Carrot Cake & Culinary Culture

When I was about 7 years old I came home after school with my best friend Irene and Mum presented us both with a piece of cake for afternoon tea.
"Did you like that?" she asked.
"Yes!" we replied heartily.
"What kind of cake do you think it was?"
We didn't know. Then, we were told the dirty secret. Mum had put veges in our cake. It was carrot cake. I remember making spewing noises as only seven year olds have the rudeness to do. But ever since then I have always enjoyed carrot cake and haven't been afraid to try anything... once.

It's interesting how set in our ways we are when it comes to food. I suppose that's why it's so hard to break food habits even if they're bad ones. I really enjoy porridge for breakfast, but if I tried to eat it for lunch I don't imagine I'd enjoy it very much.

The good thing about travel is that you are forced to go out of your culinary comfort zone. Sometimes you're surprised at what you really didn't expect would taste any good. In Africa they use corn kernals in fruit salad. It tastes fine. Corn, like carrot and pumpkin, is a sweet vegetable, so why not? In Japan it's sometimes mind over matter. If you can get over the idea that you're eating raw flesh, sashimi is very nice, and is actually the best quality and freshest fish there is.

Partly because I'm a bit weird and partly because I'm a bit travelled, I now have what some family and acquaintances consider to be a strange set of food habits. Wherever I go there's something weird about what I eat. In London, my colleagues couldn't believe I was eating celery and peanut butter. By the look on one woman's face I was making some of them sick just making them watch me. The Japanese, on the other hand, eat lots of vegetables all the time, including for breakfast. If you're caught eating up last night's soup before eleven a.m. in New Zealand, though, others will comment.

A short while ago I made macaroni cheese and sprinkled potato chips and cheese on the top of it before browning and melting it under the grill. The Aussies in the house had never heard of this. They told me it must be 'a Kiwi thing'. Actually I think it's just a family thing, and I'm sure most Kiwis wouldn't think of doing it. But, I am an ex-pat and the thing all ex-pats must have in common that any small peculiarity in our habits seem to be attributed to our being 'whatever'-nationality. For the record, and in defence of other Kiwis, some things I do strangely are just me being weird. Not the entire nation. Nobody in the world ties their shoes like I do.

My Favourite Carrot Cake Recipe

(I can't be bothered with recipes that require me measuring stuff out - it means I have to tip stuff into a little weighing bowl and back into the big mixing bowl. Ha! That completely goes against my principle of extreme pragmatism aka laziness.)

Ingredients

3/4 cup self-raising flour (I didn't have normal flour so used all wholemeal flour after sifting out the braney bits.)
3/4 cup wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup Caster Sugar (normal white sugar will do)
3 large eggs
1 cup sunflower or canola oil (olive oil will do)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I never have these as I'd only eat them - you can leave them out)
2 cups grated carrot
1/2 cup sultanas or raisins
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut (I prefer it without coconut - some recipes have more)

Cream Cheese* Icing

125 g cream cheese, softened
50 g butter, softened
2 1/2 cups Chelsea Icing Sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Sift flour, spices and soda into a large mixing bowl. Add all remaining ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined; don’t beat. Grease a 20 – 23 cm cake tin (6 cm deep). Pour cake mixture into the tin and smooth the surface. Bake for one hour. The cake is cooked when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool. Remove from cake tin. Spread top of cake with cream cheese icing.

Cream Cheese Icing
Beat all ingredients together until smooth. Spread over top of cake. My Mum also decorates it with lemon or orange rind and flower petals. (I'm too set in my food habits to eat petals, however.)

*Turns out not everyone around the English speaking world knows what cream cheese is. In London you'll get by using the brand name 'Philadelphia', and I've noticed this brand name is widely used in Aus too. Such is the power of marketing and monopoly, eh? Philadelphia's a Tom Hanks movie for crying out loud! Oh yeah, and a place.

Dog Biscuits

Today I made dog biscuits - not proper dog biscuits for dogs, mind you, but more like a cross between a biscuit and a muesli bar, which in fact turn out more like Cookie Time biscuits if you put in the chocolate chips. I guess only a Kiwi would know about Cookie Times, and only a Cantabrian would remember the days when you could go on a Cookie Time factory tour and eat heaps of broken biscuits for free. (It's okay - all the stuff that's bad for you has already leaked out of the broken ones.)

"Dog" Biscuits Recipe

Submitted by Vivien Marchant to the NZ Chelsea Sugar site

Ingredients

250g butter
1 cup Chelsea White Sugar
1 dessertspoon Chelsea Golden Syrup
1 cup flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup coconut
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup nuts, raisins or chocolate chips

Method

Mix together butter, sugar, and golden syrup. Next mix together both flours, coconut, rolled oats and add the nuts, raisins or chocolate chips.
Thouroughly mix all ingredients together then press into a flat greased tin.
Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes.

