Red or Blue

by Cellobella on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 · 3 comments

blue-pill1

Remember this scene from The Matrix?

Take the blue pill and you stay asleep… take the red and wake up to reality?

Why did they choose those colours?

Why blue and red?

It might be based in science.

I was listening to some back-episodes of my new favourite podcast – RadioLab – and one of the stories that stood out for me on the Placebo episode was the story about why the colour of pills is important.

Apparently – and this is true for everyone except Italian men – if you take a blue pill you sleep better than if you take a red pill.

Same ingredients – very different effect.

So why the anomoly with Italian men?

According to the scientist – it’s because of their football team:
italian_football
The sight of that blue colour excites Italian men so much they can’t sleep… or don’t sleep as well as say other men taking a blue pill.

Interesting.

I wonder if Viagra is more effective in Italy?

Now there’s a research project people!

Butterflies and rivers

by Cellobella on Sunday, August 9, 2009

butterfly

Isn’t this a great photo?

I can’t claim credit.  It’s one of my dad’s from his recent trip to the Kimberley.

That ochre coloured stain on the rock is in fact… ochre.

The butterfly had landed on some rock paintings.  In fact many had.

Maybe it was attracted to the art like my father.

I love its spotted chest.

butterfly_closeup

Chest?  Surely I mean thorax.

The dots look as if they’ve been painted on too.

Perhaps the butterflies inspired the artists.

Maybe that’s why the butterflies land on the paintings?

painting

Unfortunately in this case the link is not obvious.

The paintings are not Dot Paintings from the Western Desert but Wandjinas.

Magnificent.

Commanding.

Enigmatic.

Not so many dots…

It’s time to go back to the Kimberley.

Instead, today I made do with the Swan River.

We decided to go canoeing and made our way from the Causeway around to East Perth.

The canoes were sea kayaks.

Clumsy plastic rafts, but the weather was calm and there was a real sense of adventure as we set off up the river under the bridge.

Our bodies, unused to sitting and paddling, soon complained and I fear tomorrow we will discover new muscles.

They’ll be the ones not moving the way they used to.

It felt good though to be doing something active and exploring a new aspect of our city.

Not quite the Kimberley perhaps.

One does what one can.

What annoyed me about the latest Harry Potter film

by Cellobella on Thursday, August 6, 2009 · 10 comments

First of all can I just put right up front – I really enjoyed this movie.

I even laughed out loud occasionally.

It was fun.  It was a well scoped version of the book… I’d see it again.

Oh and Alan Rickman – please!  His voice!  I love him.

But I was distracted.

And it detracted from the movie.

It was… annoying.

Tell me what you see in these photos…

hp_noglass

Or maybe… what you don’t see…

hp-noglass

Can you see what I’m getting at… (that’s a clue by the way).

No?

Okay… well it all changes here…

hp-glass

Get it?

It was annoying because once I noticed it, I kept noticing it.

Stop reading now if you haven’t picked up what I’m talking about and don’t want to.

Still with me?

Gee…

I love it that you’re still with me…

Okay.

Here’s the thing:

Half the time Harry’s glasses appear to have no glass in them.

There is just no way they can be THAT clear.

The other half…

They definitely have glass.

Now I get that as a film-maker – those reflections would get in the way of your film.

The lighting must be hell.

But deal with it.

Because, when you don’t…

When you give up and have the second pair of frames ready for those tricky sequences, your audient (er, that’s me) spends the whole movie going:

“There isn’t any glass in those frames…”

And then…

“Oh!  They’ve put the glass in!”

It’s irritating and distracting.

I missed the funny moment in Slughorn’s first gathering…

And of course there is no rewind in the movies…

It spoiled my time in the house people!

Sheesh!

Am I the only one?

Tick in a box

by Cellobella on Friday, July 31, 2009 · 2 comments

justine kelly
So this next podcast is all about encounters with ticks.

The good thing about ticks in Australia is that they don’t tend to have Lyme disease… which is a big problem in places like Connecticut.

But they are still gross and disgusting to discover on one’s person.

