sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice

[leisure/music] An excellent Mal Webb gig

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:09:00

I have not been to the National Folk Festival for a rather long time now, largely because there almost always is some mtb or similar event on at Easter I tend to be somehow involved with. This may explain why I had never seen Mal Webb, or maybe he was there last time I was and I missed him. Anyway I was able to rectify my lack of knowledge about Mal Webb when I saw him at the Folkus room in Mawson on Friday night.

This man is an incredibly talented musician who also happens to be really funny and a fantastic performer, he also seems to understand use of sound and instruments better than almost any performer I can think of. The performance was a lot of fun, and seeing him use his repeat loop box, drum beats form his mouth, pygmy yodeling and a lot of sampling of sounds plus really funny lyrics was worth far more than the entry fee to see the gig of $15.

I ended up getting both the cds he had for sale at the gig, his new album "Dodgy" and his second album "3 Cheers for Peace and Quiet", I have had them both on repeat on my ipod yesterday and today. (I was working out at the 24 hour mtb race at Stromlo all weekend so could not listen to them there). Anyway I have to highly recommend all of his music, and suggest trying to catch him if he plays near you. My favourite song by far is "Your One Drop" though I am sure that will chop and change as I listen to his stuff more. Anyway you can hear that song on Mal's Myspace page. While you are there listen to Carrot, URFES and anything else you can too.

I suppose you could almost expect me to love this music, after all as they quote on his website, Ani Difranco's assessment of Mal is "You're a freak".

On a side note related to this performance, I have never been to the Folkus room before, so when we sat down I was looking around at the decorations and what do I see but a curtain with a large black and white photo of Robert Johnson on one of the curtains hung up in the venue. Earlier on Friday I had read/heard about Robert Johnson for the first time reading an article in Vanity Fair about a potential 3rd photo of him that has now been seen publicly.

[leisure/screen] Dark Knight, good

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:26:00

Yesterday I finally had time to go along to see The Dark Knight (wikipedia) which I have been looking forward to for a long time, since the previous Batman movie, Batman Begins, was IMO the best super hero movie ever and really a fantastic movie to see this new one promised to be good. It was, however I still think the Batman Begins movie is significantly better.

Yes Heath Ledger's Joker was incredible, redefining the character on screen (though to learn why this is not exactly new for the character in comics, have a look at this good post about why The Joker is The Batman's arch enemy to get a good understanding of the character and how it has developed) and the humour in some of the characters (notably the superbly cast Alfred and Lucius Fox) was still evident as it was in the first movie. However though this was a great super hero movie, it did not I think bring enough of a new look into the primary characters that we did not already see in the previous film.

Maybe I feel let down a bit as some comments online I have seen since the movie was released suggested we got a fantastic look into Batman's internal battle with his psyche and his wish to break his own rules, however I just did not really see that come up in the movie that much. Sure it appeared, but not in a defining or challenging way to the audience. We also did not get to see the extension of the Batman myth by his own behaviour to the same extent as we did even in the half of the first movie we saw Batman in Batman Begins.

I should clarify this by saying I still think this was a great movie, and the second best super hero movie ever, however I think it is possible it could have been better, though I do not quite know how.

[leisure/theatre] Pygmalion and Annie in one day

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:40:00

On Saturday I had been intending to go along to see the play Pygmalion at Canberra Rep (play link), I like Canberra rep, a friend (Jess) is playing Eliza, and the matinee at 2pm seemed like a good time to see it. So along I went, it was a good production, came off seeming rather professional and definitely got the story out well. The actor playing Freddy did a good job of appearing to be an annoying idiotic fop. I liked this, not as much as I enjoyed Arcadia, however mostly because I found that story fascinating and the presentation with the dual times acting at once really cool and I had never seen or read the play previously. Still a good play and I recommend it.

While at theatre 3 I saw the ad for Annie playing at the Erindale Theatre performed by the Canberra Philharmonic Society, however the last night of the season was Saturday, so if I wanted to see it that was the only night to do so. I have not seen Annie live before, and though I remember watching the movie when I was young I do not remember much about it. About all I remembered was it was about a red head orphan girl and adoption or something by someone rich. Oh and a scene with her on a bridge with cables and lights and stuff all around in the dark.

It was interesting to see both the shows in one day, the performance of Annie was good, even though it was a more expensive show it seemed less professional and practised than the Pygmalion play. Maybe I do not go to enough musicals to really get the feel for them. They also had to deal with kids and animals (yes they had a live dog on stage, happily sniffing crotches (its own and an actor's)) and a rather large cast. I still think both were worth seeing and both were indeed entertaining so fun was had.

[leisure/food] Pip...

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:41:00

So I am not sure this should be in a leisure category, however it is about food. Recently the mandarins available changed, where before the loose skinned, seed free, or close to seed free and tasty mandarins were readily available everywhere. In the last few weeks these have disappeared at most fruit shops, or where they are still available have been bordering on being bad (ripe, or rotten, or something else wrong).

In their place is a larger variety of mandarins, however most of them seem sour. There are large mandarins, small mandarins most of them seem to have tight fitting skin and they all seem to contain a lot of seeds. Today 2 of the 7 pieces of fruit/veg I had on my desk at work to eat during the day were mandarins of the sour, small, tight skinned and many seeded variety. I was amazed to find there were 20 seeds in a piece of fruit so small when I ate my first, so it was even more surprising to find there were 30 seeds in the second mandarin today. How can there be so many seeds in such a small piece of fruit and still have any fruit surrounding them.

[leisure/screen] Dreaming

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:54:00

So I may not really be in the target market of tv broadcasters, after all I tend not to watch much tv. In this specific case, the Olympics coverage, I tend not to care for any of the summer Olympics. While the summer Olympics were on in Sydney in 2000, I was living in the Sydney and deliberately did not go to any events. I even went skiing at Perisher for a week of the Olympics to get away from the city.

