simon says
Blatently taking my cue from Krissy and Matt, I jumped on the "Simon is" Google search bandwagon. Yes indeedy. Apparently I'm a lot of things, most of which I'd rather not.
Posted on Saturday, June 29, 2002 | | 1 Comments
Archived: June 2002
so chilli it hurts
Today's culinary adventure at the Cube: Chilli Popcorn.
After finally tracking down some chilli powder we had a go at the recipe from the Marie Claire Food Fast book that I swiped from Matt & April's bookshelf a couple of weeks ago. The recipe doesn't actually give quantities, so we guessed around a bit; and the hotplates weren't working, so we couldn't use a frying pan as directed.
A bit of improv chilli-and-butter-in-the-microwave work later,we had a bowlful of potent chilli popcorn to chow down on. Mmmmmm. This stuff was awesome, and had a pretty good kick to it too. By the end of the bowl my lips had that numb chilli feeling. Mmmm. Give it a go sometime.
Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2002 | | 2 Comments
creative writing challenge
So anyway, this was the big banner image on the front page of the Victoria's Secret website a couple of weeks ago.
Is it just me, or with her arm there does that say something else?
Feel free to post your thoughts on what I was doing at Victoria's Secret (I know I'm going to regret this, but hey, that's never been a problem in the past)
Posted on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 | | 4 Comments
U2 dot com
So while wandering around U2.com yesterday, there were some realisations:
— Oooooh. Work on a new album.
— There's a lot of content on there. For example: Willie's Diary. Willie Williams is the show designer (among other things) on the Popmart and Elevation tours, and he blogged them both. If you've seen the Elevation DVD, Willie's the guy who gets all the good lines in the doco: "Dark. Yes. But..."
From his diary on Boston's Elevation show: "The highlight of the evening was an experiment with some new glasses for Bono. Not your ordinary shades, mind you, but a super high-tech pair of specs with a tiny camera built into the bridge of the nose.... It was so wacky to see the show through Bono’s eyes – and, I have to say, also a huge distraction from the rest of the gig, but such a unique experience it was well worth it. The funniest moment was during End of the World, when Bono went forehead-to-forehead with The Edge, producing an image of Edge so bizarrely distorted you’d have thought Salvador Dali was switching the video – a gigantic nose and eye filling half the screen, then a smaller mouth and a tiny body playing micro-guitar squished in below. All live, of course, and all in terrifyingly crisp focus."
— They also have some really nice photos.
Posted on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
a time and a place
I've been thinking a bit about living by myself lately. I'm not sure why, maybe it's the holiday in Melbourne, or just the last six months coming into focus. Sharehouses are great, it's been a massive eye-opener, and a great way to learn about life and living. But sometimes it really cramps my style.
There's a time and a place for everything, but sometimes I don't think there's enough of either for me. (This post is me, my and I heavy. You have been warned)
Continue reading "a time and a place"
Posted on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | | 3 Comments
cordless gold!
In my Amazon Gold Box today were: a cordless drill, cordless grass shears (they need power?), a circular saw, an electric drill (with cords — how 1980's) and a pocket knife.
When did Amazon decide I had a Home Improvement fetish?
Posted on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | | 3 Comments
interface R&D
It looks like IBM's got some nice brainpower ticking away inside their offices: The Glass Engine is a visual representation of composer Phillip Glass' entire catalogue. It's beautifully simple, and conveys a lot of information in a very clear visual form. Load it up and have a play, then jump back to the launch page and read the FAQs, and have another play. (Via ex-IBM exec John Patrick)
Posted on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
messing around
I'm busy playing with a new layout that's pure css layout, not a table in sight. Which is why it's taking ages to put together. But I'm learning a lot in the process, which is always a good thing.
And what better way to complicate things than by using the new version of Dreamweaver to do it? It's all a big, exciting, slightly-better-validating mess, and I love it.
Oh, and to whoever it was that searched Google for Melbourne funky apartment and clicked through to here... You and I both wish, buddy.
Posted on Saturday, June 22, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
pixelated stories
This one's linked all over the place, but here it is again: Skyscraperpage.com has cute little pixel drawings of skyscrapers from all over the world. Even little old Perth.
The real architectural beauty of QV1 doesn't come across in a 2D illustration, but it still looks good. The scary part? They've got the belltower as the 18th tallest building in town. I'm hoping that's just the spire bumping it up the order. Please.
Oh and I love the coming-soon style Woodside Tower. Imagination required.
