Schinckel.net

In this week’s archive edition of PostSecret:

Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring Via FGuide.org I’ll never accept another diamond ring…

Feet And Body • [Wicked Beat Sound System][2] • [New Soul Breaks][3]

[2]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Wicked Beat Sound System%22 [3]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22New Soul Breaks%22

Hey tiger, you are the reason the rest of us have to pay such exhorbiant insurance prices! I sometimes kind of feel this way. If I can do something, it can’t be too hard, can it? I’m a bit the other way. I loose pens every day. Another year, another wasted year. The line I like best is from Diamonds Are Forever, where 007 meets a girl, and she goes to get changed, and comes back with a different colour hair. He comments, and she asks him which he prefers. His response:

I don’t mind. As long as the collars and cuffs match.

I never understood that as a child. I thought about this today when shopping. I saw a photo frame, and thought about people who buy a photo frame, and keep the picture that’s in there, as it’s better than anything they could replace it with.

Reading Maria Tumarkin’s review of Hazel Rowley’s book Tête-à-tête, a ‘biography’ of Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre and Feminist Simone de Beauvoir’s relationship, kept reminding me, on some level, of the relationship between the two step-sibling protagonists in the 1999 film Cruel Intentions.

Fascinated more by the power inherent in a sexual relationship than the act itself - apparently Sartre wasn’t that into sex - both couples were often competing for the affections of an often younger, more vulnerable female.

The key thing that twigged me to this similarity was the fact that Sartre apparently couldn’t wait to finish the job, and get in touch with de Beauvoir and let her know he’d achieved a successful seduction, and de Beauvoir, in the relationships she initiated with other women saw her taking a much more aggressive rôle.

Similar here to the extremely erotic “practice” kiss Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) helped the much younger target Cecile (Selma Blair) “learn”.

The ending wasn’t quite the same - Sartre and de Beauvoir seemed more than happy to continue their work indefinitely, wheras Sebastian (Ryan Phillipe) fall for one of his victims, Annette (Reese Witherspoon), and ultimately died as a good person, who had finally, genuinely felt true love. However, the feel of the relationship between them is similar - Sartre and de Beauvoir apparently stopped “sleeping together”, and their relationship was based purely on sharing partners, wheras Kathryn and Sebastian never slept together, and had a lot of sexual tension between them that was never consumated.

Similar, but different.

Boing Boing: Gamers are better at multitasking And I would have gone back the other way. Jaq can’t talk to me and expect a response when I’m gaming.

I spent the last three days (or a fair chunk of them, at any rate), down in the lovely seaside town of Robe, located about 3½ hours drive south of Adelaide. Around this time every year, and instigated originally by my good friend Hugh Koch, Robe hosts the annual Village Fair: a showcase of local food and wine, with internationally reknowned musical entertainment.

This year saw the inclusion of Jimmy Barnes, the former front man of 80s Rock Band Cold Chisel, as the lead act, with (Johnny) Diesel (formerly of Johnny Diesel and the Injectors), supporting him on Saturday night. (Which reminds me, he didn’t do the song Saturday Night!) Vanessa Amorosi played on Friday evening, and Kate Ceberano was the Sunday afternoon act.

I arrived in Robe early in the evening, and had some dinner with my family before we headed off into town for the first concert. I’ll start by stating publicly that I hated Vanessa Amorosi’s songs, especially Absoloutely Everybody, and, Oh, that’s right, she didn’t have any other songs! So I went into Friday’s gig with not too high expectations. And saw them stripped by her talent. Amorosi was really quite a reasonable singer, performing a whole lot of cover versions: I actually commented (very much tongue-in-cheek) that I didn’t realise I knew so many of her songs.

Anyway, I was quite enjoying her performance, until the encore. She persisted with the flawed concept that has riddled the Australian version of Pop Idol, that dancing around the final note a composer had planned as the finish of their song shows everyone just how talented you are. Like Guy Sebastian did when he butchered just about every song he performed. It just annoys the hell out of me that singers continue to think that this rubbish sounds good. Sure, interpret the song in your own way, but don’t kill the end of the song by over-singing the f•ck out of it. Still, to her credit, Amorosi really only did this with her second last song. Unfortunately, her final song was the annoying song that Mark Holden wrote (is that the right word. Was this really written?) for her all of those years ago. And the f•cking thing stayed in my head all night long!

Saturday looked like it might be a downpour - it actually did rain rather heavily at around 6 am: I don’t normally wake up when the weather’s bad that early, but I did for some reason. Still, it had fined up by the time we made it back into the main street, and we got some lunch (dry old baked potato), and some drinks. Plenty of the new Coopers Lager - it’s really quite nice - and several bottles of varying wines, both red and white.

Diesel came on at about 5, and didn’t really do much for me. Don’t get me wrong, he was great as background music, but I didn’t really know that many of his songs. It did give me some time to really load up on the lagers, at least until they ran out. Then it was onto Doctor Tim’s… which someone tells me is just like Pale Ale, but in a can. I didn’t notice the taste.

Barnesy came on sometime around 7:30 - I’d pretty much lost track of time by then. Actually, I recall that it was still light, just. I’d promised Jason I’d get a photo of me and him together, and there were several (rude) text messages about money changing hands. The proof will be in the (faked) pudding, I’ll just leave it at that.