If you cut these into triangles they do indeed resemble dog biscuits, though I suspect they don't taste like it. A student once told me, first hand, that dog biscuits taste dry and salty. So, there you go.

Quiz Show

Unlike some other movies which hail to be based on a true story and simply are not, Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford (1994), has a bit of historical fact behind it. Of course, the viewer must watch any movie with a good dose of salt and realise that entertainment is entertainment whereas life is life, and this is exactly what this movie is about.

In 1956 television was new and many Americans were making a lot of money out of it. The rules had not yet been written and it took a few law suits before the line between truth and entertainment was drawn. It's interesting that the public don't like to be decieved by entertainment even though most of us live in the fictional world of soaps, drama, gossip and movies whenever we get the chance. I guess the difference is choice.

This was an immensely enjoyable movie, well-made and it's all the more interesting when you find out the real story behind it. That's the great thing about the internet - information at our fingertips.

I'm surprised at how many quiz shows run at prime time here in Australia. I'm talking about the 'getting-the-dinner-on' time slot. I suppose it appeals to people coming home to a cold and empty house who want a bit of noise in the background by way of company, at least until the food is on the table and everything's nice and warm. Even the male presenter/female co-presenter combo is like a surrogate mother and father to add to the welcoming, homely atmosphere, though I've noticed that this now comes across as a bit too patriarchal and sexist so you often get a single game show host these days.

In a few decades time when I'm talking to kids about how in the old days of Sale of the Century there'd be Steve Parr every night saying, "And heeeeeere's Juuuuude!" and Jude would flounce out smiling and stand by Steve's side laughing at his jokes and doing not much other than looking pretty... they'll scoff and then I'll really show my age.

Money Bags

The piggy bank has been smashed. There's no point in adding to the luggage by transporting $140 worth of coins interstate. So they have been dealt with. 'Dealt with' means going to the bank and asking for little plastic bags and then counting it all up and going back to the bank so they can be weighed. It all seems like a bit of hassle to me, but Dan loves the surprise that comes from counting up what looks like not much at all. The Australian $2 coin is surprisingly small and compact and three jars of coins quickly add up. Not nearly as quickly as the house deposit you can be carrying in English 2 pound coins, mind you, but a lot nonetheless. I've just got used to the fact that in Australia two dollar coins are physically smaller than one dollar coins; now I'm heading back to New Zealand where the size of coins is more in keeping with their worth and no doubt between that and the weird give-way rules I'll come back a confuzzled mess.

Tub Fun Duckie

You're my rubber ducky!
Ducky! Ducky! Ducky!
You're my rubber ducky,
yeah!
- Kylie in the bath

Do you know how hard it is to find kids' toys that:
1. Won't break
2. Won't require batteries
3. Are not overmarketed plasticky rubbish


Very.

The Poky Little Puppy

Another one of my school friends is having another baby (well, I am 29), so this gave me an excuse to hang around the picture book section at K-Mart looking for an appropriate gift for her other kids, who may be feeling left out with all the attention surrounding the latest arrival... There's certainly a wide range of wonderfully illustrated picture books for kids now and no doubt some real gems. A lot of them appealed to the collector instinct in me, with their high quality printing and binding and bright colours. But I had no idea which of these books would be treasured by children. Some of the picture books I had as a kid were absolute classics, yet as a kid my taste was fickle. I didn't appreciate Dr. Seuss or A. A. Milne until I grew up, and always found Mum's great delight in them frustrating because all I really wanted to hear were my classic favourites.

The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey was one of my enduring favourites, as it was my Auntie's. So I wasn't surprised to see that it's been reprinted as a 'Golden Book Classic', along with others like Mister Dog and The Tawny Scrawny Lion, all of which sit well-thumbed somewhere in a box at my parents' house.

I hope this copy will also be enjoyed.

Turning Thirty by Mike Gayle

With the phone off the hook I finished the latest book. Not because it was particularly engrossing but because it was an easy read, good for a plane ride or before falling asleep. I could tell without checking the author notes that it was British; it has that young, urban English humour to it that reminds me of people I knew in London. I know people so tritely say you can't judge a book by its cover but I don't agree. The baby-blue and hot pink of this cover belie exactly what sort of read you're going to have.

An interesting development in modern novels is the technique of leaving the 'hard-to-embed' parts of the plot to email exchanges between the characters. I can't help but feel it's a lazy way of delivering a story. Other people's emails simply aren't that interesting, especially given the throwaway nature of them and the corresponding effort that generally goes into constructing them. This technique is one more step along that path modern pop literature has taken where the story is delivered with witty dialogue rather than beautifully rendered description. There's far less dialogue in pre-mid 1900s novels and I think they're better for it. This book feels more like a "perve into the not-so-private goings-on of some other urban tribe" than it feels like a novel.

For all my moaning, I did read the whole thing. There were some bits that rang true. And I do like the cover.

