My thesis is about building an economic model of the world to understand energy and agriculture linkages or something like that. Well searching for something the other day I came across this link in the London Telegraph for Wunderland (Viewed original stuff here).
I was pretty blown away from looking at the pictures and was taken back to my childhood where I had legos and built little cities and other environments. I was amazed at the detail and was hungry for more. So I looked around a little more and came upon this video and thought I should share this from there website with you.
It has been a long time coming yet I have finally got a post up. I intended to do this a while back yet I got distracted with other things and was not sure if I should use flash or video. After thinking and playing for a while it seemed best to go back to video. Then video had some problems which I was able to resolve.
Well definitely enjoyed my trip to France and wish to go back. I felt absorbed in the 17 and 18th centuries as I moved around the streets. Most of things I saw were older than Australia and larger than most things in Australia. Not even sure why at the very end when I looked at the the Arc de Triompe that i still said "Damn! that is so big" still.
The highlight for me in Paris were the Arenes de Lutece (Roman ruins), seeing the Eiffel Tower, and entering the Luxemburg Gardens. Although the temperature moved from minuses to positives here I still imagined being a gladiator and fighting off lions and stuff. From there it was not long to see the Eiffel Tower standing tall in the distance. When I entered the Luxemburg Gardens it felt as if I entered a whole new place, as the sun started to shine and the grey was painted over with greenery energising me. Even though it was still cold it did not feel that way there.
I did the Davinci Tour on my own, noting spots that I could remember in the book and making sure I put them into my voyage. I saw the Louvre Pyramid, (no grail though that I could see), the Garden of Tuileries, and the Church of Saint Suplice. I forgot to check out the Rose Line yet I plan to go back one day.
I wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower except when I arrived there it looked like all of Europe had the same idea and it started to rain so I thought I would do it next time. My path around Paris is as follows Charles De Gaulle Airport, Chatelet Station & Formum de Halles, Place de Victories (sunrise here at 8am local time), Hotel, Breakfast at the cafe near the Louvre, Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, St Stevens du Mont, Panethon, Arenes de Lutece Roman ruins, Jardin du Luxemburg, Palais du Luxemberg, St Suplice, Jardin of Babylone, Dome des Invalides (camera battery started to redlight), Eiffel Tower, Palais de Chailot, Palais de Tokyo, Avenue des Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Palais de l'Elysee, Place de Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, Jardin du Carrousel, The Louvre Pyramid, and finally after 8 hours back to the cafe and on to the hotel for a planned shower and 5 minute power nap, before the next part. That is my speed tourism of Paris and when I come back I will be here longer and hope to spend time appreciating more. In the meantime I am inspired to enroll in French classes so that I can do more than order food and ask directions**.
Photo movie of my wanderings around Paris, to an unusual French song. (Couldn't really find a song that fit so i just picked on I liked.)
** Can that happen to me? I remember in two and half years in Vietnam that was the limit of my language skills.
My last dance class was on Monday (1st Dec) and as I was making my way home I looked up in the western sky and saw the smiley in the sky. I wished I had of had a camera, yet then I remember my camera is not good enough to shoot in the sky. It was pretty magical to see it. I remember reading earlier in the day that the next time this event will happen is in 5 years. I am glad I did see it, as I did forget.
Melbourne was a little warm and clear which added to the magic. I felt impressed by the way the pattern of the two planets, Jupiter and Venus formed the eyes and the cresent moon made a smile. I had always wondered if I had seen planets and what they looked like and now I discovered that I had seen many planets before. The photo is ok, yet seeing it with my naked eye was breathtaking and a memory I will cherish (until I see it again in 5 years).
A couple of weeks ago I had to leave the dance class early and gave my entry ticket to a friend. The next time I saw him I had a funny feeling, and he said to me that he has good news. I had won the free class, call it intuition or esp or excitement, I am not sure yet I got to dance for free, which I thought was cool.
Well not quite, I am practicing to be a journalist. I made pasta often as a child and remember how much fun it was. So when I saw a pasta machine (roller and cutter) at a fairly cheap price I thought why not.
