Disordered Thoughts and Curmudgeonly Ramblings
The chickens are restless
Happy Belated Easter to all!
I’ve been having problems with my computer, my phone and my health this weekend (ironically I ate some bad eggs at the Galleria on Saturday – spent much of the last two days semi-comatose) which means I haven’t been able to get emails or SMS’s out to everyone – but rest assured you’ve all been in my thoughts and I should be in touch soon.
In the meantime here’s something to keep you all entertained.
They’re quite good at making chicken.
Over the weekend, in a spirit of scientific enquiry (and because I didn’t feel like cooking and equally didn’t feel like having chicken) I decided to check out Red Rooster’s recently added fish and chips menu.
In order to provide a valid assessment I decided to have the fisherman’s basket, which includes a little bit of everything. My findings were as follows…
Chips: The chips were, as always, excellent. 10/10
Salt and Pepper Squid: The salt and pepper squid was distinctly lacklustre. The coating was stale, floury and tasteless and the squid was oily and soft. 4/10
Prawns: The prawns were passable – there’s not much you can do to harm a prawn – but nothing really special. 5/10
Fish: The fish was pretty bad. Well, actually the fish was OK, it was the batter that was problematic. I’m not sure exactly what it tasted of – if I had to hazard a guess I’d say chipboard – and it was quite hard to chew through, which is not a quality you really want in food. Minus the batter the fish was about the quality you’d get at the average fish and chip place, which is to say passable but a bit oily – not anything you’d go out of your way to recommend. 3/10
So, my considered opinion on Red Rooster’s move into fish and chips? They’re quite good at making chicken.
Anti-virus programs are really just a conspiracy anyway… ;D
When I bought my new computer about a year ago it came (as is normal) with an anti-virus program installed – specifically BitDefender. Although I wasn’t familiar with this particular AV I decided to go with it, since I’d already paid for it and all and I’m a lazy bastard who couldn’t be bothered changing to something else.
As a BitDefender customer over the last year I have not been overly impressed. I mean, it worked – I haven’t (as far as I know) been infected with anything – but I was not filled with confidence. The program was always really slow to respond (you click to open it and have to wait for twenty seconds) and would crash completely out of the blue on a regular basis. But I stuck with it, for both the reasons above and because I don’t *need* a fantastically effective internet security suite as I run a pretty tight ship – I don’t download random programs, I surf with Javascript and Java switched off, I keep my OS and browser updated, I avoid dodgy sites, I don’t do social networking, I can recognise the difference between http and https and I scan all my email up on the server before downloading. On occasion I even boot into Ubuntu and scan my drives with ClamAV. I mean, I’m not immune to attack by any means, but I am tougher nut to crack than the average pleb.
So this week my BitDefender license expired. After considering switching to another program I decided it was simplest to renew it. I thought the renewal process might even fix some of the issues with speed and stability. So, off to the BitDefender site I went.
I put all my info in, chose PayPal as my payment method and submitted…
The site crashed.
Great. That’s really reassuring guys.
I decided to be charitable and assume there was problem with their PayPal integration (PayPal integration *is* a major pain). I reloaded the site in a fresh window, re-entered my data and chose to pay by credit card. I submitted, and the site crashed with exactly the same cryptic error message.
Two strikes, and out! Frack’em.
I’ve uninstalled BitDefender and am currently downloading a different AV program – one I’ve used in the past and had no problems with. Stick with what you know people!
PS: No Alice on Coast the other night. Boo!
Teaching myself to Cyclops Rock
I watch way too much TV.
I’ve been saying this for years but it finally came home to me the other day how much time I waste staring at the idiot’s lantern. Nothing in particular prompted this – apart from realising that despite the huge number of channels now available (hey, I grew up with only 9, 7, 10 and the ABC) there’s even less actually worth watching – but I’ve nonetheless decided to do something about it.
Observe, if you will, this…
There we have it – an entire week’s worth of potential viewing marked (in red) with the only things I am really not prepared to miss. Four and a half (five if you include QI which is a special case…) hours of watchable TV over the space of five days. Wow. And look at Wednesday! There’s nothing! Incredible!
So, I’m going to do my best to resist turning on the box in between those times. Sure, I’ll probably watch Catalyst on Thursdays because it’s interesting and fills in a gap between two red zones, and I may treat myself to some Hitler oriented documentaries on SBS on Friday nights, but other than that I’ll be cutting my diet way down. Of course, I’ll probably waste the saved time looking at amusing cat videos on YouTube, but that’s gotta be better than repeats of According to Jim, right?
Right?
Next step – charting out the weekends. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of that’s vital is the new series of The Amazing Race. Other than that I can’t think of a single show…
Later: Oh wait! There’s that History of Scotland show on Sunday night. Hoots mon!
Reptile is good for you
Going to lunch tomorrow on the company budget. Think I’ll have the crocodile burger.
The throne of Chaos where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly…
My sleep last night was disturbed by a truly odd array of noises floating in through my bedroom window. To wit…
It was positively Lovecraftian. I expected Nyarlathotep to manifest at any second.
Old
Not only do I turn 35 this week, but Ebay just sent me an email saying I’ve had an account with them for ten years.
I am so OLD.
Pirates are all we can be!
Seriously. We’ve had two weeks of maximums in the mid 30’s and minimums in the low 20’s, and this week it’s ramped up to high 30’s with minimums in the mid 20’s. If it doesn’t cool down after that, I’ll be dead.
Until then, what could be cooler than a Scottish metal cover of a Eurovision song about pirates? In my opinion, nothing!
That is all.
