The Great Dough Disaster

Carole and I were doing these online mad-libs where you nominate words and then it inserts them into a story. The site is for kids btw. Here's how one turned out...(the words we chose were Dave,fat,kicked,rowed,64000,cindy lauper,gracefully,pakistan,ears,8 million,screwing,teapot,mobiles)


Last summer, my friend Dave got a job at the fat Pastry Shop. For the first few weeks, he kicked the floors, rowed on the shelves, and unloaded 64000-pound sacks of flour from the delivery trucks.

Finally, cindy lauper, the owner, told Dave that she would teach him to make bread. “Now, pay attention, Dave,” she said gracefully. “I'll make the first batch of dough. Then you can make the next batch while I go to pakistan.”

Poor Dave! He had a habit of letting his ears wander. When cindy lauper left for pakistan, he started to mix the ingredients. “Let me see,” he said. “I think she put in 8 million packages of yeast.”

A short while later, the dough started screwing. It kept on screwing. Dave tried to cover it with a(n) teapot, but the dough wouldn't stop screwing. It was everywhere! “What can I do?” thought Dave.

Just then, cindy lauper returned from pakistan. "Dave!" she screamed. “What have you done?”

“It's not my fault,” cried Dave. “The dough just started screwing and wouldn't stop.”

cindy lauper had to let him go. Now Dave has a job making mobiles. I don't think he'll ever eat bread again, let alone make it.

Movie Marathon

Been laid up after an ankle op so I've been catching up on some movies.

The Bucket List - very good. Two great actors who complement each other well.

21 - was still coming out of the anaesthetic when I watched it but was just passable.

88 Minutes - very average...just didn't flow at all

The Bank Job - based on a true story albeit with the story being filled out with speculation in the absence of historical answers. In the style of Lock Stock, well worth it.

Untraceable - very watchable. While some of the science was far fethched much of it was believable. Could have chosen to be gory for the sake of it but didn't fall into that trap.

Vantage Point - concept was to show an assasination attempt from a numbe of different vantage points. Reality was that it was screwed up by sub plots that didn't need to be included. Another movie that didn't flow for me.

The Sound of Silence

Bought myself a set of Sony noise cancelling ear buds (MD-NC22B) and I am very happy so far. Seem to do a great job on both trains and buses.

While it is still possible to hear people and the hum of the train etc if you try, when you pump something through them all the regular din becomes muffled and just seems to fade to the background. Can be kinda eerie when the sound stops cause you can hear your own breathing, like you are scuba diving.

Movies have always been problematic from a volume point of view on my Ipod. I would have the volume maxed out with the standard Ipod ear phones and I'd find myself holding them tightly in my ears to try and hear the dialogue. Not good.

But now it's all good...quite crisp, clear and loud enough with volume to spare. Sound separation and isolated effects are heaps better than the Ipod phones.

Mega comfortable too...I've always struggled with normal ear phones but the soft silicone buds just seem made for my ears.

You can spend a lot more for Bose etc but that isn't something I could justify. $149 is enough of a chunk of change for me for ear buds but at least I'm happy with them.

Birthday Fool's Day

It's my birthday today and while I still went to work I had an excellent day.

I got some nice presents like a leaf blower/mulcher and a West Ham polo & tshirt, but perhaps the best was a book that Ben gave me called My Dad where each page has a fold up flap revealing something that your Dad does for you. Then at the end Carole had helped him paste in actual photos of me doing those exact things..stuff like carrying him round on my shoulders or making sandcastles with him.

After he gave it to me he then climbed up into the chair with me and we read it together.

Left me feeling happy all day.

