I have put a redirect page at the old location so even if you go there by habit/mistake (this is more for me than anyone else) you’ll be redirected to the new address – you wouldn’t even know you were lost.

There should be no change for email subscribers or anyone for that matter, but if you stumble on an as-yet-undiscovered quirk, please let me know.

I guess the googlebots might be a bit confused with the new set-up but fortunately I’m not faced with too many competitors in the Google ‘Jameses’ term stakes…

Thanks to the people who provided feedback on the ‘Week Without’ or as Cathy proposed the ‘week with’ – which has a decidedly more positive spin and advocates filling your week with positive activities and tidbits, rather than remove things that are ‘bad’… both sides of the same coin I guess…

Oh, and lastly, I’ve been invited to interview for the Senior Policy Officer pool at my current work. In fact, my current job will be drawn out of said pool (due to restructure). So thankfully, I’m not so shit that they won’t consider me for my own job!

Much love…

They search for food in tidy rows, first 1 then 10 and yonder goes;
They nomp and omp and chomp my stuff, until I’ve soon had quite enough;

And say to them in calmest voice, I’m sorry friends but I’ve no choice
But to ask if you would kindly leave my food my house and me in peace;

Before you aim to cause a stink, I might have washed you down the sink,
And trust me friends there’s no food there; it’s not that I don’t wish to share

But even with your tiny mouths, the lot of you will soon devour
My meat, my eggs, and all my fish, and that’s against my every wish.

So once again I ask you please!
Switch to honey and bother the bees!

1) Record some tunes – now a possibility thanks to my new desktop pc, which is proudly running Ubuntu (and Windows 7).
2) Write some more blog posts, potentially with a few about some of the good food and coffee available in Perth. And encourage Storm to put some of her dance vids/pics/thoughts on www.stormyhell.net …
3) Do some research into the best way to communicate to people how much power they consume in the home. I still think visually translating the idea of energy consumption into a standard measure (say 1 x 100w light globe) would be handy. As an example, my Aircon at maximum cooling uses the equivalent of 20 100W globes (or 40c an hour).
4) Investigate how much power different appliances use in my home – in function and in standby – using a Powermate borrowed from work.
5) Work with Storm to develop a collaborative dance piece. My contribution would not be movement based, I’ll give you the tip…
6) Do a quick investigation into how many (parent) companies make everyday products in our home. I have a feeling it would be surprisingly few.
7) Write my children’s story – P.B. Huffletots and Mr Grumbles – oh how cliched
8 ) Go through and organise all of my photos and documents from years past. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll need that blurred photo of half a ceiling fan from one of my drunken forays. Also buy a new lens for my 400D and take some shots around town.
9) See my little nieces play together for the first time.
10) Learn piano and guitar with plectrum…

These are just a few of a bunch of ideas rolling around the grey ol’ sea of mind and matter… We’ll see how it goes

365Project

365Project was someone’s idea to encourage people to be creative and take a photo every day for a year. I’ve decided to try and rise to the challenge and am uploading my photos to my Flickr account (For those that use RSS feeds: ‘most recent photo feed‘ and ‘Project365 feed‘). You can also click through from the front page of my blaarrg.

I’ve already had to use a substitute for one day, and I’m one day behind in uploading my pic, but it’s been good fun. I’m going to see if I can get by with only doing editing using the standard ‘MS Office Picture Manager’ and its no-frills crop, colours and contrast abilities. So far so good. Storm looks like she is also keen to start and being a much better photographer than I am, I’ll be sure to not pass on her link when it’s up…. kidding.

You can check out some others here (1, 2, and my favourite, Stormtroopers365) or you can just search for ’365′ or ’365Project’ etc…

As good as these scones are, I’ve been desiring for some time to make a savoury scone recipe of similar simplicity; and so I set out to make the scones by substituting the lemonade with a can of beer and by adding bacon and grated cheese to the mix. The result, perhaps surprisingly, was a very nice (and wholly edible) savoury scone which, when consumed with beer and a little bit of relish, constitutes part of a nutritious Lancashire Tea.

I used a moderately flavourless beer – XXXX Gold – and added some pepper and salt to taste. Although the smell of beer is apparent when mixing and resting, it does not invade the flavour of the scones. Possible modifications include cutting the bacon into smaller squares, adding semidried tomatoes or olives into the mixture and/or using soda water with extra salt for those wishing to avoid using beer.

One other option is to make the scones according to a traditional recipe, which by all accounts isn’t too much more difficult that the one thus divulged. Either way, Storm and I now have a deal that every weekend, while she hangs up our 3 loads of washing, I’m to make a fresh batch of scones. And believe it or not, that proposition was arrived at by mutual accord!!

Ingredients:

For Frying – 1 Onion, 1/2 green capsicum, a handful of beans, a few small nubs of cauliflower, some snow peas, 1/2 a decent zucchini (Mushrooms would’ve been a nice addition although they never last long in our house).
Mash – 1/2 a Sweet Potato, 2 Small Potatoes, 1/2 a head of cauliflower (1/2 a head of fried cauliflower would’ve been too much; mashing it adds bulk but hides the flavour a bit)
Egg Add-in – 3 eggs, a dabble of milk, black pepper.

