liedra's journal

Just a reminder

liedra@liedra.net — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:47:19 GMT

...to all my LJ friends -- I've moved my blog to my main website.

Site: http://liedra.net
RSS: http://liedra.net/rss.xml
LJ feed: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/liedradotnet/

Thanks for reading! ilu! :D

Important Notice

liedra@liedra.net — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:06:28 GMT

Hi guys, after wordpress has been thrashing my rather large-memory’d server I am going to be closing it down shortly. I will have my new site back at http://liedra.net with a new blog engine (written by Nicholas) and a new Twitter-powered comment system (written by me!) :)

Please update your RSS feeds to http://liedra.net/rss.xml and your bookmarks if you use those to http://liedra.net :) Thanks!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Early Spring in Namur

liedra@liedra.net — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:49:47 GMT

I think spring is springing in Namur! Today we had a beautiful sunny day with the temperatures around 7 deg C outside, getting up to about 10 in the sun which is virtually summer compared to some of the subzero temperatures we’ve had this winter!

Since I’d bought a new bicycle recently (a Dahon Vitesse D7HG) I decided that now that it wasn’t snowy and icy and dark that it would be a great opportunity to “break it in” with more than just a trip to the post office. So I jumped on, unfolded it, and off we went!

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Here’s my new bike with the Citadelle de Namur in the background. Isn’t it cute? :D

I did a bit of a roundabout trip, and I think I did close to 20km total in about 2 hours. It was such a nice ride though, mostly flat along the river, that it hardly felt like much work at all, though I am certainly feeling it now! :) My original plan of riding along the Meuse down toward Andenne was foiled by roadworks blocking off the RAVel in that direction, so I decided instead to head the other direction up the Meuse and check out the little island I’d seen from the Citadelle as well as the giant lock there.

Firstly though, I met some friendly swans. They were courting each other, much like all the other swans I saw on my trip. One couple were being very lovey-dovey in the water, dancing around and nuzzling each other, it was really quite cool to watch (no photos though, since they were quite far away and in a lot of shadow).

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Swans and Geese on the Meuse

Further down the river I stopped to take some photos of the beautiful view back to the Citadelle on my real camera, it was so picture-postcard beautiful!

Namur

In that last picture you can see the island I went to look at. It’s a wildlife refuge, with no bridge, but I saw lots of swans and ducks and other birdlife in there from the shore.

I also had to cross the lock:

Meuse River Lock

I really had a lovely ride, and the bike seemed to hold up pretty well. It was lovely and smooth except where there were uneven cobblestones, and we even negotiated lots of muddy areas where the roadworks were going on — thank goodness for the mudflaps! Heh. I think my next trip will be in the Andenne direction, but on the other side of the Meuse this time :)

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 3

liedra@liedra.net — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:40:57 GMT

- a new acquaintance, the stroller’s tale, a disagreeable interruption, and an unpleasant encounter -

Listen now: or Download as MP3

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 2 (part 2)

liedra@liedra.net — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:46:01 GMT

The second part of Chapter 2. I’m trying to improve my reading aloud, so constructive criticism is welcome! Apparently the little Flash player doesn’t re-post very well to Livejournal. I’d recommend either viewing the original on my site or subscribing to the feed or, if all else fails, downloading the one you’d like to listen from the directory here.

Listen now:

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

A couple of thoughts after the Kraft buyout of Cadbury

liedra@liedra.net — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:20:57 GMT

So Kraft bought out Cadbury, after a long set of negotiations. Instead of talking about the possible ramifications of that, which are rather boring, ultimately, I’d like to talk about the differences between the Cadbury Dairy Milk that I ate in the UK and that of Australia.

First up, some brief facts about the contents of each type of chocolate:

UK Ingredients: Milk, Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers (E442, E476), Flavourings.

UK “Description”: Milk solids 20% minimum, cocoa solids 20% minimum. Contains vegetable fat in addition to cocoa butter.

AU Ingredients: Full Cream Milk, Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Milk Solids, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithin, 476), Flavours.

AU “Description”: Milk Chocolate contains Cocoa Solids 21%, Milk Solids 28%.

So, the Australian Dairy Milk is actually milkier and chocolatier than the UK version, which basically sums up my taste test between the two. This is a bit of a shame really, since I would have thought the UK version the “definitive”, but honestly the Australian one tastes a lot richer and smoother than its parent.

Let’s hope Kraft doesn’t mess with the Australian recipe in any case! Dairy Milk 2.0 anyone?

(Donations of Aussie Dairy Milk gratefully appreciated, this Belgian chocolate is all well and good but sometimes you just want something that reminds you of home :)

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 2 (part 1)

liedra@liedra.net — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:01:23 GMT

Chapter 2 in my series of read-alouds of The Pickwick Papers.

