Rock Climbing for Rhinos

Mutterings continued.

Zoo staff and the Asian Rhino Project have organised a fund raising event - Wednesday, 14th April, 6.30pm at the Hangout Indoor Rock Climbing centre in Bayswater. $20 per person for harness hire, lesson, sausage sizzle and soft drinks. Email me and I'll give you more details.

Nicked from The Mausoleum Club, "A Bit of Holmes & Watson

According to a report on the MediaGuardian website, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are to play Holmes and Watson in a TV Movie for ITV, to be screened next year. Evidently if it's a success ITV are hoping it'll go to a series." Interesting.

Sad, sad news that Peter Ustinov has died. Some nice words about him on the Guardian site.

Outrage!

Mutterings continued.

Went looking for Fruit Tingles the other day and was shocked and dismayed to see that, a. they're not Allen's Fruit Tingles anymore, they're Wonkas! and b. they're made in New Zealand, and c. they're made by Nestles. When did this happen and why didn't anyone tell me? On a similar note, when did Weston's Wagon Wheels become so titchy? And why don't 'they' make Dutch cakes any more?

I think I've confused Blackstar. The Cadfael series 1 box was broken when I received it - the disks themselves are fine but the plastic holder thingie that holds disk 1 is broken off and falls out. I emailed Blackstar and asked if they could send me another box, not the disks, just the box. They issued me with a return number and an address to send the box back to. I emailed them and said that I wanted to keep the disks, I was just wondering if they could send a spare box. I've now received an email saying that my order for Cadfael 1 is being packed. Not sure what this means but I could end up with TWO sets. Blackstar are very good with their customer service - I ordered two copies of a dvd in error and they had no issue with me sending one back. They refunded the money, no questions asked.

From Ananova:
"Bull finds way to dead owner's grave

A bull that pined for its owner has been led away from his grave after a vigil lasting a number of days.

Barnaby the bull left his field in the German town of Roedental and found his way to the cemetery where owner Alfred Gruenemeyer was buried.

The eccentric farmer is said to have treated his animals likes pets, allowing several to have the run of his home.

The bull found his way one mile to cemetery and then jumped a wall before locating his owner's grave. He stayed there for two days despite numerous efforts to coax him away.

Vets said it was common for dogs to pine for their lost owners, but they had never heard of a bull doing so.

"It shows an acute level of intelligence. It seems incredible that a bull could find the exact spot where his master was buried, but he did it," said Klaus Mueller."

Awwww!!!

Photos

Mutterings continued.

I had a roll of film in my camera for so long that I had completely forgotten what was on it. I got it developed during the week and was surprised by what came back.

The first two are the set from last year's GRADS production of Noises Off. No sardines in sight.





And this one is Milo contemplating his first move. The pieces are from the Reynard the Fox set I bought for The Tempest.

Sunday Morning Blogging

Mutterings continued.

Good night last night - pizza from Pizza with Attitude, I made tiramasu from a recipe in my diabetes cookbook (amazing how something so rich can come from low fat/low cholesterol ingredients) and an episode of the Muppet Show (Christopher Reeve doing Hamlet, with the emphasis on the 'ham'), episode 3 of Firefly and a Mstie (yay!) ep entitled Time Chasers. The movie actually had a decent plot that would have made a great Outer Limits episode. Unfortunately it was performed by a group of people who weren't actors.

Interesting Guardian article on Stanley Kubrick. "Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive. He was looking for a solution to the mystery - this is what he found."

Friday.

Mutterings continued.

A warm day, cooler one tomorrow. Leece and Rob are coming for dinner tomorrow night.

Found out from Jonno Becket, past president of GRADS, that I was awarded their Peter Mann award at the AGM last Sunday. I think it's for stage crew but I'm not really sure! I'm hoping that it's for a useful contribution to a production and not the person most likely to walk into the set and fall into the orchestra stalls.

I can hear a flock of Carnaby's cockatoos in the distance. A mob of them flew overhead yesterday and made a hell of a racket. Makes a nice change from the horrid feral Rainbow Lorikeets.

Another week almost gone.

Mutterings continued.