The Super Sonic Speaking Spam Machine

What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another
nuisance. - Havelock Ellis

When Bell invented the telephone he got rid of the nuisance of walking next door to ask for that cup of sugar. With the invention of the cellular phone we're now spared the nuisance of having to plan our lives in advance. Of course, the nuisance with phones (if you're like me, and like a bit of peace and quiet) is that as long as you're within ear shot of a phone you're never in true hibernation from the outside world.

The phone at this residence is currently off the hook and has been for a few days now. I don't really see the point of having a landline when it's in its current state, but as soon as I put it back on, there's a call every ten minutes for at least an hour a day, and if I bother to answer it, it beeps in my ear. If there's a hell, I'd like to nominate the person who invented this 'automatic nuisance calling' machine. Apparently, if I'm not one of the first five or so people to answer it, it will try me again later. So after about ten beeps in the ear I swore and cursed and vowed that if I ever got a person on the other end of the line I'd tell them what I thought of them. But then reality kicked in and I actually got a person, and I thought, 'These are people too, just trying to earn a living' and I actually got chatting to a nuisance caller. Who very helpfully, I might add, told me that if I didn't want any more nuisance calls then I should register with this list online. Well, I admit I stopped listening properly at some point about now; I think it was the point when I realised I was getting myself more deeply in conversation with a nuisance caller who seemed to be paid by the hour rather than by the sale. And it turns out that this number is already on the list. Anyhow, why should the owner of the landline have to do anything to avoid this sort of thing? Can't it be stopped at the phone company? Who is selling the number on anyhow, and do they sleep at night?

I suppose I should count myself lucky that this is the single most annoying thing in my life at the moment. Millions are starving. But of course, I'm privileged and all that, so this is quite frustrating. Phone spamming is even worse than email spamming because that all gets stuck in the spam filter and then I do one massive 'delete' and they're all gone. I don't have to know about how I could improve my erectile dysfunction. With the phone it's not so easy. There's no spam filter on that. So for now, I am officially unavailable.

Maybe I'll start making use of this website instead of giving out my email address.

Lord of the Flies

Many people study William Golding's Lord of the Flies at school, but I wasn't one of them. With it being wild and wet outside I thought I'd finally watch the free DVD that came with the Guardian last year by way of a more rounded education. The version I just watched is the 1940-something version, filmed on a Puerto Rican island. It's interesting watching old films as it brings home how much more patient the audiences of yesteryear must have been. I found it hard to sit through without fidgeting or wanting to do something else. Compared to a modern film, this one has long scenes and little in the way of interesting editing, though given the technology of the time, you have to wonder at how well they did do with what they had available. The actors of the 1940s were obviously influenced by the acting techniques of the stage and theatre. Today there's much more of a distinction between stage acting and the more intimate type of acting that's required for the camera.

The story of Lord of the Flies is part of our culture and therefore not much of a surprise. A plot centering around the natural hierarchy that forms when people are plunged into unusual circumstances isn't a new one. I'm thinking now of King Rat by James Clavell (an excellent book), or in fact any number of war stories. The setting of war provides an ideal backdrop for the classic character arc that occurs when people are thrown together in strife.

Speaking of Lords, I'm a bit Bored of the Rings at the moment, so have been reading a work of 'chick lit' by Mike Gayle called Turning Thirty. (Well, I thought I should probably study up on it as I'm nearly there.) It's about a 29 year old from Birmingham who has been living in America, and his return home to his parents in between jobs and relationships. He catches up with old school friends while he's home. An observation running through the book is that the hierarchy that existed in the environment of high school has been completely upturned by the time everyone is in their late twenties.

This is an observation that rings true for me and my school friends, and no doubt for any number of late twenty-somethings. Until our early twenties all the graduates of our year are pretty much equal - we're either in uni, doing an apprenticeship or whatever, not much money... then five years later it's all different. Some have got families, others have got money, some have both and others have nothing. Some know exactly what they want and others have no idea. Others thought they knew what they wanted but by the time they got it, they didn't want it anymore. By the age of 29 we've had enough time to go along completely different paths from our school friends. The natural hierarchy has been established and with another tweak in the cultural or economic environment we'd all be reshuffled.

Of course, hierarchy and success are relative concepts and we'd do well to focus on happiness. That's why I recommend the book Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton to any 29 year old of the Western world. De Botton is a popular philosopher who has written several books. Status Anxiety was made into a documentary, though the book can be more rapidly digested, I think. De Botton begins with a brief history of snobbery and the Western culture which has led to mass preoccupation about how important we are. Of course, it's easy to look back in time and laugh at the over-obvious demarcation of status and hierarchy; just look at how they dressed. But things are no different today. Just look at the cars we drive, the houses we live in, the number of hours we work and the lengths we go to in order to be thought of as 'somebody'.

