Friday, October 31, 2008

Is this heaven? I do believe it is!

You may have noticed that I have two favourite bands. Possibly you have ;)
Here is half of one covering a song by the other one. It just doesn't get any better. I am delirious with joy at having found this.
(It starts a bit slow but be patient.)

Friday Fill-ins

1. My favorite food seasoning is garlic.
2. The YouTube video I just found and will post once I've finished FFI is music to my ears.
3. Lucky is the person who makes his/her own luck.
4. My current 365 project is something I take very seriously. (Yet it's still a whole heap of fun.
5. Many people is usually too many people for me.
6. Food was the last thing I bought at the store.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to not much, tomorrow my plans include my nephew James' 26th birthday dinner and Sunday, I want to be enjoying my first workless weekend in three years!
FFI

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen books on my to-be-read list (ie., 13 of the books I snaffled for myself in the big clean up). Some are books I've had my eye on for a while, some are by authors recommended to me by customers (ex-customers).

In no particular order:

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
2. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
3. Romanitas - Sophia McDougall
4. Tolkien: A Biography - Michael White
5. Sick Puppy - Carl Hiaasen
6, 7, 8. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy - Tad Williams
9. Promise Me - Harlen Coben
10. Piece Of My Heart - Peter Robinson
11. Rain Fall - Barry Eisler
12. Beyond The Hanging Wall - Sara Douglass
13. Painting Mona Lisa - Jeanne Kalogridis
T13

Monday, October 27, 2008

Robert doesn't want to make loud music anymore...

...but, apparently, Jimmy, John and Jason do.



Seen at Lemonsqueezings

Unconscious Mutterings

  1. Contemplate :: ponder

  2. In the house :: is where I am

  3. Classical :: gas

  4. Quest :: adventure

  5. Best friend :: bronnie

  6. 1991 :: a year

  7. Never will :: never won't

  8. Fool :: in the rain

  9. Unhappy :: sad but true

  10. Best man :: man at his best


from here

Friday, October 24, 2008

Friday afternoon

Friday Fill-ins

1. Right now, I'm feeling beyond exhausted.
2. In bed is where I want to be.
3. How does one throw away books without hurting?
4. Deadlines keeps me on track.
5. Please don't ask me about the bookshop.
6. Nothing much at the moment fills me with joy.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleep, tomorrow my plans include culling, packing, dismantling, cleaning and then more and more of the same and Sunday, I want to be done with it all!
FFI

Friday, October 17, 2008

Friday Fill-ins

1. Follow the yellow brick road.
2. My camera is something I always take with me on vacation.
3. To achieve your goals, you must have a goal you want to achieve in the first place.
4. I am a failure as a business manager is something I'd like you to know about me.
5. I have a mounting feeling of panic.
6. Driftwood floats.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to working out with the boss what we're going to do with all these book. Actually, I'm not looking forward to that, but it has to be done., tomorrow my plans include selling as many books as possible and Sunday, I want to do the same again!
FFI

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Well that's the end of that.

We've just been given notice to quit the shop premises. The owner wants to turn it into offices apparently. It was only a matter of time really; business has been so bad this year. People haven't been spending for ages here - rising petrol prices, rising interest rates, rising food costs (due to drought and petrol). All exacerbated by the current financial mess which has caused an enormous decline in consumer confidence, leading to even less spending.
We've got one month if we pay all arrears. One week and arrears will be wiped. One week! Bloody hell.

What the fuck are we going to do with all these books???

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Wordless Wednesday #2

Wordless Wednesday


Zig and Zag, originally uploaded by jsarcadia.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Unconscious Mutterings

  1. Zoo :: sadly necessary

  2. Neighbourhood :: suburb

  3. Salute :: 21 gun

  4. Immortality :: live forever

  5. Dominion :: Sisters of Mercy track

  6. Rhonda :: name

  7. Parties :: All Tomorrow's Parties

  8. Prince of Darkness :: Jimmy Page

  9. Garbage :: rubbish

  10. Standard :: tuning


from here

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Meet Ingrid.

Saw this over at Janet's. However, for some reason it wouldn't accept Melbourne as a city (pfft!) so Janet kindly redid the test with my answers (thanks bud!!) and here is the result:

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are an Ingrid!

mm.ingrid_.jpg


You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"



Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.



