surfing frankly — after a craptacularly busy day at work, how better to relax than by surfing for frank for a few minutes?
frank at the academy — a brief bio & a list of links to some more frankness.
frankie goes to buffalo — & here’s some more stuff at the electronic poetry centre…
alrighty then — i’m off home to read some poems by frank. hmmm. is meditations in an emergency in my bag? yikes! it is! excellent! what a spot of luck. some frank on the bus then…
encyclopaedia mythica — here’s a bit of a change of pace… check it out to be enlightened as to one of the reasons i thought dogma was kinda half-assed… dog’s breakfast more like it… (yes, yes, no, look, i liked it, okay, i just thought it coulda been better… sheesh.) <grin>
scripting fun — i’m kinda working up to a bit of a general overhaul for magicdog.com, & i’ve been wrassling with a frontier script that i thought was gonna be a central part of the project… finally got it working last night with some help from linda (what? the test for that loop is always gonna be false? oh, right. add some parentheses you say? hey look, it works. cool!) & now that i’ve got a working version of the script, i can see that what it does isn’t particularly useful after all… something else to be chalked up as a learning experience i guess… <grin>
sydney weather — check out the official forecast if you like, or just take my word that it’s kinda cloudy & sorta warm. what d’ya mean you don’t like all the technical jargon?
provincial cities forecast — that means you, townsville… showers & 30 degrees? (yew. i remember humidity. yew.) i’m moving somewhere even colder when i get tired of sydney. i wonder what i can study at the university of lapland? ah, lapland… <grin>
starry, starry (lapland) night — who’s obsessing about lapland? you’re the one who keeps bringing it up!
Your individual work is tempered by larger, unseen forces. The Moon challenges
you to a friendly race as it goes from Scorpio to Sagittarius. Lengthen your stride,
and learn from your accelerated pace.
giant steps are what you take, racing with the moon? (next up, gibberish.) i mean, what can you learn from an accelerated pace? running into things at speed hurts more? well, duh. still, it’s comforting to know that great big unseen forces are at work… oh wait, not comforting, what’s that other word?
sydney saturday — yawn. what time is it? oh, right. <grin> doing some work on the macPig (”don’t call it that!”) today, learning a bit about applescript.
fish news — all the fish appear to be doing well, the bristlenose catfish has even started wandering about all over the tank now (although it’s more easily spooked than any of the others – “hey! look at the… oh, never mind.”). we’re gonna be doing our first partial water change tomorrow. gosh! how exciting is this? i was a bit uncertain at first, but now i’m really glad we bought the aquarium instead of like starting a stamp collection or something… <grin>
new courses — linda & i are both starting new courses next week, linda officially starts her PhD on monday & i’ve got my first class for my graduate certificate on wednesday night… hopefully it’s not gonna suck too badly. (actually, i’m still kinda excited about it, i’m just striking a kinda “world weary” pose…) <grin>
neptune’s lips — listening to midnite vultures at the moment. “mixing business with leather / christmas with heather / freaks flock together / & make all the b-boys scream / all right / turn it up now”…
medical science suggests — here’s some exciting news from that well respected medical journal, the sydney morning herald… yes kids, it’s… the depression pop-quiz! it’s easy & fun! just compare your recent moods with the following list & try to beat your friends’ scores!
the symptoms
how did you go? — if you’ve been experiencing four or more of those symptoms for more than two weeks, then the herald says the US National Institutes of Health would advise you to see your doctor.
benchmarking — i should warn you now, you’ll need to score nine to beat me! (& if you’ve been feeling particularly cheerful & that seems too big a task, i’m prepared to award a five point bonus if you can correctly identify the three symptoms i haven’t been experiencing!) it’s weird, because i seem to remember feeling pretty much the same way since i was, oh, i don’t know, three? four? pretty much forever, really… & now i’m officially pathological! or do i mean pathetic? <grin>
now if you’ll excuse me i’ve got some inconsolable sobbing to get started on… if only i had a revitalising carbonated beverage to cheer me up… or a transformer. did you know there’s more to them than meets the eye?