Having a day off in the middle of the week is something I could get used to, however my chances of persuading anyone to pay me 5 days wages for 4 days work are somewhere between buckley's and none.

Another amusing/bitchy article in the Guardian - The 10 worst rock reunions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1175406,00.html

Qantas has just informed me that with my frequent flyer points I can fly to Honolulu, Johannesburg or Manila - none of which interest me. I also have enough points for a return trip to Auckland, which does interest me but not just yet.

Rant time - the ITA website seems to have been taken over by a gaggle of teen aged girls who seem to think they can become actresses by posting such tripe as, "I WOULD LIKE TO BECOME ACTRESS SO BAD." On the upside, there's a great review for Othello from Jason Seperic.

DigiPoss.

Mutterings continued.

Successful upgrade to digital complete. It took about 90 minutes and the improvement in picture quality is startling. I must, must, MUST remember that the VCR now operates on AV, not Pgr1. It's taken a lot of pressing of AV buttons and a slap to the foreheard to remember that the tech told me that. I'm currently tuned to the 70's audio channel and listening to Steely Dan's Hey Nineteen.

Another great Guardian article about the decline of musical theatre. "It was about 20 minutes into the Rod Stewart musical Tonight's the Night, just after mild-mannered Stu Clutterbuck had made his pact with the vinyl-clad devil so that he could exchange souls with Rod and get the girl, at the point when the stage had erupted into a performance of 'Hot Legs' for reasons which made no sense to me then and make even less now, that I began wishing I was in the front row of the dress circle. That way I could have chucked myself off and ended the agony right there and then. Plus I would have been doing the audience a favour by introducing a modicum of drama. Christ knows, they weren't going to be getting it from anywhere else that evening. Instead, I had to endure the whole thing from the stalls."

From the Radio Times: "Big day out for Office staff
Ricky Gervais and The Office are in line for a hat-trick of Bafta wins. The BBC2 sitcom and its star have won the best sitcom and comedy performance trophies for the past two years running, and are nominated again for next month's TV awards. But Gervais, who plays nightmare boss David Brent, faces local competition for the latter category from co-star Martin Freeman, who plays The Office's Tim." Yay Tim!!

Fog!

Mutterings continued.

Strange conjunctions of air and heat and other stuff made for some interesting atmospheric conditions this morning. Yesterday was the hottest late March since whenever the last one was and this morning we got fog. There's a nice southerly breeze coming through the window and blowing on my face.

Leece has added more goodies to her shop.

Sledgehammer online has announced that the DVD of the series will be released in the US in July. Yay!

The Google ad on the Possblog is inviting me to stop anxiety in 30 minutes. Isn't that nice?

The last of the expected parcels was on the doorstep when I got home. It's an LP (a real live vinyl round thing that's about 12" in diameter and has a hole in the middle that you play on a RECORD PLAYER) of Manchild, a musical in the 70's.

Urgle.

Mutterings continued.

The only comment a hot Poss can make about the weather. Dumai, our new tiger, has been enjoying his pool very much over the last few days - he's been dunking his teddy in the water and sucking out the moisture.

A parcel in the letterbox and a parcel on the doorstep today, woo hoo! The two cds I ordered from Amazon arrived today even though the website gave them an expected delivery date of late March for one and mid April for the other. I've got Kim Robertson's Dance to Your Shadow on at the moment.

Othello

Mutterings continued.

Went to dinner at Piazza in Rokeby Road and then to the theatre to see Othello. We had lots of healthy salad and seafoody stuff for mains (and I had an even healthier tiramasu for desert, ahem). Great restaurant, great service.

Class Act's Othello was fantastic. I'd seen two movie versions, Oliver Parker's with Branagh as Iago, and the RSC with Sir I McK, but this was the first time I'd seen it live. It was def. the only way to experience it. There are reviews on the ITA website so I won't go into it here, just to say that I never stop marvelling at Stephen Lee's interpretation of Shakespeare or at David Meadow's versatility.

We had drinkies and nibblies afterwards and it was wonderful discussing Shakespeare with Stephen.