Here's my full A-Z list

Rules :-

- must be a pub or a tavern, no sporting clubs, nightclubs etc
- must have had a beer in it
- must have been the current name of the pub at the time

Ambassador Hotel (Redcliffe)
Belvedere Hotel (Woody Point)
Coronation Hotel (Ipswich)
Deception Bay Tavern
Erskineville Hotel
Fihelly's Arms (Brisbane)
Grandview Hotel (Cleveland)
Homestead Hotel (Boondall)
Ivanhoe (Manly NSW)
Jindalee Tavern
Kurrajong (Erskineville, Sydney)
Lands Office (Brisbane)
Metropole Hotel (Ipswich)
Norman Hotel (Woolloongabba)
One Mile Hotel (West Ipswich)
Pineapple Hotel (Kangaroo Point)
Queen's Arms (New Farm)
Racehorse Hotel (Bundamba)
Scarborough Hotel
Transcontinental Hotel (Brisbane)
Ulster Hotel (Ipswich)
Victory Hotel (Brisbane)
Woodside (Wistaston, Cheshire UK)
X
Y
Zetland @ Green Square

Z is for Zetland

I have an A-Z life list I keep of pubs I have had a beer in and up until now I had no Z pub.

But I flew to Sydney with a few mates for a pub crawl and to watch the Rabbitohs & Easts game and finally got my Z.

Here's the list of pubs we got to during the day before & after the football Friday night :-

Sydney Park Hotel
Botany View
Erskineville Hotel
Rose of Australia
Kurrajong Hotel
Park View Hotel
Cauliflower Hotel
Zetland Hotel @ Green Square
Royal Hotel Randwick.
Fortune of War (The Rocks - Sydney's oldest pub)
Mercantile (had had a guful by then so didn't actually have a beer in it)

Then on Sat & Sun we also got to :-

Clovelly Hotel
Coodgee Bay Hotel
Coach & Horses
Steyne Hotel (Manly)
Ivanhoe (Manly)
The Orient

How's that for a long weekend of pubbing it!

Now if I can just find an X!

Ben @ the Beach

Couple of quick snaps of Ben 2.0 at the beach the other day. He's a big sandcastle man. I make em, he knocks em down!

Car Sizes

Why is it that families are now smaller but cars are much larger?

Big 4WD's should cost a lot more to register.

Compulsory 3rd party life insurance should cost more.

Driver's should have to pass a competency test before they can drive one.

And these new Chrysler dealerships being rolled out round Australia should have to pay an ugly tax. Let's leave these hideous yank tanks to the Americans & Saudis.

Sorry

Have to say I think Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations was a very important piece of Australian history and that he (and his speech writers) nailed it.

I'm a realist and my conservative estimate is that more than 50% of the population have racist tendencies (75% in the over 50 age group). I think Rudd's apology not only hit a chord with the Indigenous People it was aimed at but it also did a good job of explaining to Joe Public why it was necessary.

There were no qualifications about past policies being well intentioned as per Nelson. It was just a genuine heartfelt apology.

It was the first time I have actually considered him to be statesmanlike. Any qualms I had after his cheesy acceptance speech have breen dispelled.

And best of all, he took the opportunity to set some targets that have the potential to make a real difference to the well being of Indigenous Australians. Let's hope they can be met or at least some real progress can be made.

If a government was to come into my home and take Ben away and place him in another culture without a valid reason, and there was nothing I could do to challenge the decision or get him back, I know how I would feel.

What about you?

Dexter - Gotta Love A Serial Killer

Quick recommendation if you are looking for something to watch over the Christmas break. Dexter is based on Jeff Lindsay's books Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter and the basic concept is that Dexter is a serial killer with a bloodlust that he satisfies by killing evil do'ers who have escaped justice. Sounds smaltzy and it would be easy to do badly but it is neither of those things. Completely riveting.

IMDB readers can describe it much more eloquently than me...->
"Dexter is the show I have been waiting for my whole television watching life! The complex and damaged characters, the twisted plot line and Dexter's foster dad grooming him, educating him, to make him the perfect avenger,its all so intoxicating! I am breathlessly anticipating the next episode. This show is not only well acted, with each and every main character holding my full attention, but written with such deep intensity that I find it absolutely irresistible! I really find it difficult to wait and see more of how Dex was traumatized as a child, more of Harry's lessons, more of the growing relationship with Rita, more of the ice truck killer, more forensics...More of this great show period. Kudos to all involved...this show will surely be a huge hit!"

Read more IMDB comments here.

Am I evil? Am I good? I'm done asking those questions. I don't have the answers. Does anyone?

3D Head Tracking with Johnny Lee

Awesome.

