Plantagenet Penguinista

...at 5AM tomorrow, to Burnie (actually Wynyard) Tas, then (in theory) back again at chook-crow Tuesday morning to Perth. So... if you’ve got a gadget or message that wants moving, or just like killing time at MEL’s town-sized airport, I’ll be flitting from PER at 23:05 WST (JetStar) to MEL from 05:05 EST to about 08:25 tomorrow morning, then Tas from about 10:00 (REx), again departing Tas 06:00 (REx) via MEL between 07:40 — 08:45 EST to PER at about 10:00 WST (Qantas). Oh, wallowing in the luxury of public transport here, since I’ll get a train down from Joondalup to the Esplanade (busport), then a 37 bus from there to the airport, all for about $2.

I was disappointed that the excellent little Asian shop “OK” was shut today, & that they don’t open on Fridays, the first time they show their faces is Saturday morning, which is not viable for me. However, in the process, I discovered the neighbouring ( 43C Davidson Terrace ) Indian restaurant, RedTurban. RT seems to have the prices nailed at $7.50 apiece, which seems pretty reasonable for what appears to be (hain’t no eggspurt) good quality Indian food. Main takeaways appear to be about double that, not sure how the reasoning goes, there. Need to give that a proper try now, but that’ll wait until after kinder-time, which oddly enough the Keg-&-Bean won’t. Their temperature ratings are separately amusing: Mild, Med, Hot, VeryHot, XXX. One wonders whether the chef does a strip-tease for that last item.

Plugged my pushbike in at a petrol station in Jondalup to square off a flattish back tyre. Tyre went completely flat, as connector was stuffed. Sigh. Walk to other station, find that last night’s power surges have killed their air pump. Sigh. Next servo is about 4km (to be walked) down the road (& back), so instead I devised an exceedingly cunning high-tech solution. Most shops still closed, so no way to buy a hand-pump, leaving only said solution: board a massive steel-plated & glazed electrical device, which runs along straightish pieces of metal via Edgewater, Whitfords, Stirling & Perth to the Raffles Hotel (or beyond). Disembark. Wheel pushbike maybe 300m to Caltex servo, find working nozzle; deploy, fill to repletion, become a cyclomaniac again. See? Deploy enough technology, problem will be solved. (-:

Went there, did that, met James, Cameron & apparently a pretty little girl-friend or two of Cameron’s (-: watch him revert to denial :-) The trains were absolutely packed on the day, would have taken a Nipponese squeeze-team to get more in. Train ran well except for some signalling issues near the Mt Henry bridge. Blasting past Freeway traffic at 130km/hr was especially satisfying. Discovered that Mandurah has at least two excellent ice-cream shops including a Simmo’s & a “Sweethearts English Candy” store. This on top of the Peel Zoo (’ware soundtrack!), King Carnival Adventure Golf , the Abingdon Mini Village & many other child-pleasers.

Had lunch at Govinda’s today, asked for a couple of their little potato slice thingies (to see what they tasted like) & got handed large serves of the main meal. This good, healthy, vitality-radiating food filled me up completely, to the point where I felt like a beach-ball on the verge of popping. I guess it didn’t help that the day was hot, so I’d started by hoeing into a few cups of the delicious yoghurty drink that they serve. Either way, I’ve become accustomed to (very occasionally) cramming full on rich food — chocolatey stuff, butter-laden corn cobs or the like — but feeling limitatious on clean, clear food was something of a novelty. (-: As to the starvaceous African children, I would have benefitted greatly from having a handful of them present to remind me of the unsullied gluttony I was then indulging in. :-)

Wandering into the Perth Underground train station for a trip home this afternoon, I discovered that I had no change. I couldn’t see a change machine, so I trotted over to a guard & asked if there was one I could use. Nup, but the two ticketing machines right at the back of the set do accept notes. This was good news, so over I went. There was a bloke (youngish, maybe early 20s) at a machine struggling without success to pay for his $4.20 ticket with a $5 note. The machine simply refused to inhale the note. He gave up, mentioned some short words, & stormed away from the machine. In I went, cancelled the settings, keyed in concession & 4 zones, so the machine asked for $2. I fed it my $10 note, which it responded to with acceptance, a ticket, & a barrage of $2 coins in change. Collecting these, I did a volte face & made as if to walk away, only to face the original bloke, still grumpy. “Show us yer note?” I invited, which he did. “My tenner worked...

To hand, I have a packet of Dukes Food Crunchy Munchy Pea Chips . When I first laid eyes on them, they just appeared to be simple chips... maybe corn chips or potato... then my eye lit upon their surface, to discover... texture! So, a little exploration later (ie, reading the ingredient list) reveals: Yellow Split Peas, Gluten, Corn Flour, Rice Flour, Vegetable Oil, Green Split Peas, Salt, Flavours, MSG, Spices, Mineral Salt. Very tasty stuff (especially the Chili variant!), & that variety of flours means a variety of nutrition — nothing fantasic, but it's evidently an order of magnitude better than straight chips, besides being more interesting & flavourful. These nutritional necessities (whoo, instant promotion) are available from an Asian food supermarket (which has all manner of other interesting items scattered around the shelves) in behind the ANZ bank in Joondalup CBD, named “OK”. The Pea Chips in particular appear to be made in WA, particularly in Indus...

