Populating my office

My mum works in the building right next to mine, and popped by today to help populate my office (with no direct windows out to the world outside) with some greenery. She gave me a superb little good-luck pottery elephant with some easy-to-care-for bamboo, along with a box of chocolates which were much enjoyed by myself and other, ravenous individuals in the lab. The easy-to-care-for part is especially important, as, so far, my experience with nearly every plant that I have looked after is to end up killing the poor bugger. If I don't kill the bamboo, I might be ready for growing the Red Savina Habanero chilli seeds that I have this summer.



Two long-time residents of my office can be seen to the left. At the top is my wee-little paper model of a shambler (created with the assistance of Pepakura designer - but more on paper unfolding obsessions another time), the design for which I shall put up online sometime. Below is the little wooden tiki that Briony brought back for me from her last trip to New Zealand. The tiki is an awesome little ornament, warding off nearby stupidity and causing nearby paper models to spontaneously unglue and fall apart.

Canberra Invasion and Macquarie Move

For today, a large post.

It's been a busy couple of days, with the group I work with moving offices from suburban Marsfield to the site at suburban Macquarie University. The move was fairly uneventful, the new offices are spacious (if not a little dark) and I'm sure we'll make adjustments to make it like home again.

The Canberra Invasion Force went off without a hitch, and great fun was had by all (I hope!). The three-hour drive (which took a bit longer on Friday because of the insane rain) was well worth the effort, allowing for catching up with family and friends alike. A big shout of thanks has to go out to Gertrude (and gorgeous little Sophie) for letting us invade their house for a couple of days, and to Adelina for housing last-minute travelers and for lending us her place for the many, many hours of entertaining games, tim-tams and conversation.

I have previously been a bit down on Canberra, but have quickly gotten quite attached to the place. Yes, it's cold, yes, it's a lot like London, but it has the charms of a small down hastily mushed together with the functions of a big city. I'd highly recommend the Argentinean food stand with it's hot Churros at the Old Bus Depot Markets on Sundays, and the drive from the War Memorial to Captial Hill (notwithstanding the aluminum Bird On A Stick) is genuinely quite nice.

I've been driving everyone insane, going bazakas with my digital camera, taking photos of everything that happened. Being a long-time linux nerd, I have recently been searching for good image management software, and I found Album Shaper, which works superbly well under KDE. It isn't iPhoto, but it is slick and it generates very swish looking online albums, as can be seen in the links further down this post.

So, for those of you whom have patiently read through my rambling - pictures. The gallery for the Macquarie Move can be found here, and the gallery for the Canberra Invasion Force can be found here.

Terrorification

Most of you folks would be aware of the trouble going down in London at the moment. It's not a whole heap of fun, but if any city in the world would be designed to cope with such a stress, London would be it. I've spoken with family and friends (including one who missed catching one of the ill-fated tube trains by managing to sleep in yesterday morning), and as usual the Londoners are dealing with it with calm, playing down the incident rather than ramping it up.

Speaking of terrofication - local TV station, channel seven is now screening the most recent series of angry' Kiefer's flagship show, 24. The central plot orbits around an 'ordinary' Arabic family who are actually a sleeper cell. The series is executed controversially, playing up Arab stereotypes, leading to a clumsy apology from Fox. They introduce a raft of new characters, only to replace them with ones from the previous series because of a viewer backlash against them. It leaves a pile of loose ends (hint: there is no motive for the 'terrorist' activity, its just 'extremists'), Kiefer Sutherland dies (again), is brought back to life (again). Don't waste your time, folks.

The backstroke of the west

Not content with mangling Lord of the Rings (FOTR and TTT), another episode of another recent trilogy has been engrish-ified ;) Click here for Episode III, Backstroke of the west. It's like watching two movies at once, only.. better.