Cat Bum Pencil Sharpener

1:22 pm, December 31st, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, cuteness, photography by Jarod

My cousin Jenny got me what is arguably the best Christmas present I received this year. Behold. A pencil sharpener that functions through the cat’s bum (ass, arse, backside… whatever you want to call it).

And if that’s not troubling enough, as rotational pressure is applied… kitty begins to meow. It’s not a nice meow either, it’s a somewhat distressed kitty meow. But all is well, as the kitty comes with a litter tray to catch the freshly shaven pencil. You know, so kitty doesn’t need to make a mess scratching.

Highly disturbing, check. Brilliant, also check.

Flowers and travelators.

10:12 pm, December 29th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Posted in girlthings, local by Liz

Yesterday I went and did the grocery shopping all on my own while Jarod was napping. I haven’t done a big shop like that (on my own) in over a year.

Well at least not since the time I got caught on a Marrickville Metro travelator with a trolley full of groceries that didn’t want to stick. I was totally unprepared to take the weight of the trolley and it’s contents, so both I and the trolley fell backwards onto a mother and her two young girls. And trolleys full of groceries hurt.

Hilarious now, but not very funny at the time.

So, as I was leaving I picked up some flowers for myself. Because I could. And if I was going to squash a anyone again I might as well have some flowers on hand to help with the apologies.

Luckily, they made it home with me.

2009 in bikes.

6:15 pm, December 28th, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Posted in bikes, boythings, roundups by Jarod

Seeing as Liz has gone and gotten all statistical on the year’s ass, I figured I’d do some number crunching of my own…

For the last year and a bit I’ve been keeping a diary of where/when/how long I’ve been riding places… and it turns out I’ve ridden for 145(ish) hours. In that time I rode for just short of 2800kms. Not too shabby for a year where I got lazy for large slabs of time.

– 879kms on Whitey the mountain bike of fury.  During the year and it’s been both a single speed and a full geared bike.  I also rode Whitey in both the Highland Fling and Dirtworks… and in both races he performed flawlessly, giving me zero mechanical issues.
– 1515kms of awesome Salsa Casseroll‘ness (161kms of that using fixed gear).  Can’t get over how much I’m still enjoying the Salsa.  It’s simply a joy to jump on, and cruise for a few hours at a time. Indeed of late I’ve just been ‘cruising’ laps of Centennial Park.
– 85kms on Greeny the Tonka Truck of my stable.   My venture back into single speeding and the world of 29′er wheels. The 85kms might not seem like heaps, but it’s not too shabby seeing as I’ve only owned him for the last month or so.
– 309kms on the ill fated & now sold Gary Fisher.  It was a good bike (made better by single speeding it), but sadly just a size too big for me.

Also of note was the 571kms (of the total 2800kms) were commuting to and from work (that’s about the equivalent of riding to work for three weeks straight). That’s one number I want to get a whole heap higher in 2010.

Speaking of 2010, I’ve already registered for the 50km Dirtworks, and I’m also in a 4 man team for the Mont. Should make for an interesting first half of the year. Well, if I can get my backside into gear and get a bit more training in…

2009 in pie.

9:43 pm, December 27th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in girlthings, internets by Liz

Getting in early in the ’so, this was my 2009′ thing, here is my 2009 in pie form:

I tried to put the legend in, but it all got too messy. So here’s the summary. (All figures are approximate…)

Sleeping – 2548 hours – 29.09%
Interneting – 1456 hours – 16.62%
Working at Allianz – 950 hours – 10.84%

I left Allianz in August – just after my one year anniversary with them had passed. My time on jury duty made me realise how unhappy I was in the corporate environment, so now I’m doing something a little more ‘relaxed’.

And by ‘relaxed’ I mean there’s 30k less in it a year, but I am much happier for it.

Eating – 728 hours – 8.31%
Working at Serendipity – 600 hours – 6.85%

My something more ‘relaxed’. Mmm, ice cream.

Live-in Sister – 420 hours – 4.80%

My sister lived with us for a little while. It was fun, squishy and fun all at once. Train didn’t like it.

Procrastinating – 364 hours – 4.16%
Watching TV – 260 hours – 2.97%
Jury Duty – 245 hours – 2.80%

245 hours I’ll never get back and that taught me that people aren’t as nice as you’re brought up to believe.

A neat little bow can be tied around this one – the person was recently acquitted of the charges after an appeal – a decision I am happy with.

“The appeal court concluded the verdict was ‘‘unreasonable’’ and the crown prosecutor’s final address caused ‘‘a miscarriage of justice’’.”

Walking places – 182 hours – 2.08%

Haven’t needed a car since we sold mine last year. Living so close to everything helps.

Sleeping In – 121.33 hours – 1.39%
Cuddles with Jarod – 121.33 hours – 1.39%

My favourite part(s) of the year by far.

Baking Sweet Things – 104 hours – 1.19%

My new ‘thing’. I like sweet things.

