Sunday, July 30, 2006
Quote of the week
Kat: A couple of weeks ago we went to a spinning class which was based on stage 15 (L'Alpe d'Huez) of the Tour de France. Mat and I were team CSC and won - hooray! - although it turned out our team had already won in real life so I didn't need to pedal so fast.I've never been particularly interested in the Tour de France, but since that lesson (and of course a vested interest in team CSC) I started following it idly and came across Floyd Landis's epic Stage 17 win. Now, of course, it's all gone to custard with his positive drug test which a B sample will either confirm or deny. Matt Slater in BBC Sport made this fantastic comment:
"Landis and cycling are being tried in the court of public opinion.
Sadly, the judge has recently been hit by a bicycle courier on a zebra crossing and the jury is full of white van drivers and cabbies."
As a sport, cycling has one of the worst reputations for drug taking. A few years ago I was given a book that I would never have chosen myself: Put me back on my bike, an account of Tom Simpson who died in the 1967 Tour de France from dehydration following use of amphetamines and alcohol. It turned out to be fascinating - not only was drug use banned by the Union Cycliste Internationale just one year before Tom's death, but also there was a school of thought that water intake should be limited while exercising to improve performance. It's a wonder that more cyclists haven't died on Le Tour.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Computing dreams
Mat: Whenever I learn a new programming language, I always end up dreaming about it. The first time this happened was in 1998 when I first learned SQL, a language for talking to databases - after a few days immersed in it I dreamt that someone deleted all knowledge of The Beatles from my brain by using the SQL statement DELETE FROM Brain WHERE Subject LIKE '%Beatles%'; .Some people have very abstract and incomprehensible dreams, but if everyone dreamt like me there wouldn't be any need for the analyse your dreams books and Freud would be out of a job, because mine are always so obvious.
For example: recently I've been learning ASP.NET 2.0, the new version of the language I use most often for work. I've been using the original ASP for seven years, but I've been finding it quite a steep learning curve to use the new language. Yesterday I was working through a tutorial but couldn't get it to work at all. I bashed my head against the table several times trying to fix it but no joy. Last night I had a long (and boring) dream about .NET in which I solved the problem I was having yesterday, and when I woke up this morning and tried it - it worked! This isn't the first time I've solved coding problems in my sleep, I've seriously considered charging for my time when I've done this on commercial projects, because often I wake up exhausted.
Another example: I've been using MySQL a lot lately, and about a week ago I had a dream that the company released a new version of the software. Not very exciting so far, but the software had a revolutionary new interface - you could choose to write code in the normal way, or you could communicate with the database by having sex with it!
On second thoughts, maybe I do need that book about dream interpretation.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Best guest competition
Kat: We met Sylvia and Wayan in Nelson: Sylvia worked at the Suter Park Cafe, which was run by her mother and uncle. The four months we spent in Nelson were the highlight of our year in NZ and a truly golden time. The food... the parties... the endless sunny days... the food!It was their first trip to Australia so they were exceedingly excited and enthusiastic - although not enough to get up bright and early. Mat and I both *sort of* had the week off, which is to say Mat took the week off and I was able to get my work done during S & W's increasingly long lie-ins. They were very low-maintenance guests because they were easy to amuse: browsing our local Italian supermarket was such a draw that we all went there three times. We would have eaten at Bimbos (home of the famed $4 gourmet pizzas) three times too if we could have found an empty table yesterday. Other visitors have wanted to see the sights but this time shopping was top priority, so after showing them the QVM, Bridge Road and the CBD they took themselves off to Fitzroy and Ikea. The most important issue each day was where we were going to eat lunch closely followed by where we would eat supper, both close to my heart as well.
They were our Boggle and Scrabble partners in Nelson so, as expected, there was a fair amount of gaming - we played Mark and Claire's Phase 10 several nights, with the odd game of PDQ and Boggle thrown in for good measure - although it didn't approach the Squatter marathon we had with Vicky and Ben.
All in all they scored very highly on our guest-o-meter, though they do lose points for number of items left behind: it's a close call between them and Joe for that title. Of course it would be impossible to say exactly who the overall winner is, especially if we want to keep our own options open as visitors ;)
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Goodbye twenties
It hasn't been easy for Mat to organise anything because we both work from home and I'm a nosey busybody: "I'm just going out for a while" is always met with "Where? What are you doing?" I'm also used to buying things for myself, so on several occasions Mat had to hiss "Wait till your birthday!" at me.