vegetarian yum cha — had lunch with keri (hi keri!) at bohdi today, a vegetarian yum cha place just off george street. excellent food, & all served in this weird glassed-in laneway called eat street (wow, just how late did they stay up when they were thinking up the name?) eat street is kind of like someone stuck a couple of architects, some old buildings, a few hundred square metres of glass, some steel beams & a shopping centre food court into a great big bag & then kept poking it with sticks until everything stopped moving…
medicine flavour — mmmm mmmm! i bought a revitalising carbonated beverage (as drunk for thousands of years by amazonian indians) on the way back to work, & hasn’t my afternoon just been flashing by! whoosh! uh, well, actually… okay, so i think i might be marginally less sleepy than i’d normally be at this time of the day, but that could just be my afternoon coffee kicking in… <grin>
storehouse of wisdom? — ummm… platitudes, anyone?
Associates, clients or opponents seem to get in your way. You, however, have the strength
to meet almost any challenge. Draw from your storehouse of wisdom as you add yet
another experience to the pile.
wow, how disappointing is that? i think i need to get a funnier horoscope. maybe i should send them some of that delicious revitalising carbonated beverage? that’d fix their little red astrological wagons.
uh oh — if there’s a way to resist buying an almond croissant when there’s one on display at the In & Out Cafe when i’m on my way to work, then i’m yet to discover it… [mental note to self: why is your butt so big?] <grin>
of course, having bought an almond croissant, i’m then faced with the nigh insurmountable difficulty of having to eat it. well, of having to eat it without looking like i’ve been rolling about in a vat of icing sugar. mmmm, icing sugar. inna vat. mmmm.
so here i am, looking very professional in my newly frosted jacket. i hope today isn’t the day the building gets invaded by hungry ants or else i’m in big trouble. <grin> (hmmm. is there any way of telling if an ant’s hungry or not? other than waiting for it to start eating your jacket, that is. hey! quit it!)
you’re right, chris, the new hampshire number plate slogan is a little more intense than “queensland – the sunshine state” or “nsw – leave while you still can” isn’t it? <grin>
hey! rob sent us a postcard from london! hi rob! how are things?
capricornication — the latest episode of the never-ending saga of my stars, a day late:
By being prepared, you can avoid something that doesn’t need to happen. The people who
really matter may seem overly critical. Maintain a professional attitude at all times.
hmmm. i don’t remember anybody telling me i sucked yesterday… or maybe my professional attitude was like a shield of steel & i just didn’t notice? <grin>
new tiny fish report — our new fish appear to be doing well. i’m a little concerned that they may get run over by the nitrogen cycle at some point, but we did treat the tank before we introduced the fish, & we’re keeping a pretty close eye on them, so fingers crossed. my favourites are the little bronze catfish, which are excellent in a busy, industrious sort of way, & the bristlenose, which is kind of like a slacker catfish… <grin>
hey! where did all these ants come from? ohmigod! get away from me! no! no! aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!
yurg — what a day… it’s three minutes after six & the view from my office window is full of clouds gutherin’ oop over brewery… <grin>
excellent! — now i can drive this page wherever i like!
numberplate courtesy of the acme licencemaker, where else?
7 o’clock headache
trying to grasp your unrealised career
drops you into the subjective equivalent
of geological time, & you imagine
that what you’re feeling right now
could well be akin to the look on the face
of the businessman who has just stalled
his HSV commodore at the petersham lights,
a complex bewilderment that this could be happening
to you (i.e., him), while a fortune in self-image
dissipates in the languid morning westerly.
but you’re bored by all that dull shit,
momentarily convinced
you can pass off masculinity as an aesthetic choice
& not the stick we’re all getting whacked with,
drinking like an abstract expressionist about to be
thrown from a new york bar. & now those triceps
standing halfway down the bus could be yours,
& the sky swinging over victoria road
is exactly as empty as you believe it to be,
your mood harnessed & walking
like that couple’s cocker spaniel,
which, as they stop to goose each other
& rub their beards, waits patiently
for any notion to sink in.
