By George, it's a tirade-al wave!

My pal George, overwhelmed by an understandable wave of frustration, let loose with a tirade on his Twitter feed.  You can read about it here, as someone from Adelaide's sole Daily, the News Ltd-owned Advertiser, must be a fan.

George, as champions of free speech and net neutrality, we salute you.  Also, happy birthday for tomorrow!

Status Update - 29 June 2010

Entering week four (or is it five?) of our home Internet exile.  Virgin Broadband won't even sell us another modem to replace the one that died, but are more than happy to send us a new one for free if we cancel our currently suspended service (which, apparently they won't be un-suspending regardless) and take up their current offer (less data per month for more of our cash). So now we're shopping for a more reasonable service (and a higher data threshold - you get to that five-gig ceiling so quickly).

Any suggestions for a new ISP, drop me a line. If we take up your recommendation I'll immortalise the moment in a very special haiku status update.
  

Haiku Status Update - 16 June 2010

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No Facebook chatter,

No faint roar of Google Wave;

Just my thoughts, unplugged.

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Still no home Internet connection.  I've given up trying to find a new suitable wireless modem; we've suspended our service with our current provider (if we still get charged for a service we can't use because they can't supply us with a new modem - they claim they don't have any and don't know when/if they'll be getting more, even though they seem to be signing up new clients for the very same service - I will be naming names), we're considering copper-connection services again.  More as it comes to hand.

Tanka Status Update - 13 June 2010

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Still no connection

Missing the "status updates"

Of others, and the 

Random, jokey emails

That neatly fill my inbox.

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Spent a good part of yesterday and today trying to find a modem that will work with our "state or the art" wireless broadband service.  May as well added a purpetual-motion machine and a unicorn to my Must-Pick-Up-Today list.  Really starting to get annoyed.  Getting some writing done in the purpetual isolation of my truncated existence, though, so it's not a complete loss I guess.

Haiku Status Update - 11 June 2010

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Still unconnected:

A leaf fallen from its tree.

I miss my Google.

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"Grrrr"; or, the maddeningly ephemeral nature of the modern object

Our modem failed last night.  I was watching the little display light up and start to look for a connection, then all was blackness.  Well at least on the little screen.

The effect on our household is that not only do we no longer have wireless broadband coming in and connecting our little old PC to the wider world, but we also no longer have a "landline" connection to the greater humanity, as our telephone connection comes through the same modem.  We are, until I can find a replacement, informationally and communicatively marooned from society.

For the record, I'm writing this in my lunch break on my work computer.
     

Food Report - Syrian Pizza

Last night we made the Syrian-style pizzas I've mentioned in a previous post.  They were really delicious, but not without some problems.  The pizza dough is the easiest I've ever made - throw the dry ingredients in a mixer with a dough-hook (we have an 700 year old Kenwood that still runs like a steam-engine), with two teaspoons of olive oil and slowly add the water as it's mixing on the slowest setting, then let it run for ten minutes. 

This is where the problem occurred.  The dough was about three-and-a-half cups of flour, and 420ml of water.  Now, I'm still a novice baker, but that amount of water got my spider-senses twitching.  I added about 370ml in the end and that was still too much - a pizza dough should be a lot looser than your average bread dough (and should only get a single prove, to maintain that elasticity), but this was almost runny and difficult as all hell to work with, sticking to everything it came in contact with, including the oiled baking sheet and damp tea towel covering it while it proved (next time I'll use cling-wrap sprayed with oil).

I made the full amount of dough, divvied it up into four roughly equal portions and let it prove for two hours, as per the recipe.  When I came back to it the dough portions had spread back into one homogeneous spread of really sticky dough, and when I tried to cut it apart with my old blunt chef's knife I keep just for working with dough, it stuck to the baking sheet, the knife my fingers and anything else it touched (again).  Eventually I managed to work it on a well-floured board, and eventually my managed to stop laughing.

In spite of this, the dough made one of the best pizza bases I've ever tried.  Next time we make these Ill take a photo and post it.  Lamb and cinnamon are magic when combined, and the tomato topping on the base actually added to the overall taste rather than fighting with the other flavours.  Definitely a recipe for the repertoire.

Random musing: the Primacy of Print

Today sees the release of Shit My Dad Says, a book by Justin Halpern.  Justin maintains the incredibly funny and honest @shitmydadsays Twitter feed, which is, as the name would suggest, comprised solely of quipps and quotes from his father. It's one of my favourite Twitter feeds.  I can't wait to read the book and I wish Justin the best of luck with it (not that he needs any), but it did get me thinking. 