However there was one thing at the Sydney Olympics that I was glued to whenever I was near a tv, the same thing happened for the Utah/Salt Lake City winter Olympics and then even for the Athens Olympics I did actually watch one thing on tv. So far I have not seen more than a minute or two of Olympics coverage on screen, when I have seen it on at a cafe or similar I have tuned in for a few seconds. So what is missing from the Olympics coverage this time?

Roy and HG with The Dream of course. This show added to the fun and humour of the Sydney Olympics. It increased the value of the Utah winter Olympics (I actually enjoy watching a fair amount of the winter Olympics) and it made the non stop coverage around the country of Athens more bearable. Maybe it is because Channel 7 spent so much money to get the rights for the Olympics they feel they can not make fun of the event. Maybe it is as is suggested in the article about the lack of the Dream, no studio audience due to Chinese security and crowd restrictions and the bad timezone issues make it unworkable for channel 7.

It is interesting to note there is a lot of criticism going around that this is the worst Olympics coverage in recent memory and most articles discussing this seem to note people are calling for the Dream to come back rather than the Yum Cha thing on each morning.

Fortunately though tv rights are taken there is nothing stopping Roy and HG commenting on the Olympics on the radio, which they are doing with aplomb on Triple J every afternoon. At least there is still some Australian piss taking going on, even if it is not live from Beijing. So I guess what I am saying, in my opinion at least, the lack of this show on the Olympics coverage means there is no reason to turn a tv on this month. I spoke to a few people at work and I hear a number of people with little interest in the Olympics have a similar view.

[leisure/food] Chai Green Tea with a Penguin

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:22:00

Chai Green Tea (fullsize)

With a Penguin (fullsize)

A little while back I noticed a new organic food shop near ANU, the mob from the Belconnen markets, As Nature Intended had opened up another shop in one of the new building developments near the Rydges hotel. They have some good (though expensive) supplies for cooking, and they have a cafe (also a little expensive) with very good coffee served.

So breakfast was had yesterday at the cafe, the Vegan Big breakfast on their menu (it may be downloaded), really good home made baked beans, marinated tofu and roast veggies (they had run out of mushrooms alas) all with toast. After breakfast looking around the shop there were many tempting things. I mostly restrained myself until I saw the item pictured to the left.

As a Linux geek, someone who enjoys green tea and someone who has been drinking a lot of chai recently I was unable to pass up buying this box of tea bags. It is a penguin propped open in half with a guy drinking tea in the middle and it is chai green tea. I almost suspect I will need to keep the box in my office once I finish drinking the tea contained within. How cool.

[leisure/food] Roti round 2

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:01:00

Yesterday I mentioned my first attempt at Roti, last night to help finish off a rather nice pumpkin, spinach and chickpea curry I thought I would take to heart some of the lessons learnt and information gleaned online. So I made more Roti.

This time I used a heavy base stainless steel pan, not quite a Tawa, however I think it is the closest easily available item I had to use. I added a little bit (a few dribbles) of oil to the dough mix before starting to add water. The pan was cleaned off between the cooking of each individual Roti. A quick spray of canola oil was used on the pan surface between each Roti rather than excessive amounts floating in a wok as happened in round 1. Oh and I used self raising flour wholemeal flour.

The bread tasted and felt a lot healthier than round 1, less oil throughout. The bubbles appeared during cooking once the pan base was hot enough, the first two or three Roti were cooked before the pan was hot enough I think. The main problem this time was the bread was not as flaky as good Roti often is when you get it at a restaurant, this may mean I need to fold it over some dribbles of oil once the dough is made as some sites suggested. The other even more annoying problem was that the good bubbly Roti was awfully dry, so it cracked when handled and bent a lot rather than a nice malleable bread you can easily tear and scoop with. I wonder if making the dough just a little moister will help with the dry feeling.

As yummy as it all was it took a lot longer and was more labour intensive to make Roti than simply heat or cook some brown rice, thus I think I will keep Roti for occasional meals and when eating out and stick to brown rice with most of my curries and other Roti friendly dishes.

[leisure/food] Roti round 1

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:32:00

Last night to accompany the curry for dinner I tried my hand at making Roti, I followed the directions on one of the first google hits for Roti Bread recipes (here), however this did not specify the amount of oil to cook with, or the need for a pan or griddle like a Tawa (heavy cast iron, thick base sort of thing). Also the lack of backing soda or SR Flour means they did not bubble much.

On the whole they were still yummy and very enjoyable with the curry to eat and scoop the curry with. However I think too much oil was used in the cooking, and I used a wok, I should have used a heavy based pan or similar. Anyway I learnt a bit and plan to try again, definitely a good basic bread to make and tastes yummy fresh and hot with a curry or similar.

[leisure/food] Wines from Plonk!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:32:00

So I had been wondering what to get my mother for her 60th birthday celebrations, the actual celebration is tomorrow even though her birthday was yesterday. However I will give her a gift tomorrow, I feel I can safely write about it here as she never actually reads this unless bludgeoned with a link to a particular entry.

It occurred to me that Mum and her partner drink wine with food and like to try out a variety of different wines. After getting some wine recommendations from Jane I set about finding somewhere to buy some nice wines from knowledgeable staff. I had Plonk at the Fyshwick Markets suggested and they sounded good as they focus on smaller labels and more variety than you may find from a large bottle shop chain.

I grabbed my car from home at lunch today and drove over to have a look, I walked away with what I think will be a reasonably nice gift of 8 bottles of wine from them, 6 whites and two reds. The wines I got are.

Lake George - Pinot Gris
Lake George - Shiraz
Brindabella Hills - Chardonnay
Pikes Clare Valley - Reisling
Krinklewood - Verdelho
Pizzini - Sangiovese
Tohu - Sauvignon Blanc
Garden Gully - Sparkling Shiraz

The Tohu comes from Marlborough region of New Zealand, apparently this is quite an award winning wine. Three of the wines as you can see are very much local and the others are all Australian. I liked the guys I talked to in the shop and we even talked about the possibility of them supporting some mountain bike stuff with CORC.

