trixtah | Entries tagged with misc

It looks like this is the week where Canberra has decided, "fuck it, it's winter: suck it, bitches". It got up to a balmy 4 deg Celsius yesterday with a low of nearly minus 2, but today, with the sun shining, it was 11 deg. Which was nice, because I got my washing dry. There was a bit of sleet in some of the suburbs earlier in the week, and one of my minions was desperate to go skiing this weekend. The sky has been reminding me of wintry weather in London, especially since the road I live on has oak trees lining it.

Hilariously, I'm feeling incredibly homesick, and I'd love to go home to NZ to warm up (pause for non-Canberran Australians to fall about laughing). My surprise promotion wasn't that well-timed, really, because there is an event on in Auckland at the end of the month I'd love to have attended. Never mind, maybe I can head back August-ish. I suppose I should check when the uni term starts. One good thing is that my little flat is much easier to keep warm than the place I was living in last year, although some double-glazing would be nice.

I bought tons of makings for soup (split peas, pearl barley, yadda yadda), but while I was staring at nice organic bacon bones at the butcher today, I didn't buy them. I really don't know what planet I'm on sometimes - I could have bought the fuckers and stuck them in the freezer, and then made tastee soup whenever I was ready. Duh.

I was going to post about a movie I saw this weekend, but I think I'll leave that for another time soon. But for some fun, I was reading Shapely Prose's back entries, and found a post about "tiny superpowers".

Tiny superpowers abound. You have one, though you might not know it. Maybe you can always find a parking spot, or call a friend at just the right time, or pipe a perfect frosting rose. What can you do that seems a little bit magic?

So, what's my superpower? If I can remember a specific phrase (or, sometimes, a word) from a book, I can also remember which page face I read it on (left or right), the approximate position on the page, and the approximate distance through the book. This means I can usually look up quotes quickly. While it's naturally better if I've read the book a number of times, it's only because more phases "stick" if I re-read something. If something has hooked my mind the first time through, I can generally locate it later on.

As another variation, one of my exes (when we were together) used to almost always ring me when I happened to be thinking of her for more than a couple of minutes. It still happens occasionally - in fact, she pretty much rings or emails only when I've been thinking of her for some reason. Maybe we have similar intervals when we want to get in contact, but it's kind of bizarre.

ETA: one more - my aunty can correct knitting patterns just by reading them. Including complicated French patterns.

So, what things do you do that seem a little bit magic? What's your tiny superpower?

I've decided that on DW, I won't be subscribing to people's journals that consist mainly or entirely of LoudTwitter posts. One of the things I like about these journalling sites is that they encourage us to write prose. Sure, sometimes all you want to say can be expressed in a line or two, but those lines are usually contiguous and meaningful.

With Twitter, tweets seem much more gnomic (unless you're aware of the context) and are often time-sensitive and contingent. The latter is fine, but duplicating them on a journalling site that can act as an archive and which is designed to encourage discussion seems somehow unnecessary. Twitter is a one-to-many communication; while a journal can be like that, it's also about many-to-many communication, and that's its strength. Regarding my first objection, the meaninglessness of many tweets without context, it's exacerbated - for me - by the fact that LoudTwitter aggregates them once a day, so you can have several lines of unrelated thoughts in a post that I want to read as connected. It makes my brain ache. I also prefer to be able to instantly see where a link is taking me, and naturally TinyURL and the like are not conducive to that.

I think the most important thing I want to say about not receiving tweets via LJ or DW is that there is already more than one way I can follow people anyway. Firstly, I have a Twitter account myself, also as "trixtah", which was predominantly made for the purpose of subscribing to other people's tweets (who knows, maybe I'll get hooked myself). Secondly, I, and anyone else, can subscribe to someone's Twitter page via RSS. We can even get an RSS feed in our journals' subscription pages, if we want to. In fact, Twitter is really just like a portable RSS feed. It seems that posting them as journal posts is completely redundant.