Crayon Physics Deluxe - Way Cool

How freakin cool is this?



Crayon Physics Deluxe is still in development and is a sequel to the more basic Crayon Physics which you can find out more about here. Download it here.

It is limited to rectangles but it still a *lot* of fun.

Good Ole Dimple

I had a new account request at work yesterday for someone named Dimple Solanki.

At lunch I noticed a horse in called Satinki. I thought "hey wait a minute that's the surname of that Dimple guy."

So I had $5 each way and it finished 3rd and paid $5.20 the place.

As I was collecting my $26 I saw a dog running in the next race called Mr Clontarf.

Being the good Redcliffe Peninsula boy that I am I put my winnings on it, $10 each way.

It duly bolted in and paid $21 the win and $3.50 the place.

As I collected my $245 I said to myself :-

"Good Ole Dimple"

Update - found out Dimple is actually a female :)

Election Post Mortem

Well I got the result I wanted.

Watched the coverage from go to whoa and have to say Rudd's speech made me cringe more than once. Ponce boy Downer liked to have a pop at Rudd as being nothing more than a cliche machine during the campaign. Well Kev sure crambed them all in to his speech. I think if they'd have had a new vote 30 secs after it ended he'd have been back out :)

But I think Rudd will be very motivated to implement his "vision" and ultimately we will be a lot better off as a result of the election.

I think Howard looked like a man who was relieved and had been secretly hoping to get the arse.

Maxine McKew hasn't half got a set of choppers. Full credit to her for winning (hopefully) but more importantly for having the guts to take on a challenge like that. Most celebs want it handed to them on a platter. Can anyone say Cheryl Kernot.

Barnaby Joyce is a dick.

Peter Beattie is a pompous pratt and I feel cheated that he got out on his own terms rather than be shown the door like Howard. Worse still he has inflicted Anna Bligh on us - in case you're wondering why I bagged the coalition at the federal level and labor at the state level, I'm not party aligned, I'm performance aligned. Power breeds contempt or complacency or arrogance or whatever you want to call it.

Hair Crime

How on earth did rat's tails get back into vogue and more importantly how are people stupid enough to get sucked into it?

Obviously people that are not young enough to remember them from the 80's.

Just shocking crime against fashion and right up there with cigarette's as a stupid beacon...."look at me, I'm a fuck-tard".

Election - My Quick Take

The government won the last election so easily (most pundits calling it a two term win) that they got complacent and arrogant.

Strike 1 - With money pouring in via a resources driven booming world economy, they decided not to use it for the good of the Australian people and the planet they live on..i.e. actually governing the country. Instead they decided to store that big ol surplus away for a rainy day when there would be a credible opposition. That way they could use their big ol mountain of cash to buy our votes.

Strike 2 - Howard also took the opportunity to use that massive majority we gave him to pluck work choices from his arse and ram it down our throats (possibly a bad mixture of metaphors :). My beefs with work choices are a) there was not one word about it in the previous campaign and b) it just went waaay too far..sure sort out unfair dismissal laws but don't remove *all* checks & balances and leave workers rights relying on employers being honourable. On what planet did Howard think it would be ok to offer a worker 75% of his pay, take it or leave it.

Strike 3 - a bunch of stuff accumulated for me to strike out the government. Delaying the calling of the election for so long so that they could flood us with taxpayer funded government ad's. I mean they hosed a mountain of money at that ad campaign and it really pissed me off. Add to that Howard not being man enough to step aside and let the people vote for a leader prepared to see out the whole term. Add in all the scaremongering about unions and economic management etc.

But for me the crux of it comes down to this. If we didn't have a credible opposition would the government be doing anything about health, education, climate change, broadband, putting some checks & balances into work choices?

Would they fuck.

It's Official - I Have NADD

Never have I read an article that hit home as much as this one.

It's conclusive, I have Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder (NADD).

Evidenced by the amount of crap open at any one time on my pc.

Evidenced by the fact that I always have 3 to 4 tv shows on the go...soon as there's an ad in one I'm catching up with the next one. By the end of the 1/2 hour I can give you complete plot synopii for all of them.

