Jameses.org

Recently, during kerbside collection for our suburb, I drove past a relatively new front loading washer on my street and made a mental note to sneak by at dark and acquire the machine for either washing or miscellaneous purposes. With the help of two friends, I shifted the heavy bugger the 50 or so metres to my backyard and waited…

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…

The are thousands of flights going to and from US destinations at any one time. One savvy fellow has created a graphical representation of these flights using algorithms. If you’re wondering what that bright patch is towards the bottom left, it is not an Australian destination but rather Hawaii…

I love poached eggs… Strangely threatening to attempt for the first few times, but a wonderful and ‘easy’ meal once you’ve mastered the tricks. Being home sick for a second day running, I had a few extra minutes upon waking up to indulge myself with a decent breakfast… I’d decided that I wanted a little something extra for flavour and in so doing stumbled on a great little combo:

Put hot water in a small pot, and bring to the boil with a dash of salt and white vinegar. At the same time, throw a medium flame under a small frying pan.

Drop your two eggs in with care and hope they don’t break or combine (depending on your taste for poached eggs, about 2 1/2 or a dash more minutes should give you firm whites and runny yolks). Drop a dollop of butter into the pan and grate a decent handful of zucchini onto the butter. Mix it through reasonably well and get your bread toasting. Throw a small dollop of leggos (tomato pasta sauce) or similar into the buttered zucchini… in this case, less is more… and stir through.

Drop the poached eggs onto the toast and fork them to spread. A smidge of salt and a grinding of pepper and then place your zucchini masterpiece on top. Finish with a grating of cheese and enjoy with a newspaper and a glass of Booyah-Jimmy (3/4 Juice of Orange, 1/4 cranberry juice)…

Smashing!

With the advent of the internet, the sharing of recipes has taken on new form and vigour. Websites such as videojug provide step-by-step video instructions on how to make your favourites, whilst a well aimed google search can reveal the how-tos for the most surprising, diverse or inauthentic fare. My friend Gally is looking to set up a website that features great recipes for hungover people and I have even previously posted a wonderful recipe on this blog.

So this evening I thought I’d share the recipe for tonight’s dinner - the most unique meal I’ve ever made and one that ‘In all likelihood’ I’ll never make again…

Toad on the Road, (A.k.a - Slop on Toast or Lazy Man’s Shag)

The basic premise for this meal was simple: use up all the leftover vegetables in the fridge that had not passed the ‘vegetable-fungus spectrum’ threshold. And try to make it edible. One additional self-imposed stricture on tonight’s cooking procedure was that it had to be bloody easy, given that nary a vegetable had been cut, peeled or otherwise reshaped by 9:30pm.

Firstly, peel, chop and cook potatoes as though you are going to make mash.
Now, place various vegetables into the food processor until they are finely chopped. Start with an onion and a carrot and then get these frying in a pan with an gallop of olive oil. ‘Process’ your zucchini and that bag of semi-dehydrated mushrooms you found adhered to the iced-over panel at the back of the fridge and add them to the mix of frying slop. By now, if you’ve done things correctly, you should have something that resembles rabbit vommit, with a similar texture and no flavour.

At this juncture, take a moment to think about how you could possibly salvage your meal… actually, save yourself the hassle… by now you should have realised that it’s going to be pretty fckuing ordinary. In a misguided attempt to add flavour, ‘process’ a handful of olives and chuck them into the mix and then clear space in the middle for the egg… I know, I know… egg?!? (Not up there licking a 9V battery but still some pretty poor decision-making nonetheless). Semi cook the egg and then stir it through the goop so you have neither scrambled eggs with vegetables nor the makings for vege patties.

Add a dollop of pasta sauce and some black pepper. Scratch your head and curse two and half times and then add a tin of lemon zest tuna for good measure.

Mash the potato and roll your eyes before chucking it into the frying pan to be mixed in with the ‘rest’. Afterall, why have a dinner plate with heavenly mash and goop in proximity… it’d be like inviting the Queen and Ziggy the bag man for high tea and biccies.