All the pundits talk about the end of the book as a dead-tree artifact; Jock Given reviewed two books on the subject just recently (the irony of publishing hardcopy books about the "death" of hardcopy books seems to be lost in the hyperbole).  But the fact remains, ever since Julie Powell hit paydirt with an offer from a serious publisher to convert her Julie/Julia Project into a book (and, since then, a movie deal), the dead-tree artifact has become the holy grail for bloggers.  Many people now start blogging with the expressed intention of nailing a book deal (presumably without all that pesky "actually writing a book" and "shlepping it from agent to agent, publisher to publisher in the hopes of getting a nibble").

I'm not climbing to the summit of the moral ground hear; I'd do any number of unsavoury things to get a book deal.  It's just that, well, aren't books the thing we're supposed to be getting away from by embracing electronic media and providing free entertainment for the future millions of ereader and iPad users?

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On a related note, I'd just like to give a shout-out to one of my favourite "useful" bloggers, Jen Mayer of 24 Boxes fame.  Jen has a recipe book out, which you can order here.  I have to confess that I haven't read the book, but if it's as good as the recipes she's posted over the last couple of years I've been following her, than it'll be work the exorbident freight costs from the US.

Haiku Status Update - 4 June 2010

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Tired. Exhausted.

Beat. Zonked. Whacked - done - spent. Rooted

And falling asleep.

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I'm glad this week is over.  However much you enjoy a job, sometimes it's a struggle against other people and your own inertia.  Like any job I guess.

Ricotta and spinach crepes for dinner tonight (Jess does a variation on this theme, but if you prefer a Northern Italian style, Ashley from A Year in the Kitchen  does a nice white-sauce version).  Syrian-style minced lamb pizza tomorrow night.  We're rediscovering the joy of cooking.

I feel exhausted.  Going to bed soon.  Dishes first - hate waking up to a sink full of dirty dishes.  Haircut tomorrow morning.  It's all such a rich tapestry.  I don't know how I'm not giddy with excitement.

Oh, that's right - I feel exhausted.
 

Haiku News - SCI-KU @ the Science Exchange

Here in Adelade the elegant old redbrick Stock Exchange building has been converted into a place where science and society can meet.  The Science Exchange houses the Australian chapter of the Royal Society, and hosts lectures, debates, and other fun stuff throughout the year.

Right now the good folks at the RiAus, in conjunction with Friendly Street Poets, are running a Sci-Ku competition.  Write a science-themed haiku and win a prize.  Is it really that easy?  Of course not.  Do you know how hard it can be to write those things?

Status Update - 3 June 2010

Banging my head against the ABS website.  It feels so good when I stop.

Haiku Status Update - 1 June 2010

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"Why did the chicken

Choose to cross the road?" he asked.

"To die.  In the rain."

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A dumb poem built around a dumb joke. but there's an element of truth to it.  I'm close to half-way through A Farewell to Arms, by the legendary, Nobel prize-winning  Ernest Hemingway.  Legendary because of what he did as much as what he wrote.  The book is, in part, based on his own experiences on the Italian Front in the First World War, or the Great War, as it came to be known as the dust settled.

Straining to see the text through contemporaneous eyes, I can see what an impact it might have had - there's a raw, visceral quality that comes through with the stark, banal imagery and the drawing of the readers attention to little, inconsequential, irrelevant details. It must have been a departure for most readers.  The books's treatment of sex, also, is a long way from the confronting language of Henry Miller, but it is quite up-front about the subject and the sensations and emotions it elicits, while all the time avoiding the kind of language that got Ulysses burnt on the New York docks.

Still, in nearly every line, there's a sense of contrivance that I can't shake, no matter how I try to let myself be immersed in the story.  In A Movable Feast, Hemingway talked about how he would write.  When he started a story, he would write a paragraph.  Then he would look for the best, most honest sentence in the paragraph, put a new sheet of paper in his typewriter, and start again with that sentence. 

A Farewell to Arms reads like he did that with every line.  It comes out most in the dialogue.  In trying to capture the broken cadence and repetition in real speech, his dialogue comes across as forced, like a Persian rugmaker weaving imperfection into his product as to not offend God, only without the humility.  It's a shame that such a compelling, human story is - for me at least - reads like an overkneaded dough.  It's a shame Hemingway didn't have anyone to save him from himself.