Not the best way to start the day…
I don’t know if other people attract random weirdos, or if it’s just me (perhaps it’s that old ‘birds of a feather’ thing). In any case this morning on my walk to the railway station I was approached by a tall, thin individual who lit up a cigarette and proceeded to walk along side me asking questions…
“Hot isn’t it?”
“Sure is”
“Off to work?”
“Yup”
I followed my usual procedure for these circumstances, which is to keep doing whatever I’m doing and provide as little response as possible, in the hopes that the annoying freak would get the hint and leave. No such luck, as he kept at it…
“What d’ya do?”
“Computer Programming”
No point providing him with more detail than that. If he found out I was a web designer he might want a site built…
“D’ya make websites?”
So much for that strategy…
“Yup”
“How much does a good website cost these days”
“’bout $4000”
“But they can take it down right?”
Now that was an odd question. I mean it really depends on who “they” are, and a whole bunch of technical factors revolving around hosting, domain names and local jurisdictions. I decided the simplest course was just to agree with him…
“Sure can”
“Unless it’s hosted in America, yeah?”
OK… A bit abstract, but whatever…
“Yeah”
“We spent $2000 on a website and three days later they took it down”
Let me guess, because you didn’t pay them?
“Shit”
“Yeah, I’m with Van Tongeren‘s boys and we made a website for the ANM but they took it down”
WHAT THE FRACK!?
For those puzzled by my reaction Jack van Tongeren was WA’s best known white supremacist and founder of the Australian Nationalist Movement – a group specializing in the firebombing of Asian restaurants and sticking up posters saying “Asians (or whatever other ethnic group they felt threatened by that particular week) Out or Racial War!”. And here was one of these toe-rags walking along beside me making small talk! Reasoning that anyone unhinged enough to join the ANM would not take my views on their insane hate group well I remained non-committal…
“Oh yeah”
“So we had to move it to America, now it’s on Stormfront“
FUCKING STORMFRONT?? HOLY FETH!! Stay non-committal! Stay non-committal!
“Oh yeah”
At this point there was a pause, as if the maniac beside me was waiting to see if I’d break out into a verse of the Horst Wessel Lied. After a minute or so of silence he started back up again, on a subject almost as bad…
“I had the best sex of my life last night!”
Geez, I really want to hear about that! Pray continue sir!
“Oh yeah”
“Two women, it was completely unexpected too!”
“Right”
Thankfully at this point he appeared to spot something distressing up ahead, quickly mumbled “See ya mate” and decamped into the park by the library. I continued towards the train station breathing a sigh of relief, but about ten metres on was confronted by a rather shabby looking and apparently quite angry woman…
“Who was that bloke you were talking to?!”
Good question. The mystery racist nympho of olde Bayswater?
“I dunno, some bloke who just walked up to me”
She muttered something under her breath and headed into the park, presumably chasing after him.
Not the best way to start the day really.
The singing made it even more hellish…
My social life has been stupidly busy lately. Well, stupidly busy for me which probably means it’s getting close to what a normal person would regard as the bare minimum of social activity to stop them passing into a coma. In any case I’ve been doing so much that I haven’t had the time to blog about any of it – a situation I plan to partially rectify by writing about my Thursday night, when I attended my good friend Katie’s birthday do at DeVille’s Pad.
DeVille’s Pad is a place I’ve been meaning to check out (in a vague and unfocused way) ever since it opened up in the old Polygon nightclub next to McIver railway station. It’s a bar/nightclub that attempts to combine a chic, somewhat kitsch 1950s tiki-bar style with a devil and hell theme – a synthesis that they actually manage to pull off quite well.
(The same people operate a smaller 1950s style tiki-bar near the cathedral, so they’ve had practise)
The interior is done up to look like someone transplanted a Vegas hotel from the 1950’s into a cave. The walls curve around into interesting organic shapes, there’s stalactites and wrought iron all over the place and a stage and a dance floor. Ah! Here’s a convenient panorama that gives some idea. The place is very cool, frankly I’m astonished they let me through the door.
Katie had invited about 25 of her friends, very few of whom I’d met before so I basically just found somewhere comfortable to sit back and enjoy the show. And a show there was, as (it turns out) Thusday nights are Karaoke at DeVille’s!
The performances had their high points and low points. There was one woman in particular who – “performed” is probably the best word as “sang” would be entirely inaccurate – a number of songs in an off key bawl that could have cut metal. The guy hosting the show on the other hand belted out several numbers – notably The Final Countdown – really well. The big surprise was a somewhat diminutive staff member who did an incredible version of Twist and Shout. She was then joined by a six foot tall, black-clad apparition of doom with hair like Cousin It for ACDC’s Thunderstruck, which varied between her astonishingly powerful rock vocal and his truly impressive death grunting.
Another staff member briefly abandoned the bar to do a great version of Sexual Healing, which is not a phrase I ever thought I’d have cause to type. Then a Scottish couple did Build Me Up Buttercup – well, sort of, he just shouted the lyrics in his thick Scottish accent, while she looked embarrassed. But it was quite entertaining. Later on they broke out into a spontaneous sword dance, minus any swords (at least I presume they didn’t have any swords, I couldn’t see their feet from where I was sitting).
All of the food has either a hell or 1950s theme. After some consideration I went for the Royale with Cheese burger. I have to say this was a bit disappointing – it was a perfectly adequate burger, but there was nothing to make it stand out against any other perfectly adequate burger you could get elsewhere rather cheaper (I guess I’ve just been spoiled by Grill’d).
I said my goodbyes about 10 and got the train home. A good night all up and I’ll certainly consider heading back when I need somewhere impressively unique for a meal.
