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When you spend as much time on the internet as I do, you end-up stumbling across a lot of interesting stuff (well at least I think it’s interesting).  Here’s some of the things I’ve found recently:

This is a guy named Alexey Titarenko and his photography is both eerie but still quite cool at the same time: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/portfolio.html

This German guy (not only has a cool name… Peter Fox) but also has a really interesting musical sound - it has a thick classical (almost baroque) feel backed by some great percussion and finished off with a touch of pop.  Since it’s all in German, I have no idea what he’s singing about, but my ears like it.  Have a listen to a few sample tracks on his site: http://www.peterfox.de

Inundated with elephant poo and just don’t know what to do with it? Why not turn it into paper or souvenirs… oh, wait, these guys already beat you to it: http://poopoopaper.com

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, it’s my bread-and-butter and normally I wouldn’t dare call it shit, but after reading through this site, I have to say they do make some good points: http://www.internetisshit.org

And finally, the stamp that I think every office should have:

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Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Last year (when Blog Action Day was first launched) the topic that everyone blogged about was the environment. This year, on October 15, the theme is poverty. In order to explain a little more clearly, I’ll borrow a quote from their website:

There is no simple, clear answer [to poverty]. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.

So coming-up in roughly a months time, you’ll be able to read a couple of posts about poverty - one post from a search engine optimisation perspective (on my work blog) and one on this blog discussing some of my personal thoughts on the issue.

If you have a blog, or know someone that does, I strongly encourage you to participate - just go to BlogActionDay.org and register.

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I thought that cats were supposed to have nine lives, but sadly, ours only had one.

We only had Tiger for a few months, but in that short time, he managed to change my whole opinion of cats (previously I was never a fan). He showed me that amidst their seemingly snobby exterior, a cat can still offer a lot of love and affection, they can be fun to play with and be a constant source of entertainment with some of their seemingly crazy idiosyncrasies.

Last Friday night Tiger vomited a couple of times and we thought that it was probably caused by him eating some grass or something else outside that didn’t quite agree with him. We kept an eye on him over Saturday and Sunday and when his condition hadn’t improved we took him to the vet first thing on Monday morning.

It turned-out that he had contracted a urinary tract infection - something the vet explained was quite common in male cats, especially those that had been neutered and effectively the infection had caused a blockage, preventing him from being able to urinate properly.

If we had of known more about cats and their behaviours we might have been able to detect some of the early warning signs like how Tiger would often do a few small wees over a period of time instead of doing one big one, or that he spent more time licking his private parts than usual (and how much is ‘usual’? If I were a cat… or any animal that could do that… I’d spend a considerable amount of time down there as well). But as we’ve never had a cat before and had no idea about cats toiletry habits… we didn’t think anything of it.

By the time he had started vomiting, it was the first signs that his liver had pretty-much shut down and he already would have had toxins going through his body from the build-up of urine and other fluids, so even if we had of gotten him to the vet on the Friday evening, it most likely would have still been too late to reverse the damage.

The only option was to put him out of the pain he was going through and let him go.

We’ll miss you Tiger!

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Today is the 8th of the 8th 2008 - yep 08/08/08. It’s considered a lucky day in Chinese culture which also coincides with the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Yes, some people have been waiting for such a day to happen again since July last year (and after tomorrow they’ll have to wait even longer until September next year).

When I heard someone refer to the day as 80808 (eight-o-eight-o-eight), it reminded me of some rap lyrics that I’ve heard dropped into more than a few popular rap songs.

As it turns-out, the term 808 could possibly refer to the Roland TR-808 which happened to be the first-ever electronic, programmable drum machine. I believe the bass drum effect from this machine was programmed as 808. Even though this machine first came-out in the 80’s, the sounds of the TR-808 are still commonly used in drum and bass, hip-hop, R&B, house, electro and many forms of electronic dance music today. Just add some some synthesised sounds and a repetitive catchy lyric and you’ve just described some of my favourite songs.