Listen now:

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 1

liedra@liedra.net — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:44:44 GMT

I am reading through The Pickwick Papers for Nicholas, and I thought maybe others might like to subscribe to my podcast. I am reading the version available on Project Gutenberg for those who wish to read ahead! There are also illustrations, the pertinent ones of which I will attach to each post. I will do these when I get the urge to, which will probably be fairly often. Dickens is hilarious, in a really beautifully creative way, so I am really quite enjoying reading this. The first episode is a little tricky to understand because it involves interjections and such, but later episodes become a lot easier, so bear with me! :)

If you would like, you can subscribe to this podcast only feed (with iTunes or whatever) at http://liedra.net/wordpress/category/podcasts/feed

Listen now:

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

A very Belgian winter

liedra@liedra.net — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:06:28 GMT

It’s cold! Very cold! But it’s snowing and snow is pretty :)

I have lots of photos. Here are a few!

Ice Sculpture, Christmas Markets

Ice sculptures in the Namur Christmas markets. Pretty!

Namur Citadel Winter 2009

The citadelle after a night’s snow. More Christmas markets and an outdoor ice skating rink!

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First snowfall!

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Holly outside my window — it’s definitely Christmas!

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Sunset after today’s snow

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Someone went to a lot of trouble to make some very large snowmen!

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The ducks and geese are appreciating the most of the water they have left (it’s been down to -13degC!)

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My first and rather poor attempt at a snowman – a snow bunny for ixchelbunny!

Some other intriguing things have arrived in Namur: A milk vending machine! The lack of fresh milk has been a source of annoyance for me, so this arrival of a vending machine not only helps the farmers who have been having a tough time of it recently but also provides me with fresh milk for much cheaper than my previous source! :) Yay!

Milk Vending Machine

Milk Vending Machine sign

Nicholas came to visit me at the beginning of the month and we pottered up to Amsterdam, home of canals, art, deep fried batter balls, fantastic Ethiopian food, and rain. I put up some photos here. We had a wonderful time and it was really awesome to see him. I’m hoping he’ll be back in Europe next year!

This week I am off to the UK for Christmas, staying with Yvan, Kat, and Yvan’s sister Yaël for Christmas itself, then off to visit Chris for the break between Christmas and New Year! I’m very much looking forward to it :) Missing everyone at home for Christmas, and the nice warm temperatures — but I must admit it’s fun to have some snow! Heh. Let’s just hope I can get on the train though — Eurostar has cancelled 3 days of travel because of the bad cold conditions… so I hope that by Wednesday it will clear up! Even then there could be issues with the backlog of passengers from this weekend!

Anyway, hope you all have a happy and safe new year! Looking forward to seeing what the new year will bring!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

A very small review of google wave

liedra@liedra.net — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:22:49 GMT

I received an invitation to Google Wave recently and went to have a play. Fortunately I know some people who are involved with Google so it meant I had a few people to fiddle around with things with but to be honest I am not hugely fussed by it.

My main thoughts on it, having played around for a little while without really knowing anything about it:

1) It’s very difficult to use. The UI is very cumbersome, and they seem to have given everything silly names that are not in the least bit descriptive. On its own that might be okay, with one or two like that (such as with twitter/tweets) but with waves and blips and gadgets and robots and god knows what else is going on you need a pocket reference book to take with you. Also, it’s completely unintuitive as to how to add a gadget to a wave. I spent the better part of 5-10 mins trying to work out how to add a gadget to a wave before discovering I had to “reply” before I got the options up.

2) Not much information about what has been done recently. It’s a pain in the butt to have to read through 100+ “blips” to see what’s been updated along the way. This is connected to the “feature” where people can edit other peoples’ posts. However “useful” that might be, I could see it being highly irritating to miss an edit because there was no highlighting of it or anything useful like that.

3) Gadgets. Only a couple of gadgets are available, yet there seem to be heaps on other app sites yet with no easy-seeming way to add them. How do we add them? Also the weather app is only in Fahrenheit. Grump.

4) Settings. I realise that the main settings are coming, but the extension settings didn’t actually allow me to customise anything I wanted to actually customise. Like the weather app being in Fahrenheit. Also, why can’t we easily add more extensions from here? Why do we have to “add from URL” (another COMPLETELY confusing option) when replying to a wave?

5) Freedom. I suppose that’s what this is all about, but to be honest I find Wave too free. It has no real focus, anyone can edit anything, and so it makes it pretty useless to replace irc/forums or similar, yet there isn’t the infrastructure to really handle much more than making it a glorified dumping ground for youtube videos and sudoku games. What is Wave supposed to be, Google? It doesn’t fit anything I can think of that might be particularly useful, except maybe for D&D tabletop gaming. lol.