So I prepared the dough with eggs and flour and proceeded to knead it into a nice ball. I always feel that there is something enjoyable about preparing food, I am not sure if it is the dough between the fingers or the reward from working hard. I let it rest, wondering what is the right time to wait. After about 1.5 hours I rolled the pasta out. I was a little frustrated at first as the machine did not want to stick to the bench. Yet, after a while I worked out how to get it all done and from there was able to make some fettuccine.
I waited until dinner time (which was about 4 hours away) and went back to cook the pasta. It had all stuck together again and needed rolling. It went much smoother this time and went straight into the boiling water. Taking a little longer to cook than packet pasta I was able to clean up and prepare a sauce. I was feeling hungry and a little lazy so I went with a simple garlic and parsley sauce with cheese added on. I found the pasta tasted a lot like egg noodles (not surprising since they are the same). The sauce gave the pasta a much needed boost. Next time when I make pasta will definitely move away from strands towards shapes. Now, got to go and find out how to make pasta bow ties.
It is a good time to be a Liverpool fan. Not only did they beat MU for the first time in a while, they also comprehensively sent a message to Chelsea on the Weekend. Unfortunately news that good was hard to keep secret, and when I got home to watch the replay of the game knowing the result detracted a bit from the game. Overall, i found the game exciting to watch, and I feel confident that next year a large hangover might be required.
Lately I have been getting back into salsa, and tonight I went to the school which confused me so much previously. This time I am not so confused, or maybe I am and don't know it yet. Anyway, on the way back I walked home and came across a situation.
As I approached with shopping in hand, I saw 8 men. Big men, mean looking, all in bomber jackets laughing and talking, no I think it was acting,,leaning against silver cars. All the cars were the same make, and looked like two men per car. There was something odd about them, I noticed at any one time one of them was eying me as walked. As I walked I felt a constant glare the kind that said don't look here, unless...
There was definitely something in the air, a vibe or was it more like a stench. The stench was one in which the prevailing mood was we don't give a .... A new car pulled up, exactly the same as the others, two guys in "the uniform" got out and started talking, non threatening yelling, and catching up. Both these guys glanced in my direction with a serious get out of my way look. Then I saw a bulge in the pant leg, and another quick look revealed a holster or something on the belt. I just felt like I had walked onto the movie set of Training Day or another cop drama as the cops were waiting to GTA some one's butt tonight.
It has taken 7 years to win at Anfield, 5 years in the Premier League, and me 3 attempts over 5 days to see Liverpool finally beat Manchester United. It was worth the wait to saviour the taste. I feel that this year is going to be different.
A while back I went to my home town. A road trip with a full car to help my friend settle into a new town. Being there really brought back memories, and unlike being in Melbourne, which is beautiful, cosmopolitan, and bustling, I really felt peaceful, a calmness that I hadn't felt since being in Long Xuyen.
Along the way I managed to shoot some photos and videos. On Sunday, I decided it was time to get cracking on one of my projects I had thought about for a while - Showing the world how different Australia is. And a journey from the bottom to the central eastern coast has a lot of variation. Unfortunately when we got to the mountains it was dark and raining so I didn't get any pictures of this variation in landscape. Just imagine mountains with rain forest and lots of steep winding roads.
This is my first decent project with the Premier Video editing software. I am pretty impressed with the way it turned out, yet couldn't find the Star Wars transitions, although some karaoke regulars might notice some of the karaoke transitions present. I wanted to do the Indiana Jones type maps where the map scrolls in the background over the foreground, yet I didn't have the patience to find out how to do it. I did a quick variation which I think does the job.
I opened the soundbooth program for the first time and found it a bit ordinary. I quickly reverted back to soundforge yet found that I forgot what i was looking to do and went back to the open soundbooth program. After a short look I found an icon which looked like what I wanted to do and by trial and error I got the basic results I was after. I have to say with all the functions in soundforge it was overwhelming, and soundforge still looks more versatile than soundbooth.
