Rhino had better watch out...
Tim Burton exhibition - Sarah Jessica as you haven't seen her before...
My kind of toys...
Weapons of mass decoration...
Monday, December 6, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Bolt Action
I just want to give a big plug for this book.
Bolt Action is by an author called Charlie Charters from the UK. He is the husband of an old friend of mine from university days and apparently it is his first book. When I was in the UK I looked for it everywhere and finally found it in Edinburgh and it is a hoot. The type of action writing that would make Matthew Reilly or our own Mr Phelan feel right at home. Since I came back it has appeared in Australian bookstores as well, this photo shows it on the shelves of Melbourne's Readers Feast bookstore.
So Havsy, Chaz and JB - if you come across it give it a go - well worth the time...
Reporting in...
Well what can I say?
My feet seem to have hardly hit the ground since getting back from my little trip OS. Work has been crazily busy, we have a new show opening this weekend which has kept everything hopping, there is a restructure on the wind and some of my key team members have decided to up and leave. But all of this will leave me with an opportunity to appoint my own team, which could be a BIG FKN POSITIVE (as Havock would say).
There have been some very tempting jobs in other cities that I would like to throw my hat in the ring for but at present we are only looking at the possibility of work here in Melbourne or in Brisbane, and not much is coming up in either place.
Not that there is a real problem here, the people upstairs like what I do, the bulk of people here are pretty good to deal with, most of my team are really good at what they do and we work well together. But the bureaucracy here can drive me absolutely nuts and it is really de-motivating. I get to the stage where I just find it hard to be bothered fighting the same battles again and again...
On the home front we have been spending a lot of time at home, pottering around in our funny little garden and trying to get our heads around some sort of renovation plan for the shopfront. My dad has given us a basic design which will work, but hasn't gotten back to us with the next stage, which is what we need so that we can have some serious talks with builders. Admittedly he has been slightly busy, my folks have sold their bright new house, he got made redundant and his dog died - although that all sounds very dramatic - the house was built as an investment and he felt lucky to get an extra year with the job in the post GFC climate, but he was very sad about the dog - a gorgeous very loyal weimaranar...
So hopefully I will see something on paper (it is all pen and ink with him, none of this CAD stuff) within a couple of weeks, just in time for Christmas.
Saw Barnes for a curry lunch a couple of weeks ago and have been hoping to catch up with him and Havock for some sort of boozy lunch in the next fortnight. Made all sorts of plans for movies as well - Skyline looked pretty good, I have heard good things about Monsters and actually heard excellent reviews of a little Israeli movie called Lebanon (which is all set within an MBT) - so will have to pick and choose which one I actually can get to... It would be good to hear what you guys think?
The other thing which has been sucking up some late night time has been that damned Sins of a Solar Empire game that Orin used to rave about, I installed it on the almost dysfunctional laptop at home and it works quite well, but it is nearly as bad as Civilization IV at roaching away the hours.
On the book front I picked up a copy of Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks which has been fantastic so far, like all of his sci-fi books that I have read. I have to say I was amazed to read in Murph's blog that he couldn't be bothered reading any of Banks' sci-fi novels as I think he is awesome. All I can think is that maybe Murph picked up one of his 'literary' novels instead, they have a very different tone and style. Either that or he thinks that 'The Culture' at the centre of most of the books is too leftie and commie for him.
But I do think that he should reconsider... but we all know that isn't very likely with Mr Murphy once he has made up his mind...
Here is a little exceprt from this one that I liked.
"Battle stations? she asked.
Demeisen looked pained. "Terribly old expression. From so long ago ships had crews. Or crews that weren't just along for the ride. But yes."
"Anything I can do?"
He smiled. "My dear girl, in Culture history alone it has been about nine thousand years since a human, marvellous though they are in so many other ways, could do anything useful in a serious, big-guns space battle other than admire the pretty explosions... or in some cases contribute to them."
"Contribute?"
"Chemicals; colours. You know."
My feet seem to have hardly hit the ground since getting back from my little trip OS. Work has been crazily busy, we have a new show opening this weekend which has kept everything hopping, there is a restructure on the wind and some of my key team members have decided to up and leave. But all of this will leave me with an opportunity to appoint my own team, which could be a BIG FKN POSITIVE (as Havock would say).
There have been some very tempting jobs in other cities that I would like to throw my hat in the ring for but at present we are only looking at the possibility of work here in Melbourne or in Brisbane, and not much is coming up in either place.