Hot day today. At least, I think it is as I haven't ventured outside. The windows are closed, the blinds are drawn and air cooler is on so I'm not melting, just perspiring gently.

I'm hoping the Foxtel Digital man will be here on Wed morning to do whatever it is they do so I've been tidying up under and around what I laughingly call my entertainment centre (really an old bookcase with a tv and other assorted electronic marvels). I found three ping pong balls and a number of empty video cassette cases. And a lot of fluff. And a tangled mess of wires, cords and power boards. I managed to dig out the power cord for the cable box so at least the tech won't have to do a search for its beginning and end.

Cadders

Mutterings continued.

The Cadfael Series 1 disks I ordered from Blackstar arrived today. I had a look at One Corpse Too Many - the picture was great, such an improvement from the tatty video I've been watching.

I'm booked to be upgraded, if that's the word, to Foxtel Digital on Wednesday, however given all the probs they've been having, I'm wondering if it will happen. I've taken a day's annual leave and will just have to spend it shopping instead. I've got some birthday gift vouchers to spend. 8-)

Nicked from The Mausoleum Club site:

"Sweeney Series Two DVD

Just so's you know, the confirmed line-up for extras is:

o Music only tracks featuring stereo versions of the sought-after Sweeney library music
o New Dolby 5.1 soundtrack from the original sound elements
o The original as broadcast mono soundtrack
o THE SWEENEY annual PDF
o Interview with hard man stunt arranger Peter Brayham
o 'Wild Boys' featurette with Patrick Mower, George Layton and Lynda Bellingham
o Interview with writer Roger Marshall
o 'Golden Fleece' episode script PDF
o Episode introductions by guest stars Bill Maynard, Gwen Taylor, James Booth, Ken Hutchinson and Lynda Bellingham
o THE SWEENEY film trailer with introduction by Lynda Bellingham
o THE SWEENEY film promotional gallery "

I like the sound of The Sweeney Annual pdf.

The chappie who fixed my pc for me very helpfully downloaded Opera 7.2 - he's a fan of the Opera browser as well. Unfortunately, you don't get the full range of Blogger posting accessories (Spellcheck, Insert Link, etc) as you do in Explorer. Pity.

Blast from the past: I had a meeting on Wed afternoon for which I'm the scribe (and dogsbody). I usually take the notes on the boss's laptop however he was off sick and had taken it home. I was reduced to rooting around the cupboard to see what else we had and came up with a small beige brick. I started it up and the splash screen said, "Windows for Workgroups 3.11". It was an old lappy. It took a bit of hunting and pecking but I finally got Word open (white characters on a black screen). I'd forgotten how fast compared to Win95, 98 and XP 3.11 was. I was very tempted to use the lappy however I had my doubts that the old version of Word would convert to the XP version I've got on my pc. Micro$oft has a tendency not to be compatible with itself.

Alright! Who's been playing with the thermostat?

Mutterings continued.

Here I was, thinking summer was over and that autumn was upon us, when BAM! back comes the heat with a vengeance. 40C on Sunday? Ah well.

Crock Musicals, a very funny article in the Guardian railing against modern musicals in general and Ben Elton in particular. "Have you ever been to a Ben Elton musical? I have. It wasn't just bad, it was traumatising."

Leece's gorgeous artwork is being sold on the net in the form of very affordable t-shirts and sweats. To have a look, go here. I was given a print of one of her pieces a few years ago and the amount of detail is just stunning.

I'm slowly rebuilding my computer life. Getting a new motherboard installed means that I've lost everything and have to start from scratch (or rather, from the cds I managed to burn before the pc went completely loopy). I can't figure out how to make Eudora read its own address book. Still, it won't be too difficult to rebuild it, she said optimistically.

Stupid Poss!

Mutterings continued.

Or am I? I was playing around with the Blogspot templates and managed to lose all my links and things. I've just had a look at Grant's page and it appears that the same thing has happened to him, so perhaps it wasn't my fault.

My computer is home after having a new motherboard, sound card and battery.

More lunchtime blogging

Mutterings continued.