I always say I’m not a big Barnesy fan, but having someone like him, who plays a heap of songs that you knew the words to right throughout your youth means you can really get into it. It always helps when there’s a thing you can relate to in a song (happy hour at one of the two Hotels: the same number that are in Robe…), and when you are surrounded by a throng of people all screaming along at the top of their voices. I loved it. In a different way than I love listening to Beethoven or Mozart, but it was great nonetheless.

The ringing in my ears had subsided by Sunday morning: we had 17 people (including one baby, my gorgeous nephew Jack!) staying in the house, and I made French Toast for all; and by midday we headed back into Robe proper to hear Kate Ceberano. I really dig her as a performer, and was really looking forward to hearing her live.

And I felt she was the most disappointing of the lot. Nothing wrong with her singing (although, I don’t think she did Young Boys Are My Weakness), but she certainly crapped on a lot between songs. And whilst sometimes that it part of the act, with her it really felt like she was just talking to try and push the length of the set out a bit. Yeah, I suppose it was cute having those six kids get up on stage for Pash Me, but it took about three times the length of the song to set it up. And they couldn’t sing to save themselves!

When Ben Folds talks between songs, or sets up the audience to join in, it’s worth the wait. And that reminds me, the big difference is that, a couple of times, Ceberano basically berated the audience for not giving her ’enough respect’, but I think crowd interaction and ’love’ is something a performer needs to build up each time they perform. Not just expect it because they can command $25,000 for a performance.

I didn’t dislike Ceberano because she is a Scientologist, but I don’t respec’ her nearly as much as I did before I’d seen her live. And with Barnesy (and to a certain extend, Amorosi), it’s a bit the other way.

The wines on show seemed pretty good - I really only had about 6 or 7 glasses worth over the three days, and only about three different types, but it was the first time for a while I’d really drunk any red, so that was nice. And the coolest thing was that they were a) local wines and b) cheaper there than back up here in Adelaide from bulk liquor stores. Speaking of price, I didn’t eat any lobster - but I wish I had. It was $15/half, which doesn’t sound like much, when you compare it to $4 for a (very) small serve of chips, or $8 for even less chips with one piece of fish.

Just about everyone there was eating lobster, they must have sold shitloads of them. Oh well, live and learn. Overall, I hope it didn’t sound like I didn’t have a good time. I had a great time. Mostly this was (for me) being able to catch up with lots of people from my past: including an ex-girlfriend who has two (very cute) daughters. Hi Libby. Your kids are gorgeous.

I’ve never understood the fascination Australians have with horse racing in general, and the Melbourne Cup specifically. Mind you, I’m not a real big fan of motor racing for that matter either. Anyway, back to “the sport of kings.” My sister is a Vet, and races Pacers (which, I just learned a week or so ago, are different to Trotters), and obviously she and her husband are kind-of into horse racing. Whenever I’ve been out drinking and horse racing has been happening, (like at Dan’s bucks night, and Sam’s bucks night, and so on) I’ll ring Tish and ask her for a tip. Either she doesn’t have good tips for normal horse racing, or just likes feeding me duds, as none of them have ever come in. Back when I was teaching swimming lessons we used to have lunch at the pub every day, and have a bet or two on the horsies, but I was never really that into it. When we go to the easter races at Oakbank I’ll follow Marion’s tips, but that’s only because they tend to win. I think that’s what it comes down to. I don’t mind doing it when I win, but I think I’m realistic enough to understand that I’m not going to win in the long run, and don’t even consider putting a large bet on, even if there’s a chance to make a lot of money. I just don’t have enough of a gambler’s streak for that to be an appealing option. I’m not really into gambling at all, come to think of it. Pokies seem like a waste of time - I’d rather put my money into a video game machine where you get to shoot stuff, rather then just push buttons and rely on dumb luck. Maybe it helps that I’ve never really won any money in gambling. Perhaps if I’d won a bit on my first time, I might have become a gambler. Maybe not. Even when we went to the pub in Sydney a year or so ago, Andy and Dan played the pokies - I played ‘Big Deer Hunter’. One of the other guys won some serious money. I wasn’t jealous at all - I knew I probably wouldn’t have. Moving onto a related topic, I was watching Episode 5 of Lost Season 2 last night - the episode where Hurley remembers winning the lotto, and how his friend basically became jealous of him, and just walked away. I don’t know that I’d be jealous of someone else winning millions of dollars in the lotto. I guess because I’d never enter it myself, I like to think I’d feel happy for them. Back onto horse (and motor) racing. I fail to identify these as sports. Sport is about major physical activity. Fitness and the like. Which these, IMHO aren’t. Reminds me: I’m making my Men’s Open Touch comeback tonight. I wish I was fit.

MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home This is kind of nice: MIT is now putting a whole lot of their courses online for free. Looks to be some interesting stuff in there, not sure how much detail there is in the courses though. Will report when I’ve downloaded and played around with one or two…

Those funny Americans and their love of banning books. Just one step away from burning them, really. Anyway, over at Dose Magazine, I found a link to a list of the 100 Most BannedChallenged Books in the US (1990-2000). The ones I’ve read:

• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
• The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
• Guess What? by Mem Fox
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Carrie by Stephen King
• The Dead Zone by Stephen King
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

I’m amazed as to the number of Roald Dahl books on there! And Where’s Waldo?.

Boing Boing: Interesting words from around the world My favourite: bakku-shan: a girl who appears pretty from behind but not the front. Japanese.