when compromise is a good thing...

From Ananova

House is an island

Developers have turned a house into an island in China after the owner refused to move out.

The villa now stands alone in a 30ft deep man-made pit in Chongqing city, reports Jinbao Daily.

The Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company wants to turn the area into a £40m 'Broadway' square, including apartments and a shopping mall.

But the owner of the villa says he won't move out unless the company pays his price - the equivalent of £1.3 million.

"The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to dig out all around it to force him to," says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company.

"He wants 20 million yuan, or he'll stay till the end of the world."

It would be interesting to see who gives in first. Sometimes it is necessary to compromise.

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Margaret, Mary and I went to the Dumpling Inn this evening for dinner. We had salt and pepper whitebait, three cups wine chicken and stuffed tofu. It was quite yummy.

mega malls

The biggest shopping mall in the world is not in the United States, but in China (People's Republic of) - the South China Mall in Dongguan at 660 000 square metres (even though there are still lots of empty shops). Two other malls under construction in China may be even bigger.

This will be surpassed by the Mall of Arabia in Dubai at 1 million square metres when completed.

The West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada at 350 000 square metres, the largest in North America, is only the fourth biggest in the world.

Thankfully, we don't have such large monstrosities in Australia. The largest mall in Australia is located in Melbourne called Knox City at 142 244 square metres.

Mega malls are too crowded. The only advantage of shopping in one place is to maximise the probability of purchasing the one item at a reasonable price. At the mall near my work (which when I first moved to Canberra many years ago, was dubbed 'the largest shopping centre in the Southern Hemisphere') I've wasted a lot of time going from shop to shop trying to find something as simple as a memory card for my digital camera. None of the shops stocked it. I can see the mall from the office window and it is ghastly.

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Back to work today, ho hum.

I want one

The Doctor Who Tardis USB Hub boasts four ports in which to plug your various gizmos. Simply plug in and you’re away. But here’s the good bit: every time you connect or disconnect a device, the blue light on the top of the Tardis flashes and that unmistakable de-materialisation ‘vworp, vworp’ sound starts sawing away at your lugholes. Thankfully it doesn’t actually vanish into the time vortex, so you can enjoy the classic grating din again and again by plugging in more devices or pressing the demo button.

Perfect for Doctor Who fans or those of you who want to increase your USB connectivity via a pretend Gallifreyan time/space machine, the Tardis USB Hub makes an eye-catching addition to any work surface. And with 4 metres of cable, you can easily slip it out of view when the boss, wife, or anyone else who might disapprove of PC peripherals disguised as dimensionally transcendental vehicles, is around. Vworp, vworp!

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Today was another do nothing day. I watched the game from Friday night. What a game. I even had a nap on the couch in the afternoon, but it is not the same without Keiser. She so enjoyed having naps with me together on the couch.

Mary came over and stayed for dinner. I made baked quail marinated in preserved lemon, marmalade and soy sauce; along with some baked potatoes, baked corn on the cob, and greens.

meet the meat

Would people still eat meat like a nice (beef) steak, if they had met the cow beforehand, and witnessed the death and slaughter of the cow at an abattoir?

Most chefs do. I'm not sure if I can. It would probably turn me into a vegetarian, although I have no problem in killing a live fish, cleaning, cooking and eating it.

There is an interesting article in The Age's Epicure (food and wine supplement) - here.

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I was out for much of the day today. Firstly, waking early and going to the Farmers' Market with Mary and her two grandchildren. On return, I babysat the six and seven year olds while Mary and Margaret went to the mall. Thank goodness I had Kimba the White Lion and Harry Potter DVDs.

In the afternoon, I met up with Kim and Jackie in town and went back to Kim's place, giving Merlin the cat some cuddles, before going to Jackie and Brian's place for dinner, fussing Tex the dog and Jimmy the cat. It was a great dinner of slow cooked lamb. On coming home, there was no Keiser checking on other cat smells.

Tonight, Margaret is out for the fireworks. I caught up on Smallville from last night, again without Keiser. We did a lot together, Keiser and I.