"A sharp decline in actual deprivation may - paradoxically - have
been accompanied by a continuing and even increased sense of
deprivation and a fear of it... Our sense of an appropriate limit to anything -
for example, to wealth and esteem - is never decided independently. It is
arrived at by comparing our condition with that of a reference group, with that
of people we consider to be our equals."

Our school peers, in other words.

Of course, hierarchy is just one of the themes running through Lord of the Flies. There's also the political idea that we're all savages at heart and will run amok unless governed effectively. But look at any pack of wild dogs and it's obvious; the link between savagery and the inborn jostle for hierarchy is inextricably linked.

Adrift Review aka Open Water 2 aka 仄暗い水の底から

When a movie comes out that's supposedly 'based on a true story', surely that story should be mentioned in the literature that's published, in its major reviews, or at least in the 'extras' section of the DVD. It appears that this film uses the phrase 'based on a true story' purely for marketing purposes, much in the same way marketers use 'lite' or 'eco-' or 'new formula'. It means bugger all sometimes. I suppose someone fell off a boat once. Then these guys made a movie and called it 'Adrift'. It may even be based on a Japanese short story in Koji Suzuki's (鈴木光司) collection called 'Dark Water'. (仄暗い水の底から), and a Japanese movie of this title has also been produced (2002). If this name of the author sounds familiar it's because he also wrote The Ring.

So, I have an issue with the 'true story' gig, but unlike most of the reviewers I've since read online, I didn't mind the storyline. I also didn't mind the end, but if you're the sort of person who likes a tidy finish, you won't like the ending of this one. Perhaps there are two sorts of people; some people like a tidy finish and others like the hanging ones, preferring to decide for themselves what happened. I fall into the latter category so I was fine with the ambiguity.

The characters in this movie seem unbelievably stupid at times, and as the viewer you just want to yell at them. It seems they could have so easily got themselves out of strife. Vexing as this is, it's no worse than any of the 'cringe' genre of movies that have been received very well (for example Bridget Jones' Diary, Meet the Parents, or in fact anything with Hugh Grant in it).

That said, as far as thrillers of the 'boat' variety go, there are others far better. Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman are great in Dead Calm. Nicole Kidman is also great in The Others, and this movie is kind of like a try-hard blend of both of these thrillers, with perhaps the hope that other Japanese movies, Americanised, will become as popular as The Ring or The Grudge. The thing about recreating Japanese stories for the Western mass market is that the pure evil and horror in them must be preserved and everything else comes second. Perhaps only the Japanese themselves can truly do thriller/horror well.

There are many films in the world and only one lifetime. I'd give this one a miss.

Shrek's Done His Chips

If you didn't know Shrek the Third was out then you must have been hibernating from Western civilisation. And I've just ruined the surprise. Anyhow, I saw it at the movies and no, I'll be the millionth person to say it: It's not as good as the first ones. Like hundreds of other blockbusters riding on a marketing wave, Shrek the Third is one too many. I still recommend it to Shrek fans, and I still enjoyed it, especially at the start. This one was more obviously moralistic and may well appeal to young viewers. But the first ones had a wider audience and a more solid storyline. I hope the makers of Shrek won't try and eke another movie out of the Green Ogre phenomenon.

Whaddaaaaya?

This little yapper needs a jumper in NSW. Ha!

Bird Sits at the table and eats Pig

food chain schmood chain!

Feeding the birds Ham

One bird thought the ham was worms and gave it a good thrash first. The mate thought she was far above eating pigs, but enjoyed the Lebanese meatloaf, kibi. (Much to the cook's chagrin.)

Dunbogan

You retire to Dunbogan when you're dun with living in a street full of bogans. Dun, of course, means 'south', as in 'Dunedin' = Edinborough of the South. Turns out that Bogan is a term of Aussie derivation, and the Bogan River is in NSW. It all comes together for me:


BOGAN

1. (Australian) A person who is, or is perceived to be, unsophisticated or of a lower class background. The stereotype includes having speech and mannerisms that are considered to denote poor education and uncultured upbringing. Typical traits include drinking beer, smoking, religiously following sport, having an interest in Australian-build cars (eg. Holdens, Fords etc.) and Hard Rock music. The term was usually used in reference to an anglo-celtic or indigenous Australian. It mostly excluded Australians who belong to other ethnic groups that were established relatively recently, although this is changing. Its meaning is more or less analagous to the US american redneck.
2. (New Zealand) An anglo-celtic member of a lower socioeconomic group historically classified by the wearing of black jumpers, black T-shirts decorated with designs including such bands as Led Zeppelin, The Doors and Nirvana or favourite drinks such as Jack Daniels or Jim Beam. Bogans often drive larger cars and are often referred to as petrolheads.

-Wiktionary

Definition: An unsophisticated, ignorant working class person of either sex. Similar to the American "white trash", though used with more affection: people might refer to themselves as a bogan in self-deprecating humour, or to a friend as a bogan in friendly mockery.

