The one where I pretend to be a Chef

I like food.

A lot.

I like a lot of food.

I like to try new things when I eat out, having the belief that there wouldn't be anything on a menu that would kill you. There might be a bit that is repulsive, but nothing that should kill you.

Yesterday I added to the collection of gadgets and things with a Paella pan from the nice people at the Paella pan place in Mt.Eden.

I didn't opt for the Stainless Steel one, the one with the red handles on the advice of the Paella man.

He told me, and I have no reason to doubt him, or I am an easy sell, that there are a couple of things with the steel pans that I need to know.

1) They don't cook evenly, being steel they don't have an even heat, and the edges can be cooler than the center.

2) They are higher maintenance, being steel they can show rust, and need to be kept dry and oiled when not in use.

[caption id="attachment_3238" align="alignleft" width="147"] A enamelled Paella Pan[/caption]

So I went for the Enamelled version, which he assures me has a more even heat and although is less aesthetically pleasing was the superior pan, in his opinion. I picked up some rice, and some instant paella mix that he also recommended and I toddled off. All that I need now is the stock, the seafood and an hour to prepare and eat.And after cooking it will end up in the gadget cupboard.

The Gadget cupboard that contains, amongst other things,

• Ice-Cream Maker


• Tortilla Press


• Pasta Machine


• Bread Tins


• mandolin


• Mortal and Pestle


• Pizza Stones

There is still  room however for

• A Tagine


• Deep Fat Fryer

Oh and if you're wondering the slow-cooker lives in another cupboard, but not all by itself, it's with the sandwich press.

Like a blog, photo's are a bit personal too

I'm not so good at pictures, but I'm not that good at writing either so why should that be stopping me right :-).

I often look at pictures and think they're brave or daring, and for that reason, and because I have an almost compulsive fascination  with straight lines and order, most of my pictures are people free. I have a lot of pictures, some of which I like, some I keep because not keeping them doesn't seem to be an option, and a few, very few are worth sharing.

But on reflection, these are some pictures from yesterday that  I decided I like enough and well this is all about me isn't it, so here goes.

Oh yeah I cropped, colored, straightened, and did some terrible things with the original pictures not like a boss but like a ham-fisted oaf, but I got what I wanted.

[gallery link="file" order="DESC" orderby="rand"]

Golf – Accepting professional mediocrity in a hobby/sport

I had the occasion to be at the Australian PGA Open in Coolum, Australia on the weekend of the 26^th November. The Final days play, the top 72 golfers in pairs for the prize money.

It was rubbish.

What is it with amateur golfer spectator? They are all accepting of mediocrity and average ability.

Hit a ball into the trees, and they nod sagely, with a sigh, then the golf hacker hits the ball out of the trees on the course again and they nod sagely, clap politely and call “good shot”. It’s nonsense. It was a rubbish shot.

Of course there is skill in hitting a golf ball, the draw, the fade, the back spin, and there is a definite knack to putting. But seriously hitting a ball a hundred yards to a green and finishing 20-30 yards from the hole isn’t a good shot. It just isn’t.

Of course some holes are challenging, but hey you’re a professional. I don’t expect you to lay up and two putt, that’s what a weekend hacker would do.

Golf is a sport that has strict requirements regarding equipment. As a result, expanding the market generates great demand for the necessary gear. It’s a bizarre sport wherein the price of your kit defines you among your peers.

And the money!  For the tournament that I was at the Total Prize Money was : AUD $1.5 million, the First Prize was AUD $270,000. Every one of the top 72 players gets a prize. It’s like a social club meat raffle! I notice that for the tournament I was at the only direct golfing related company that was a sponsor was Srixon, some of the others were Coca-cola, the local government, Emirates (who seem to sponsor everything everywhere), the hotel where the course was at, the TV channel and VW Automobiles.

There is a end of year tournament referred to as the “race to Dubai”.  “The Race to Dubai on The 2011 European Tour International Schedule will feature 52 tournaments in 29 different destinations. The third edition of the Dubai World Championship in 2011 will again carry a prize fund of $7,500,000  to be divided between the leading 15 players at the conclusion of the season.

Essence of this is: play at the tournaments with higher prize money and climb the earnings list. It’s not like every tournament is equal, some have much more prize money and attract different players, some are quite poor.

Anyway the leader list on the “race to Dubai” is brought up at the rear by Jack Doherty who’s tour earnings from 4 tournaments amount to Euros 891. 115^th place is Markus Brier 25 tournaments with Euro 258,513. Leading with 12 tournaments and Euro 3.8 millions is Luke Donald

There are players with 34 tournaments played for less than Euro 100K winnings, that’s not a living that’s surely is a hobby

Like I said a bit of nonsense.

Trying Teen Times - the grown up one- Part the Second

My son has had an epiphany, his moment of realisation, that bit as a teenager when you have a stream of consciousness, the outpouring of everything that you think you've done wrong, in life, in love, with friends, decisions, money, everything.

It's been a while coming.

