Alpacas and cello strings

Argh. It’s been a bit insane at the moment. So where the bloody hell have I been for the last 10 days?

Let me start with saying that for the last 2 years we’ve been writing the new version of our software, which we'd code named "Alpaca". Why? Well, unlike Java, which codenames all it's latest versions cool sounding names like "Kestral", "Tiger", "Mustang" and other fast and interesting things, we decided that, not being anywhere near that cool, should start with the letter A, and name it the stupidest looking animal we could think of. Look at this thing:

Frankly, it's fucking pathetic.

So right this very minute, we’re now on the hairy edge of releasing Alpaca, and have got a code freeze in place for this Wednesday. So we’ve been frantically trying to bug fix for the last few months, which means I've not really been around to blog. Despite having done cool things like stay at the Hotel Li, for a fun weekend of re-aquainting myself with booze (yes, at the dinner table at a very lovely restaurant, whilst Li and C were chatting, I actually turned to the bottle of wine, looked at it sitting in it's silver wine bucked, chilling in icy water, stroked it lovingly over it's white napkin and whispered "oh Alcohol, you crazy thing. I've mised you too. You know I couldn't stay mad at you for too long"), getting my arse slightly kicked at the Sex and the City board game... (which turned from a proper game to a quiz show style affair, with C being the quiz master, and Li and I having to slam the table in lieu of a buzzer everytime we knew the answer. By this stage we'd had a few cosmos, so it was all loud, blustery, and painful for my poor hands), lots of shopping, and saving babies from death.

Tonight, C and I went to the Magic's house to play beautiful music. Well, to play some music. ELLSO starts again this Saturday, and obviously I've not picked up the cello for the last 3 months. I've been the cricket that sung for the summer and has nothing to show for it in the winter, or something random like that. So tonight we decided it would be a good idea to get together, having a drink, and a good bash at our instruments. Would have been lovely if, whilst trying to tune my cello, I hadn't thought "Oh i'll just turn the peg a bit", causing the peg to slip, the string to never get back in tune, and eventually, after much fucking about with the peg, for my A string to SNAP. So much for the practise. Instead C and I alternated between playing cello and playing the piano, and Mag held the treble end up by playing violin. It definitely was a nice way to end my day, since it had all been a bit shite up to that point.

So that's really all i've been up to. An even faster, cliff notes special:

Book I'm currently reading: "The Colditz Story" by P. R. Reid. I've been up to the bit where they attempt to escape at the end for 2 days now. You'd think I'd have finished it, but I keep falling asleep. It really is a great book, but it just makes me sleepy.

Game Currently Playing: Halo 2 on my xbox. "Arbiter, you don't know who you're shooting at cause all the grunts look the same? Arbiter, stop shooting at our ship. It's supposed to have a hull you know. Arbiter, stop fucking about in general"

Last historical thing I toured: The Royal Albert Hall, where we did a private tour, going backstage and underground, for free grâce à the London Open House festival this weekend. Ok this was a bit of a brag, rather than a cliff notes special

Thing I'm most looking forward to right now: Hmm.. sleep? Pie and Mash for lunch tomorrow? Sleep right now? Tricky..

Thing I'm least looking forward to right now: Hmmm... not being able to sleep?

If you have a cliff notes special on your life, then please by all means, post it and let me know, or just leave me a comment. I'm especially interested in the last 2 categories. Whilst I clearly dodged the answers, please leave me proper ones!

So that's it really. A fair bit on, but when our software is out the door, there will hopefully be more imputus and time to blog. Busy, busy, busy.

The mother of all parties

We had our 6th Annual Australia Day (now with added Witangi Day) BBQ party on Saturday night for possibly the last time ever. What with The Flatmate moving back to Oz, and me moving into my new apartment, both of us are leaving our current mother of all parties house for much more sensible, grown up, less teenage abodes. Our flat does seriously rock when it comes to throwing a damn fine knees up mother brown shindig, as we seem to be able to make as much noise as we like, make as much smoke as we like from numerous bbq's on the balconies, party on until 7am, play singstar and screech so loud you could hear it about 1/2 a mile away (apparently), and we still know no fear of our neighbours complaining or calling the cops. We think this mostly has to do with the fact that our neighbours aren't legally allowed to live in their "flat" because it's zoned to be an office, and not as a house, and since we hate them, we really don't care. (Childish? Oh yes, absolutely).