the age of aquarium — on saturday morning we went to the pet shop to buy our new aquarium. we didn�t finish up with the one we thought we�d decided on, we bought a cheaper tank instead & stocked up on accessories with the money we would have otherwise spent on the more expensive model. <grin>
the tank we bought is really nice, it�s 63 x 33 x 45cm & holds about eighty litres. it came in a package deal with a submersible power filter (oops, sorry… i meant, of course, a multifunction centrifugal under water pump) & a lid with a built-in light. we also bought a pump to run a bubble wall aerator, & a heater, & a little net, & various assorted chemicals & test kits, &… <grin>
saturday afternoon was spent washing gravel (woohoo! washing gravel! boy oh boy, does that take me back… why, i remember…) & deciding where the tank would be set up. after a bit of discussion (during which andrew dropped by for a bit of a look-see) we set the tank up on linda�s coffee table & turned everything on. so far, so good…
jimbo & simon arrived from canberra on saturday night, & on sunday morning (after a brief detour to newtown for breakfast) simon drove us to the aquarium shop in marrickville where linda bought two zebra danios (Brachydanio rerio) & a bristlenose catfish (Ancistrus dolichopterus).
they appeared to adjust to the tank without any problems, & when we eventually arrived home last night after the once upon a time post-screening party it was immediately apparent that the fish were doing a much better job of maintaining their equilibrium than i was… <grin>
i felt a little too fragile to cope with the bus this morning (i was trying to count my drinks, but i dunno, the numbers just got too large) so i decided to spend the day working at home instead. linda & jimbo & simon all headed off to an aquarium shop in canterbury & returned triumphantly with two more zebra danios, four glowlight tetras (Hemigrammus erthrozonus) & four bronze catfish (Corydoras aeneus), all of whom appear to be fitting in just fine.
we�ve got a couple of pieces of wood that we�re gonna add in a week or so, & some of the plants look like they might take a little while to sort themselves out, but on the whole the tank�s looking really good & there�s heaps of activity wherever you look. well, unless you happen to look at the bristlenose, which appears to like sitting on or under the little piece of branch linda bought for it… <grin>
& not only does the tank look cool, but the whole process has been educational, too. allow me to quote from the submersible filter�s box:
QD-2200G under water pump, as the multi-function, extremely quiet pump, is the last word in this line home and abroad. For its advance in design, beautiful in shape, firm in structure, safety in insulation, it integrates the functions of both filtrating and pumping, is the best equipment for water supplying and draining, of the aquarium living seafood housing, fountain, medical treatment and chemical plant as well.
it�s kinda nice to know that if the aquarium doesn�t work out we can start up a chemical plant without having to throw away all of our existing equipment… <grin>
once upon a time — the premiere screening of andrew�s debut film went very smoothly on sunday. andrew booked the independent theatre in north sydney for the afternoon & then we kicked on for drinks afterwards. i thought the film itself came together pretty well, & we certainly learned a lot from it. (i, for instance, have learnt to be very careful whenever andrew�s rather considerable enthusiasm looks like being engaged in my immediate vicinity…) <grin>
oh, & i almost forgot — happy birthday (again) for sunday, andrew! welcome to the thirties… <grin>
hey, if anyone (hi dave, hi anne!) knows anything much about water hardness in aquariums, could you please like explain to me how i might begin to reconcile a carbonate hardness (KH) reading in what i think (from what the pamphlet says) stands for “degrees dkh” with carbonate hardness levels expressed in parts-per-million?
hmmm. i just found a page that suggests that the unit is actually just dH, or “degrees Hardness”, & that 1dH is approximately equal to 17.8ppm CaCO3. well, that’s cleared that up… <grin>
excellent — went shopping last night & bought myself a new iBook. it’s way cool, it’s got three speeds, & it oscillates, &… oh crap. that’s a fan isn’t it? oh well, at least it has european styling. which appears to mean that the corners have been rounded off. make of that what you will.
moon is in the 7th house… confirmed — hey, this wasn’t yesterday, this is my entire life!
