random life & musings – Page 39

December 24, 2007December 24, 2007

to market

On Wednesday I went to market. to market.
I walked up and down.
Tomatoes, $8, great for sauce
Rockies, $2 a carton.
Cherries, super sweet.
Listening to their calls.

Some stand and watch you, waiting for you to decide that the price & quality is right. Others see you coming and do their best to talk you into buying from them.

There is no partridge in my pear tree but I do have 20kg of tomatoes, 8kg of capsicums, 5kgs of cherries and 4kg of mushies.

Which will become/has become
frozen mushies & capsicums
semi-dried & dried tomatoes
dried roasted capiscums
pasta sauce
frozen cherries for baking
cherries for eating 😀

We picked up two cherry pitters from the shop which made it so quick and easy to pit the cherries for freezing. I also picked up a curved paring knife, which has made coring the tomatoes a dream. It is now Monday morning and I just put on the last lot of capsicums to dry and there is one last tray of tomatoes that will be dried in a few hours. For some reason, I am guessing the weather it has been taking a lot longer to dry the tomatoes & capsicums than usual.

I spent a period of time each day, sitting at a little table on the back cement, with a box of tomatoes on one side, my drying trays on the other and the waste bucket between my legs. I core, halve or third the tomatoes depending on size, pop the backs, squeeze out some of the excess juice, arrange them on the trays and pop them in the dryer. Some of the tomatoes I have seasoned with some salt and pepper but the others are 100% tomato.

The dried roasted capsicums are possibly my favourite though, they have this slightly smokey intense capsicum flavour, are about 2mm thick and have a texture similar to a fruit roll-up. Quite nice.

Today is Christmas Eve, it about 8:30am here and we are about to put up the Christmas Tree, like a good Icelandic family, we decorated the house yesterday and put our outside lights up last week. Mum and I went to the farm yesterday to get our tree and of course to decorate Grandad’s house ready for Christmas Day at the farm.

December 22, 2007December 24, 2007

new computer

I took this photo the other week in the garden as the 50mm 1.4 was begging to go out and play in the daylight instead of spending its time confined to dark concert venues. 😀

This post is coming at you from my new computer, that I built the other night. It is a dream, so fast and we haven’t even overclocked it yet. Lightroom is just buzzing along and I love it! Delay loading images, what is that?

The other great thing is the sound! I went from a motherboard with el cheapo onboard sound to a not motherboard with not so el cheapo sound and the very first thing I noticed when I hooked up my speakers was the sound, it was so clear and crisp!

We are in the middle of Christmas preparations at the moment. We are going to get the tree tomorrow.

December 18, 2007December 18, 2007

clean desk

This is part of my desk at work. It is very clean. How pretty is the flower though? It is a made out of soft drink cans somewhere in Africa.

I took a photo of my desk at home at the moment. It is not so clean. I decided not to post the photo lol.

I went to the most glorious concert on Sunday night. I will have some photos and perhaps even more up later.

I, well Pabbi and I put up the Christmas lights today. Our House looks quite fancy, I will have to take some photos tomorrow.

December 9, 2007

The Girder Arrives

Yesterday morning, I took a call from Mum. She had a brief message for me. That between 3:30am & 4:00am tomorrow morning the girder for the pedestrian overpass would be delivered on to site and put in place. Did I want to go? Of course I wanted to do. It meant that I skipped out on the Banawarun concert but it was good morning.
A bit of a brief info regarding this pedestrian overpass. Redcliffe State High is spread over two campuses on either side of Oxley Ave. For years there has been talk of an overpass/subway. Just over a year ago, a student was killed when a car ran a red light. The talking stopped and action started to construct the overpass.

We got out of bed at 2:15, picked up another teacher who lives down the road and we were off to Redcliffe. Below is a series of photos showing the Girder making its way to the site and then the procedure involved in getting in place.

December 5, 2007

The new Breeders record is scheduled to be released in April 2008.

Straight from the mouth of Kim Deal and typed by Kelley Deal.
I knew it was coming next year from the little bits I have seen round the ‘net but there it is in black and white.

The new Breeders record is scheduled to be released in April 2008. There are 13 songs. Mando Lopez is still on bass, Jose Medeles on drums, Kelley Deal, my evil twin, on guitar and vocals, and I’m playing guitar and vocals.