Football - preseason NAB Cup semi final

GEELONG: 0.1.1, 0.3.4, 0.9.8, 0.10.13 (73)
BRISBANE LIONS: 1.2.4, 1.2.7, 3.4.8, 3.8.10 (85)

NINE POINT GOALS: Brisbane Lions: Adcock, Black, Begley.
SIX POINT GOALS: Geelong: Mooney 3, Gardiner 3, Varcoe 2, Byrnes, Milburn, Power. Brisbane Lions: Sherman 3, Johnson 2, Tyler, Patfull.
BEST: Geelong: Enright, Bartel, Mooney, Gardiner, Kelly, Milburn, Byrnes. Brisbane Lions: Rischitelli, Black, Sherman, Power, Copeland, Johnson, Notting.
INJURIES: Geelong: J Hunt (strained knee).
UMPIRES: McBurney, Head, Nicholls, Ryan.
CROWD: 14,475 at Telstra Dome, Melbourne.

It was a great win, and the lead changed several times. I still have to watch the game. Watching red and blue dots only shows so much.

Bartel is no match for Cheynee and Shermo


Shermo and Marcus


Possum


Ash


Jed tackling


Merrett


Colm


Blacky and Ling


Blacky (captaining) and Rischi


Blacky


Scotty and Shermo

football in dots

This is what I must contend with when a match I want to watch is not on TV live (on free to air, I still don't have cable) or if I am not attending the actual game.






It was a very close game, but we won.

Match results and pictures tomorrow.

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I've been in and out of the house all day, so it wasn't quite a do nothing day. The last few days, I've managed to convince her to watch Spiderman, Batman Begins and Superman Returns.

I still miss Keiser so much. I will never get over losing her.

Lords by the people

In an historic move, the British House of Commons (elected by the people) have voted that the House of Lords should also be elected by the people.

It is about time that this anachronism which allows a minority of people, by virtue of their privileged birth, to become unelected legislators ended.

How can the United Kingdom be democratic when the upper chamber is wholly unelected?

Perhaps they will also move on to that other anachronistic institution, the head of state. There must be plenty of British people who are also well qualified for this job.

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Today was another do nothing day, except doing some errands at the mall.

Dolce & Gabbana - art or stupidity?

Reported in EiTB24 (Basque/Spain), Dolce & Gabbana has decided to withdraw a print advertisement which purports to "show a man pinning a woman by her wrists after widespread criticism it condoned violence against women."

"We were looking to recreate a game of seduction in the campaign and highlight the beauty of our collections," the designers said.

Silly silly Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Seduction with onlookers isn't exactly a 'beautiful' sight.

It's obvious that the woman is about to levitate and float off into the sky and she is digging herself to the ground (or rather the surface) with her high heels and the man is trying to save her life. As for the other three guys, they are standing ready in case each have to hang on to a limb, so the woman doesn't float away.

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Didn't do much today either.

egg laying cows...

Dairy Farmers of Britain is a brand owned by a co-operative of a few thousand British dairy farmers.

They surveyed a bunch of kids and found that a small percentage did not know the origin of their food. According to their report,

...two percent of city kids think that eggs come from cows, and bacon is from cows or sheep.

See - Dairy Farmers of Britain Press Release

The survey wasn't really worth a press release. A tiny minority of children have no idea about connecting farm animals to food.

They also believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny etc

Anyway, I think believing that eggs come from cows is very imaginative.

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Did nothing much today. Made a dinner of roast saltbush lamb and roast potato sweet potato and pumpkin. While I was away, Mary and Margaret went to the farmers'/growers' market on Saturday and bought some excellent produce.

I still miss Keiser, and after over two years, I still miss Fatty. There are constant reminders (apart from lots of pictures and their belongings) such as shopping for food - even seeing the packaged smoked salmon strips at the supermarket is a reminder that Keiser finally decided she liked smoked salmon (which Fatty always liked).

Starstrucks... equally bad coffee

Starbucks is not happy about Indian entrepreneur Shahnaz Husain's plans to start a chain of coffee shops in India called Starstrucks.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I wonder if Starstrucks will serve equally bad coffee.

See - Reuters

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I have the week off work this week. Must do it more often.

ignore her, and perhaps she will go away

There was a one week ban on stories about Paris Hilton by Associated Press. Nobody noticed.

The ban should be extended indefinitely. Perhaps she will just go away.

See - CNN

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I returned home this afternoon. It was a great weekend. Michelle picked me up from the airport on Friday and we went to her place for a quick catch up before she put me on the train from Strathmore station to the city.

