yesterday was yesterday, today will be yesterday, tomorrow will be today.

Yesterday, I went to Campos and didn’t get a coffee. I got a iced chocolate instead. It was a spur of the moment trip. One girl, five guys (they all had coffee). Where are all the girls with cameras?

I went to Rics, for a Sunday arvo session. It was quite comfortably filled, and every single person had this smile on their face.

I sat round the dimly lit Troubie whilst it was bright sunshine outside. That was weird. Waiting for people to turn up.

I watched a group of people turn the Troubie into a lounge room and listened to a few songs.

I shook my head at boy who has hair like an Icelandic sheep and smirked with a girl who I should always be sitting down when talking to.

Today though.
I set the alarm for an extra 15 minutes.

My lunch was two matching containers of tupperware, one with a chopped up mango (honey gold thank you) and the other with grapes (green please).

I am reading Kabul in Winter. Which must be the fifth, I think, book on Afghanistan post 2001 that I have read in the past few weeks. It is really good to see how a lot of the main people and history are written in the different books.

I have numerous photos that I could illustrate this post with but strangely I have no desire to put photos with these words.

I watched the last episode of Alias season 1. I had forgotten there were only five seasons, I kept on thinking there were seven and I had the timeline stretched out a lot longer in my mind.

I just found out that one of the girls from high school who I have probably kept the most contact with works in a building across the street from where I work. We catch the bus from the same stop each afternoon. weird.

I haven’t taken my photo for today yet.

Tomorrow.
I have a bunch of kids enlisting. That means I get to wrap med docs in brown paper (it was that, not the view that cinched me taking the job). Every week or so it is like Christmas. Wrapping all those “presents”.

I will make biscuits when I get home.

I will wake up at 6am and get out of bed at 6:03am.

I will watch an hour of something trashy on TV and shake my head the entire time at myself for watching it.

I well who knows what else I will do because tomorrow is tomorrow.

days.

It has been a very busy last few days at work. One of the girls has been off this past week extremely sick and then the other girl has been off after having her wisdom teeth out. Which has left myself, the other new girl, our boss and our part timer trying to catch up. It has been keeping us very busy. Thursday though I had to get out of the office and have lunch in the square which is where a few of these photos are from. Friday though I finished at 4pm, ever growing stack of files could wait till Monday. I caught the bus into The Valley and went to the Thai grocery/DVD store to get a few things I was after from the cooking class with Leanne the other week. Friday night Mum had a slideshow with the three other ladies that she went walking in NZ with. That was quite nice. So many nice places in the the Fiordland area.

Saturday, yesterday, I didn’t do much, it was a stinker of a day. We turned the air con and I watched some more Alias before making some pasta for lunch. Then I watched some more Alias. Then I went to Taste in the Valley for a Moghul cooking demo with Gaynor Long. Then I watched some more Alias, cooked tea (Harissa grilled steak with cous cous and a pea/capsicum/sundried tomato mixture. I then crashed to the sounds of classics on 4MBS.

I woke up at 6 this morning. I couldn’t sleep. I had breakfast, made some not so melting moments (the still taste ok but just not like melting moments) and then went back to sleep for a little while longer. Just taking it easy, I’m going to go out later for some music and assorted fun. As I type this now though, I am listening to a piano CD I have from ABC Classics, the current “song” is Adagio from Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. I have my desk cleaned off and actually creating for the first time in ages, I had forgotten how it feels to write with a pen on cardstock. To look at photos, thumb through papers.

Number 7 park bench, 53/366 lunch spot Can you see it? Succlents at the farm Chopstix, 54/366 Moghul Cooking Demo lunch, 55/366

words and photos

It is by far nearly bed time. I should be in bed right now but I feel like typing. There are lots of things I want to type but they can wait. Tonight I will type about some photos from the last few days.