[leisure/food] My weekend in food

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:47:00

So over the weekend I was down in Melbourne, I ate a lot and did a fair amount of shopping. (one of the items of clothing I bought were some new Jeans, made by Helly Hanson, how cool is that, I can sort of think of it as if I were buying outdoor/race gear made by Helly Hanson and it is instead functional clothing I wear the rest of the time). Anyway one of the things that occurred over the weekend was consumption of a lot of really yummy food.

I suppose I could say it all started on Friday evening before catching the flight down when I made some pizzas topped with organic tomato paste, onions, pumpkin, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, capsicum, sun-dried tomatoes and kingland soy cheese. Yummmm, ate too much and then got a lift to the airport, the plane was running late which was fortunate because dinner took a bit longer than expected.

Saturday morning Soulfood Cafe was the venue for breakfast, Jane (sister) was in Melbourne for a few weeks for PhD conferences and research, also a mtb friend moved to Melbourne recently and is living a block or two away from Soul food in Fitzroy so they were at breakfast to catch up. Had a yummy chocolate cup cake, a blueberry muffin, a big veggie breakfast and a fruit salad, oh and a great soy mocha.

Lunch was had at Vegie Bar with a slightly laksa like broth that contained some very good sesame dumplings, some good Roti with Dhal and then a spectacular stuffed vegan mushroom. Dinner that night was at Lentil As Anything in St Kilda, getting there late there was not a lot left, however what was there was fantastic. A really yummy spicy pumpkin soup followed by a curry platter (a beetroot curry that worked well due to the sweet beetroot and savoury curry, a Moroccan hot pot curry and a pea and potato curry of some sort. Both the dishes were served with good Roti once again. At the end of this day I was somewhat full of food and almost rolling around the streets I think.

Sunday morning was breakfast at InVita Cafe at the Queen Vic markets, they had fresh out of the oven hot vegan blueberry muffins that were to die for which I followed with scrambled tofu on pumpkin bread. Lunch was at Silly Yaks cafe in Northcote where I was able to tuck into a Mexican bean burrito with salad and a good bruschetta (the bread had an obvious potato taste but was actually fairly good I thought). This was followed a few metres down the road at Coco Loco, an organic, fair trade chocolate bar. They had vegan Chocolate Mousse that was fantastic, rich, creamy, held its fluff and worked really well (something I really want to work out how to make, maybe using agar and soft tofu in a blender will help... who knows), vegan waffles in deep rich dark chocolate and they had something they call Kashew Mylk, somewhat obviously a milk made using Cashews. So I had a rich dark chocolate and orange hot chocolate with the Kashew Mylk. All very satisfying.

At one point on Saturday evening I had wanted a snack and Lord of the Fries seemed appropriate. So I had a cone of fries with French Canadian sauce (using vegan cheese) and damn that was good (though definitely waistline expanding) this on Sunday afternoon heading toward the airport I wanted to try out their Vegan nuggets, alas they were out of stock, however I had more fries with the same sauce and a yummy vegan hamburger. Then ran for the airport thinking the plane would be leaving before I got there. Upon arrival at the airport they rushed the checking and then the plane was delayed for 2 hours. Oh well I had a fun, if somewhat waist expanding Melbourne weekend.

[leisure/food] Cooking breakages

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:40:00

On Saturday night while cooking three of the yummy recipes from Veganomicon (the book Davyd has referred to a bit). (the recipes were "Greek style tomato zucchini fritters with fresh herbs", "Jamaican yuca shepards pie with sweet potato kidney beans and plantains" (though we used purple sweet potato and banana), and "eggplant potato moussaka with pine nut cream". We followed this with a yummy chocolate cake with soy cream cheese with lemon and jam filling and chocolate with fresh berry icing) I managed to break some cooking implements.

While I was trying to press some ingredients down into a blender I cracked the handle of one wooden spoon. So I got another wooden spoon out of the drawer and then while pushing the same ingredients down I pushed a little too far and the blender tore a chunk from the middle of the spoon. Oops too wooden spoons sacrificed in the name of the dinner party. All the food was incredibly yummy, the 12 people at the dinner all had a great evening and all I really need to do now is go and buy myself more wooden spoons. Maybe I had better buy a few spares. Oh and no one there was allergic to wooden spoons, so all was fine.

[leisure/food] Looking for some ingredients

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:18:00

So for something I wish to cook the recipe suggests Cassava (Yuca, Tapioca) and Plantain. So sure I could possibly get away with sweet potato and banana. However the recipe already contains sweet potato as well and the banana (even with green bananas) may not be quite right. So I was wondering where in Canberra I could possibly get these ingredients. I rang some organic food stores and they have Tapioca flour, however none of them have the roots whole.

I have also rung a few Asian grocery shops, one of them said they had Cassava so I could head out there, however I have not found Plantains yet. I guess I should check out the Fyshwick Markets tomorrow to see if I have any luck there.

[leisure/books] The Shadow of the Wind

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:10:00

I have not had much time to read books in the last month, however just before Geoquest someone handed me a copy of the Carlos Ruiz Zafon book The Shadow of the Wind suggesting that it is a good read. I had some spare time up at Geoquest to sit and read it in the sunshine however did not finish the book until this week, I have been home sick on Monday and Wednesday (today) this week so apart from sleeping I also finished reading the book.

I like this book a lot, I do not notice any clumsiness in language or similar that can sometimes appear in translated works. The story is rather interesting, Daniel and all the people surrounding him constantly have new facets open up concerning their characters. I also think it shows some interesting aspects of Barcelona, though I have not been there so do not know how accurate the depictions are. The book with in a book aspects in the story are also interesting, and I like the concept of the cemetery of forgotten books. Definitely a good read, and though I may be tempted I had better not spoil any of the story for anyone who may read it.