It also coincidentally refers to the American penal code for disturbing the peace (most commonly through the use of loud music).

The other reference to 808 that I could find is that it’s also the telephone area code for Hawaii, however I doubt a phone number would have inspired any rap lyrics… unless you count this De La Soul classic.

So there you have it… they might only be three small numbers, but they are responsible for a rather large sound.

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In one of my recent posts I mentioned I went to an AFL game which could mislead people into thinking that I’m a little more ‘blokey’ than I really am.  So  to truly  confuse and mislead,  let me tell you about my last weekend.

I spent Saturday doing odd jobs around the house which included erecting some shelves in the garage and demolishing what was left of an old plastic outdoor table-setting (one of the legs broke a while ago and it has been sitting upside-down in the back-yard for the last few weeks).  I also had planned on taking-down an awning from above the back door as we’re getting some security screens fitted sometime this week (or early next week) and the new screen door couldn’t be mounted while the awning was in place.

Dad had said he’d help with the awning, but wasn’t feeling 100% over the weekend (and we also didn’t have all the necessary tools to complete the job)… so that didn’t happen on the weekend as originally planned, however we did manage to get it done yesterday instead.

Acknowledging that the Tooth Ferry and the Easter Bunny are real seems far more plausible than accepting that I have any home handyman skills, so I’m always pleasantly surprised when I tackle little jobs like this and even more amazed when things go relatively smoothly.

On Saturday night we had dinner with some friends at the Sizzling Mongolian BBQ House at Taringa and even though It’s been a couple of years since we last dinned there, the Mongolian Ninja Chef’s still managed to impress with their teppanyaki-styled cooking and bowl flipping magic.

As the night was drawing to a close, Dave turned to me and asked what I was doing the following day.  When I told him I had no plans, he invited me to join him and John for a day of fishing.

The last time (which also happened to be the first and only time) I’d been fishing was when my Dad took me as a youngster.   The results were fairly entertaining - not unlike someone slipping over on a wet floor in slow motion.  To the observer, it’s one of the funniest things you can watch someone do (as long as there are no serious injuries), but when you’re the person that’s flying through the air, it’s a little more difficult to appreciate the humour at the time.

From struggling to figure-out how to bait a hook, to casting-off, getting our lines snagged on rocks (most likely due to unknowingly picking a bad fishing spot to start-off with)… by the end of the day the one fish we did manage to catch made a regular goldfish look bigger than Ben-Hur.

So my expectations were pretty low when I accepted the invitation to go fishing with the ‘boys’… but as it turns-out, it was an awesome day.   The results were a little better than when Dad and I went, as I caught two fish (even though they were both pretty small… about 20cm) and to be honest, I think I liked cruising around Southport in John’s cool 5m boat more than the actual fishing.  I probably would have had just as much fun bobbing around in the boat, relaxing in the warm sun with a beer and some chill-out tunes even if we didn’t even drop a line in the water.  But it was a really relaxing day and I’m keen to do it again sometime.

So perhaps going to an AFL match, putting-up a shelf and catching a 20cm fish while out with the guys may not quite make me Reg Reagan… it’s still a lot blokier than reading blogs, playing PS3 and watching quirky art-house movies which is what I normally spend my weekends doing.

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The Internet is full of pornography weird and wonderful things, and when you spend as much time on the Internet as I do, you’d be amazed at what crazy stuff you can find.

Take this crazy French guy for example. Gerard Brion has spent the last fifteen years crafting a replica of Paris out of rubbish… which should make it amazingly life-like as the place does smell like wee (and please note, that was not me trying to say ‘yes’ in French). Ok, that was a bit harsh and as we discovered the second-time round, Paris does have some stunning areas and Brion’s tribute is pretty impressive… read the full story here.

Then there’s the Trons. The Trons are a completely self playing robotic junk band made mostly from old computer and mechanical parts and play original songs using an array of old amps and instruments. Music and robots… two awesome things separately, but combine them… and well, this is what you get.