By committing to one thing, you drive away everything else. Indecision is sweet as you
consider all the possibilities. The downside is that someone loses his or her patience as
you take your time.
indecision is sweet? oh please. i’m almost going to sleep with quandariness over here…
on ya bike — only a couple of thousand kilometres to go… <grin>
woo! woo! woo! — i don’t care if it just proves how shallow i am, but wow! a graphite iBook! (mind you, i still want an orange — sorry, tangerine — one… now with more memory & a bigger hard drive…) now let’s see… an orange iBook, & the latest versions of frontier, & fireworks, & BBEdit, & filemaker, &…
i dunno, i like my PCs & all, but they’re just kinda dull, you know? so… if i don’t pay the rent for a few months, & i stop eating, & i walk to work, & i start turning tricks down the cross… ummm… carry the seven… nah, still can’t afford one… damn. <grin>
it’s an absolutely gorgeous day in sydney today, exactly the sort of day on which you really wish you were locked in an office working through a huge pile of paper… wow! this is a perfect life! <grin> but seriously, folks…
hmmm… i dunno if it’s just a reaction to knowing that somewhere there’s an iBook with my name on it (it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine) but i’m actually feeling hugely positive today… or maybe it’s all the static electricity that my pants generate? bzzzt! ow! (yes, mr electric pants, that’s me…) <grin>
what? well, yeah, i do have something else i could be doing…
tall, dark & sulky — he was the bitiest vampire in the world until a gypsy curse condemned him to spend all eternity moping about & looking moody. then he was given his own show… (which means ample time for many more minutes of moping every episode!) a big vampiric week all round, really, what with the new season of buffy starting on monday night…
angel turned out to be nowhere near as lame as i was thinking it might, although i guess it’s early days yet. & i couldn’t help but notice Oz wearing his werewolf face in the new opening credits for buffy… remember: more werewolves means more good. rrowr-rrowr! <grin>
hmmm… methinks it could well be time to go & read ahead in the episode guide… <grin>
yeesh. been having one of those weeks where i’ve been working flat out but without seeming to make any impression on the pile of stuff i hafta work through… hey, maybe if i mope around a bit more i’ll get my own tv show too… or maybe (& this would be more immediately useful) i’ll develop some kind of mystical ability powered by moodiness that allows me to clear my desk without even raising a sweat… <grin>
speaking of mystical abilities, i wonder what the heavens have to tell me about what i was doing yesterday…
You can’t do it alone, but at least you can choose your partners in crime. The Gemini Moon
inspires or goads you into switching allegiances. Your thoughts are remarkably clear these
days.
uh oh. partners in crime. (oh crap. i definitely shouldn’t have said it was illegal…) still, i did buy CCs instead of Doritos, although i figured at the time that was more of an impulse thing than a complete switch of allegiance. but it’s true my thoughts are remarkably clear these days… in fact, you can see right through them, almost as if they aren’t really there… <grin>
ironic naming conventions — i knew i was in for a lengthy commute when my “express” bus was passed on enmore road this morning by a block of flats, a bulldozer being pulled by a beagle, & a potted plant on a skateboard. we barely managed walking pace through most of petersham, enmore & newtown… looks like i’m either gonna hafta start leaving home a little earlier or else buy myself a skycar or a scooter after all…
another relatively cool, rainy morning in sydney… [zzwwwwrrrrr & other sounds of fast-forwarding...] at least, it was… it’s now 10.20am & the sun’s come out…
highly astro-illogical — yo, capricorns! yesterday the planets were allegedly in this kind of alignment:
Now is the time to set aside your illusions. The world may not be wholly
indifferent, but neither does it revolve around you. Avoid those people who would
draw you into their own futile orbit.