Not that there is a real problem here, the people upstairs like what I do, the bulk of people here are pretty good to deal with, most of my team are really good at what they do and we work well together. But the bureaucracy here can drive me absolutely nuts and it is really de-motivating. I get to the stage where I just find it hard to be bothered fighting the same battles again and again...
On the home front we have been spending a lot of time at home, pottering around in our funny little garden and trying to get our heads around some sort of renovation plan for the shopfront. My dad has given us a basic design which will work, but hasn't gotten back to us with the next stage, which is what we need so that we can have some serious talks with builders. Admittedly he has been slightly busy, my folks have sold their bright new house, he got made redundant and his dog died - although that all sounds very dramatic - the house was built as an investment and he felt lucky to get an extra year with the job in the post GFC climate, but he was very sad about the dog - a gorgeous very loyal weimaranar...
So hopefully I will see something on paper (it is all pen and ink with him, none of this CAD stuff) within a couple of weeks, just in time for Christmas.
Saw Barnes for a curry lunch a couple of weeks ago and have been hoping to catch up with him and Havock for some sort of boozy lunch in the next fortnight. Made all sorts of plans for movies as well - Skyline looked pretty good, I have heard good things about Monsters and actually heard excellent reviews of a little Israeli movie called Lebanon (which is all set within an MBT) - so will have to pick and choose which one I actually can get to... It would be good to hear what you guys think?
The other thing which has been sucking up some late night time has been that damned Sins of a Solar Empire game that Orin used to rave about, I installed it on the almost dysfunctional laptop at home and it works quite well, but it is nearly as bad as Civilization IV at roaching away the hours.
On the book front I picked up a copy of Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks which has been fantastic so far, like all of his sci-fi books that I have read. I have to say I was amazed to read in Murph's blog that he couldn't be bothered reading any of Banks' sci-fi novels as I think he is awesome. All I can think is that maybe Murph picked up one of his 'literary' novels instead, they have a very different tone and style. Either that or he thinks that 'The Culture' at the centre of most of the books is too leftie and commie for him.
But I do think that he should reconsider... but we all know that isn't very likely with Mr Murphy once he has made up his mind...
Here is a little exceprt from this one that I liked.
"Battle stations? she asked.
Demeisen looked pained. "Terribly old expression. From so long ago ships had crews. Or crews that weren't just along for the ride. But yes."
"Anything I can do?"
He smiled. "My dear girl, in Culture history alone it has been about nine thousand years since a human, marvellous though they are in so many other ways, could do anything useful in a serious, big-guns space battle other than admire the pretty explosions... or in some cases contribute to them."
"Contribute?"
"Chemicals; colours. You know."
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
more pictures...
the amazing Medieval galleries at the V&A...
weaponry at V&A...
18th century architect decided to attach a museum to his house and people are still queuing up to get in...
another familiar looking Londoner...
the Natural History Museum at Oxford...
call that a museum, I'll show you a museum... the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford - totally old school!
weaponry at Pitt Rivers Museum, enough bangsticks to make Havock happy...
from Brown Bess to blunderbus...
Japanese ghost prints at Ashmolean Museum.
Japanese ghost prints again...
dinner in Harry Potter land...
the Bodleian Library in Oxford...
some pictures...
the view from the bar at the Tate Modern...
new uses for old warplanes - turned into contemporary art installations at Tate Britain...
shiny shiny...
some of you may recognise this London local...
funny things going on at Trafalgar Square...
that bloody Rhino gets in everywhere...
Sutton who?
sticks and Rosetta Stones...
someone misplaced their marbles....
another fellow a long way from home.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I may be some time...
Sweet Thang always complains that I take up time reading the explanatory label on anything - whether it is a panel in a park, on the side of a building or in a museum. The fact is that she is absolutely right, but I do try to claim a professional interest - after all I do work in the museum field and it is what we call 'interpretation' how do you make what can seem an almost random selection of facts interesting to the general public.
At the moment I am sitting in a train departing Newcastle - that is Newcastle in northern England, not the Newcastle to the north of Sydney - and in the last week I have read more labels and panels then at any time before in my life. This is a work trip that came out of left field, basicvally go and attend a meeting in Oxford about an exhibition we are going to have in a couple of years and while you are in the UK have a good look around, meet colleagues and do stuff...
So far I have spent three days in London, three days in Oxford, three days in Edinburgh and am on my way to Cambridge and then Dublin. So there have been lots and lots of museums, many photographs, a few really good meetings and lots and lots of labels to read.