Somehow still managing to take a photo a day. However it is so often a struggle. I take my camera to work. I take my camera home with me and most times it is not till some time in the evening that I finally press that shutter button. Today though the photo that I picked was from when I was waiting at the bus stop after Pabbi had just dropped me off. Still getting a lift to and from the bus stop at the moment. Though I have ditched the walking cane and am moving much easier round the place. I can almost walk down stairs properly too albeit slowly and with much thought. That is all with the brace on though. With out it is a whole new story.

7:0something, 51/366

This 366 thing gets harder and harder during the week, on the weekends it us fun. It is not that I don’t want to take photos, I love it. However you have grander and grander images in your head as you look at something and think of how you would love to take a photo of it, from this angle, with light there and with that as the focus point etc etc. Then you take the photo and due all those environmental or technical variables that you didn’t control. You only end up with a photo that is 5% of what you had in you mind. Then you think someday.

This is a Blue Ginger or Ornamental Ginger, it grows in our back yard in the very back corner. The flowers sure a pretty and the leaves are that not quite glossy dark yet rich green.
not quite full bloom, 50/366

On Sunday we went to the Farm. As we do :), I mean how could you not want to go see Grandad? He rocks my world. We don’t speak very much, but then we share a smirk or he comes out with a line and you just go hell yeah. This was at the farm the other day. Grandad has pumpkin vines growing just about everywhere. There is also the cherry tomato plants that would live through a nuclear war, those things are indestructible, however it is not their season at the moment. There are a few little green cherries on the plants but only one red I saw. I carefully picked it as it looked like the skin was about to split, gave it a polish and a little fun with it.

I bet you haven’t seen a pumpkin flower that looks like this before 🙂

Strange Pumpkin Flower, 48/366

After I took a few photos, I put it in my mouth and enjoyed that short moment of sweetness and tartness before it was gone to my stomach. Then I took this photo. Pumpkin. Almost ready for picking.

Pump-kin

I got Season 1 of Alias on DVD from the Library the other day, slowly making my way through the discs. I had forgotten how much *fun* the show was. I must admit I like watching it on DVD as I can fast forward the bits where I get scrunch up my eyes and get slightly scared. Even though I know what happens in the end I still go slightly eek.

My three top albums of 2008, part 1

It is Feb 18 and I have known what my top three albums of 2008 will be for about the last six weeks. These are three albums that I have been looking forward, one for years, the others not so long. These are albums by three artists who have each made significant thumb prints on my musical taste. I have vivid memories of the first time that I heard/saw each of these artists. I remember sitting in front of the TV watching a clip on RAGE and going woah! Or listening to some random US college radio stream and googling the song lyrics with more haste than I ever have before. The other I remember sitting on the floor at The Troubie grinning and going Man oh Man, where has this person been hiding? These are albums that will be played and are been played endlessly on repeat. Those albums that you make numerous copies of so that you have one beside every CD player you frequent. The album that no matter how many times you listen to it through you still smile at the opening strains of a track.

This post was originally planned as one large post with all three albums in it. However, one album came out today, the other comes out in two months and the third sometime in June and as a result I have typed a fair bit about the album that was released today but not much about the other two. Which is not very fair is it? The album that came out today I have been listening to on non-stop repeat ever since I got the leaked copy, the others I have heard a 60 second clip of one track and the other I know some songs due to a promo single. Anyone who knows me and has actually listened when I have talked about music in the past few years will quite possibly know the three albums I am talking about now.

I rang a few stores today to see who had this album in stock, Rocking Horse told me that they had it on the shelf since last week! The other stores were still waiting for it come in. I went to Rocking Horse after work today 🙂

That album, the first album on my top three albums of 2008 is Heretic Pride, The Mountain Goats.
Heretic Pride, 49/366

As soon you read that line though you knew didn’t you. The ‘Goats (as I refer to them) show back on September 10, 2005 at the Zoo marked a turning point for me. I was so hungry to see this band play that I bit the bullet, walked into Rocking Horse bought a ticket and went to my first real gig by myself. Just after the second time I witnessed them play in April 2006 I made this comment in a blog post. It was also probably my first time taking gig photos.