So that’s my little review of Wave. I realise I’m probably just ignorant about some of these things but honestly this is what struck me :) Mostly #5 too. I look forward to seeing how it develops, but atm it doesn’t do anything that my other forms of communication don’t already do, and there are some weird, off-putting bits that need ironing out.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

High probability of spectral activity

liedra@liedra.net — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:09:55 GMT

It was a little while ago that Nicholas introduced me to the concerns about ghostly activity, after spying evidence of ghosts in Sydney one day on his iPod touch weather report. Since moving to Namur I can say that the ghostly activity has increased massively, such as this weather report that I received yesterday:

See that? Tuesday. Ghosts.

However, I’ve discovered that ghosts can be quite tricksy creatures, in that today as I was going to work, there was a high amount of spectral activity going on.

Thankfully Nicholas was able to take my source picture and find a definite face to the ghosts that inhabit Belgium.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Tervetuloa Tampere!

liedra@liedra.net — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:40:31 GMT

I believe the above means “Welcome to Tampere!”

I went to Tampere last week for work, and we saw some nice things in the area! The best bits were the dinner in the tower and the trip to the lakeside cottage which had a sauna :D

Anyway, Finland is quite pretty. I’m starting to notice the differences between forests there and here — forests in Finland have more pine trees, interspersed with birch trees, which were all changing colour while we were there. Gorgeous!

Unfortunately my luggage decided to not arrive with me, and after buying a few little things at the shop I then also decided to wait to see if my luggage arrived later before giving up at about 10.30 pm and buying a shirt and some underwear, etc. from the hotel lobby shop which seemed to CONVENIENTLY have these things… lol.

Of course what should happen but at around 11pm my luggage shows up! So I returned all the stuff (fortunately I hadn’t opened it) and yeah. Good times. The tv was default tuned into the “welcome” screen but also the local metal radio station, which was awesome.

Anyway we went for dinner up a tower, which had a revolving restaurant in it, which was cool. We got there right on sunset which made for a spectacular entrance to the tower!

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The dinner was amazing, and at the end I tried a cloudberry liqueur, which was so delicious, I just had to buy some in the duty free shop on the way home.

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The next day we went to a cottage by a lake to have a proper Finnish sauna. I went in with one of the other girls and we had a fantastic time — you essentially get naked, jump under a shower to get thoroughly wet, then go sit in the sauna. It was close to 100 deg C, and felt amazingly good. When the water was sprinkled onto the coals it became really a lot hotter for a moment, but it was nice — the only uncomfortable part was the initial sitting down on the wooden bench (quite warm!) and sometimes breathing in through my nose — the hot air felt like it was blasting my nostrils sometimes!

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After about 5-10 mins we went out and showered again to cool off, then went back in, and sweated for a little longer, then we grabbed our towels and went down to the freezing cold lake. It was FREEZING! But amazingly good after being so hot. We swam around for a few mins (that’s about all you can take), then went back, and by that stage I was feeling a little light-headed so I showered and went to have dinner. Fantastic experience though! Highly recommended!

Here’s a video of the lake and the cottage, but as usual you can see lots more photos in my photo gallery.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Fêtes de Wallonie à Namur

liedra@liedra.net — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:54:55 GMT

Tonight I wandered out into the amazing spectacle that is the Fêtes de Wallonie à Namur (warning again, cheesy music — but it’s awesome cheesy music, so you should listen!). I could instantly see why my boss had warned me about it, I was out there at about 7.30 and already people were really drunk, staggering about, peeing against any wall they could find, and generally being fairly loutish.

It seems that this place is invaded by students from all over Belgium — each group wearing some sort of identifying jumper. They all get drunk, buy silly glowing glasses and funny hats (and megaphones that play various soccer calls), then stumble about and find one of the many concert stages to dance drunkenly about.

Contributing to the drunkenness were the colourful flavoured shots of a type of liquor that I am not certain the name of, but it tastes quite nice (it’s probably best likened to a schnapps).

You could buy them individually or “a metre” (18 shots) for 15 euros.

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There were lots of people, as earlier established, and lots of concerts. I came upon this jazz band playing in the Place d’Armes which had an awesome backdrop of the 17th C belfry which was part of the defences of the city (to the left, through the gate, the other building … I’m not actually sure what it is!).

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After pushing my way back through crowds, eating a tartiflette (finally, and it was delicious!), seeing the champignons and escargots and churros for sale, and stopping to listen to a song from a local metal band, I headed back home. The band wasn’t hugely great (the main singer sounded like he was barking more than singing, but the guitarists were good and they looked like they were enjoying themselves) but it was fun.