Butter some bread, add the slop atop, and garnish with cheese recently de-molded…

If you’ve made it according to plan, it should taste exactly like the sum of the ingredients (i.e. not that bad) and have the appearance of a freshly flattened toad…

Best enjoyed with a nice glass of Merde de Maison…

During my news roundup the other day, prior to doing any ‘real’ work, I stumbled on a news article regarding the launch of a new website. The spruik ended up slamming the website’s server such that using it on the first day was akin to cutting your front yard with toe clippers. However, what was on offer definitely made the wait beyond business hours worthwhile and come 5 o’clock I was knee deep in exploration…

You see, a curious mind and a tool for knowledge combine to make for dangerous times…

What was this site you ask? It’s called -On The House- and is a new kid on the block in the online real estate game. Now this little gem allows you to obtain the prices paid for a piece of property as far back as the 1970s for QLD (and occasionally further). What’s more, the information can be accessed for an individual property, or expanded to include all properties in a street or suburb! There’s even a radius function to let you look at property prices within a 1km radius of your requested location!

Now the information it provides is not in itself entirely amazing - it is readily available upon payment of a fee - but the ease with which information is readily searched and displayed is nothing short of awesome (and scary). Within a few minutes, you can ascertain what your parents, boss, friends, landlord, arch nemesis, paid for their house or apartment. You can observe trends within a suburb, street or even for the one block of land over the past 2 decades or so. You can see what those properties you had contemplated buying had ‘really’ gone for. Scared yet?

And so an hour or two was spent after work on that fateful day sating my curiousity for information about all things property and priced.

First it was my own house and houses on my street -> the big one with the tennis court recently sold for $2.7 million. 4 more properties on my street are > $1 million.
Next it was what friends and bosses had paid for theirs -> in most cases I actually knew but was using their information to verify the verity of the website’s data.
Next next was the search of all the houses I had rented in the past 8 years -> some appeared, whilst others appear to have been singularly possessed (and not by ghosts) for a number of years.
Next next next was a search of all those places I’d been interested in ‘buying’ (dreamily) to see what they finally went for -> some went for less than I’d hypothesised my bid to be
Penultimately was a suburb search to see where the really expensive houses are - > One house in Highgate Hill recently sold for $4.5 million (more than a lifetime’s earnings at Subway)
Lastly, I realised there was actually an academic utility in this glorious information in observing price pressures placed on towns like Moranbah - a town surrounded by mines and where real estate demand is phenomenal - to help centres like mine quantify the social impacts of (cumulative) mining operations in the region.

Let me sign off by saying the initial glee and euphoria of discovering such a treasure trove of information has worn off; still, how nuts is the internet!?!

DinoBugs brought to life!

A list, a list… everybody loves a list. Today I had a brand new installment in my list of Top 5 stupidest things I’ve carted across town on my scooter.

Betsy, my darling, my drafthorse. Bearer of a fool and his silliest whims. Today, #2 on that list was well and truly commanded by my latest acquisition. Let me explain.

Before I start, let me say that #1 on the list is, and will remain, me - drunk one night from the Regatta to St Lucia. Stupid as stupid, that one… And no further explanation necessary beyond the fact that there will be no recurrence of that feat, of that I’m sure…

So with that out of the way, let’s get to #2!

#6 - Last Thursday - Stink bug Snuss.
I should be incorporated into some sort of biodiversity metric. The recent rains have certainly amped up the levels of biomass on wings and there’s logic in having the number of times I get whacked in the face - eye, lip, throat - by a wing-ed thing as an indicator of insect population health. Last Thursday was somewhat different in the fact that the wing-ed thing that got trapped in my pursed lips was none other than a stink bug. No matter the speed with which the bug was flicked aside, it squirted its vile little bug sized load of stank into my gums and tongue, a most unpleasant experience at any juncture, let alone when travelling at 60km/hr on wet roads. Needless to say… nasty.

#5 - Mid-last year - Jimmy, Storm and $150 worth of groceries.
The groan and struggle was evident for the whole of the return journey from Coles. Betsy’s shocks - completely unaccustomed to having 200 odd kilos to counter - transmitted the finest nuances of every bump and pothole. Up hills, my normally timid Betsy was almost entirely subdued. 3 chocked green bags lay at my feet, coming up to the junction of the handlebars and making turning just that fraction more death defying. Groceries pushed up against the seat from within the compartment with much the same force as I imagine one who found themselves stuck in a coffin would apply. Storm, adorned with a backpack of the more brittle and fragile goods received the equivalent of 10 minutes on one of those preposterous shaking machines that people try to hawk to overweight and undermotivated souls in shopping centres. Thank goodness Storm purchased a car for future shopping (and beach) trips.

