Ahh, Spring! The season when everything just starts soaring out of the ground at the rate of knots, especially after the almost-drought-breaking amount of rain we've been having here in the Territory of the Free. Wednesday must be Mowing Day, because there were at least 5 mowers growling through the afternoon while I was trying to italicise the correct bits of a collection of essays on Blanchot (not speaking French gives me a distinct disadvantage in this task). Our lawn is remaining wild until this Saturday, which is the right and proper time to cut grass. One of my neighbours, I noticed as I strolled around the corner to crazybrave's house to rescue Bumblebee from homework procrastination, must have had a bad day, because a large part of their lawn is mown beautifully, while the other looks like they've shaved their legs without their glasses on. Maybe they did half each...
Speaking of which , Spring is also the time to decide whether to go sleek or hairy in the summer months. You ladies (and probably a number of men) will know what I mean.
I started shaving when I was about 14. I couldn't see hair on anyone else's arms, so I shaved not only under my arms, but on my arms. Then I noticed the hairs on other people's arms and felt utterly stupid. Anyhoo, my dad got cranky that I'd started shaving and had a big argument with my mother about it in front of me, the first time ever that they didn't disappear into a bedroom to have [barely muffled] 'words'. She defended me, like all good mothers do. She even went out and bought my first bra with me that day, just to prove a point. I guess he just had to cope with the onset of a rampant teenage daughter.
But he didn't cope when I went to uni and discovered proto-lipstick feminism. That is, I stopped shaving but I wore make-up. Dad railed at me about my hairy legs. I railed back: "First you wanted me to stop, then when I did stop, you want me to start! Is there anything else you'd like?" "Pay your own rent", he replied. Luckily he was joking, that time.
These days I do the continental thang -- well, my version of it, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Luxuriant leg growth in Winter, when I can wear as many layers as I want and camouflage is the name of the game. When thinner layers are needed (like now), I shed the fur -- but only on the legs. I like my little underarm pets, and refuse to see body hair as an evil that must be destroyed. I'm sorry to say my ex-military father still looks at me askance in Summer if I raise my arms near him, but since I'm happily married with one child and have fulfilled my womanly/daughterly duties, he's stopped giving me curry about it.
So I'm getting out the telephone number of the nice little waxing salon in Dickson; I'm prone to shaving my legs without my glasses on in the shower, and if I don't do it right with the first shedding of the season, my legs will look like the lawn down the road...
Please feel free to share your hair- /fat- /bastard- shedding stories here while I'm in a girlie mood (which isn't terribly often!)
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Bloggers without borders
Over at LP there's been big discussions about the value of blogging, and of blogging etiquette, especially when commenting. How rude can one be? What if someone takes offence from afar? Why blog at all? I'm not going to answer any questions here, because I've just spent the day ghost-writing an awful paper on artist's books that makes me glad I'm not openly the author, and my brain is at the point of hari-kiri. Besides, if you want to get really serious about these things, there's other blogs that will happily accommodate your needs :)
But I will offer this link which I stumbled upon at said ghostee's house while I was trying to keep my thoughts straight. It's a downloadable publication called the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents. Here's the blurb:
Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they're tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.
I just downloaded it, and had a quick look. It's very good, gives simple explanations for blogging terminology, and talks about how to get your blog up, improved, noticed by search engines etc. It also talks about blogging ethics, which I'll read more about later. It's going to be published in hard copy, but you can download for free at the link, in either screen res or printer-friendly form.
I gave you the quick link; I originally found it at a site called Digital Souls, which has a varied selection of fun and freaky e-books and reviews, including a link offering 'mind-bending software' for kids. Have a read, it's bizarrely fun.
But I will offer this link which I stumbled upon at said ghostee's house while I was trying to keep my thoughts straight. It's a downloadable publication called the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents. Here's the blurb:
Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they're tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.
I just downloaded it, and had a quick look. It's very good, gives simple explanations for blogging terminology, and talks about how to get your blog up, improved, noticed by search engines etc. It also talks about blogging ethics, which I'll read more about later. It's going to be published in hard copy, but you can download for free at the link, in either screen res or printer-friendly form.
