Let’s get the losers out of the way early. Tennis, Table Tennis and Badminton (0/10). Verbal Arguments (1/10) lest people think you are on a train to Alzheimerton. Shopping (0/10) this is irrespective of company, or lack thereof.

There are the things that actually revolve around displaying some sort of ability to your significant other and as such lose effect in their absence: examples include Golf, Body Surfing, Tenpin bowling, and crossover skipping (<5/10). Variations of these are fine to undertake solo: driving range, swimming, Wii Tenpin bowling and normal, boring skipping (all 6-7/10).

One word – SCRABBLE; synonym for destroy, annihilate and/or humiliate. Scrabble loses at least 6 points with the loss of a partner (to ~2/10). That is unless you sit somewhere a little further along the Aspergers spectrum and use the time to hone your abacus-like calculative abilities and make sure that every tile is placed in perfect alignment and that each word score adds up to a Fibonacci number. Interestingly enough, the context of so many scrabble games – namely, a coffee shop and a flatwhite – is relatively unaffected due to the ability to occupy one’s time with a newspaper or with people-watching.

Cooking (4-5/10) loses a few points for a couple of simple reasons. Firstly, cooking is inherently something undertaken for the pleasure of others. We can derive indirect pleasure through the pride of our work or the enjoyment others draw, but we’re not the central focus of the play. Secondly, when you’ve cooked for 2 for over 4 years, you’re not necessarily going to have the presence of mind to alter proportions. As a result, and using tonight as an example, you will be eating honey-soy stirfried veges with ramen noodles for the next 8 consecutive meals. Lastly, so the adage goes “they that cooks, washes up not”. Cook and wash up? Why that’s a travesty, in my humble opinion.

Work (7/10). Odd I know, but with no-one warm and snuggly to have you wishing you remained under covers, it’s a bit easier to get to work on time. Hobbies (7/10) – my most recent one has been electronic circuits. Hobbies often require decent amounts of focussed attention, and are not well attuned to regular interruptions for, say, convivial discussions of one’s day. Keeping in mind that we are inclined to show-off, make sure your hobby task is complete before your partner’s return so they can ooh and aah in all the right places and leave you feeling less of a hermited geek and more of a man… “That’s the best home-made, self-calibrated, unconstrained Theremin I’ve ever seen… I’m so glad you’re my boyfriend! You’ll protect me in this most technological of futures!”…

Anyway, to the good’uns. First the dirty – playing with yourself… on the Playstation (8/10). No guilt, no time limits, no commitments. The only thing that tempers this is that you indeed play so much that you get bored of your games within a much shorter timeframe than otherwise might’ve been the case. Musical instruments or music (8/10). Despite the obvious inclination to impress others with your mad guitar skills, it wears off well before the 4 year mark. As a result, if you’re not doing it for you… why bother? Similarly, listening to music is an intensely personal experience and I do not expect others to share musical inclinations at any given moment. Alone, I control the CD player; in company, I compromise.

Penultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, photo-albums (9/10) – whether it be nostalgia about the times you’ve shared with your temporarily-absent other or a simple inkling to reminisce on some times that existed before you were together. You are the link that binds your photos, and hence it should be your experience. Together, you can only fully share the portion of photos that your partner appears in (or has some link to). Solo, you have total ownership – pride, shame, nostalgia, regret, love, idle remembrance. You don’t need to drive down memory lane all that often, so why not utilise the free time a break provides to wander, at leisure, down paths since forgotten and o’ergrown?

Lastly, for now, exercise (9/10). My poison is an afternoon ride along the river. You can run, climb, do weights, fit-ball, skip, stretch… You’re given an additional incentive in that, upon their return, you can be guaranteed that they’ll think to themselves “has he always been this buff, this hot, this super-mega attractive?” And then you can get back to things we do best in company…

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I am aware that this list is inconclusive. Notable omissions include: internet browsing, facebooking, blogs (yay!), masturbation (it’s amazing I’ve had time to write this really), fishing, chores, and pub. Given that this piece is now longer than a number of my supposedly scholarly 1st year uni papers, I think I shall wind up…

But not before saying, bring on day 12

We share our new place with 2 third-year dancers (M,F) from WAAPA and an architecture student (M) and it’s now about a 5 minute walk to Storm’s campus. The house is heritage listed and is certainly a little bit further along the spectrum of dilapidation than you might otherwise envisage when you first hear the word ‘heritage’… However, it will certainly serve its purpose for the next 4 months until we ship on to the next locale… As an added bonus, there’s a spare room and a double bed for any westbound visitors (esp, mum and dad, who will be here next month!). As an added, added bonus, we finally have a washing machine of our own!!!