How to Get Along with Me

  • * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
  • But don't be surprised if I disagree with you.
  • * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
  • This could apply to everyone I think.
  • * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
  • I wonder what I did with them?
  • * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
  • Don't we all?
  • * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!
  • Because I might cry!



What I Like About Being an Ingrid

  • * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
  • eh?
  • * my ability to establish warm connections with people
  • hmmm
  • * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
  • don't we all?
  • * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
  • I've never thought of myself as creative.
  • * being unique and being seen as unique by others
  • One of me is more than enough!
  • * having aesthetic sensibilities
  • Does this mean I know what I like?
  • * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me
  • Usually.



What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

  • * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
  • Yep
  • * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
  • Yep again
  • * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
  • Always
  • * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
  • If it's about something important.
  • * expecting too much from myself and life
  • Not any more. I've given up on expecting anything.
  • * fearing being abandoned
  • I'm over that now
  • * obsessing over resentments
  • Obsessing is too strong a word. Overstates the case.
  • * longing for what I don't have
  • That '59 Les Paul :)



Ingrids as Children Often

  • * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
  • eh
  • * are very sensitive
  • Possibly, though I think most children are like that.
  • * feel that they don't fit in
  • 'Cos it's true.
  • * believe they are missing something that other people have
  • The grass is aalways greener....
  • * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
  • Come on over Jimmy and I'll attach myself to you :)
  • * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
  • Oh yeah!
  • * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)
  • My parents are both still well and truly alive and still married to each other.



Ingrids as Parents Not applicable

  • * help their children become who they really are

  • * support their children's creativity and originality

  • * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings

  • * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective

  • * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed



Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Saturday, October 11, 2008

How do I know Summer is on the way?

Spider on the wall
Spider in the car
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes

my ankles are a mess!

Note to self: do not take socks off until I've bought skeeter repellent.




I'm sure it'll get better.

Saturday Photo Hunt

This week's theme is lazy.
A lazy day down at Woolomai, Phillip Island, in January this year.

Georgia and Lily (who is a whole lot bigger now)
Georgia and Lily the Pup

Rosie and Fred (who won't get any bigger, thankfully!)
Rosie and Fred

Holly and Megs (who will never know the meaning of bigger)
Holly and Megs

Clare and Tash (Tash thinks: Bigger? Is there any bigger star than me, Tash The Wonder Dog!?)
Clare (D3) and Tash the Wonder Dog

Working Class Hero

John Lennon would have been 68 last Thursday.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Carbonara - for Mary

Ingredients

1x500g pkt bucatini (I use fettucine)
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 brown onion sliced
120g bacon or pancetta julienned or smoked speck (pancetta for me)
1 egg yolk per person
Black pepper
Pinch salt
3/4 cup grated Reggiano (I use parmesan)
parsley
1 cup cream
100ml white wine
1 tablespoons butter

Method

Boil pasta in a pot of salted water. While this is simmering prepare the sauce.
Heat butter in a pan and add onion, cook till soft and add the bacon/pancetta for a few minutes and then the garlic. Cook slowly until the bacon/pancetta starts lightly browning. Deglaze with wine and cook down.
Add the cream and reduce a few minutes

Drain pasta and toss in the sauce with fresh pepper, pinch of salt and Reggiano. Serve in a bowl, with ½ egg with egg yolk nestled on top, extra Reggiano shavings and a sprinkling of parsley.
The idea is you fold the egg yolk through the dish to enrich the sauce as you eat , the technique only works if the dish is freshly served & hot otherwise the egg yolk wont coagulate….too hot and the egg scrambles( that’s why the yolk isn’t added to the pan during cooking!) (I don't bother with the half egg shell to serve - I just mix the egg yolks through the whole thing and then serve individually.)
From here

Friday Fill-ins

1. One of the best concerts/plays/movies I ever saw that I really didn't think I'd like was - this is hard because I usually don't go unless I'm sure I'll like it. Um, Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare) as performed by 13/14 year olds. (Georgia and her classmates)
2. Fettucine Carbonara is a recipe I recently made (or meal I recently ordered) that was delicious!
3. It's time for a Led Zeppelin tour (as if!).
4. Water is quite refreshing.
5. If I never hear the words "Do you buy books?" again, it'll be too soon.
6. To one side of the curving road was a a line of wind blown trees and small shrubs, and on the other was an ocean. Take me there now!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to nothing special, tomorrow my plans include catching up on website alterations and Sunday, I want to be up to date work-wise. HA!
FFI

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Skinny Dip

by Carl Hiaasen.
I picked this off the top of a pile of books the other day and started leafing through - mostly in an effort to avoid shelving. It turned out to be an enjoyable read.