Also with this project I have worked out how to encode the final vidoes better and keep the quality a little higher than the first attempt at making a video. Well here it is a video diary of the journey north.
Tis the season for EPL. This season I will be able to watch games in English, in high quality when I want (during the week). The last time I got to watch a long series of EPL games in English was in 2003, the year before it was taken to cable tv, and never to be seen again. My internet connection enables me 9 games per week. (4 live and 5 on demand). I feel this is a cool deal, and the price? FREE, well the marginal price is. I will get to watch them for no additional cost, free with my internet.
When I learnt this I was excited for the first day of the season, this weekend. The first games did not feature Liverpool, yet I was able to watch Arsenal play West Brom. Exiting game in the first half, yet after a while it started to lose its way as the Gunners couldn't finish.
That leaves me with only one problem, a good problem to have given recent years, when can I watch all this football.
A while back in June I was lucky enough to go see an exhibition on video games. Now as most people who know me I do have a thing for them. I did my honours thesis on the economics of video games, and although I pretty much bombed it I definitely enjoyed learning all about the video game industry. Since that time I have seen quite an evolution in the industry and in particular the understanding the effects of platform choice and technology really shape the video game industry and provide a testing ground for graphics and sound technology for compters.
During my thesis I encountered some systems that I had never heard of and it was good to see what they actually looked like. These early systems were the first consoles that I encountered once I descended into the dungeon of video games. They had the classic Pong - the first actual arcade game machine - on display. It looked so ancient! The early games on display were classics for each system and brought back memories from my childhood as I begged my parents to buy an Atari and later a NES games system. I was pretty surprised that I never saw Super Mario Brothers at a game station, only the original Mario Bros..
Part of the fun of the exhibition was that you were allowed to play the games. I watched my friend play Tetris and was amazed at how good she was. It was like appreciating art. I also played Pro Evolution Soccer 5 000 000 or whatever the latest version is now. The graphics were pretty amazing on this (comparing it to my version of PES 9) and I felt the difficulty was from trying to adjust to the way the camera now operates. Lastly I played puzzle game against my friend and got whipped, and learnt that I am probably a little competitive .
Besides classics, they had lots of background information on video games. They had a music section (just like Borders), an art section (sonic and mario/ pokemon art), and a game design area. In the game design area they had a layout of two games - Max Payne and GTA III. Looking at the layouts I got a feel for how complicated it is to design the virtual worlds seen in the games. You can see my wonderment of the next GTA game San Andreas here (it looks like some of the pics have been deleted from the web). The amount of detail that the artists use start from photographs and then transcribed into digital art and mathematics, pretty amazing stuff, in a nerdy way :).
The last part of the museum had the most modern games. They had the dancing craze games as well as the new HALO. That HALO looked pretty amazing and fun to play, providing you didn't play against the teenagers there who were just kicking everyone's butt.
They had the Nintendo WII on display and a range of sports games. They had tennis on display and it looked pretty cool. You take the controller and swing it round like an actual tennis racket. It looked like it would take a while to get used to, yet once the skill was acquired lots of good games would follow. The experience difference between books and games was interaction, in the game you get sucked into action, unlike a book which tends to be more passive. I guess the next step in game technology is be in the game itself.
It wouldn't be a Nintendo themepark without a Mario on display, and here you see me in the next genration of games as I try to escape from the clutches of Mario and video game exhibition.
PS: Cameras weren't allowed inside the exhibition so I wasn't able to take any photos. Something about copyright blah blah blah. Doesn't this just get old!
The tickets and free game to keep me occupied for hours
Friday night is amateur night, and I head up to Coburg to support 5 guys from our club. It was mixed affair with karate and Thai boxing along with (traditional western) boxing. First fight was a Thai boxing fight of 3 rounds. It was fast and hard. I distinctly heard at one point in the second round shin pad against shin pad. They sounded very thin as the bone crunching sound echoed around the hall.
The boxing matches were a little more civilised. The first two fights involved our club and they were victories. Next was a first timer. He really didn’t look fit yet he seemed eager enough to go. The match started and it quickly became apparent that he was outclassed. His opponent was able to tag him from everywhere. He lost in a unanimous points decision. The last fight was best described by someone we met on the way home.