On LJ, I won't be defriending anyone who has moved to an entirely Twitter-based posting practice, but I will be removing them from my default filter. If you want to make a connection on Twitter, great (and I've already hooked up with a bunch of people). But that's the only way I'll be following Twitter-based communications from now.

My hairdresser is a dude, seriously. He even thinks PJ Harvey is the sexiest woman in rock, and the second sexiest woman evah (after his wife)
I had a real mission finding a lightbulb that I could use to replace the blown one in my lounge. Have they actually gone and banned incandescents without my noticing? My lounge light has a bayonet fitting with a fairly tight plastic sleeve. I spent $24 on energy-efficient bulbs (three different kinds!), but the base of those was too thick to fit into the sleeve part (it would get most of the way down, but not enough to screw it into the bayonet fitting). Luckily, I tracked down some halogen bulbs that look just like incandescents, but which are apparently 30% more energy-efficient. More importantly, they fit. And, hey, if I actually had dimmers, the bulb would work in those too!
I found a horribly addictive geography Flash game. You have to try and click as close as possible to the location of more or less obscure cities on a world map. It's a little bit repetitive after a few goes, but not too much, and I am determined to get to level 10. At present, I've gotten to level 7, and 10000 or so points. It turns out I know nothing about the former USSR (other than where St Petersburg and Moscow are) or 90% of Africa, while central Europe, and South and Central America is decidedly hazy. At least I know where Reunion Island is. And Bucaramanga in Colombia.

As the temperature has peaked at over 40 deg, and I barely slept last night, I've checked into a hotel with *aircon*. Yes, I will pay over 150 bucks to sleep in comfort for one night. 5 minute walk to the multicultural festival too. Perfect.

Current Mood: hot

Any Canberra-ites going to the Handmade Market tomorrow at Albert Hall? I think I'll be checking it out, since I've already decided to hit the multicultural festival in the evening.

HOT! TOO HOT!

I'm interested to know why and how people use LJ - I wonder if whoever owns it this week has carried out surveys about this kind of thing. Also, I haven't done one for [Poll #1329621]

Current Mood: curious

Wishing the best of New Years to everyone; if you were having celebrations last night, I hope they were utterly fabulous.

I hope the coming year is much less rough for the many people around me who have had a tough one. For me, I hope to have a more productive year, get a bit fitter, complete the university course I've enrolled for, and spend more time with my loved ones.

...and then I was thinking of taking a wee trip into town to have a decadent lunch in a nice cafe

( maybe not )

Canberra's in the north-western quadrant, right where the band of thunderstorms is. Oh well, at least my car got another rinse before I parked it in its shelter.

Swarovski crystals. Why?

Why do people want to pay ridiculous amounts of money for tackily-shaped mostly non-functional ~~tat~~ glass. I certainly understand the decorative value of glass beads and even some glass ornaments. But what is it about the brand that makes people pay so much for it? (5 or 6 times the price of regular glass beads, from what I can tell. Ok, they're lead crystal and have special coatings, but still. I'm not going to discuss the "ornaments")

ETA: Thanks everyone for enlightening me as to the fact that the crystal beads are superb quality and should totally command a premium price. We'll draw a veil over the rest of the stuff. :-)

As part of my recent birthday haul, I got an utterly gorgeous alpaca wool blanket from

saluqi and

faxon. It's very light, has a slightly coarse weave (which I like better than the fine cashmere-type effect), is a wonderful charcoal colour, and is as soft as cat fur mixed with silk. I'm having whimsical thoughts of it being something the Elves would have used for the cloaks they provided the party at Lothlorien. Not sure if the alpacas could graze amongst the mallorn trees, though. Heh. I like my blankie very much.

On a slightly more adult note, are french horns (with xtra bonus trumpetings) the musical version of Comic Sans in sci-fi movies and tv, and science documentaries? I blame the original Star Trek theme for the conflation of their parping and "intrepid investigation" or whatever we're supposed to be associating it with. I wish they'd stop.

