web-goddess: archives

Saturday, May 17, 2008

9.5 hours to go. I'm hydrated. I'm carbed up. I still feel woefully under-prepared. I'm going to bed. I hope I can do it.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Discovery: A new production of RENT will be playing in Sydney next month. Snookums, I am going to this.

[3]

Sunday's forecast: Showers. Cold and windy.

Crap.

[2]

Fostering International Cultural Exchange Through Hairstyles.
I wore pigtails today. This is apparently quite a novelty for a few of the programmers here.

RunningBlog: 8K Photos
The official race pictures from last weekend's 8K are now available. Check out that second one! (I snaffled a copy here if you don't like turning your head 90 degrees.) I'm pretty sure that's coming in to the finish line. I look pretty pained, don't I?

[2]

Oh, neat! I just discovered that there's a play about Richard Feynman currently running in Sydney. The Snook's got his autobiography and we've both read it. Might be fun...

[4]

Man. Stuff like this is why I get anxious every time we visit the States. The Snook already suffers the indignity of frequent "random" bag searches and being fingerprinted upon arrival (as all Australians do). I can just see some jerkass immigration official deciding he visits too often and throwing him in jail.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

RENT 10th Anniversary performance of "La Vie Boheme" by the original Broadway cast. Awesome. (Link courtesy of Kel.)

[2]

Mario is a menace. (Link courtesy of Tim.)

[7]

Exercise. We're less than 72 hours from the half-marathon, and my lungs still aren't up to 100%. Thanks to Dr. Emily, I'm trying out a ventilator that seems to be helping though. I'm certainly coughing a bit less. I went out for a short (4.5km) run Tuesday morning, and I've done a couple of Wii Fit workouts this week as well. (I unlocked Super Hula-Hoop, and OH MY GOODNESS that gets the heart pumping! I guarantee you that right now some chubby nerd is working out with this thing in his basement, and six months from now he's going to be fifty pounds lighter and Nintendo will anoint him as the next Jared.) Anyway, I've got my number and timing chip for the race, and Project Hydration begins today. I'm going to do my best.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

[2]

Cat Butt. Hahahaha... That's just wrong. (Link courtesy of Gadgetgirl, who's still far, far away.)

[2]

Joomla 1.5 Title Tags
Since it took me the better part of an afternoon to figure this out, I'm going to immortalize it here for future Googlers. You see, there's no nice way in Joomla 1.5 to customize the head title tags of each page. (According to this site it was meant to be included - they even have a screen shot! - but somehow the Joomla Powers That Be decided to kill it.) There are numerous third-party extensions that can allow you to set custom titles, but you have to specify the title on every single page. All I wanted was to have the name of the actual website appear before the page title without hacking the Joomla core. (Joomla generates the page title on the fly. Yes, you can modify the script that generates it, but on this particular project we're trying to leave the core untouched so future upgrades don't break it.) So finally, after several hours, I chanced upon this site which talks about modifying the header to remove unnecessary javascript files. "A-HA!" I thought. "This is the answer!" So here you go:

<head>
<?php
$headerstuff = $this->getHeadData();
$headerstuff['title'] = "My Site Name - " .
                        $headerstuff['title'];
$this->setHeadData($headerstuff);
?>
<jdoc:include type="head" />

[1]

Things Younger Than John McCain. My favorites are Alaska and the polio vaccine. (Link courtesy of PCJM.)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

[5]

Flight of the Conchords finally premiered in Australia, and we very much enjoyed it. Snookums made me pause it at one point just so he could verify that, yes, the New Zealand consulate is located in the same building as "All Asian Massage."