Anyway, all in all an interesting night. The best bit I think was listening to an old man band playing Beatles covers atrociously. The music was fine, but the singing was awesomely hilarious. A wonderful Frenglish version of “Imagine” almost had me in stitches with the liberty taken in the wording (”and the worrrrld, will one a one”). Good show old men, you made me :D

I’m off to Finland Sunday as previously mentioned, which means I will miss out on the point of this festival, which is the stilt-jousting. Stilt-jousting!

If you, like me, are fascinated by the art of stilt-jousting, you can read more about it at the Echasseurs website (in English too!).

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Lille & stuff

liedra@liedra.net — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:51:00 GMT

Earlier this week I went to Lille for work. I didn’t get to see much of the city, but I did see some nice things! We were staying in this awesome art deco hotel which reminded me a lot of some of the furniture from Bundanoon.

Hotel de la Paix

There were ashtrays everywhere, but surprisingly the place didn’t smell bad. There was even an ashtray in the toilet! (I assume that is what this is anyway)

Hotel de la Paix ashtray

For the first night I met up with a few of the workshop people and we went for dinner at this place called “Omnia”. It was an old brothel and porno cinema turned restaurant. It had the most awesome entrance:

Omnia restaurant

The food was quite delicious, except what I thought would be a hot delicious filling stew turned out to be a cold JELLIED STEW which was completely unexpected but not altogether as gross as I expected.

Of course there were some lovely buildings outside too!

Lille Stock Exchange

Lille Town Hall

Lille clock tower

The streets were just gorgeous though — lots of art deco and older buildings, and a huge storm hit just as we were walking to dinner the second night, I’d not brought an umbrella, but my leather jacket kept me perfectly dry (except for my head) as I walked briskly but calmly through the torrential rain. It was pretty fun actually :)

Lots more photos in my gallery!

There’s a huge festival on in Namur at the moment — the annual Fetes de Wallonie (warning, cheesy sound). I pottered down to the free concert at the cathedral tonight and caught “The Experimental Tropic Blues Band” who were basically a punk rock/hard rock group though they also played some other things too. I ate what was ostensibly a hot dog but really was a sausage in a baguette with ketchup and then like 3 metric tonnes of sauerkraut dumped on top of it. UGH. I ate the sausage and some of the bread and dumped the rest :( I should have waited for the tartiflette to finish cooking ( it looked like a less seafoody paella, with potatoes instead of rice and big slabs of stinky cheese cut up over the top. OK so not much like paella at all).

There’s heaps on all weekend, but I’m off to Finland for another work thingamijiggit early Sunday morning (and I’m going to try a sauna, I swear!).

I have some more stories to tell and some photos uploaded but I will save them for another time!

Oh yeah and I also finished my PhD. Like really and truly. After marking, I fixed up the changes recommended, and then all the changes were accepted, and I’m now a real doctor! :) Yay! Thanks to everyone for supporting and helping me through the last 4 years, love you all <3

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

IKEA adventure

liedra@liedra.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:02:13 GMT

Unfazed by the new font in the IKEA catalogue that arrived in my mailbox, I went through with my plans to visit after work and buy a new mattress. The one I have here sucks. It’s foam and sinks overnight and I wake up feeling extremely uncomfortable (and don’t often get a good night’s sleep). Of course IKEA is extremely good and fairly cheap and I love the kids section and Swedish meatballs so of course I had to go visit!

The trip in to Brussels was fairly uneventful — I’m getting used to the Namur-Brussels trains. I jumped on the metro from the central station, and found out the station I wanted was on that line! So it was pretty easy to get there. On the way there were the usual weirdos, a man who came on and gave the whole carriage a lecture (in French, I think it was about love though from what I understood), then went around with a cup asking for money. I escaped from the metro at the right station, and walked around following the signs (yes, they’d put in signs saying <– IKEA, how thoughful!) until I arrived.

After entering, it was almost like I was back in Rhodes. This IKEA was almost exactly the same (though I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised), except that all of the explanatory signs were in French and Dutch, Belgians don’t seem to know how to “bus their trays” in the cafeteria, and some minor differences in products.

I couldn’t find any noodle bowls or woks, for example, but they sold vacuum cleaners. It, of course, being Belgium, there was an entire section devoted to dogs.

In the cafeteria I ordered the traditional Swedish meatballs. The ordering process and the serving process are quite separate — a man took my order for a serve of 10 meatballs etc. (you could get 10, 15, or 20), artistically placed some lingonberry jam and a swedish flag toothpick on my plate, then pushed it down the bench to a lady who was busy serving other people — but despite knowing she hadn’t heard my order, and fully expecting to have to repeat myself, she managed to serve me 10 meatballs! I’m putting it down to ESP requirements IKEA has for staff. Good times.

