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Attention, Sydney knitters! Tapestry Craft just got some absolutely luscious 100% Italian cashmere in yesterday. It’s the softest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I got the fun job of calling all the folks on the waiting list and telling them that it had arrived. Most were like, “Ooh, sweet! That sounds nice!” but my favorite reaction was by a fellow American. She sounded excited but asked how much it was a ball. “Thirty-three dollars,” I said hesitantly. Her response: “F**k. Me. Gently.” Exactly.

And Ralph Fiennes as You-Know-Who… I gotta say, that’s some inspired casting. He’ll be perfect. (Once you give him some slitty red eyes, of course.)

I’m taking this with a huge grain of salt, but… an eighth Harry Potter novel?? Wow.

A few moments of lucidity…
My computer is dying. I thought she’d slipped off in her sleep last night but here she is this morning, still wheezing away. I want her to go quietly. She’s had a good run and it’s time to visit the big AppleCentre in the sky. Now I just need to figure out if I’m going to shell out for another Mac or let the Snook set me up with a Linux box for half the price. Decisions, decisions…

The end of a long weekend…
Ahhhhhh. Now that was a nice break. In gratitude for all the long hours he’s been pulling, the Snook’s boss arranged for us to have a swanky night out (on the company). So we filled the automatic cat feeder and headed off Sunday afternoon for the Observatory Hotel down in the Rocks. Check-in was at 3:00 and we wanted to take advantage of every minute. Our room was huge and we had a lot of fun checking out all the features (including a dual-spout shower!). Then we headed out for a beer at the Lord Nelson and a perusal of the Sunday paper. Later we went back to the hotel for a wash – check out us in our fluffy robes! – before setting off for Wildfire. We tried it last year but weren’t really impressed with the service. The experience this year wasn’t a lot better. We tried the “churrasco”, which is basically an “all-you-can-eat” kind of thing where they bring lots of grilled chunks of meat to your table on skewers. Snookums thought that the squid was way too raw, while I couldn’t detect any hint of fancy Brazilian spice at all. But whatever. We weren’t paying for it, so we didn’t care too much. The wine was excellent, at least. We headed back to the hotel for a much deserved sleep. Unfortunately we didn’t really get it. The bed, which seemed nice at first, was way too soft and I was tossing and turning all night. The Snook found the air incredibly dry and kept waking up and gasping for the water glass. I wouldn’t say we were incredibly well-rested when the breakfast tray came this morning. The food was good though, and we took turns having long soaks in the extra-long bathtub. By the time we checked out at 11:00, we felt refreshed and happy. Dr. Amy Jones survived her first night alone and seemed really happy to see us. That is, until I let my newfound energy go to my head and – in a fit of spring cleaning fervor – dragged out the vacuum cleaner… But she’ll recover. I’ve got a couple more pictures from the hotel if you’re interested.    

   

Another Ebert fact to add to the shrine/encyclopedia: He’s a Steak & Shake man. Niiiice.

Wow. Some jerk Freeper actually stole one of my Roald Dahl images. I’ve added the site to my .htaccess file now. Can you tell which one it was? 🙂

When I got out of the shower this morning, Snookums excitedly asked if I’d seen the story on Page 2 of the Herald. “No, what is it?” Apparently Notre Dame has made an agreement with the Archbishop of Sydney to take over the disused St. Benedict’s school in Chippendale. I was pretty floored. The last I knew, Notre Dame’s Australian program was based in Fremantle (near Perth) and there weren’t any plans to relocate to Sydney. The weird thing is that the article never actually specifies which Notre Dame is involved. I mean, we both assumed my alma mater, but there are plenty of Catholic schools around the world called that, right? And the ND news site doesn’t have any mention of it. I wonder what’s up with that. Could ND really be opening a new foreign study center right around the corner from my apartment?

Eeek! Steve has cancer! I wonder if I can send him a fruit basket…

Sorry for the lack of posting. Snookums’s birthday weekend continues. Last night we headed out to the Rhinedorf, a German restaurant he’s been eager to visit ever since he discovered it online. Apparently they’re the only place in Sydney with Kolsch (a really good German beer) on tap. It’s way, way out in the suburbs though and we had a bit of a train journey to get there. Luckily I’d thought to call ahead because the place was packed with several birthday parties and they were only just able to squeeze us in. It was well worth it. The decor reminded me of riding the Matterhorn at the county fair: it was all mountains and lederhosen and odd pictures of fruit. The waitresses were even wearing dirndls! We drank half-liter steins of beer and grinned at all the fat suburban German-Australians around us. Everyone was happy. We ordered the Farmer’s Platter for Two, which consisted of four big sausages, pork cutlets, meat loaf, sauerkraut, potatoes, and red cabbage, served with a pitcher of a gravy and two tubes of gourmet mustard. It was excellent. We followed that with a couple slices of cake from the dessert menu. (Me: “I like how at a normal restaurant they’d ask you if you wanted custard OR ice cream OR whipped cream, but here they just give you ALL THREE!”) The bill was surprisingly cheap – only $70 – especially considering we’d consumed a liter and a half of beer between us. We staggered out an hour later to catch a train back to the city, echoes of oom-pah music still ringing in our ears.