[1]

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
I just finished this fascinating book last night. It makes for an interesting companion-piece to the Antonia Fraser biography I read a few years ago (and that the recent movie was based on). The central thesis is pretty much that Marie Antoinette's obsession with fashion was a calculated political maneuver to gain the power and influence she wasn't able to get through the usual means (i.e. her relationship with the King and the production of royal heirs). There's also quite a lot of discussion about the Queen's more "shocking" costumes, such as her appropriation of mens' riding wear and the loose peasant-style dresses she and her friends wore at the Petit Trianon. (Somehow both of those looks fed into the rumours of lesbian debauchery that continually plagued her.) It's not the usual view of her as a pouf-obsessed idiot. I loved the details about the development of the French fashion industry, and it was fascinating to see how most of the country were falling over themselves to imitate her even as they were calling for her head. And I'd love to read a biography of this Rose Bertin woman! My only complaint about the book is a small one: the glossy colour plates in the middle seem to be misnumbered. Towards the end, a lot of the text references seemed to point to the wrong one. It's a small quibble about an otherwise interesting read.

Optus has the iPhone too. Multiple carriers in Australia!

Monday, May 12, 2008

[2]

"Official" Race Time... Not.
My phone beeped at 6:30am this morning. It turned out to be my "official" race results from the Mother's Day Classic. According to the SMS, my time was 56:00. WRONG. Check out the iPod data. I started timing it when I actually crossed the start line (and the electronic mats). I actually forgot to hit stop on it til after I'd removed my timing chip, so my actual race time was probably a minute less than that. There's no way my chip time was greater than what the iPod recorded. (Even if its distance was miscalibrated, you can't argue with time.) So I'm a little annoyed with their accuracy. I'm guessing that they SMSed the clock time when I passed the finish line without adjusting for the time it took us to get to the start.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

[4]

Dude, CLEAR Converse All Stars? WANT. Just the perfect thing to show off your handknitted socks! (Link courtesy of passionknit.)

[3]

My Mom said she was interested in getting the Wii Fit, so I took some videos today of me playing it. I've got them on the site here. (Sorry it's hard to see the screen sometimes; I think the white balance is set depending on when you hit the "record" button.)

[5]

Mother's Day Classic 2008

The Snook and I got up at the butt-crack of dawn this morning to head to the Domain for the 2008 Mother's Day Classic 8K race. (That's five miles for the non-metric.) We ran it together before in 2006, but the Snook wasn't running this year; he was my support staff. We met up with Miss Fee and her running buddy Jan-Maree (and the Sock Victim, who was also there strictly for moral support). The girls strapped on their timing chips and started stretching, while the boys huddled for warmth and talked about computer stuff. I felt cautiously optimistic. My cold is mostly gone from my head, but my lungs are still fighting it off. My goals were to run the whole thing, and to finish at a better than 7:00/km pace (which is what I need for the half-marathon next weekend). The gun fired and we were off. As usual, there was a huge crush at the beginning so I lost the other two girls pretty quickly. (I figure I'm tall, so it's always the other person's responsibility to spot me.) I settled into my pace pretty easily, but I could immediately tell this was going to be a slog. Before I caught the cold last week, my shorter distance runs had been starting to feel really easy and effortless. I'd been hoping to feel like that today, but instead I felt like I was really gasping for oxygen. (I'm guessing that was the effect of the cold on my lungs.) I had a stitch threatening from about the 5K mark. I really, really wanted to take a walk break on the 2nd lap, but I told myself how great it was going to feel to run the whole thing. On the last steep hill, I put my head down and channeled Steve Runner, chanting in my head "I eat hills for breakfast. I EAT HILLS FOR BREAKFAST." It wasn't fast, but I made it up that sucker. Coming down the path towards the finish line, I spotted the Snook and the Sock Victim waiting at the bottom. I managed to croak to the Snook: "Haven't stopped yet!" I was so focused on that thought that I didn't even realize he was filming me. I didn't have much left in the tank, but I managed a tiny sprint towards the finish line. And then I was done! I'd met my two goals: I ran the whole thing (my longest continuous run to date), and according to the iPod I averaged 6:50/km (which is exactly what I need to do for the first 11K next week). The other two girls finished a couple minutes behind, and we all congratulated each other over apples and some much-needed water. Read on for photos and the aforementioned video... [more...]