A stereotypical bogan lives in the outer or western suburbs of a major city (which in Australia tend to have poor people, cheap property, high crime, high teenage pregnancy, etc.), or possibly in a country town, though people might use the term "redneck" there instead, which has further connotations of conservative, racist and homophobic attitudes, resentment towards city folk, etc. which are not necessarily to be expected in bogans.

He or she would have a broad Australian accent with nasal whine, a narrow vocabulary punctuated with swearwords, abbreviations (e.g. breakfast=brekky, afternoon=arvo, etc.) and slang, interests limited to sport, sex and gettin' pissed down the pub as often as possible. Men on dole or employed in blue collar professions, women who manage to leave school without getting pregnant (!) might work briefly in pink collar jobs (call centre, office admin) before having kids, before or after marriage.

Cheap tacky attire. For women, badly overbleached hair, many earrings, skin tight pants or overly short miniskirts, possibly with fringed boots or too-high heels and low-cut synthetic tops. For men, cheap synthetic sneakers, ill-fitting unfashionable jeans (stretch Faberge jeans, acid wash 80s leftovers, etc.), flannel shirts ("flannies") or football jumpers, heavy metal T-shirts, mullet haircuts, many earrings. Both sexes frequently wear sheepskin footwear, either ugg boots or moccasins (female bogans occasionally referred to as "mocca chicks" for this reason). Drive hotted up, battered old cars, often Fords or Holdens.

Etymology: Obscure. Originated in Melbourne schools in the mid 80s. There is a Bogan River district in New South Wales, but there is no obvious connection between this and the term.
-Slanguaphiles

Birdy Nyum Nyum!

cough cough splutter!

Laurieton Yappers

Crook Back?

The Koala Hospital

The Koalas don't live in the house - they live out the back. Luckily there weren't many koalas in the hospital.

BTW, the fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

Cut down on the eucalyptus

Where's Wally?

Beware the Drop Bear

Fisherman on the Rocks

Sounds like it should be a drink.

The Soccer Field

Where Dan scored his one soccer goal. (I only ever scored once when I played soccer at high school... and that was widely thought of as flukey.)

Fush n Chups

We had fish n chips, I think, just so all the Aussies could mock me! Why can't Aussies say Fish n Chips the kiwi way without turning it into Fush n Chups?? More linguistic tuition is required for Dan before he orders the traditional roast across the Tasman!

Bird with a toupee

This little fella was a real poser.

Hill by the Sea

It had to be pointed out to me, but it's not often you find a decent hill so close to the beach.

Graffiti in a "NSW Tidy Town"

Tut tut tut on the picnic table.

Toyotas Rule

Funny how when you're looking at buying a car you notice every one that drives by. Toyotas are certainly popular in Laurieton. Apparently this is because the engine is simple and a good Aussie farmer can fix any problems himself. Thing is, not much goes wrong with Toyotas in my experience.

How Far Can We See Out To Sea?

Olive, ham, tomato and pickle sandwich to go

Koalas next 4.0 Kms

Koalas look more like possums than I thought. Aussies really look after their koalas. This explains to me why Aussies like possums. Kiwis, on the other hand, do not like possums. We have good reason. There are about 70 million possums in New Zealand. There are only 4 million people so perhaps the sheep jokes should be modified!

Since 1837 when some bright spark took a couple of Aussie possums to New Zealand, these little buggers have been chowing down on juicy new leafy growth of New Zealand's trees, insects and berries. They also have a taste for birds' eggs and sometimes their chicks.

That's why I wear gloves made of possum. Shhhhhh.

Dunbogan Signs

Beautiful Blue NSW Beach

Pumpkin for Pud.

Veges for dessert. I wonder if peas could be turned into a pudding?? If anyone's going to try it'll have to be me.

Gramma Pie

The best thing about parents is going home to eat your favourite food. Dan requested his usual Lebanese fare and the good old pumpkin pie. I never knew that gramma was a type of pumpkin. I once made pumpkin pie myself out of one of those grey pumpkins but it was a very rich American recipe and the inside was more like pumpkin fudge. Now that just feels wrong. This was wasn't like that at all. The gramma was so large it apparently took two stove pots to boil her up.

Stinky Dog

This cute guard dog rolled over asking for a belly pat. Stinky dog + Sucker for cute = one stinky hand. Ew, I only just realised something... Oh well, it probably made the hamburger taste better. (Where's the liquid hand sanitiser when you need it?)

Fairies Live Here

Perhaps it's actually hippies who live in this cool house. It's for sale, as it happens. All I need is a job that lets me work remotely from Fern Gully...

A Proper Good Hamburger

This shop is for sale. We maybe got our last good hamburger from here. (And first for me.) I hope the new owners continue the tradition. Makkers, take note. As a kid Dan used to stop here for lunch after rowing down the river. What a childhood...

