As we all seemingly enjoy having a go at Islam at this very moment, here’s a little reminder that other Abrahamic religions have their issues as well. Karl Bihlmeier’s iconoclastic cartoon makes a good point.
And another thing…
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Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse
Wibblers Delivers
Wibblers Brewery in in Maylandsea has a firm fanbase in this house. The best girlfriend ever is a fan of their award winning ‘Apprentice’, while I am partial to their ‘Dengie Best’. We usually pick up a few bottles from our local independent supermarket, adding value to the weekend. A few weeks ago some of the bottles that were purchased turned out to be summer, necessitating a switch to an indescript lager to survive Dunton Abbey. I took a picture of the barcode on the offending bottle and gave the brewery a heads up that there were some rogue bottles out there.
Not only did I get a lovely email back from their lovely back office lady, but a day later their assistant brewer dropped by a whole case of Apprentice at our house.
It doesn’t get much better than that: not only is their beer top notch, but their service is as impressive as their brewing.
Harold
Sorry for the previously undetected glass ring stain. My fault.
This little ditty is being written on Harold. Harold is an Apple G3 Powerbook from 2000. It is a truly ancient machine, but it was undoubtedly the first sexy ‘must have’ laptop.
Nothing like a bit of good news on the front page of the Guardian. Good to know that David loved Laura.
‘Why you, why now?’, I can hear you ask in a little falsetto voice.
Well, first of all, it looks like a little designer cushion. It’s also one of the coolest and iconic pieces of industrial design ever. When I was a little boy in his early thirties, I used to watch ‘ West Wing ‘. If you don’t remember or never heard of it, it was only the best political show ever on TV, but nae bother. All my favourite characters wrote beautiful speeches, policy papers and devastating memos on G3 Powerbooks, mainly at 11pm, only powered by hoisin sauce and a Budweiser (the staff. Not the laptops). For all geeks, a quick little rundown of his innards: 400mhz G3, 1gb ram, 2x USB, 2x Firewire, Ati Rage M3.
I always had a thing for these beauties, but didn’t really have the cash to get them (by that time I was running around with the less powerful and decidedly more uncool white Ibooks), but I never really forgot about them. Very likely due to the fact that we are still watching ‘West Wing’ at chez Fordie’s.
Somebody in the white house hard at work. Probably writing a birthday card.
So, 14 years later, I finally got one from Ebay. I cleaned it, gave it a bit more ram and a new battery and: hey presto, well working new laptop. It runs OS X 10.4.11, Office 2008, an amazing version of Firefox -compiled for its ancient G3 processor – called TenFourFox.
And it’s fully functional.
OK, there are things it doesn’t do: online streaming is really not its thing, as are elaborate browser games, but it emails, tweets, plays my music collection, browses the web -all it once. Not bad for a piece of 15 year old technology.
Because it’s happily running Dropbox, it’s become the defacto work laptop in the living room. The rather generous keyboard makes writing those annoying Open University essays a doddle and it happily handles the work emails and easily deals with the neverending Excel sheets that seem to pervading my life.
Most importantly, it makes me happy. I have decided to take it to the next meeting at work, to park it proudly between all those Dells, Toshibas and other modern kit.
All I need now is a policy job in the White House.
Gravitas? Nope.
Over the last ten years, during which middle age has finally set in (both mentally and physically, although I still don’t vote conservative/republican) the pleasure of going to the cinema has reduced inversely proportional to the size of my TV. At present the TV size is 55 inches, while my interest of going to the cinema is tending towards nil. As I am a happy sticks-dweller, the next cinema that’s worth visiting is 1 hour away and choosing the right showings has become tricky, as you want to avoid both mobile toting, constantly chatting teenagers and smelly single individuals. An additional bonus is the wait for some proper online reviews and the fact that catering is much better at home. I know of very few cinemas that serve their main feature with a fillet in mustard crust and parsnip chips. Add to that the fact that I can cuddle the best girlfriend ever during gruesome scenes (Red Wedding anyone?) without an arm rest and a kilo of popcorn between us, the cinema tends to be less important these days.
So I was absolutely thrilled to finally get my hands on the 3D Blu-Ray version of ‘Gravity’. After all the hype and the Oscars, I was looking for a veritable SciFi fest, featuring my favourite moving object in the sky (no, not Sandra Bullock), the ever so cool International Space Station, where science might be mighty expensive but Russians and USAians still get can get along.