Saturday, May 10, 2008

[1]

Meteorologists don't know nothin'. I sorta guessed that, but it's nice to have it validated. Remember Opera in the Domain? Every weatherperson in Sydney said it was going to pour rain, to the extent that a bunch of people piked. And it turned out to be a gloriously sunny afternoon! (Link courtesy of PCJM.)

Friday, May 9, 2008

[9]

"Want to be happy? Don't have kids." Of the trifecta of being married, having money, and having kids, a Harvard academic says being married makes the biggest difference to your personal level of happiness. He's pretty harsh about parenting: "Parents tell me all the time that: 'My child is my greatest source of joy'... My reply is that: 'Yes, when you have one source of joy, it's bound to be your greatest'." Yowch.

RunningBlog: I've given this blasted cold four days of rest, with no running or swimming in that time. Thursday I started to feel a lot better though, so today I decided enough was enough. I put on my new shoes, zipped up a hoodie for extra warmth, and headed out for a slow, easy run through the neighborhood. I did 25 minutes of jogging without stopping, and though it didn't feel as easy as some of my recent runs, it wasn't too difficult either. I didn't start hacking or coughing or anything. And the burgeoning sinus headache I'd felt when I woke up? Completely disappeared. (If you'd told me six months ago that running could actually make me feel better, I'd never have believed you.) I'm still planning to do the Mother's Day 8K on Sunday, but I'm not going to kill myself trying to get a PB or anything. It's all about Sunday the 18th, and my goal right now is just to hold it together for nine more days and give myself the best chance to finish the half-marathon.

Oh. And my race pack came in the mail last night. I've got my official race number (#508, baby! I must have gotten in early) and my timing chip. Seeing them on the dining room table suddenly made it all seem very real. Nine more days.

"Ask a Korean" tackles the issue of South Korean citizenship. Check out the section on "simplified naturalization":

1. If one of your parents was a Korean citizen. (Emphasis on �was�. It�s ok if your parent renounced Korean citizenship.)

Hey, I think that includes me! My mom was born in Korea to a Korean woman, so she would've been a citizen, right? (She would've renounced it as a child when they moved to America.) That's pretty neat.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

[5]

I LOVE WII FIT.
I headed to EB Games tonight to pick up my pre-ordered Wii Fit kit, and I was so excited. I tried to get the guy to price match Kmart, but he informed me that Kmart sold out of 'em way earlier today. (They don't match a price if there's no stock.) Oh well. I wanted the thing NOW. So I carried it home and set it up. Snookums walked in while I was doing my first fitness test, so we quickly got his character set up on it too.

Okay, first off, this thing is ADORABLE. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to anthropomorphize a heavy (and it is heavy) plastic platform, but the Japanese are geniuses. It speaks in this fun squeaky voice - "Initializing!" - that kept cracking me up. Of course, I stopped laughing as soon as Mr Balance Board calculated my weight and BMI, and my cute little Mii suddenly grew quite stout around the middle. Bugger. (For the record, Snookums is smack dab in the middle of his ideal weight. Bastard.) It also told us that our "fitness ages" are in the mid-forties, and it somehow correctly predicted that I trip a lot. (I wish I were joking.) We set our fitness goals and then started playing.

There are four types of games (Yoga, Balance, Muscle, and Aerobic), and we started with Balance since we're lazy. Heading the soccer balls was surprisingly difficult... but so fun too. The board is very sensitive. I had to keep reminding myself that moving my actual head didn't do anything; it's all about shifting your weight. Incidentally, I love that Wii games always use the Miis from your machine, which meant that the people firing soccer balls (and shoes, and panda heads) at me included Miss Fee, Steph and Eva, Andrew and Kathleen, and basically anybody who's ever played Wii at our house. I found the slalom skiing pretty hard until I worked out that I needed to bend my knees and shift my weight forward. That helped move me down the mountain faster. I think the funniest moment of the night, though, was when Snookums sped down the ski jump and stood up too late, resulting in his Mii doing a crazy header down the mountain (and turning into a giant snowball).

