Posts from 2003
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Norkfolk Nog is amazing
I made a premium kit called Woodeforde's Norfolk Nog back at the start of November and stuck it in a pressure barrel with 100g extra dark malt. It's the beer I've been setting aside for Xmas Day. I ju…
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Annoying ads are avoidable
It always amazes me what the average Internet user puts up with when browsing the web. Adverts flashing beside content, the throbbing making the content unreadable. Pop-ups in the hundreds, closing th…
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Testing spammers
This address, i8pte1u02@sneakemail.com, is for special purposes so don't email it. It's a spam trap. I'm doing some tests to see how spammers harvest their email addresses, using Sneakemail which prov…
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New Battlestar Galactica
Well it seems that the US Sci-Fi Channel have remade Battlestar Galactica, the classic 80s sci-fi miniseries. Hopefully they haven't revived the floppy-haired kid and his annoying monkey creature thin…
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Engiporn
I'm always fascinated with what's underneath modern cities. It's incredible when you look into it how much of the infrastructure is under our fee The third dimension hides sewers, power and water main…
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Email is down
Annoyingly, my ADSL router died yesterday. However, my ISP are absolutely brilliant. I phoned them up, described the problem and they've agreed to send out a replacement which should arrive tomorrow.…
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Alchemists of Sound
I just saw an amazing documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the creators of spooky soundtracks for BBC programming. Anyone who grew up in the seventies remembers the scary sound effects and…
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In the bucket
Well the beer's in the bucket and on its way. Looks good! Mmmmm.
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Mmmm. Beer.
Last night I started my first solo batch of homebrew beer with a yeast starter. The yeast were bubbling away this morning, multiplying like mad and looking good. I'll chuck the kit in the fermenter to…
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Free State Project: Amerikkka's lead plumbing?
The Free State Project is an interesting idea run by a bunch of no-government, libertarian, gun freak nutjobs. The plan is to get 20,000 people who share their paranoid world - view to move to one spa…
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Critically listening to The Beatles
I've recently been listening in some detail to the more structurally complex Beatles songs such as Happiness is a Warm Gun and the Abbey Road medley (You Never Give Me Your Money/Sun King/Mean Mr Must…
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That's Uncle Simon to you
Well it looks like I'm an uncle again. After a protracted labour eventually requiring caesarian, Holly's sister Sam gave birth to Alfie early this morning. Mother, baby and dad are reportedly all well…
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Yahoo IM want and deserve to die
Yahoo's instant messaging system recently blocked third-party clients from connecting to their network. Microsoft are about to try the same thing soon. The hackers have just sorted it out. All of thes…
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Vote early, vote often
Well I got to vote in my first British election today. I wasn't enrolled for any of the previous ones. Yes, pommies, we colonials are allowed vote in your elections, but you can't vote in ours when yo…
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Poor Pauline
Today started rather inauspiciously. Yawn. Bash alarm off. Crawl out of bed. Grunt at girlfriend. Remember it's a weekday and (ugh) I have to go to work. Then when I got to work, one of my colleagues…
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Zappa's Thing Fish
An adaptation of Frank Zappa's musical, Thing Fish, is being performed next week at the Battersea Arts Centre. I'm thinking Saturday matinee. Get in touch if you wanna see it. Should be a laugh!
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Reclaim the Beach tomorrow
There's another Reclaim the Beach in London tomorrow night. Should be damn fun! Supposedly, the site hasn't been updated. We went to the last one and had a great time. Just take a loo with you and dri…
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Have we gone native?
In case you missed it, the UK temperature record was broken yesterday with temperatures reaching 38.1° Celsius in Gravesend, East of London. Holly and I really felt the heat. Back in Oz, we wouldn't b…
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Marriage is a sacred institution
Along the same theme as John Winston Howard's recent idiotic comments about marriage, the Village Voice has a hilarious comic.