Home PC still sick but hopefully on the mend. It chucked a complete wobbly on the weekend and refused to let me reinstall XP. I rang Iinet to see if they could suggest anyone to fix it (as I refuse to go back to Arrow) and they put me in touch with a nice man who came, saw and took the box away. Turns out the motherboard is shot and the battery was dead, neither of which Arrow picked up. And of course the sod is out of warranty.

I didn't get to the Swancon quiz afternoon this year (we won last year, gloat gloat) but Leece rang me up to let me know that their table came second and they were playing one person down. The winners get a guided tour of the Observatory - very cool prize.

And speaking of things that are cool and space related, it seems that we have another member of the solar system family - a planet unofficially called 'Sedna' that is 13 billion kilometers away. The NASA page.

I finally found the roll of unprocessed film I've been looking for for weeks. It was in a canister on the coffee table and I've been blaming the cats for using it as a toy (they do that sort of thing - anything rollable left lying around is fair game). Turns out it had fallen into one of my craft boxes and I'd put it in the back room. When I got the box out last night, there it was. It's been so long since I started the roll of film that I've forgotten what's on it - I suspect it could be pics from last year's Taming of the Shrew.

Mmmm……Nepalese food.

Mutterings continued.

We had dinner at the Himali G last night. Wonderful! We had the set menu which was a bit of nearly everything served in silver bowls on a metal lotus leaf. The spicy vegetables and curried chicken were v. tasty. At the end of the evening one of the waiters gave me a birthday present of a lovely green Nepalese bag with the wheel of life embroidered on it.

After coming home yesterday to a letterbox stuffed with junk mail (and some not so junk) all I got today was a flyer from the local real estate agent. No mysterious parcels on the doorstep, though I am expecting a vinyl record I ordered, two cds and the Cadfael box set. Cadfael could put Derek Jacobi in the lead as most represented actor in my dvd collection.

Lunchtime blogging

Mutterings continued.

Stupid home computer still not working, stupid technology, stupid XP, stupid orks.

There was an unexpected parcel sitting on the doorstep yesterday - it was a book of scripts written by Graham Chapman sent to me by someone I'd broken up with over 10 years ago and hadn't seen since. Not sure what it means. The tickets for Othello also turned up, not bad as I'd only booked them the day before. Class Act is down to the tech run tonight, dress rehearsals tomorrow and Friday and opening on Saturday. According to Paula (Production manager) there were only 8 seats left in the entire run - that was yesterday so they may have gone. Well done!!

Off to the Himalayan Gherkin, aka the Himali Gurkha, tonight. I haven't been out to dinner since....the last time. It was Leece and Maureen's birthday in November and we went to a Greek restaurant in Northbridge. Very nice it was.

I just did a quick spell check and the suggestion for Northbridge was 'mortifier'. Given Northbridge's reputation, that's probably about right.

Lots of activity around the Orang enclosure at work - new climbing poles are going into a couple of the enclosures and are being moved about by one of the tallest cranes I've ever seen. Two of the orangs, Puteri and Temara, were having a good old nosy at what was going on this morning - Puteri was standing on her tiptoes on the top of the climbing pole while peering into the enclosure next door. I often see them sitting in the canopy of one of their climbing poles, chins resting on hairy arms, watching the world go by.

The 2 DVD set of Return of the King is due out on May 25th along with a box set of the 3 films. This seems to be an incredibly short time between the release of the movie and the DVD.

Cold night.

Mutterings continued.

Looks like I’ll be dragging the doona back out from the cupboard – it was 9c when I got up this morning.

Absolutely nothing in the letterbox today, not even junk mail. Very boring indeed. I received email notification that one of the CDs,I’d ordered from Amazon, Sjofn by Gjallarhorn, had been shipped so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to get here as I opted for the surface mail route.

Booked tickets for Othello today. We had the choice of 3 dates only so we’ve booked for March 20.

Deceptive Appearances Bureau – I was rather surprised to learn that David Crosby was nabbed for carrying a loaded weapon and knives in his luggage (the maryjane didn’t surprise me) as I’ve always thought he looked such a gentle, placid teddy bear of a hippie. Def. had my allusions shattered.

Raining today.

Mutterings continued.