I gave you the quick link; I originally found it at a site called Digital Souls, which has a varied selection of fun and freaky e-books and reviews, including a link offering 'mind-bending software' for kids. Have a read, it's bizarrely fun.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Fun with Beetroot 2
Recently Mummy Crit and I were comparing notes on cooking with beetroot. It's an excellent vegetable, with so much more to it than being pickled in vinegar and whacked in a tin!
I haven't had a chance to do any decent home cooking lately; we've been cleaning out the freezer of leftovers and making hasty meals. Yesterday I managed to get to the local Farmer's Market and beetroot was $2 for 2 bunches. So today I made chocolate cake, and later in the week we'll have red rice. This cake recipe is terrific. I love the earthiness of the beetroot in amongst the choc hit.
CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CAKE
75g cocoa powder
180g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
250g caster sugar
250g cooked beetroot*
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 ml corn or sunflower oil
icing sugar, to dust
-- preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, lightly butter a 20 pan (or 2-3 mini-muffin tins)
-- sift cocoa, flour & powder into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and set aside.
-- puree beetroot then add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add vanilla and oil and whiz until smooth.
-- make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add beet mix and stir to combine, thoroughly but lightly.
-- pour into pan (spoon in for mini-muffin tin) and bake for 50-60 minutes (35-40 for mini-muffins) or until a skewer comes out clean when you test it. The batter won’t rise a lot, and the top will crack.
-- remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then tip onto a wire cooling rack.
-- dust with icing and serve.
* I find this is four smallish ones, 3 medium, or 2 large. I top & tail the whole beetroot, then put on a plate or low bowl with a small bit of water, cover with clingwrap and cook in the microwave on high for 5-8 minutes (depending on the size), then cool. The skins will rub off easily with your fingers, then you can chop & puree.
Enjoy! The cake tin gives you a nice, moist choccy cake; the mini-muffin tins take a bit of watching so they don't dry out too much, but the result is terrific for lunchboxes and tea-parties (or scoffing during late-night-work-low-sugar-levels).
I haven't had a chance to do any decent home cooking lately; we've been cleaning out the freezer of leftovers and making hasty meals. Yesterday I managed to get to the local Farmer's Market and beetroot was $2 for 2 bunches. So today I made chocolate cake, and later in the week we'll have red rice. This cake recipe is terrific. I love the earthiness of the beetroot in amongst the choc hit.
CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CAKE
75g cocoa powder
180g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
250g caster sugar
250g cooked beetroot*
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 ml corn or sunflower oil
icing sugar, to dust
-- preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, lightly butter a 20 pan (or 2-3 mini-muffin tins)
-- sift cocoa, flour & powder into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and set aside.
-- puree beetroot then add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add vanilla and oil and whiz until smooth.
-- make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add beet mix and stir to combine, thoroughly but lightly.
-- pour into pan (spoon in for mini-muffin tin) and bake for 50-60 minutes (35-40 for mini-muffins) or until a skewer comes out clean when you test it. The batter won’t rise a lot, and the top will crack.
-- remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then tip onto a wire cooling rack.
-- dust with icing and serve.
* I find this is four smallish ones, 3 medium, or 2 large. I top & tail the whole beetroot, then put on a plate or low bowl with a small bit of water, cover with clingwrap and cook in the microwave on high for 5-8 minutes (depending on the size), then cool. The skins will rub off easily with your fingers, then you can chop & puree.
Enjoy! The cake tin gives you a nice, moist choccy cake; the mini-muffin tins take a bit of watching so they don't dry out too much, but the result is terrific for lunchboxes and tea-parties (or scoffing during late-night-work-low-sugar-levels).
Friday, October 07, 2005
High Jinks for the Holidays
It's not often I get to see my own son in the school holidays. Between his father and his grandparents, I quite often only see him for a couple of days, which is really no better than a school-term weekend. Well, this holidays I got him for the whole week, and I thought we'd have a good time. Bugger it -- if Saturday dads can spoil their kids with lollies and outings, why can't the residential parents?
So, this week we:
-- went camping (see below)
-- saw a movie
-- went to the circus (hooray! clowns!)
