middle_marker

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST or BAND, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 10 people and include me. You can't use the artist/band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. Repost as "my life according to (artist/band name)"

Are you a male or female?
Man In The Mirror

Describe yourself:
Neat Surprise

How do you feel:
It's Alright With Me

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
That Lonesome Road

Your best friends are:
The Truth

What's the weather like?
No More Blues

If your life was a tv show, what would it be called?
Mas Que Nada

What is life to you?
Simple Feast

Your relationship:
Takes My Breath Away

Your fear:
Sitting In Limbo

The best advice you have to give:
You've Got What It Takes

Thought For The Day:
Two Sides To The Story

Your motto:
We Will Find A Way



Tags? Umm... I tend not to do that much... will see who springs to mind on Facebook. Probably won't be 10, could be more, could be fewer.

This isn't my creation, but still well worth blogging for the sake of posterity (and for making again!)

In a large saucepan or wok, fry one chopped onion (we used purple onion tonight) and one BIG (or two normal) cloves of garlic, chopped. When the onion is starting to brown and caramelise, one tin chopped tomatoes (feel free to chop your own if you have the time and inclination) and about 2tbsp of tomato paste, plus a healthy dose of chopped basil. Simmer.

In another pan fry one chorizo, chopped, until it's nicely browned around the edges, then add to the simmering sauce (just to mix, not to cook more). Turn off the heat five minutes or so before the pasta is done.

Cook enough pasta for at least four serves (about 250g hard pasta), and while the pasta is cooking coarsely shred a handful of fresh mozzarella (about 3/4 cup once shredded and loosely heaped). If the sauce has cooked down a bit (as ours had), take about 2tbsp of the cooking liquid from the pasta and add to the sauce, then drain the pasta, empty it into the sauce pan, add the mozzarella and stir to combine.

Serve and enjoy - with a some freshly cracked firestorm pepper on top if you so desire.

ETA: it seems appropriate that I forgot what we forgot - this should work well with some mushrooms sautéed and added along with the chorizo. That's what we plan to do next time.

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In other news, housing market in Melbourne is absurd at the moment, and I don't know where we're going to be living in just over a month... but that just keeps life interesting, doesn't it?

We've just been informed that we have to find a new place to live in just 6 weeks time. This was not at all the plan, and there are plenty of things we might complain about, for all the good it would do.

Instead, I'm going to try and make a list of the positives about the situation. Commenters, feel free to add any I might have missed!

• we are already in the same city, and in the same area as we wish to look
• aside from when we're otherwise committed, we have an entire six weeks to inspect and apply for properties
• S is employed now, so her part of the application should be more appealing to landlords
• we have a current rental history together, and should have a glowing reference from our current agent to include with applications
• this may give us an opportunity to try living a bit further east, which we've considered as having better geography for our purposes
• there may be less competition in the market at this time of year compared with last time we looked (in January)
• we're not simultaneously trying to juggle the planning of two interstate moves, university applications, and job interviews
• it's only a local move
• we don't have to finish unpacking in this house (ok, that's not much consolation: there are very very few boxes left packed)
• it will - once we finish moving again - refocus our energies on seriously looking into the sale market and making sure that the next move we do is to move into our OWN house
• we may find ourselves in a location that requires two cars, so it's just as well that we haven't got around to getting rid of one of them yet

We're (relatively speaking) rich, young and healthy, and none of us are likely to find ourselves unemployed or homeless as a result of this situation. It is indeed a privileged situation to be able to complain about getting kicked out of a house, while knowing that the worst things about it are that we'll have to find another house and move, and that the house we move into might not be quite as convenient or as comfortable as this. Would I prefer not to have to move again? Sure. Do I really, seriously have any reason to feel unfortunate? No.

That's the weather right here, just so's you know.

For the past four months, any casual observer would answer a resounding "not to blog" when it comes to this neglected little corner of the web. There are plenty of good excuses, but rather than make any of them now, I shall instead attempt to rectify the ongoing lack of information about the events of this year since... well, since the last time I posted a big catch-up entry.

Since the last one worked so well, I will write this in the same format, although there are fewer headings (mainly because less time has passed, rather than because my life has become any less eventful - as you'll see, little could be further from the truth).

( a new relationship )
( a tale of three cities )
( two weddings and a graduation )
( wrapping up musical things in Sydney )
( May you live in... )
( The Move )

"Thank you for calling SACL ID and access services. All of our consultants are currently on another call. ..."