Machine 1: two different versions of either Mandriva or Ubuntu start the kernel & then wander off into never-never land. Machine 2: Ubuntu boots, but starting the installer is a waste of time, as you get a blank window, hourglass cursor, & hyperstasis. Mandriva boots, but the startup menu goes static. Forcing it into a text-mode install works perfectly, but the resulting system yields a static boot menu. OK, boot into rescue mode, switch the GRUB graphics off, re-install GRUB, all werx ferpectly. OK, so Machine 2 is working, but I have no idea why. (-: Oh, & on a completely different topic, I need to build a dependable list of reasonable things for children to do in & about Perth — in order to make completely different things work. No, this isn’t contra, fair or balanced (AFAICT) in any way, but doing it will be a step towards avoiding some painful, distressing, short-sighted & destructive choices being made elsewhere. So... no matter how random that you ...

This is an excellent little restaurant to which some people I was doing a little work for took me. As per the name, it serves Thai food — excellent Thai food — with a clear, pure taste. I’m not sure how this works, but even the plain rice tastes better than it should. Anyway, they are at 583 Canning Highway, Alfred Cove (about 10 minutes from Perth down the Freeway & a tad West down the Highway), & it’s easier to park behind (there’s a driveway just left (West) of the door). The decor has a distinct Thai cast, without being intrusive, & the people are quick, quiet, thoughtful & helpful. Oh, did I say that I liked the place? (-: Marvellous PR move, dudes, round of applause for that (ummm... & a Green Curry or Pad Prik Tofu, thanks :-)

Today’s image-enhancement acquisitions include some neat six-pack zip-up CD/DVD holders from King Kong in Rockingham (where I visited my sister Sharon & her husband Christos today) for the princely sum of $2 apiece. As well as a complete set of OS CD’s , these will also take an OpenDisc & some free books . Also got a 28 CD/DVD holder for $3 to cram into my backpack alongside the laptop for lugging my own Mandriva & Ubuntu CDs around in. Also got the ultimate in sound quality, a $3 headset with separate Mic/Headphone 3.5mm plugs. Well... if it doesn’t work nicely, the price essentially saves the bother & cost of a warranty claim. (-: Reasonable results for ten minutes of junk shopping, I thought.

It’s funny, I’m supposed to be a Disability Pensioner, resting & recuperating from my injuries, but it just ain’t happening. I have too much to do, & no time (or money) to do it with, & other people who are — let’s put it this way — “not rowing with both oars” are making important (& in some cases expensive) decisions about stuff which impacts my life. Worse, said non-rowers are complaining that I’m not entirely satisfied with or agreeing to every detail of their personal decisions. This appears to be all part & parcel of the same processes which lead them to regard absolutely everything I do or say as (by definition) wrong . Oh, yes, & they honestly (well, in a way) wonder why I might be upset by all of this... Well, I shouldn’t be really surprised, after the mess we’ve made of this world — but this is remaining entirely too personal for comfort. Read up about Drama Triangles to see if...

Before I found out that Terry Pratchett has an odd variant of egg-timer disease, I acquired (ex Alexander Library shop) a copy of The Fifth Elephant (yes, it is toying with the film, although the connection is quite vague) in hardcover. If anyone (simpler if you’re in Perth) wants to collect it after I finish reading it, reimburse me for the massive ($2) acquisition cost, plus postage or whatever is necessary, & it’s yours.

Perth has vegetarian fast food, right in the middle. I wandered in en route to work this morning, & grabbed a menu. Looks excellent, neatly modular — & it’s the only one in Oz! Maoz Falafel Pocket $7 (3 ball)/$8 (5) Falafel Meal $10 (3)/$11 (5) Salad Box $9 (3,water)/$8 (3)/$7 (0) Belgian Chips $3/$4 (lge) Humus plate/pita $6 3 ball $1 Humus $1 Feta $1 M-Th 11:00-22:00 F-Sa 11:00-24:00 Su 11:00-19:00

The name in question has been assigned to a little restaurant in Northbridge run by the Hare Krishna crew. What strikes me about this place is not the “Hare whatever ” written up everywhere, nor pictures of an old dude who appears to be important to them (& a prolific author), but the excellent food. By “excellent,” I’m not so much referring to how fancy or intricately presented the food is, as to the straight-up quality of it. These fellas evidently take the growing & preparation of their food quite seriously, so what lands on your plate is quite tasty & wholesome. It’s also served in reasonable quantity, so you’ll neither starve nor fight to finish it. In economic terms, it’s pretty reasonable. A meal (including dessert & drink) is $7 (or $6 for concessions), & add $1 for the containers if it’s takeaway. So by adding a couple of samosas, I was able to eat one full meal & walk away with two other pretty reasonabl...

Was playing with GMail this morning, clicked on “map” for a contact, & lo! Google maps opened in a new tab & showed a map of the area with a pointer aimed right at the physical location, to within about 10 feet. Not bad for a small country town where even the local council has trouble locating the place... (-:

I’d completely forgotten having had en email conversation spawned from the gimp-user mailing list, but today a CD dropped into the mailbox (redirected from Tas) ex Saint David’s, with a “Post Brenhinol” machine stamp, as Mr Silverstone came good with a set of (MP4) video clips, the “Meet The GIMP!” series. Excellent quality video sliding smoothly from a deliberately over-magnified chunk of picture to a full (GNOME) screen image. Nice, clear speech, as well. Now if only Jane had enough time left to even scratch, let alone to look at actual videos. (-:

...that warning doesn’t carry quite the same imposing air when the steps to which it is attached remain absolutely stationery — as the ones on the Northbridge end of the Horseshoe Bridge crossover at Perth’s Train Station did today. You may not think of that as funny, but one of the chaps strolling down the adjacent stairs did, just about falling onto said escalator laughing when I announced “Aha! Express Escalator!” while trudging laboriously up it.

This printing company did me a favour yesterday as I strolled down Railway Parade through West Perth en route to work in Northbridge. I won’t tell you what it actually was, but they were polite, kind & helpful about it, so I will tell you that they did Something Useful for me. (-: