Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
I have been throat singing to the cattle,contemplating the existence of my navel,although it is a bit of a problem,I have had for most of my life,plus hernias.I have used my vibrowave exerciser,and,am contemplating,right now it’s use again.And got the crock pot firing for whole spuds,onions carrots and cabbage carrots and sweet potato,sea weed of two types,and added rosemary herb etc.At405 according to me,it thas been a long slow day.Starting my day by hanging around in the sun ,just after nine this morning.Now 4.08. Gees!
Today recovering from a couple of 100kms return ride in sparkling but freezing weather on crazy busy roads and a chocker inner-CBD to see the Bell Shakespeare Co’s production of “Pericles”.
Happy to pronounce that it was excellent, a thoroughly enjoyable theatrical experience satisfying on all levels. All of my group laughed and to our surprise cried and revelled in the fabulous costumes and sets and being in the safe, good hands of the likes of John Gaden and Marcus Graham and the TaikOz percussive music and dance ensemble.
On line was a little bit on LP and a little bit on Armchsair General, a History blog I joined a couple of days ago they seem okay. wrote a poem about homelessness. (Took me all day Saturday.)Went through all sorts of hassles getting a poem typed in Officeword Word or whatever it is and transferring it on my blog. Mostly today though I’ve been taking notes for my chapter on the Battle of Lexington Concord from David Hackett Fischer’s The Ride of Paul Revere, a very good history about the first battle of the War of American Independence.Waiting for a couple of other books on it to turn up from o/s, one on Bumker Hill, one on Lexington Concord.
Also burnt both my cooking saucepans so badly I’ll have to replace them next Thursday, one just a few minutes ago while I was typing this.
Having just tasted what I cooked I can now declare it (spaghetti bolognaise) a minor culinary disaster. Oh, well, you can’t win ‘em all.
Brothers, sisters. HEar my confession. I spent th’ week-end doin’ nuttin’ but drawin’ neeked women. I fell temptation to the gaze.
.
Halleluhah!
I had three large and equally urgent work tasks to complete, so naturally I washed every garment, sheet, towel, dish, plate, glass, pot and piece of cutlery in the house. Displacement activity rules.
Completely beautiful weekend in Sydney, best weather we’ve had for months. Not a cloud in the sky. Hoping it continues tomorrow, because if so I’m planning to head over to Circular Quay and have a ramble through the Botanic Gardens. (It’s the last week of the uni holidays so I need to make the most of my remaining relaxation time.)
Key to not burning saucepans: stay in kitchen until whatever needs to be brought to a simmer is simmering—-then turn the heat down!
Terrible day today. I was enjoying a lazy morning when the teenager decided to pop some popping corn in the corn popper we’d won as a door prize in some long forgotten school function. That fried the circuits for all the power points and half the lights in the house. No heat! No internet! No radio! No FRIDGE!! No phone (the two we had here are on the blink, good one was out at the Market with Mr Balcony.)
Now normally this would not be such a big deal as we have a super high-tech fuse box which fixes itself by tripping a switch instead of burning out, but the Big Blue Switch which was now set to Off tricked me into thinking it was stuck down. Didn’t want to use force to lever it up in case I broke something and fried the remaining wiring. Oh, and the gas space heater was telling me it was cactus.
All is now restored including the gas heater, in time for Masterchef. Relief!
My spies tell me there is a plan in the wings to build a *second* Opera House – with the primary purpose of giving good acoustics – on the large open forecourt of the current Opera House, adjacent to the tiny surreal slice of botanically rich beauty not unsurprisingly known as the Botanic Gardens.
Jesus wept.
Did another “bits that got burned out on Black Saturday” ride, this time up through the Myers Creek Road from Healesville and back down to Hurstbridge via Kinglake.
Geez, the trees are resilient – I thought they were all dead, but there’s green shoots sprouting from virtually all of them.
Kinglake is growing back too, in the form of transportable housing. I hope the locals figure out, collectively, how they’re going to make their town a bit more defensible before they rebuild.
There was a person on the radio this morning who pronounced the word antique and anti-queue…I’ve chuckled about it at least 3 times today…I’m glad I’m not the only person who butchers the English language!
I watched too much cricket and decided to indulge my current anti-social mindset, by doing very little this weekend. I’m quite glad to see the Australian cricket team being humbled slightly at Lords, thus completes my decent into unAustralian-ness. I have not supported the aussies in any contest involving any team other than the English for years now…and I knew Ponting hadn’t hit that ball that went to first slip, but I still wanted him to be given out. mwahaha! suffer in yer jocks, Ricky!
I have a bottle of red ready for watching Masterchef, I missed the first half of this series and somehow seemed to be hooked.
