Fat Vegan

Grapes of Mirth

Ryan — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:07:29 +0000

I spent Thursday and Friday picking grapes in the blissful son. Thursday was green grape day and Friday was red grape day. We got paid $20 to wander down beautiful rows of grape vines and dropped luscious clusters of grapes into buckets. I did manage to make a sizeable into my thumb with the snippers but apart from that it was two days of unrelenting fun time.

The Change

Ryan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:45:27 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Some people are too scared to do be themselves.

Netbook & Foil

Ryan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:15:05 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Popped down to Coles to pickup some basics.

Food Bus

Ryan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:08:39 +0000

I've just been thinking about the idea of a food bus. It would be a normal bus in every way except that instead of being full of people it would be full of cheap organic foods that people can browse through and buy. And instead of using usual bus stops it would use parking lots and malls and just nice shady spots by the side of the road. And instead of stopping for one minute at stops it would stop for one hour. And instead of driving with diesel it would drive with vegetable oil.

It wouldn't probably make money. It would have some nice seats for people to sit and chat on. If you spent a day on the bus helping then you would cheaper food. If you gave vegetable oil then you get cheaper food too.

I like food. And communtity. And also buses. So I think it would make me happy.

Efficiency

Ryan — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:56:35 +0000

I don't even believe in the modern business-like notion of "efficiency". It dovetails with totalitarianism, facism. People say, "If it's decentralized it will be inefficient." I think that's fine. Let it be inefficient.

Arundhati Roy

How good is the library!

Ryan — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:06:38 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

I joined Hobart library. Now I can borrow free good books. I don't
even live in Hobart. Libraries are pretty much the best communist idea
since trying to be nice to each other.

Deception Ranges

Ryan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:06:01 +0000

Goodbye then all you fellows. I'm just popping off for a couple of weeks down the South-West. It will be a lovely stroll I think up and down some dear mountains. Perhaps I will post a map and some photos when I get back.

The Road

Ryan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:52:02 +0000

I went to see The Road by myself at The State Cinema in Hobart tonight. I was quite excellent. As I walked out one funny fellow gushed merrily to his friend that "it was every bit as bleak as the book." I haven't read the book, but I have heard stories. I think I will read it. I love Cormack McCarthy and John Hillcoat both.

It was also horrible. But so real. It's the first post-apocalyptic movie I've seen that is kind of real. And it's a fascinating thing to watch and think about. I also get a funny feeling that the author is making some pointed statements about the way we take the world around us for granted. It's not quite a global warming apocalypse horror story but it isn't that far off. The film is basically about what would happen to humanity if all the plants and animals suddenly died. I heartily agree with the films assessment that it would be fully like totally shit for everybody.

I do wish we were nicer to this poor little planet. I like it.

Server Downtimes

Ryan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:56:24 +0000

Sad times for the server. As always, whenever I get out of SSH range the smurf.footboot.net server decides to crash itself. This time it did it for about two solid weeks. 70% uptime for the last month. Oh dear. I haven't figured out why it was so unhappy. Perhaps it just missed me and was looking for attention. I feel like our relationship is a little up and down. Sometimes I do wonder if we'd both be happier without each other. But I doubt we'll separate. We've been two long together now I think.

I'll do a bit of an apt-get upgrade. Might make things better. Could make things worse. We will see. I'm going away for another two weeks on Friday. Poor old smurf.

PPPP

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:02:34 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Public-private Pole Partnerships. Apparently the management fees for
this single pole partnership deal were in the millions.

Baby Bird

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:00:45 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

I found him on the sidewalk. I can't figure out how he got there.

Notice to Tourists

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:31:17 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Nice Accidental Whoosh

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:30:53 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Cider & Ramen

Ryan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:21:32 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Cider and ramen at the great pub really make quite happy. There is
even a moist towel. So good.

Instant Feast!

Ryan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:32:21 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

Writing an Adjournment Letter

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:45:40 +0000

I had to write an adjournment letter to Newcastle Local Court today. It took a bit of research to work out what I was meant to do, so I thought I'd post the resources I used.

How to Adjourn a Trial Date
Locations of Local Courts (NSW)
SA Government Legal FAQs
Information about CNI numbers
Writing a Letter to a Magistrate - although as it turns out I'm writing a letter to the Court registrar not the magistrate

I won't bother attaching the letter, because it's pretty lame.

Couscoussier

Ryan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:51:24 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

What a brilliant idea.

Slow Rails Tests & fixtures :all

Ryan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:00:05 +0000

With my latest Rails project I'm using a new version of Rails than I'd been used (my last job was over a year ago). It seemed to me that the tests had got substantially slower. Problem was fixtures :all in the test_helper.rb. I changed that and things got much quicker.