After Snookums retired to cook dinner, I tried out some of the yoga games. I chose the female trainer (she sounds like a Pom!) and started each exercise with a tutorial. They were surprisingly well done and effective! Even the simplest "game" - deep yoga breathing - takes on a new level of difficulty when you're trying to keep a dot representing your center of gravity in the middle of a circle onscreen. I was actually pretty good at the yoga stuff, and I managed to unlock an extra level already. I can't wait to try it out properly (like, when I'm not just about to each dinner).

So overall, I'm loving this thing. I did a good 20 minutes of varied, fun exercises tonight without even realizing it. While that doesn't sound like a lot, I'm sure that there are millions of people who don't get that much exercise in a day. This thing is gonna be revolutionary. I'm already looking forward to my next workout!

Via the Snook: The Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis Explained. It involves stick figures and the F-word. Very enlightening.

[4]

I don't suppose any of you have a Myer One discount voucher booklet (including a $40 off coupon for the Wii Fit) that you won't be using? Because that would, like, rock.

Wait, WHAT? Ebert has a blog? That's awesome!

[3]

Wow! Hillary only won Indiana by two percentage points? That's much, much closer than I imagined it to be. Awesome. (Sorry Grandma. I voted for the black guy.)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Role Reversal. It's not often you see the media scrutinizing a man's belly...

Still sick. I felt so crappy last night that we decided to skip the Neil Gaiman talk. I just couldn't face the thought of standing in a crowded bookstore coughing and hacking all over everyone. Luckily, I can vicariously squee over Neil through crumpet, who saw him twice in 24 hours. What a fangirl. :)

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Vodaphone announces it's got the iPhone. As Snook just put it, "Tomorrow's news: Vodafone no longer able to sell iPhone due to leaking info to the press."

Remember our discussion about women taking their husband's surnames? In the US, a couple just successfully sued the state of California on the basis that it should be just as easy for a man to take his wife's surname upon marriage as it is for her to take his. And they won! Nice one.

[1]

The Knitting Fame-Whore strikes again!
This past Friday I went to Newtown after work to join Bex and the goth knitters for a stitch and bitch. We were waiting for a journalist from JJJ Magazine to show up to photograph and interview us. He turned up over an hour late, by which time all the real goths had gone home (leaving only me and a couple other not-so-goth Ravelers). He took a ton of photos, so you may see yours truly in the magazine next month wielding a pair of needles menacingly. Anyway, before all the real goths left, Fin took a couple photos of us all. Yes, I realize that the Argyle Kitty Kat Cardigan hardly qualifies as goth...

Bacon Candy
Remember the Maple-Bacon Lollipops? Thanks to the amazing Mr. Barker, I actually got to try one last night. (I also inflicted it upon my co-workers Kunaal and Tim.) It was... bacon-y. I'm not sure I enjoyed it. I feel like there was some sort of "uncanny bacon valley" happening, where the taste was so similar to eating normal breakfast bacon that my brain got creeped out and refused to accept it.

[11]

Wow. I know I'm supposed to be annoyed at the additional tax, but I can't help but think that this new federal parental leave proposal is a Good Thing. Six months paid maternity leave at full salary? Sweet. And four weeks paternity leave? Hey, it's more than you get in America. (Right, Sis?) Actually, I wonder if it would be possible to switch it, like if the father intended to stay home and the mother go back to work. Could he have six months leave? (She ponders thoughtfully...)

Monday, May 5, 2008

Holy crap! I don't feel so bad about not getting that job at SBS anymore...

World's Longest Foosball Table. The guys at work are going to love this... (Thanks Bex!)