[leisure/food] Yummy new dinner

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:34:00

Just so I do not forget this dish I thought I had better record it here. Tonight for dinner I fried together onion, garlic, eggplant, tomato, 4 bean mix (can) and spinach with chinese five spices, mild paprika, cinnamon and pepper added. In the microwave I heated some sweet potato in some water with brown sugar and then added some sweet potato to the fried mix and the rest mashed up. Put the mix of stuff into a baking dish, spread the sweet potato on top, poured sesame seeds over the top and dribbled olive oil over it all then placed in the oven for half an hour at 190c and then grilled on high for a few minutes at the end. Damn that was one heck of a yummy meal, I decided on doing this while I was wandering around the markets buying fruit and veg today. Ate a yummy salad with it all, most enjoyable.

Next time I think, for a bit more bulk, and for the colour variety, I will do some potatos mashed and in the mix as well so I can swirl the orange and white colours together on top.

[leisure/theatre] I am the leader of the land! Who da Man?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:25:00

Anyone else who has seen Keating the Musical is possibly laughing right now after that title. The show is of course a musical based around the political life of Paul Keating until he lost power in 1996. The mere concept of a musical based on modern Australian politics sounds entertaining enough to me, however being a fan of Keating's style (G'Day Scumbags) it made this almost necessary viewing. Jane has seen it twice, as of last night Mum has now seen it twice also.

What can I say, it was a heck of a lot of fun. The band (guitars, drums, sax, etc) playing all the music was at times a bit too loud over powering the singers. The performers were really spot on with their characterisations and the songs all worked remarkably well. Jokes to be spotted in the lyrics all the way, some great political commentary (especially in the last slow song of the evening) and a highly entertaining evening out. I saw it last night and still have many of the songs ricocheting around in my head. Unfortunately the season here in Canberra is short this time (until Sunday) (this is the second visit) however it is touring regional centres and ending up in Sydney. If you get the chance I think it should be seen.

Interestingly your political leanings are unlikely to affect your enjoyment, Jane's boyfriend went along and has more right tendencies than the rest of us and yet he loved it and thought it poked fun at the ALP, however Jane, Mum and I all loved it and yet saw it poking fun at the Liberal Party.

[leisure/screen] Harlan the documentary

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:26:00

This is so freaking cool I doubt I will calm down until I get the chance to see this documentary. I followed a link from Neil Gaiman today to a Harlan Ellison interview. This interview is about a Harlan Ellison documentary, Dreams with Sharp teeth - A Film about Harlan Ellison. I had not heard about this film before, but now I absolutely have to see it. Harlan Ellison has been my favourite author for at least 15 years now, probably longer, the man is an absolutely amazing writer.

There is a trailer and some other content on the site, however I have not yet worked out where I can find more details about the documentary or if it is touring the world. Searching Amazon for the title I only get books. It appears to have only been released recently though. It screened at SXSW and there is a good review from that online and there is also an imdb page. I hope to find out more and see the whole thing sometime. Rock on Harlan.

[leisure/music] The Donnas live (oh and some Melbourne Bands)

Wed, 28 May 2008 18:58:00

Last night at the ANU Bar The Donnas played as support for Kisschasy, the first support act of the night was The Getaway Plan. As you may already be able to tell, I like The Donnas, they put together some great modern catchy rock tunes. The Donnas set really did rock out the venue in my opinion, however The Getaway Plan were a bit heavy and a bit grungy sounding and not something I would listen to more of. The same sort of applies to Kisschasy, I had not knowingly listened to them until last night. After the gig was over I realised I have heard some of their songs on JJJ and around the place.

Still it was a reasonably good evening out and it is healthy for me to expand my music horizons from time to time. On an entertainment note I am however looking forward to next Tuesday night a lot more, I am going to see Keating the Musical, which should be highly entertaining and a lot of fun.

The worst thing about the entire evening was how late it ran and how slow things moved between sets. In the past I have been to gigs in Sydney and other places where the doors open at a given time, I thought I could leave it a little while and still see the first act. This has caught me out some times, and I have missed half sets or entire sets a few times. Thus with the tickets saying the doors opened at 7pm, I was worried last night we would miss something when we rocked up at 7:40pm. This did not happen, instead they had us all outside in the thick cigarette smoke (alas people are still allowed to smoke outside in crowds) until the line started moving a little bit at 8pm. The first act played at 8:30pm, finished by 9pm and then there was over half an hour of getting bored (or drunk in many cases there it seems) until The Donnas came on just before 9:40pm. There was another really long break between before Kisschasy also, we ended up going over and sitting down near the pool tables while we waited.

[leisure/music] Fun music

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:59:00

I just wandered down to the pickle to grab a coffee, they have recently installed a flat panel tv screen on the wall and keep it playing channel v music videos. (though we offered them a purple pickle peddlers slide show, they did not want it, no idea why <g>). Anyway the song playing when I walked in was the Foo Fighters, Learn To Fly which I think on top of being a catchy tune is a hilarious video clip. Seeing Dave do all the different characters and the others also in there with the humorous somewhat cliched (think Airplane movies) movements and story line. Lots of fun that clip.

This of course reminded me of another highly entertaining Foo Fighters clip, their Footos (Mentos style) Candy that appeared in the Big Me music video was also a highly amusing romp to a good tune. Speaking of the Foo Fighters, Danielle and Ben went to their concert in Sydney on Friday night. Both said it was a very good gig, it sounds like the audience got their moneys worth as they played a two and half hour set. Speaking of amusing video clips, I still wish I could remember the name of the Cruel Sea clip from around 1999 in which Tex Perkins and the rest of them did a fantastic piss take of boy bands, wandering around in white linen suits singing in harmony.

