Honorable Mentions

Over the Christmas break I read a couple of John Mortimer 'Rumpole' case files. Jolly fun reading (though no exercise in the interpretation of the law). Rumpole spends his time in the courts of London and its environs, defending his clients by providing a reasonable alternative series of events that can in the very least provide grounds for reasonable doubt in a jury.

It has been a reading exercise I have enjoyed so much I have had to put the books down before the character of Rumpole subsumes me. I should mention that I was meandering with out of town friends amongst the stalls and hippies of the St Andrews market when I spied a collected works bargin. Three books of Rumpole for $3, how could I refuse!!

Killer Robots

Don't know much about the guy who made this awesome short film.
It's 5 minutes of giant murderous robot rampage!!!

Link HERE

Could Giant Robots be the new craze to replace our waning interest in Zombie hordes? I hope so, roll on battling mecha hero's and villians!!

Housecleaning

Over the weekend we cleaned out the fridge and the pantry. I know it doesn't sound like a Epic Win for the weekend but we learnt a lot from an archaeological perspective.
For example:

• Once upon a time we had a problem with the house Alpha Male eating any and all chocolate biscuits that were left in the fridge as a votive offering to his AWESOMENESS. Thus denying the Alpha Female any gifts for visitors who drop by. Solution, buy these Griffins Orange Choc Biccies that are made entirely out of an inedible industrial grade orange substitute. Result: We have 3 month old foodstuffs to serve guests.
• We have doubled up on nearly empty tomato sauce bottles.
• There appears to be no rule for when to discard jam and other preservatives that both lack mold and were placed there last ski season.
• The Back of the Fridge is a place where food goes to become a permanent resident. Once its at the Back of the Fridge, there it stays. Immortal and undying in a sleep of a thousand years or until we have another power blackout.
  

The freezer section is a whole other realm of frozen curiosities. Therein lies a plethora of leftovers and soups, empty iceblock cartons and frozen blueberries from last year. We don't often eat the food we freeze as it turns out we don't own a microwave.

To be honest we cleaned out an enormous amount of foodstuffs unfit for human consumption (but not those horrible, horrible Orange biccies) and it was at least a cleansing process. Liberating almost.

So if you are in the neighbourhood, drop by and enjoy our hospitality and eat the last of those awful biscuits so we can get some new ones.

Good Advice

Good advice is something that you only realise when you don't take it. It's one of those moments of clarity where you smack the palm of your hand against your forehead and utter the immortal 'D'oh!'.

Then there are those moments when you do take someone's advice and wonder why you didn't do it sooner. In this particular instance I took my Guitar Mentors advice and got me a Lucinda Williams album (Car wheels on a gravel road).

Every song is fantastic. It just fits the mood I'm in musically at the moment. Now I see why we've been playing so much of her music at band practice. So while this may not be everyone's particular cup of tea, it is mine.

There is a lot to be said for giving advice, particularly good advice. So I owe a huge thank you to my Guitar Mentor.

Off to a good start

Welcome to 2010 Bubba's!! Who'd have thunk it. 2010 sounds (or sounded) so very futuristic. A pity then we don't have spaceships and moon bases yet. I'm only slightly encouraged by the current PM's funding of the Australian space industry. So probably highly likely we won't see such sights any time soon.

On the other hand we do have a lovelly baby girl who is getting bigger and prettier by the day. My lovelly little girl is also a seasoned traveller who handled a trip to Sydney with ease and a car ride to Canberra without complaints.

Which reminds me, as part of my ongoing and irregular rant about pub food, I would like to thoroughly recommend the kitchen at the Mittagong Hotel (in Mittagong, NSW) for their excellent Chicken Schnitzel and Lambs Fry and Bacon. I'll let you gentle Bubba's decide for yourselves who had what. Both dishes were superb, the chicken was wonderfully dry on the outside yet tender within and the Lambs Fry was frankly as perfect a dish as I would have liked it to have been.

So I recommend with extreme pleasure the Mittagong Hotel. Know this as well, the Mittagong Hotel also serves Catalan style Tapas and the dinning area is festooned with gorgeous flags from the Catalan region. Not bad for country-regional pub.

The Mittagong Hotel gets multiple well feed Ninja Stars of approval: ************

In summation

Well the year is nearly over gentle Bubba's and I doubt I'll making any further posts before we close the book on 2009 and welcome in 2010.

This year has been fantastic. It has truely been a wonderful and inspiring 12 months. I have a lot to be thankful for.

