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Oh yum. Tonight my friend Martin invited Rodd and I over to his fiancee’s family’s Korean barbecue restaurant. It was fantastic. Twenty-five bucks for all-you-can-eat and everything was delicious. The table had a built in grilling pit and the waiter kept us supplied with glowing red charcoal. We threw on marinated beef and pork and ribs and baby octopus. We piled plates with kimchi and vegetables and strange salads of every description. We washed everything down with ice cold beer. It was the perfect meal for a balmy summer night. (The place is called Seoul Restaurant and it’s on Punchbowl Road in Belfield, if you’re interested and in the Sydney area.) As we were leaving, I tentatively said one of the few Korean phrases I know: “Kamsahamnida” (“Thank you”). Our hostess, Martin’s future mother-in-law, looked at me surprised. Martin rattled off something in Korean of which I caught the word “grandmother” and guessed that he was explaining my heritage. His mother-in-law looked me up and down – I was about two feel taller than her – and laughed. Yeah, that’s the usual reaction.

There are several new Mac OSX updates for us Apple folks today. I’m installing as we speak…

Finished! Install went smoothly, but I’m not noticing any immediate changes. Battery life remains the same. It reads 2:35 at fully charged, but as I keep it plugged in all the time I really don’t know if I’ve suffered any degradation.

Awww! New little baby tigers at Taronga Zoo in Sydney… We’ll have to go see them once the tide of schoolchildren has ebbed.

The BBC has reviewed the latest round of iPod advertising and they think it’s pretty cool. I was surprised to read that there are three different songs that show with the commercials. Here in Oz I’ve only ever seen the one with the Jet song (which would be the “garage rock” of the three, I’m guessing). I wonder if that’s because they’re an Aussie band…

Oh Ebert, you contrary little man. All the other other critics in the world are falling over themselves to declare Return of the King the greatest movie ever made, yet you give it a mere 3.5 stars out of 4. And that is why I love you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present my RSS feed. I went with version 0.92 (for now). I started by downloading NetNewsWire and subscribing to several blogs and news sites. Then I went through to find the ones that looked best in my aggregator. Based on their XML and this sample PHP script, I put together a bit of code that actually manages to validate. If you use a different aggregator, please let me know how it looks to you or if you’d prefer a different format. Thanks!

Oh, and if any GoddessBlog users want the code for themselves, just let me know. It’ll take you less than ten minutes to implement.

This is all over the ‘Net today but I couldn’t resist: What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex.

Although Tolkien never said that the elves DID have hot gay sex, he also never said that they DIDN’T. And I know what I make of that.

Hahahaha… Even the Snook (a Tolkien nerd if ever there was one) found it pretty amusing.

Note to self: This is an excellent RSS primer.

World: 1, Overly-Sensitive-Feminist: 0
I stood out on Abercrombie Street this morning waiting for my lift to work and bracing myself for the inevitable harrassment. You see, I wore my black skirt and boots today. They’re not salacious at all, but for some reason the sight of my bare knees seems to draw the troglodytes from their caves like flies to honey. Mentally I’d already armored myself and my middle finger was poised and ready to flip at the slightest hint of a honk or wolf whistle. I scanned the oncoming traffic trying to guess from which direction the harrasser would arrive. I debated which stinging insult would best put the smack down. There was only one problem… No one bothered me! I stood there for four traffic light changes and I didn’t get a single leer. I started to get antsy. When you mentally prepare yourself for battle, you inevitably start itchin’ for a fight. At last! My ears detected the tell-tale sounds of some Neanderthal making dog-barking noises at me. “How low can you get?” I thought as I whipped around the confront the idiot… and found myself face-to-face with a big happy golden retriever on the back of a truck. *cringe*

Survivor was extremely satisfying. In fact, my voice is still a little hoarse from that magic moment when I saw “Johnny Fairplay” scrawled as only Crazy Lil can. She probably would have stood a better chance against him but I can respect her decision not to reward his behavior. And kudos to the women for finally getting their sh*t together! It’s about time. (Early in the penultimate episode I remarked to the Snook: “I sure hope you don’t have a problem with gay folks, because if these women fail to team up and vote out Burton I’m getting a sex change.”) The reunion show was mostly downhill after Sandra’s victory, I have to say. Since when does Jeff have such a big crush on “Savage”? Osten shouldn’t have even been allowed to attend. Does anyone else find Skinny Ryan sorta cute, in a nerdish way? Yeah, just me then.