Anyway I bought some tins for my tea, 2 mugs to complete the set of 4 this house must have had once (there were 3 when I got here, then I broke one), some brightly coloured plastic tumblers, a cushion for my deskchair, a rather bright but mostly functional rug for my floor (it’s quite cold underfoot!) some very ugly but functional house slippers (waiting for my ugg boots to arrive)! And of course the mattress. I got the slightly more expensive one, because it felt nicer to lie on, and I figured I could afford an extra 60 euro for a decent sleep for the next 3 years! The very helpful gentleman (who spoke English, thank god, although I had all my French sentences lined up Just In Case) organised the delivery for me and so it’ll be arriving at the end of this month (I could have had it earlier, but going to France & Finland in the next 3 weeks makes that sort of thing difficult to organise so I thought I’d best make sure I would be around).

On the way out I checked out the food section (as usual). Lots of the usual stuff, but some things you can’t get in Australian IKEAs:

Delicious! Well, actually I have no idea, since I didn’t buy any. Also, the soft serve cones here come in proper waffle cones, none of that crappy fake cardboardy weirdo stuff!

As I was leaving, after self-checking out (yay! so much easier, and no queues!), I caught this wonderful sunset!

Caught the train home, it was very quiet and dark and I read some books and listened to music. Was really nice actually!

Here’s a photo of the rug & chair cushion (it’s actually pretty good to sit on, I’m pleased with it!)

And, this is for Nicholas particularly: guess what I found!

Hehe, excuse the rather blustered and hot look, I’d just walked very briskly home ;) But I found some! They come with a super hideous cat mask, and no I’m not taking a photo of that.

Anyway, so that was my evening. Much more interesting than… what I would have done otherwise! hehe.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Mailbox update

liedra@liedra.net — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:37:07 GMT

I just got home and found that my key had been returned! Yay. However, there is now a confusing piece of paper on the front of the mailbox, and even worse, they have removed all the buzzer number labels. Lol. I have a photo I was going to upload but I might blank out the other inhabitants’ names first, which is hard to do on an iPhone :) stay tuned for more mail box saga!

Tonight I am considering heading into Brussels to go to ikea which is open til 9. This could be a bad idea but considering I know exactly what I want (a mattress) it shouldn’t be that bad… Right?

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Autumn

liedra@liedra.net — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:13:00 GMT

Today was a lovely crisp autumn day. I accidentally slept in a little, then rushed through the morning routine before grabbing a waffle and heading to work. On my way out I discovered that noone but me had done anything about the mailbox situation (nor had anyone taken the key I had left in #8). This does not bode well.

At work I worked on some presentations for our trip to Lille next week. During my lunch break I headed out to the post office to pick up my parcel for which a note had been left in my box yesterday.

The post office in Namur is a brand new renovation (there aren’t many brand new buildings in Namur, but many many brand new renovations), and a rather clever ticketing system had been put in place. (If only Mosman PO can learn from this! No queuing!) I carefully selected the thing I was there for (autre choses) and took my seat, clutching my little ticket in my hand, along with my passport (ID) and my package slip. When my number was up the lady told me I was in the wrong place (although I’d picked up a package from those counters quite happily a couple of weeks ago) and I just needed to see the woman at the purchases counter. All of this was in French, and most of it I picked up through context and some choice phrases and words. A quick “d’accord, merci!” and I was off to talk to the rather clumsy lady at the other counter.

After knocking her mouse, the stapler, the barcode scanner, and then her keyboard off her desk in short succession, I realised that a) the new renovation had not provided my friendly post office clerk with a wide enough desk and b) she was really clumsy. Fortunately she managed to find my package quite quickly, but then spent about 10 minutes juggling items of note and dealing with a “problem d’informatique”, scanning the barcode 5 or 6 times, then eventually handing over my parcel with an apology for taking so long. “Pas de problem, bon journée!” and I was out on the street with my tightly bound package.

Coming out, I looked up at the citadelle and saw that some of the trees are starting to turn autumny colours — so I snapped a picture and wandered back home via the yarn shop I’d found a few weeks back — turns out it’s a single-brand shop and not a particularly exciting one at that but they do sell opal sock yarn which is really cool stuff :D Got some of that and some yarn for my moogle hats and headed back to work.