[leisure/screen] Another good comic adaptation

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:32:00

Last night I went to see the movie Iron Man with a friend. I am somewhat a comics fan and in the past collected some DC titles, hence I loved the movie Batman Begins as they stuck closely to the original material and had characters that mostly worked extremely well in that context (though I still have to admit Stardust is my favourite movie in recent years) (probably closely followed by Amelie, though I do not know if I can count that as recent any more, 7 years ago). Enough with the tangents, I am attempting to point out I like comics and yet know very little about any Marvel titles. (which is why I think Batman Begins is the best super hero movie filmed yet, simply because I discount or ignore Spiderman 1 or X-Men 1 as I know very little about the source material)

I had thought the Iron Man movie was produced as part of the new independant Marvel Studios setup, however reading the appropriate wikipedia page and the Iron Man page linked at the top I learnt this was not the case. Though it is interesting to see the discussion about script writing and letting the action flow around a credible story "There was much improvisation in dialogue scenes, because the script was not done when filming began (the filmmakers had focused on the story making sense and planning the action)." Which I think came through well. The movie as a whole was entertaining, appropriate humour, showed a sense of how horrible war is and was a good action flick. I liked it.

[leisure/books] Spoilerriffic

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:06:00

So this may not be the best character trait, and admittedly I may only be posting this on the off chance I can up my posts for the month before tomorrow. I am somewhat addicted to spoilers, I am happy to go around reading TWOP or similar before shows air here. When reading books or other things with endings off in the distance I have been known to skip ahead to find out how things end before going back to reading through the entire book.

I realised this once more tonight as I was reading something new, I am trying to fight the urge to skim ahead, I want to find out something about a character, and yet I know I should simply continue reading in a linear fashion. Interestingly I generally do not mind spoiling the ending for myself, however I often want to share, my sister and others have to remind me not to from time to time. A simple warning, if I ever start to tell you some ending early, remind me not to.

[leisure/holiday] They have it tough up there

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:41:00

View from the deck (fullsize)

The weekend just past I camped out on a property up near Nimbin where Matt and Amanda were being married. A lot of us at the wedding were adventure racers, so Matt and Amanda catered well for us, taking us to Mt Warning for a 700 metre vertical hike on Friday then out for night lawn bowls (some unusual activity such as you may find in an urban race) that night. The wedding was on Saturday and then on Sunday we headed down to Byron Bay for the day.

The panorama view above is from the deck of Amanda's aunt's house looking over toward the border ranges on the left and the ridge on the right is obscuring Mt Warning (it is at the edge of the Caldera (which can be seen easily from space), we were staying just up above Nimbin.

I created the panorama with the program hugin, I have not bothered following the tutorial about balancing the colours better so you can see where the three photos sort of join, however I think the image looks alright, it took a few initial tries to get it to that point. (I have never used hugin before). Anyway great weekend away, thanks Matt and Amanda (and congratulations to you both). The temperature change on our return to Canberra was definitely a shock to the system, it sure was nice up there.

[leisure/food] Cookie recipes galore

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:28:00

Soft chocolate chip, apple, coconut cookies (or snickerdoodles) are one of the foods I like to make for racing and long rides. However I am sure many people will appreciate that any cookie is a fairly good food in all manner of situations. Thus I was happy to see this link on Metafilter today, a list of what the author thinks are the 50 best cookie recipes on the Internet.

Some of these really do look wonderful, as soon as I can exercise again (and thus burn off excessive amounts of chocolate, sugar and butter) I need to look into trying out a lot of these. I think Crash should show the list to Jo, after all I know she likes to bake the odd yummy item, and he benefits from that anyway. Maybe I should challenge Jo to a long term bake off, we could both bake one of these recipes a week, swap some of the finished product and try them all out over 25 weeks or so.

[leisure/screen] Good News Week is back and online

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:20:00

So as I have mentioned from time to time, I am a huge fan of the Doug Anthony All Stars. Since their final tour in 1994 (I saw them live in Canberra when they performed here that time). Of the various projects Tim, Rich and Paul have been involved in since, my favourite by far has been Good News Week. Hosted by Paul (and Tim and Rich have both appeared on episodes of the first series) this is one of the funniest shows ever aired on TV in Australia in my opinion. I used to watch it on ABC and then Ten when the first series was on, I went to some of the live tapings in Canberra, and laughed a hell of a lot.

Thus I was of course upset when the original series ended, then I noticed it was back on early this year. At first I thought it must simply be re runs (though reruns of a 7 year old current affairs/news based show do not make sense, so I do not know why I thought that), however by the time the fourth episode was airing I realised it was a brand new series, so I watched it and loved the show as much as ever. Since then I have had my Myth box set to record the show, however for some reason SC Ten is not working on my myth box and I have not worked out why, I missed a few episodes since than and again got to watch it last night.

Kristy sent an email to linux-aus asking if anyone had a recording of the show in order to get the bit about Jon's geekiness at the start of the episode. So I ended up having a look at the Good News Week website and was pleasantly surprised to find they have all the episodes of the new series on their video page to watch at any time with flash player. The hidden danger of this is that I then stayed up far too late watching most of the episodes I had missed and some of the other content.

The other danger is that when you are watching something this funny and you are laughing so hard you end up crying a lot and you have a broken collar bone, laughing like this can be somewhat painful. Still I love this show, I am so happy it is back on tv now. It is not really Paul that makes the show so good either, it is the stuff the guests and team leaders say that really is so hilarious. Such as the brilliant (though you may need an appreciation for bizarre to like this so much) line from Ross Noble when dissing Doritos. When another guest said they were the best triangular snack with a Mexican twist, Ross pointed out cheese on toast cut in half was just as good, when pressed for a Mexican twist he said you need only put a Chihuahua on the cheese toasty. After all what better triangular snack is there than a cheese toasty with a small dog?

[leisure/music] YACOH (Yet Another Cover Of Hallelujah) analysis

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:11:00

I feel the need to link to this analysis of some of the history of the song Hallelujah (from kottke¹), the many recordings of the song and the rise of the song in popularity and how it has changed.

