Jameses.org

I’ll get around to putting a few photos up from my recent trip home in a day or two… In the meantime, I thought I’d share a poem I found from a year or two ago, newly rediscovered during some random cleaning and sorting this evening…

Sitting; shifting; in an out and in again.
Attention wavering as the hum-drum of paid-up people drifts me by.
The sky’s not seen here, but a thousand lamps attempt to replicate,
as the meek seek to become great in the eyes of peers, playing the seers of industry.
Talking, keynoting, bignoting one’s self, one’s company, one’s image.
For the sake of more more business, money and, alas, happy hour drinks.
In and out I go again to the brink of inattention.
Abstention from the right to think should take me through to evenining drinks…

One of the good things about the internet and the increased use of free media for self-exposition is the innovation and creativity it encourages. The pure numbers of people floating around the internet who are interested in a short video/blog post/tidbit that exhibits originality of concept and nice execution mean that talented ‘artists’ have a perfect, relatively cheap way of getting themselves known and talked about, and their ‘products’ purchased.

I guess the problem is standing out from the crowd. With a larger potential audience comes greater competition and a walk down the virtual shopping aisles of Youtube would have you quickly surmise that there are shedloads of very talented people with access to (at least) a video camera and a head of smarts. But, there is always room for those who have the motivation and originality to be a ‘first’, and those who spend some time surfing the net know that certain blogs, discussion websites and, increasingly, mainstream media (through their blogs/offbeat columns/video sections) lap it up. A notable mention on a superblog such as Boingboing has the potential to slam web servers as the many thousands of devoted BB readers click on through (e.g.).

This post is leading somewhere, and that somewhere is the clever choice of an hitherto unsigned Manchester band to record a film clip for their latest offering in front of mutliple CC-TV cameras and then request the footage back through Data Protection legislation for mashing together. Although it is passed off as a way to produce a cheap film clip (”we didn’t have money for a film crew”) it is much more likely an attempt at something sufficiently original and creative to get the web buzzing. And it did just that… The Telegraph and BB picked it up and I’m sure countless other second- and third- tier blogs (such as this) will do the same. And so the opportunity to become the next OK GO has presented itself… Whether the Manchester band is canny enough to capitalise on its initial fame is hard to see; however, it has definitely given itself a fighting chance with its initial offering…

And when all’s said and done, it is a nicely made film clip (I did notice their use of a free moving camera - complete with CC-TV like lines and resolution) and the song is nice and catchy. So in praise of their efforts in embracing the ‘new’ advertising medi-um/a here’s the link

(And p.s. - cheers to those who’ve taken up the offer of email subscription; don’t worry mum… I’m on my lunch break!)

Recently, during kerbside collection for our suburb, I drove past a relatively new front loading washer on my street and made a mental note to sneak by at dark and acquire the machine for either washing or miscellaneous purposes. With the help of two friends, I shifted the heavy bugger the 50 or so metres to my backyard and waited…

My parents had turned an old tub at home into an awesomely good brazier. It was so good in fact that they built a special paved fire-pit area with the tub taking pride of place in the centre. With this in mind as a secondary option, I - with the help of my mate Scootie - set about rewiring the machine in the hope it would be one of those rare kerbside gems that works wonderfully and evermore. Alas, it was a dud and appeared to be beyond repair for a man whose sole tools are a shifter, screwdriver and tyre spanner.

I moved swiftly to plan b) dismantling the monster. With said shifter and screwdriver I neanderthalically sided with the forces of entropy and brought the beast to pieces. Removing the tub from the shell proved particularly difficult due to the presence of counterbalancing concrete slabs screwed into the cover.

After much huffing and puffing, the tub was liberated and removed from its plastic covering and spinning wheel, ready for use as the perfect brazier…

The problem was… it was so shiny and new and beautiful that life as a brazier hardly seemed befitting for such a creature…

Fast forward a few days and a few discussions with flatmates and Storm and it seemed life as a lamp would possibly be a superior alternative. After making a light (again from components found in kerbside collecting), putting greaseproof paper on the inside of the tub to make the light glow a bit more diffuse, and placing an indoor plant in the top, she was finally ready…

The final piece fell into place yesterday when riding past a pile of junk in another suburb’s kerbside collection, I found a large plastic lamp cover that (coincidentally) happened to be the exact size for sitting atop my tublamp. With the plant duly removed (the lamp has multiple setups - perfect for any occasion!) I turned off the lights, turned on the lamp and admired what had been achieved in the past two weeks with little more than a screwdriver, shifter and an idiot at the helm…

Now to find a second machine to get that brazier fired up and ready for a winter backyard fire and roasted taties… ooh yeah…

The are thousands of flights going to and from US destinations at any one time. One savvy fellow has created a graphical representation of these flights using algorithms. If you’re wondering what that bright patch is towards the bottom left, it is not an Australian destination but rather Hawaii…

I love poached eggs… Strangely threatening to attempt for the first few times, but a wonderful and ‘easy’ meal once you’ve mastered the tricks. Being home sick for a second day running, I had a few extra minutes upon waking up to indulge myself with a decent breakfast… I’d decided that I wanted a little something extra for flavour and in so doing stumbled on a great little combo:

Put hot water in a small pot, and bring to the boil with a dash of salt and white vinegar. At the same time, throw a medium flame under a small frying pan.

