What is the capital of Belarus?

Ask NumberOneSon - who came equal sixth in the Australian Geography Competition! Yes in Australia (in his age group - under 14s)!

I’m that proud I don’t know what to do with myself! :D

Scrabble Meme - D

Delicious things I like that start with the letter ‘D’ thanks to Pea Soup’s Scrabble Bag… and my apologies for taking my time to get here… D’s HARD!

1. Daughter - my own 10-year-old of course! (Okay that was an easy one)
2. Diamonds, especially when they are surrounded by Hearts, Spades and Clubs in a game of Bridge! (Also easy)
3. Debates - starring NumberOneSon! (Phew!)
4. Dialog with my husband. (grin)
5. Dad & Mum - coz they are great and I include my siblings here as well.
6. Dancing - I’m your girl!
7. Deciduous trees - especially this time of year.
8. Digital radio - the future is coming!
9. Drinking fabulous wine (no comments here Poshi!!)
10. Disco Doris - hey it was my nickname at school and it could have been worse!

D was hard - I couldn’t get reading in there - I thought of writing Dick Francis and all other authors I like but that seemed a bit crappy because while I don’t mind a Dick while on holiday I certainly wouldn’t rate him as my favourite author. Still having said that it was just ten things I liked, not my favourite things… And I didn’t get blogging, or friends or eating delicious food… it goes on…

So are you up for the scrabble challenge? Ali is- and my dear your letter is - wait - Let me get my scrabble set out - your letter is (fanfare!) - F!

If you would like me to dive into my letter bag and set you the scrabble challenge by all means let me know through comments Darlings! :)

The Ancient Future

This book by Traci Harding made it to Angus & Robertson’s Top 100 List. Number 61. As voted for by readers. I’m sorry Traci - but I just don’t get why. Groover brought it home from the airport and I read it after he gave up because I’m always looking out for new fantasy authors and she’s Australian so I was keen to enjoy it. But…

The plot is just too silly. And the language - Ms Harding uses thee and thou to indicate when the characters are speaking Ancient Welsh - just becomes irritating. Not recommended, though I did get to the boring end.

Today I read The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin, the author of Tales of the City. A much more satisfying read.

Oh… what was number 1 you ask? All six of the Harry Potter series. Yep.

Beef Casserole

This is thanks to Roz.

Beef and Mushroom Casserole

1 kg Gravy Beef - diced, season with pepper and brown. Remove to bowl.
2/3 cup red wine - use to cook off the beef bits stuck to the pan then pour over beef.
Saute 2 medium onions, sliced and 1/2 celery stick, chopped.
Add 450g mushrooms sliced, garlic, 2.5 cups beef stock, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 2 teaspoons black olive puree, 1 tablespoons of wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of anchovy sauce and some thyme. Add the beef.

Simmer for a couple of hours until sauce is thick.

[from my old blog]

Yes I’m cooking it today.

Don’t you hate it when…

you’re the card professional in the family and they flog you at Hearts!

The hand

I never write “proper” bridge posts because frankly I’m not sure many bridge players read this site - and I wouldn’t want to bore you, and those bridge players who may venture across this blog, lets be honest folks, are probably vastly more able to comment.  Hence usually you’ll get… played bridge tonight.  Again I was crap.

And I was pretty crap tonight.  For a start I was running late - and I discovered a universal truth about speeding when running late… It is much better to be clocked by a speed camera rather than pulled up by an actual traffic cop.  Not that either happened, but I did think to myself as I sped along Mounts Bay Road (until I spied said traffic cop in the left hand lane further up), “I’d rather not be stopped if I’m going to be done for speeding tonight”.  Being late and poorer sucks,

So I was a bit “OMG have they started yet” as I sat down at the table.

The first set was “a bit ordinary”.  They seemed to do everything right, I couldn’t seem to take a trick, we lost.

The second set I sat down and said “This is going to be a good round partner” in a firm and confident voice!  I practiced “The Secret”.  The secret is that you can manifest your future by believing it.  So I did.  And we had a 20 point win.

And here’s my moment of glory.

Partner says 2C (showing a shit load), RHO says 2S (showing spades), I’m sitting with ST8, H982, DAJT63, C532 - in other words not much apart from the Ace… I pass, LHO says 3S (I think), Partner says 5C, RHO passes, and I after deep and meaningful agonised thought, reason that he doesn’t know about my ace and anyway we’re going to have a good round, remember, 6C.  Pass from LHO, deep thought from Partner… (and here’s where I should have willed him to go 7 but instead sent telepathic NO NO NOs across the table)  …we made 7C.  But they only bid 5 - so we rocked!