Oh, that’s meant to read, “pronounced the word antique AS anti-queue”. oops
And that’s great to hear that Kinglake and surrounds are recovering, Robert. I was going to go for a drive through the area to visit a friend on the way home last week, but he had to be in the city that day.
In a rare day off from driving the cabs, I took my wife to the Sunday Markets (not a bad outing in Warrnambool), and then followed up by visiting the homemakers stores (essentially Bunnings and Harris Scarfe). Both turned out to be useful.
At the markets an old chap had a stand selling eCosway products. I’d never heard of them, but was interested in some of the health products. I bought a packet of Instant Cereal with Spirulina. The main ingredients are oats, coarse rice with spirulina. This latter has recently taken my interest in this health kick I’m on – spirulina is a good source of protein. The health effect is diminished a bit on closer reading of the ingredients, which also include non-dairy creamer and sugar. Oh well, worth a punt I suppose. According to this chap the makers (presumably also the marketers of eCosway) are Malaysian-based.
Things got better at Harris Scarfe’s, although it took my alert wife to point me in the right direction. At a discount table amongst other things they had various sneakers on clearance price at $10 a pair. Unbelievably, I found 2 pairs my size (well, one a half-size larger but close enough). One was Reebok, and the other Sfider. They were made in Vietnam and maybe hadn’t cleared for that reason, but I assume if a reputable retailer was selling them that they were accredited by the brand owners and not pirated ones. I thought it was a bit of a steal getting two pairs for $20.
A pretty lazy Sunday overall, but made a bit more interesting by those experiences.
Have just returned from walking my dog, Tacker, on South Beach. Can’t say it’s a lazy Sunday activity since I do it every day as well as every morning around the block, accompanied by his best friend, our cat. Sheba seems to think she’s a dog too and mooches with him around his favourite sniffing spots and stops with him at intersections to check for cars. She has achieved minor celebrity around here, particularly with mums and dads with strollers and little kids.
We’ve had lots of lovely rain here today but it’s not been too overcast, rather like Ireland with its “smiles and tears”. Plenty of blue skies with rolling rain-filled clouds, sunshine between the showers and the subsequent rainbows! As always just before we left the sun did its usual brilliant South Beach spectacular. No red sky, of course, because we’re having more rain tomorrow, instead she bowed out behind silver tipped banks of clouds. Not a lot of wind on the beach, but the threat of rain kept all but the most stalwart regulars away. So we had a great time chasing the ball and flirting with waves until Tacker caught sight of a red, blue and green kite flaunting itself above us and then sweeping down into the dunes. Talk about excitement.
I could say it doesn’t get much better than this. But I’ve been saying that for years now. And it does. Again and again.
wigan – I’d say Vietnam is the shoemaking capital of the word judging by the labels on most, upmarket and middle market, shoes these days.
Wigan @ 14 – should we give a *** whether a shoe made in Vietnam has been “accredited” by an exploitative brand? I’m noticing a massive consumer backlash among my late-teen to early 20s nephews and nieces and their friends. They’re resolutely anti-brand, and happy to buy the pirate or no-name versions of any expensive brand. They’re amused by, and patronising toward, brand snobs! And they consider themselves to be very fashionable and au courant! : )
Another wonderful boring wet day in Perth,would have liked to have gone to a large close Shopping Center and wandered about, but then I remembered it still 1950 in Perth,Sunday trading is the devils work
Thanks for that info, FXH. Makes me feel better still about the purchases, though of course the main criteria are that they fit well, look good and (in my case) are pretty cheap.
Interesting thought Adam. My own daughters (early 20s) are not into brand names, but I’d put that down to how we’d brought them up. My line about accreditation maybe gave the unintended look of snobbery but it was more aimed at gloating about the price I paid.
Jovial Monk @ *,
re burning saucepans:Normally doesn’t happen. I usually have the timing down to a fine art, but on Saturday I got too absorbed in a poem I was writing and on Sunday, doing a comment on LP. I’m sure you’re aware how being on line, or for that matter just on a computer has a certain timelessness about it and time just flies.
The good news is, while the pots are undoubtedly no longer non-stick, after much soaking and vigorous cleaning and scrubbing they do seem to be still useable. So, no worries. (In the past I’ve burnt holes in pots.)
don wigan
From: http://www.lebeike.com/blog/abcd254/archives/2009/603.html
I read a very interesting article that explained how to pluck one’s eyebrows correctly.
John Ryan @18, certainly was wet, all weekend. Friday night we tried to go out to a new club (Club 115), to get the blood flowing with a bit of dancing. All shuttered up, no lights on. Guess it didn’t take off as a venue/theme, or they didn’t advertise enough, or it is the wrong side of the river?