To recap, #1 Son left school with some A levels, but decided that work was a better option than further study, he's been a poor student, in the sense of application, he's bright as anyone I know, but comes  with low self esteem, and was often bullied. He managed a year of work hard work 5am to 2pm, and then decided to go to University. We worked hard with him to get him to choose a course that was the right one, and he made his choices, signed up all the forms and went on his merry way. A few months in he had angst about if it was the right thing, and recently decided that it really wasn't him and he's dropping out.

So follows  is his long missive about how he feels, and it makes me sad, and I feel helpless about how to help.  I can give him money, which will ease some burden and I can tell him that he's in a place that everyone has been in - give or take, same or different - at one point or another. I can't pay his debt for him, well I can but that wouldn't solve anything. So I have a Son without a job and with dreams, and no plan.

 

I think I've found my problem. I currently have a combination of a few things wrong up there in the head.

I have so many things I want to do. I want to learn how to use 3DS Max competently for Modelling and Animation. I want to learn how to design levels with the Source SDK and the UDK. I want to finish my Warhammer models my Dad got me, simply so I can say they are done. I want to pull out the dremel tool and make a necklace for my Godmother because I know she likes handmade things for Christmas presents and I haven't given her one for a few years now. I have a sketched out design for a laptop stand to have on my knees so I can actually use the comfy chair without burning my knees off.

I just cant decide what to do first because I'll miss out on the opportunity to do the other thing, so I retreat into videogames and the SA forums. Simply so I can put them down and  forget about them for the rest of the day because the Tribes: Ascend thread has 30 more posts and the PYF Macros thread has 3 days worth of content that I'll find momentarily distracting. At this point my laptop is and appears to be a lifeline keeping me from actually realising fully, the impact that I've had on myself through taking a break from Uni, working for a year and being a steadily shittier worker as I became more and more dissilusioned with 5am starts and not knowing when I was going home, signing up for 3pm WoW raids that I'd just get home in time for if I left within the hour of my contracted time didnt help there. More than once I was called out at work for rushing through my last duties and getting grumpy that it wasn't finishing. I have a sneaking suspicion that those actions have fucked up all hopes for using that year as a reference for future work. It really doesnt help that in the last two years I've put hours that number in the thousands into Video Games, merely because that was what let me not care. I want to stop but I keep justifying it as my entertainment, when in reality its just an escape.

I've also figured out that I have a very hard time actually putting what I want to do in words. For example I just tried to make a list of what I want to do in the next year... and I was stumped, even though there is so many things I want to do. I can bullshit my way through a Semester 1 Geography paper. I got 79% on a Essay test I didnt even know was happening, just by turning up and writing. Not even a shred of study because I was sick the day it was announced. And yet I'm so undecided on what I actually want to do I cant make a full list of everything.

Me going to university hasn't helped much in terms of where I am in life.. I'm now more than 10,000 dollars in debt and nothing to show for it except my word that I've gone to university. This has the knock on effect of not having a job when I desperately need one so that I can afford things like Credit for my phone, Fuel for my car and being able to enjoy a night out with my friends. Things that I became accustomed too as I was pulling in 500 dollars a week after tax. Money which I've squandered on being a greedy, selfish person. The entire 8000 dollars that I had from that job is gone merely because I just couldnt control my spending. I feel incredibly rude, almost evil when Sam offers to give me petrol and insists she pays for meals, even though she knows I cant afford if after buying 30 dollars in Petrol and 25 dollars in Bus tickets  merely to get to uni, on top of me buying bottles of cokes simply because I was and still am addicted to the caffiene that I get from it.  Add to this the breakfast I'd buy more than occasionally at uni because I couldnt eat when I woke up, so I'd go to uni and get hungry when i got there, meaning I'd buy food instead of my family noticing that I'd be taking more with me.

The problem with all that is that I've gained far too much weight. In fact I'm at the point where I'm too scared to weigh myself. Knowing how heavy I am this point just wouldnt do me any good. Sam keeps assuring me its okay but I really am not happy with how I look and feel about myself, how my clothes have gotten tighter throughout the year, and how shirts that once fit me are now too tiny to put on. I'm disgusted when I see myself in the mirror these days. If I keep on eating the way I do I'll keel over before I'm 50. I'm pretty damn sure of it. Problem is, I don't know how to stop. I keep telling myself, as my so used its almost broken eftpos card goes through the machine "Next week Cameron".

That's not to say that university is a bad thing. I've made more friends in the 2/3'ds of the year that I was there than all the bullying filled, incredibly low self esteem years that marked my Schooling, Where I retreated into the Libraries, and ending up making better friends with the librarians than most of my classmates that I knew in more than pasing. It's a good feeling, to be able to have a conversation with people your age that doesn't eventually dissolve in me wanting to quit school and fuck off into the wilderness. That feeling was quite rare in High School. It's much better now.