Showering – 91 hours – 1.04%
Cooking Dinner – 78 hours – 0.89%
Cleaning – 78 hours – 0.89%

Before you point out I spent more time showering than I did cooking or cleaning, you need to remember I share cooking and cleaning tasks with Jarod. I can’t share showering tasks with Jarod.

In Brisbane – 72 hours – 0.82%
House Hunting – 58.5 hours – 0.67%

This ended abruptly in February as my jury duty coincided with the bank deciding the house we’d put an offer on wasn’t worth that much. Never mind that it sold for 5k more two days later to someone else. We may start looking again in the next year. We’ll see.

Posting to Jarod and Liz – 53 hours – 0.61%
Brushing Teeth – 52 hours – 0.59%
Being attacked by Train – 52 hours – 0.59%

I think if I’d estimated the hours on this last year it would have been more. She is starting to settle down. A bit.

Waiting for sentencing – 30 hours – 0.34%

The most annoying part of jury duty. I was back at work and checking the papers and the nsw lawlink site daily. The decision was made in April, the sentencing in July, the appeal decision in December.

Seeing Family – 26 hours – 0.30%

The numbers have been boosted by the last three days of non stop family funtimes.

Kitty walks – 20 hours – 0.23%

Not included in the ‘Walking’ total because these are special walks.

Trying to cuddle Train – 15.6 hours – 0.18%
Waiting for Jarod to finish bike races – 10 hours – 0.11%

If I take a good book, the time goes quickly.

In Canberra – 10 hours – 0.11%
Cleaning Litter Tray – 8.632 hours – 0.10%
Bike Riding – 4.33 hours – 0.05%

Of course, a lot of things have been left out. Seeing friends, for example. Not that much of that happened this year, but perhaps next year. I don’t make resolutions or have plans, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

And yes, that image at the top is an accurate representation of the figures mentioned.

Merry Christmas and stuff.

10:08 pm, December 24th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in girlthings, liz cooks sometimes by Liz

So apparently today is Christmas Eve. And this means that today was my last day of work for a whole 10 days! This is the first time I’ve had holidays over Christmas since I started working. All of the industries I’ve worked in have not closed down over Christmas, and I’ve never seen the need to take time off. While my work isn’t shutting down, they’ll be working with skeleton staff, which means I’m not needed. Woohoo!

Tonight I made a big batch of milk chocolate mousse for Saturday’s family christmas gathering. Either tomorrow night or Saturday morning I’ll also be making a batch of shortbread. As well as bringing along some famous Serendipity ice cream Christmas Puddings.

This is possibly the first time I’ve baked for anyone other than me or Jarod. Which hopefully means there will be no leftovers.

Anyway. I hope you all enjoy your public holidays and/or Christmas, whichever you celebrate. Train doesn’t celebrate either – her holidays happen in 8 – 10 hour blocks while we’re at work… so most of the year, really.

Modo 401’s Volumetric Lighting

4:08 pm, December 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in Render, boythings, geekery by Jarod

The learning curve is steep, but proving to be oh so worth it.

Today I unlocked Modo 401’s Volumetric Lighting. (And ‘unlocked‘, I mean ‘I learnt how to do it‘)

I’m currently only using a 30 day trial, but it’s looking more and more likely that I’ll be buying Modo when it’s over. There’s just sooooo much depth to the program.

Live in Wellington?

8:09 am, December 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in girlthings by Liz

Like kittens? Like them enough to foster some?

Call the SPCA.

Kitten-sitters are needed to look after litters during the holidays.

The Wellington SPCA has more than 320 animals in foster care – mostly kittens. But foster homes are almost full.

“The more foster carers we have the more kittens we can save,” said SPCA co-ordinator Rochelle Pryde.

Kittens were healthier if they were not exposed to disease or raised in cages.

Foster families take care of the kittens until they are eight weeks old. They then go back to the SPCA to be de-sexed and adopted.

The SPCA has about 100 foster carers. Only four had no animals at their homes yesterday. With about 20 kittens – four or five litters – coming to the SPCA each day, all foster homes are expected to be full by the end of today. Only about three a day are adopted and there is room at the SPCA for only 24 kittens.

Ms Pryde said the holiday period was a great time for families to foster kittens because children could play with the cats but still give them back.

To foster a kitten call the SPCA on 389 8044. The SPCA supplies food, cat litter and veterinarian care, but foster carers need to have a spare room in their house, and transport to collect and drop off the kittens.

via stuff.co.nz

Movie Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls

11:24 am, December 22nd, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Posted in boythings, idiotbox, mooovies by Jarod

A few weeks ago Liz and I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls.

We like the occasional kids movie, having also watched (and liked) Up and a few others (which I can’t remember just now). I can safely say that Sony’s attempt at a Pixar’ish feature film was up there with the best.

