car park in the mornings.

Not every story can have a good ending though. This morning my iRiver decided not to work (some blah about running out of battery power..) so I was stuck with listening to CDs or to the ever-so-crappy morning radio programs. It's good, but really there's only so much of Classic FM that one person can handle .. and all the other "breakfast programs" are totally content free!! Take for example, the radio station that is running some insane competition where the prize is $1000 for every medal Australia wins at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. (For the record, Australia won 82 gold medals last time) .... aaaaah, but don't get me started on sports.

Aarrrrghh ... I have a whole bunch of stuff to write about. But in the interests of actually posting this - you will have to wait.

So in other news, books you must read this week are:
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (sorry, you can't borrow them from me as D™ is still reading them)
Garth Nix's Old Kingdom books
The Red Queen by Matt Ridley (about the evolution of human nature)
William Gibson's Neuromancer
And anything by Haruki Murakami , but in particular Kafka on the Shore.

If you've read them already, then re-read them.

// content ends

Valenswine and other diseases

2006-02-15T18:46:00.000+11:00

The waiter has a nice Valentime story, and I've shamelessly pilfered words from that for the title. But then, it's not like they're copyright, after all he heard it from a customer.

So anyway the whole Valencrime Hallmarketing exercise bores me to tears as I'm sure it does for most of my loyal readers. If you know D™ and I you know that we don't bother with it. Why don't we bother with it? Because it's foolish to save all your lovin' up for one day of the year, and then spend far too much money buying cheesy crap that you could get cheaper in the post-Christmas sales and then throw out in the post-Christmas cleanup. Besides we subscribe to Stevie's philosophy (I didn't realise we did so until I read about it today - but there you go, I guess everything's been done before. And posted on the internet.)

But the thing that truly bugs me about Valenschwein's day is the proliferation of "V-day sux" websites. Here's one for example. Frankly people, don't you think that posting blogs, editorials, what-have-you about how bad the whole thing is, would have the opposite effect to what you intend? Isn't the point of your rants that you want people to ignore the whole thing? And yet by posting such (sometimes) well-written rants you raise the awareness of the day all over again.

I advocate religious tolerance, which also includes tolerating random celebratory days for saints, prophets, boddhisatvas, diseases, what-have-you. But my own special brand of tolerance (which let's face it can't be unique, see above) is basically apathy. If you want to observe said celebratory day, I don't care, just don't force me to do so as well. And I'll choose which celebratory days to observe for myself. I pick Invasion Day, We-Lost-The-Battle-But-Not-The-War Day, and October-Random-Long-Weekend-Because-We-Needed-Another-Holiday Day. The people I work for also tell me not to come to work at assorted other times throughout the year. Who am I to disagree?

So in the end, I think if you disagree with any particular religious or secular or marketing "International Day of" then the best thing to do is ignore it and maybe it will go away.

But then, what would I know. After all I'm posting too! But technically my rant is directed toward the rants. It's a rant rant. Or an anti rant rant. Or something.

Beg, borrow or steal ..

2006-02-08T20:28:00.000+11:00

When we were kids, we would often spend at least one morning of the weekend at the local library. Once we started going to high school, though, there was either no time for the local library, or maybe we had enough books at school. I dunno. But it's one of the things I miss. Making the time to go to a library, and wandering round, choosing books, reading anything that looks interesting, seeing new books there and borrowing them to take home .. I really enjoyed that.

Nowadays we still don't go to the library. I'm all growed up, and still living in the vicinity of the same public library as when I was a kid. And although I still think about going to the library, I'm more likely to get my new book fix by going to the bookstore and buying whatever it is. Or getting the DVD ... I think I could probably save a lot of dollars if I stopped buying books and started borrowing them again. If I read it once, and think it's worth reading again, then maybe I could buy it, but otherwise I'm saving not only money but shelf space. The other day, D™ was stacking my Christmas present-load of books onto the bookshelf and we've actually totally filled it up. Double stacked.

So imagine my joy when my mate Hiren somehow managed to smuggle this into the country for me. I'd like to take the time to say WOW. For sending me a present, for managing to put an Australian stamp on it, for it arriving just in time for my birthday, all from Heidelberg. Give that man a pat on the back, he's pretty clever!

In other news, T-day is rapidly approaching and I'm dead certain it's going to rain. Bob said so.

p.s. Thanks Hiren, you rock.

Edit: Yay for the University of Michigan for supporting Google Print. It looks like one day I won't have to even go to the library to borrow books!

Happy Dogs!

2006-02-04T12:48:00.000+11:00

Happy Chinese New Year, for those of you who follow the tradition.

We had a nice gathering at my parents' place, dinner (massive) with relatives (many). A small selection of the dishes served are shown below, but trust me when I say it was all Fabulous and Filling!

Now that we are well into the new year (of the Dog) you should take the time to have a look at what your horoscope predicts for the year. For Dragons like me, it's a year of caution, rather than letting loose with normal dragon tendencies. Which corresponds nicely to the advice for Rabbits like D™ - which is to throw caution to the winds. Well, I think we will just forge ahead in our own way, and make the best of what life has to offer. It's too short to do otherwise.

So, 恭喜發財 (Gong Hei Fat Choi) - Congratulations and be prosperous!