How to –

1) Chop the Mash ingredients into small pieces and get them boiling.
2) Finely cube the onion and capsicum, and chop the beans and snowpeas into 1-2cm lengths. Chop half the zucchini into cubes and grate the other half.
3) In the frying pan, get the onion and cauliflower nubs going in some canola oil. You’ll want a relatively high heat. Add the capsicum and some chilli and/or garlic paste for taste. Stir through well. You will need to add water at decent intervals to get the veges to soften up.
4) Add the beans, cubed zucchnini and snowpeas according to perceived cooking times; with bubble and squeak you’re almost better to have them cooking for a bit longer than too little.
5) As the vege mixture was cooking, I added some Worcestershire sauce for flavour (I think Lancashire sauce might’ve been a bit nicer). Add the grated zucchini and mix through.
6) Make your mash (not too creamy or runny) with a bit of milk and some butter and leave aside for a little bit.
7) In a decent sized bowl, mix the 3 eggs with a dabble of milk and some cracked pepper.
Move the vege mixture to the upward side of the frying pan and add the egg mixture to the pan (on a relatively high heat). Let the egg cook on its own for a bit, stirring it to get all the egg to solidify.
9) Add the mash to the vege mixture and stir through the egg. When the goodness is well mixed through, pat the B&S down till it is even all over, turn up the heat and let the underside crisp up a little bit. If you would like some toast, whack it on now.
10) Add B&S to toast, with crispy side up for presentation; cherry tomatoes and parsley would be a good garnish.
11) Invoke the ‘he or she who cooks does not wash up’ rule and enjoy some crappy weekend telly.

Although it’s more of a breakfast-afternoon lunch sort of meal, I think it would go fantastically well with a couple of lamb chops. It’s also the sort of comfort food that would go well with a winter hangover

{Ed. It seems I’ve moved up in the world since Toad on the Road… or have I?}

Fortuitous timing has enabled Storm and me the opportunity to catch up with a number of rellies and say some fond farewells to family and friends. Fortuitous weather also enabled us to head to the beach and catch a few waves in pseudo-antarctic waters… Borrowing my cousin’s waterproof digi-cam, I was able to make a stupid videos of mah bodysurfing stylings! So if you’re bored at work or home, have a squiz and hopefully a chuckle

Next stop, Sydney, tomorrow!

Video 1

Video 2

Lyrics

I’s walking down the street when I saw her pretty face.
I’s thinking to myself man I bet she’s worth the chase.
Around the corner then I realized she was gone.
I shrugged and stood a while, grabbed my heart and kicked it on.

I say, mmm mmm, best things in life are free.
Mmm mmm just got to find the one for me.

I’s playing volleyball when I dived across the sand.
And though the point was lost, I heard her clapping hands.
I thought her admiration, would one day lead to fornication, but
Despite my remonstrations, she grabbed her ball and went on home.

Saying, Mmm mmm, best things in life are free.
She says, mmm mmm, but you’ll get none of that from me.

So after years of searching, I finally found my girl.
And ‘spite that old cliche, well, I think she is my world.
After a few missed chances, awkward moments and seductive glances,
Endpoint was true romance, and we’re still dancing now.

Singing, mmm mmm, best things in life are free.
Mmm mmm and I have found the one for me (x2)

Hope you like it I just hope Joe Satriani hasn’t written a riff like this!

My parents had turned an old tub at home into an awesomely good brazier. It was so good in fact that they built a special paved fire-pit area with the tub taking pride of place in the centre. With this in mind as a secondary option, I – with the help of my mate Scootie – set about rewiring the machine in the hope it would be one of those rare kerbside gems that works wonderfully and evermore. Alas, it was a dud and appeared to be beyond repair for a man whose sole tools are a shifter, screwdriver and tyre spanner.

I moved swiftly to plan b) dismantling the monster. With said shifter and screwdriver I neanderthalically sided with the forces of entropy and brought the beast to pieces. Removing the tub from the shell proved particularly difficult due to the presence of counterbalancing concrete slabs screwed into the cover.

After much huffing and puffing, the tub was liberated and removed from its plastic covering and spinning wheel, ready for use as the perfect brazier…

The problem was… it was so shiny and new and beautiful that life as a brazier hardly seemed befitting for such a creature…

Fast forward a few days and a few discussions with flatmates and Storm and it seemed life as a lamp would possibly be a superior alternative. After making a light (again from components found in kerbside collecting), putting greaseproof paper on the inside of the tub to make the light glow a bit more diffuse, and placing an indoor plant in the top, she was finally ready…

The final piece fell into place yesterday when riding past a pile of junk in another suburb’s kerbside collection, I found a large plastic lamp cover that (coincidentally) happened to be the exact size for sitting atop my tublamp. With the plant duly removed (the lamp has multiple setups – perfect for any occasion!) I turned off the lights, turned on the lamp and admired what had been achieved in the past two weeks with little more than a screwdriver, shifter and an idiot at the helm…

Now to find a second machine to get that brazier fired up and ready for a winter backyard fire and roasted taties… ooh yeah…