So I've now begun my holiday rampage of relaxing and indulging (may not last long). I wish all my Bubba's, where ever you may be, a wonderful Christmas and a very safe and happy New Years!!!

Tele-Movie Review

Dear Bubbas, last night I watched Stargate Universe (the first 2 feature-length-tele-movie etc episodes).

First reactions;
- This is just BSG redux in the Stargate universe
- Even the camera angles where startlingly similar
- The premise is almost exactly the same vis a vis: An old enemy attacks a colony; survivors (who are a rag tag assortment of personnel) flee on an ancient large spaceship, they must find a new home etc No word as to which tyranny that might be fleeing

Even within the first episodes they have exactly the same probles as on BSG Water, food etc

I like sci-fi and I will continue to watch SGU (assuming channel 10 does not frack with the format the way they did with BSG) but it does seem very, very reductive of Galactica.

Loved the special effects though.

She's leaving the Bank

We finally pulled the plug on Helstra yesterday. Go with its next major rival. Turns out we can get our internets over cable (faster than ADSL etc),so whoo-hoo for us!! Turns out also that in the process of doing this we've halved our phone and internet bill and get a Playstation3 thrown in.

So not bad all in all.

++++++++

I've been messing around with open tunings on my guitar lately (mostly inspired by the 'Paris, Texas' soundtrack) and I'm loving the new sounds. It's very satisfying to hear new harmonics and to get the guitar to sound the way you want it to. My Epiphone has this gorgeous resonance that just suits the new tuning. It has this lovelly sustain thats a combination of the sound box and these kick-arse strings I got.

Knee-Riffic!!

The Doctor told me today and told me straight, I had done myself a significant injury. However there has been no major damage to the ligaments and no damage to the cartilage or meniscal disc. In fact the Doc went to say that by all indications the body is repairing itself slowly but surely, he estimated I have another 12 months to go.

Which is not bad considering he was firmly of the opinion I would need surgery. All in all I'm very lucky. I should be able to go skiing next year and might be able to manage some more surf action this Summer.

Prediction

Tomorrow I discuss the results of my MRI with my GP. I'm hoping he will tell me my knee only needs a few magic beans. That would be nice.

++++++++++

Other news, I'm working from home at the moment which has the awesome perk of letting me spend time with CJ. Everyday I learn something new or watch her get better at something. Last week, incidentally, was her 6 month mark. Hard to believe.

+++++++++

Now as it is the Christmas season it is also the time of Christmas specials. This little video below is one of my all time favourite seasonal stories. I hope it becomes one of yours too.

Mechanic

My right knee has been bothering me for some time. I damaged it last year skiing at Mt Hotham (understandably not my favourite resort) in near white out conditions. The fact that it has never been quite right and that it is over a year later made me decide to see a doctor.
The upshot of which is that the Doc suspects I'll need a knee reconstruction to as it is highly likely I've torn my ACL.

I'm inclined to go gently unto that good night on this one. The other day we took CJ to the beach (her first time in the water!) and I hopped off out to catch some waves past the sandbar. It was all going according to plan, until I tried walking out of the waves. My knee felt like it was filled with wet spaghetti. It's done that before and usually only lasts 24 hours or so. But still...

I resolved to do something sooner rather later and now I'm off to get a MRI. Will report on the outcome!

Protest

I could so easily get behind this kind of protest movement.

(HERE)

A Burden

One thing I have never liked doing at Christmas is Christmas Cards. I dislike writing them, I dislike receiving them. Especially in the corporate world, I intensely dislike having to write a card to clients ('Dear Dude, thank you for spending money with us. Have a safe holiday break so you can continue to spend money. Like I care, Bubba.')

But some people get really a-retentive about it. They have to get the cards out in time etc. Cards which typically contain some personailsed image of family or pets in Christmas Drag. You know what I'm talking about, the Santa Beanies with or without flashing lights.

Now I am all for Christmas decorations, I love them. I will be your personal shopper for decorations. But the cards don't do anything for me. It surprises me when I come across people who actually care that I have not sent them a card. To whit my response can only be, you obviously don't know me that well (ergo why would I want to send you a card?) .

So if you wish to know for sure if I care about during our festival of Jesus, ring me or I will call you. And I can tell you as a spoiler, I do care I just don't like Christmas cards.

This time of year

When I was a wee lad (almost 30 years ago) I used to hate this time of year. School was dragging on and on and on and on... It seemed like the holidays would never get here and that Christmas was miles away.
I recall walking to school one morning thinking 'This is just such a waste of time for everybody. We should scrap the pretense and have Christmas next week. This intervening time is just filler.'