Kinda wish I was up on the hill at the citadelle though instead of in my office working! :)

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

The Mail Box Saga

liedra@liedra.net — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:11:05 GMT

In Belgium, there seems to be a standard way to deal with apartment mail boxes. When I arrived, there was a number of slots to one side of the door, and some with little bits of paper stickytaped next to them with the person’s full name and their apartment number. So I followed suit, choosing the 8th mailbox down, took the key to it, and my boss’s wife wrote out a lovely lettered version of my name and the apartment number next to it, which we stickytaped next to the slot. This worked out just fine — I received my mail, I was able to get to it, noone really bothered me, the postman even seemed to have a very patient attitude at attempting to squish woolly packages as well as he could into the slot. Everyone else followed suit, names, apartment numbers, sticky tape.

Today I came home and found a horrifying sight! Not only had all the names and stickytape gone but a professional looking numbered piece of wood had been attached to the mailbox wall, with the numbers going from 1-12 down the mailboxes. I opened my mailbox (corresponding to #8, which is not my apartment number) as usual and retrieved my copy of Snow Leopard (thanks Chuck!) and a notice to pick something else up from the post office (I’m not actually sure what this is), and wondered what would happen now. I thought, well, since there is now a number next to each mailbox, and no stickytaped names, perhaps I should be good and return the key to the 8th down mailbox lock and hope that the person who has the key for my mailbox will return mine!

Of course, I suspect that until I can get the key to my mailbox that it could be annoying to retrieve my own mail. Fortunately I have slender hands.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Around Namur

liedra@liedra.net — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:40:58 GMT

I’ve been taking a few photos around Namur as I’ve wandered around — the sunny summer days have allowed me to take some nice snapshots of the town, which I’ll share with you now.

Some highlights of Namur are the weekly Saturday market, which happens in the University quarter (which is where I live). The streets are blocked off until around 2ish and there are hundreds of stalls, selling everything from fresh food to the latest kitchen gizmo, perfumes, clothes, jewellery, electronics, toiletries, all sorts of things. This week’s haul of goodies included some delicious fresh fruit and vegies (a whole punnet of fresh fat raspberries and some tree-ripened apricots), a rotisserie chicken, some fresh baked ‘artisanale’ bread, a quiche, some mixed spices from the specialty spice stall and some other bits and pieces. Most of the vegetables went into a huge pot of chilli which I made tonight (quite tasty, though not as spicy hot as I’d like).

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There are also some lovely buildings around Namur, dating back to medieval times (the citadelle) through to the more recent times in the city when it was built up by the Spanish (amongst others). The citadelle is the most impressive: this photo was taken not far from where I live (around the corner in fact).

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There are some churches as well, this big church is my alarm clock in the morning, and keeps time throughout the day by way of a special series of rings. The main song plays at a quarter to the hour, then a simple 4 note melody is played and the count for the hour on the hour. It also rings at other times, such as 8.25 every single morning. This ringing is more a frantic ding-aling-aling than a song though, so I guess it’s the alarm clock feature. I haven’t worked out where the snooze button is though :(

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There’s another smaller church that sits on a very old plaza called “Marche aux Legumes” (Legumes is “vegetables”, which makes it an odd name for a plaza.).
There are some old cafes (pubs) there, including Au Ratin Tot from 1616.

Au Ratin Tot

Church (1600s)

Marche aux Legumes

There are some other interesting buildings such as this part of an original fortified wall:

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And some other lovely older buildings:

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And don’t forget some shops to remind me of home:

Australian Home Made Ice Cream

Then of course there’s my place, which isn’t nearly as interesting as any of these :(

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Oh well :)

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Hannari Tofu

liedra@liedra.net — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:00:06 GMT

I find these guys so hilarious. I have a couple myself, but every time I go back to Techno City there are more of them! How could a simple plush rectangular cushion thing be so insanely cute? add some eyes and other facial characteristics, arms and legs, call it とふ and you have a winner!

Hannari Tofu in tofu boxes

These guys are in little tofu boxes like you might buy from the supermarket!

Hannari Tofu

More tofu…

Hannari Tofu

And more…

Hannari Tofu

All of these are separate claw machines…

Hannari Tofu

And finally, this one was awesome because it’s a tshirt thingy with a super angry looking tofu.

Hannari Tofu shirt

Bonus extra: I think this guy is supposed to be Natto, which is a fermented soy food that is kinda stinky.

Natto guy

Yeah, I’m a tofu tragic!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Manly Oceanworld

liedra@liedra.net — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:14:46 GMT

Pretty Tropical Fish

Nicholas and I went to Manly Oceanworld today, fulfilling yet another of the “things I want to do before moving to Belgium”. There are more photos in my photo gallery, and I’m pretty pleased with my new little Canon Ixus 90IS and its “aquarium” mode!
One of the best things was this awesome little rock fish which was decorating its area of the tank. It would go and pick up a mouthful of rocks, then come back and spit them into its little den. I managed to capture it on film, but it wouldn’t do its normal thing and instead did some crazy rock manoeuvres. Hrmpf.