Evidenced by the fact that I am a master at nodding and murmuring the right noises to make out I am listening to a conversation when in fact I only heard the first dozen words.

NADD. Explains it all really.

My Football Club

I bought into the My Football Club trust who are in the process of paying £700,000 for a 51% controlling interest in Ebbsfleet United a football team in the conference league in England (effectively the 5th division if the Premier League is the 1st). The concept is that the members (who have each paid an annual fee of £35 and there may be 50,000+ of them) will be making decisions including weekly team selections, which players to buy and sell etc. The manager will submit a report and recommendations and there will be some sort of highlights package and then the trust members will vote and their consensus decision will be final and the manager must play that squad/formation.


I'm sure there will be mixed emotions from the 1000 Ebbsleet fans who attend most games. Not sure how I would feel in their position. On the one hand their club is being hijacked in a real life version of championship manager. But on the other there is the real possibility that some serious cash will be sunk into the club and they could potentially be promoted to the football league itself.


I'm also thinking that we'll see something similar to the effect that occurs when a new manager takes over a club and all the players who were playing badly enough to get the previous manager sacked, suddenly start playing out of their skins to impress the new gaffer. But I'm predicting that it might happen every week with the players wanting to be voted in by the myfc trust members for the next game. No-one wants to be bagged by a forum of 50,000 people.


It will be very interesting to see how it all transpires.

What I'm Watching

The shows I'm seeking out to watch when they air each week...

Weeds
Las Vegas
Two and a Half Men
My Name is Earl
House
Top Gear
Heroes (though it's losing me fast)

Windows Explorer Virus

A long long time ago I read about a bunch of shortcuts using the windows symbol key. Only one has stayed with me, [windows symbol] + [e] to open windows explorer.

Ever since I have been plagued with a zillion explorer windows open in my task bar. Not because of some malware but because a zillion times a day when I need to find a file I just instinctively go [ws]+[e]. That azureas download just finished? [ws]+[e]. Where did I save that pdf mag? [ws]+[e]. Bam, bam, bam, there's 3 more.

It's a friggin virus I swear.

Pecker Wrecker?

Since getting a notebook a little while ago I have been using it on my lap a lot and it got me to thinking, am I frying my old fella with radiation. A little googling hasn't found an obvious answer.

I did find something from 2002 talking about Levis introducing jeans with an anti radiation lead lined pocket for your mobile phone..lol and this comment which made me piss myself laughing (fortunately not while my laptop was actually on my lap) :-

"I'd definitely buy pants that protected me from nuclear war. It'd be an easy sell too."

"You like nuclear war?"

"Uh, no, not much."

"Well, I got pants what prevent that. Pants against nuclear war, see?"

"Gimme."

Do I Have Attention Deficit Disorder?

Went to the 1st days play of the Gabba test match against the Sri Lankans today.

I'm not sure if this phenomenen is confined to just me but I always find myself looking back on a day at the cricket wondering how many balls I actually *watched*.

I was there for about 4 hours of actual play and can probably only recall a couple of overs worth of deliveries. Literally.

Normally I can blame that on drinking like a fish, but today I drove...

Next time I'm gonna get hold of some ritalin and knock some back before heading to the game.

Efficient Punting?

All I can say is that if you managed to pick Efficient, the winner of yesterday's Melbourne Cup based on form or some sort of logic, then you are either on a way higher mental plain than me or more likely you have no clue.

Hang up your punting boots right now because there is only pain and misfortune down the line if you plan to use similar logic in the future.

They've Got To Be Freakin Kidding

Just got round to watching episode 1& 2 of the bionic woman…Casting snivelling Zoe Slater from Eastenders has turned me off it for life…may as well have cast her fat slapper sister Kat. And why make it so freakin dark..the attraction of the original series (apart from Lindsay Wagner) was it's smaltz. Popping tennis balls good. Military martial arts combat 5 mins after she got bionicified bad.

Casting the Crossing Jordan guy was also a bad move as was giving him dialog like "we're a private clandestine group dedicated to stopping rogue organisations from ending civilisation as we know it." IMDB shows him as only being in 4 out of 14 episodes so perhaps they came to their senses and canned him.

