Tanja and I stopped at the Marlborough Hotel for lunch today and had a bottle of beer and then a schooner of beer each with our food. Then on the way home we bought a six-pack of beer. Upon arriving home, we each had two of those in the backyard. Tanja was admittedly a bit tipsy, while I retained my hard-drinking untouchable air. I then made us each a couple of cocktails (Kiwi & Coconut Caipiroska: 1 shot vodka, 2 shots Malibu Rum, half a kiwi, half a lime, 1 tsp sugar, muddled, then shaken with ice) with more alcohol in than the beers, and Tanja is suddenly sobered up. Completely. She could juggle knives if she could, well, juggle knives. Wierd.
Oh, and Soundwave is happening so close to our house we can hear Atreyu or some other Screamo shit from the backyard.
And Edlinger beer has created beer bottles where you can use the bottom of the bottle to open the TOP of another bottle. Brilliant!!!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Feline
So... Watching the first 10 minutes of 28 Weeks Later at the train station is not a way to create a positive, motivated outlook for the rest of the day. I'm glad we've all learned this.
Our stupid cat escaped last night. Again. This time the first place we looked was the neighbour's yard she got into last time. No luck. We wandered the streets for a bit, doing the incredibly plaintive and somehow pathetic cat-food-bowl-shaking thing of cat parents everywhere. No joy. With Tanja and I sniping at one another from the stress, we headed home, only to hear faint meowing from over the fence. I knock on the neighbours door and he and I search the backyard and the side of the house, finding nothing. I go back out into the alley with Tanja, only to see Magrat shoot out from the damaged roller-door of the backyard I had so recently searched. We tried to approach her, but she shot away, with me pounding after her. Hot pursuit. She turned a corner... and disappeared. With both Tanja and I cursing, we wander around. Tanja finally gets her out from under a car, catching a few scratches for her trouble.
I'll leave a post script that a neighbourhood tomcat followed us around through this whole ordeal (which lasted more than an hour), happily trundling along, sometimes with me, sometimes with Tanja, looking under cars and bushes. He seemed to think this was all high adventure. I wanted to adopt the little Chaperone, but he probably belonged to someone. We'll leave some tinned food out for him.
Our stupid cat escaped last night. Again. This time the first place we looked was the neighbour's yard she got into last time. No luck. We wandered the streets for a bit, doing the incredibly plaintive and somehow pathetic cat-food-bowl-shaking thing of cat parents everywhere. No joy. With Tanja and I sniping at one another from the stress, we headed home, only to hear faint meowing from over the fence. I knock on the neighbours door and he and I search the backyard and the side of the house, finding nothing. I go back out into the alley with Tanja, only to see Magrat shoot out from the damaged roller-door of the backyard I had so recently searched. We tried to approach her, but she shot away, with me pounding after her. Hot pursuit. She turned a corner... and disappeared. With both Tanja and I cursing, we wander around. Tanja finally gets her out from under a car, catching a few scratches for her trouble.
I'll leave a post script that a neighbourhood tomcat followed us around through this whole ordeal (which lasted more than an hour), happily trundling along, sometimes with me, sometimes with Tanja, looking under cars and bushes. He seemed to think this was all high adventure. I wanted to adopt the little Chaperone, but he probably belonged to someone. We'll leave some tinned food out for him.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Musings
I took a different route to work today, and as usual when I do this, I found myself wondering: what if I just kept walking around looking at things and didn't go to work. I never got the urge to skip school at any time in my academic career, but I've had this sort of urge since I've begun working in Australia. There just seem to be so many interesting things to do and I just want to wander and see them. I don't know if it's sad, but a lot of those things revolve around food, wine, beer, and cocktails. Not the doing any of those things to excesses, but the enjoyment and interesting nature thereof. For example, I want more Innocent Bystander Shiraz Viognier. We had some and it was great, but I felt we rushed it a bit.
It seems I've become a magnet for gossip at work. Not the usual who-shagged-who gossip. More like oh-no-that-special-project-we're-working-on-is-ending-we-might-get-pwned-on-hours-and-supervisor-infighting-and-it's-all-coming-down-man gossip. It's giving me an unsettling sense of impermanence with everything I'm doing. I miss the illusion that managers know what they're doing and have things under control. And our back-of-house work has ceased being about quality of work lately and has just become a race to make your quota for the day. It's fair demoralising.
I stole a lobe off a cactus on the way to work today. I felt no guilt, as the cactus was about the size of a volkswagon, and I had no worry about storing it until i get home, knowing that succelents like cacti can survive for up to two weeks off the plant, then grow new roots. This particular cactus had no needles that I could see, so I had no trouble handling it. What I didn't realise is that its needles are 2-3 mms long, half the thickness of a hair and fall out on their own to coat what's nearby. In this particular case, what was nearby was the inside of my right sleeve. I spent the following half hour to work attempting to tweeze (with no tweezers) these little spines out of my wrist. They didn't hurt, but would twinge whenever they caught on something. Which was whenever I moved. So I got pwned by a plant.