All of them? Together? That must be a really difficult call.

OK, I admit I wasn't too shocked by what I saw on my Spicy Fruit Loaf the other day (although I now refuse to buy it until they fix the text), but I was shocked by what I saw in the Art Gallery of New South Wales today. I figure, generally, that people writing interpretive text for museums and art galleries are educated folks. Likely to be possessed of more comprehensive education in the arts than I, at the very least. But I present, for your viewing horror, the following.

The title card...

From Blog photos

... and then, the interpretive text ...

From Blog photos

Not once, not twice, but ALL THREE TIMES the abbreviated title appears, it is graced with a greengrocer's apostrophe.

Incidentally, if you're wondering what a Drako Vülen[']s looks like, it looks like this...

From Blog photos

P.S. I know I'm not immune to typos or the occasional grammatical mishap - at my weakest, I've even been known to make an itso or use an incorrect "their" (OK - that was seriously embarrassing) - but I'm not writing or publishing for a living. To continue doing my job, I'm constantly checked and held to a higher standard than private pilots are... why should the same not be the case for professional writing?

The man sitting diagonally ahead of me across the aisle of the plane is making - in MS Paint, no less - an advertising sign for a car parts dealership. Naturally, the title has a greengrocer's apostrophe: "Lucente Motor's". And now he's picking what font will be best for the sign. So, do I...

• ... go tell him to remove the apostrophe, or


• ... tell him to change the font to Papyrus?

Yes, my crusade against unnecessary Public Address announcements continues... and every day it seems there's more fodder.

Today's special, CityRail (their automated announcements are even worse than Virgin Blue at the airport), particularly this gem. Note that when this announcement was broadcast, no rain had actually fallen for several days. Admittedly there are showers and storms in the area today, but none actually falling at Erskineville.

Attention passengers. Please take extreme care. Surfaces may be slippery when wet.

So, not only am I cautioned to take care when the surfaces are wet - which they aren't - but it's a particular kind of care I should take: extreme care. What is that, anyway? Is that taking care while bungee jumping or white-water rafting? Is it care that holds an unjustified position of bias? Is it care I only take with my extremities, and if so, which ones?

Other quality content includes the announcements - late at night, when there might be seven people on the entire train - to spread out along the platform and move well inside the carriage when boarding... presumably just in case of a flash mob.

Scrabulous is dead... unless you're in India, apparently, but that doesn't do the rest of us much good.

I won't blog at length now about the complete absurdity of modern copyright law, especially as it now applies to derivative works and works in other media than the original, but instead I will share a link of things you should never buy.

Incidentally, any feminists who follow the above link should be prepared to have their hackles doubly raised.

A sad day for free culture.

For one or two reasons, it occurred to me over the past few days to have a look back through my old blog entries, and I've discovered that I've lately come to neglect this blog except as a medium for whinging about stuff (or sharing really random, out-of-left-field observations). This is a pity, as I'd hate for it to give the impression that I'm dissatisfied with life or the world in general - nothing could be further from the truth. I believe my recent LiveJournal pattern is simply an unintended consequence of shifting to Facebook as my main way of keeping connected with friends in this globally-dispersed, TCP/IP-connected age: if all the bright and shiny things in life are shared more quickly and easily on Facebook, then LJ becomes my snark repository by default... even if I don't really have that much in the way of snark.

So, in an attempt to rectify that situation, this entry is intended to be both a more substantial and more complete picture of life at present and my outlook on the world. I may fail somewhat, as much of what is wonderful in the world at the moment is either intangible and/or defies written description... but suffice to say I can think of only a very small number of Things which could make my life better than it already is.

I'll start with the big, obvious bits of my life lately, as I was reminded yesterday (by a comment on my Facebook status) that I may not have been the best communicator of even some pretty significant goings-on. Only some of this is intentional (because I really didn't intend to broadcast certain goings-on, at least until some people had had a chance to hear about them directly), but the majority is simply a case of "oh - didn't I mention I was going to Portugal?"

So, here is some of the bigger stuff that has happened this year:

( The Tallis Scholars Summer School )
( auditioning for the Sydney Chamber Choir )
( starting voice lessons )
( becoming a real Captain )
( a trip to Spain )
( the end of a relationship )
( (paid!) music gigs )
( early music workshop in Brisbane )
( the Sintra International Singing and Choral Conducting Course )

... and I think that accounts for most of the "events" in my life so far this year.