In this episode, Justine tells us her story.

It had me in stitches.

Click here: Tick in a Box

But luckily not her – she survived.

If you like this podcast you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes (just click the button to the right) or your RSS reader.

A perfect life

by Cellobella on Thursday, July 23, 2009 · 4 comments

What would you do next if you were at the top of your game in a Melbourne restaurant?

Open another restaurant?

Get even more busy?

japaneserestaurant

Well the fellow who runs this place got it right I reckon.

He has a restaurant in Albany which he opens when he feels like it.

Maybe he’ll open the whole restaurant, maybe he’ll just take a table of six, maybe he’ll go fishing and not show up for a week.

When my colleague wanted to hold a Christmas lunch there, he said yes but they had to have their orders in two days before and they ended up being the only ones in the restaurant.

This is not a place you can just roll up to and hope to get a table and so I will never ever dine there. 

I like to think of my life as spontaneous but in reality I’m just disorganised.

But I kind of like his attitude.

He obviously cooks for the pleasure of it and you can imagine the food he prepares will be made with a light heart.

And isn’t that what we want?

Not just from a chef but from whatever job we are doing, from whatever service we require?

I’m going to work on that light heart stuff.

:)

Oh, and apparently the food this guy prepares is fantastic.

No surprises there.

I feel like a pelican

by Cellobella on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 · 2 comments

Who knew pelicans would elicit more pelicans?

Buckets sent me this gorgeous photo of some pelicans he took at Innamincka, South Australia.  It’s near the border of Queensland and New South Wales.

Beyond, well beyond, the so-called Black Stump.

pelicans

Great photo. :)

Meanwhile, I do actually feel like a pelican – wherever I turn I’m confronted by an ENORMOUS bill!

And payday is still two days away…

Cheer me up with your pelican photo!

Shhh… secrets

by Cellobella on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 · 6 comments

This is a little experimental.

A podcast.

Redsultana Secrets

No promises there’ll be more.  Or even that they’ll be any good.

This one is just me… in future I hope there will be other voices.

Albany Pelicans

by Cellobella on Sunday, July 19, 2009

eye-of-pelican

pelican_fishing-boat-harbou

pelican

pelican_pole

There’s something special about pelicans… they fly in like a squadron of bomber aircraft and land with pin point accuracy on their target.

I travelled to Albany this week and discovered how beautiful a place it is.

I took these photos down at Fishing Boat Harbour.

More stories to come.

The greenhood

by Cellobella on Tuesday, July 14, 2009

greenhood1

Found under a bush at Dunsborough.  July 4, 2009.

About 18 cm tall.

Pterostylis vittata

More about this orchid.

Of course my orchid hunter (Hugamuga) found it.

It was the first time we’ve seen a greenhood on this site.

Three score years and ten

by Cellobella on Monday, July 13, 2009 · 1 comment

family_dunsborough

We were down in Dunsborough for mum’s 70th birthday celebration.

She had invited her family to Caves House for a breakfast.

The photos in the room were of Caves House in the year of her birth – 1939.

cezanne

This is the youngest member of the family being held by the oldest, my great aunt.

mum_cousin

I didn’t take many photos.  This is my mother’s cousin.  They are very close in age.

Two brothers married two sisters and mum and her cousin are both the third children of their respective pairings.

They used to play together.

They both have sons who are artists.

They are both into alternative health.

The birthday celebration was lovely.

We brought up all the old stories… those awful eggplant patties even the dog refused to eat, the time she tried to make my brother sick of meat pies by making him eat them for every meal (she gave up after a fortnight), the education we received in transactional analysis…

But.

And I have never been so embarrassed.

How does it happen that you spell your mother’s name wrong in a video slideshow on her 70th birthday?

Please tell me how that could have happened?

OMG.

The shame.

I know my kids are going to deliberately spell my name wrong now.

It’s going to be one of those stories.

Up there with the eggplant patties.

And they’ll probably also add the inedible lime casserole I made last week.

Who knew you couldn’t substitute limes for lemons?

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