Now onto another thing I like - superheroes (ok, now I know that I’m showing my true geek colours in this post by mentioning musical robots and now superheroes… all that I need to do now is mention zombies and I’ve hit the trifecta)… but really, if you like quirky humour, you should check-out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Dr. Horrible is the brainchild of Joss Whedon (creator and head writer of the well-known TV shows: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly) who felt that something productive should come out of the US writers strike.  With so much talent sitting around doing nothing, he teamed-up with some family and friends (all of whom volunteered their time for free) and wrote, directed and produced the short, 3-part online superhero spoof - Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!

If you have a spare half-hour, watch all three episodes as they are really, really good (if you like that sort of thing).  But make sure you do so soon as the episodes were only going to be online for a short time and after being taken down once (and brought back again by popular demand), I’m not sure how much longer they will be available for.

Now I’m off to do some database updates for a client and finish off a few other work tasks that I didn’t get through today.

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The last couple of weeks have been busy, a little stressful but at the same time really productive and enjoyable - it is surprisingly good to be getting back into work and finally getting back on top of things after our recent holiday.

Last weekend we went to watch the Lions (AFL) at the Gabba.  I like mentioning sport on the blog because in reality, I don’t follow any sport, but simply by mentioning that I went to the football gives the impression that I’m a die-hard fan.  To be completely honest with you, I struggle to understand what’s going on half the time, but always ensure that I “woo”, “ahh”, “ooh” and “boo” when everyone else in the crowd does, so as to get the most out of the live sporting experience.

Something that I am a lot more interested in (and I like to think I understand some of the rules of… or at least more rules than I know about any sport) is music.  As a child I learnt how to play the keyboard / organ and in my teenage years learnt the basics of the guitar… but I haven’t played either in years and to be honest I didn’t really learn how to read music properly as I’d often cheat by playing by ear and memorising the keystrokes that my teachers would do.

Ok… so my music abilities are fairly crap, but that has never dampened my interest.  While on holidays Kristy saw a book called “This is your brain on music” by Daniel Levitin and suggested I have a look at it.  Now I don’t read books very often.  I read a lot of blogs and other online articles, but I very very very rarely read books.  When I do read a book, it usually is a reference book of some description and of late, most of the books I’ve read have either been about business development or marketing.

The thing that attracted me to this particular book was that 1. it was about music and the brain… (two things I find fascinating) and 2. it was written like a reference book as Daniel Levitin has worked as a recording engineer and producer turned neuroscientist.  So he’s got the hands-on experience but also an incredibly comprehensive understanding of the brain.

So I bought the book and it was fantastic.

I’ve learnt a lot about how the brain stores and interprets information in general and a lot of specific examples pertaining to how it handles music… what makes us like the songs we like, what makes us dislike other types of music and many other things far too detailed (and most likely boring to anyone who isn’t me) about the brain and music.

To demonstrate various types of music and the cognitive impact they have, Levitin referred back to a broad cross-section of music (ranging from classical, rock, jazz, pop and the list goes on) along with specific tracks by certain artists which make fine examples of these.

This made me realise that although I love music, my listening has been fairly limited and there are a lot of ‘great’ musicians and groups that I’ve never really listened to (other than what I’ve heard on the radio etc.)

So I’ve just started downloading a lot of new (to me) music and I’m going to be working my way through it… so far I’ve recently been listening to The Carpenters, The Stranglers, Phil Collins, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Lead Zeppelin etc. etc.

Some of these probably seem like a strange selection… but then again, I’m a little strange, so it’s a good fit for me - plus the broader you cast your net, the more likely you’ll catch something you like.

I’d encourage comments on other artists you think I should expose my eager ears to.

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I can happily say that my body has finally caught-up with what’s going on… well, it had done until lastnight when we had a poker night with Skye and Scotty.