Here are some of the facts that I have learnt:
- when you walk into the British Library and turn left from the Foyer they have an amazing array of books, medieval manuscripts, maps, sheet music, letters and journals on display in their Treasures Gallery. However the one which amqazed me the most wasn't some gloriously illuminated medieval book, it was a faitrly nondescript plain paper book, covered with diufficulty to read handwriting - it was Scott's journal from the ill-fated Antarctic expedition open on the page where he describes another member of the party, dying of starvation and cold leaving the tent with the words ' I may be some time.."
- on a fence next to Russell Square in London's Bloomsbury, a gogeous leafy park, there is a small plaque mentioning that near this spot a bomb destroyedf a double decker bus on what they call over here 7/7. Looking around you can easily imagine the disruption and devastation that would cause in this place on a busy day. Bloomsbury is full of blue plaques on buildings - it got quite distracting - here lived some of the most influential thinkers, artists and writers ever.
Of courese there has been a lot more and my main mlearning was that you don't try and do the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and trhe John Soanes Museum all in one day - your brain will probably explode...
I will post some pictures soonish.
At the moment I am sitting in a train departing Newcastle - that is Newcastle in northern England, not the Newcastle to the north of Sydney - and in the last week I have read more labels and panels then at any time before in my life. This is a work trip that came out of left field, basicvally go and attend a meeting in Oxford about an exhibition we are going to have in a couple of years and while you are in the UK have a good look around, meet colleagues and do stuff...
So far I have spent three days in London, three days in Oxford, three days in Edinburgh and am on my way to Cambridge and then Dublin. So there have been lots and lots of museums, many photographs, a few really good meetings and lots and lots of labels to read.
Here are some of the facts that I have learnt:
- when you walk into the British Library and turn left from the Foyer they have an amazing array of books, medieval manuscripts, maps, sheet music, letters and journals on display in their Treasures Gallery. However the one which amqazed me the most wasn't some gloriously illuminated medieval book, it was a faitrly nondescript plain paper book, covered with diufficulty to read handwriting - it was Scott's journal from the ill-fated Antarctic expedition open on the page where he describes another member of the party, dying of starvation and cold leaving the tent with the words ' I may be some time.."
- on a fence next to Russell Square in London's Bloomsbury, a gogeous leafy park, there is a small plaque mentioning that near this spot a bomb destroyedf a double decker bus on what they call over here 7/7. Looking around you can easily imagine the disruption and devastation that would cause in this place on a busy day. Bloomsbury is full of blue plaques on buildings - it got quite distracting - here lived some of the most influential thinkers, artists and writers ever.
Of courese there has been a lot more and my main mlearning was that you don't try and do the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and trhe John Soanes Museum all in one day - your brain will probably explode...
I will post some pictures soonish.
Friday, August 13, 2010
With a whimper
A couple of weeks ago there was a lot of coverage in the Australian media of a talk given by a guy called Niall Ferguson at some 'thinktank' event in Sydney. Apparently he made a lot of connections between the decline of US Power and several other past empires and how their decline was linked to out of control fiscal debt with statements like this:
The fiscal position of the US is worse than that of Greece. But Greece is not a global power. In historical perspective, unless something radical is done soon, the US is heading into into Bourbon France territory. It is heading into Ottoman Turkey territory. It is heading into postwar Britain territory...
Quietly, discreetly, the Chinese are reducing their exposure to US Treasury bonds. Perhaps they have noticed what the rest of the world's investors pretend not to see - that the US is on an unsustainable fiscal course, with no apparent political means of self-correcting...
I think that the comment about no apparent means of self-correcting is the key which has everyone outside the USA running scared - while the American political 'system' usually appears completely insane to anyone viewing it from outside it does seem a little bit more nutty at present then ever before with tea parties, Sarah Palin and everyone else banging on about socialism and pointing their fingers at Obama while the actual system seems to be inherently ineffectual at changing anything...
Of course I wasn't there for the lecture - but I did wonder who is this person who has really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons and it turns out that he is someone who really does know stuff - according to his own personal website: Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Anyway so I think I found the basis for his paper here and this version concludes with this statement:
This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Which is why voters are right to worry about America's debt crisis. According to a recent Rasmussen report, 42 percent of Americans now say that cutting the deficit in half by the end of the president's first term should be the administration's most important task—significantly more than the 24 percent who see health-care reform as the No. 1 priority. But cutting the deficit in half is simply not enough. If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power.
The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don't forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years, interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget, making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat.
Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform, it could apply to America next.
Let me know what you think...