Hamburger Guts

The Hamburger Store

Huckleberry Finn-esque Childhood

Dan and his siblings used to row across this river to get to the school bus. His Mum tells me they often came back saturated. Of course, memories don't extend that far for the individuals concerned!

Skies aren't always blue in Oz. (Thank goodness.)

NSW after the rain

Sounds Dodge.

What do they put in this stuff? Let's go see...

Further into the Boon Docks

Sorry... closed.

Phew.

Watch Out For Wobblies on the Woad!

Cows Ahead

The Pasha Bulker at Dusk

Grounded Ship in NSW

This ship was beached during a recent storm and can only be getting further and further lodged in the sand. Perhaps they should just call it quits, leave it as a tourist attraction and photo opportunity. They could surely convert the inside to a seafood restaurant and perhaps a hotel.

The New Car

I can't get too excited about it yet - the new car's in NSW, I'm in Victoria and it has yet to be registered in ACT after a month in NZ, but here it is... *SPARKLE SPARKLE* MY NEW CAR! It's not a Subaru, and I can't afford a Prius yet, but it's hopefully pretty fuel efficient. It cost $AU55 to fill it up from empty, and the odometer's on. My last car was a 1.3L so this 1.8L, which is also ten years younger, really feels peppy. Bless end of financial year bargaining power. No more booner dodgin' on my bike...

Teethbrush

Across the continent south of the Sahara, many people go about their daily business with a small stick or twig protruding from their mouth, which they chew or use to scrub their teeth. Cut from wild trees and shrubs in the bush, this is the African toothbrush. Its users swear it is much more natural, effective -- and cheaper -- than the prettily packaged but pricey dental products on sale in pharmacies and supermarkets. ... "There are several documented studies which suggest that the cleaning sticks are at least as effective as normal toothbrushes and paste in maintaining routine oral health,"

Christine D.
Wu, Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Illinois
College of Dentistry, told Reuters.

I've always been doubtful about the supposed technology behind each new, amazing toothbrush that comes onto the market. Of course, everything devalues if it doesn't evolve. Look at a country... NZ. One of the richest countries in the world when sheep were 'newer'. Problem is, sheep are still sheep and their value has depreciated by world standards and NZ is having to come up with something new. (Cows and tourism, from what I can see.)

Now take toothbrushes. (No, there isn't much in common and I'm asking for a mental leap, I admit.) A toothbrush is no more than a bunch of shreddy bits coming off a handley bit. That's it really. The rest is in the technique and the regularity. But that doesn't stop toothbrush manufacturers from attempting to convince the hopeful public that the latest toothbrush is better than all that have come before it.

Angled Toothbrush with Diamond Shaped Head 41720812. This is a "Top of the
Line" toothbrush featuring the newest Dupont bristle. The shape of the handle
combined with the diamond shaped head and the soft Dupont bristle are designed
to thoroughly clean teeth and gums. The striking colors and the brilliance of
the unique bristles immediately draw your attention to this product.

Of course, a toothbrush in your favourite colour is going to brighten your entire day.

All Macleans toothbrushes have the wiggly neck which flexes to absorb excess pressure on the gum’s softer surface, avoiding gum damage and pain. Compared to similar brushes, the unique wiggly neck produces significantly lower peak forces, and the directional head allows the brush to clean difficult areas of the mouth and follows the contours of the teeth.


Macleans uses a mixture of fancy words (peak forces, directional) and 'friendly cutesy' words (wiggly) to get you on side.

And here's one for the toothbrush geeks:

Oral-B has unveiled the latest in its Triumph line of intelligent toothbrushes. The multi-head brush, which has 4 programmable cleaning patterns,communicates with a mirror-mounted LCD display that instructs you onwhere andhow long to brush, and warns you if you're brushing too hard. Thehandle keeps track of data if you stepout of range of the dispay and re-syncs when you come back to spit, so you'll never miss a stroke.

Apparently these electric toothbrushes (teethbrushes?) do clean more effectively than normal ones, but the only year I used one of these I ended up with a filling... and I used it religiously! I have a suspicion it's better to use one of these once a day and give your teeth a good clean manually the other time.

Supa-Dupa New Invention

If you're anything like me, every now and then you come up with a fantastic idea for a wonderful new invention. Then you google it and you find it's already been invented. And you can buy if for $3.95 on eBay. Well, I haven't even googled this one because I don't want to ruin it for myself but I have the ultimate solution to the winter affliction of 'mouse hand'.

Mouse hand is an unpleasant condition. It comes from working on a computer in a cold room. For some reason, the hand on the mouse gets far colder than the other hand, which is usually shoved somewhere warmer. Whatever. Anyhow, my invention is a 'USB Heated Fluffy Mouse'. It would function like a regular computer mouse, but look like a real mammal mouse. It would be just a little warm (enough to warm the fingers, but not so much as to require a new power supply and case fans). Instead of eyes, the mouse has buttons (or a mono-eye for Macs). For nothing other than comic interest, the mouse could actually breathe in and out when you squeeze it.