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Photos are up
I spent much of the weekend scanning photos. There's stack of new photos up here. A weekend away at an Anglo-Saxon burial site. This year's Glastonbury St Petersburg Moscow Rostov the Great, a town ou…
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Back from Russia
Haven't had a chance to write about our experiences in Russia yet. Tomorrow night I'll be picking up our photos and will spend the night scanning them in and writing about it. We had a fabulous time a…
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Great party
We had a housewarming/birthday party on Saturday night. Had a fabulous time with loads of good friends. Such a good time that I forgot to take any photos. London's transport system causes an interesti…
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Glastonbury 2003
We got home from Glastonbury last night and wow, was it a great festival! Musical highlights were Ozomatli's brilliant, energetic morning set on the Pyramid Stage and Asian Dub Foundation's lively set…
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Reclaim the Beach
Last night we went to Reclaim the Beach, a party on the Thames. Perfect Summer Solstice weather and loads of people milling around and dancing to old-school funk tunes. Good fun! Only downer was the l…
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Sub Bass Snarl playing this Sunday
Sub Bass Snarl (and Kerrii) arrive in town tomorrow. They're playing on Sunday night. I finally managed to get details out of them. Apparently playing on laptops these days, due to problems with equip…
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Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
There are two big sci-fi book releases I've been hanging out for this year. The first is Gibson's Pattern Recognition and later this year will be Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. So this one was pretty…
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New Bowie tour and album
David Bowie is touring again this year! London gig will be at the Wembley Arena on 25th November. Tickets on sale this Friday, apparently, though already available to Bowienet suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmem…
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A great weekend away
We got back last night from an excellent weekend away with Matt, Maz, John and Anne. We were staying in a National Trust property, Sutton Hoo, the site of many Anglo-Saxon burial mounds, including the…
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The English could learn from the Russians
You've probably heard me moan about English beurocracy before. Well they're nothing compared to the Russians! I'm trying to get a tourist visa so I can go and spend money in their country, boosting th…
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Strawberry Tart Full Recipe
What is it about recipes that the moment I link to them, they disappear off the web? Well fortunately Google kept hold of this one, so I bring you the recipe, with my variations included. Strawberry T…
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Email is back
My email is back up and running. Due to a failed backup CD, I lost about month of emails... Grrr... Time to work out a better backup system.
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Bastard Pop this Thursday
This Thursday night, a Bastard Pop experience at Asylum, corner of Charlotte Street "under the newsagent" apparently. Featuring Aussie pop mangler dsico.
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Email is down
My second hard drive failed on Saturday in the major hot spell. It really is rather annoying how much heat hard drives put out these days and how poorly their design dissapates that heat. Worse, you c…
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Visions of Tokyo
I've just discovered an incredible site that uses Flash in a way that actually enhances the information. Amazing, really. Mid-Tokyo Maps presents a range of different views of the city of Tokyo, looki…
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Cycling in Norfolk
Holly and I went cycling in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire this weekend. It looked like rain and my back had been sore on Friday so we didn't do the planned Colchester to The Wash ride. Instead we headed…
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Booked for Russia
We just booked our flights to Moscow for July. We'll be spending two weeks with our friends Nathan and Jenny. They have a flat in Moscow and another in St Petersburg so we'll be dividing our time betw…
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Brummy land weekend
Holly and I went to Birmingham, the UK's second largest city. Largely underrated due to its Midlands location, this city was the heart of the Industrial Revolution which probably caused more social up…
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Badger Rampage
And they say Australia has dangerous animals. Watch out for the badgers. Sounds like a bad horror flick! Mr Weaver said there was no need for people to start fearing an onslaught of badger attacks. Oh…
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Hail storm
Ahhh, just like home only cold. Just had a big storm with hail! Check the pics.
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There's goes the voice of reason
I used to be incredibly impressed by Claire Short's principled stance on issued of development and peace. She had the balls to put her cabinet post on the line over important issues. But I always had…
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Ooh great Meltdown!
