Comments on: Lazy Sunday! (and LP Christmas drinks reminder!)

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:12:38 +0000

Yes, very nice guy!
Sorry, Balthasar Kehi is his full name. He’s taught all over the world.
I’m so used to being closer to the right-wing side of the family it’s a bit of a holiday to mingle with the leftier side and their friends. Looooooxury!

By: Fine

Fine — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:08:01 +0000

Heh, I don’t know Balthasar very well, but I’ve met him a couple of times. Is he Melbourne’s Kevin Bacon?

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:49:32 +0000

I know the very same Balthasar, Helen. Nice guy, and v interesting.

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:44:50 +0000

*”Sister-Outlaw”, this descriptive phrase is Zoe’s. In my case it’s because she’s my brother’s ex.

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:44:04 +0000

Drove out to the annual Christmas party thrown by my lovely sister-outlaw*, who runs a very successful OH&S and ergonomics consultancy from her country property near Ballarat. I picked up a friend for her in Newport, an East Timorese philosopher called Balthasar (but he has not lived in ET for quite a long time, having spent a lot of time in the US then 10 years here) and we had interesting talks on the way. Besides having such an interesting life, he had things to say about sessional teaching and the humanities that would have Mark, Mercurius and others in furious agreement, I think.

The BBQ/garden party was the usual, lovely people I don’t see often enough, good conversation, good food and far too much cake. It was grouse to see the place with rain for a change, too.

Sadly, this made me miss the LP Christmas drinks in East Brunswick, as by the time I’d dropped Balthasar back it was nearly 7 pm and I had a hungry child to feed.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:29:42 +0000

I built a TV channel.

Well, not really. In the interests of chopping down our power consumption a bit, I’ve been slowly commissioning a small network attached storage unit (an old Linksys NSLU2) as a media server, with a little network media box that attaches to the stereo/TV to serve up movies, our music collection and lots of old music videos. There are scary instructions on the net for making your NSLU2 faster (pull a resistor off the little circuit board), installing linux and installing all kinds of interesting little bits of software (including whole web servers, although it hasn’t really got enough memory to do it properly). Most interesting application is a torrent client that can chug away silently without a whole computer being turned on, which can be controlled from work.

Hit “shuffle” on the music videos and voila – four hours of the worst excesses of the 1980s horrifying the children. Comments like “is that his real hair?” warming the cockles of my old heart.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:11:24 +0000

Saturday: on-line a bit. Ordered some books from Amazon. Spent most of day reading Keay’s China: A History. Interesting to get up to date on all the new research, which he covers in the book. Its very weak on 20th century, but most excellent on Imperial China, though a bit thin on the Manchu Dynasty I thought.
Watched TV at night, then part 3 of Pirates of the Caribbean on DVD.
Sunday: Started reading Keay’s India: A History. Apart from 18c haven’t studied much Indian history. Like it much more than his book on China.Ordered some more books on line. All up have ordered 22 books, most due to arrive early next year. Kids from next door in using the computer a bit. Watched Margaret& David at the Movies summer special, News. SBS doc. on Pompeii, etc. Spent most of the night reading.

By: Jovial Monk

Jovial Monk — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:33:18 +0000

Read a bit of “Anathem” by Neal Stephenson, author of “Cryptonomicon”

By: terangeree

terangeree — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:27:26 +0000

Friday: bought new netbook computer after the faithful old laptop had me seriously contemplating the fine art of defenestration.

Saturday: started macheteing the back lawn (two-stroke brushcutters and me are not compatible) and played with the new computer.

Sunday: LP drinks (Fortitude Valley pubs are very expensive — $8.00 for a stubby) and hunting in antique shops for a grass-scythe.

By: Pavlov's Cat

Pavlov's Cat — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:59:37 +0000

Went to a dear friend’s surprise birthday yum cha. Made a speech. Ate cake. Came home and cleaned all the junk, dust, dead leaves and cobwebs out of the small shed. V. productive day, and will be even more so if I can get through 150 pages of the new Miles Franklin biography, taking good notes for a review, before I go to bed.