I really want one of these. Now I can't resist... I'm going to google it.

1 minute later...
http://digg.com/gadgets/Tired_of_cold_mouse_hand_Get_the_Heated_USB_Mouse
http://uk.gizmodo.com/2005/10/24/hot_mouse_really_hot_mouse.html

oh and surprise surprise the Japanese have already invented it too!

冬用マウス？ヒーター付きの「USBあったかマウス」が発売

But nobody has invented the warm and FLUFFY one! (Have they?...)

The World's Oldest Man

TOKYO (Reuters) - An 111-year-old Japanese just named the world's oldest
man said he owed his longevity to steering clear of alcohol.
"I don't drink alcohol -- that is the biggest reason for my good health," Tomoji Tanabe told reporters on Monday. He also told media he does not smoke and likes a glass of milk a day.
Reuters

The bad thing about living to 111 would be seeing every single mate you used to have already gone to their graves. On the other hand, the good thing about living to that age is the chance to say, 'I told you so'. Surely every single lifestyle quirk can now be vindicated. You wouldn't get busy-bodies telling you what not to eat and how you 'should be looking after yourself'. I'm actually waiting for the day when I read in the newspaper something like this:

"The world's oldest man owes his longevity to lazing about, drinking plenty of
beer before breakfast, seldom brushing his teeth, fatty chops every day and
doing as little exercise as possible."

I've noticed that very old people are always asked the 'secret' to their longevity and the answer is recorded in the newspaper as fact, as if there is actually a secret. Are they expecting someone one day to confess they've got The Precious Ring? So the old Japanese man likes a glass of milk. He may also like growing onions and the odd game of shogi. But I don't think he knows the secret any more than the next guy...

Review 'United 93'

If you're after a relaxing, chilled out Sunday morning, this isn't the movie to pick. On the other hand, if you think you've had a stressful week, this movie may put it all in perspective. (It will either do that, or send you right over the edge.) Yes, this is one stressful movie. It doesn't help that you know what's going to happen. I think in the old days they would have said, "It's like watching a train crash", only these days the major disaster movies tend to feature large aircraft.

This is the real-time story of what happened on September 11 2001 when only one of the planes missed its target. The passengers on board weren't able to save their own lives, but by taking on the hi-jackers they were at least able to crash the plane into a field and save the lives of others.

Central Melbourne in June

Blue Water

Another Melbourne Sky

The Reservoir Lake at dusk

Might want to work on your own logo first mate...

Autumn Leaves

The 'Classic' Birthday Cake

Worm Trees at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens

Aslan of the Gardens

Got any food for a starving duck?

I'm not interested in mandarin peel, thanks very much!

The Botanical Gardens (with water!)

White Horses in Melbourne

(And an ugly Telstra phone box)

Lynley and Goliath

Savage Controversies

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no
good evidence either way.
- Bertrand Russell

Do bad people go to heaven?

Should you apply tomato sauce before even tasting it?

Is there a god?

Margarine or butter?

Point and shoot or SLR?

Microsoft or Linux?

Should people have the right to choose?

Cat people or dog people?

Intel or AMD?

Water saving shower head or going round stinky?

Coal or nuclear?

Howling Owl

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in a doctor's waiting room at the top of a high peak. When the 'doctor' came out he decided to show me his huge collection of paintings. He told me which ones would suit me and even suggested I turn one on its side. This meant the trunk of a tree was coming out the left hand side of the painting and I wasn't too happy.

I was with Dan and we decided to go for a walk outside. Dan told me he bought me a little dog and when we left the surgery, there he was. He was grey and covered in long, Hairy Maclary hair. He told he he'd already named it 'Howling Owl', so given its size, I decided his middle name would be 'Meow'.

Who thinks of this rubbish and puts it into my head?

The Frog and the Ladybird

Google has a new feature where you can choose a theme for your personalised homepage. These are cutesy themes with animals and a cartoon style. The cool thing about a theme is that the cartoon creatures are doing something different every day. This reminds me of Roald Dahl's 'The Witches', a book which freaked me out as a kid. I wasn't quite sure it was a true story or not, and I remember examining my teacher very carefully to make sure she wasn't a witch. The changing theme reminds me of the painting of a little girl who had been kidnapped by a witch. The girl in the picture lived in a cottage and every day would be doing something different. She even aged in the painting as the years went by.

My frog and ladybird are on a picnic and if they're not sleeping (during the Southern Hemisphere daytime, alas) they're sipping Starbucks coffee whilst gripping a donut in the other hand, or dancing about. I wonder who creates these banners? It would have to be the coolest job in the world... but it would be tempting to push the borders of decency when you start running out of ideas... I'll have to keep my eye on those two.