Now, as I suck at analysing things and developing those thoughts into prose, this movie review will be written in ever popular bullet points. Firstly, the parts Liz and I enjoyed:

1. The animation and special effects. After diving into Modo in the last few weeks, I was flabbergasted.
2. The adult in jokes. The comedy works great on both adult and kid level.
3. The main character’s monkey… Steeeeeeeeeeeeeevee.
4. The mayor and his ever increasing waist line.
5. The cartoonic look and feel.
6. The town’s cop, voiced by Mr T. Brilliant I say. Brilliant.
7. The Gummy Beaaaaaars.

Now the parts that weren’t that great:

1. The predictable love story that took too much of the front seat.
2. The way the ending made us tear up slightly (though Liz will never admit it).
3. The (fairly) predictable story line. Aside from the small details, you always knew what was going to happen.
4. The way the weather reporter chick was a geek, but pretending she wasn’t. We got it the first time guys.

As there are 7 yays to only 4 nays, Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls can be considered a good, almost great movie. Jarod and Liz recommended.

The Race to Two Hundred.

8:41 pm, December 20th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in bikes, boythings, internets, roundups by Jarod

It’s not been official until now, but Liz and I are racing to 200 posts on this, our humble blog. As it stands I’m at 188 (189 with this post) and Liz is at 186. That puts me three ahead with eleven to go, but I’m still behind the eight ball cause Liz has stacks of momentum (and won’t stop baking stuff!). She’s made 10 or the last 15 posts for pete’s sake.

Now in a slight retrospective, these are a few of the stand out posts (in my mind at least) that I’ve made.

2010 Kona Unit Single Speed

Gary Fisher Cobia, made into a single speed

The Salsa Casseroll Single Speed

The Giant Iguana Single Speed Frame

Strange that all of them are about single speed bikes. Well… not that strange I spose.

Banana Butterscotch Pudding

1:50 pm, December 20th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in Recipe, girlthings, liz cooks sometimes, photography by Liz

Or as I like to call it: Bananascotch pudding.

A couple of weekends ago we bought some bananas. Perhaps a few too many, because as they got to that nice brown-specked sweet stage, I couldn’t eat them all. I put them in the freezer until I could find a use for them that wasn’t the usual banana bread.

I checked my Edmonds cookery book, and the first suggestion under ‘Banana’ in the index was ‘Bacon Wrapped Bananas’. I wasn’t feeling that adventurous, so last night I settled for making a Banana Butterscotch Pudding.

Ingredients:

- 125 g Plain Flour
- 115 g caster sugar superfine
- 3 teaspoons Baking powder
- 1 Banana mashed
- 250 ml Milk
- 85 g salted Butter melted
- 1 Egg lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- vanilla ice cream to serve

Topping:

- 140 g soft brown sugar
- 1/4 cup Golden Syrup
- 250 ml boiling Water

How to:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder into a bowl.
- Add the banana, milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract and whisk together until well combined.
- Pour into a greased 2.5 L baking dish.
- To make the topping, place the brown sugar, golden syrup and water in a small pot and bring to a boil.
- Pour the boiling mixture carefully over the pudding.
- Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until cooked through when tested with a skewer.
- Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Here’s how the kitchen was set up today – instead of writing down the recipe, Jarod decided should make use of our laptop…

This was while the pudding was in the oven and after I’d cleaned the bowls. You can see how much bench space we have – most of the time I end up using the stove top as well, but it gets a bit squishy if I’m using the stove top at the same time…

Here is the pudding just as it’s come out of the oven…

And in a bowl with ice cream…

The original recipe says it serves 4, but I would say you’d get 6 or more servings out of it. It is extremely sweet, so hard to eat a lot at once.

Some tshirts…

2:08 pm, December 19th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in girlthings, local by Liz

These have been out for a little while, but I forgot to mention them.

Earlier in the year I was asked by the Cat Protection Society if I’d like to provide some tshirt designs for consideration for printing. So I came up with a couple of things. Some I liked, some not so much. I didn’t actually expect anything to come of them.

But they liked them all so much, they were printed. So, if you’re after a new tshirt, why not buy one from the Cat Protection Society? They’d also make a great last minute Christmas present for a cat lover.

These ones are currently available:

‘Every cat deserves a loving and responsible home’
Ladies t-shirt $25.00 plus postage. GST included
Sizes: 14/16/18

‘Cats have a special place in our hearts’
Mens t-shirt $25.00 plus postage. GST included
Sizes: M/L/XL

‘We love cats with all our heart’
Ladies t-shirt $25.00 plus postage. GST included
Sizes: 8/12/16

Kids t-shirt $20.00 plus postage. GST included
Sizes: 2/6

And this one is in the process of being printed. Permission was obtained from the original artist first, so this was not able to be printed with the others.

The last two are my favourites – the Obama style ‘Hope’ poster took so much time to do, and Jarod was a massive help with that one.

The tshirts are great quality and well printed. The designs also come as key rings. All proceeds go straight to the Cat Protection Society to help them look after the kitties.

Check out their merchandise page for more cat related cool stuff. You can pick up the items from their centre in Newtown, or over the phone. (Or, if you ask me really nicely I’ll pick them up for you and post them/give them to you next time I see you).