So then we went to see “Coco Avant Chanel” – not bad, all in French, lead actress from film “Amelie” was excellent as Coco. A bit of a tragic story. At least we found something to do, after venturing forth in the inclement weather…
Saturday night we got drenched getting from the car to “Noche Flamenca”. Better half and myself were expecting lots of bright, frilly Flamenco dresses, castanets, nice legs, long dark hair and gold earrings, etc. How superficial can we be? Instead it was a lot of “Spanish cat strangling” (melancholy wailing songs), a lone flamenco guitar player (who was excellent), and several men and one lady in sombre black doing a lot of vigorous stamping about the stage. Heavy and Sombre, Serious Culture. And enough to terrify the resident cockroaches into leaving home for good, according to better half. Still, they got a partial standing ovation and several “Ole’s” for their efforts.
Went to see French & Saunders at St Kilda Saturday afternoon. Great show with the crowd roaring away.
Went to the Dali exhibition in the morning and had a quick canter around the political cartoon exhibition to top the morning off. Hogarth blitzed the field, imo.
Had a very edible meal at Yak, directly opposite our hotel on Flinders Lane. Yesterday, a quick recce of Bridge Road before a catching the shuttle to the airport and taxi to DFO to see what was on offer. Daughter succumbed to carry on bag and handbag on sale at Olga Berg, while I lashed out on $2 worth of postcards.
Back to the airport and Krispy Kremes to take home to bribe various troops. Sod!! Flight home delayed by 90 minutes. Grrrr! Thinking of the extra parking charges at the airport, because the snotty cow from the taxi company Friday night pretty much refused to book the taxi for the 10 minute ride from son’s to the airport.
Finally got home to discover daughter had left the park light on for the duration and the battery was flatter than flat necessitating a call out to the RAA to get cranked up, an extra $4 parking charge and a 90 minute drive to Elizabeth and back to daughter’s so I’d be able to start the car to drive home today.
After unpacking and handing over the junk food, had to book tickets through BASS for anime convention in Adelaide next weekend. Easy, you’d think. But no-three goes required before their stupid site would accept the user name and password they allocated. Double grrrrr!!
The public transport bus from Adelaide Airport costs $2.70 tops..on that ticket I can get from the airport to the city [in less than 15 minutes], jump off the bus, catch the tram down to the train station, jump on the train to Noarlunga, and then change to the bus that gets me 300 metres from my front door. $2.70!!!
..or you could have just parked behind IKEA for free, for as long as you liked and walked to the airport. :p
furious balancing @25, great if you’ve got a couple of hours or so to spare. The daughter doesn’t finish work until 6pm, so catching a bus into the city from Windsor Gardens after 6.30pm, then connecting with the shuttle bus (assuming they’re still running) to the airport for a 7pm check-in for a 7.40pm flight would be a stretch in the best of best case scenarios. And the trudge from the Ikea car park also would’ve been impractical given the timeline and the pitch dark.
Plan A was for my Renown Park-dwelling son to take us to the airport, babysit my car for the weekend and collect us from the airport Sunday night. Unfortunately, he had other plans for Friday night, hence plan B, which failed. So we were left with plan C. The rest is history.
However, on a positive note, the battery was well and truly charged after the 3+ hour drive home.
Spent the day getting gloriously lost with my elderly mother and an aunt in Ireland.
The roads are impossibly narrow and all have homicidal speed limits.
And Sheep.
Jane, I wasn’t have a go at ya, I just thought I’d mention it, because the taxis are so shite at the airport and I always have a laugh when I see people waiting for one, and the bus is usually either right there or a couple of minutes away and it’s dirt cheap. I noticed people park at the back of IKEA because that’s where I hover waiting for a text when I’m doing a drive by airport pick up..I gave a couple of blokes a ride up to the terminal from there last time…the person I was picking up was very surprised when I turned up and two strange men got out of the car. :p
BTW: What did you think of the Dali exhibition? I skipped the political cartoons, as I’d seem ‘em before…I went to the ‘fashion in the time of Jane Austin’ exhibit, as well as the robotic space photos…it was kinda funny to see some piece of NASA equipment in the place on the label normally reserved for the artists name.
fb, I didn’t take offence, but wanted to explain our situation.
I loved the Dali exhibition; I hadn’t realised just what a really extraordinary talent he was and what a weirdo. I had the chance to see some of his work in the Prado, but the exhibition at NGV was more comprehensive. I didn’t know he’d designed jewellery as well and was seriously tempted to lighten the exhibition just a little.
The daughter now wants a lobster telephone.