I see it has dropped below extreme makover in the ratings in the states….here's hoping that'll be the wake up call that sees them send Michelle Ryan back to the Queen Vic in Albert Square.

Random Thoughts

How on earth did this England team make a world cup final? Australia & France hang your heads in shame.

I love my Apple HIFI. Having previously screwed around with a mini-itx media pc & a girder remote to grab songs from my pc via wireless and play them on my stereo I cannot get over how freakin easy the Apple HIFI is and just how damn good it sounds..."room filling sound" is fuggin accurate.

Maldivian's win in the Yalumba yesterday was Caulfiled Cup winning material.

How good do you think the shit hot doods would skate in rental skates? No seriously, I wanna know?

My new Dell Vostro notebook arrives tomorrow. I'm predicting I will be on the phone telling Dell I want the Samsung screen replaced with an LG one within 10 minutes. Read about why here.

Random Image.

Shit A Brick

I was mowing my lawn yesterday, on the front footpath, and I saw a car driving up out of the corner of my eye. The bonnet had blown up and was bent back against the windscreen. It had 2 wheels on the road and 2 on the footpath. It drove straight past me, maybe 3 feet from me, just missed a tree, kept going straight across my driveway and shuddered t oa stop in front of my neighbours house.

My first thought was that he had done an awesome job to stop safely with the bonnet having malfunctioned like that. But the props & r lasted about as long as it took for the driver to get out and stagger around drunk. He was absolutely flogged.

Another car pulled up but hung back next to me watching him. They told me they had been following him to make sure he didn't hit and kill anyone. Apparently he had already hit a car with 2 people in it and 3 light posts.

They called the cops who turned up pronto but the guy was so drunk he didn't even try to run away.

In another half an hour I would have been sweeping my driveway with my 20 month old son. He has a kids broom and just loves to do what ever I do including sweeping the driveway.

Unbelievable.

Out of the Darkness

I have been trying to get ADSL or an affordable alternative for 3 or 4 years! Telstra have steadfastly refused to provision me for ADSL offering different explanations along the way, the latest being a miniscule failure of the voice SQ test (6.59db instead of 6.5) Tried npgdsl & lladsl requests, letters to Helen Coonan, local members, 2 way sat subsidies etc etc along the way. Even considered a hunger strike at one stage :)

Well I have just recently ordered and received Virgin BB@H and it is like coming out of the darkness.

No begging, no knockbacks, no hassles. Placed an online order, got the modem 2 days later, plugged it in, and it just worked straight up. Only 2 signal bars but I get HSDPA all the time (whenever something is coming down, UTMS when idle) The speedtest reports 700kb.

The phone works as advertised so far. I'll port my number at the end of the month.

Everything has just been so freaking easy...

It is hard to explain how much of a relief it is to finally have something other than dialup (that is actually reasonably priced). Unless you've been through the knockbacks and false hope and the grind of fighting telstra every step of the way (just getting them to accept an npgdsl request is a marathon of frustration) you just can't appreciate how it gets you down.

And the best part, after I ditch my landline Telstra will be getting nada from me...ever again.

Mystic River

Having just read the book I thought I would get the movie out and watch it.

What a waste of two hours of my life! I know that books by their nature have much more latittude for character development than films but this was dreadful.

No attempt at all to show us the nature of the three central characters when they were children which in the book built the platform for the entire story.

Just pure shite and not what I was expecting from such a highly acclaimed movie.

It is possible to adapt a book well to film - look no further than the Green Mile.

Two thumbs down!

Anzac Day is all about Respect

Says it all really.

The ADSL fight continues

I ordered a new phone line today with the stipulation that it must be ADSL capable. Apparently by stipulating the code NPGDSL (no pair gain digital subscriber line) it forces them to try and find an alternate cabling route that will meet their transmission loss standards.

The best chances for success occur when a) you have been rejected for excessive transmission loss CHECK and b) you have neighbours who have successfully received ADSL already CHECK.

I can expect an answer from the cable assigner within about 4 days apparently.

Fingers crossed because my next stop is to contact the papers and go on a 'hunger strike for broadband'.