28 August, 2007

Moonshadow

Sir G and I took the tele-ma-scope up the hill to follow the eclipse d'lune. Within minutes we attracted a jogger who told Sir that she looked 'wonderful'. He then hung around for an uncomfortable amount of time while she pretended he wasn't there. He asked for her number. She refused and continued adjusting her telescope. He jogged onward.

Later, we were joined by a family of three with a teenage son, then a family of four with two toddlers, one of which kept babbling about his 'shark on', which turned out to be the account of his day whereby he went to the beach and had his 'shark [costume] on'. A white and ginger cat slinked around and many a passer-by stopped to gaze up with us.

I don't have a tripod so here's one of the pics I took with my camera perched on the edge of a tub of capsicum dip:



On the way home I irritated Sir by singing Cat Stevens' 'Moonshadow'. Well, just the refrain "Moooonshadow, moonshadow...".

27 August, 2007

Now

Tea: Yunnan
Chocolate: Lindt's Mint Lindor ball
Sounds: 'So Flute' - St Germain
Thoughts: I really should be writing

18 August, 2007

Earns his stripes

The Tiger goes down without a fight.

13 August, 2007

Leonard Cohen Land

I had a dream I went to Newcastle for the This Is Not Art Festival with Sir G and Ass. We were at a park I know well (as it is near the YHA Hostel there) except it had a white wrought iron rollercoaster track around it.

We were at the 'hospital end' and stepped into a lift where the buttons were all (seemingly) random letters. I pressed 'F' and the lift started to move only it turned into a rollercoaster cart. Ass and I were sitting knees to knees with Sir G kind of sitting on Ass' lap with her legs on me. So the cart rolled around the track for a while, going up and back some 'dead ends', until it finally came to rest in front of a dark covered stage with mannequin musicians playing.

We were just about to walk away when I heard a familiar song and turned towards the stage and realised they were playing covers of Leonard Cohen songs. One of the mannequins was definitely dressed in one of those black jackets with the white strips across that looks like ribs, the kind that Gerard Way wears.

Anyway, it was getting dark so we walked up to the hostel with Hugo (old work friend) meeting us partway there. Except I couldn't quite find the hostel and we were afraid that it was full because we hadn't pre-booked. Eventually we found a hole-in-the-wall room, which served as a reception area.

An Asian woman took our details and I asked whether it was okay if we had a four-bed dorm with one male occupant and she said it was okay. I gave her my YHA membership card and she booted out four British backpackers in the room behind the reception and told us that was our room.

There was also a tangent that involved a film being made on the site of some ruins involving the sad life of two brothers who had to bring themselves up because their single father was an abusive alcoholic. The brothers return to the site of their former home to reflect on their father's recent death.

The usual kind of dream. Except for maybe Hugo's appearance, that was a bit random. Might ask him if he's interested in coming up to Newcastle for TINA - never thought of that before!

06 August, 2007

Opt-out

TO THE MANAGER: DIRECT MARKETING / CATALOGUES DEPARTMENT
OPTUS TELECOMMUNICATIONS




Dear Sir/Madam,

I enclose two items with this letter. The first is an image of my letterbox. The second is the bulk of the contents of my letterbox, collected by me on the evening of Monday 6th August 2007 - not one, but ELEVEN Optus catalogues, which were unceremoniously stuffed in the available space.

I don't think the word 'incensed' quite covers the way I feel.

I make every effort to cut down on my ecological footprint by reducing the amount of resources that I consume. This extends to the small but (usually) effective step of putting a "No Advertising Material" sticker on my letterbox for the purposes of letting you guys, the advertisers, know that there is less demand for paper catalogues. Finding eleven catalogues for products that I do not want shows a complete lack of respect for my lifestyle choice.

Furthermore, this is not the first time this has happened with your catalogue. It occurred about a month ago with the appearance of three catalogues. At the time, my "No Junk Mail" sticker had faded so I printed the less ambiguous "No Advertising Material" sticker, which, as you can see from the image provided, is clear and visible. I did not contact Optus at that time, though considering the current situation I feel that keeping quiet was a mistake on my part.

I remind you that Section 144A of the Protection of the Environment Operations Amendment (Littering) Act 2000 defines ‘advertising material’ as: ‘any paper product (including a leaflet, brochure or magazine), or other material thing, that contains advertising or promotional matter.’

While placing advertising material in a letterbox that clearly expresses "No Advertising Material" is not against the law, it is against the industry Code of Practice as enforced by the Distribution Standards Board. I would expect that Optus contract their direct marketing services to a company that follows this Code of Practice, and I would further expect that the distribution company hire literate people who understand the meaning of "No Advertising Material". If this is not the case, I suggest you change contractors.

Please notify your distribution company of this gross misconduct and unequivocal breach of the Distribution Standards Board's Code of Practice. You should also REDUCE your print run by ten percent if the distributor feels they need to get rid of excess catalogues in this most disrespectful manner. I hope and expect never to pursue this matter with you again.

Yours faithfully,
Dr Witmol

[More or less the letter I wrote to Optus regarding the eleven wretched catalogues in my letterbox, identifying details removed].

05 August, 2007

Mangosteen

Mangosteens are considered, in some parts of the world, the 'queen' of fruit. (I tend to make lame jokes about this all the time, like if durian is the king of fruit and mangosteen is the queen of fruit then is jackfruit the jack fo fruit?). Those of you who have not had the pleasure of eating a mangosteen, it is somewhat like eating a creamy lychee (those of you who have not eaten lychees should be taken to South East Asia immediately for tropical fruit tasting).

I had lunch with some friends this afternoon and we were talking about the price of fruit and vegies. I mentioned that a friend once bought a mangosteen (a single mangosteen) for $4. For the equivalent price, given today's exchange rate, you could have probably bought about three kilos in Malaysia - handy considering that the bulk of the weight is its skin.

For the record, I love mangosteens. They could very well be my favourite fruit. So I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the fruit markets (to buy apples and tomatoes) and discovered that several stalls actually stocked mangosteens for $9/kg, which I thought was reasonable considering that they aren't grown here. So I bought half a kilo, which is to say, six mangosteens.

I've eaten one already, and it rated okay on the flavour scale, though it was a bit dry. Now my entire weekend has been planned around the times that I will eat the others. This is what happens in the presence of the queen...