I was a very philosophical child. Perhaps I'm thinking about it as a portent of my own child. This will be her first Christmas and I wonder what she will make of it. Probably not that much on the day, but I know she will love seeing her cousins up in Sydney.

Sea of Sounds

There is a new store that may just be constructed entirely out of awesome called the 555 Music Company (check it, HERE).
The specialise in unusual and wonderful guitars and accessories. A buddy of mine from band practice put me onto them. But the other reason why they are awesome is their Saturday in store concerts. Put on for free (bring your own beer), one sits around on comfy couches and chilaxes!

Well yesterday we took CJ to her first gig, the family all went and checked out the amazing Mr Kutcha Edwards. He was fantastic an absolutely wonderful artist. He had the kind of voice and projection that infects you with a sense of humility and awe. A truely moving concert and free!!

If you ever find yourself in Melbourne on a Saturday arvo, checl out the 555 Music Company.

Smells of Summer

I'm working from home this week. Its been super hot in the house the past couple of days and we don't have air conditioning (yet). One of the few advantages of having to go into an office each day.

Well its a bit cooler today, thankfully. Outside a breeze is blowing and its carrying the smell of smoke and bush fires. Sadly this smell always reminds me of Summer.

Time and Music

for a moment on the 'Internets' there was a rehashing of an old question (What would you do if an alien landed and invited you into their flying saucer for a faster than light ride?) this one involving time travel back to the 11th century in Europe.

Most of the answers that I saw were from nerds in America (ps link to an article as to why Wikipedia is terrible HERE) who claimed their superior knowledge of chemistry/biology/math/economics/engineering would ensure they lived a rich and prosperous life.
My problem with such claims of genius are;
1) You could get burnt at the stake for just about anything in those days
2) Nobody likes a smart arse (see 1.)

But would you want to go back a 1,000 years anyway? Life was awful, brutish and short. I'm reading Xenophons account of the 10,000 crossing Persia, guys who a 30 years old are regarded as almost cripples because of their age. I doubt things had improved by the year 1000.

If it were up to me and I could take a trip for one evening back in time, I think I'd like to sit in on the recording of Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue'. As opposed to sitting in a hovel, planning my Gatsby like rise to money and influence. All the while praying someone invents toilet paper soon.

Space Hog

Yeah the actual band, remember those guys? An awesome one hit wonder with 'In the Mean time'. Which reminds me a persons 'best of list' will always be subject to mood and whim.

When I finished up at the radio station earlier this year I was given a lovely gift of '1000 Recordings to listen to before you Die' an absolutely must have for us music geeks. Its wonderful to search through the listings with a friend and comment on what was left out as much as what was left in. Of note is AC/DC gets one mention as does Bowie. Bizarrely Boston gets a listing. Boston the ultimate rock one hit wonder gets a listing.
Eno gets two.

JS Bach is split between artists who have recorded Bach (Vivaldi does not include the Kennedy recording, WTF?!?) and Bach works.

Anyhow, here is wonderful Spacehog with some mid 90's rock.

That is my Tree

So the other day I signed up to be a supporter of the Wilderness Society. I'll give you a minute or two to visit the site.
The main reason I liked their pitch was not the haircuts or even the clothes. It was the chance to contribute a little bit toward helping the forests of Australia survive. We all need wood, heaven knows I use enough of the stuff printing things out. But I feel very strongly about farming wood.

The debates about logging old growth forests usually run along the lines of we need wood, growing trees will take too long, here's some we prepared earlier, good news guys if we cut it down it'll just grow back.
Then you get the regular noise about job creation for high school drop outs etc

Australia has about 15% of its original forest cover left. Most of the farm land is beset by water salinity, top soil erosion and a shrinking water table. In summer I've driven past wide brown sheep paddocks, with the flock clustering under the sole gum tree for shade.
Farming in Australia is badly managed as is the forestry industry.

I am an advocate of working smarter not being as wasteful as these industries have been.

When I got my welcome pack it included a picture of a forest giant that is now being sponsored my Ladybird and I. It would be nice to think that this tree will be there when I take Ladybird to visit it.

Finsh Line

The past couple of days have seen my wishes for a writing assignment come true. I just completed a very serious work document. Its a funny thing, but I really enjoyed the whole process (once I got started).
Well now its in the mail and today is back to the regular grind.