Nelson friends Sylvia and Wayan have been staying with us since Friday, and Sylvia was more excited by cards arriving than I was. We had a fun present-opening session over breakfast: Mat followed the one-present-for-each-year trend I started last year, so the room was strewn with wrapping paper by the time I finished. There was a word theme, with books from Lesley and more books and PDQ from Mat. There were also several bike related items: gloves from Mel and Joel, bar-ends from Mat and a handlebar bag from ma and pa. And of course travel related goodies: road maps for South East Asia and a lightweight towel from Marcus and Natasha. Mark and Claire sneakily bought a brooch which I'd idly (and in all innocence) said I'd liked at a design fair; Sylvia and Wayan brought over a lovely greenstone pendant from NZ. I suspect a couple of Mat's presents are more for his benefit than mine: a fart-in-a-bag trick and a bag of marshmallows, but the individually wrapped Ferrero Rocher which he despises definitely weren't. Thanks all!
During the day Wayan, Mat and I cycled round the Capital City Trail while Sylvia shopped. In the evening we went for drinks and eats in Fitzroy North with Mark & Claire, Marcus & Natasha and Sylvia & Wayan. We started with a bottle of bubbly at Deco then had a meal at the always packed Moroccan Soup Bar. No, they don't just serve soup, but it is alcohol free and entirely veggie so probably not first choice for the rest of the crowd - but it was my birthday! It is run by Muslim women (hence no alcohol) and the fearsome owner explains what there is to eat - there are no menus. We had the set banquet which was tasty, filling and for $16.50(£6.70) per head, incredibly good value. Time for another drink and pool at our local; Natasha and I won our game but I don't think it was rigged. My birthday luck must have still been in this morning because I won at squash too, despite a bit of a hangover.
Monday, July 10, 2006
World Cup 24 hour bug
I get the impression that Australia is traditionally a football (soccer) loathing nation: they're used to playing AFL which is a very different kind of game, and they don't like losing which the Socceroos usually do. This year was the first time since 1974 that they qualified for the World Cup. Suddenly it was an irresistible combination: sport (always a good start), being the underdogs and the Socceroos winning their matches. The Aussies couldn't help themselves! Everyone got the bug and for a short time "football" came to mean "soccer", even thought it's the middle of the AFL premiership.
I don't think anyone was more surprised than the Australians that they beat Japan 3-1, the first time Australia has ever scored in a World Cup. Italian-Australians probably weren't expecting Australia to reach the next round and hadn't considered who they would barrack for (that's the local lingo for "support"). We didn't watch the match against Italy, which was shown in the CBD as well as two outdoor screens in Carlton, but apparently the turnout was enormous.
It seemed a shame to miss out on all the atmosphere, so this morning I dragged Mat out of bed at 3.30am to watch the final on Lygon Street, the heart of the Italian district. I'm not a big football fan but it was a pretty exciting game (especially Zidane's dramatic headbutting incident). It's a shame it went to penalties - what's the point in playing for 2 hours then deciding the match on something entirely different? The French possibly played better during the game, but in the end the Italians won and everyone in Lygon Street went wild: "Italia, Italia!". I've already seen bottles of olive oil shaped like the Jules Rimet trophy; I'm sure everything in Carlton will be football-flavoured for months to come.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Squashed
Kat and I have got a bit of a reputation at the squash club for playing particularly violently against each other - my excuse is that it's the sibling rivalry I never had, but I don't know what hers is. Today was particularly brutal - Kat hit me with the ball in the back (pictured), and then five minutes later swung her raquet into my groin at high speed (not pictured). It's been many years since I've suffered this injury, and for a few minutes all I could do was writhe on the ground holding myself. A worried Kat eventually urged me to "Just say something!" to which I replied in a high-pitched squeak "it hurts".
We both always wear squash goggles, and I'm really glad because I hit Kat in the face once and had she not been wearing them, it could have been quite messy. If you're at all squeamish, don't follow this link to some really gruesome squash injuries.
Play nice kids.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Picasso
The exhibition really inspired me to create, so when we got home I persuaded my own muse and lover to pose for some photographs. It's very experimental at the moment, what do you think?