thecages

yup, it's my b/day - my 29th.
I'm not afraid of 30.

Anita also gave me this really cute card.

yack - lots of chaos at wurk at the mo.

We have a few very productive chili plants in out veg. garden laden with not-too-deadly red chillies.
Having successfuly made a batch of grape jam (from our vine) a few weeks ago I think I should now turn my attention to Chili Jam.

Two possible recipies:

• 1 TBS chopped Serrano chilis
• 1 Cup diced Anaheim Chilis
• 1 medium Green bell pepper, diced
• 1 1/4 Cup Red Wine Vinegar
• 5 Cups Sugar
• 6 OZ liquid Pectin or 1 pk powdered pectin (1 3/4 oz)

Combine chilis and peppers with vinegar in food processor. Process 3 minutes, until pureed. Put into sauce pan with sugar, bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat, skim foam from top and discard.
Return to heat and bring to hard boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Revove from heat, stir constantly for 5 minutes. Pour into 8 oz jars, leaving 1/4 inch space at top and seal.

or

• 6 Green Chiles (Hotness to your preference)
• 6 cups Sugar
• 1 1/2 cup Cider Vinegar
• Cheesecloth
• 6 ounces liquid pectin
• 6 drops green food coloring

Wash and mince chiles. Combine Chiles, sugar and vinegar in a large saucepan or kettle and boil mixture at high heat for 5 minutes. Pour boiled mixture through cheesecloth to remove seeds. Return mixture to saucepan or kettle.
Add Pectin and food coloring to mixture and boil for 1 minute. Skim off any foam that may have formed.
Pour mixture into hot, sterilized half pint canning jars. Seal according to manufacturer's directions.
Process jars in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes. Test seal when cooled.
This recipe for Jalea de Chile Verde (Green Chile Jelly) serves/makes 6 half-pints.

More than likely I'll just use these as a rough indication of ingredients...

I ran my first half marathon in 10 years yesterday.
The peninsula marathon (of which I did only half) is billed as The Fastest Marathon in Africa - for good reason.
The course is very flat an meanders from Bergvliet down to Simon's Town along main road through Muizenberg, Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek.
There are no significant hills (just a few minor bumps).

I ran with a woman (late 20's) who clearly ran seriously (checking splits on each kilometer).
We went through 10KM in 44:something and at that stage I felt really good (no surprise given the gentle course).
This state of bliss lasted up until 16KM where my legs started giving out (lactic acid and general fatigue).
By 19KM I was in pain. ouch. fuck.

In the end I finished in a time of 1:35:something which is fast.
I'm very satisfied with the time but know that if there had been one or two serious climbs (especially towards the end) I would have been in trouble.

I need to focus more on muscle endurance (longer, slower runs) and less on cardio-vascular.

We saw Walk the Line last weekend and I really liked it. The music was cool and he comes across as a real ugly rebellious dude - the kind of person you'd like to go out drinking with.
I especially liked the scene where they blow the shit out of the tree (with the parked cars in the background[1]).

One thing that I did feel about the movie though is that it's marketing positioned it very much as The Johnny Cash Story and underplayed the part that June plays in the whole thing.
Both Anita and I experienced it much more as The Johhny and June Story.

I especially think that this was reinforced by the poster that was on display at our cinema.
Today I saw a much more appropriate (in my opinion) version at another cinema.





The latter also carries a great tagline which I think sums it up: Love is a burning thing.
yeah.

[1] memories of Friday afternoon's at Abraham's Rust outside Sasolburg where blue-collar types would sit on the bonnets of their 3-litre cars drinking brandy out of polystyrene cups.

I didn't really bother with Google Earth the first time it came around and only saw our house on it today when a friend sent out our coordinates[1] after I typed up horribly convoluted driving directions (from a variety of approaches) for a braai.

I've marked the house and the orange tree in the back yard - how quaint :)


[1] 33deg 56' 52,22" S 18deg 28' 58,61" E

Recently ideas for a future tattoo design have started collecting in my head like dusty autumn leaves. It would be cool to have a rendering of Hokusai or Miro or Pierneef.

Clearly it's wildly improbable that it would come out right and I hesitant of anything that might later turn out to be simply an enfatuation or a statement of sorts.

These are beautiful.

fckn notebook died as follows:
:: boot up - everything's fine
:: run for 30 minutes - wonderful, I love my life
:: run for 7 hours - still no problem
:: reboot (even after 30 minutes of running) - nothing, sweet fuckall.

I think it's related to the BIOS/ROM.

at least it is still under warranty so I've taken it in to HP and await their sage reply.
please god, just don't let them want to do a swap out and not have stock...

:: Bloc Party ::

I absolutely lurve Bloc Party - a wildly energetic British band who have been swept up in the inevitable saviour-of-indie hype of the Mercury Awards.

I initially felt that their sound must be heavily influenced by The Cure (Robert Smith on speed rather than psychedelic mushrooms) but have recently come across this list claimed of influences.

... The Talking Heads, Kate Bush, Bjork, Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Dizzee Rascal, Anne Sexton, JG Ballard, Joy Division, melodic hardcore, Kubrick, Mogwai, British post-punk, Sonic Youth, Suede, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, New Order, The Smiths, Prince, Weezer, Escaflowne Polvo, Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Dinosaur Jr. (the early stuff), pitch n' putt, AFC Bournemouth, Taco Bell, driving, summer, tennis, Richard Brautigan, Dead Meadows and Big Star...

Ignoring the red herrings (summer? tennis?) and the pseudo pretence (JG Ballard?) I am amazed to find no trace of The Cure. Who'd've thunk.

But the numero uno attraction of Bloc Party must be their explosive drummer Matt Tong whose hyperkinetic ADD style drives the Bloc Party machine.
If you're iTunes enabled I recommend that you check out the first track from their album (Silent Alarm) - Like Eating Glass.

:: Lifestyle Family Portraits ::

Look at this shit! Look at it!
Now your family portraits can look like a frickin' glossy magazine ad with lifestyle family portraits from http://www.spontaneous.co.za.

They promote this every few months in Cavendish mall and I reckon they make a frickin' killing off of those perfect housewives with their perfect exec-husbands, their perfect frickin' dysfunctions (adults with ADD who are on Ritalin is HOT!HOT!HOT!) and their perfect frickin' 4x4s.

:: Smoking Gun ::

I should visit the Smoking Gun more. Checkit this.

[An] Ohio man was nabbed yesterday morning for "abusing harmful intoxicants" as he attempted to make a purchase at Bellaire's Dollar General Store. The 41-year-old Tribett, it seems, had been huffing spray paint and needed a refill.

Warning: melodrama ahead (I'm venting)

The poisonous vapour spat out by the wurk project machine has been particularly thick this morning [1].
The office is hot, overcrowded and noisy.
Everywhere you look you see death: in the greyed consultants' burnt-out eyes, in the frantic scurry of fluttering paper pilers, in just about every bored browser window.

The balance in this office has been destroyed.

The only words that I can find for it belong to Colonel Kurtz [2]:

I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen.
But you have no right to call me a murderer.
You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me.
It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.
Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends.
If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago.
We went into a camp to inoculate the children.
We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying.
He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm.
There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms.
And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother.
I wanted to tear my teeth out.
I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it.
I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.
And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead.
And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that.
Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.
And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters.
These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that.
If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly.
You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment.
Because it's judgment that defeats us.

[voiceover] The horror... the horror...

[1] Observing this makes me feel like Chief Bromden
[2] Clearly none of my day-to-day watercooler horrors remotely compare to what Kurtz witnessed, but I have no other words for it.