The fiscal position of the US is worse than that of Greece. But Greece is not a global power. In historical perspective, unless something radical is done soon, the US is heading into into Bourbon France territory. It is heading into Ottoman Turkey territory. It is heading into postwar Britain territory...
Quietly, discreetly, the Chinese are reducing their exposure to US Treasury bonds. Perhaps they have noticed what the rest of the world's investors pretend not to see - that the US is on an unsustainable fiscal course, with no apparent political means of self-correcting...
I think that the comment about no apparent means of self-correcting is the key which has everyone outside the USA running scared - while the American political 'system' usually appears completely insane to anyone viewing it from outside it does seem a little bit more nutty at present then ever before with tea parties, Sarah Palin and everyone else banging on about socialism and pointing their fingers at Obama while the actual system seems to be inherently ineffectual at changing anything...
Of course I wasn't there for the lecture - but I did wonder who is this person who has really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons and it turns out that he is someone who really does know stuff - according to his own personal website: Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Anyway so I think I found the basis for his paper here and this version concludes with this statement:
This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Which is why voters are right to worry about America's debt crisis. According to a recent Rasmussen report, 42 percent of Americans now say that cutting the deficit in half by the end of the president's first term should be the administration's most important task—significantly more than the 24 percent who see health-care reform as the No. 1 priority. But cutting the deficit in half is simply not enough. If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power.
The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don't forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years, interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget, making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat.
Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform, it could apply to America next.
Let me know what you think...
Friday, July 16, 2010
Back in action?
Once again I have been most remiss in my absence from this place - although I have been trying to drop my occasional snide remark here and there. So in order to let you all know what has been happening in my life I thought that I would resort to the ultimate cheat in blogging entries - yes here is a photo of my current pile of reading matter. Some of it already completed, some of it underway and some just cluttering up the place.
Just a couple of notes about things that have caught my eye:
- the National Broadband Network apparently starts rolling out next week in three towns in Tasmania - one of which happens to be the locale of our favorite long-haired opinionated science-fiction authors and bloggers - so I am waiting to hear what he thinks of all this and who he had to sleep with to make this happen?
- a brand spanking new art museum that I really want to visit is under construction also in Tasmania so I wonder when it went from being backward and redneck to cutting edge??
It was a delight to catch up with some of my fellow burgers last week when JB was in town and I am looking forwards to Chaz's visit in late August as well. In the meantime I will be trawling through the program of the Melbourne Writers Festival for some events to attend and trying to catch the new Predators movie - which is supposed to be pretty good.
By the way if anyone has some photos from the dumpling bar last week I would be keen to see them as well.
In the meantime - have a great weekend - I will hopefully have a more complete update next week.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
I knew it!!!
According to this article curry is not only good for you but can help you to lose weight. I don't know whether it is true or not but I think that Barnes and I will definitely put the theory to the test when we catch up for lunch today!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Fancy that
Have seen this book floating around in the bookstores lately and thought that I must get myself a copy of that sometime soon. If you are in Brisbane you could always just go and see this event though!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Explodey goodness
Lately I have been sitting around at home at nights watching my boxed set of The Wire series two and 30 Rock and even V on the free to air. One thing I don't seem to have done for a while is actually get out and see a real honest-to-god movie. Now given the bunch of boys who hang around these blogs I would have thought that there would have been some serious comentary recently about various motion pictures that are out there on screens at the moment - but instead there seems to have been a deafening silence.
To my everlasting shame I ended up bailing on Barnes when he wanted to get out and see The Road on the big screen before he was condemned to a life without his spouse in town, tending to his Weapon against Society, and I think that was my last attempt at really seeing a movie since we saw Avatar and made James Cameron even richer...
However when I succombed to the lure of watching the whole Oscars shebang (was it only last week?) I was struck by the fact that they were talking about a whole pile of movies which actually looked pretty good - although the whole Avatar - Hurt Locker competition thing still left me pretty cold and Hurt Locker winning has meant that there has been some interesting writing about an almost unknown side of that conflict.
So now is your chance to give me feedback upon these films and any other current or soon-to-be released flick that I really should get off my big fat ass and have a look at.
I would love to hear from you guys what you thought of these flicks:
- The Hurt Locker
- Green Zone
- Men who stare at Goats
- The Road
+ any others you may want to leave a random comment about....
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Quick Update
Well I thought that I had better let you know that I ams till alive - just been ridiculously busy at work. I spent most of February acting on 'higher duties' as my boss was away overseas on holidays and I was sitting in his big chair upstairs. The extra money came in handy because we also made the big move to the place depicted above. I also got to drive around in his special 'bogan - mobile' as well (also depicted) which made a nice change from the Focus. Although commuting into the CBD from Newport was actually much slower then catching the train...