However, there is small group of bands that you love on a whole other level. They are the ones where the songs reverberate through your soul, you smile/frown/cry/get angry/laugh at their songs. They are bands in which you feel connected to every other person at the gig, knowing that you are a select group of people taking part in something special. They are the bands that don’t need pyrotechnics, fancy lighting or 99 costume changes to make music. All they need is themselves and their instruments to create music that you can feel in the air. It’s music that tells a story, it’s what makes me live.

JD put a copy of the opening track Sax Rohmer #1 on the ‘Goats blog. I googled it to see what others had said and found out that the album had leaked. My fingers quivered over the keyboard, to grab a copy or not, I got a copy. Man o Man x 254. So looking forward to the ‘Goats tour in April. The Zoo will go off and wherever else I might see the show…..

Back to the album.
This is one hell of an album. It is no Sunset Tree that doesn’t mean it is bad it is anything but. I think I love it more than Sunset Tree, to my ears it flows together better as a whole album when playing it through. It is a few years after The Sunset Tree. It is an older album. It is grown up. I hear promises in it. I hear life and love and lost love in it. Stereogum posted a premature evaluation I agree with parts of it but not with other parts. Perhaps because I just disappear into a smile when I listen to the CD, I love that album unconditionally.

Hearing the opening strains of San Bernardino my heart starts to flutter at the joy that song holds. Then there is Sax Rhomer #1 that just whispers to me to sing the chorus line “I’m coming home to you if it’s the last thing that I do”. and oh the video clip for Sax Rhomer #1 is such an interesting clip.

Michael Myers Resplendent is perhaps the song that has grown on me the most. It has those grand orchestral feelings. I can just see JD and PPH in my mind doing a Tim Freedman/Ben Folds with any of the state orchestras. It just feels so grand.

The press kit is a comic. It is oh so Goaty. Well worth looking at.

I have a feeling if JD was born a 100 years ago, he would have been one of the great novelists or poets of the modern world. We would not talk of Hemingway or Huxley but of Darnielle. His lyrics are just so perfectly written, so illustrative yet full of hidden meaning.

The Mountain Goats are not for everyone but oh if you love them you love them so much it hurts.

the past week.

Monday.
Light, 42/366
I went to my doctor on Monday arvo to see what he said about my ankle. He said that I sure did a good job of it, re-tearing the ligaments that I tore playing silly buggers about ten years ago. All that I can do is rest it, keep it supported and wait. He said that it should take no longer than six weeks post injury and I have to be very careful in that time not to injure it again.

I took this photo as I lay in the recliner watching something on TV

Tuesday.
Ceiling w/ cornice, 43/366
This photo has the same tale as the one above. Laying in the recliner, watching something, seeing what photos I can take and only been slightly happy with this one.

Wednesday. Sorry day.
Sorry

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

Hopefully now we will only take steps forward and the gap will close.

Portaloo on the move, 44/366
One of the things I most enjoy about working on the twelfth floor is the chance to observe what is happening below me, watching people on the roof of a building having a smoke, the window cleaners, the witch’s hats on the roof a building that move round with the rain. Perhaps what I enjoy most is watching the going-ons of St John’s Cathedral directly across the street from me. I have seen the spires grow a little bit each day, watched the workers sitting on the scaffolding as they eat their lunch, observed the washing on the washing line of the residence and what strangely delights me the most is watching the portaloo move between spires as they work on different spires each day. Watching a crane lift a portaloo up and move it through the air is a strange sight to see. As in the above picture, it also sometimes has to get taken down to the ground to be emptied. The picture is not the best due to the windows we have, they are double glazed with blinds in the middle.

Thursday.
Entertainment in bed, 45/366

One of the things I most enjoy about catching the bus to work is that it gives me a chance to read a lot more. I have also been reading even more this past few weeks as I lay in bed with my foot up. One of the other things I have been doing is quizzing myself on trivia questions. 🙂

Friday.
Waiting for the Bus, 46/366
I catch the bus from outside the Hotel Orient, a hotel I grew up hearing stories of as it was the resident hangout of my older brother when he lived in Brisbane, back when it was one of the icons of the local music scene. Now it the local pub for work and where I catch the bus from outside of in the afternoon.

