• Art?Modern art is rubbish?
    Damien Hirst, “master of the modern British art scene”, had a launch party recently for his new work. At the party he arranged some of the rubbish — beer bottles, ash trays, candy wrappers — into an impromptu art installation. The next morning the gallery janitor arrived and promptly threw it all into the garbage. Ha! The gallery had a cow, of course, and workers had to dig through the trash to reclaim everything and rebuild the “artwork” from photographs. Hirst apparently found the whole debacle quite funny.

    Personally, I just love the way the British press crow about this stuff. “Cool Britannia” was a great marketing slogan, but the reality over here is quite different. Sure, Londoners are pretty modern about most things, but there are certain topics guaranteed to bring out the conservative side in most Brits: joining the Euro and scrapping the pound, laws the force the use of the metric system, genetically modified foods, and modern art and architecture. Of course, having seen the Lloyds of London building up close and personal, I’ve got to agree with them on the last one…


  • The Lord of the Rings will debut in London. Yes! Yes yes yes! But wait… December 10? Will I even be here? Bugger.


  • Whoa! Just mooching around on MetaFilter and found an interesting optical illusion. My sister was making fun of me rocking back and forth in front of my computer until I made her look for herself. It’s pretty cool.


  • Okay, everybody who uses Reblogger? It’s slowing your site down to the point where I can’t see it this morning. That sucks.


  • Damn. My hot Survivor tip turned out to be not so hot. I’m now tied for last place in my group. Ouch. (No offense to the tipper, of course. I had no clue who to vote for anyway, and I certainly wouldn’t have voted for that Jessie person. So it’s all good.)


  • My little jack-o-lanternThree things that describe my afternoon: apple pie (another culinary experiment), pumpkin carving (the finished result you see before you), and Ani Difranco (not exactly housewife music, but I like it).


  • Word find

    Done worming it yet? If you’re looking for something else to fill the hours before the show, might I suggest the Word Find I created the other day for my Dahl site. It’s based on Roald Dahl’s book Matilda and it’s got some lovely British-y sounding words like “Bovril” and “Thripp” in it. Have fun.


  • Okay, I’ve gotta make my picks for Survivor tonight. As I haven’t actually seen the show (nor will I be able to see any of them), I’m looking for any help I can get. I’m currently researching, so any tips you can give would be much appreciated. Who’s it gonna be? Hook me up.


  • Worm

    I know it’s early, but I’m gonna go ahead and declare Meg the winner of today’s round of “Amuse the Unemployed Girl” with her fabulous link, Worm. An incredibly simple game, yet totally addictive as well. My top score’s 1539… How far can you go?


  • Pizza

    My pizzaIn need of a challenge, I decided that tonight I would attempt a culinary feat that has set cooks a-trembling since the Dawn of Man: making my own homemade pizza from scratch. Armed only with the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and the memories of watching my mom do it a bazillion times, I proceeded to make a large, floury mess of my kitchen. The kneading part was enjoyable, though I proceeded to get goo all through my hair. Once the yeast beast was “resting” in a covered dish, I suddenly remembered that I had only one pan suitable for baking a pie on. “Oh well,” I thought. “There isn’t that much dough, really. I’ll just use it all on one pizza.” (Take a note, kids. Never double up on your pizza dough.) Strike one. While that monstrous slab was baking in the oven, I turned my attention to the toppings. Wanting to be professional, I sliced my onions very thin. Thin to the point of shriveling into tiny charred strands of nothingness after being baked. Strike two. (Always remember to cut veggies into substantial chunks to avoid oven disintegration.) And lastly, as I was spreading the cheese over the top of this aberration (the dough had formed a lovely dome in the center, so everything slid towards the crust), I realized that simply picking the “white” shredded cheese doesn’t guarantee mozzarella in this country, but instead nine times out of ten you’ve got low-fat cheddar. Which kinda sucked. Strike three, I’m out.

    Actually it was edible. As someone once said, “Pizza is like sex. Even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good.” (I’m paraphrasing.) This was edible, though the ratio of crust-to-topping was off by about a factor of four. The Snook, bless him, politely praised it and only revealed his true feelings when he let slip a tiny “Were you supposed to put salt in this?” Ouch. Well, there’s always Papa.



ABOUT

My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.

No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.


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