Monthly Archives: November 2007

Kitty Strikes Again

Hardware, Humour, Life

Princess has found a new play friend, the friendly gecko. In the last four months, our happy go lucky ragdoll has chanced upon more than one gecko and each time it has been an exciting adventure. Of course, Princess is horrified that the tiny gecko won’t come down from the roof or low enough on the walls for them to play together. In an attempt to will the gecko down, she feels that meowing at it will help; strangely enough – it hasn’t seemed to just yet.

With all of the excitement of chasing a gecko around, the kitty generally seems to forget about all normal cautionary things and is in strict play mode. During play mode, Princess will go after virtually anything, at all virtually any cost – even if it means that it’d put herself in harms way. In her latest adventures with the gecko, while barreling around the house – she has managed to hammer yet another piece of computer equipment; this time it was my ADSL modem. After thumping into my poor unsuspecting modem, she managed to hit the power supply hard enough to knock it out of the wall – no more internet for me!

Who wouldn’t like a cute fluffy kitty for a pet?

Australian Idol 2007 Winner, Natalie Gauci

TV
Check out my early predictions for 2008 Australian Idol.

The 2007 Australian Idol contest is over for another year and Natalie Gauci has beaten Matt Corby for the Australian Idol title for 2007.

I’m pleased that Natalie Gauci and Matt Corby made it through to the final. While neither of them have had a completely smooth ride through the competition, they persevered and took on the criticism of the judges where they could to improve their performances. More than that though, they continued to improve each week – which is a key to remaining in the competition as can be seen by Carl Riseley.

Matt Corby is an incredibly gifted young man, however I don’t think he is ready to take on what would be thrust upon him just yet. While I fully expect that he’ll get a recording contact with someone, whatever time lapses between now and then will be time well spent. Contrast that against Natalie Gauci and she has taken pretty much constant criticism and has risen above it at every step of the way. It takes a certain amount of maturity to be able to wear that level of criticism week in and week out and not let it effect you.

From what we’ve been told and seen so far, Natalie Gauci is a talented song writer. I hope that with her new found success via Australian Idol that she’ll be putting that onto the Australian airwaves sooner rather than later.

Kevin Rudd & The Australian Labor Party Victorious

Life, News

After quite a long pre-election lead up, the 2007 Australian Federal Election was held today throughout Australia.

In previous federal elections, my vote has been in favour of the in power Liberal Party, however 2007 is a time for change in my eyes. For the first time in my voting history, I have cast a number 1 vote in favour of the Labor Party and am backing Kevin Rudd to lead the country forward.

For the last eleven and a half years, the Liberal Party have been in the drivers seat, which has by and large done great things for the country. While the coalition has had it’s successes over the last decade, it’s also had its share of failures. I believe that the Australian Liberal Party have been in power for as long as they have, not necessarily because they had better policy all the time – but that they haven’t had any real opposition.

In 2007, the Australian public have had an alternative to the coalition – it came in the form of Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party. It has probably come as a surprise to many of the Liberal Party constituents that as soon as the valid alternative was provided, that the Australian people have swung so strongly in favour of it.

As I mentioned earlier, I was among the people who have swung their vote to the Labor Party. If you’re wondering why, for me is has become quite simple; I don’t think any political party should be empowered for as long as the Australian Liberal Party have been. If you’ve stayed with your historic voting pattern or swung your vote in either direction, what was your motivation for the Australian Federal Election of 2007?

Squash Strategies

Sport

After playing some great squash last Tuesday, last night I hoped that I could continue the form from last week.

Not thinking about it, I had expected that I would probably be playing one of the older guys in the Robina Squash Club. As a by product of the teams being re-balanced again for this season, I was happily surprised to find I was playing a new guy! One of the single best things about playing fixtures is that you get to play a lot of different people, who typically have different hitting styles and on court tactics.

My opponent tonight was a young Scottish doctor, who looks as though he is in excellent health and fitness. With that in mind, I set out to make sure he was moving a lot on the court to try and take a little of the energy out of his legs; nothing worst than a squash opponent who has superb court coverage and excellent stamina!

We had a great battle over the four games, trading serves early on the the first game and later running each other ragged on the court. After the four games were done, we were two a piece on the games but I came out ahead on points. Now that I’ve played our young Scottish friend once, I’m really looking forward to clashing with him next time – I intend to go in with a different strategy.

A couple quick observations about my game last night:

  • My opponent was able to play a pretty solid drop shot off my serve when it didn’t force him right into the back corner. Next time I encounter him, I’ll be making a point of keeping the ball very deep on the serve; not necessarily hard – just deep.
  • We were running around so much on the court, I could feel myself tiring by the end of the second game, which soon translated into looser shots being played. Next time, I’ll be making a conscious effort to take the time with the ball, even when tired to try and keep it tighter against the wall.
  • While I ended up winning on points last night, I don’t think I varied my shot enough – which is largely due the the previous point I made. Keeping your hitting style fluid on the court really gives you an advantage, as your opponent has less opportunity to predict or preemptively move for the ball.
  • Last night I was hitting the ball too early, not to the point where I was mishitting the ball but that it wasn’t giving me an opportunity to hold the ball. The symptom of hitting the ball early or on time is that unless your opponent attempts to predict your shot, you remove the ability to hit the ball where your opponent isn’t, simply because they haven’t been forced to move for the ball yet.

In any case, it was a great hit last night and I really enjoyed playing someone with a different hitting style on the court. Looking through the teams for this season, I believe I have at least one other new player to come up against yet – it’s going to be fun!

If you’d like to join the club and enjoy a regular weeknight hit, get in contact:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229

Fabulous Steak

Food

Last night Claire and I ventured up to Brisbane to see her family and have an early dinner. Initially we were going to dine at a cafe however someone had the brilliant idea of heading to Hogs Breath at Indooroopilly.

With a tiny bit of discussion, I convinced all concerned parties that ordering well done steak at Hogs Breath is all but a cardinal sin and we put through a couple of orders for medium well. Everyone was very impressed with their steaks, no complaints at all. Claire and I haven’t had Hogs Breath for months, so it was a real treat to eat out there again and as usual, the medium rare steak was magnificent.

For dessert, I went with the sticky date pudding but we also ordered a new rocky road inspired dish. It was more expensive than all the other desserts on offer but it didn’t click to anyone at the time until it arrived and it could have literally satisfied three or four very hungry dessert eaters! It was in an oversized red wine or cherry shaped glass, none of us on the table could believe how big it was.

It was good to get out after a very long week at work, I hope it isn’t soo long between steaks again!