Outsourcing

This latest contribution from one of our more colorful commentators, Big Bill Berens.  Let it never be said that I’m not doing my part to support unfettered public discourse.  Sadly, I can take credit for none of it, but am seriously considering outsourcing on a more regular basis.

This isn’t bad for a first draft, if I do say so myself.  I sent this in to Nicole a few days ago, whipped it up on Notepad and then just cut/pasted it into an email – I used to work online so it’s easier than it sounds. 

I was rapping freestyle on the iPhone paragraph, just getting warmed up.  Then I feint into the movie talk – which is tricky because I’ve never seen a movie (don’t like sitting down indoors).  The stuff about weather and restaurants I just made up, I’ve never actually been to ‘Astrallia’ or wherever and google didn’t have anything on that continent so I just winged it.  I guess maybe you guys don’t have google yet.  They’ve got just the one van I think, they’ll come around eventually.

Anyway, the part about poker is all true.  Pocket fours suck, it’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight.  I’ve brought knives to gunfights, I know what I’m talking about here – nobody at the gun fight will care about your stupid knives and eventually they’ll take all your chips and you’ll have to shuffle the whole rest of the game.

So ok, that’s it ’til next week.  I can feel a classic Nicole rant coming up!  Topic:  Is Dungeons and Dragons better than everything? 

Good on ya!

Notions

As some of you may have noted, it has been a while since my last post.  What can I say?  It turns out I am not as interesting as I’d hoped (but you’ve probably figured that out).

Here’s a stream of consciousness survey of what I’ve been up to lately.

iPhone – Michael bought me an iPhone, which is great.  I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be so “geeked out” over it, but it really is super cool.  I am still exploring its surprisingly handy features and investigating potential web apps.  Good stuff. 

Movies – None to speak of really.  Hollywood needs to get on the ball.  I can’t remember the last time I was excited to see a movie in the theater.  Incidentally, Word is telling me that “theater” is misspelled and that I actually meant to type “theatre,” which, in fact, I did not.  Sometimes Word is a little too big for its britches.  No one uses the copyright symbol as often as Word thinks you want to.  Okay, that wasn’t so much about movies…my bad.  Now you see why it can sometimes be so long between posts.  I’m really doing you all a giant favor (without a “u” despite what Australian Word thinks).

Books - Currently reading “Watership Down,” which I never expected to be about rabbits, much less a “Lord of the Rings” type quest by rabbits.  Certainly interesting, but according to the headlining review on the cover it should be undertaken by “anyone who can read English.”  Seems like a bit of an overstatement to me.  Moving on to “Harrington on Hold’em” next, which, hopefully, will provide lessons with more practical application.  One of the guys Michael works with is in Vegas and he and his girlfriend stumbled upon a bunch of world-class poker players in the wild – Brunson, Ivey, Negreanu, Jennifer Harman Traniello.  Pretty cool.

Weather – Rain with a chance of more rain.

Restaurants – North Bondi Italian is officially on my shortlist of favorite Sydney restaurants.  We’ve been twice now and their fried calamari with fried herbs (mint/sage) and zucchini is a crowd-pleaser.  The restaurant itself is in a great location overlooking Bondi beach, though the acoustics are awful and you have to shout to be heard as a rule.  Not the place to go for a quiet or intimate meal, but if you don’t mind a little noise, a bit of a crowd and a potentially long wait (they don’t take reservations), the food is well worth it.  I have a special place in my heart for a restaurant that regularly features an “offal” section on the menu.  Not just a single offal offering, but a selection.  I can recommend the stuffed trotters – veddy nice.   

Poker – Played in the weekly free hold’em tournament at the Paddington RSL last week, which taught me that pocket 4s are fraught with peril.  Sadly, that is the best hand I saw all night.  Early on it cost me dearly, but turned up again late in the game to save me when my stack had dwindled down to embarrassing proportions. 

And that’s about the sum of it.  I bet now you’re sorry you asked.