You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Bad Music, Pavlova, Robocop

I've found that my taste in music worsens considerably when the lyrics are in a foreign language. I'll voluntarily listen Chinese pop music that would probably have me microwaving the CD if it were the an American boy band. Admittedly, this may be because they're just alien enough to be interesting -- putting random orchestral stabs into what appears to be an otherwise ordinary love ballad (as far as I can tell), for example. Anyway, it's just what the doctor ordered in terms of something perky to block out the noises of the office, but not really engaging enough to distract my attention from work.

I think it may show that I find willfully stupid words to be much, much more irritating that willfully stupid music. Or maybe that willfully stupid music is a lot harder to do. ;)

***

Despite being at work for six hours yesterday, I seemed to have managed to cram an awful lot in. I went up to visit the Ataturk Memorial, which I'd never been to before -- for those not familiar with it, it's named after the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and commemorates the Anzacs sacrifice at Gallipoli. It's up on a remote bluff around from Lyall Bay, and has a sweeping view out to sea; it certainly put me into a contemplative mood.

There were another couple of firsts yesterday -- it was the first time I used my icecream-maker, for example. The result was quite delicious; I just used the basic vanilla recipe, but added some spices. Oh, and a dash of butterscotch mead liqueur.

Because the icecream recipe called for four egg yolks, I ended up with a bunch of egg whites. This lead me to my other first -- I decided to embark on that NZ cook rite of passage, and tried my hand at making a pavlova.

(For our overseas readers -- a pavlova is dessert that, if made well, has a outer texture similar to meringue, and an inner texture similar to marshmallow cream. It's normally served topped with cream and sliced fruit, and is a traditional source of contention between NZ and Australia, with the Aussies maintaining, in the face of conclusive documentary evidence, the delusion that they invented it. Because it's basically egg whites and castor sugar (with a little water, vinegar and vanilla) whipped up until the mix peaks, and then baked on a low heat, it can all go horribly wrong.

My first ever pav went quite well, all things considered. I had four whites, instead of the three that the recipe required; I had intended to increase the proportions of the other ingredients to compensate, but because I was making icecream at the time, as well as converting the remains of a roast chicken dinner into a delicious stew, I pretty much forgot. This gave the pav a slightly more eggy taste than normal, but it was still pretty darn tasty.

The other problem I had was entirely self-inflicted -- I decided to hand-beat the eggs with a whisk. For the record: this is not a great idea. :) I have an electric hand blender, but no electric beater except my food processor, and I didn't think it would be worth getting that dirty. I was wrong. Getting egg whites stiff to stand in stiff peaks with a whisk takes a lot longer than you might think.

And I got a load of washing done, too! Yes, yesterday was certainly productive. :)

Today has been fairly productive, but only in an uninteresting work sort of way.

***

The amount of annoyance and sense of personal tragedy that you feel when your relatively new headphones stop working on the right is more than equaled by the sense of relief you feel when you realize that you haven't pushed the headphone plug all the way in.

Not that I did that this morning, or anything. :)

***

I feel I should give some interesting insight into something outside of myself, but the only interesting tidbit I've found is that they're remaking Robocop. (And the original director is apparently having nothing to do with it.) Other stuff, like the guy who's run the six Star Wars movies simultaneously to look for parallels, or Sony Music having copy protection that provides a root kit for hackers (which is already being exploited) are things I figure you'll have already seen. :)

Posted by svend at November 14, 2005 7:03 PM