My other current problem is trying to learn something myself through the internet.
On my PC before I reformatted it there was. (Some pirated, some student versions. Not as if I was gonna drop thousands of dollars to learn something.)
-Photoshop
-Vegas 10
-3DS max
-Maya
-Mudbox
-Audacity
-FL Studio
-GIMP
-PLDX Movie Tool.
And I hardly knew how to use any of them because I gave up when someone wasn't there to hold my hand. I know that I describe myself to employers as a "Quick Learner" But looking at this it seems like its mostly bullshit.

My curent goal is to learn 3DS Max and get a job at Weta Workshop. However for all I know I'm going to decide that I want to be a fucking Marketing Expert or a Creative designer. I know my mind craves work that lets me think and express myself. It just doesn't have the attention span to decide what it fucking wants to do and stick to it. This is going to take some more thinking. If I had spare money for Petrol I'd just drive somewhere and try and write about it. But then again, no spare money.           

Funding and Self-Sustaining organizations - the 2011 Edition

I've already written on this:

http://pdubyah.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/funding-and-self-sustaining-organizations/

 

From the NZ Herald today : Fashion Week's opening night was swimming along in champagne until managing director Pieter Stewart burst the bubble with a stark warning that the event could not continue without more support.

Minutes after Auckland Mayor Len Brown and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully lauded its contribution to branding Auckland and New Zealand as a creative country, Stewart stepped up to the podium to say that a 12th year showcasing the industry could not be guaranteed.

Sponsorship had been tough this year, she said.

"Rugby World Cup has taken a huge amount out of the economy."

More sponsors were needed and local and central government also needed to look at backing the event.

ITs a commercial event, you are charging a door price to enter. So I say again, as I have about Early Child Education centers, Sports events, Music Concerts, Plays, Opera, Ballet it's a user pays thing. If you have something worth seeing then the people will come. The Rugby Sevens, The Big Day Out, U2, none of them made a loss.

If you have a business idea that is sound then it should also be profitable or break-even if you're feeling altruistic.

Are we to pour a bottomless cup of money into "nice to have" events to assuage the ego of some minor person in a minor industry to make them feel good. New Zealand Fashion Week - what for? who for? why? You're not even going to begin to tell me that it's important because world buyers are totally won over and will hand over cash at such events. If the fashion industry felt it was that important, or they were that good, they would fund it themselves.

Sport, Opinion or Hobby?

We make a big deal about sporting prowess, and nations place great store in sporting achievement. There are many global tournaments, including and not limited to the football world cup, the summer and winter olympics, cricket, tennis, golf, yachting, rowing the list is pretty endless.

So what is sport, and why is it sport and not hobby?

As a work in progress over a long period of time then it should be possible to define what is a sport and therefore what is a hobby.

What is the fundamental premiss behind my sport or hobby theory.

I'm down to this - A sport is a competition between individuals or teams to achieve a result or outcome. A competition that relies on a 3rd party to score the ability, progress or ability of a competitor or competitors is an opinion, not a sport, and a hobby is where you strive to improve against your own previous achievements,

There are games of skill that I don't really know how to categorise, I'm reminded that in English pubs games of chance weren't allowed, however games of skill were, including bar billiards, shove ha'penny, draughts/checkers, skittles etc

I should work on a Venn diagram since there are some that could be called sport and yet are a hobby. or a sport and opinion. I'll put that on my projects list.

Sports

Football, Tennis, Athletics, Cycling, Rowing, Bowls, Yacht racing, Downhill Skiing/Slalom, Boxing, Ice hockey, Field hockey, Netball, Cricket, Motorsports, Golf, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Squash, Badminton, Chess, Snooker, Pool, Ten pin bowling, Beach Volley Ball.

Opinions

Gymnastics, Dressage, Swimming Pool Diving, Tricks based snowboards/skiing events, Boxing, Dancing, Rhythmic Gymnastics

Hobby

Scuba diving, Fishing, Golf, Shooting, Hunting, Ten pin bowling

It's a work in progress, not definitive or authoritative, or particularly well researched, but it is something that I mull over in the quiet moments when I'm surfing the couch looking for a sport to watch.

Getting a Hobby

Who hasn't heard their partner telling them "you need to get a hobby".

All the things I think I'd like to do seem to be on the expensive side, and to be honest I don't have the patience to spend 4 hours playing golf.

Mini-me is branching out though , he popped off to one of those weirdo toy shoppes you see in malls and came home with a bag of bits to paint war hammer thingies.

All very well but heck they know how to make margin if a pack of 4 is $71! and they are as big as your thumb. He has given up on WoW though, so small mercies are where you find them.

Getting a Hobby

Who hasn't heard their partner telling them "you need to get a hobby".

All the things I think I'd like to do seem to be on the expensive side, and to be honest I don't have the patience to spend 4 hours playing golf.

Mini-me is branching out though , he popped off to one of those weirdo toy shoppes you see in malls and came home with a bag of bits to paint war hammer thingies.

All very well but heck they know how to make margin if a pack of 4 is $71! and they are as big as your thumb. He has given up on WoW though, so small mercies are where you find them.