@$#*! Look at that guy. If I was to fight him I would be scared. He is huge, and rippling with his muscles shining with oil, he looks like Iron Mike Tyson, a vicious bulldog. His bicep is as big as a watermelon. The fight starts and the crowd hushes as the bell rings. The fight has been going for a minute yet no one has thrown a punch. It is a Mexican standoff, both waiting for the others. Oh no, counter punchers. Finally it is like someone pushes them together and a flurry of punches by our guy sees two connections, a body and head hook. Then some more standoffs then the end of the round.
Now the last two rounds were just as good. The big guy thought it was gridiron, and went on tackling our guy. After two rounds the judges had no idea how to score this match so they just called it a draw.
Anyway, yesterday I went to the club to do my usual training, and I had a reality check. I knew I wasn’t really ready to go the distance in any competitive way. The guy who lost I had a spar with and felt it. If it was real I think I would have been taken to hospital pretty quickly. There is a big difference between the guys I had been sparring previously. Also I feel so unfit; the injury really has taken a toll. Well I am just happy I found out that I still need more time in the gym.
The rematch of the 1991classic is on tonight (24 June 2008)
There seems to be a lot about the relationship between energy and food being talked about in certain parts of the world. I wish I could get invited to sit around and do nothing for a few days in Rome, since this is the topic I am pursuing for my PhD. I didn’t mean nothing as I would be posing to act like I am doing something*.
Well since I wasn’t invited to that party, I decided to make my own. To ensure that I have food security, well bread security, I got myself a breadmaker. Just a few blocks from my house there is a factory shop for Breville electronics and a range of discount clothes outlets. Searching for the NIKE shop I found the electronics shop and wandered inside. I saw that the breadmakers were quite cheap compared to those at full retail price and impulse grabbed me as I remembered how good fresh bread tastes.
The new toy
That night I cranked it up and all went well. The first loaf I baked I put too much water, however that did not affect the taste. I think I will start to put on a tonne of weight over the coming months as I enjoy the fresh bread.
The first loaf
On the lighter side, my friend showed me this clip today which seems to cement the relationship between food and energy and solve the issue of high oil prices.
The new bread machine does have a jam/jelly setting so I am set to become the (John D) Rockefeller of the 21st century.
* note my cynicism of such things arises on meeting a few experts from these types of organisations whom really are just interested in self promotion and travel, using the excuse of trying to help people without a specific cultural/ social understanding of the situation.
I have heard of this place called Footscray, a place where Vietnamese congregate in great numbers to eat shop and do other normal things. I had been to Richmond, near my house, Springvale for food yet not here. Richmond is small, while Springvale is a mixture of Mekong peoples. Footscray is big!
I arrived in Footscray via an intricate maze of streets lined with factories which suddenly just opened up into suburbia. Yet one block in the familiar sound of Vietnamese rang through the air, the smell of fruit and vegetable markets lingered, all the while seeing signs printed in two or three languages.
The first stop was for fo. Sorry been living in Oz too long, I meant Phở. Just like in Vietnam the choice I like was number 1. I also settled for the coffee. This was the first time I had gone out to eat Vietnamese food since I arrived back. I always had planned to eat, however I just never got around to it. Something always got in the way.
After that I walked around just soaking up the atmosphere. It is different from that of Richmond or Springvale as it partially closed off to traffic so people tend to walk. It really is just like a big market. After walking around I saw “the sign” and had no idea that was where I was headed.
The sign
Once inside, it was chaos, like any market I had been to previously. The difference between the markets in LX and here was the yelling. For some reason they just yelled. At one point I went to talk to my friend and the next I was picking my eardrum up off the floor and shoving it back in the ear it was blasted out of. There was one thing which still I am yet to do, buy a whole fish and fillet it. Something just doesn’t sit right in this day and age with me for this process. Remembering doing this as a kid, I am willing to pay more for my fish (fillets) so as I don’t have to involve myself in this messy process.
