Thrash It Out

Breakfast

2010-09-10T08:47:00.000+12:00

Camille and I just enjoyed a lovely breakfast of very fresh eggs poached and served on toasted vogel bread topped with freshly chopped chives and a few drops of truffle oil. The eggs come from my sister in law's chickens and their flavour is so intense compared to supermarket eggs. Our freezer is half full with home kill beef and lamb so we'll be doing a few swaps for more of them. Looking

Diaspora Update

2010-09-09T06:30:00.001+12:00

You may recall my writing about the decentralised social networking platform, Diaspora a few months ago after I contributed to it financially. The project is now close to a release. They plan to open source their current code on September 15 (or 16 for those of us on this side the of dateline). They will then be releasing an alpha version of Diaspora in October. T _uacct = "UA-84939-4";

Those yellow flowers

2010-09-08T12:56:00.000+12:00

The yellow flowers I mentioned were almost out in the Random Phone Photos post are now mostly out: < _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker();

Big Earthquake just out of Christchurch

2010-09-04T05:21:00.010+12:00

Camille is in Timaru at the moment. She woke me up with a phone call about an hour ago to tell me she had just felt the biggest earthquake she has ever been in. She has been feeling lots of aftershocks. It turns out there has been a massive 7.4 earthquake 30k west of Christchurch. Bound to be damage after that. Let's hope there aren't any injuries or deaths. C _uacct = "UA-84939-4";

The Bayonets - Monsters In My Head

2010-09-03T14:38:00.000+12:00

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Boulcot Suite II

2010-09-03T06:14:00.001+12:00

I forgot to say the place has two bathrooms which is nice. However, one of them smelt like someone had recently taken a dump in it. Not so nice. I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker();

Food, Warmth and Shelter

2010-09-03T06:08:00.000+12:00

These three things are basic to mans' survival. If any one is missing for any extended period of time, then that's it. You're dead. Pretty serious stuff really - and now I'm going to completely trivialise it. Last night Camille and I were reduced to turning all the lights on in the place we are staying in order to bring it up to a reasonable temperature as the 9 bar oil heater in the

Office screens

2010-08-24T11:04:00.001+12:00

I realised the other day that perhaps my office was suffering from monitor overkill Note the nifty packet of snifters hanging on the wall. This is quite possibly the last pack of snifters in the world. Never could stand them. I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"

Bloody Amarok

2010-08-22T16:20:00.001+12:00

I usually use Amarok as my media player. I don't like it but it has a couple of features that work for me - until now that is. I have just upgraded my linux distribution of choice from OpenSuse 11.2 to OpenSuse 11.3. This of course upgraded amarok. I just now started it for the first time. I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); Amarok has corrupted its music database. Currently I

Website update

2010-08-22T05:02:00.000+12:00

I have just finished updating my website. The major change is that I have used the Silverstripe CMS (SS) as the backend. This means that I am far more likely to complete the content of the site and also update it from time to time as SS makes the management of it so much easier. I have been working on massaging it into SS for about a month. It was mainly done as a way of getting to know SS

Auckland (again)

2010-08-20T12:53:00.000+12:00

The other night I had the pleasure in watching Camille eat. I got to sit opposite her as she lovingly rubbed a rosemary sprig over her french lamb rack and then sliced into it exposing the perfectly cooked interior. I sat there as the beautiful aroma from her plate wafted over to my side of the table, as she slowly worked her way through her meal. I sat there getting more and more hungry. T

XT Network and data

2010-08-18T15:46:00.000+12:00

Camille and I have had Telecom T Sticks for a few years. They are on the CDMA network and have been very useful. However, in our travels recently we have noticed that they suffer slowdown from time to time and on occasions this can be extreme. For instance, I complained loud and long in this post about ping times close to 20,000 milliseconds. C _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker();

Museum Hotel

2010-08-14T08:00:00.001+12:00

Recently Camille and I stayed in the Museum Hotel in Wellington. We generally book a suite when we stay here as we like the space to spread out and relax. We don't travel light and are often encumbered with quite a bit of electronic equipment and we need space to set it up and work etc. The suite was comfortable and reasonably spacious. It had all the usual bits plus a coffee machine, oven,