I adore this song (which means I am in agreement with a lot of people if the article is correct), though I have never seen the OC, I remember watching the west wing episode in season 3 when this played and thinking it worked well. It is interesting to see how the song people know tends to be the Jeff Buckley version, even though now days other covers are getting more notice. The section in the article that points to the longevity of this song best I think is

This is the beauty of the pop song: it's an artistic hooker with a heart of gold, always willing to be used. It can become a tool, but a song isn't a Matisse - if it's used as a washcloth, just wring it out and it's good as new. We may call something the "definitive version," but it's not, not really. It's just the temporary consensus, a beautiful beach house built always within reach of the next great flood. There's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which you heard, and every song contains a thousand possibilities - or, at least, the great ones do. Hallelujah's place in the pantheon was assured only by the song's mutability; were it not open to change, it would have remained an ignored album cut.

The many different verses available for use when covering, the different Hallelujahs you can interpret, these have made the song last so well and enter our collective conscious so deeply. I also like to see the commentary in the article and some of the comments about the musical structure of the song and how Buckley's cover in particular really used that well with the notes and chord structure. As I have previously mentioned, I really like the Clare Bowditch cover, oh and the KD Lang one.

Oh and Jane, if you are reading this post, I think you will really enjoy the analysis.

1: I found this and a few other links interesting on kottke today, which just proves it is a great site, even at times such as now when it is not really kottke (the status of which changes, obviously).

[leisure/food] Count the superfoods

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:38:00

Many articles online recently have mentioned various plans to include so called superfoods in a diet. Because I recently bought a lot of fresh blueberries and have since been eating them with breakfast I thought I would see how many of these foods I have been eating most days.

Of those mentioned, so far today I have eaten Apples, Avocado, Blueberries, Dark Chocolate, Honey, Low fat yoghurt, Oats, Oranges, Tea, Tomatoes, and dried Apricots (Dried superfruits). I expect by the time dinner is over I will have added Beans, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Garlic and Onions at least.

Of course one problem is trying to eat these in suggested quantities, such as 1-2 cups of fresh blueberries per day, a practice which simply is not economically viable in Australia (even if you had weekly access to the fresh blueberry farm). I suppose some people would point out I tend to be a bit of a health and fitness nut here though, after all I have also done 50 KM of fast paced road riding today, a stretching class and on Wednesday evenings would normally do a 10KM paddling time trial too.

The interesting thing here I think is that I had not even considered my food intake against the superfood list until I looked it up, so realistically anyone could be careful about eating healthy even if they are not in the mood for the amount of exercise I participate in.

[leisure/food] When crass commercialism is a good thing

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:13:00

It seems offensive when we see Christmas shopping, decorations and advertising sometime in August, we probably often have similar behaviour to the early ramping up on Mothers and Fathers day in the commercial sphere. However I have to say one aspect of this seeming crass commercialism that I noticed this week that appeals to me does exist.

I have mentioned in the past that the annual festival of the spicy fruit bun is a good thing because I adore hot cross buns. I could almost live on the things (okay ignoring for a moment they do not contain enough of a balanced diet to do that). I am able to purchase hot cross buns in Woolworths already, in early January, I do not need to wait until March. Rock on.

In other news I just realised my leisure/food category had completely disappeared from my laptop, probably during a recent fsck. Time to look through my laptop backups and compare against what is on the system to see if anything else is missing that should not be.

[leisure/screen] Aaron shows

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:30:00

I was entertained to see Mikal only recently noticed Aaron Sorkin wrote the four items he mentions. I have been a Sorkin fan for years now, and personally think the West Wing was never as good after he left at the end of season 4.

I strongly suggest to Mikal that he get a hold of the show Sports Night which predates West Wing and was a brilliant show, also a Sorkin brain child, with many of the same actors at times (Joshua Malina for example has had major roles in both, Felicity Huffman has appeared in West Wing, Janel Maloney has appeared in Sports Night, etc etc)

Though I have not yet seen it, and it has not received great reviews in the US, the new post West Wing show from Sorkin, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip probably still has some classic Sorkinesque banter and writing and is likely to be entertaining also. Ahh Aaron Sorkin and Joss Wheedon, without the two of them no television out of the US would not have been worth watching in the past 10 years I think.

[leisure/books] Longer wait than anticipated

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:00:00

Well it appears there are hints of the English translation of the 4th Watch series book by Sergei Lukyanenko appearing on Amazon and a few other places. Alas it appears the translation will not be out in January. Instead it looks like we will have to wait until July for the paperback (strangely it seems the hardback will be released later in August).

I guess on the plus side there are also rumours around that he may write another novel in the series after the 4th, though waiting for English translation will extend that out even further.

[leisure/music] Another song that stops me like a brick wall

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:57:00

Though the title references the lyrics of Asking Too Much I commented on a while back I am not talking about that song. Ani recently released a retrospective album containing a collection of her work spanning her career (The album is a double called "Canon"). As I already have all the songs on other albums you would think it may not be worth buying. However two things change this assumption, first I am a bit of an addict (of the 210 or so albums I own, 29 of them are Ani Difranco, more than 10%), however the main reason is there are some new recordings of some of her songs on each of the discs.

This is too much to resist for me, after all, the new version of Not A Pretty Girl on Girls Singing Night redefined that song for me. So when I had to get some stuff from the Righteous Babe store recently (some of the official bootlegs and another 32 Flavors t-shirt as Bruce's never arrived last year) I bought the album Canon.

What do you know, she did it again, not with all of the songs, but the new version of Napoleon is amazing. This however is a bit different to Not A Pretty Girl. I have always loved the song Napoleon, listening to the Dilate album this is a song I have often put on repeat, or while driving along in the car listening put the volume up stupidly loud and sung my voice off to. But oh my god this new version is incredible, it has a much more electronic rock sort of feel to it, it is a bigger feeling song, but whatever combination of things in it to change it has made it another amazing Ani experience.