After leaving I recalled the market adventures I had in Vn and think about how much easier shopping has become.
A good mix? 11 days ago I didn’t think so. That’s why I stuck to vodka and salsa. However by about 9pm many of the other people forgot about everything but the wine. It was chaos as the night went on. Think drunken mess in the Yarra Valley wine district. Lots of amusement to watch everywhere I looked.
A couple of weeks ago, I was told of a restaurant which served some of the best Middle Eastern food in Melbourne. Being located on Sydney Rd, Brunswick, that meant it had a lot to live up to, as this is a centre of Middle Eastern restaurants. Actually, the area really does feel like you are in another country, as the signs are mostly written in a mixture of Arabic and English.
This week some friends and I went to sample it. We went into the restaurant, and instantly I felt at home. It was like I was visiting the No Name in Long Xuyen with the furniture looking strikingly similar. However, there were a few give aways that made me realise this was not the case. No beer, no Vietnamese language, and the food was different, noticeably the lack of vegetables.
The service was interesting until Said spoke in Arabic. It wasn’t impolite though, just sort of indifferent. Well anyway after a bit of talk we ordered the recommendation. Little did I know, it was a lamb!
The lamb in question with a bit more salad then I remembered!
There were many different delicacies on the plate. Sausages, spicy chicken, and some lamb (just making things up now so look at the picture). There was some salad, and potato salad, yet why waste time on that. It was so good as you see below the contented faces of stuffed men. I felt like I was going to give birth to the lamb after the meal, like a phoenix meal deal.
Contented men.
On the way home after savouring the meal, I realised that I missing have choices of mains like in Vn and in this restaurant and I think variety is the spice of life.
My phd thesis is studying about the effects of climate change mitigation strategies on food prices., even lthough, I haven't done much on it so far this month. So to alleviate that guilt, every now and then I decide to search for things on these issues.
I have found two reasons, beyond the fact that there is drought everywhere that matters, which are different.The first is the eco-religious view that our current way of life is just wrong and a sad excuse which is so implausible that it is laughable.
Last night I went salsa dancing and I felt like I was on the titanic. Slowly slipping below, and feeling numb with every beat in the song. I have started going to a new school in a hope to improve the amount of moves I know. This new school has a class just around the corner from work so it easy to get too. And, unlike the other class the male-female ratio is pretty even, so far.
The first class I go to is really basic, just can practice on adapting to a new style (it is a little different from the class I usually go to) and reinforcing the basics so that it becomes second nature. However the first time I went to the class next level up it was just a simple continuation of the first class.
Last night though it was about 4 really complicated semi-related sequences (they all started with the first same move and that’s were it ends). And worse it was fast. Then after class I felt demoralised as I couldn’t lead my partner into any of the moves. The last girl said she felt like she was playing the lottery with my random lead. I laughed it off knowing it felt that way for me too.
Beginner 2 Class (simple)
Beginner 3 Class (complicated)
I was wondering why this happened as prior to the last class, I was doing well. I also remembered the same thing happened on Sunday night. I don’t know what it is yet I think it is related to not feeling any tension in their arms, which makes it hard to feel the lead. From my perspective I tend to be a bit jerky and sometimes late on the lead adding to her confusion.
On the way home I was thinking I might give it up. I realised I have plateaued for about month, and it is becoming frustrating. Yet, I think the greatest contribution to that feeling was the busy day (actually month or two), the shoulder injury, lack of physical exercise (2 weeks now have been invalid), and friendship drama.
I do miss the simple life. Wake up, go for breakfast, go back to sleep, get up for lunch, watch AD, look at what to teach, realise that class starts in 5 mins and nothing is prepared, and for the millionth time this year play hang man. At 4pm realise that the class is bored of hangman so send them home early as you got the call to go to the NN or any other fine establishments in town and go on all night until 3am. Then recycle.
Yet as simple as that life is, it is not the secret to hapiness (I have read). It is the challenges that we face everyday that makes life enjoyable. Looks like I got some good times ahead :).