-- went to Questacon and did cool sciencey things and missed out by a matter of minutes on being the 6-millionth visitor (who got a free hot-air balloon ride). Bummer!
and then we visited Floriade. Ahh, Floriade, you either love it or hate it. I go through a teeth-gnashing vascillation every year. I love the concept: springtime with flowers, flowers, and more flowers and fun activities in the park, free to the public. But they never quite get it right, in my book. There's a theme every year, and this year's was 'Rock & Roll'. It was a pretty Babyboomer kind of vision, with lots of 60s titles, and a few more recent songs thrown in to make you feel included. My favorite flowerbed was 'Paint it Black', with lots of black and dark purple tulips and pansies, with a touch of red here & there. Noice.
But what about this?
Hello? Where's the blue? How can you have a title like that stuffed full of ... daffodils?! It did get a bit flabby that way.
I was pleased to see the possum still holding court over the women's toilets.
It's there every year, in broad daylight, just sitting and watching, sometimes delighting the tourists more than the flowers. Bumblebee thought I was having him on, thought it was a stuffed possum, but no, it moved around to see him better, and he was most impressed, as were the other camera-clickers around me.
The best thing (for me) at Floriade is the decorated gnome contest. People just go all out to make their gnomes look really cool, or very odd. The theme was, of course, Rock'n'Roll, and there were lots of different categories, such as the 'Under-6' group, whose gnomes all looked as if their cake had been left out in the rain, all the sweet green icing flowing down... and the Group section, whose contestants were Scout groups and Old Folks Home residents, etc. There were hundreds of hand-painted gnomes. It's very funny. Here are my favorites:
Bread! Excellent group concept. Except none of the youngies knew who they were...
Kylie Mi-gnome, which is about the right height, anyway...
Britney Spears, complete with 'Golden Ticket' t-shirt over her baby bump. This was in the teenage section
Bob Marley and the Whalers {sic}, with plastic whale underneath.
Devo gnomes. I love the real flowerpot hats.
This could be Alice Cooper, Trent Reznor or a handful of other dark dudes. Take your pick.
There were LOTS of Kiss gnomes. This was my favorite, because he just looks like he's partied too hard for too many years.
This is for Zoe and Laura. I'd forgotten his short music career...
And these next two images are my favorites, mostly because deep down I have a lot of gen X grief in my heart for the way Michael Jackson has gone off the rails. I loved him when he and I were little and for me, his degeneration has always been a metaphor for that of society generally...
I think this last one is a real classic...
The.. the.. That's all, fffolks! Or as we say in this house, have a beautiful sleep, and wake up as happy as a lark.
So, this week we:
-- went camping (see below)
-- saw a movie
-- went to the circus (hooray! clowns!)
-- went to Questacon and did cool sciencey things and missed out by a matter of minutes on being the 6-millionth visitor (who got a free hot-air balloon ride). Bummer!
and then we visited Floriade. Ahh, Floriade, you either love it or hate it. I go through a teeth-gnashing vascillation every year. I love the concept: springtime with flowers, flowers, and more flowers and fun activities in the park, free to the public. But they never quite get it right, in my book. There's a theme every year, and this year's was 'Rock & Roll'. It was a pretty Babyboomer kind of vision, with lots of 60s titles, and a few more recent songs thrown in to make you feel included. My favorite flowerbed was 'Paint it Black', with lots of black and dark purple tulips and pansies, with a touch of red here & there. Noice.
But what about this?
Hello? Where's the blue? How can you have a title like that stuffed full of ... daffodils?! It did get a bit flabby that way.
I was pleased to see the possum still holding court over the women's toilets.
It's there every year, in broad daylight, just sitting and watching, sometimes delighting the tourists more than the flowers. Bumblebee thought I was having him on, thought it was a stuffed possum, but no, it moved around to see him better, and he was most impressed, as were the other camera-clickers around me.
The best thing (for me) at Floriade is the decorated gnome contest. People just go all out to make their gnomes look really cool, or very odd. The theme was, of course, Rock'n'Roll, and there were lots of different categories, such as the 'Under-6' group, whose gnomes all looked as if their cake had been left out in the rain, all the sweet green icing flowing down... and the Group section, whose contestants were Scout groups and Old Folks Home residents, etc. There were hundreds of hand-painted gnomes. It's very funny. Here are my favorites:
Bread! Excellent group concept. Except none of the youngies knew who they were...