[leisure/books] It almost makes me want to learn Russian

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 18:50:00

Though I have not seen the movies yet, a few of my friends have told me the movies Night Watch and Day Watch are pretty good. So instead of seeing the movies I went out and purchased the three books Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch and read them. Unfortunately the fourth book in the series is not yet released in English, as I suggest in the post title, it almost makes you want to learn Russian. Though there are no release dates I can find record of, I suspect the translation of Final Watch will be released in January (matching up with the every 6 months schedule of the last three books), I had better wait for that as it will be easier than learning a Language <g>.

These are really good books, fascinating use of magic and mythical creatures in modern society. No idea what makes me like them so much but I did, one thing I find strange is the marketing blurb on them all suggesting it is like JK Rowling in a Russian setting. I have to say, it really isn't. Sure the marketing is probably just trying to convince more people to buy it, however the focus of the books is more adult as are the themes and stuff happening in them. Though they may suit readers of Rowling it is obviously not a direct overlap, as I personally do not find the Harry Potter series hard to put down. Though I have all but the final book in the Harry Potter series in my possession, and have had them all for most of the year, I have still only read the first 4 books (I read these 3 or 4 years ago borrowing them from a friend) and do not feel a strong need or inclination to finish them at the moment.

On the other hand I rushed through the three watch books in less than two weeks. No idea what this says, but I do think they are a great read.

Looking at the wikipedia entries about the films I am a little disturbed by how much they appear to actually differ to the text of Night Watch, however I suspect treating them as related but seperate works would mean they will still be good to see.

[leisure/screen] Well I know I can't

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:19:00

I was heating up some dinner tonight and a house mate had the show So You Think You can dance on the tv. I have watched this previously at my sister's place from time to time. It seemed entertaining but I simply do not stop to watch tv much. Anyway I got hooked tonight and have watched the rest of this. Lots of fun, my house mate said we are nearer the end so pretty much all the people left can dance well.

The solo dances were interesting as they were all the same dance and you can see how each dancer interprets it. Also you can see how each dancer manages to link things together. In the solo dance tonight I thought Neil (I think that was his name) was possibly the worst I saw. He did not flow from move to move well and nothing seemed to link and flow. Kameron however was incredible in the solo dance and how he did some of the moves, a little differently with an interesting difference. Maybe it is because he followed Neil so the contrast really stood out at the time. Strangely none of the female solos really stood out to me, though one of them was using the assets of her bust more than many others I thought, probably the bloke in me noticing that though.

I wonder what it says about me that the best pair dance I saw tonight was the disco dance. (interestingly the judges seem to agree with me, I typed the bit about liking it before the dance was finished). Anyway it is a fun bit of tv and good to see people moving and enjoying that sort of thing so much, I know I can't dance but it is good to watch I agree for once with something that at first glance may appear to be a bit like some of the crap reality tv stuff so prevalent these days. I also loved the music for the solo performance, that was what really grabbed me back into the living room and got me watching it.

[leisure/screen] Stardust, the wow post

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:18:00

So I just got back a few minutes ago from seeing the movie Stardust movie at Dendy (Canberra). I am a long time Neil Gaiman fan so suspected I would like the movie, and after waiting for over a year an a half, for a movie that was originally to be released here in March (though having heard about it much earlier I was already keen) I have to say it did not disappoint at all.

This I can already see will be one of my favourite movies, after one screening I already adore it. What an absolutely brilliant movie. Go and see it.

[leisure/screen] I Do

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:44:00

After making an attempt to see this 3 weeks ago, I finally got to see the movie I Do tonight. I liked it.

Luis was, obviously I guess, a bit of a pig at first and not the nicest of people, also the movie sounds like it could be one of those dodgy premises that consistently cause Adam Sandler to be putting his name forward as an individual who should never have become famous. However this was done by the French rather than the Americans, maybe that is what saved it, even with the dodgy sounding premise the movie was really good.

You can easily see why Luis' family would drive anyone mad, as the movie goes on you begin to see why there are reasons Emma decided to go in for the deal initially (though that is still a bit of a mystery really) however by the end of the movie the characters have generally all grown on you to the same extent they have on each other. At least that is what I got out of it, a charming and entertaining movie opening the eyes and changing the outlook of the protagonist in a major way. This is a movie I will probably be happy to watch a time or two more when it hits dvd.

[leisure/music] A concert I have been waiting 12 years for

Tue, 08 May 2007 12:19:00

On Saturday night my sister and I went and saw the Dave Matthews Band live at the Hordern pavilion in Sydney. I was hell keen as I have been an avid fan of them since I first heard Ants Marching way back in 1995. I guess you could say this is one gig I have been hanging out to go to ever since, strangely I did not hear that they were touring Australia in 2005, though they did. Thus my first chance was this year, I had not heard about this gig either until I was driving to a mountain bike race with a friend and she told me the gig was on and she was heading up to Sydney for it.

It was a fantastic performance, with classic DMB style, lots of solos from all the performers: Boyd Tinsley on Violin, reminiscent of a dreadlocked muppet in his on stage antics, look and style, but man can he jam on a violin, LeRoi, Stefan, Carter and the rest. (7 all up). The crowd was really enthusiastic and danced a lot which was fun. Interestingly the tour was not really very heavily promoted in Sydney and yet it still sold out, a lot of Americans were there to see the performance. This makes some fair amount of sense as DMB are huge in the US and have consistently been in the top 5 selling groups there for over 10 years now. It almost makes me wonder why they are not more popular here (the lack of Australian tours could have something to do with it).

Anyway it was one hell of a good performance and I would like to see them again sometime. It has also crossed one of my must see acts of the list of those I had not yet seen. I still really want to see the Counting Crows live one day though. I hope they can tour Australia sometime.

[leisure/screen] 18 films in one sitting

Wed, 02 May 2007 14:57:00

Last night I wandered into the new Dendy cinema (I think this was my first visit to the new centre) with some of my house mates to watch Paris, je t'aime (imdb) (or wikipedia).