On a few other fronts I found out that Neal Asher one of my favorite sci-fi authors (apart from JB of course) has his own blog here - The Skinner - well worth visiting - he does like his explodey goodness and big bad aliens - so may even appeal to people like Murphy or Havock?
Speaking of which I would be interested to know Havock's opinion of this article seeing as he lives out that way?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
More stuff
No-one seems too interested in the possibility of catching up with JB in April but I have booked my free ticket just in case...
Anyway read this online today and found it very interesting.
In my world have been running around painting and cleaning the new place, took Stralya Day off to move boxes into the storage space over there and gearing up for the big truck to arrive on Friday to move furniture and heavy lifting. Has all been keeping to plan so far.
We also have roofers coming in to replace an asbestos roof over part of the house before we move in - which is going to cost an arm and a leg, but will get that poison out of the building - or at least that part of it.
Also been acting on 'higher duties' as my boss is away overseas which has been great, learning a lot more baout other aspects of this place and as a bonus get to drive his brand new work car around... they always go faster when work pays for the petrol and parking!
Will stay busy and send some photos when the dust has settled.
Anyway read this online today and found it very interesting.
In my world have been running around painting and cleaning the new place, took Stralya Day off to move boxes into the storage space over there and gearing up for the big truck to arrive on Friday to move furniture and heavy lifting. Has all been keeping to plan so far.
We also have roofers coming in to replace an asbestos roof over part of the house before we move in - which is going to cost an arm and a leg, but will get that poison out of the building - or at least that part of it.
Also been acting on 'higher duties' as my boss is away overseas which has been great, learning a lot more baout other aspects of this place and as a bonus get to drive his brand new work car around... they always go faster when work pays for the petrol and parking!
Will stay busy and send some photos when the dust has settled.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Its a conspiracy I tell you...
Lately I have noticed a strange phenomenon - Rhinos are becoming cool!
They are being used on the branding of everything from wine bottles (see above) to water tanks and hoses, in fact I think that Rhinos must be taking over Australia...
What is scary is that our Rhino can wield such power and influence from his porch in the States with the sole purpose of pissing off HAVOCK! He must be a truly powerful being.
I am going to keep an eye out for other exampls of this strange phenomenon.
By the way - I assume this event means that we need to start scheduling another Melbourne Burger get-together soon...
I am thinking that it is time to introduce JB to the joys of Sichuan?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Seasons greetings and all that
Have been on holidays the last couple of weeks so haven't been very active here. Went up to Brisbane to see the folks and the usual whirlwind of catching up with my family and Sweet Thangs meant that there wasn't much other socialising this year. Then it was back down here for a very damp New Years Eve where we stayed in a swish hotal in town and ate out a very good Chinese restaurant before watching foreworks in the rain...
Oh and I forgot to mention lots of French champagne being consumed!
The rest of the time has been spent going through recipe books and trying new dishes every night just to keep our hands in - Jamie Oliver's new America cookbook is now very highly regarded in this household - especially breakfast tortillas.
The other night caught up with Barnes, Struggers and Kevin who is down from Cairns - so of course there had to be a movie (Avatar), Sichuan food and a session of L4D2. Havock couldn't make it because he had already seen the movie. But so had everyone except Barnes. But that didn't stop us all seeing it again.
Oh and I forgot to mention lots of French champagne being consumed!
The rest of the time has been spent going through recipe books and trying new dishes every night just to keep our hands in - Jamie Oliver's new America cookbook is now very highly regarded in this household - especially breakfast tortillas.
The other night caught up with Barnes, Struggers and Kevin who is down from Cairns - so of course there had to be a movie (Avatar), Sichuan food and a session of L4D2. Havock couldn't make it because he had already seen the movie. But so had everyone except Barnes. But that didn't stop us all seeing it again.
I am interested that this movie has created some sort of controversy amongst the American right who are all frothing at the mouth about it's supposed lefty agenda. While I had some criticisms of things like the poor script and bad acting, as well as issues with the tactics used by both sides in the final battle - overall it was a fun romp and could stand a second viewing.
Since then it has been getting around to view some art, eat some nice food and catching up with Kevin again before it was back to work on the hottest day of the year (which apparently set several records). The rest of the week is getting ready for property settlement next week and then gearing up for moving house at the end of the month. This will probably entail some building work as well. So we will see how that eventuates...
In the meantime do you have your go-bag ready in case it is actually TEOTWAWKI today?
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