The songs are just songs. But for instance, one song Kelley and I did live. She played stand-up bass and I played acoustic guitar while we sang. Steve Albini taped it live like that. Yet another song has Kelley playing bass and Mando playing rhythm guitar. I’m playing the lead and Kelley and I are singing throughout. On song has Mando playing a lead guitar which Albini then backward masked. One song has three, count ’em, three basses on it….

Source – Venus Zine

To say I am mildly excited would be an understatement. I just can’t wait till they tour the album. If/When they come to Aus, you can bet my bottom dollar that I might just go to more than just the Brisbane Show.

The Breeders are by no means my most listened band but they are the band which has influenced me the most. I can still vividly remember watching the Safari video clip on a Rage tape and been blown away. Who was this band?

They played Brisbane in Feb 2003. I turned 18 in Sep 2003. I was beyond devastated.

That was written yesterday, this morning when I logged onto Myspace this bulletin was waiting for me.

THE BREEDERS NEW ALBUM — MOUNTAIN BATTLES — SET FOR RELEASE ON 4AD APRIL 8, 2008 IN US AND APRIL 7, 2008 IN REST OF WORLD!

4AD is pleased to announce the forthcoming world-wide release of Mountain Battles, the new album from The Breeders on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 (April 7 outside of North America).

The Breeders released their last album – Title TK – back in 2002. Since then, of course, Kim Deal has been part of one of the most highly successful and warmly received music reunions of all time, getting back together with the rest of The Pixies for a series of exhilarating live shows in 2004 and 2005. After that, Kim headed back to Dayton, Ohio to start writing a new record.

Mountain Battles is the result. It’s an album which captures all the bittersweet electricity of classic Breeders records like Pod and Last Splash, and which breaks new ground at the same time; classic sounding, yet as relevant and exciting as ever.

Mountain Battles was recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, Erika Larson at Stagg Street, Manny Nieto at Manny’s Studio, at Refraze in Dayton and by Ben Mumphrey in the Basement.

The Breeders are : Kelley Deal, Kim Deal, Jose Medeles and Mando Lopez; Jose and Mando are both veterans of the Title TK campaign.

The Breeders will be playing live all over the world in 2008. Their schedule includes performances at Canadian Music Week and SxSW and Coachella, plus full tours in the USA and in Europe.

The Breeders are also set to play a full UK tour in April to mark the release of the album.

The Mountain Battles tracklisting is :

1. Overglazed
2. Bang On
3. Night Of Joy
4. We’re Gonna Rise
5. German Studies
6. Spark
7. Istanbul
8. Walk It Off
9. Regalame Esta Noche
10. Here No More
11. No Way
12. It’s The Love
13. Mountain Battles

We’re Gonna Rise is currently streaming on The Breeders myspace page. I am at work for another 7hrs 45mins. The first thing I will be doing when getting home is listening to that song 😀

November 28, 2007

I’m a big kid now.

I gave blood today …. by myself.

I went with Mum 10 days ago to give blood but was turned away as it had been less than a week since I had a Hep B shot. Pabbi picked me up from work today to take me to give blood just in case I was a little woozy after donating and would not be able to drive home.

Total reverse happened. It was my 9th donation and my best ever. My iron level was 130 which is ok and I donated my 470ml in a bit under 8 minutes. None of this having a low iron level, using the whole time and only getting about 400mls out like in the past. The best part? I literally stepped up from the chair, had my muffin and walked out of the Red Cross Centre feeling 100%. No woozy/dizzy feelings at all. So Happy, I just hope it is a sign of future donations. Still pretty stoked about it.

And here is a photo of my Mum, if Mum didn’t donate, I don’t know if I would donate or more to the point, I don’t think I would have 9 donations by now. I have so many memories of Matthew and I spending time with Mum in the City waiting for her as she gave blood and then sitting in the chairs having our cheese and Jatz.

What is stopping you from giving blood this week?

Most people are eligible to give blood. If you are eligible what is stopping you? Yes it might hurt, Yes it does take about 45mins out of your day, Yes you need to be careful with your arm after donating and Yes in 20 years time you might have track marks on your arms but for all those the bigger question if you don’t donate your blood every 3 months, will be there blood when you or someone you know needs blood products. 1 in 30 Australians donate. The number should be higher. You can make that number higher.