Drop your two eggs in with care and hope they don’t break or combine (depending on your taste for poached eggs, about 2 1/2 or a dash more minutes should give you firm whites and runny yolks). Drop a dollop of butter into the pan and grate a decent handful of zucchini onto the butter. Mix it through reasonably well and get your bread toasting. Throw a small dollop of leggos (tomato pasta sauce) or similar into the buttered zucchini… in this case, less is more… and stir through.

Drop the poached eggs onto the toast and fork them to spread. A smidge of salt and a grinding of pepper and then place your zucchini masterpiece on top. Finish with a grating of cheese and enjoy with a newspaper and a glass of Booyah-Jimmy (3/4 Juice of Orange, 1/4 cranberry juice)…

Smashing!

With the advent of the internet, the sharing of recipes has taken on new form and vigour. Websites such as videojug provide step-by-step video instructions on how to make your favourites, whilst a well aimed google search can reveal the how-tos for the most surprising, diverse or inauthentic fare. My friend Gally is looking to set up a website that features great recipes for hungover people and I have even previously posted a wonderful recipe on this blog.

So this evening I thought I’d share the recipe for tonight’s dinner - the most unique meal I’ve ever made and one that ‘In all likelihood’ I’ll never make again…

Toad on the Road, (A.k.a - Slop on Toast or Lazy Man’s Shag)

The basic premise for this meal was simple: use up all the leftover vegetables in the fridge that had not passed the ‘vegetable-fungus spectrum’ threshold. And try to make it edible. One additional self-imposed stricture on tonight’s cooking procedure was that it had to be bloody easy, given that nary a vegetable had been cut, peeled or otherwise reshaped by 9:30pm.

Firstly, peel, chop and cook potatoes as though you are going to make mash.
Now, place various vegetables into the food processor until they are finely chopped. Start with an onion and a carrot and then get these frying in a pan with an gallop of olive oil. ‘Process’ your zucchini and that bag of semi-dehydrated mushrooms you found adhered to the iced-over panel at the back of the fridge and add them to the mix of frying slop. By now, if you’ve done things correctly, you should have something that resembles rabbit vommit, with a similar texture and no flavour.

At this juncture, take a moment to think about how you could possibly salvage your meal… actually, save yourself the hassle… by now you should have realised that it’s going to be pretty fckuing ordinary. In a misguided attempt to add flavour, ‘process’ a handful of olives and chuck them into the mix and then clear space in the middle for the egg… I know, I know… egg?!? (Not up there licking a 9V battery but still some pretty poor decision-making nonetheless). Semi cook the egg and then stir it through the goop so you have neither scrambled eggs with vegetables nor the makings for vege patties.

Add a dollop of pasta sauce and some black pepper. Scratch your head and curse two and half times and then add a tin of lemon zest tuna for good measure.

Mash the potato and roll your eyes before chucking it into the frying pan to be mixed in with the ‘rest’. Afterall, why have a dinner plate with heavenly mash and goop in proximity… it’d be like inviting the Queen and Ziggy the bag man for high tea and biccies.

Butter some bread, add the slop atop, and garnish with cheese recently de-molded…

If you’ve made it according to plan, it should taste exactly like the sum of the ingredients (i.e. not that bad) and have the appearance of a freshly flattened toad…

Best enjoyed with a nice glass of Merde de Maison…

During my news roundup the other day, prior to doing any ‘real’ work, I stumbled on a news article regarding the launch of a new website. The spruik ended up slamming the website’s server such that using it on the first day was akin to cutting your front yard with toe clippers. However, what was on offer definitely made the wait beyond business hours worthwhile and come 5 o’clock I was knee deep in exploration…

You see, a curious mind and a tool for knowledge combine to make for dangerous times…

What was this site you ask? It’s called -On The House- and is a new kid on the block in the online real estate game. Now this little gem allows you to obtain the prices paid for a piece of property as far back as the 1970s for QLD (and occasionally further). What’s more, the information can be accessed for an individual property, or expanded to include all properties in a street or suburb! There’s even a radius function to let you look at property prices within a 1km radius of your requested location!

Now the information it provides is not in itself entirely amazing - it is readily available upon payment of a fee - but the ease with which information is readily searched and displayed is nothing short of awesome (and scary). Within a few minutes, you can ascertain what your parents, boss, friends, landlord, arch nemesis, paid for their house or apartment. You can observe trends within a suburb, street or even for the one block of land over the past 2 decades or so. You can see what those properties you had contemplated buying had ‘really’ gone for. Scared yet?

And so an hour or two was spent after work on that fateful day sating my curiousity for information about all things property and priced.

First it was my own house and houses on my street -> the big one with the tennis court recently sold for $2.7 million. 4 more properties on my street are > $1 million.
Next it was what friends and bosses had paid for theirs -> in most cases I actually knew but was using their information to verify the verity of the website’s data.
Next next was the search of all the houses I had rented in the past 8 years -> some appeared, whilst others appear to have been singularly possessed (and not by ghosts) for a number of years.
Next next next was a search of all those places I’d been interested in ‘buying’ (dreamily) to see what they finally went for -> some went for less than I’d hypothesised my bid to be
Penultimately was a suburb search to see where the really expensive houses are - > One house in Highgate Hill recently sold for $4.5 million (more than a lifetime’s earnings at Subway)
Lastly, I realised there was actually an academic utility in this glorious information in observing price pressures placed on towns like Moranbah - a town surrounded by mines and where real estate demand is phenomenal - to help centres like mine quantify the social impacts of (cumulative) mining operations in the region.

Let me sign off by saying the initial glee and euphoria of discovering such a treasure trove of information has worn off; still, how nuts is the internet!?!

DinoBugs brought to life!