After a 6-pack of Italian beer, a couple of cigars and losing all my chips (because apparently a cheesy grin and an oversized novelty tinted green poker visor doesn’t help when trying to maintain a rock-solid poker face)… my well rested body is now once again fatigued. The good news is that unlike jetlag, this weariness is quickly rectified with a very healthy fry-up of greasy foods, a nice strong cup of coffee, a Berocca and copious amounts of water.

But enough about lastnight, lets get onto the topic of this post - the remaining photos from our trip (and my apologies for taking so long to get these online).

During the week, Optus had a huge outage that slowed things down a little. While we don’t use Optus for much, when a major telecommunications provider goes down (and it went down harder than a 600lb sumo wrestler slipping on a banana peel) it still usually affects a lot of other ISPs, web hosts and IT companies.

So add that to the already busy week of catching-up with everything, I didn’t have as much time to blog as I would have like.  But without any further ado, here are the rest of our pics.

The last post left us at Pisa where we spent a day before heading down to Rome.

We spent 3 days in Rome where we saw a lot of amazing buildings, monuments, churches, statues, sculptures, fountains (including Kristy’s favourite place in Rome - the Trevi Fountain) and even caught-up with the Pope at Vatican City.

After leaving Rome we went back up to Paris for a day (and a night) before proceeding to the port at Calais where we ferried it across to the white cliffs of Dover.  The total trip from Paris up to Calais, then from Dover down to London took a little longer than we expected, but it was really relaxing, quite scenic and something a bit different than a lot of the other overland travel we had spent the last couple of weeks doing.  Nothing amazing, but here’s a few pics of the Calais - Dover journey.

Then we spent the last few days back in the UK relaxing with friends… then it was time to come home.

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After travelling half-way around the world you’d hope I’d have a little more to show for it than just a patchy little beard that only an Amish man could be proud of… and I do…

It’s taken a lot longer to get these organised than I ever expected, but without any further ado, here are the photo’s from our trip (click on the links to view the corresponding gallery):

Before we went anywhere, we were In Transit

Then we arrived in London for a few days

After leaving the UK we headed down to Paris (which wasn’t a huge success the first time, but as we always try to make different mistakes… and sometimes we even learn a thing or two from them, things were much better the second-time round)

From Paris we trekked down to Milan

Then onto Venice (which was the highlight of our trip)

From there it was over to Florence

And now I’m buggered and need to go to sleep (even if it will only be for a few hours before my confused anatomical clock decides I should be awake again).

I will hopefully have the photos from Pisa (where I wish I had of worn my brown undies because I almost crapped myself), Rome, Vatican City and the cliffs of Dover tomorrow night.

Talking about ‘undies’ … did you know that the Brit’s refer to the traditional male undergarment simply as ‘pants’ instead of underpants, undies, dacks etc. So to avoid an awkward silence in a crowded pub, make sure you steer clear of comments like “nice pants” when one of your mates arrives wearing a new pair of trousers.

To make matters worse, the term ‘thong’ is used exclusively to describe a G-string and not the casual footwear that you or I may be familiar with… so to avoid an even more uncomfortable silence don’t ever say “It was far too hot for pants today so I decided to go out wearing thongs”.

Funnily enough, that seemingly harmless statement was made by one of our friends we were staying with and she still hasn’t quite lived it down amongst her British friends.

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As it turns-out, many of the nicest people and best experiences we had (other than the amazing sites and tourist attractions that we saw) were with people who served us food. In most cases, we had a great chat (often struggling with the language differences) and received great service.

As boring as it may seem, here’s a run-down of our dining experiences whilst away.

When we first arrived in London, after dropping our bags off, having a shower and figuring-out what day and time it was (because our bodies sure hadn’t worked this out yet) we went for a wander around Putney (the suburb where we were staying) and then proceeded into the West End part of London.

As I enjoy the occasional drink, one of the great things about London is that there is almost a pub on every corner (and in some cases, two or three in between if it’s a long street) so every time we passed what looked like an alright place for a weary traveller to take a break, we stopped and had a beer. Replacing the feeling of jet lag with a hang-over is one of many ways of dealing with a change in time-zones.