In other news, Storm has been steadily preparing and rehearsing for a week of shows at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) that commence tonight and run through till Saturday. The post PICA party will also be at our new abode, so there’s plenty a’happening!

Alright, back to work… A post-weekend weekend would’ve been sensational but… ah well…

It must really suck being the moderator on a c.h.u.r.c.h bulletin board if you have to deal with thousands upon thousands of spam comments… The need for moderation on online sites is discussed here, in an apparent analogy to ‘real’ life…

So far, Askimet has protected my blog from around 45,000 spam posts – so I guess “Askimet saves better than Kalac too!” it would seem…

Now to delete that post…

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…

To that end, I’ve added a ‘Random Post’ widget on the righthand sidebar… so if you’re ever bored and on Jameses.org… try your luck.

The widgetization of my blog was part of a number of updates I did last night in an infrequent moment of motivation. Security has been strengthened (apologies to Cathy, whose blog, which I set up, was hacked months ago), data was backed up, and a Flickr widget which places the most recent picture of my Flickr Photostream on my frontpage was installed. I’ve done this as part of Project 365, which encourages participants to upload a photo a day for a year. Today’s as good a day as any to start!

The only other feature I’d like is a mediaplayer so I can have some toones on the frontpage – possibly done with my new guitar and microphone setup.

In other updates, Mum and Dad are in Chicago to visit the bro and family almost a year to the day since I visited that lovely city! Dad’s hopefully gonna kick along to Lollapalooza just to prove old people can enjoy Tool, Kings of Leon and/or other music of the devil.

My lovely little niece Ciara has broken her arm. This means she is now outdoing me on the broken bones counter 1:0. The tooth cavity counter is still level at 0:0.

Also, I stumbled on this interesting piece about love, life and acceptance that really struck a chord with me (From Megnut.com via Kottke.org).

Alright, that’s it for now… Hope you’re all well…

My still-slighty-intoxicated flatmate informed me that after work (at a nightclub where a meagre hourly wage is supplemented by a not-so-meagre apportioning of liquor) he got online and booked a flight to Thailand for the coming week. He was going to go with his Irish friend Johnny who had exclaimed, in true Irish form, that the trip ‘was going to get f*%king retarded’. Reece was somewhat chuffed at obtaining return flights for only 700, only to later realise (at which point I’m still unsure) that he had indeed been navigating a British website and that the quoted 700 was in Pounds sterling.

It later emerged that he’d checked the price multiple times, oblivious to the fact it was preceded by a £ sign. He’d also passed on the right to purchase the ‘right to refund’ should something go astray. Fortunately, the exchange rate is somewhat favourable so that, even if his frantic post-booking ‘please scrap that and refund me’ email should fall on deaf ears, he’ll ‘only’ be out of pocket by around $1500.

The moral of the story, I guess, is: If you’re get booked for drunken driving, you’re a fool. If you get driven for a drunken booking, you’re on your way to becoming ‘f$£king retarded’…

The Man from Three Rivers (Munnar)
There was movement at the station as the people milled around,
A beggar shook his cup in mournful tune.
The rubbish danced unnoticed as it fluttered from the ground
And rising sun saluted hazy moon.

The Munnar Man stood poised to write in History’s book by hand,
Every muscle in his torso set to rock.
Pensive in reflection, slowly masticating paan,
Six hours, twenty seven read the clock.

So many days have come and gone, a score of years at least,
Since raging Sanjay Gupta left his mark.
3 hours 43 he took to drive his metal beast,
From old Kochin to hinterland Munnar.

The people say it can’t be beat, with the traffic on the run,
With every thing a passing chance to hit.
But he knows that his bus is fast and skill is matched by none,
He’s whittled down the margin bit by bit.

So the people clambered upwards for a place in future glory,
Or else a death in some unknown ravine.
And last aboard the ticketman, who’ll feature in this story,
Shuffled forth collecting gold and green.

Blazing through the outskirts with his horn and screeching tyres,
Reaching speeds that only dawn allows.
Crashing through the odours of the streets and pavement fires
Dodging rickshaws, buses, cars and cows.

So to the hills he races with his lurching beast restrained,
The curves a blur for all of those onboard,
Soon will come the moment for which he’s ever trained,
The record his for now and ever more.