ETA: I know what it is with the goddamned french horns! It's Holst's The Planets. Can we move away from this ~~cliche~~inspiration? Now?

</omitting rant on the stupidities of certain aspects of vigorous DRMing and IP protection when most of the arts are recycling certain themes/media/whatever constantly>

Dear food service people (at least four spotted this week):

There is absolutely no point wearing a vinyl glove for food service if you're going to handle goddamned money with the hand wearing said glove. Because I could see that you were constantly handling money and then the food with that gloved hand. While I assume you remove the glove, wash your hands and put on a fresh glove after visiting the facilities, you are obviously generously assuming that those dozens of people handing you money haven't just wiped their arses and neglected the hygiene. Or sneezed into their hands. Or changed their baby's nappy. Or any number of other disgusting habits.

Or maybe you think the glove is for your benefit (saves washing your hands so often!) WRONG. The correct procedure is to leave at least one hand bare, which handles the food only with tongs, and use that hand for handling cash. While still washing regularly. Or not handling money at all. Or gloving both hands and changing gloves between each service (not practical and wasteful). Or leaving gloves off and washing hands ditto (not at all practical). In any case, money/bad hygiene + (gloved or not) hands + direct food handling = BAD.

No love,

Trix

PS. I'm not going to be eating at Sumo Salad on the top floor of the Canberra Centre until I notice some changes being made.

I've decided we need words for two concepts. "Negative nostalgia" - as in that kind of nostalgic feeling you have, but when you're reminded of something bad. That you no longer have to put up with. It's not like being "triggered" with OMG Trauma, but just that "thank god I don't have to deal with that crap any more".

Also, I want a word that is the opposite of "schadenfreude". In other words, getting pleasure out of someone else's good fortune or happiness. This is not the same as "compersion", since I am thinking of the new word as a superset of that concept. In other words, it's not just about being happy that your SO is happy with someone else. Closely related to altruism, methinks, but without your having to give anything. "Verstärkungfreude" or, I dunno, "verbesserungfreude" just doesn't quite work.

Current Music: King Tubby - The Border

Thank you all so much for your birthday wishes the other day; it was lovely. It was nice getting all those good wishes when I was feeling a bit feeble.

I am slowly getting to grips with online stuff after only just getting to eating real food today. I was going to work this week, but the bug (and the fact I was only eating when I felt I was going to keel over from lack of energy) certainly kept the old energy levels down. Still, I imagine I'll be bouncing back over the next few days and boring you with my normal levels of comment and rantings.

Oh, and the miracle cure for actually eating real food today was my finally hitting on taking a probiotic supplement via capsule. I'd been desultorily eating good quality yoghurt (it's too cold, really), and

faxon suggested the wee Yakult-type shots, but since I don't drink milk, the idea of sculling one of those made me pukey just thinking of it. Taking the capsules - duh! - gets around that particular problem, there are generally more organisms in a dose, and the capsule design supposedly delivers more of them intact to the lower intestine (rather than mainly the stomach).

Anyways, whether or not it's a coincidence, my digestion seems a heck of a lot more normal today, after starting them yesterday (no TMI, blergh), and I actually had an appetite for lunch and dinner. With protein. And fats. OMG!

It started off with a cold shower (almost literally, so I heated up a kettle of water and had a basin bath), but the rest of the morning proceeded assez bien after the flatties dropped me off at the bus interchange. ( grizzlings ) Have I mentioned I dislike maze-like suburbs that all look the same in the dark?