Does anything rhyme with Clueless?

2006-02-03T09:16:00.000+11:00

Last night I dreamt I was at high school, and there was a large group of us sitting round a table which was possibly "study hall" except that "Study hall" is a term only used in American TV shows as far as I know, and had nothing at all to do with where or when I went to school - anyway I was in study hall and I was meant to do my maths homework (which had something to do with finding out what colour a peach was..??) only I was too stupid to do it so I was copying from a friend, and thinking to myself, I should be doing English instead of Maths because I find that so much more rewarding. But instead of doing Maths *or* English I was trying to come up with the final stanza to an epic poem where something had to rhyme with "clueless" - the poem was going to be read out at a wedding, the bride being one of the girls I went to school with (but not in my group of friends) and she'd asked me and 3 close friends of mine to do this poem thing. And the teacher was saying she didn't think the poem was appropriate and I was saying how I'd been asked to do it so too bad, and meanwhile I still had all this Maths homework to do.

The conclusion I drew was that it would be too hard to make a 4-line verse to finish off the poem so I would have to do a 2-line ending, and rather than stick "clueless" at the end of the line, I would stick it somewhere in the centre of the first line. No, I don't remember the rest of the poem.

Very very weird.

On the whole, I remember my dreams often, and they are very very vivid. Theory states that we all dream, it's just that not all of us remember what we dreamed. There are many theories as to why we dream but frankly, that one looks like random synapse firing. I never copied maths homework from someone. Ever. I was *good* at maths. *And* English, though looking back I have sometimes thought I should have studied higher level English rather than higher level maths, but there you go. None of my schoolmates got married while still at school. We didn't have "study hall". And my maths homework never had anything to do with colouring in peaches.

I still can't think of a rhyme for "clueless" though.

Snickerdoodle!

2006-01-22T18:07:00.000+11:00

I know, it's a very weird word.

We were watching Veronica Mars (love it!!! love it!!!!) and she was baking snickerdoodles for friend Wallace. What are snickerdoodles?? (BTW, if you start messing round on that marsinvestigations.net site, you will note that your browser must accept ~~snickerdoodles~~ cookies - I laughed myself stupid reading that. D™ reckons that us net-nerds are all as bad as each other ..)

According to the best cooking reference book ever, they are a corruption of the word Schneckennudeln which means crinkly noodles. In fact, they deviate so far from crinkly noodles that the recipe in fact makes sugary, buttery cinnamon-coated biscuits. Where do the Americans come up with these names?

Besides - I just googled Schneckennudeln. They ain't like the American ones. I had to bake the American ones, just to be sure...

Ooohhhh... so hungry now ....

How many words was that?

2006-01-07T11:00:00.000+11:00

Speaking of rain, do you remember the story in HHGTTG where this guy had some large number of descriptors for rain? Well this intrigued me so much that I thought it was high time to find out how many words the eskimos have for "snow" ... and it turns out, maybe 2, possibly 4, or if you're feeling really generous, 24. Generous meaning that things like "snowfall" and "snowdrift" and "icy slush" are all counted as "a word for snow". There, doesn't that make you feel better?

Hmm, didn't think so.

And by the way, it *always* rains at my birthday party. This type of rain can vary in intensity, temperature, and timing, but it will fall just when you're trying to decide whether or not to have the party outside.

Poor pingu ...

2006-01-06T08:47:00.000+11:00

Go smack the penguins - you know you wanna. (requires flash)

There isn't much to say apart from LOL!!~!!1!!

(For those who knew and loved the original smack the pingu, this is yet another cracked version that not only allows you to score over 500 but comes complete with spikes, landmines, and gushing blood).

It's the 2nd of January

2006-01-02T07:47:00.000+11:00

.. and I received a letter from myself via futureme.

It's traditional to make New Year resolutions and break them in the first week of the New Year but I think that's because people make resolutions that are too far out of character for them.

My New Year resolutions are many, but not too far out of character I think. I've sent them to myself to be reviewed in June. You'll just have to wait and ask me then if they are achieved.

And I'll probably write another letter to myself then, too.

It's the 2nd of January. Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all made it through the holiday period safely.

And it's back to work tomorrow - sigh.

We're back in town ..

2005-12-30T09:01:00.000+11:00

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'

2005-12-21T08:41:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-01T14:28:00.000+11:00

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?

2005-11-24T08:45:00.000+11:00

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

2005-11-22T09:02:00.000+11:00

-----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

2005-11-17T11:27:00.000+11:00

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

2005-11-13T15:46:00.000+11:00

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

2005-11-12T18:27:00.000+11:00

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.

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

2005-10-20T08:31:00.000+10:00

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

2005-10-13T21:00:00.000+10:00

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

2005-10-04T22:19:00.000+10:00

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..

2005-09-30T08:30:00.000+10:00

.. 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 ...

2005-09-18T19:26:00.000+10:00

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

2005-09-17T10:51:00.000+10:00

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*

political commentary

2005-09-13T22:20:00.000+10:00

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?

2005-09-08T08:38:00.000+10:00

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

Name Acronym Generator from Go-Quiz.com

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

on finishing things..

2005-09-07T08:39:00.000+10:00

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 !!