[7]

RunningBlog: Good and Bad News
The good - actually GREAT - news is that I know I can run a half-marathon. I know this because I successfully ran 18.4km yesterday afternoon! (That's nearly 11.5 miles.) And at the end, I honestly felt like I could've easily gone all the way to 21km, were it not for my sore back. I ran the distance pretty slowly (you'll see why in a minute), taking frequent walk breaks and not pushing too hard. Still, I wasn't far off the pace I need to finish in 2:30. I was well-hydrated and carried a water bottle with me, which I sipped on frequently. I also had my first trial of using an energy supplement. At the 6km mark, I had half a chocolate PowerBar gel and then finished it off at the 12km mark. It tasted like medicated chocolate toothpaste. The biggest effect it seemed to have was mental. At the end of the run, I just felt a lot more clear-headed than I had at the same point last week. I never realized how fuzzy and muddled my brain gets after 90 minutes of running. This time I just felt way more energetic and aware. With regards to my body, I didn't notice any immediate jolt or anything, but I definitely had more energy in the tank at the end of this run. Like I said, I was honestly toying with going the whole distance. I was still tired and sore, but I didn't feel like I was falling apart. (I'm also happy to report that the gel didn't give me any stomach problems, as some people seem to have. I did get a bad stitch at the 7km mark, which I attributed to gulping down too much water to help digest the gel.) So all in all, this was a massive confidence boost before the race in two weeks.

And now the bad news. I've caught a cold. I'd been coughing a bit at night last week, but I assumed it was just irritation from the endoscopy. Sunday morning I woke up with the trifecta of headache, sore throat, and stuffy nose. Great. I spent the whole day sucking down water and trying to decide whether I should go for the run or not. I knew that the timing wasn't that bad, because I've got two weeks to shake this thing before the actual race. But this was pretty much my last chance for a really long run, and I felt like I really needed that to mentally prepare. So would running make it worse? Since all my symptoms were "above the neck" (classic runner's justification), I decided to go for it. So I dosed up on paracetamol and headed out. I took it easy on the run but I was happy to find that I still felt pretty good. My stomach got a little acidic but it was manageable. I even braved a few minutes in an ice bath when I got home to help out my legs. I feel pretty awful today, but I'm still glad I did it. Now I just have to concentrate on getting well as soon as possible. Anybody got any good home remedies for a cold?

Sunday, May 4, 2008

[1]

Twisted Flower Socks
These socks nearly killed me. After cruising along all summer averaging better than one pair of socks per month, these suckers took me more than two months to finally finish. The pattern is by Cookie A. (designer of the ubiquitous Monkey Socks and instigator of the hated "socks and high heels" photo fad), and the yarn is the Knittery's Merino Cashmere Sock in the special breast cancer pink colourway. I started off using two 2.75mm circular needles to knit both legs at the same time. I cheerfully dived into the first chart (of three!) and within a fortnight had them up to the heels. Then I switched to chart #2 and polished off the heel flaps. Suddenly... I noticed that they didn't seem very stretchy. I tried them on and the damn things wouldn't fit over my ankles! So I frogged them back completely all the way to the start. Eventually i started over on 3.25mm needles, which seemed to work a lot better. I think a big part of that is just that this lace-and-cable pattern has very little stretch. (I kinda wish I'd put more ribbing at the top, because I fear they may sag a little.) One reason for my slow speed was the intricacy of this pattern, and the fact that every single row was different from the last. I found it impossible to memorize, especially as the patterns and charts shift every so often. Another impediment was the yarn itself. I have to say, I wasn't very impressed. Oh it was definitely soft, but it was also very, very splitty. The spin was such that it actually UNTWISTED as you knitted it (and no, it didn't matter which end of the skein you used). So I'm not sure how robust they're going to be in the long run. I'm also a little annoyed with how the color striped and pooled (considering how pretty it was in the hank). It competes with the pattern a lot, don't you think? They're definitely soft and cozy though, and judging by my own foot, they're going to be a perfect fit. Hopefully Mom won't receive them too long after Mother's Day... (More details on Ravelry.)

Jamerica the Beautiful.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

[4]

Political Slacktivism Well, it's a quarter to 11 and I'm still sitting here in my pajamas... which means I don't have enough time to get to the Obama photo thingy. *sigh* Although, really, I think I could do more net good for his campaign simply by trying to get my Grandpa to stop forwarding emails bagging him out...