DEPRECATION WARNING: ActiveRecord::Errors.default_error_messages & attachment_fu

Ryan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:17:33 +0000

The latest version of attachment_fu will give you this error. You need to replace a line in this file:

vendor/plugins/attachment_fu/lib/technoweenie/attachment_fu.rb:386

+ errors.add attr_name, I18n.translate('activerecord.errors.messages.inclusion') unless enum.nil? || enum.include?(send(attr_name))    
- errors.add attr_name, ActiveRecord::Errors.default_error_messages[:inclusion] unless enum.nil? || enum.include?(send(attr_name))

War & Production

Ryan — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:38:55 +0000

These are some numbers from Afghanistan.

US military expenditure for the war against (estimated): US $66 billion
GDP (Purchasing Power Parity): US $22.27 billion

So about three quarters of all money spent in that country is used for smashing and killing stuff. One quarter is used for everything else.

Extremely Mild Brutality

Ryan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:37:58 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

I was mildly brutalised by the police and all I got was this lame
bruise. I was dragged away from the entrance of federal parliament
yesterday. The police were surprisingly gentle.

Three Barreled Utopias

Ryan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:55:53 +0000

I get grumpy at all the three barreled strategies for utopia floating about nowadays. Usually you will a full stop between each word for extra effect. My least favourite so far is Think. Change. Do. for which we have the manicured self-satisfaction of UTS to thank. Now Friends of the Earth International, who I quite like, has mobilize, resist, transform. The words and ideas on their own are great and good. Chain them together with punctuation like that and you reduce the messy, uncertain process of social change to some gimmicky inevitability. Yuck.

Smug. Media graduate. Fuckers.

Peru Farewell

Ryan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:29:35 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

This photo has been on my mum's fridge for a while. It's the only copy so I thought I should scan it before it gets too old.

My last day at the school was pretty sad. I still miss those kids a lot.

Biggest and Truest

Ryan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:38:55 +0000

The cover article on one of the Sunday paper magazines today was Final Justice: Inside one of Australia's biggest true murder cases. It sort of implies there might be a bunch of bigger murder cases out there, but mostly fictional ones. I don't know what their criteria for "big" is, but I would have thought that when it came to murder cases being true kind of trumps being fictional in the bigness stakes. For things like marriage, it might be different and maybe they think of a big TV murder the way they think of a big TV marriage. You never know what is going on the heads of the Sunday paper editors.

Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon

Ryan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:09:56 +0000

We watched Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon for Halloween last night, because it had nothing to do with Halloween. And also because it's Hong Kong kungfu comedy which is the best genre of film there is. It was pretty awesome. Great fighting and actually hilarious. Massively sexist and inappropriate - a lot of jokes were about police sexually harassing women. Somehow the bits in between were still really good. Yet another one of the Hong Kong films that makes you wonder how Hollywood can never get it together. My only theory so far relates to OH&S laws.

More Holidays

Ryan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:45:51 +0000

Well, seven days after coming back from leave I'm off again. I couldn't really cope. This time it's for three weeks and I don't know what is going to happen at the end. I'm perhaps looking for a job that needs a web developing disabilities support worker with an economics degree.

Over Cleaning

Ryan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:01:36 +0000

Posted by Nutloaf

When enough cleaning really isn't...

Already in the freezer

Ryan — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Me: What did the two of you do this afternoon?
Them: He shouted me a chocolate cornetto in his cubby house. Which I ate. Then he shouted me a caramel chip cornetto and I ate that too. Then he shouted me a baked raspberry cheesecake. I ate them all, one after the other. When I finished one, I ate the next one.
Me: Goodness me. What a feast! How does he afford all this? Where does he get his money?
Them: [thinking] ...it's no problem. He has the money. The money is no problem for him.
Me: Did he inherit money from his parents?
Them: [doubtful] Yes... no... the cornetto is in the freezer. It's already in the freezer see. No problem. We don't need any money.

How to take the wheels off an Otto/wheelie bin

Ryan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:44:23 +0000

One or both of the wheels will have a spoke that looks different to the others. It will be a tube built into the spoke and the tube contains a lug with a spring to keep it in place. The lug holds the wheel onto the axle. You can create a hole in the plastic cylinder so you can manually slide the lug away from the axle. The hole needs to be a reasonable size to be able to move the lug far enough but you don't want to destroy the cylinder. Depending on the state of the mechanism you may just be able to put the wheel back by hitting the centre with a hammer. But the spring mechanism will probably need to be in tact for the lug to stay in place.

Keep your shirt on

Ryan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:27:45 +0000

Them: Ryan, when can we go get a new teapot?
Me: Right now?
Them: [shouting and waving arms in the air] YAY! HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY!
Me: Wooooo! Yes! New teapot!
Them: OK OK. Keep your shirt on.