However, part of my and the CDL's lunchtime conversation was reminiscing about the nice meal we once ate in Auckland - I like having extravagent meals (as in more than a $100 per person) out once every few years, and there have been some memorable ones. So here is my list of my most memorable meals in terms of "extravagent eating out" (I've had other cheapy memorable meals; that'll be a separate list):

A 5-course Japanese meal at what was the Pan Pacific hotel in Auckland, with my ex lover D around 1990. It was fantastic (although since it was the first non-sushi full Japanese meal I'd eaten, I dunno how it'd stack up now). We felt like we were enacting a scene from I Heard the Mermaids Singing at one stage, when one of the small dishes of tasty things they bought out consisted of 2 very large octopus tentacles (at least 2 cm in diameter and about 20cm long) complete with suckers (but no skin). I had to eat it first - D utterly refused to take a bite initially - but it was really nice. Beautifully marinated and melt-in-your-mouth consistency. The cocktails in the bar downstairs were nice too. I also had another wonderful meal with D, at the Harbourside restaurant in the old Ferry Building in Auckland, but I'll talk about that elsewhere.
Dinner at the Providores in Marylebone, Peter Gordon's fusion cuisine restaurant. Fusion seems to have become a dirty word for many, but I like it if it's well-executed. There's plenty of other modernist cuisine that succeeds in being peculiar and unappetising. Good fusion is neither of these things - I'm not into the "art for art's sake" school of cooking. Anyways, I went there with my ex V, and we managed to spend over a hundred quid. I suspect the wine list was partially to blame. As was the dessert menu (the panna cotta was to die for).
The degustation meal at the now-defunct Dijon's, here in Canberra, not long after I first arrived here, with my former OGF and her boys. 7 courses and matching wines. Bloody awesome food - I even had some wee slivers of venison - and the waiter hadn't received the message that the matching wines are only supposed to be 1/2 glasses. Thank god I wasn't driving.
The aforementioned dinner with the CDL at the Soul Bar in the Auckland Viaduct while we were attending the Auckland PolyCon. The building is on the site where my old friend N used to live illegally in the old Auckland Electric Power Board building (living anywhere in Central Auckland was effectively illegal up until about 15 years ago, except for council flats and a few swanky old apartment buildings). Anyways, Soul Bar could definitely be posey, I think, but it was a relatively quiet night (or we were there too early for the cool people), the food was fantastic, including oysters and whitebait fritters, the view was nice, the wine good, the company was fab, and the service was unobtrusive and good. It all added up to perfection.

See, all that talking about food cheered me up. I'd like to see other people's memorable meals lists if you fancy compiling them! :-)

Current Mood: content

Firstly, via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, for all you crafty types out there: What Not to Crochet. Just have your brain bleach and the rusty pins for the suffering eyeballs at the ready. And the blog wins for coining the term "poncho-derived child abuse". I had a crochet'd poncho as a kidlet in the early 70s, and I thought it was naff even then (funnily enough, I don't mind woven ponchos. Without tassels or garish colours.)

Secondly, a piece by George Monbiot in the Grauniad last week, on how small farms are apparently more productive than industrial farms (just ignore the stupid first para on Mugabe).

Though the rich world's governments won't hear it, the issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, and has since been confirmed by dozens of studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.
...
The most plausible explanation is that small farmers use more labour per hectare than big farmers. Their workforce largely consists of members of their own families, which means that labour costs are lower than on large farms (they don't have to spend money recruiting or supervising workers), while the quality of the work is higher.

These small farms, of course, are the entire basis of the fair trade movement - if that didn't exist, how many more apparently less efficient industrial farms would we have? Anyways, interesting food for thought, so to speak.

I did actually sign up to Twitter, but can I be bothered configuring it? Not yet. So I'll try posting via email, which I can do just as well from my phone anyway.

We'll see how this goes...

ETA: Well, it kind of worked. For future reference, an "lj-header" must be populated if it's listed.

Current Mood: curious

Via

sarudy

You are a dog

Or maybe you are a mosquito, you certainly can't be human.

The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 21.1kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!

