Cheap Therapy

After a mention on Slashdot I was checking out Map/Reduce (again) which mentioned Yahoo’s use of hadoop. There was a list of Map/Reduce based applications using Hadoop and I happened to notice that ablegrape is a search engine seemingly devoted to wine.

Now, I must see if I can find some vintage ‘bastardo’

• Dinner with the folks. They get to see the battlewagon. Puggle is very keen on it, and Bilby didn’t like going for a drive in the old car
• Pretty much proof the car dealer put a car they were too lazy to let us drive ‘on offer’ (it’s no longer on offer since our sale was finalised, but it’s still there unsold).
• Trying to sell the old car. Vacuuming and detailing. The harder I vacuum the more sand is revealed. When did we stuff it full of Christmas trees?
• Farewell morning tea, luncheon, and post-work drinks for the old boss. Last time he was farewelling me
• Pizza dinner with Redbraids and MikeyOb, which was very pleasant, and reminded us of our laxness in inviting people over for dinner for adult conversation…
• The annual paying of the big bills, and doing of the tax. Followed by the watching of the bank balance. Then the bill for the stamp duty on the car arrives
• My GP retired. Then started running for the Labor party!
• Puggle is obsessed with take-away chicken from Chooks after we bought some the other night. Tonight he offered that he and Bilby would order that, and we could eat the regular dinner. He asked for the phone number so he could ring up and order some. He even suggested that he and Bilby might eat some regular dinner as well as Chooks. I suspect we may not go there in a while until the obsession has died down!
• Edging closer to the arrival of Cygnet. I should really start looking at names.

Apparently guys who can cook well enough to impress women are now termed ‘Gastrosexuals’
Not to be confused with people who have a sexual preference for snails.
Unless they’re sauteed in butter and garlic and used to entice partners perhaps.

Taste.com.au are running a competition to find Home Cook of The Year, you’ll need a winning weeknight recipe that your family loves.

• Home Based Learning Network trade fair. I won the first door prize
• Touring the frozen eastern states. Qantas cancels two of my flights due to maintenance issues, and books me on the earlier flight. Fortunately I am able to make it to the airport on time in both cases, although one of them involves eating my dinner in the car… One flight is on a plane flown up from Melbourne to replace the original aircraft. The new plane has a loose interior panel next to my seat, which the hostie kicks into place And the reading lights don’t work. Hopefully nothing else is wrong with it!
• I’m going to try a cut for those who like such things. Apologies if this doesn’t work on the syndicated feed.

(more…)

• A relaxing weekend in Mandurah
• Planning an interstate trip
• Wrangling FileMaker, MySQL, PHP, qpopper and postfix.
• Bilby getting much more talkative. Many more words and signs (miming juicing an orange to indicate she wanted OJ!) Long involved soliloquies, if only I could understand what she was actually saying…
• Colds all round Mounds of tissues
• Car serviced.
• Got a call from my ISP claiming I was DoSing someone. Oops (No, it was not a virus)
• Most excellent engagement party with many good friends.
• Baked a Jaffa Marble Cake and a vegan Apple and Almond cake (I was out of walnuts).
• Got a ladder for my birthday. Used it to clean the gutters.
• Got many birthday wishes from people, thankyou, it meant a lot.
• Had a close friend ring up on my birthday to ask me how to send a break from telnet. This was good for the amusement value of him forgetting my birthday at least.
• Watered trace elements into the plants.
• Saw Da Vinci’s machines. Had forgotten how much of it was weapons research.
• Indian buffet.
• Saw Dr. Jones.
• Read Moondust.

Anyone got any good cake recipes they can recommend from experience? Bonus points if they a) use apples, and/or b) are vegan.

It’s not a cake, it’s a South Australian Heritage Icon.

Saturday morning we headed off to The Amazing Race, organised in honour of a friend’s 40th birthday. Complete with initial “Amazing Race” style running to the starting line (apparently on the real show they film it a couple of times to do the closeups!). Then it was digging around in the sandpit, throwing balls into a bucket, and off to the train station and in to the Art Gallery to do some impromptu sculpture, out to Subiaco to find the café for lunch, off to either The Roundhouse or (as we did) catch the Ferry to South Perth to construct either a waist high tower (fortunately Bilby has a low waist :), or a kite (we did both, with a low degree of success :).
After that we caught the ferry back, hunted some statuary and then caught the train back to the car. Along the way we had to collect photos of various objects, and a treasure hunt list of actual objects.
We debriefed and tallied the scores. Apparently a few innocent bystanders had asked “Where are the cameras?”. Then it was time for pizza, birthday cake and three rounds of Dark Zone laser games (for me at least). It’s hard to play with 10kg of child on your arm, especially if she’s sticking her hand over the laser, but she seemed to enjoy it. Then it was time to stagger to the car, barely able to walk.

If you’re an expat or just hankering for a taste of the Netherlands, check out www.dutchfood.com.au. Also some Indonesian sauces there as well.