This year's Meltdown is being curated by Lee "Scratch" Perry and the lineup looks a doozy! According to NME it includes Public Enemy, Tortoise, Michael Franti and Spearhead, DJ Spooky, Linton Kwesi Jo…
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Apple miss the point
Looks like Apple and the music industry have worked out that the music industry is over. So they've mounted a rear-guard assault to try and claw it back. Let's go through the problems, shall we. To st…
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Now it's back
Well the problem wasn't as serious as I thought, though I'm still getting loads of IDE errors. Email is flowing again. For now.
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Mabye not
Well now it looks like my computer is really fuxx0red. If you need to contact me, email won't be working until I fix it. Try other methods.
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Email is back
Email is working again, so you can contact me that way again if you need to.
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Email is down
Something strange going on with my computer at home. Getting all sorts of weird errors on the IDE bus. Looks like I'm gonna have to strip out all my drives and test each one to work out what the probl…
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An idea whose time has come?
Looks like I'm not the only one to come up with the idea of compulsory licensing to pay musicians. Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney at the EFF and has this article talking about the issue.…
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Las Super Nenas
Holly found this great Spanish Powerpuff Girls pasta today. How cool!
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The music "industry" is over
I've talked about it before and it seems to be in the final death spiral. That's right, the music "industry" is terminal. "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallwa…
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Fun day out
Wow it's a been a busy weekend. Last night we, on the spur of the moment, went to Soxan in Whitechapel which was excellent. It was really really good, with excellent music and, here's the amazing comb…
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Mash-up pop madness
In case you haven't heard, dsico does crazy mad cut-up pop shit. Currently I'm listening to his remix of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart with Missy Elliot's Get Your Freak On. Yes that does sou…
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Getting at the heart of the matter
This war has seen even more of a control freak approach to news dissemination. That, coupled with purposefully inaccurate releases of information from both sides has made it very interesting to watch.…
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Glasto sells out
Yeesh, tickets to this year's Glastonbury Festival have sold out, 24 hours after going on sale. That's 112,500 tickets or about 78 a minute. I guess I can forgive them for having a slow website yester…
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Music matching
One of the best features of the late, lamented Audiogalaxy music sharing system was the suggestions it made of music you might enjoy. If you looked at the page for a particular artist, it would also o…
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The sun is out!
The sun is out and it's lovely! After the usual long and dreary London Winter, the spring has finally arrived. The trees are blooming, daffodils are breaking through the grass and our basil, chive and…
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Video conferencing
I've got my camera working a bit better now, so if you want to talk to me, you can go here using Netmeeting or Gnomemeeting or whatever H.320 compliant thingy and chat. Woo! Should save some money on…
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A good mix
While I'm somewhat underwhelmed by most of her musical output (it seems her collaborators do all the good stuff, hence Golden Boy and Felix Da Housecat had good results and The Hacker somewhat crap),…
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We wuz robbed
We got broken into on Monday night and a heap of our stuff was stolen. They broke in while we were out for only 35-40 minutes and my guess is that they had a key because they knew they could get in an…
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Circular party
Last Friday, Holly and I managed to make it along to a party on the Circle Line. For those who don't know London, the Circle Line is the tube line that loops around the centre of London, the party adv…
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A forgotten public institution
Yesterday I joined up to our local library. It's been years since I've belonged to a library. Probably the last one was the university library just after high school. I'd forgotten what glorious place…
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Webcam is up
All very passe, I know, but if you're feeling bored, check out my webcam now beaming out images from my street around the clock. Yes I bought an insanely cheap digital camera to use for videoconferenc…
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Chocolate self-saucing pudding
This chocolate pudding makes it's own sauce and is delicious with cream or ice cream. The preparation time is about five minutes and the results are awesome. Perfect for a chilly evening when you coul…
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Spring is coming
Well the days are getting longer and it's getting warmer. The daffodils have been poking through the last few weeks. It's quite amazing where they come through, mostly they're not planted but just pok…