Round and round the corners as the bus would ever climb,
Hitting potholes, drifting left and right;
Right before the summit came a ‘clunk’ in space and time,
And for a tick the beast he drove took flight.

But nothing could deter the man on this his day of fate
3 hours 41 had come and gone,
When ladened bus with ghost-white folk did pass through Munnar’s gate
And stop outside the crowd in winter’s sun.

“Hurrah!!” He yelled “I’ve done it!” and he turned around with speed
Looking for the ticket man to say
“Congratulations Munnar Man, my watch fulfills the need,
Of proving that the record’s yours today”

Alas, it was this moment when he saw it was for sure
That the ticketman had sent his quest astray
And in this fellow’s absence were the taunting open doors
For you see he’d fallen out along the way…

{Baboom Cha}

This is fairly boring post, but one that’s aimed at my family and those who’ve asked me what I’m actually doing. That said, feel free to click away or zone out now…

The job is with the Office of Energy, in the ‘Hardship’ area of the ‘Community Division’. My role revolves around the formation and implementation of policies designed to help people in financial hardship (want to pay their electricity bills but can’t) to deal with recent and future tariff increases. Tariffs went up 10% in April and will go up 15% in July (26.25% total) to 17.6c/kWh. More are slated over the next few years to bring WA electricity prices to a point of cost reflectiveness.

As part of this, I work across a couple of different areas – grants, efficiency programs (including audits and a fridge replacement scheme), remote efficiency projects (insulation for remote communities and more audits) and most recently research and policy work regarding Pre-payment Meters (PPMs). PPMs are a hot topic at the moment and there’s significant debate as to how, and how far, they should be rolled out. As a result of all this, I find the work sufficiently diverse and fast moving (at least for the minute) to keep me occupied and happy.

Unlike last year, when Storm was working and dancing nights, it also means that my baby and I get to make dinner together almost every night. Although, with recent performances (which Storm rocked) and assignments due, she’s had more than a few valid reasons to get out of the washing up…

So that’s a wrap; I hope you’re all well and it’s a bit of a shame you all can’t be here to help me celebrate my 28th B’day with a game of Sunday Barefoot Bowls. I’ll be sure to have a beer for you… but not too many; I’m a working man now

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!!

There’s a follow up post to the Joys of Older Literature post I’d recently done, with an extended list of the novel terms and phrases encountered during my reading of Jane Eyre. By book’s end, the number of pages with dog-eared markers for later reference easily exceeded the number of ants swarming the scones we’d left out o’ernight.

Then there’s the flood of thoughts that have emerged upon commencing Hunter S Thompson’s part autobiography Kingdom of Fear. After finishing Bronte’s 590 odd pages of flourishing, refined and highly considered language and context, the effusive textual outpourings of HST came as both a shock and refreshment. Classic quotes and titbits are surrounded by random stories and occasional self-righteousness that a number of anti-establishment figures seem to be unable to avoid. Tales that seem to belie Occam and his shaving ways make me wonder whether the legend has overtaken the man or whether he truly was a badass…

There are thoughts on celebrity (however minor) and its effect on personal interactions, as shaped by a couple of conversations Storm and I had with Brisbane musician Loren at a recent gig in Fremantle.

There was an SBS documentary that Storm and I saw called Frank and Daz, about a C6 Cerebral Palsy sufferer who ran and completed the New York marathon and his Scottish friend who founded a charity to open schools in Cambodia after visiting the country.

And through these thoughts drifts a theme of ‘calling’. Thompson writes that he knew that he was to be a writer. Writing was work, but it was still ‘worthwhile work’. He had to pick a career that he could do better than most others, and writing was it. After Bronte, I don’t necessarily think him to be a brilliant wordsmith; however, he certainly does entertain. There was Loren, in a room where some patrons didn’t even have the common courtesy to limit their conversations during songs, singing and playing guitar in a manner that I could never replicate, and somehow subsisting only on merchandising sales and meagre cover charges. There’s the legacy left by the late John Martyn and the raging debate of his personal and muscial worth between lovers and haters in the comment sections of his youtube videos. And then there are Frank and Daz who are striving to do what they’ve been told they can’t, and living a life to its fullest.

Unfortunately, there’s no neat wrap to this flurry of ideas. There’s no epiphany… It’d be a mis-advertisment if there was. But at least that backlog of pre-nascent posts is out and now I can try and move on to more organised thoughts and syntheses…

And finally start work…