The football on Friday night was fantastic - front row seats in the midfield. The coach, Leigh Matthews had to walk out in front a few times, as did players on the bench staying warmed up. I went with Court (who used to work in my office here) and his flat mate George. It was their first AFL match which I was glad they enjoyed. It was interesting to hear their phone calls to other friends about 'going to the football with a fanatic'. Michelle simply refused to go.




Cheynee Stiller



Even better was the Family Fun Day on Saturday morning at the Manningham Club in Bulleen. I spoke to a couple of the players and Simon Black signed his previously owned match worn guernsey from last year. After Friday night's win, they were happy to meet their supporters.


Cameron Wood, Colm Begley and Jed Adcock


Woody, Possum, Colm, Jed, Will, Tyler


Colm and his banana, Jed, Blacky and Merrett

Football - preseason NAB Cup quarter final

BRISBANE LIONS: 0.1.1, 1.3.8, 2.7.7, 2.12.12 (102)
WESTERN BULLDOGS: 0.1.2, 0.3.5, 0.4.8, 2.7.10 (70)
NINE POINT GOALS: Brisbane Lions: Copeland, Power
Western Bulldogs: Eagleton 2
SIX POINT GOALS: Brisbane Lions: Allan 3, Patfull 2, McGrath 2, Charman, Allan, Moody, Notting, Harding
Western Bulldogs: Higgins 4, McDougall, Robbins, Boyd
BEST: Brisbane Lions: Rischitelli, Power, Black, Notting, Wood, Brennan, Begley
Western Bulldogs: Higgins, Boyd, Giansiracusa, Gilbee, West, Hargrave
INJURIES: Brisbane Lions: Nil
Western Bulldogs: Ray (concussion)
REPORTS: Charman (Brisbane Lions) by umpire Allen for striking Hargrave (Western Bulldogs) in the second quarter
UMPIRES: Margetts, Allen, Chamberlain, Stevic
CROWD: 13,000 approx. at Telstra Dome

Another great win on Friday night. With front row seats in the midfield, it was fantastic.


Cameron Wood


Jason Roe flies


Matt Tyler, one of our new players


Cameron Wood


Justin Sherman


Will Hamill on the ground (and a 'wardrobe malfunction')


Simon Black with the ball


Jamie Charman


Michael Rischitelli


Robert Copeland

Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli was an early Renaissance painter (1 March 1445 - 17 May 1510).

He painted The Birth of Venus and lots of other works.


The Birth of Venus

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My blog will take a break until Sunday. Tomorrow, I am going to Melbourne for the weekend and for the football. I hated going away and leaving Keiser. Even though she has gone, the feeling still lingers.

reality TV - look at me, I'm an idiot

From the BBC

Victoria Beckham wins US TV deal

Ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham is to star in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about her forthcoming move to the US after signing a £10m deal with NBC.

The programme will "look inside her world", her spokeswoman confirmed, but will not feature her footballer husband David, or their three sons.

The former England captain transfers to Los Angeles Galaxy this summer.

The 32-year-old was known as Posh Spice during her time with the group, who released their last single in 2000.

Last month she described the move to the US - which will reportedly earn her husband $250m (£127m) over five years - as "really exciting".

She said it was a decision which had been "thought about carefully".

"I'm really looking forward to making new friends and enjoying the sunshine in California," she wrote on her website.

Beckham's spokeswoman said that the precise details of the series were still to be finalised, and gave no timescale for transmission.

Isn't it funny that really dumb people (they may have a lot of money, but it doesn't necessarily increase their intelligence) have a tendency to want to put this on public display?

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Mary, Margaret and I went to the new Dumpling Inn which opened recently up the road. It was good. We had dumplings, shallot pancake, hand made noodles and then mui choi kau yuk (pork belly with preserved vegetables) and rice. I always order the kau yuk (usually not on the menu) to test the 'authenticity' of Chinese restaurants.

new music

The new Kaiser Chiefs' album Yours Truly, Angry Mob is quite good, almost as good as their debut album Employment.



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I went to Bobby's place after work today for a BBQ dinner, and came home just in time before the big thunderstorm hit.

Oscar?

Oscar? Bah!


When is the real Oscar going to host those awards?

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I left work early today, as I wasn't feeling well. Arriving home early from work though, isn't the same. There was no Keiser to sneak up to and surprise. Sigh!

Mary was over and stayed for a tandoori chicken and lamb dinner.

will it attract lightning?

These umbrellas which are for sale in (South) Korea look really cool. First seen in the film Blade Runner, they will be better known as light saber umbrellas.