As it was a bbq, I prepared all the food on Friday night before going out, so we had tandoori lamb, pork tocino, big fat chorizo sausages and adobo chicken. I figured everyone else would bring all the standard fair of bangers and vege crap anyway. And as it was a celebration of all things antipodean, I made a pavlova (well, two in fact because I started to make it after I had a few drinks and then my friend C and I got the temperatures wrong, and baked it at 250C not 250F... we only noticed it's blackened charcoal like texture when the fire alarm went off... ooh masterchef, eat your heart out!). My friend from Oz C made some delicious Anzac biscuits, and a mate P made lamingtons. It's amazing when you immigrate to another country how it's the little things like snack foods and deserts, which you can get freely in your home country, but after years way, are the ones that make the biggest impact on you.. each bite of a lamington or an anzac brings back feelings of nostalgia for backyard swimming pools, scorching summers in December, cicadas, and friends and family... The humble pavlova is enough to make grown antipodean men weep (and grown antipodean women quake with fear of demolishing the whole cream laden thing and growing sideways...).


This years Aussie day bbq was definitely one of our most successful ones to date. Starting at 6pm, it ended with the last few scragglers leaving our house to a rising sun at 7am.. Loads of drinks, food, and of course the obligatory singstar all made their mark over the 13 hours of parting down.. If it seems that singstar is all we do at our shindigs, well... you'd be damn right. I now seem to own every single one of those damn kareoke playstation games, and they are so fucking addictive! There is nothing more fantastic than watching your friends try to battle it out and out sing each other on cheesy classics like "Gold" by Spandau Ballet, "Little Respect" by Erasure (DAMN YOU MAGIC! He beat me by only a tiny fraction.. i swear that man practices!), and my person favorite "Sweet Home Alabama" (yeehaw!). One of our directors from work came with his wife, and at 5 am, after we'd turned the playstation off, jumped up, mic in hand and said "COME ON GUYS! We have to crank it up! Let's start singing!!". You have to understand, we only started up again because he's the boss, and not because we're sados... Fuck it, I don't care, I'm not proud. I love singstar. What I love about is that it's the people who come over and think that it's going to be really sad and pathetic are always the ones that end up releasing their secret rock god, complete with Pete Townsend style windmilling, finishing songs with a rock and roll arm in the air, head held high, score way down low... it's so much fun!

My top 5 for this year's party is:

1. None of our furniture caught on fire (unlike one year, when ignited absinthe spilled out all over our coffee table!)
2. Everyone who threw up did it either outside or in the toilet (unlike last year.. very very messy... )
   
3. There are reports of people not recovering until 5pm Sunday night
   
4. I didn't pass out, wake up at 5 in my bed, still in my clothes, and think "oh, the party's over! And everyones gone home!"
5. Dr K, who is one of the worst singers alive, who still loves doing it anyway, decided to trash talk one of the girls from work, who was so excited about singstar.. As she warbled away, he yelled out "Come on! Try and sing at least one note!", to which she turned around, screamed "I'm trying my best!" and then threw the mic straight at his head... That really makes me giggle!
   

I'll post some pictures tomorrow, some of which are priceless... Least of which is one of our friends in the "sex hat" (a leather biggles hat someone brought to our place years ago, but which neither the Flatmate or myself can come around to touching to give it back to them, because it really, really, really does look like a gimp mask...), my "high maintenance mask" and pavlova all over his face...

Ah, what a fantastic way to celebrate Australia Day...

Painful Wii

All of us bought The Flatmate a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, which he loves. If you don't know, the Ninetndo Wii have take gaming to a completely different level, and instead of just having a hand held controller which you press buttons on, you play by holding a controller and doing proper movements. So you would play the bowling game as if you were actually bowling, baseball as if you were actually hitting a ball, you get my drift.

Annoyingly of course, because he plays it all the time, he is getting too good for me to even compete against. So tonight, all beered up, I feel for the first time in ages that I could actually beat him at tennis, a feat I've managed to get close to, but never of course actually doing. So watching him, all excited like a child on Christmas, waiting for him to beat who ever he is playing, I stand there, anticipating the joy of victory that only booze can self delude someone into thinking they can achieve. And then he completely smashes my elbow and arm with his hand and Wii remote whilst he's trying to do an ace, leaving me to hobble down the stairs, cluthing my painful arm.

Stupid Flatmate, stupid Wii. Grr.. I hope he goes home soon.