Chaz Perrone is a biologist employed by the state of Florida to test water for phosphates and other fertilizers in the Everglades. He hates his job and is completely incompetent at it as well. He's also in the pay of Red Hammernut, a big time farmer who is happily pumping his phosphate waste straight into the Everglades. He couldn't care less about the environmental damage he's contributing to. Neither could Chaz. The only thing Chaz seems to care about is satisfying his seemingly endless sexual urges.
Chaz is married to Joey and the story opens with them both on a cruise ship in the Gulf to celebrate their 2nd anniversary. Chaz is convinced (wrongly as it turns out) that Joey has found about his corrupt dealings with Hammernut and so tosses her overboard in order to stop her blabbing.
However, he is so clueless that he thinks the Gulf Stream flows the opposite way and so Joey is not sent out to sea. She is eventually found, clinging to a bale of marijuana, by Mick Stranahan, an former detective living (as caretaker) on a tiny island off the coast.
Joey convinces Mick not to go the police. Instead they decide to mess with Chaz's head. She has no idea why he tried to kill her and is determined to find out.
Other characters include Karl Rolvaag, the detective investigating Joey's apparent death. He has two pet pythons and wants nothing more than to return to Minnesota - he misses the snow. There's Earl Edward O'Toole (Tool), a giant, hairy, gorilla of a man who is hired by Hammernut to babysit Chaz; Ricca, a floozy of and later, another apparent victim of Chaz's, and Hammernut, the corrupt landowner/farmer.

What sets this apart from other crime fiction is the humour. The characters are well written and are very believable people. The story is well constructed and I had to keep reading just to see how Mick and Joey were going to deal with Chaz, to see whether Hammernut would get his come-uppance, to see whether Chaz would be exposed as the murderous fraud he really was, etc. I won't say how it turns out.

I think Hiaasen is an author I could read more of.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Unconscious Mutterings

  1. Insight :: perception

  2. Irksome :: annoying

  3. Maybe :: perhaps

  4. Confirmation :: affirmation

  5. Bib :: -s and bobs

  6. Stop! :: No!

  7. Lobster :: Yum!

  8. Boys :: Don't Cry

  9. Fire away :: but aim somewhere other than at me.

  10. Give up :: surrender


from here

Friday, October 03, 2008

The delivery

Books, books and more books.
Now, who was it who offered to help sort, process, price and shelve?

Friday Fill-ins

1. October means Springtime.
2. Sarah Palin scares me!
3. Leaves are falling all around, it's time I was on my way.
4. My favorite horror movie is I don't have one because it's not a genre I watch.
5. The eighties = good memories.
6. It was a dark and stormy night and leaves were falling all around. :-)
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to nothing much, I might go visit Bronnie, tomorrow my plans include work and Sunday, I want to maybe have a drink or two after work!
FFI

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Thursday Thirteen

My new 365 days project. Jimmy Page. Guitar God. Here are 13 of the photos I've taken so far.


13 Jimmies, originally uploaded by jsarcadia.

Want some books?

A guy rang me yesterday, said he had some sci-fi books he wanted to bring in to swap for store credit. Okay, says I, bring them in. So he turned up late in the day - with a trailer load! Close to 2000 books. Pretty much all sci-fi, but lots of old authors that don't sell anymore (Rhodan, Simak, etc). But quite a few who do sell (Heinlein, Norton, Clarke, etc.).
It took an hour and a half to transfer them all from his trailer to the back room because, of course, he wanted his boxes back then and there. So now I have a couple of thousand books stacked in very wobbly piles waiting for me.

Anyone want to come and help me sort, process, price and shelve? I'll buy you lunch.