hmmm… if i set aside my illusions, what else is left? but my real question to the stars is, how are you supposed to spot those people with futile orbits? & what’s a futile orbit anyway? a tangent? it’s all so damned elliptical… <grin>
not spinning, seizing — what goes “click uuuuuur vwoot vwoot vwoot vwoot VWOOT VWOOT VWOOT VWOOT VWOOT click vwoot vwoot uuuuurrr”? if your answer was ted’s electric fan, then try not to put your shoulder out when you give yourself a big pat on the back for being clever. fortunately the demise of my fan coincided rather spookily (some would say spookily-ookily) with the weekend’s cooler change (back down to the low-to-mid-twenties, aahh…) & i’ve now got an official excuse to go shopping! (like i need one.) <grin>
not shopping, learning — a letter arrived from unsw on friday afternoon offering linda an australian postgraduate award! the faculty of engineering (in which the compsci departments are situated) is also offering her a supplementary award on top of the scholarship! i think linda’s going in to unsw this morning to tell them that she doesn’t want their steekin’ money &… uh, hang on a minute… oh yeah, that’s right, now i remember. she’s actually taking in some kind of sack with a big dollar sign painted on it & is planning to march up & down the corridor in front of the scholarships office shouting “where do i sign?!?” until they ask her to go away… <grin>
not posting, slacking — well, you’ll notice that there’s still no link to my lame ass java applet. nor anything much else in the way of changes. maybe next weekend…
not crashing, landing — ken’s added a couple of jpgs to go with his skatin’ animations. including shots of anne grabbing some air & dave frightening his teeth! <grin>
not retracting, dissenting — oops, almost forgot. linda said that i should tell everyone that she thought dogma was great & that you shouldn’t not go & see it just because i didn’t think it was flawless. so i said, “hey, i don’t hafta tell nobody nuffin — why don’t you write your own steekin’ review on your own steekin’ website instead of hassling me about mine?” & then she said, “why i oughta…” & then stuff started flyin’ about all over the place &… <grin>
not puppy, kitty — more good music to listen to on buses: the first CD by the presidents of the united states of america… “we’re not / gonna may-yay-yake it / no no / we’re not / gonna may-yay-yake it. / ’cause we don’t have the talent / & we don’t have the time / & we don’t have the patience / & we don’t know how to rhyme.”
magicdogma — watched dogma this afternoon & wasn’t really all that impressed by it. i kept getting the feeling that if i was reading it as a comic book i would’ve put it down & thought, “wow, that’d make a great movie.” unfortunately, i didn’t think the movie i was watching was all that great.
which is not to say i didn’t enjoy it, because for the most part i did. some of the dialogue works really well (it’s a kevin smith film after all), & ben affleck’s & matt damon’s performances are great… i kinda liked alan rickman, too, although i thought his role was maybe a bit too obvious… in fact, i think that’s what really bugged me about the film — a lot of it seemed just a bit too obvious.
rant on — i mean, a lot of the elements just fell flat for me: where was god when all that bad stuff happened? ummm… god as a woman? wow. the church editorialised the bible? really? jesus as a black man? gasp. it doesn’t matter what you place your faith in just as long as you have faith? sigh.
the jay & silent bob characters are getting a bit tired, too. you know what they’re going to do & say. jay’s just gonna be more & more obscene & moronic, & silent bob’s gonna supply a double-take around about every five times that jay says “fuck”. they occasionally do or say something funny, but bob’s double-takes start to feel mechanical way too early in the film, & jay often just seems to be stringing together a few obscenities to fill in the time before the next scene starts.
i could go on about the visual effects (some of which i didn’t find particularly special – think doctor who & monkey magic) but not without giving too much of the plot away. & i guess if you’re making a movie about god it’s probably kinda difficult to avoid the whole deus ex machina thing at the end… which reminds me… there’s a bit in one of the sandman comics where morpheus is talking with delirium &… nah, that’d give too much away. <grin>
rant off — still, dogma’s worth a look. it’s pretty funny in parts, & alannis doesn’t sing until the final credits are rolling. i guess i was just expecting something more…
hey, it’s just started raining. (gosh, i hope my review didn’t make baby jesus cry…) <grin> sydney’s been kinda hot the last few days & the tv news has been promising a cooler change. maybe it’s finally arrived…
aquarium ahoy! — next weekend will be aquarium weekend (finances permitting). we were on our way to the pet shop today, but were brought down at the last hurdle by an automatic teller. we’ve decided on the type of tank, & now we’re just trying to figure out what kind of fish we want. i’m agitating for some kind of crocodile (not strictly a fish, i grant you), while linda’s lobbying for either a coelocanth or an electric eel.
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12/05: mother's day
14/06: anna
14/06: hana (10.45pm)
16/06: father's day
27/06: fiona
(accuracy not necessarily guaranteed)
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