Posted on Saturday, June 22, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
a word on music
Okay, while I'm sitting at work grooving to a bunch of Friday-afternoon tunes, a couple of music-related thoughts.
Everyone says the success of the remixed "Little More Conversation" Elvis track is due to the Nike world cup ads. Maybe true, but I think they 'found' it while watching Oceans Eleven, with David Holmes' funkier-than-thou soundtrack. And the original's so much better than the remix anyway. So nyeh.
July 16 sees a new CD from Morcheeba. I'm this close to pre-ordering.
The Chilli Peppers have a new song, and it's the first clip on rage tonight. I think I might have to check it out.
Posted on Friday, June 21, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
double action waschgel!
In one of the weirdest world cup tie-ins ever, Nivea for Men have an online game called Shower Power on their site. With phrases like "Vitaliseierendes Peeling!" how can it go wrong?
Continuing the fine trend of attention to detail set by HP's beetlebuggin, this one has the funkiest little animation when your guy slips on the floor. I love it!
Posted on Friday, June 21, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
a poke in the eye
About three weeks ago, right before I went on holiday, I bit the bullet and got contact lenses.
Now I've been wearing glasses since about year 10 I think, which is a good six years ago. And it's weird not having them there on the end of my nose. Without them there, I noticed I've got a nervous reflex of pushing my glasses into position. Which looks even weirder when I'm not wearing them.
It's great to be able to see everything again. The last pair of glasses I had (that's them on the right) didn't have very tall lenses. End result? A much smaller field of vision. With contacts, anywhere I look is in perfect focus. Up. Way off to the side. It's all crystal clear. Wooo!
The only downer with contacts is putting them in. There's something very unnatural about poking yourself in the eye. And worse still, once the tears start some weird sinus reaction gets going and suddenly my nose starts runnings like there's no tomorrow. It's nuts.
But even then I love having contacts.
Just a thought: I was talking to my sis last night, and she reckons the glasses made me look older. Now I can test her theory.
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2002 | | 2 Comments
three
Krissy's pimp-hat-wearin bunch o threes! Check out how easily I weave radio, australian currency and umlaut's into four questions.
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2002 | Life | No Comments Yet
a bunch of links
It's time to spew a bunch of links in here. These are mostly things I've bookmarked to read over the next few nights. Mind your step.
the mirror project, now featuring yours truly.
Fast Company: Memo to CEOs, some business reading.
News.com: Sony, The conflicted conglomerate covers the way Sony's being twisted by it's business in both the music and computer industries.
XPlane's x|blog has a few interesting visual design/infographics links, and their work is pretty impressive.
REVelation Film Festival is on again this year, and hopefully I'll actually get along to check it out this time. I love the sound of the Sean Connery Golf Project already.
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
telstra are special people
Telstra are amazing. They're huge. Like massive huge. And yet, so annoyingly bad at what they do. I'm on hold at the moment, being transferred from Telstra phone's business accounts department to Telstra's cable internet business department. They're got very tasteful classical tunes, with the emphasis on strings, and with enough crackle that I swear they're playing it off a vintage gramaphone ("hey, it's got phone in it's name. let's hang onto that!").
Getting anything done with Telstra is a big game of phone tag. Does anyone else want to play?
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2002 | | 1 Comments
the joy of p2p
It's been a long time since I got into the whole p2p download thang. I was just getting into Napster (finally a mac port!) when it disappeared, and audio galaxy is great, but there's never been a really solid mac client.
Today I found iSwipe, a great little app that lets you search across Napster, Gnutella, AudioGalaxy and Hotline. Searching across all the networks is really handy, and I've been happily hunting down mp3s from the comfort of the sofa tonight. On Todd's reccommendation, I'm trying a bit of Brad Mehldau, whose piano sounds great in the first snippet I've checked out, I'm going to have to track down one of his cds. And I just got an acoustic version of Radiohead's high and dry. Mmm.
When will the music industry learn that people will pay real money for the chance to download even rare/acoustic versions of songs from their catalogues?
Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 | | 1 Comments
oh my (goodness!)
Just in case you haven't heard, Matt's finally edited together the first episode of oh my, and it's amazing. I'd seen most of the footage before, but edited together and with a soundtrack it's beautiful, better than everything I'd hoped. It's fantastic. Keep an eye out for it on Access31 here in Perth, and hopefully we'll work out how to get a copy online without killing our bandwidth, so everyone else can check out the perkiness of Mr Parker's little finger (?)
Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
do fairies join the rac?