Ongoing stuff:

• I love my job
• I love my house
• I'm playing a lot of good music with the Strathfield Symphony Orchestra
• I'm really enjoying Sydney
• I still wish some people were not as far away as they are... but I treasure those nearby and those further afield whenever our paths cross

Upcoming stuff:

Not a lot, really! Largely more of the same. And that is a very good thing. There are a few things going on and planned (negotiating a new Enterprise Agreement at work, more travel [although none international planned at this stage], continuing some renovations to the study), but I'm rather looking forward to a few months without my calendar quite as tightly packed as it has been of late.

Well, there you have it. If anyone is any more enlightened about life in my world, I'm glad. If not... well, it's probably useful to do a brain dump like this once in a while anyway.

If you'd asked me a month ago what I'd be doing today, I don't think I'd have said "riding in the back of a taxi in Hong Kong while the Cantonese-speaking driver demonstrated his heavily accented English with a rendition of Que Sera Sera".

If you want to work in Portugal, from my experience so far the following skills/trades are in very short supply here:

        •        plumbers and gasfitters - water pressure here is utterly random (folks in an apartment just above this one seem to have negligible water pressure, despite the fact that this is a hugely hilly region and we are by no means near the top of this particular built area), as seems to be the supply of reticulated gas* (the instant gas water heater in this apartment keeps going out, apparently because there is not enough gas... and when it works, the entire kitchen ends up smelling of gas, so just as well we buck the local trend and don't smoke). Taking a shower is entirely a game of chance as to what pressure and/or temperature to expect.
        •        washing machine salesmen - aside from handwashing clothes in the bidet, if you don't actually live here (and therefore have access to one of the few machines in captivity**), I understand the only way to get washing done is to use a laundry service at a hotel... which is (a) expensive and (b) not an option if you aren't staying at a hotel. I asked our host here what he would do about laundry if he travelled within Portugal, to which he replied that he didn't know. For a country with a history of world exploration, travel seems very low on the list of priorities. According to the Lonely Planet, there is exactly one self-service laundry in the ENTIRE COUNTRY.
        •        internet service salesmen - if you're coming to Portugal and wish to stay in contact with anyone, either bring a roaming mobile phone, or practise your semaphore and smoke signals.
        •        toilet designers - this seems endemic across much of europe. Their toilets are backwards***. Either that, or their bums are attached differently, but they all seem to walk much the same way as people elsewhere in the world.
        •        vegetable cook - if anyone tells you to look forward to the food here, don't believe them. Local cuisine could be called "comfort food" if your idea of "comfort" is salty and greasy and entirely composed of fried meat. Vegetables are limp and grey, having been frozen, thawed, then boiled for a state-mandated minimum of 17 hours. Salads consist of iceberg, a few slices of tomato, and ample quantities of raw white onion. Vegans would be well advised to avoid the entire Iberian peninsula.

That said, I don't wish to do the country a disservice: sure, the above are shortcomings for an antipodean used to fresh food and warm showers, but if you're not going to be here long enough to get ricketts or scurvy, and you can survive for a time without clean clothes or a decent shower, then it really is quite a fascinating country. Old and new seem to be randomly jumbled together, but having always been something of the poor cousin in Western Europe, "new" has only a very limited impact, so you get the chance to live among buildings that are hundreds of years old and feel like it. The language is bizarre, and very difficult to learn compared with Spanish (if you speak Spanish, you can have one-way conversations with the locals: they will understand you, you won't understand them). I believe there are something like eleven different ways to spell the sound "sh". Outside of tourist shops and services, the locals seem very friendly and welcoming. And it really is quite a relaxed place to be. For someone who spends his working life timing things to the minute, it's a considerable shift in perception to realise that the local town clock - that chimes every quarter hour - is about 3 minutes slow. Time is just far less important here... and for somewhere to come on holiday, there's a lot to be said for that.

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* it turns out, on further investigation, that all buildings here run off bottled gas, as there is no reticulated gas. That at least explains the ability of same to run out.

** I have visions of herds of wild Portuguese washing machines roaming the hillsides...

*** I've subsequently discovered that their newer toilets are the right way around. Which just goes to show that the American auto industry really is the most stubbornly unobservant manufacturing industry on Earth; this is demonstrated by the fact that they continue to this day to build cars with red rear indicator lights, despite the fact that amber indicators are infinitely superior and are fitted to every car imported to that country.