With each place that we went to and each warm beer we drank, we gained a greater appreciation of what it would be like to be an alcoholic Londoner.

For lunch that day I enjoyed a steak and Guinness pie and it was great.

The next day we dined at a lovely little Italian restaurant on the waterfront near the London Eye and that too was really tasty. That evening we ordered take-out from the local curry place which was also quite nice and finished off the day with a bottle of wine and Guitar Hero on the Play Station - p.s. I Rock!

Our final night in the UK (at least for the first leg of our journey) we had a less traditional meal from the local pub / Thai restaurant. The food there was ok and on par with what you’d expected to get from a London pub that also served Thai food.

The next day we were off to Paris. We only stayed a night and whipped-up a self-catered meal after stopping in to a supermarket on our way back from booking the tickets to the Moulin Rouge. The next day (when we couldn’t find the Eiffel Tower), we ended-up having a burger at their equivalent of Burger King / Hungry Jacks and then grabbed some baguettes and a couple of bottles of wine which we consumed on the train down to Milan. (I love the fact that you can eat and drink on trains all over Europe).

From Milan we went to Venice and had some of the nicest Pizza we’ve ever had. It was served from a tiny little take-away style restaurant just around the corner from where we were staying. The slices of pizza were bigger than my head and we ended-up eating there a couple of times while we were away. It was here that I first tried the large Italian beer - Beer Moretti and the local delicacy of crepes with Nutella. Very rich and tasty if you like Nutella (which I do) but even with my mouth full of sweet teeth, I struggled to get through it.

We picked-up some local ingredients from the Venice markets and on the second night of our stay, Kristy whipped-up an incredible pasta dish.

It was then down to Florence and Pisa. In Pisa we dined at a little place down the road from the leaning tower. Please note, this was before I climbed half-way up it, as I doubt I would have been able to stomach food from the nerves and adrenalin flowing through my body after my feeble attempt at conquering everything large that got in my way.

It was then down to Rome. Here we had some very very tasty Gelati’s (they have mastered the art of getting the fruit flavours absolutely perfect and I’ve never thought an ice cream could be so refreshing). If ice cream isn’t you thing, you can order cups of fresh fruit salad. If our fruit tasted even half as good over here as it does there, I’d eat a hell of a lot more of it (oh, and don’t get me started on how orgasmic the strawberries are in the UK).

Even though we had some great food in Rome, we also had a few shoddy food experiences.

From the restaurant that was as classy as Brittan’s best selling newspaper - The Sun to our daily breakfasts of sweet rolls. Just to see if I could find a concise way of explaining exactly what a sweet roll is, I did a Google search and it came back with a site about “Mouthwatering Breads Sweet Rolls recipes from bed and breakfasts around the world”. Let me just tell you, there was nothing mouthwatering about the sweet rolls we had (unless you count the way your mouth starts to water right before you vomit ).

I’m surprised how fortunate we were with food as a prime example of what happens when you put me in charge or ordering a meal in a foreign country was when we were grabbing a bite to eat at the international train station in Rome before returning to Paris. I perused the menu and liked the look of the gnocchi, went to the counter to order it and they didn’t have any. So I glanced at what they did have and ordered what I thought was chicken, which turned-out to be fish… and on top of that I managed to choose the one item in the whole place that came with a promotional large ceramic pasta dish. When lugging around a backpack that weighs about 15kg the last thing you want is a big pasta dish that you didn’t even know you were going to get. But on the plus side, the fish was really nice and I’m not a huge fan of sea food.

Also, on an interesting side-note (and this is only from our brief observations), but it doesn’t appear that the Italian people can successfully master any other foods that aren’t traditionally Italian. In Australia some of my favourite cuisines and restaurants are Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, Mongolian and the list goes on. However in most of the Italian city’s we visited, we didn’t see a single international restaurant.