So I was happily driving along the freeway heading north on Saturday afternoon, minding my own business, singing/humming along with something (Travis, from memory). Just before I pass the Mends St on-ramp, I noticed two cars on the left side of the freeway. A four wheel drive and behind it was a beige stationwagon, which looked a little old (surely they stopped making beige cars years ago?).
While I was watching, a shape moved out from behind the raised bonnet of the stationwagon. A pink frilly body. Someone in a fairy costume. With big frilly white skirt.
I can't think of many worse things to be wearing when a car breaks down.
Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
mmmmmm
I decided that seeing how today's my bday, and I'm all by myself at home for the weekend, that there's no better time for pancakes with maple syrup, ice cream and oj. I'm now a very happy man.
I haven't had pancakes in ages, really since I was living at home with my parents. There was one time I attempted them late last year, but the non-stick pan was losing it's teflon-coated superpowers, and the pancakes ended up with in-built crumple zones when I tried to flip them.
Oh, and Matt was the first to officially say happy bday, sometime just after midnight from memory.
How am I spending the day? Well I'm not sure at the moment, since half the people I know are either in, or studying for, uni exams, and my two housemates have taken off for the weekend. I'll see what happens. The weather's turned out way better than forecast, so I'm thinking of going for a walk somewhere. Maybe even East Perth. In daylight. (I won't recognise it)
Then I'm heading into work tomorrow for a planning meeting (see, Emma, I'm not working on my birthday!) which should be interesting. Bummer the weather's supposed to be even better tomorrow. Maybe we'll wrap up early and head out.
What are your plans for the weekend?
Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2002 | | 7 Comments
fresh. in a bad way
So clearly sales aren't going as well as hoped for the ground-breaking new product from Wriggleys (The trusted of Aussie chewers for generations, apparently). Today we got a free pack of XCite — "40 sugar-free crunchy pearls with an intense flavour hit. More than a gum, more than a mint"
Nyeh, it's all a bit dull. They're pretty insane minty at first, but then you're left with an annoyingly small bit of chewy that's got all the flavour of a spitball.
Uhm. Not that I'd know.
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2002 | | 1 Comments
qantas is furbist
Carefully stashed in the seat pocket of the Qantas 757 that brought me back home to Perth this week was everyone's favourite source of mid-air entertainment. A safety card.
Incidentally, I think that Furby's doped up on sleeping pills for the flight. He's looking a little dazed.
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2002 | | 2 Comments
more fun with phones
Continuing in the fine tradition of previous phone games, I discovered Telstra's customer feedback line yesterday. Today, Kristie and I had some fun at the expense of the nice lady at Telstra. She talks to you! (140k)
Feel free to record your fun with Telstra (13 22 00) mp3 it and post a comment linking to it. You know you want to! And if you haven't already, make sure you spin your version of the good old Apple message, it's still begging for another cover version.
I think it's the same system they're using on Directory Assistance now, but this is much more fun. And if you hear any other fun phone things, grab a copy and let me know. This is way too entertaining.
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2002 | | 4 Comments
george vs steve
"There's a magic about chemistry and film... The screen is always alive with chaos and excitement, and that will certainly be gone when we convert to a digital camera and a digital projector. I was one of the first people to use digital technology to enhance my films, but I'm going to be the last person to use digital technology to shoot my movies."
Steven Speilberg on digital film-making. Compare against George Lucas' recent love letters about digital, and the next Indiana Jones film should have a fun time in production.
Posted on Monday, June 10, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
mmmmm
Is it just me, or is there something a little too satisfying about chunky slices of bread with peanut butter, along with a glass of milk?
The only way to start the last few days of a holiday.
Posted on Sunday, June 9, 2002 | | No Comments Yet
live from melbourne
With huge thanks to the one and only Mr Trembath, I'm now connected to the net and happily updating. So please take this opportunity to check out Live from Melbourne.
Posted on Wednesday, June 5, 2002 | Melbourne 2002 | No Comments Yet
exhibit a
I'd like to enter this as the first exhibit in the case for 24 hour supermarkets in Melbourne:
I was hoping to get one of me actually in a Coles at 3.15am, but I haven't had a chance yet. And yes, I have been up and about at that time. Go holiday sleep ins!
Posted on Wednesday, June 5, 2002 | Melbourne 2002 | No Comments Yet
the short of it
So anyway. I'm in Melbourne. It's amazing, I love it, yada yada. I would love to update, but I don't exact;y have internet access so hey. I'm working on it.
Posted on Monday, June 3, 2002 | Melbourne 2002 | 3 Comments