Friday, May 2, 2008

[1]

I fast-forwarded through most of last night's Biggest Loser finale, but I'm really happy that Sam won. He, Alison, and Kerstin did a great job. For me, though, my favourite transformation was definitely Sheridan. Great dress, great hair, great makeup; she looked like a million bucks. I was really pulling for her to win the eliminated contestants' prize, but Sean had that one in the bag. Did anyone notice of AJ asked Sheridan or Michael about their romance? If she did, I certainly missed it.

[3]

RunningBlog: I feel great. I wanted to skip my swimming lesson last night, but the Snook urged me to go. I'm glad I listened to him. It felt good to get back to my training and stop letting my stomach dictate my life. This morning I headed out for my first run of the week, an easy 5K around the neighbourhood before work. Along the way I listened to the most recent episode of Phedippidations, which Steve recorded during this past Monday's Boston Marathon. How hard-core is that?! He was running on an injured ankle (which he himself admits wasn't very smart), but he persevered and finished in less than five hours. It was really inspiring to listen to his updates every mile and to marvel at how far he was pushing himself. Yes, his podcasts get a little cheesy and self-important at times with all the affirmations and cosmic hoo-ha, but when I'm out running, that really appeals to me. And dude, if/when I ever finish my first marathon, I'm sure I'll hear the Carmina Burana playing in my head too...

Anyway, at the end of the podcast Steve mentioned the World Wide Half Marathon. The idea is that people around the world sign up to run a half-marathon (or a 5K) sometime around the weekend of October 11-12. I was checking the Cool Running calendar to see what's on that month... and I discovered that the Melbourne Marathon (and half marathon) is that weekend. Sounds like a plan right? I can't wait to do a lap inside the MCG!

CSS Homer Simpson. Holy crap, that's cool! (Link courtesy of Daring Fireball.)

Thursday, May 1, 2008

[5]

All Queue Jumpers Go to Hell
What IS IT with people cutting in front of me in line lately? I've had women cut in front of me THREE TIMES in the past two days.

Yesterday morning I was waiting for a bus during rush hour when several pulled up at once. I headed for the second one, which was quite full. Since I was the first one waiting, the bus driver held up his hand to stop me from boarding until he could see how many folks were getting off at the back door. While I'm standing there, this lady tries to BLOW PAST ME and climb on the bus. I actually stuck my arm out to block her and said, "Excuse me? I'm WAITING TO GET ON THE BUS." Like, what the hell did she think I was doing there? Staring at the bus driver trying to decide if I was getting on?
Today I went to the grocer at lunchtime to pick up some veggies. There were four cash registers, each with one customer being served at them. I was the only person waiting, so I wasn't sure exactly where to stand. The "Fresh Express" place is sorta in the middle of a shopping mall, and there wasn't room for a queue for each register. So I stood to one side, waiting for one of the cashiers to tell me to come over. While I was standing there, this lady brandishing an avocado BLEW RIGHT PAST ME and nabbed a just-open cashier. It was so quick I didn't even get a chance to yell at her. At first I was tempted to give her the benefit of the doubt, like maybe she was observing the proper queue procedure and I wasn't, but really, there was no way she could've missed me standing there with a basket looking expectantly at the cashiers.
Not five minutes later, I was at Baker's Delight waiting to buy a cinnamon roll for my afternoon snack. Not wanting to crowd the counter, I was standing, like, two feet back waiting for one of the clerks to be free. Again, some lady BLOWS PAST ME and squeezes into the space directly between me and the counter.

So what the hell? Does my "waiting" face convey that I'm some slack-jawed yokel who doesn't know what she's doing? Or are these people really just that rude, and it is my mission in life to catch them out and teach them a lesson?

"Brazen scammer claims to be fraud squad head." Oh, wow! Snookums actually got a call from that scammer yesterday! He didn't know what "court appearance" the message was talking about, so he pressed the button to get put through to somebody. He didn't get this "Col Dyson" person though; he said it was an Asian lady and he couldn't understand what she was saying. He hung up and then called the actual courthouse to see what it was about, and they told him that loads of people had gotten similar messages and they were all bogus. Be vigilant, people!