On the whole I liked it a lot, some of the short films were a little bit off the mood of the whole, though they still were good. An example is the vampire film, a little quirky and dark compared to the rest, but still interesting. The humour in some was fantastic (such as the mime couple situated in the Eiffel Tower area by the creator of Les Triplettes de Belleville) or the incredibly strange but humorous hair salon film.

I really did not like a few of the short films (the first one with the woman pulled into the car and the later film with the couple starting out in the strip club), however one of the great advantages is any film you did not like was over soon and something new was coming along.

I think the concept worked remarkably well, a collection of short films telling a single theme/story by different people with different styles. Unlike most short film festivals, such as Tropfest, with different films (even though they include a common element) on different subjects. What came out was a good night out with some very interesting and quirky ideas and scenes from time to time. I recommend seeing it.

[leisure/screen] One bad, one good, make a pattern for a show?

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:05:00

So most of my house mates and I were sitting around watching the new ABC show "The Sideshow" with Paul McDermott on Saturday evening. I admit I was watching it largely because I am a huge Doug Anthony All Stars fan and still will make an effort to watch (at least once) anything the three of them appear in. I also really liked Good News Week, though Paul can be cloying and down right annoying at times, he also can be rather funny and holds and audience well (in my opinion).

So I thought Paul was mostly amusing in this show, and Flacco when he did his own segment (as opposed to the scripted silly moustache waving segment) was funny. However my large problem with the show is it appeared as if the had a pattern of one funny/amusing/good act followed by one piece of crap act and simply repeated the pattern through the show.

The three Adams familyesque sisters, the three women trying to get a drink at the bar, the one man band and the Claire Hooper stand up act were all rubbish I thought and not even remotely amusing or interesting. Yet the rest of the acts were largely really good. My house mates and I kept saying, couldn't they maybe just have all good acts rather than the pattern of one stupid/annoying/bad act and one good act throughout. Maybe it was just us but everyone in the house tended to agree on what was and was not good.

I guess I will give the show one more week and see if it improves at all.

[leisure/music] Interesting lyrics from another pianist.

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:25:00

One of my house mates had a cd playing the other day with a really great sounding voice coming out of it. I asked who it was and was given a name I had not heard of, Regina Spektor who apparently is part of the Anti Folk scene (what ever the heck that means).

Regina has a really fascinating voice and ways of using her voice, bouncing around the spectrum a lot and really using it as a central instrument, then to the lyrics in a lot of her songs are fascinating. Full of jokes, literary references or just strange ideas and imagery. I guess I can see where the Anti Folk label may come from with the poking fun at herself and her music and many other targets.

Anyway I have to say I am hooked. I say "from another pianist" above largely due to th fact Missy Higgins is a pianist and good lyricist. As for the fun and interesting lyrics from Regina Spektor this is a good example:

And then i fill the sink to the top with bubbles of soap
And then i set all the bottle caps i own afloat
And it's the greatest voyage in the history of plastic

Music Box - Regina Spektor

[leisure/food] Great coffee and some mango wine

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:31:00

35 KG of coffee roasted at a time (full size)

As I suggested the other day, I spent Thursday up in the table lands checking out some local produce of interest and looking around Kuranda. The produce of interest was local coffee, and I had a look at a Mango winery simply for the novelty value.

The photo to the left is the bean roaster at the NQ Gold Coffee plantation, this was a good plantation to visit I reckon. Not far outside the town of Mareeba, the plantation is owned and operated by a family, all the coffee has been grown with no pesticides sprayed on it for the last 14 years. They do a free tour for you and will serve a fantastic coffee there. The beans are sun dried there and all processing is done on the premises. In addition to their three coffee varieties (light, medium, espresso) they sell chocolate covered coffee beans, dried fruit (mango and others) and mango jam. All of which I ended up buying. After this visit I decided not to go visit one of the larger more commercial coffee plantations as I was well satisfied with the details I got from this visit. The woman who gave the tour mentioned there is one restaurant in Canberra that serves their coffee (possibly the Chill restaurant in Campbell, I forget).

Afterwards I headed off to the Golden Drop Mango Winery mostly to satisfy my curiosity as to what it could taste like. They had three varieties of wine, Dry, Medium and Sweet, they also sold Mango Port and Mango Liquor, Mango Champagne plus a few other fruit based liquors. I generally prefer dry wines, however I was worried that mango wine would all be somewhat sweet, I was pleasantly surprised to find the dry was indeed a rather good tasting dry wine. The most noticeable thing is there is an almost overpowering Mango aroma from the wine. I liked the novelty of the drink, however at the price (AUD $25 per 750ml bottle) it would not replace a standard drinking wine for many people who drink wine regularly.

After this I headed back to Cairns via Baron Gorge and Kuranda to check out the views and township.

[leisure/food] Snicker Doodles

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:41:00

The cookies I make fairly often (with apple, choc chip, oat and coconut) are a basic soft sugar cookie recipe. I recalled that there was some slang name for this basic soft cookie in the US however I can never remember it. A few minutes ago I saw an email address with the word Smackerdoodle in it and remembered the cookies were called something doodle. A quick google for "cookie doodle" has reminded me the US slang term for the basic soft sugar cookie is "Snicker Doodle".

[leisure/food] Tea with a coconut aftertaste

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:42:00

Sam and Ben purchased some tea from the Daintree Tea plantation when they were up there a few weeks ago. Ben prepared a pot of it a few minutes ago that I am drinking now. Damn good taste, I especially like the slight coconut flavoured aftertaste. I am happy to see I can order this tea online to be delivered to Canberra. (they also have US and Canadian importers) Who knows I may have found a tea to supplant my Twinings Irish Breakfast habit as my favourite tea. I had better sample this a lot more to make sure.

As for things to do up here, I am tempted tomorrow to head up to Mareeba to some local coffee plantations and a Mango Winery as mentioned in this food itinerary. I love fresh coffee, and Mango wine sounds good.