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A week in Devon and Cornwall
Holly and I got back from a week in Devon and Cornwall on Saturday night. Very fun, though the weather was a bit crap. The week started with us hiring a car in London. Holly can only drive automatics…
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Chirac est un ver
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gallery/image/0,9353,-10104389507,00.html) Of course the French are finding this all a bit odd. And of course they see right through it to the three things that are real…
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Heading off to Devon and Cornwall
Tomorrow night we're heading South-West to a manor house from the Landmark Trust with about 16 others. Should be rather nice! After that we're heading further down into the SW corner of England to see…
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Copy protection on new Asian Dub Foundation album
A colleague at work brought in the new Asian Dub Foundation album on CD today for me to have a listen. This album was one of those albums on the "buy without even listening first" list, but I hadn't g…
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So that's what a million people looks like
Wow the anti-war marches were absolutely amazing. Melbourne had 250,000 people, Sydney had 200,000 or more, even Terrigal had a small turnout. London was amazing with at least a million. It's hard to…
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Anti-war marches go global
The world has started the massive protests against war on Iraq, which Melbourne sporting up to 250,000 demonstrators, depending on who you talk to. London is expecting half a million or more tomorrow.…
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Flat is go, heating and all
Well it took a bit of hassling get everything right but we now have our flat all kitted out. Yay! Considering it's going to be -4 degrees tonight, I'm pretty glad we've got the heating going. We've ha…
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My god, we won!
We went to an English pub in Kennington to watch the match last night, Australia vs England. We were the only Aussies in the pub but it was a good natured crowd, considering we whupped their butts. A…
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Moved in, just one problem
We moved house over the weekend. The new place is fantastic: large, bright, airy and clean. We chose the place for those reasons. There's one rather major problem though: the central heating doesn't w…
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Elected Upper House? Perish the Thought!
A strange thing is happening to a strange pre-democracy relic in this country. The House of Lords is about to vote on whether it should be abolished. For those of you who don't understand, the House o…
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A little bit of snow...
It snowed last night here in London, which is quite unusual. It was really more of a blizzard at work in NW London, with about three inches dumped in only a few hours. Of course this meant there were…
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Stretched metaphors spring back
Rupert's southern subs are getting their metaphors confused. Fires are supposedly laying "siege" to Sydney. Now we get Fires pound south-west Sydney, which conjures up all sorts of images. Then again,…
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Play: The Madness of George Dubya
I saw this play last night in Camden, London. It supposedly finishes on 8th February but I certainly hope it goes longer. Think a musical update of Dr Strangelove. I was expecting a fairly amateurish…
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Republicans go wild for Vietnam war re-enactments
It's funny what you see going through your web server logs. Whenever you hit a web page, your browser sends the address of the site from which you linked, known as the referrer. This gives the web sit…
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We found a new place to live
Holly and I have been hunting around for a new place to live for the last couple of weeks. We've decided it's time to live on our own, adult-like, the already-noisy road outside our bedroom window is…
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Drool material
Sharp are reportedly releasing a Zaurus handheld running Linux. Worthy drool material! I have a friend coming over from Japan next month. Hmmm... Anyone wanna buy a used Ipaq 3630? More seriously, the…
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Two new books from the cyberpunk masters
Advance warning that two new books will soon be out by cyberpunk masters Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. Pattern Recognition by William Gibson will be released in February, at least in the US. Qui…
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2002 musical highlights
Some fantastic music was releaed in 2002, and I managed to churn through a large amount of it despite the demise of Audiogalaxy as a useful method for musical discovery. Electroclash Perhaps the most…
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Bleurgh
Feel like shit. Holly brought home the gift that keeps on giving: a cold. Yucko. Off work today and about to go back to bed.
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Time For a New Blog
Well after a break of nearly two years, it's time for me to start a blog again. I've been putting it off for so damn long so finally I've got around to doing it. I'm using Blosxom (pronounced "blossom…