Later when we were in 6D off two (what were we thinking???) our team-mates were in 4SX making - total yay!

Told you it was going to be a good round.

The last round were against a very sweet couple who played a blinder of a round.  But.  We are only half way through and everyone knows that the underdog always wins a split round! 

Milestones

My daughter reached double figures today.

My son has his first pimple.

Bogan Villa*

So I’m finding BB07 quite interesting this year. I like the whole Hayley-Andrew-Billy-Thomas love quadrangle thing. The white room intrigues me - but I wish they’d give it more airtime. The eco-house idea is cute - maybe they should combine it with the eco-house challenge** on SBS for some real eco-messaging.

So far Jamie - the nerd boy - is interesting me… I’m annoyed already by the bogans in the house and that Morman girl is too intense. In fact I haven’t really warmed to any in the house although I quite like Thomas and Emma. That ombudsman girl - the one with the green eyeshadow (ewww) irritates me. Just because she looks sulky… and I’m a snob about green eyeshadow.

The Biggest Loser finale is on tomorrow night - I love seeing the finale. It is great to see the real people emerge from behind the fat. Note to self: set PVR.

*Thanks to The West for this little gem.
**Note the host of Eco-House is Mr Lithuania. Also known as Mr Smartrider. Yes touch me. I know a tv star!

Digital Pretender

I am no digital native.  Despite having a new phone with a 3mp camera, wireless capability and 1000 other functions I have no idea how to enable I continually find myself sans mobile and therefore digitally isolated.  It is not a good feeling.  Yes even though I don’t know how to use all those groovy functions yet, I would at least like to have them to hand.  So where is my mobile now.  In the kitchen of course, next to my keys.  I will have it with me tomorrow!

Meeting Jimmy Wales

Weeks ago I put my hand up to attend a seminar featuring Jimmy Wales - the founder of Wikipedia - then promptly forgot about it.

Personally while I find wikis useful in terms of finding information I haven’t really felt the need to edit a page but I recognise that as a part of Web 2.0 we need to “get on board”. Also I’ve been questioning my career aspirations lately - is this the right role for me - could my skills be used better, or at least in a way that engages my interest better?

Anyway suffice to say I had no expectations when I showed up for the seminar this morning.

The seminar was presented by education.au and started with a welcome to country - a very personal account and quite accessable WTC, although I got the feeling the organisers thought it went on a bit.

Then we had Marget Collins from the WA Department of Education. From her introduction I discovered two new things. First - she used the term Digital Natives rather than Gen Y, which was interesting… I suspect to qualify you have to grow up with computers, which makes me a digital immigrant…and I’m not sure I like that term! And she said that the average age for teachers is 46.

At first I was horrified … 46!!!! That seems so old! But I guess if you consider teachers retire in their sixties, and don’t start teaching until they are 21ish… well maybe that’s just past the median point… They are unlikely to be digital natives though and that was her point.

Then we met Jimmy Wales. Chairman, Wikia Inc. and founder of Wikipedia.

[for fashionistas out there he was wearing a velvet like pin-striped jacket over a laced up cream shirt over a black tee, black trousers and black rubber soled shoes]

Here are some interesting points from his speech:

Jimmy predicted the cost of textbooks and other learning materials (videos etc) would drop to zero, and that laptops would drop to $100, decreasing the digital divide.

He talked about the next billion users online - and how they would change the online community - being from places like Africa, South America, China and India.

He quoted a Nature article which said Wikipedia had an average of 4 errors per page, while Encyclopedia Brittanica had an average of 3. And their differences in reaction - EB threatened legal action, Wikipedia corrected the errors!

Monocultures are unsafe.

Jimmy said when you think of social networking software many think of all the bad things that can happen and design gatekeeper models.

A restaurant using this model would have each patron in a cage in case they stabbed eachother with the steak knives.

Rather developers need to use the accountability model.

To set up a Wiki community Jimmy recommends:

• Have a simple, clear vision for what the wiki is about.
• Have a core of people - 5-10 to impel it forward in the first instance.
• Allow, as much as possible, the wiki community to come up with its own solutions.

He said that neutrality was important. That disputes should be editorial rather than political or personal.

But what I liked most about his talk was that he said “the entire project is one of love”. How many projects can say that?

Then we had a forum with a number of education focussed bods, which was quite interesting and a workshop where we talked about how to implement a wiki in a work situation.. The bottom line for our group was that people had to feel safe to contribute - in terms of their IP, and their job - and that to get buy-in people needed to feel adding/using a wiki would value add to their work.

It was truly inspiring to meet someone with such an altruistic ideal as Jimmy.

Yep. I’m a fan.

And I love the fact his laptop is covered in stickers!

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