When trying a couple of the non-traditional Italian places we did find (such as a noodle place in a dodgy little food court) it left a lot to be desired. Now, a lot of the food found in food courts all around the world is certainly never 5 star, but the lack of proper restaurants offering other cuisines suggests (to me) that it isn’t one of their strengths.

Then it was back to Paris for a second take on the land of love. This time it was much better and we made friends with the local kebab shop owner (down the road from our hotel). I think the guy who owned the place was Lebanese or Turkish and from our experience, was the nicest man in the whole of Paris. You have to worry, when the nicest person you meet in a particular city isn’t traditionally from that city in the first place.

While waiting for our train to take us up to the ferry crossing to Dover, we decided to see if the French were any better at international cuisine than the Italian’s and popped across the road to a BBQ American Steakhouse and Grill. I ordered a steak which turned-out to be a mince patty and the service was terrible. If it weren’t for the kebab shop, I’d say the French suck when it comes to more worldly foods too.

The final leg of our trip was back in the UK. Over the 4 days there we had some fantastic meals. We made sure to try the very tasty (and incredibly unhealthy) traditional English breakfasts from a couple of pubs (as well as having a few other non-breakfast pub meals that were as delicious as they were cheap). Made friends with a guy at a local sandwich bar who provided much the same affordable yet delicious food we had come to enjoy from London food outlets, but was also super nice. After chatting with him for a bit and giving him a good tip because we liked the food and his service so much, he was so flattered that he gave us some home-cooked brownies to take with us (which were also superb).

I know I’ve been prattling on about food for a while now and I promise I’ll stop (soon… but not just yet as it’s currently 5am, my brain is functioning while the rest of me just wants to sleep, but because I’ve got so much stuff going through my head, sleep just isn’t happening… I think my head believes that it’s sometime yesterday afternoon and somehow has convinced the rest of my body that 5am is a reasonable time to be sitting blog posting). So as a byproduct of my sleepless agony, you have to endure posts such as this…

So what was the culinary highlight of our trip I hear you asking? (or perhaps that’s just the jetlag going to a whole new level with voices in my head). Well it would have to be an Italian restaurant at Putney (the have locations all over London, but we went to the one down the road from where we were staying) called Frankie’s.

Frankie’s is an Italian bar and grill that is styled like a 1930’s New York gangster club with dim lights, huge gold tinged mirrors that span from the black-and-white checkered floor (past the beautifully brown leather upholster dinning chairs and couches) up to the golden ceiling from which hang the largest mirror balls I’ve ever seen (seriously - these were about the size of those fitness balls that we’ve all bought thinking we’ll sit in front of the TV and lose weight but end-up sitting in the corner collecting dust). The trim on the mirrors, tables and anything that wasn’t made from glass or gold had a very classy black trim. This description doesn’t do the place justice, so to see for yourselves, click here to check out the Gallery on the Frankie’s website.

The restaurant was the brainchild of one of the worlds most famous jockeys - Italian-born Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori who teamed-up with internationally renowned chef Marco Pierre White (who is not only dubbed the ‘Godfather of modern cooking’ but also trained Gordon Ramsay how to cook).

The atmosphere, the decor, the food, the pricing - absolutely everything at Frankie’s was perfect. From the moment we were greeted by the maitre d’ (who treated every person in the place like they were his long-lost best friend who he hadn’t seen in years) to the appetising Polish Martini before diving into my main course of gnocchi, washed down with a bottle of Italian red wine and topping it all off with a suffle and espresso… it was all fabulous. To share an experience like this with your closest friends cannot be justly put into words.

Just when we thought the night couldn’t get any better, the maitre d’ came out and presented Kristy and I with a copy of Frankie Dettori’s Italian Family Cookbook… signed by none other than Marco Pierre White himself. The gift was the icing on the cake and a very special memento of our last night in the UK.

I’m going back to sleep for a while and when I get up I’ll finally get around to doing that recap blog post I’ve mentioned previously and finally get around to uploading all our photos.

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