So, the best girlfriend ever and I switched off all the lights, popped the disc into the noisiest Blu-Ray player Samsung has ever created (think of train noises) donned the 3D glasses (mine green, hers white) and off we went into the first Oscar winning Sci-Fi movie since 1996 (Independence Day for Visual Effects and Sound, Star Trek ‘First Contact’ for Make Up. Not kidding). 90 minutes later, a few shots of Sandra Bullock’s undoubtedly fit figure later and I was thinking ‘that’s it?”. It’s pretty much a seventies disaster movie (think Airport, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Inferno) with graphics my R9 290 could do on a fraction of its processor time and some horrible dialogue (which -I admit- is necessary in every disaster movie) in space. Without Roger Moore, instead with his naughty equivalent, the Cloonster (During the whole movie I begged for Roger Moore to appear behind a friendly helmet visor – or at least a friendly drunk Russian, as it was still possible in Armaggedon. But no).
So, before you choose ‘Gravity’ as an evening’s entertainment, here are my alternative choices:
- If you reaaally want to see Sandra Bullock half-naked, watch ‘The Proposal‘
- If you want to laugh out loud with Sandra Bullock, watch ‘The Heat‘ (which is admittedly brillant)
- If you want a proper George Clooney movie in which he doesn’t get killed, watch ‘Ocean’s 11‘
- If you want George Clooney sexy, watch ‘Out of SIght‘
- If you want to see Space at it’s most beautifully rendered, watch ‘Starship Troopers’
- If you want a nailbiting disaster movie, watch ‘Cloverfield‘
- Or else, go and watch ‘Moonraker’
One thing I have to confess, though: Ed Harris was brillant.
Oamaru, Ye Olde Shopping Spot On The Way To Dunedin
So I’ve been back to Oamaru. Every 20 months or so the Oamaruchloridyans (technical term) in the neurons of my limbic system start vibrating and I start booking tickets to New Zealand, blindly ignoring the fact that my middle-aged body really doesn’t like being confined to the spaces of an A380 and an ancient 777 for twenty five hours. Why the highlight of the trip is of course always the reunification with the best antipodean friends one can have, there is the thrill of checking out how this neglected part of the southern hemisphere is doing.
This time things had happened in my absence: Oamaru won the contest of ‘sharpest town in New Zealand’ (whatever that means) and gained a 30 minutes feature showcasing its trippiness (technical term) on national TV. It also elected a new Mayor who – while not particularly on my side of the political arena – knows the district well, has great new ideas for the place and wants the district to prosper. He already planted himself firmly in the council offices, getting his hands dirty in the day to day operational bits. Good stuff. The council has finally cleaned up the harbour and made it a place you actually want to visit. Hooray!
Then there is the Whitestone Civiv Trust. It owns seventeen of the buildings in the Victorian district and its vision is
Preserving and developing New Zealand’s most unique collection of historic buildings into a living ‘Victorian Town at Work’.
Well, the ‘at work’ bit has obviously now been buried. Harbour Street is now filled with shops selling the usual Kiwiana naff and some bloke who makes tiles. The last surviving traditional craftsman is the man who started it all: Michael O’Brien and Marie Grunke are still working away in his bookbindery but these days income seems to come mainly from tourists who want to have their picture taken with the funny bearded man behind the counter. Shame about that.
They have all come to buy a tea towel with a Tui on it. Pic by -=EN=-
On the other hand, there is Scott’s Brewery. Purveryors of some lovely, lovely beer (including an amazing Koelsch) and the employer of probably the only head-brewer who could just as well model for Chanel. They unfortunately had to move into the only building in the harbour I hoped to see being torn down, but at least it was put to good use.
Functional. Think functionality. And Beer. Picture by Bread, Cakes and Ale
So, Oamaru has gained and lost. Gained a good mayor, a good brewery and an upgrade to the harbour. It has lost (as usual) more trees in its hinterland, its right to call itself a ‘Victorian Working Town’ and another bit of its distinctiveness.
In a few years, probably nothing will distinguish it from Timaru. Or even Ashburton.
Messaged from the Outhouse 