I spent part of the bus trip home talking to Sam, and the job she is just about to start as the Indo (Indonesian) teacher at Townsville Grammer and the trip she will have to make to get there. Sam is from Emerald a town that has had some pretty bad floods this past month. The trip north to Townsville normally takes about seven hours. However, at the moment the whole area from the coast out west to Emerald area is in flood and it is not looking to improve any time soon, the only option she has to drive there is a sixteen hour drive the long way. At the moment she is just waiting in Emerald hoping the waters start to recede.

shopping centre symmetry
Friday night, Mum and I went to see 27 Dresses and oh what a laugh it was, a whole lot better than I had expected from the previews. Then I came home and watched Pride and Prejudice.

Saturday.
I woke up to see a message from Karl on Sykpe after messaging for a little while, I picked up the headset and pressed dial. We spoke for a while and then Mum and Pabbi came in chatted as well. Then they went shopping and we kept on talking, nearly two hours later we hung up. I went to have breakfast, Karl went to entertain. I could not fathom to imagine how much that phone call would have cost if I had made it on the landline, nearly two hours from Australia to Iceland, it would not have been cheap. The best thing is that he had little piece of news for us, he is planning on coming home for Christmas :D, also my second eldest brother, his wife and his two daughters are also planning on coming to spend Christmas in Australia too 😀 Christmas 2008 is going to be a blast 😀

washing day, 47/366
Sheets on the line, the sun coming and going between the storm clouds to the south. Sheets billowing in the wind.
I was getting a bit stir crazy yesterday laying inside, so I went outside with my 85mm lens and lay on the old brick bqq taking a few photos. I took a few frames of this shot, trying each time to get the sheet billowing just right in the afternoon breeze.

surbubia, next door.
I have looked up at the antenna on the roof next door numerous times, each time thinking that would be a cool photo, yesterday I took the photo.

That was my week.

Chocolate Topped Baked Cheesecake

Last Friday one of the girls at work had a birthday, so I baked a cake. A cheesecake, just like the one we always make. Though this time I added some chocolate to it 🙂 It went down oh so very well, so well in fact that one of the nurses made it the next day for a gathering.

Chocolate topped baked cheesecake, 39/366

Crumb Base
1 250g packet scotch fingers
bit of all spice
50g butter/marg
50g copha
2 tbsps or so of cocoa if desired

Melt the butter/marg and copha together.
Crumb scotch fingers till they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Stir through the all spice and cocoa if using. Stir in the melted fat mixture. The mixture of dairy and vegetable fat is used to give a better “crumb” and how it holds together. Press in to the bottom (and sides if desired) of a greased 20cm spring form pan (line the bottom with foil) and chill in the fridge whilst making the filling.

Filling
500g cream cheese
bit of lemon juice
bit of vanilla
4 eggs
2/3C sugar

Cream the cream cheese till smooth. Add in the vanilla and lemon juice. Beat in the sugar till smooth and then beat in eggs one at a time till mixture is smooth. Pour on top of the base and cook in 160deg oven for 40 mins or until cooked. Run knife round edge of spring form pan and cool overnight.

Topping
idea very loved from Smitten Kitchen
50g butter
100g+ chocolate – dark or Cadbury Energy or Lindt 70% etc – Mix it up with a few different chocolates, increase the flavour or use up those half used blocks…
2 tsp honey
You could also very easily add some flavours here such as peppermint extract, mmmm.

Melt all ingredients together in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Pour over top of cooled cheesecake and place in fridge for 30mins to set the chocolate topping.

When cutting this cake (due to the chocolate topping) if you want a clean cut you must dip the knife in a glass of hot water after each and every cut.

In the kitchen just after it came out of the oven.
in the kitchen, 38/366