If you look at the other videos there you’ll find a hilarious one with a cuttlefish banging into the wall >_> I’m not sure if cuttlefish can skulk exactly but that’s sort of what it appears to do.

Anyway I had a lovely time and although the Manly aquarium isn’t as big and impressive as Sydney aquarium it does have the major benefit of being easy to get to and not filled with millions of tourists. :D

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

A good day!

liedra@liedra.net — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:44:13 GMT

Haircut, Kindle, and Cupcakes!

Today was a good day! As you can see in the photo not only did I end up with a delicious box of cupcakes, but I have my brand new Kindle 2 which I am totally digging. Oh yeah and I got my hair cut as well. A bit shorter than before but I quite like it! (thanks Nicholas for the photo!)

The cupcakes from the “Cupcakes on Pitt” on York are really delicious. Tonight Nicholas and I shared a peppermint, a raspberry, and a green tea cake, and tomorrow we will probably plough through the blueberry, carrot, and tiramisu ones.

Today I also had my last French lesson. 4 weeks of intensive French at the Alliance Française was really quite awesome. I had a fabulous time with my fellow students (including the wonderfully talented Holly Throsby) and our intrepid professeuse Aurélie who really made the whole course for me! She was so bouncy and enthusiastic and obviously loved teaching, and was good at it to boot. I really feel like I’ve learned some basic language skills which is great :D I’ll need to study past tense though since we didn’t quite get to that stage in our course :( Anyway, AF French courses come highly recommended!

The next big highlight of the day was getting my Kindle! I had to trundle to the post office to pick it up and it was dutifully waiting for me to unwrap it and play! I managed to get some ebooks onto it and found it’s most excellent for reading while knitting, since you don’t have to hold the book down to keep your place (or ruin the spines). I might write a full Kindle review later, but since it’s about to be superceded by the DX it might not be worthwhile. Suffice to say, though, it feels excellent in my hands, is a joy to read from, the e-ink really is quite impressive, and I can see it becoming an essential part of my academic and non-academic work. I love the dictionary lookups, I love the annotations, the footnotes could use a bit of work but all in all it’s a very nice package. Only things I’m a bit meh about are lack of Whispernet outside the US, and lack of some sort of protective cover included with it. I’m currently knitting myself a kindlecosie but I suspect the one I’m making is too hairy >< (alpaca/angora so super fluffy) so I might have to make it something else instead, or give it a lining. Two thumbs up to the Kindle!

Also, I got my hair cut. I got it done by the same girl who did my hair for my sister’s wedding, and I quite like it — a bit shorter than last time but that just means that there’s more growth room til I can find a new hairdresser in Belgium! lol.

Anyway that’s what’s been up with me today. I had a good meeting with my new boss too, found out it gets to -25degC and snows in winter in Namur. Haha. I’ll need some new clothes when it gets to that point but I somehow doubt I’ll be able to find good clothes for general subzero wear here. :)

So if you have any good recommendations for books to get for my Kindle, please let me know!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Fear and Loathing: Gender reassignment and informed consent

liedra@liedra.net — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:02:13 GMT

I was reading the SMH when I encountered this article: a sort of “human interest” article about gender reassignment surgery and how it’s “ruined peoples’ lives”. I will state up front that I don’t know anyone who’s had gender reassignment surgery but I know a couple of people who are wanting it. It certainly doesn’t seem like a walk in the park, and they’ve already gone on heavy hormone regimes to feel more complete within themselves, but the surgery is outside their budgets for now. Anyway, with that disclaimer, I introduce the article:

Gender setters- when doctors play God.

Firstly, in this article there’s a lot of generalising going on. For one, these cases should be dealt with as any other malpractice case — in the first case, the patient stated that they didn’t want the operation to proceed, and the surgeons continued anyway; in the second case, the woman should have had more and better assessment before prescription of drugs & surgery.

“She acknowledges she gave consent for the procedure, but believes it was not informed consent. She feels she was mentally ill, and childhood abuse played a part in her gender confusion.”

These two cases seem pretty clear cut to me. In the first there was a definite request to halt the surgery. In the second, there is a tragic case of abuse and mental illness which the clinic’s doctors ignored. But this is not something restricted to gender reassignment surgery.

Secondly, it bothers me greatly that an article that tries to champion ethical values ends up casting a greater shadow of fear and uncertainty over those who legitimately and dearly wish to have gender reassignment surgery. Horror stories like those addressed by the article need to be discussed in the public sphere for sure, but they need to be treated sensitively. Although I have not experienced it myself, and can never fully understand what it is like to wish to be of the opposite gender, I can only imagine it must be a terribly difficult thing to come to terms with. This newspaper article cannot do much for those with gender dysmorphia who are also dealing with needing to explain complicated and sensitive issues with their families and friends.