The Simple Life

"The English Speaking World is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read them." - Sunday Times

I'd like to add another category, into which I fall. There are those who keep trying to read The Lord of the Rings and never get through the first book. There must be something I'm missing. So many people really like this series, some to the point of obsession.

I'm trying once again. This is spurred on by an imminent trip back to NZ (marketed as "Middle Earth", thanks to Peter Jackson).

I've read 2 chapters so far. I've decided I wouldn't mind being a Hobbit. Yes, a life centred around eating, parties and tilling the land would suit me quite well.

(By the way, if you're wondering why this entry is underlined, you're wondering the same thing I am. I'm using a different browser - Iceweasel - and I don't yet know how to turn the underlining off... or on, for that matter.)

Progress report: One week on and I've read 10 chapters. I'm still not what you'd call absorbed. I've decided to read Cliff's Notes to give me the stuff I MUST be missing! I'm going to like this series whether I like it or not.

postscript: Still haven't got through six months later.

COMPUTER QUOTES

To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so. - Robert Orben

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining." Jef Raskin

My First Website

Our multimedia 1 assignment, due on Friday, is to create a website using Dreamweaver 8 - no tables, with linked css. For someone who has tried learning html and css at basically the same time and within a short period, this has been no easy feat. After a long weekend I now have a functioning website with, wait for it, all of about 8 pages. It looks fine. But go to code view and it's a right mess. I have linked a css style sheet, but I've a strong suspicion I should be utilising css a lot more.

I like the name 'Dreamweaver'. Apart from putting a retro song in my head (... no! Fight it! ) it conjures up images of relaxing leisure time in front of the glow of an widescreen monitor. With this application you can weave your own dreams. Well, I'm sure you can, once you know how to work the thing. I know Dreamweaver is WYSIWYG, but it's certainly not as WYSIWYG as, say, Word. The thing about Dreamweaver is, you can't really get away without learning a bit about the code. Everything is fine, dragging and dropping as you please... then you hit F12 (which I'm sure must be short for some expletive) and there it is in your browser... the assets you placed so carefully on the page are all up the creek. Not only that, but try a different browser and the page is rendered differently again! I lovingly created a navigation bar in Fireworks, but when I tried to import the file to DW8, it went Cyrillic on me. I see that the Studio 9 products allow dragging and dropping. Having done some time on the Studio 8 products, I'll definitely appreciate this feature when I migrate to the later ones.

Moans aside, multimedia appeals to my perfectionist tendencies, and it's the one aspect of computing that I can dabble in for hours on end without noticing time going by. I guess if I have an 'area' in IT, it's multimedia. Unfortunately, multimedia is one of the trendy areas (like fashion and photography) that features high on highschool students' list of choice careers, and you have to be pretty darn good to make a career out of it. I wish I had a natural inclination for SAP, or SQL or ripping people off in hardware shops, charging a couple of hundred dollars for shoving some RAM sticks into a motherboard.

I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for deadlines. I'd better burn my website to CD and shove it in the assignments box this week. It will never be perfect, and at the moment, my 8 pages are far from it. When it's a little more perfect, I may even upload it.

(Of course, something is either perfect or it's not. But if I can stick WYSIWYG on a continuum, then what the hell.)

Does My CPU Look Big In This?

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease.

- George Dennison Prentice

The good thing about studying IT is that you hang out with blokes and the good thing about blokes is they don't go on about how fat they are or how they shouldn't be eating this or how they're trying to lose weight for this wedding they're going to... I'll miss that if I have to work with large numbers of females again. Of course, not all females care, but in any female-heavy work environment there always seems to be a lot of emphasis on image. Grrrrrraaaagh! Geeks, on the other hand, have it right. Give over all cares about appearance to the insides of a computer. It'll never let you down.

Wizardry

Geek quote of the day:
"I don't need no stinkin' wizard. Wizards are for amateurs!"
- IT lecturer

My First Programming Assignment

End of semester is approaching at a speed of knots. The very annoying programming assignment is done. Learning a computer language is officially nothing like learning a human language. There's no need to get everything right when you're attempting to form a sentence in a human language, but a computer moans at the wrong kind of bracket, a left-out semi-colon, an uninitialised variable, and well, anything else you can shake a stick at. If it's possible to make a mistake, I've made it. I was scratching my head for hours before realising that I'd told a constructor method that it was 'void'. I've had to take heart in small accomplishments such as, "Well, at least I got it to compile," (whilst ignoring the fact that all calculations are zeroes and I have a never-ending loop). The debugging took longer than the writing. No surprises there, all you experienced programmers will be thinking.

When I say the assignment is done, it's not doing much in the way of error handling, and it happens to tell you you're an idiot even if you enter the correct details. When I get some time to do what I want I'm going to write an automatic nag generator, because we've learnt how to make arrays...