Since we don’t live by politics 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
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Made Chorizo and White Bean Soup on Saturday night. Roasted a piece of pork Sunday night. Didn’t do much in between.
Also frist.
Up early.
Drove train to Toowoomba.
Slept in Toowoomba.
Drove another train down from Toowoomba.
Discovered last week that Yorkshire Pudding can be very romantic. As a result, I’m going to be getting married in a 1,700-year-old Shinto shrine next August and acquiring a new wife and two children.
Congratulations, terangeree.
Got up v.early to get down to Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi before it closed up shop (and before it got too hot and crowded). By 8am when we were leaving it was already v. warm, so we didn’t go on to the Newtown Festival in the arvo as planned, just sat around watching DVDs instead. With beer. Noice.
@terangeree – mucho congrats!
Congratulations, terangaree, May all your troubles be little ones.
Saturday: Spent the time going through quite a few books making sure I hadn’t missed anything on the siege of Boston. Once I’ve gone through the couple of books I’m expecting this week, should be able to begin writing chapters 6 and 7 of my book. Looking forward to it.
Sunday: reading and taking notes from Allan Everett Marble’s Surgeons, Smallpox and the Poor: A History of Medicine and Social Conditions in Nova Scotia, 1749. Have only to recheck Julian Gwyn’s frigates and Foremasts. The North American Squadron in Nova Scotia Waters, 1745-1815, and some photocopied documents + two more books I need to read and I will have finished the research on the chapter on Halifax 1775-1776.
Am reading too many books at once at the moment: Penny Russell’s Savage or Civilised? Manners in Colonial Australia;James Lees-Milne’s The Last Stuarts;and Rob Mundle’s Bligh, Master Mariner, the new bio of William Bligh.
My set top box is playing up something horrible lately. Have wiped channels 9 and 10 from it accidentally and can’t reload them, the closed captions only work on and off, and the signal keeps dropping out in the middle of programmes and can’t be regot no matter where I move the TV aerial – think its carking it.
It was so bad last night that I switched back to analog to watch the ABC. Looked to see if I could find myself in the old footage of the Wayside Chapel on Compass last night, but if I was there I couldn’t recognise myself. Knew quite a few of the people though.
Not to worry. Been thinking of getting a new one that picks up HDTV for some time now.
Still, life is good.
Set top boxes can be tricky, PB. I bought one last year from Dick Smith (DGTech I think – turns out they are rubbish) which didn’t last the two week exchange period they give before conking out. I replaced it with a Topfield which gave no trouble – of course then the TV it was connected to died instead and I had to replace it!!
My weekends are now completely given over to preparing my baby boy for his move overseas – this weekend was acquiring suitcases and warm clothing, the one before a trip to Sydney for the SAT at Macq Uni. I will miss him….
And congrats to terangeree – great news!
Thanks for that bmitw. Will look out for a Topfield when I get around to replacing it. Which will probably be soon. And will go to Big W rather than Dick Smith’s whose service here was so lackadaisical when I got my new TV a couple of years ago that I ended up going to Big W instead I was so disgusted.
Paul, like bmitw, we have a Topfield set top box. Ours is also a personal video recorder that stores stuff like on a computer, with no tapes or cds needed, for later.
However, I noticed this little baby coming up at Aldi, next thursday, which is a similar machine to ours for half the price.
http://www.aldi.com.au/au/html/offers/2827_16084.htm
Well done Terangeree – which shrine will you get married in, and will you wear a dress and thongs?
I got married in a Shinto shrine in Matsue, and it was very cool (freezing cold actually). I wore the dress and thongs.
On the weekend I went to a lantern festival in a nearby town and saw the Japanese Crown Prince. It was great!
We ate outside last night with some turkish bread, home-made antipasta, haloume cheese and salad. Some cashews on the side and chilled herbal tea.
Very nice.
joe2 @ 10,
Sadly, we don’t have an Aldi in Armidale yet. But its coming. But thanks anyway.
Thank you, all.
SG, it looks like it is going to be the Numakuma-jinja (please excuse the mechanical translation) in Tomo-no-Ura — and I’ve got a feeling that I’ll be togged out in “dress and thongs” for the occasion.
But it most certainly will not be cold in August.
Hey, congratulations terangeree! Much happiness always!
. . .