Kylie Mi-gnome, which is about the right height, anyway...
Britney Spears, complete with 'Golden Ticket' t-shirt over her baby bump. This was in the teenage section
Bob Marley and the Whalers {sic}, with plastic whale underneath.
Devo gnomes. I love the real flowerpot hats.
This could be Alice Cooper, Trent Reznor or a handful of other dark dudes. Take your pick.
There were LOTS of Kiss gnomes. This was my favorite, because he just looks like he's partied too hard for too many years.
This is for Zoe and Laura. I'd forgotten his short music career...
And these next two images are my favorites, mostly because deep down I have a lot of gen X grief in my heart for the way Michael Jackson has gone off the rails. I loved him when he and I were little and for me, his degeneration has always been a metaphor for that of society generally...
I think this last one is a real classic...
The.. the.. That's all, fffolks! Or as we say in this house, have a beautiful sleep, and wake up as happy as a lark.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Riding the cat portal...
A fair while ago I put my cat Mr Padge into the Infinite Cat Project, and posted about it. There was a rather hilarious comments section on that post which I can't link to because I've gone to Haloscan and I'm too cheap to buy all my old comments back. Anyhoo, it involved Harry from For Battle! and a friend sitting in an internet cafe getting drunk (or already many drinks past thirsty) and flipping through the ICP until they almost made themselves sick. We fantasised about having it all automated, so that the various cats would flip through at speed making a pussy version of the Dr Who credits.
Well, I've since discovered that a portion of the ICP has been automated, and you can find it here, along with many other oddments of cat-related film.
I've also since tried to take a photo of both Padge and Pooter for the ICP, but it's too difficult. Firstly, they have problems sitting still together. Second, they're black and hard to photograph, and third they think computers are really boring. They do like mice, though. Better than keyboards.
Well, I've since discovered that a portion of the ICP has been automated, and you can find it here, along with many other oddments of cat-related film.
I've also since tried to take a photo of both Padge and Pooter for the ICP, but it's too difficult. Firstly, they have problems sitting still together. Second, they're black and hard to photograph, and third they think computers are really boring. They do like mice, though. Better than keyboards.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Warning: contains contentment
KER-PLONK!
Don't you just love the sound of a heavy rock hitting water? So does Bumblebee.
After a couple of hectic weeks, we spent the long weekend at our favorite spot, Depot Beach, on the far south coast of NSW. It's where we got married, less than a year ago (I say 'we' advisedly; we gave Bumblebee such a good role in the process that he thinks the wedding joined us all as a family rather than BB and I as a couple, and he always says 'this is where we got married'. Fair enough too).
It was my birthday on the weekend, and this was my birthday treat. I swam every day (gasping and screeching at the coldness of the water), we ate good food, went for long walks, and lots of holes were dug and sandcastles made. I would have a quick (!) dip, and lie in the sun with my book, while they did far more energetic things.
I must say, strange as it sounds, that sitting on a beach in the sun is an excellent place to read Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, because it is a curiously life-affirming book.
We also managed, on Sunday night, to purloin a fire tub and some wood to have a campfire, which made the weekend just perfect. We sat around the fire drinking wine (and juice) and toasting marshmallows, reading the latest Harry Potter aloud while the rest of the campsite exploded with cries of 'GO TIGERS!!', 'UP THE TIGERS!!!' and 'TIIIIGGGGGEEEERRRRRRSSSSSS....'. Not being sport fans, we found this very irritating, especially since it was accompanied by blaring commentaries from sundry radios. Ah well. I don't even know who the other team were, everyone at Depot seems to 'go the Tigers'.
When we got back home and unpacked the cats were miffed, having been left with a household of visiting aunties who doted upon them but weren't us. Poor loveys, how they must have suffered, having so many laps to sit on and hands to be stroked by. So we thought we'd show them what an empty house really felt like and went to see Howl's Moving Castle for a few hours. If you only take your kids to one movie these holidays, make it this one. I wish there were more around like it. I was given some birthday money, and I've just spent it it one hit, ordering Diana Wynne Jones books over the internet, on the strength of the movie, and fuschia's recommendation.
When we got back again, happy and glowing from a weekend of sun, sea and a fabulous imaginative movie, the cats were much happier to see us.
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