• Million for Marriage

    “I do support the right of every American to marry, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples. I believe that marriage and other civil rights protections are essential to making all families safer and more secure.” You can sign the petition too.


  • Sydney Royal Easter Show photos

    Snookums and Mr. CornOur photos from the Sydney Royal Easter Show are now up! The Show is basically equivalent to the State Fair around here. There are lots of farm animals and rickety carnival rides and junk food, and everybody spends too much on souvenirs they don’t need. Snookums, Amy, and I headed out there last Saturday for some down-home Aussie country fun…


  • An Easter Message from Kris and Rodd…

    An Easter Message from Kris and RoddApologies for the silence… I’ve been enjoying the holiday weekend. I’m happy to announce that I have just completed my second movie: An Easter Message from Kris and Rodd. (I’m starting to regret dropping that Film Production class!) We spent yesterday at the Royal Easter Show – photos are forthcoming – but otherwise we’ve just been enjoying ourselves. Today we had a nice quiet day of knitting and brewing, and we celebrated in the evening with a leg of lamb and a bottle of wine. Thankfully much chocolate was consumed and there was nary a Peep in sight! I hope your holiday was as nice as ours…


  • Yanks in Oz

    I just stumbled across two other American expatriates blogging from Sydney: Greg from Southern Cross and Scott from A Yank in Oz. Counting Amy, that means there are now four of us! We just need to find a few more than then we can all meet up and play softball. Or something.


  • Aussie survey

    Vegetarian Survey: A friend of mine is working on a project to write a business plan for a vegetarian food store. She distributed this survey around here at work and I offered to post it on the ‘Net for her. Please take a second to post your responses in the comments. It’ll only take a second and I know she’d appreciate it! It’s technically only for Australians, but you international types can play along too, I guess.

    Meatless Meals Eaters – Research Questionnaire

    This survey is designed to explore the habits and purchasing intentions of frequent and sporadic eaters of meatless meals. Thank you for participating.

    1) Which of these statements best describes your meat eating habits?
    a. I do not eat meat.
    b. I eat meatless meals at least 4 times per week.
    c. I eat meatless meals at least 2 times per week.
    d. I eat meat in every meal. (answer question 6 only)

    2) What are your reasons for eating meatless meals? >> Select all that apply
    a. Health and/or wellbeing reasons
    b. Ethical reasons (animal rights, the environment, etc)
    c. Religious reasons
    d. Other: ____________________________________

    3) Have you ever purchased frozen/refrigerated meatless meal or meat substitute (vegetarian nuggets, soy sausages, etc)?
    a. Yes, more than once, and I plan to purchase it again in the next 6 months.
    b. Yes, once, and I plan to purchase it again in the next 6 months.
    c. Yes, once, but I do not plan to purchase it again anytime soon.
    d. No, but I intend to purchase it in the next 6 months. >> go to question 5
    e. No, and I do not intend to purchase it anytime soon. >> go to question 5

    4) Where have you purchased frozen/refrigerated meatless meal or meat substitute? >> Select all that apply
    a. Convenience stores (7-Eleven, petrol station stores, etc)
    b. Supermarkets
    c. Health food stores
    d. Other: ________________________________

    5. Where do you eat meatless meals? >> Select all that apply
    a. At home
    b. At work
    c. In restaurants or cafes
    d. In fast-food outlets
    e. Other: ________________________________

    6) In 12 months you expect to be eating meatless meals:
    a. More often than today.
    b. As often as today.
    c. Less often than today.

    7) How often do you have quick meals (pastries, pizza, sandwich, etc, with or without meat) at convenience stores?
    a. At least once a fortnight
    b. At least once a month
    c. Once every two months
    d. Rarely
    e. Never

    8) Have you ever purchased food from a health food stores?
    a. Yes, more than once, and I plan to purchase again in the next 6 months.
    b. Yes, once, and I plan to purchase again in the next 6 months.
    c. Yes, once, but I do not plan to purchase again anytime soon.
    d. No, but I intend to purchase in the next 6 months.
    e. No, and I do not intend to purchase anytime soon.

    Your gender: a. Male b. Female
    Your age group: a. 18-24 b. 25-34 c. 35-44 d. 45-54 e. 55+
    Your residential postcode: ______________


  • New Glitter!

    Attention Glitterati! As I’m sure you’ve realized, the Glitter boards have now moved. You’ve got to re-register on the new site, though, so don’t forget! If you’re a crafty person and you haven’t been there before, you should definitely check it out.


  • Ouch.

    In other news, I think I broke my little toe. I clumsily whammed it into the bedroom wall. It f**king hurts. I iced it for a few hours only to have it go so numb that I couldn’t feel it, and hence I whacked it into the wall again. Then Snookums ran to comfort me and stepped on it. Seriously. I screamed.


  • My First Movie!

    My First MovieAs the money earned by my Roald Dahl site has finally reached $300 (thanks to Google Adsense), I decided to finally get the new digital camera I’d been eyeing: the Canon PowerShot A80. The Snook and I have been playing with it all night. “Take a movie of me!” I said. He obliged. We then plugged it into the Mac and copied the clip into iMovie. Neither of us had ever used it before but we quickly figured out how to add titles and transitions. It was so friggin’ cool. “Hey, put Land Down Under in there!” Snook suggested. I clicked on the music tab and my whole iTunes library appeared, complete with search box. In less than ten seconds the audio track was added. Even Linux Boy here was wowed. We finished it off and exported to QuickTime… and here‘s the finished product. We laughed our asses off. 🙂

    Note: Yes, I’m using a slightly funny voice, so don’t get weirded out and think that’s how I really talk.

    Edited in 2025: I had to remove the song as YouTube flagged it as a copyright violation.


  • “Eragon” book review

    I finally managed to finish “Eragon”. While my initial impression of the book didn’t change much, I’d admit it did get better towards the end. I still think the publishers were a little hasty putting this out. The writing style was juvenile and the plot “homages” were altogether too obvious. (I started humming the James Bond theme as soon as they got to the giant hollowed-out volcano.) I also got annoyed when the “revenge quest” plot that occupied most of the book was suddenly dropped (quite unresolved) in favor of “rescue the princess”. Characters would fail to anticipate plot twists that I could see coming miles away. (For instance, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that we find out in the next book that the “twins” are double-agents and set up Eragon to get killed by the Shade.) And how many times in one book can you end a chapter with the main character getting knocked out? Eragon winds up unconscious more often than Giles.

    So overall, I wouldn’t recommend this one for the adult fantasy fan. It’s just too boring, too derivative, and too predictable.


  • Bus driver salaries…

    What what what? Sydney bus drivers earn $50,000 a year? *chokes* Screw this I.T. crap.



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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