What the article should have done was also look at some success stories, instead of simply going for, and ending with, the immediate drawing factor of the poor people unlucky enough to have to deal with a terrible clinic. Informed consent is an empowering device, and in these cases the clinic was terribly out of line in their poor informing practices. This does not mean, however, that all clinics are the same, and that gender reassignment surgery is a priori bad in all cases, just that, like many surgical procedures (especially cosmetic ones), they need to be treated with a lot of sensitivity and care.

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

REMOVED — DON’T BUY eBook: Confucius

liedra@liedra.net — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:15:51 GMT

Browsing the Kindle store after ordering a Kindle 2 (!!!) I found this gem:

Amazon.com: REMOVED — DON’T BUY eBook: Confucius: The Kindle Store.

To quote Nicholas:

“Can you buy it? I want to buy the book that both can and cannot be bought.”

The best bit:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	72% buy the item featured on this page: REMOVED — DON’T BUY $1.08
	28% buy The Analects of Confucius (with an Introduction by Robert Taylor) $0.95

Mirrored from liedra dot net.

Pinball expo & my weekend

liedra@liedra.net — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:05:13 GMT

I forgot to write about the pinball expo that we went to last weekend! Here are some photos:

Gypsy Grandma & Zoltan

Pinball Expo

It was pretty fun, but they blew a fuse or something toward the end of our visit which meant everything shut down. But I got to play some baseball pinball game and Nicholas played something else as well. And we watched some guy play a really old game as part of a competition (one with an analogue counter instead of a digital one!). He was rather large and made amusing noises every time he hit the paddle button thing, and did a little dance when he did well!

This weekend we went into the city on Saturday and used up some tickets we had to the Powerhouse Museum. It was pouring with rain as we walked from Town Hall over to the Powerhouse by way of the Pyrmont bridge, we got rather wet and ended up going via the shopping centre and convention centres instead of up the road. In there we found there’s a laser tag game, and briefly considered abandoning our earlier plans until we realised that the large group of tiny children around 8-10 years old or so were going to be particularly difficult adversaries considering a) their height, b) their general fitness levels, and c) the fact that 8-10 year old boys playing laser tag are undoubtedly going to be super hardcore players of laser tag. So we continued on our quest for Powerhouse Museum-ness.

When we arrived, unfortunately the Star Wars exhibit had closed, but that meant everything was pretty quiet, so we looked at design across the ages and played in the experimentation area. We also went in the “zero gravity” simulator in the space exhibit, which was basically a tunnel you walked into which had a rotating cylinder around it which, well, rotated. And worked extremely well. I felt really ill very quickly and so escaped out of the tunnel (and afterwards, when I went into confined spaces it felt as though everything was still spinning!) and generally think the whole thing very squicky. After that we wandered back to the city via Chinatown and Emperor Golden Puffs house (which is celebrating 30 years of puff making and giving 10% off everything in their bakery and restaurant) for some delicious hot puffs before venturing to George St to catch a bus to Circular Quay in order to walk over to the Wharf theatre to catch part of the Sydney Writers Festival.

At the Festival we saw a panel discussion on David Foster Wallace, an author who died far too young (committed suicide recently), and wrote many pieces including journalistic articles and fictional short stories and novels. Nicholas had just finished reading Infinite Jest, and I was half way through “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again” (excruciatingly funny), so we decided it might be interesting to go to, and it was a really nice night out. A little wanky, sure, but what I thought would be a boring sort of lecture about really specific literary criticism turned into an interesting discussion about some of the things he used in his writing and the intricacies of running a major fan website for such an author. I’m sure there’ll be a movie available soon — the ABC was filming it so I’m sure we’ll see it some time. It’s worth a look if you’re at all interested in his work.

Another bus ride up to Pitt St and we went to Mother Chu’s Vegetarian Restaurant, which is always a delight. Mother Chu sits in the corner with a huge pile of books and writing paper and gazes over her empire with a matronly look, which is always inspiring because you get the distinct feeling that the people actually running things are extremely concerned about falling foul of this gaze and thus do their best to make sure you are always enjoying yourself as much as possible. Indeed, the food was excellent and the service similarly so. A brisk walk (and jog) back to Wynyard and the bus home and I was exhausted!

Today I wrote some of my book chapter. And procrastinated. And did some French. And fiddled with some things. And I’m going to watch the F1. Go Webber!

Mirrored from liedra dot net.