Been listening to a lot of Spoon and the New Pornographers. Melodic power pop. Recommended, but not for Ted.
Tanja and I are about a third of the way through the 7th season of Star Trek TNG. Tanja's become a nerd to the point of discussing with someone at her work whether a colleague is a Ferengi or a Cardassian. I vote Cardassian. Oh, and I forgot how good the episode "Lower Decks" is.
It seems I've become a magnet for gossip at work. Not the usual who-shagged-who gossip. More like oh-no-that-special-project-we're-working-on-is-ending-we-might-get-pwned-on-hours-and-supervisor-infighting-and-it's-all-coming-down-man gossip. It's giving me an unsettling sense of impermanence with everything I'm doing. I miss the illusion that managers know what they're doing and have things under control. And our back-of-house work has ceased being about quality of work lately and has just become a race to make your quota for the day. It's fair demoralising.
I stole a lobe off a cactus on the way to work today. I felt no guilt, as the cactus was about the size of a volkswagon, and I had no worry about storing it until i get home, knowing that succelents like cacti can survive for up to two weeks off the plant, then grow new roots. This particular cactus had no needles that I could see, so I had no trouble handling it. What I didn't realise is that its needles are 2-3 mms long, half the thickness of a hair and fall out on their own to coat what's nearby. In this particular case, what was nearby was the inside of my right sleeve. I spent the following half hour to work attempting to tweeze (with no tweezers) these little spines out of my wrist. They didn't hurt, but would twinge whenever they caught on something. Which was whenever I moved. So I got pwned by a plant.
Been listening to a lot of Spoon and the New Pornographers. Melodic power pop. Recommended, but not for Ted.
Tanja and I are about a third of the way through the 7th season of Star Trek TNG. Tanja's become a nerd to the point of discussing with someone at her work whether a colleague is a Ferengi or a Cardassian. I vote Cardassian. Oh, and I forgot how good the episode "Lower Decks" is.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
UnWanted
So I looked at the graphic novel Wanted today in Kinokuniya. I wanted to check it out, since I had heard about the film version being released this year with Angelina Jolie. The basic premise is that regular-guy office worker with cheating girlfriend and repressive life finds out one day not just that the world is run by supervillians who killed off all the heroes in 1986, but that his dad was the head honcho The Killer (snappy name) and that he has inherited his father's powers. Instead of going the Spider-man route of rejecting the evil, he chooses the bad-guy side.
Sound interesting? You'd be wrong.
I read the first two chapters out of five and I felt like I wanted to lay down and scrub out the inside of my brain. Those first two chapters cover the guy's finding out about his dad, then his "training" which involves first realising that he "hated the whole fucking human race", then killing random people, then killing and raping his way through anyone who'd every wronged him or looked at him crosswise since childhood. Then he's kidnapped by his own people and beaten and tortured for five weeks to "make him less afraid of pain" or some shit. It's macho bullshit lines, like him killing his first person and comparing it to "fucking Marilyn Monroe without a condom". Christ. It's self-destructive nihilistic wish-fulfillment taken to extremes. I was disgusted. The closest I'd come to feeling this way from a book or film was Fight Club. And I think this was worse. It's the kind of thing you expect people like that gunman in Virginia to enjoy.
It actually left me in a depressed rotten mood (almost a fugue-state) for the rest of the day, with scenes out of it playing through my mind like an annoying song off the radio. I'm still trying to shake it off.
The last line of the book is something like "This is my face as I'm fucking you up the ass" and it's a full-page panel of his face and bare chest, grinning through gritted teeth (I should mention that the protagonist is drawn to resemble Eminem).
Jesus fuck.
Sound interesting? You'd be wrong.
I read the first two chapters out of five and I felt like I wanted to lay down and scrub out the inside of my brain. Those first two chapters cover the guy's finding out about his dad, then his "training" which involves first realising that he "hated the whole fucking human race", then killing random people, then killing and raping his way through anyone who'd every wronged him or looked at him crosswise since childhood. Then he's kidnapped by his own people and beaten and tortured for five weeks to "make him less afraid of pain" or some shit. It's macho bullshit lines, like him killing his first person and comparing it to "fucking Marilyn Monroe without a condom". Christ. It's self-destructive nihilistic wish-fulfillment taken to extremes. I was disgusted. The closest I'd come to feeling this way from a book or film was Fight Club. And I think this was worse. It's the kind of thing you expect people like that gunman in Virginia to enjoy.
It actually left me in a depressed rotten mood (almost a fugue-state) for the rest of the day, with scenes out of it playing through my mind like an annoying song off the radio. I'm still trying to shake it off.
The last line of the book is something like "This is my face as I'm fucking you up the ass" and it's a full-page panel of his face and bare chest, grinning through gritted teeth (I should mention that the protagonist is drawn to resemble Eminem).
Jesus fuck.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
It's been a funny sort of day.
And it's only 11:37.