Over the weekend I noticed that the John Cassavetes movie “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” was playing at an art-house theater. It’s one of those movies, like “Taxi Driver” that really needs to be seen on a movie screen, in a theater, from an authentic print, for it to register properly. (If you’ve only seen Taxi Driver on DVD then you haven’t really “seen” it IMO.)
I hadn’t seen “Killing” in about 20 years (and ironically, the last time I saw it was at this very same theater!) and it doesn’t play too often, so I gathered up my courage and went to check it out. No question of convincing anyone else to join me, it’s sort of like “Hey, I’m going to spend the next two hours getting hit on the head with a metal pipe, wanna come?” If you’ve never seen a Cassavetes movie, they are by turns sublime, exasperating, hilarious, boring, tragic, and infuriating. I think “Killing” is pretty interesting, but I wouldn’t blame a soul for hating it.
How strange: the movie’s the same, the theater was the same, but I’ve changed, and so has the world. But Cassavetes is a great poet with a camera — he mostly gets attention for the intense acting and improvisational structures, but really, the man sure knew how to handle a camera. And even though he sorely tries your patience, he gives you something in return that you don’t get from any other artist.
So, two hours and change later, I left the theater blinking and dizzy and stumbled back out onto the sidewalk, a little sadder, a little wiser, a tiny bit older.
Terangeree, congratulations! May your marriage be as happy as mine!
Bought the Sprig a pair of sandals on Saturday, and picked up covers for our new iPhones (a slightly late anniversary present). Visited my Dad on Sunday to act as scribe — he had a vast form required for admission for a routine colonoscopy.
Gave my godson a DVD of The Crimson Pirate for his 11th birthday and cuckolded the CEO of a WA resources company. (Not at the same time though.)
Saturday morning: caught up with an old friend I haven’t seen for ages, gave him a gift from a recent trip to England, namely a history of the werewolf legend.
Saturday afternoon: work on some story notes. Realise that what I need for this is a good potted history of the werewolf legend. Feel too embarrassed to call friend and ask to borrow gift back.
Saturday evening: Roller Derby! Season finals for the Canberra Roller Derby League, watching the Black’n'Blue Belles take out the 2010 premiership.
Sunday: Cafe crawl, grocery shopping, roast dinner and the first half of the third season of “Weeds”.
Most satisfying.
Congratulations,
NabakovTerangeree![Nabs you scoundrel]
Of all the things to impress a Japanese lady in the kitchen, yorkshire pudding strikes me as incredibly unlikely. Or is it a euphemism for some ungodly act of love?
I spent Sunday fretting about my ankle surgery the following day. My 3-month old footy “sprain” which turned out to be broken all along (thanks doc!), has now been re-broken and filed back, a graft from my hip inserted, and a titanium plate affixed. 6 weeks off work will very nearly ruin me, but I’ll have my ankle back with full mobility and less chance of arthritis, so I guess that’s something.
No, FDB, it is not a euphemism.
Ah, FDB, but will you ever play the drums again?
(Not such a silly question: I’ve broken both wrists at various times, and I’m not quite as facile on the guitar as I used to be.)
But FDB, you will be able to kick the kick drum at the next gig in early December?
It’s both better and worse than that Nabs. It’s only my hi-hat foot, but I have a gig this Sunday!
But you know how it is…
Oh, FDB, that’s terrible. I do hope you get better as soon as possible.
I notice Sinclair Davidson is again at it attempting to say Japan is an example of failed fiscal stimulus.
Now Sinclair doesn’t understand Fiscal policy very well which is why he gets budget outcomes here wrong all the time.
However with regard to Japan I will quote Adam Posen ( both a noted Japan expert who does understand fiscal policy , is on the monetary policy committee of the BOE ( from which you can get his speeches from) and is not a lazy researcher. He gave a speech on 24/5 concerning Japan.
On page 4 he notes ” Ultimately, my main analytic point is for people to stop thinking of ‘turning Japanese’ as a
syndrome, some sort of strange condition into which an economy can fall. Instead, we should
think of Japan’s Great Recession as largely demonstrating the validity of much textbook, even
old fashioned Keynesian, macroeconomics – and thus amenable both to comprehension and,
within limits, avoidance, or at least amelioration.”
Now this has been brought up before so He cannot give ignorance as an excuse.