The question is, will it attract lightning?

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Today, I watched the Brisbane Lions vs St Kilda match taped from last night. It was good to see some of the new players stepping up and playing well. Moody had a lot of (ball) possessions and a rookie, Tyler proved himself on the field.

This afternoon, Emily and I went to the new Dendy cinema in town. The seats were like couches (wide, soft and comfortable). The good thing about Dendy is that they also screen a lot of foreign films. There is only so much Hollywood that one can take.

We watched Perfume: The Story of a Murderer which was quite good. A shame it was not in French, as the film was set in France. Most of the characters spoke with an English accent, except for Giuseppe Baldini played by Dustin Hoffman who spoke with a bad French(?) accent. Baldini was supposed to be Italian. It was faithful to the book by Patrick Süskind (originally in German), except some of the storylines were not included.


Jean-Baptiste Grenouille learning how to 'capture' scent


His ultimate scent

Football - preseason NAB Cup round 1

Woohoo! Finally the footy is back, even if it is the NAB Cup, with modified rules.

BRISBANE LIONS: 0.1.0, 0.3.4, 0.5.5, 0.7.10 (52)
ST KILDA: 1.4.1, 1.5.1, 1.5.6, 1.5.6 (45)
NINE POINT GOALS: St Kilda: Goddard
SIX POINT GOALS: Brisbane Lions: Sherman 2, Copeland, Kiel, Harding, Patfull, Tyler
St Kilda: Brooks 2, Milne, Allen, Montagna
BEST: Brisbane Lions: Black, Copeland, Moody, Rischitelli, Sherman, Patfull
St Kilda: Thompson, Montagna, S Fisher, McQualter, Ferguson, X Clarke
INJURIES: Brisbane Lions: Adcock (ankle)
UMPIRES: Sully, Nicholls, Ellis, Jeffrey
CROWD: N/A at Cazaly Stadium, Cairns

Last night's game (televised way too late) - it was pouring with rain, St Kilda were leading for the first three quarters, so it was a great win.


Moody with the ball, Blacky looks on


The hero of the game was Blacky


Scott Harding checking Colm Begley on the ground, while Blacky tries to shake off the St Kilda guys


Wayde Mills


it was really really wet

gold vs saffron

The myth that saffron is worth more than gold by weight is untrue.

Kashmiri saffron (the best quality) is worth about US$900 a kilogram.

Gold (at NY closing time on Friday) was worth US$21 955 a kilogram.

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I spent 10 hours out of the house today. Firstly attending the preseason NAB Cup game between the Western Bulldogs and the Sydney Swans at 3.40pm. It was a really good game. I went with Tim K and we sat with Rob and his friends just slightly to the right of the goalposts, near the Bulldogs cheer squad. The cheer squad who were visiting from Melbourne to attend the game were funny - their chant after each Bulldog goal was "doggy doggy doggy... woof woof woof".


Brad Johnson (captain) going for goal







WESTERN BULLDOGS 1.3.6 1.4.13 1.7.15 1.12.16 (97)
SYDNEY 0.2.0 0.3.3 0.6.3 1.9.7 (70)
Goals: Western Bulldogs: Lynch 3, Robbins 2, Johnson 2, Harris (nine-point goal), McDougall, Baird, Griffen, Harbrow, Higgins. Sydney: White 3, Kirk 2 (1 nine-point goal), Richards 2, Rowe, Davis, Currie.
Best: Western Bulldogs: Griffen, Gilbee, Lynch, Power, McDougall, Robbins. Sydney: Kirk, Mathews, Goodes, Schmidt, Richards, White.
Reports: Western Bulldogs: Ray by field umpire Kamolins in final quarter for allegedly charging Bevan (Sydney).
Injuries: Western Bulldogs: Wight (cork), Johnson (cork). Sydney: Malceski (shin).
UMPIRES: Kennedy, Kamolins, Grun.
CROWD: 5557 at Manuka Oval.

Afterwards, I attended Craig's 50th birthday at Regatta Point with the entire Richmond family and their friends, upon his son Dane's invitation. It was a good night and it was good to catch up with Amanda's mum. When they go away in the next month or so, their German Shepherd Kane is going to come and stay over. It will be nice to have some furry companionship again.

Being out for so long and so late (getting home at 11.30pm) made me realise that my life did revolve around Keiser, and that I actually I preferred to spend time with her instead of going out.