The Twilight Report

scary lady

2009-01-07T04:00:00

(more)

gourmet

2007-09-29T20:47:00

Getting to Gosford this time was a long comedy of errors. Three weeks later, two bouts of sickness, a call to the NRMA^[1] and two wrong turns and we finally made it.

Today at lunch we stopped in a cute little “gourmet” deli. Mum asked to share a meat pie with Aunty Rae. This put the staff at the deli into a tizzy because they couldn’t figure out how to cut the pie in half without making a mess. In the end they put the pie on one plate and let mum cut it herself. Clean cut. No mess. Not that it really mattered if there had been a mess. It does beg the question though: how poorly equipped for life would one have to be if one lacked the initiative to cut a pie in half?

NRMA in Australia = AAA in the states

it sucks

2006-04-02T00:24:00

Here is the stupidity of finding an apartment in Australia: it sucks. Typically these things are handled through real estate agents and they have open houses every Saturday. However, they are typically “open” for a grand total of fifteen minutes and most of these open houses are between 11 and 12 am, usually in mutually exclusive overlapping intervals. Also: all of the real estate agents get together and try and figure out how they can arrange their times such that someone looking in any one particular area has to drive from one side to the other the maximum number of times possible.

So I started this morning copying addresses and prices from the newspaper into a Micr$haft Word document, only the ever helpful paper clip (which apparently I haven’t disabled yet on this computer) kept reformatting my text for me. I think it though that I was typing up a complex ordered list instead of a lift of dates. So when I wasn’t carping about how stupid the system was this morning I was yelling at my poor computer.

I found a couple of nice places, but mostly they were not adequate. Needless to say this painful, yet fruitless activity put me in a bad mood. My mum was super nice to drive me around to all of these places (especially given that I was grumpy about the situation). It was the only way I could have possibly seen everything that I did! At least it was an educational experience.

After all that running around I had a meat pie sans tomato sauce for lunch followed by a wonderful custard tart. This is one thing that I love about Australia: the food. :)

Australia Day Party 2005

2005-01-30T15:05:00

The shoe is on the other foot

People usually ask, when they see pictures of my parties, "Yes Graham, but where are you in these pictures." Usually the answer is "behind the camera." Anyway, I asked someone to take this picture so as to provide some evidence that I actually attended my own party. I am looking off in the other direction so as to pretend that it is a candid shot, when in fact it is not. I am such a good actor.

Anyway, the party went off really well. Unfortunately, e couldn't make it because her dog got injured while frolicking in the snow, but before she left (and well before anyone else arrived) she got me started on the apple martinis. Kathy and Steve showed up bringing treats from the southern hemisphere. They were in New Zealand over Christmas, and apparently Kathy did what I do when in Australia, which is to buy up the sweets section of the grocery store.

Some people actually wore green and gold. I had a green "jumper" which my mum knitted with real Australian wool and a yellow T-shirt underneath which I got today for the occasion. Kathy had some beads and Mike had a tie-died T-shirt which included some green and gold and a basketball. When are Kathy and Mike going to go head to head on the basket ball court anyway? But I digress.

Joanna called to wish everyone a happy Australia Day, which was sweet.

The meat pies got devoured. I had like three and a half pies, and there is about half a pie left over. I should actually be able to finish it off before I leave on Thursday. I owe this to the indestructibility of the recipe, which I will be posting here at some point, because I am sure there is stuff that I got wrong.

Oh speaking of candid shots, here is one

Cicely, Joe and Mike

of Joe which is totally candid. He had no idea I was taking this photograph while he was pointing his finger at my camera. Anyway, here are some more shots:

Accomplish the Impossible

2005-01-27T02:26:00

A month or so ago I told my mum (that is Australian for mother, Happy Australia Day) that I thought the project that I was working on might just be impossible, and that I should have told my manager and team leader up front about my estimate of the tractability of the assignment. Suffice it to say I got a really big test case not produce errors today for the first time ever. So I was on the phone with my mum and I told her "It's only going to be a month late. I think that is pretty good for something which is impossible huh?" The whole situation sort of reminds me of the Stan Bush song "Never Surrender" although my favorite of his is still Dare!

Anyway, it occurs to me that my entries of late have been very work centric and more than a little jargon filled. Sorry about that folks. The good news is that I'm having my Australia Day party on Saturday which will be 100% fun and after that I am off to Australia, so I am sure in future entries you will be able to hear what a fun folks are having in the Hudson Valley; hopefully to the point that you wonder if we get anything done ever. Beacon is, after all, the Party Capital of the Universe. I spill over the brim with irony.

So anyway, after talking to mum on the phone about the unmentionable, I got to work baking myself a meat pie to celebrate Australia Day. Yay Australia Day! Hooray, it's Australia Day. Meat pies are very Australian. Anyway, actually it is sort of a dry run for the party on Saturday. I thought it would be good to make sure that I knew how to make it before I started making them en mass. When I extracted a slice it sort of fell apart, but it tasted super good. I attribute this to the indestructibility of the recipe, because I think I did just about everything wrong.

Brad says that he likes meat, and that he likes pies, and that he is looking forward to having the combination of those two good things. Joanna on the other hand will not be missing out, although we are missing her. We miss you Joanna!

Oh I had a discussion with my father last night where I explained, once again, that I am not interested in being an academic. I don't understand why I have to explain this to him every time that I talk to him. It's like fish. He probably still doesn't remember that I don't like fish. I wish he would listen to me.

Somebody tried to hack my web page today. Actually I would say that it was more of a probe that an out right hack. He was trying to insert java script into one of my comment thingies on my web site. Oops sorry, that was computer jargon wasn't it. Ok. Never mind. Suffice it to say Simon Belmont repelled the intruders with his trusty whip. It is a good thing he is a tough mother. I realize that doesn't make any more sense than the jargon, unless you are Tyler. Oh well.