I like the PAs in Amsterdam Schiphol airport: unlike the constant stream of (repeated) "last and final" boarding calls in Sydney, this is how the only late boarding announcement goes in Amsterdam:

Passenger (name) for (destination), you are delaying the departure of this flight. Please board without delay at gate (number). We will proceed to offload your luggage.

That's it. And you know what? They do. We had three no-shows for my flight to Lisbon, I presume they made that one announcement, the ground handlers offloaded their bags and we left without them. And the terminal is so quiet.

But I've ranted about the nonsense of failed-to-board announcements at Sydney before. Today I want to share a rant that's even closer to my heart - one that makes me despair for the very future of human civilisation. I refer to none other than baggage claim carousels. Now, listen closely: there is a right way to wait at a baggage claim carousel, and there is a wrong way. Here's how to do it the right way:

1) consider the largest suitcase you could reasonably expect to see on the carousel, bearing in mind that oversize items like surfboards are handled elsewhere. Now consider the longest dimension of that suitcase.

2) take the dimension above, and add a margin - say an extra 50%. I'd estimate that's about 1.5 metres, or two paces.

3) imagine a line that distance back from the edge of the carousel, all the way around it. This is where you stand to wait. If you have a trolley, keep it behind that imaginary line also. You have a clear view quite a long way along the carousel to where the bags are approaching because there is no-one standing at the edge of the carousel.

4) when your bag approaches the point on the carousel in front of you, take two steps forward (and push your trolley up to the carousel if you have one), remove your bag, and go merrily on your way. This is easy to do because there is no one else at the edge of the carousel, so you have all the room you need to pull your bag off, wrestle it onto your baggage trolley, etc. If you have more than one bag (and they have not come out together), return to the line in step 3 and repeat.

Here's how to do it the wrong way:

FAIL) Everyone crowd together along the edge of the carousel like livestock at a feeding trough, jockey for position, be unable to see your bag for the forest of empty heads around you, bruise your shins on everyone else's baggage trolleys, and get your bag no sooner than you would have if you did it the right way.

I'm usually relatively quick getting through airport terminals, so I'm often one of the earlier ones at the carousel, and I make a point of standing the appropriate distance away, at a point where there is clear space ahead. I even tend to pick a spot on the carousel which will not be as popular as others (because it is further from the entry/exit or the "bags appearing" end of the carousel). I then do what I can to passively dissuade other people from wrong-waying directly in front of me, but when it comes down to it, if someone insists on doing so and doesn't politely move as I reach in to collect my bag, I will disregard their existence as I remove my bag from the carousel. If it happens to collect them in the process... well, perhaps a fully loaded backpack to the nether regions is nature's way of telling them to do it the right way next time.

I know that sometimes peer pressure is hard to deal with, but please - if you don't already do it the right way - try doing it the right way next time you travel. Even if other people are still doing it the wrong way, it is no less effective (in my experience, you can see bags between the legs or bodies of the cattle standing at the edge about as easily as you can see through their thick skulls if you're standing in the morass of morons beside them). And if we can get enough people doing it the right way, who knows what could happen. World peace? If, some day in the future, I could see an entire plane-load of passengers waiting for their bags the right way, then I would think nothing impossible.

( OK, OK )


( I'll put them behind cuts )

[mutters "LiveJournal formatting police..."]

At the end of the story about Michael Hopoate signing with the Manly Sea Eagles, someone tacked on the line: "his father is now pursuing a career in the ring".

... the street merchant in Pompeii telling the Doctor that he just sold his big blue box to Caecilius.

Further to my posting about graffiti-by-deletion, I've seen a couple more good ones lately.

The first, on a sign at the end of my local train station platform, which originally read "Danger! Moving trains." has had the "er" effaced, so now it reads like a hillbilly: Dang! Moving trains!

The second was slightly more complex, and I had to look around the train carriage to figure it out: in each carriage of a CityRail train is a strip of icons and text of things you're not allowed or supposed to do - no alcohol, travel near the guard carriage at night, etc. On this particular train, an entire square was covered up, so I checked the strip at the other end of the carriage to discover that what was covered was the "don't put your feet on the seats" square. What was it covered with? A piece of gaffer tape... particularly, a piece of the gaffer tape that they use to repair the vinyl on the seats when it's been damaged by people putting their feet on it.

And, in a final bit of nerdy amusement, I found the following on a forum about some digital TV recording software:

the Wishlist concept could be extremely powerful ... because it would be possible to combine boolean expressions (e.g. title is "Doctor Who" and cast does not include "Colin Baker").