Woke up, was ready and prepared nice and early, then got a call from my dad, who was trying to burn a CD on his laptop. After ten minutes of me going through it with him, we realised his CDs were defective. We then spent a further 20 minutes gonig through how to remove and add files to his flashdrive. So I went from way early to leaving just barely on time.
The reason I wanted to leave early was that a parcel had arrived at the post office. I had ordered this from eBay:
Dad paid for it. I bought it on the 14th, and they had shipped it from Japan by yesterday. Those Japanese are industrious. At least their postal workers are. So I picked it up. Then I stopped by Better Read Than Dead to look for the third His Dark materials book. See, I bought the first one isn a cool format, then had to buy the second one in a different format. But this time they had the second and third in the good format. So I got those, then took a bus into work.
I was expecting to be on the phones today, so got there nice and early. Turns out I'm on back-of-house instead. Woo hoo! For those out of the loop, that means data entry and order fixing, without having to be on the phone. It's much better.
So then I set up my Prime. It's glorious. It's awesome. It's attracting the attention of every nerd in the room. And it's got a different plug.
FUCK.
It's ok, though, I have an AC/DC adapter at home.
So then I go to buy coffee for me and Adrian from the stand by Central. I order, I wait. Two strong flat whites, two sugars and a caramel shot each. Comes to $7.20. I give him a ten, say "Just make it eight." He look startled. "Are you sure?" I say "Well, yeah." He then goes. "Oh, here. have this too, for the wait." and gives me a piece of raspberry bread. Huh. Goes to show. Always tip your barista.
Even Steven's back, baby.
Woke up, was ready and prepared nice and early, then got a call from my dad, who was trying to burn a CD on his laptop. After ten minutes of me going through it with him, we realised his CDs were defective. We then spent a further 20 minutes gonig through how to remove and add files to his flashdrive. So I went from way early to leaving just barely on time.
The reason I wanted to leave early was that a parcel had arrived at the post office. I had ordered this from eBay:
Dad paid for it. I bought it on the 14th, and they had shipped it from Japan by yesterday. Those Japanese are industrious. At least their postal workers are. So I picked it up. Then I stopped by Better Read Than Dead to look for the third His Dark materials book. See, I bought the first one isn a cool format, then had to buy the second one in a different format. But this time they had the second and third in the good format. So I got those, then took a bus into work.
I was expecting to be on the phones today, so got there nice and early. Turns out I'm on back-of-house instead. Woo hoo! For those out of the loop, that means data entry and order fixing, without having to be on the phone. It's much better.
So then I set up my Prime. It's glorious. It's awesome. It's attracting the attention of every nerd in the room. And it's got a different plug.
FUCK.
It's ok, though, I have an AC/DC adapter at home.
So then I go to buy coffee for me and Adrian from the stand by Central. I order, I wait. Two strong flat whites, two sugars and a caramel shot each. Comes to $7.20. I give him a ten, say "Just make it eight." He look startled. "Are you sure?" I say "Well, yeah." He then goes. "Oh, here. have this too, for the wait." and gives me a piece of raspberry bread. Huh. Goes to show. Always tip your barista.
Even Steven's back, baby.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Light from the heavens
I was struck with the strangest urge this morning. About a block from work I was suddenly and irrevocably hit with the need, NEED, mind you, to sit at home, drink Belgian beer (preferably from Delirium Tremens or Chimay), watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and play video games.
This urge struck with a force to stop me walking.
Keep in mind, this was at 7:42 in the morning.
*sigh*
Oh, and after her 14 days off work and 1 day back, Tanja has decided she wants to retire. Heh.
And when I got to work, my schedule was screwed. First I was put on 7 am starts this week (outside my availability, which starts at 8) but they've put me to work the weekend next week. Let me put it clearly: I don't work weekends!
Supervisor's sorting it out, but still.
This urge struck with a force to stop me walking.
Keep in mind, this was at 7:42 in the morning.
*sigh*
Oh, and after her 14 days off work and 1 day back, Tanja has decided she wants to retire. Heh.
And when I got to work, my schedule was screwed. First I was put on 7 am starts this week (outside my availability, which starts at 8) but they've put me to work the weekend next week. Let me put it clearly: I don't work weekends!
Supervisor's sorting it out, but still.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
So Tanja and I saw the Golden Compass. Twas a good time. Not as twee as Harry Potter or Narnia. Kick-ass battle sequences, interesting story, and they didn't give away everything ion the first chapter, leaving some mystery for the rest. Nicole Kidman was a slimy lizard-like creepy woman with a bad monkey attached to her. So a real acting stretch for her. Picked up the book on the way home. Much different tone. Very 19th century, and much less child-like-wonder than the film. It's STEAMPUNK! Hooray! I spent what was I'm sure a boring 20 minutes explaining steampunk to Tanja. I'm annoying that way.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
My Daemon (apparently)
Going to see the Golden Compass tonight with Tanja (after a decent review from the Totally Rad Show).
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