And very nice it was too. 10c tonight and only 23 tomorrow, up to 31 later in the week. Gotta love autumn.

More wonderful music – Gjallarhorn from Finland. Their website has tracks to listen to. They include didgeridoos with traditional instruments to great affect.

Third time lucky?

Mutterings continued.

I’ve just discovered one of Window XP’s great new features – when something irritates the OS, you don’t get the Blue Screen of Death any more. No, your computer simply reboots! It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you don’t get the chance to save anything that might still actually be working, you just get a blank screen and an automatic reboot. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twice last night while trying to blog the bloody PC stopped and restarted itself. I found a page on Cnet entitled Windows XP Nightmares and a subject heading “The Return of the Revolting Reboot”. I’ve followed the instructions and turned off this particularly annoying ‘feature’ – let’s hope I won’t get cut off again in mid-sentence.

Exciting stuff in the post – I got home yesterday and found a parcel sitting on the doorstep. Not being the paranoid type, I ripped it open to discover the Babylon 5 DVDs I’d ordered from Canada a few days ago. As the postage was free I was expecting it to come via sea mail but not so. Today’s mail just brought a bill.

Had dinner on Wed night with Leece, Rob and L’s mother, Ros. I had some particularly evil (in a good way) fish and chips, while L had a very tasty looking 1950’s burger. This sparked a discussion along the lines of “Things aren’t as good as they used to be….” and the consensus that Polly Waffles are just a shadow of their former selves.

And lunch today was a yummy spag with mushrooms in a tomato sauce at Bocelli’s in South Perth.

Travelling home from shopping last night, I heard a gorgeous piece of music on Classic FM – “Morning Dew” on Norada’s Dance to your Shadow album. Lovely Celtic, Hamish Macbeth style music. A taster from their website.

One of the more active threads on the iinet.general newsgroup (62 posts and counting) is Who Makes the Best Pizza. An important topic to be sure. For the record, for me it’s Pizza with Attitude in Kensington. When I was a student at WAIT, one of my housemates used to work in a pizza shop in Nedlands. One day, she opened the tin of olives to find a rat floating in it. Mmm, extra protein and about the only thing to make olives palatable.

Eeek! (revisited)

Mutterings continued.

There's another Huntsperson spider in my flat! This one, however, is rather small and only has 7 legs so I've decided to be brave and live with it. Should it fall on me, however, I shall wreak havoc upon it (from a safe distance) with a broom. It has been warned.

Interesting things in the post today - a posscard from Leece (yay!), credit card bill (boo!), Superannuation statement (yawn), sample of Purina kitty litter (huh?). I wrote away for some free goodies from Purina and they send me stuff, which is good. It's not a very large sample of kitty litter so I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with it. Milo will probably do what he always does - kick it out onto the floor.

More computer weirdness - it's still acting a little flake (IE keeps closing down, forcing me to use Netscape, which isn't a bad thing) however it's now decided that I do in fact have a cd burner as well as a DVD player. I'm glad I checked it again before unplugging the brute and lugging it back to Arrow Computers. I'm not sure what brought about this change of heart and why drive D should suddenly appear ....

Amusing, with hindsight, episode of Mission Impossible the other night. Filmed in 1968, the plot involved trying to convince a crim that he had been in cryo suspension for 12 years. Some of the futuristic gadgets were uncannily accurate - large flat tv screens, small answering machine tape-sized gizmos for playing movies, etc. All rather Space 1999 in fact.

Cool.

Mutterings continued.

Thunder, lightning and a spot or two of rain. Lovely stuff.

LOTR has cleaned up at the Oscars. Comment from MC Billy Crystal, "It's official - there's no-one left in New Zealand to thank." And at the other end of the awards spectrum, the Razzies. " Mike Myers' Cat in the Hat had been in the running in many of the same categories as Gigli, but had to settle for just one award in a new category: the Worst Excuse for an Actual Movie."

John Edwards, so called talker to the dead, is having his claims that he can communication with those who have "crossed over" taken to the Department of Consumer Affairs. The best explanation of how he does what he does was given in South Park.

Happy birthday Mike D'Abo and Roger Daltry.