It's a strange sensation not hearing the very top note they play - not even the wee clicking noise at the beginning and end of the clip. I was using headphones as well. I'm slightly paranoid about my hearing - I'd rather go blind than deaf, if one has to make a stupid choice like that (yes, odd for someone who likes to read so much).

epi_lj posts an image of his desktop every once in a while, and I thought I'd join the party. It's a bit more minimalist than usual (guess which browser I've been playing with!) because I don't have my MP3 player or other removable storage loaded (they show up as icons on the desktop when they're available). Oh, that's a 50% screensize - none of yer snazzy widescreens for me (yet)!

There's a certain song that really sums up the 90s for me, and I looove the chorus.

( cut for nasty nasty lyrics )

And, heh, it's not just one person it reminds me of. Chocolate fish to those who know the artist and/or song title! :-)

Oh, and the equally nasty nasty director's cut of the video is on YouTube.

Current Mood: awake

dot_queer_snark has broken the 100 user threshold! Unfortunately, it hasn't updated in a few weeks, since all the ~~fodder~~queer communities I follow have been relatively sane lately. Damnit. Some of those 100 other users had better start coming up with the goods! :-)

What I also need to do is start posting some content in

queerly_open, since I haven't really gotten the ball rolling there yet, and there have been some het-poly assumptions that have given me food for thought lately.

Also today, I reactivated an aborted gym membership (hassles with direct debits got that mucked up) and went and tortured myself a bit today. It was fun. Also, without particularly trying, I've somehow managed to lose about 3 kilos in the last few months. Tai chi is helping, I'm sure, and limiting the amount of eating out I was doing undoubtedly has too. I'm not focussed on weight per se, but I do like feeling strong and somewhat muscular. It's unlikely I'll lose much more weight with exercise - in fact, I'll probably gain it again once I build up a bit (I've hovered around 80kg for the last decade) - but having a bit of sleek definition (if that's not a contradiction in terms) isn't such a bad thing either.

Also regarding tai chi, it has really helped my knee get back into shape. I've been striding along when I walk in almost my old manner. It is still a bit tight around the ligaments down the side and gives me the occasional twinge, but it's much much better.

The interesting thing is that now my knee is getting nicely strengthened, my right ankle is feeling quite a bit more delicate. I've badly sprained it a number of times in the past, and it's part of the reason I fucked my knee in the first place - if I place my foot the wrong way, the ligaments are so lax (and were lax even before the sprains) that I a) don't notice the fact I'm going beyond the point of no return as quickly as most would; and b) recovering from when I do notice is pretty much impossible. If my foot lands even slightly badly, I go over. So, I've been feeling aches and tension in my ankle ligaments, and I'm hoping that means I'm using it better now that my knee is more normal, and the tai chi is doing its thing there too. Fingers crossed!

Also apropos of nothing at all, I finally ripped my Region 2 copy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (more than 3 years since I last watched it, agh), only to find I'd selected the English soundtrack (and the subtitles)! Heh. So wrong! So, another three hours reripping to Mandarin. ::sigh:: My next project is to rip D.E.B.S. (so sue me, I like the occasional cheezy movie), and edit in the sexy scene that got the chop. If anyone wants to check out the somewhat more edgy short that the feature movie was based on, it's here. That is lesbo movie-making and dyke drama that makes me laugh (faults n all).

Oh, and if you want to look at more short movie-making by Angela Robinson - amusing "noir" stuff, although one of the leads annoys me - check out Girltrash. They're 3 minute clips, and it's up to episode 9. There are some fun lines, and Episode 6 with Rose Rollins in the laundromat is priceless. Due to the "bitty" nature of the episodes, it's not exactly high art, but it's pretty fun.

Current Mood: cheerful

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Random raves

Winter is definitely here

Today's frivolity

Tweetings

Sundries

We've established I'm a wimp

Craftiness

Survey time!

Happy New Year!

I just washed my car

Luxury goods I don't get #898

I has a blankie

Sundries

Dear everyone

A parson's egg of a day

Linkage of the day

Testing posting via email

Erm

(no subject)

Ah, nostalgia...

Eee!

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January 2016

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