Random phone photos

2010-08-14T08:23:00.000+12:00

Flowers in our garden. These are about to bloom again. About to get up close and personal with a giraffe. Lamb shanks, moroccan style in the tagine. Church at Te Aute This always makes me think of Camille. Risotto (chicken and saffron) with roast tomatoes and onion. Water drop 1 Water drop 2 Roast tomatoes and shallots on ciabatta d _uacct = "UA-84939-4";

The Book Depository

2010-06-12T21:34:00.001+12:00

I have run out of things to read so I have been back at the UK online book store, The Book Depository and have ordered a few books: I _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); River Cottage Meat Cookbook - I first heard of this book through meateaters.co.nz and have been meaning to buy it. However, I have been put off by the NZ price - $90.00+. Price from BD: around $60.00. The Collapse of

A dental job

2010-07-20T06:50:00.003+12:00

Currently I have a mouthful of stitches - well, 3 stitches. I have had a root removed. Back in the mid nineties I had to have a tooth removed but unfortunately they couldn't get it all out. They left behind one root as it was so curved they simply could not extract it. I can recall lying back in the dentist chair gripping onto the arms with desperation as the dentist, a burly chap, wrenched

Hamilton, New Zealand

2007-05-23T13:20:00.001+12:00

If I lived in Hamilton I would kill myself. The place is so awful I would be unable to live with myself any longer. Whoever decided that Hamilton should exist was probably taken out and shot. Actually, whoever it was probably killed themself once they realised the awfulness of what they created. It's just a bad city. A bad city in which everyone lurches around like zombies. Maybe they have

Low prices? Don't count on it, say publishers

2010-07-05T07:10:00.000+12:00

This NZ Herald article talks about the pricing of E-books and basically says that we are going to pay through the nose for them. I have great difficulty in believing that costs of a book are not substantially reduced once the physical copy of the book is discarded with and there is no way I will accept paying a price that is only 20% less than the lowest print price. I can import actual

Child Free

2010-07-04T07:35:00.000+12:00

Camille and I are officially child free. The 18 year old moved out yesterday, heading to Wellington to take up a course in software engineering. "Thanks for raising me", were his last words as he left. C _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); Now what? C _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker();

Dolphins at Pahia, New Zealand

2010-06-08T07:03:00.000+12:00

The sound is provided by Tom Waits. If it's missing, then Youtube have stripped it. For some reason my videos tend to have this done whereas others seem to get away with it. _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker();

The Price of Books II

2010-06-06T10:38:00.001+12:00

I ordered a Bill Bryson book from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ on Friday 28th of May. The book arrived at my office on Thurday 3rd of June. This is an excellent service. The cost of the book was 13.88 British pounds which worked out to be $29.67 NZ, substantially less than I can buy it in New Zealand. This included the cost of shipping to New Zealand. To do get a book delivered this fast

The price of books

2010-05-28T18:04:00.001+12:00

Some one needs to explain why I can buy a paperback book by Bill Bryson from an a shop in England and have it shipped to New Zealand for $10.00 LESS than I can buy the same book at Whitcoulls in New Zealand. S _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); What's really crazy is that I can buy hardback books by the same author from the English shop for only $2.00 more than I can buy the paperback

Social Networks - you just can't trust the fuckers

2010-05-26T09:23:00.003+12:00

Facebook, Myspace, whatever Social Networking site - you just can't trust the fuckers. Both FB and MyS have been caught giving data to advertising companies. A quote: "The report says that the companies have delivered user data to major online advertising companies such as Google's DoubleClick and Yahoo!'s Right Media, despite explicit pledges to protect such information. The released material

Bay Plaza Hotel, Wellington

2010-05-21T16:11:00.001+12:00

Shit hotel. B _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); We are up on the 9th floor and the traffic noise is incredible. The lift is loud and the toilets must be interconnected as we can hear other toilets flushing through our bathroom. This isn't the worst bit though. The worst bit is getting a cup to get some water and noticing that it hasn't even been fucking washed. Maybe it was

Waipuna Hotel, Auckland

2010-05-15T16:39:00.000+12:00

Waipuna Hotel staff have a bad practice of knocking on your door in the morning and shouting out, "Mini Bar!" as they have come around to check to see if you have used the mini bar at all. This morning, a Saturday, a staff member was at our door around 8:00am. What if we had wanted a sleep in? W _uacct = "UA-84939-4"; urchinTracker(); This pales in to insignifance compared to the