#4 - Sikh of an itchy head
Buy a helmet. Use it nigh on every other day for two years. Use it after showers, exercise, beach volleyball, heatwaves, head lousse cultivation conventions and tell me that your head doesn’t get itchy from using it. No detachable, washable inner lining? What are you going to do? Improvise… It started with a few pieces of toilet paper and moved on to paper towelling. From there, a chux seemed a step in the right direction despite the odd looks thrown my way when people driving or pedestrianising past notice flappy bits of blue blowing around the temples. When you’re riding a scooter with safety goggles and a mouth full of stank what are a few odd looks anyhoos? So it’s ended up with a turban. A black turban with a big knot right where a unicorn’s horn would protrude from your forehead were you thus endowed. A turban that must be removed in the same motion as the helmet so as not to look completely retarded. A turban that requires you to laugh at the idiocy of the guy it adorns. A washable, lovable, nit and itch free truban.

#3 - Sucky passenger
How big does a box need to be before it fails to be transportable by scooter? A fraction (only the smallest fraction mind you) larger than a vacuum cleaner it would seem. Wedged between the handlebars and destiny, the vacuum cleaner box protruded a foot either side of the bike. Guided by the fortune of the brave and pure arse, I was able to get the beast home in one piece. Now to figure out how to use it…

#2 - Can I leave this box here?
Today I bought a new set of speakers. Lovely, relatively expensive, weighty, dimensional speakers. Having negotiated a vacuum cleaner, it was hard to see from the giddy heights of my pride and ego the difficulties that could possibly arise from trying to get these badboys home. After securing the purchase and wandering to Betsy - proud, elegant, spatially challenged Betsy - I started to foresee aforementioned difficulties. Not even close. Not even close to close. For 20 minutes I wondered how the f$k I was going to get the speakers home on a scooter. I called 2 friends. I contemplated getting a taxi for my speakers. I contemplated delivery at a later date (never!). I cursed and smiled and did both in unison. Then I unpacked the box. Sure enough, with some spatial reorganisation - using skills honed through the likes of Columns, watching mum pack a car and redistributing a washing machine - I was able to fit myself and my goods upon my steed. With legs firmly clenched, and fingers metaphorically crossed - lest I not be able to steer or brake - I made my way home. But not before leaving the discarded box at the foot of a bemused music store clerk and contemplating the posting of this blog should I arrive home in one piece

Betsy - apple of my eye. Bearer of a fool and his foolish whims.

Ah, the random shit you find on wikipedia.

Just thought I’d share a little email exchange with you from a few minutes ago…

Subject: Overpayment fortnight ending 28.03.08

Good afternoon James

It has recently come to our attention that there was an error made when processing your re-appointment paperwork for the placement 01.01.08 – 30.06.08.

Your placement was incorrectly incremented to HEW503, however your annual increment date is July each year (not January).

Your placement has been amended to the correct level HEW502 from 1 January 2008. There will be a correction made in the pay of the fortnight ending 28.03.08.

I apologise for this error, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,

PooBum.

PooBum Huffletots*

Human Resources Officer
Faculty of Engineering, Physical Sciences and Architecture
Hawken Engineering Building (50) |The University of Queensland |Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia

Phone: 3365 0000 | Fax: 3365 0000 | Email: pb.huffletots@uq.edu.au

______________________________________________

My response:

Is it a good afternoon when someone informs you that they’ll be docking your pay for a few hundred bucks?

How much will I be re-donating to the cause?

Good on whoever stuffed that up, much appreciated…

James

_________________________________

Gotta love ‘em, I mean they’ve only paid me 5 times this year… I think if the lady could do the HR equivalent of spitting in my burger she’d be doing it right about… now.

p.s. In case it’s not bleedingly obvious, I have changed the name of Julia Hetherington to PooBum Huffletots to preserve her identity