At work on a Sunday. Again. And I think I forgot to turn the air con back on in the computer room. Which will probably mean I’ll get paged in the middle of the night with a temperature warning. But too be brutally honest I can’t be fucked going back to fix it up. It’ll survive until morning.
Archive for August, 2003
Work blues
August 31st, 2003Without comment
August 30th, 2003This doesn’t need comment from me – it’s a truth that speaks for itself.
the friday five
August 29th, 20031. Are you going to school this year?
No but I’m thinking about doing something – going back and doing a Masters maybe.
2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate?
I took a long, long time to finish my degree – 7 years for a 3 year degree – so I graduated in 2000 I think. Work and life got in the way.
3. What are/were your favorite school subjects?
Philosophy – especially cognitive science and moral philosophy. Political Science – mostly liberal political theory. Also enjoyed Economic History.
4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects?
Anything involving numbers – maths, stats, economics, etc.
5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite?
Not really. I liked some teachers more than others I guess but not enough to label one or another as a favourite.
TIME Magazine – Is the Army Stretched Too Thin?
August 29th, 2003This story I’ll have to email to my father – I’m sure he’d quickly see the further parallels between this situation and the war he served in – Vietnam. Especially two important parallels – the Pentagon has started rotating seasoned officers and NCOs out of Iraq and soldiers have been informed they will now serve twelves months in Iraq instead of six. In Vietnam these measures resulted in the breakdown of morale and a significant rise in the death toll amongst US troops.
The USA PATRIOT Act, by Jim Cornehls
August 28th, 2003This is a fine analysis of the Bush Administration’s attempts to subvert civil liberties in the United States.
A subtle situation
August 28th, 2003Mefcon, KD and I hit the town last night – my darling Lu even made an appearance before excusing herself to get her hair cut. Drinkies at the Townie (our usual Wednesday abode where we studiously ignore the most irritating trivia man). Mefcon dashed off early to star gaze – Mars is real close you know – which means conspiracy freaks and UFO weirdos probably alternatively having fits of joy and paranoia. KD and I got wasted and did the deep and meaningful thing. She’s a lot of fun but sneaky. She asks these subtle (well subtle after about twenty beers and a few bourbons) questions and then you spend the next twenty minutes trying to work out exactly what she meant. Of course the length of my cognition could have been related to my alcohol consumption too. Or she might not be all that subtle after all. Damn why didn’t I realise that last night? Oh yeah. The booze. But hell it was fun.
Mefcon is heading to Shanghai on the weekend for a rendevous with his un-girlfriend (like un-birthday in an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ kind of way). A decision of which I am entirely jealous of. But the ‘unemployed and living off a massive redundency’ can just drop everything and fly to China. Lucky sod. Very jealous.
Virii and Spamnation
August 27th, 2003Work is currently blanketed with span and virus emails. We’ve got most of the bastards but we had to update our email scanning software and lost a lot of the settings of the old version on the process – which the upgrade told us explicitly wouldn’t happen. Annoying. So I am slowly rebuilding our Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus and filtering rules. Argh. More junk mail. Well back to the grindstone.
Sweet Potato Bread
August 26th, 2003Makes about 4 loaves
2 kgs of sweet potatoes
2 kgs of flour
1 packet dry yeast
2 tbl spoons olive oil
3 tbl spoons salt (or to taste)
1.5 cups chives or scallions (optional)
Peel sweet potato, dice and boil until soft. Drain sweet potato and let cool. Keep 1.5 cups of the water used to boil the sweet potato in. Add the yeast to the retained water (which should be luke warm now – if you add the yeast to boiling water you’ll kill it), stir to dissolve and let stand for a few minutes to activate. You should see white foam forming on the surface.
When it has cooled blend the sweet potato until smooth. Then mix cooled and blended sweet potato together with the yeast and oil until fully mixed. Cover and let stand for about 30 minutes. The mix will not rise much but may sponge a little. Add the flour, salt and optional chives or scallions. Kneed. The dough will appear dry but will form adequate bread dough. Divide the dough into loaves and let them stand for about an hour covered.
Bake at 180 C for about 45 minutes. Serve warm with butter.
Lucky Breaks
August 26th, 2003Feeling a bit under the weather mentally and physically so being a lay-about at home. Watching some television and films. Caught Lucky Break (English prison comedy/drama/escape movie) and Shanghai Knights (the sequel to Shanghai Noon – though what either film has to go with Shanghai I am not sure). Got to go back to work tomorrow – too many meetings. Too many things to organise and indeed am still sending emails to sort out things tonight. Sad life I lead. 
Wind, weather and falling limbs
August 25th, 2003Very, very windy last night in Sydney. The large and rather unstable gum tree in our front yard decided to shed a few branches. Including quite a large one right into the middle of the road. Needless to say removing this branch and calling the SES was not the highlight of my night. Now we almost certainly have to remove the whole bloody tree because we risk dropping branches on people, cars, the footpath and power lines. At my bloody expense to remove it and my bloody insurance if it falls on someone. It’s annoying how you slowly find new things about new houses – I’d like some kind of ‘full disclosure’ arrangement in which you know about all the pitfalls and hazards – wouldn’t have stopped me buying but would have meant I could have formulated a plan for all the issues. Just a building inspection is not enough on it’s own. But that could also be the obsessive planner and systems thinker in me too.
P.S. Tragically my charming correspondent of the weekend used a false email address and my reply to him bounced at a mail server in Alabama (no comment). But I enjoyed writing it – was almost cathartic
