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July 08, 2008

Sionide

No More McDonalds

I should have done this long ago. Every time I get McDonalds for lunch at work someone has a dig at me about it. Maybe they’re just jealous because I eat so much crap and don’t put much weight on, heh. But the other day I had a change of heart and decided to turn over a new leaf. I signed a piece of paper which said, words to the effect of “from this day forward I will not eat at McDonalds ever again. (Except on Sunday mornings before work)”. Sunday mornings are a tradition and if there’s been drinking the night before, it’s actually quite a nice start to the day.. In general though, I’ve been having way too much fast food lately, it’s not only expensive but it’s not that nice either.. I may not put on weight from eating McDonalds but it’s probably not doing me a whole lot of good; so I am never having McDonalds for lunch or dinner ever again. Burger King is still a maybe but I am going to cut down. It’s official. I’m off now to make my lunch for work tomorrow, a nice bagel with some ham and salad, oh and Reggae Reggae Sauce!!

by Simon at July 08, 2008 08:00 PM

July 06, 2008

Thor-Rune

My cooking skills are improving

Two years ago, i lived at a boarding school where we had a chef that made our food. Some days i didn't like the food, and i had to make my own. Every single time, i made the same meal - boiled sausages, mashed potatoes and melted butter.

This summer I've decided to take things a few levels up, and now that i actually try I've discovered something - ether making tasty food is easy, or i am very, very good at it.

Here is part of my self-made menu as of late:

Pasta with pasta sauce and fried picnic-ham.

Spiced chicken fillet with rice and chicken sauce. Spiced with pepper, salt, seasalt, white pepper and/or sometimes curry.

Joikabuns (meatball with a bit of reindeer) with mashed potatoes and green pea stew.

Fried minced meat, mashed potatoes and pepper sauce. Surprisingly splendid!

And occasionally the simple omelet with ham and sometimes cheese.

by noreply@blogger.com (Thor-Rune) at July 06, 2008 08:12 PM

A summer to look forward to!

Summer plans is pretty much decided now! So far this summer I've mostly worked, but with a lot of niceness in between. In a bit under two weeks, though, starts the part of summer with only sheer niceness!

About the 17th I'll buy my first car. About the 20th I'll be on the road southwards. The 22nd I'll be in Trondheim to see Iron Maiden live at lerkendal stadium! From the 27th to the 3rd of august i'll be at Actives summercamp in Ransberg, Sweden! After that i don't know. Perhaps Oslo for summercamp afterparty? Perhaps visiting some of my family or friends here and there? This leaves time for any spontaneous traveling-urges. School starts sometime mid or late august.

Maiden will be positively orgasmic, while summercamp will be a unmeasurable prolonged pleasure moan afterwards. I'm not sure wich one i am looking most forward to. Just, yay!

by noreply@blogger.com (Thor-Rune) at July 06, 2008 07:40 PM

July 05, 2008

Jonty

Doctor Who

I wrote all this here so that I wouldn't have to explain myself. Whenever someone asks me for an explanation, I can just refer them to this page! Sticking out tongue
To the average reader it probably looks historically long, but bear in mind it's a review of Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End all in one. I didn't get caught up in the tide of squeeing until last Sunday, after TSE. Jawdropping!

First, I shall give the final three episodes each a score out of ten!
Turn Left: 9/10
The Stolen Earth: 1337^42/10!!!111one!one
Journey's End 7.5/10

Next I shall make a table of contents, so I can remember what I want to write about:

  1. The lead-up to the episode
    1. Turn Left
    2. The Stolen Earth
  2. The companions
    1. Jack Harkness
    2. Martha Jones
    3. Sarah Jane Smith
    4. Mickey Smith
    5. Jackie Tyler
    6. Gwen and Ianto
    7. Luke Smith
  3. The Doctor(s)
  4. The ending

And now, let the ranting and raving begin! (*nerd*)

Number 1: The lead-up

I think the rest of the season previous to 'Turn Left' has rather turned into mush in my brain. Turn Left and The Stolen Earth were, to me, the best two episodes of the season, and quite possibly of the revival altogether. Looking back I was just a bit too young to properly take in the finales of the first two seasons (Ecclescake and Doomsday), and now I want to watch the whole thing from the beginning again in a way. But that's another story.

I've only actually watched Turn Left once, because I honestly don't know if I'd be able to watch it again. It's a very emotional episode in that it shows you what happens when everything goes wrong:- and the bad side of the Doctor. He needs a companion to keep him from losing it like he did with the Racnoss at Christmas, and without her he went and got himself killed. It revealed lots of tidbits of information and piqued the viewers' interest.I think a particularly sad bit of that episode was the fleeting TV broadcast where the newsreader was talking about the disappearance and subsequent reappearance of the hospital from 'Smith and Jones' - and mentioned as an aside that Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria and Clyde had all died in there. Why they'd mention that on the national news when everyone else except weird-medical-student died I don't know, but the fact it was only lightly touched upon made it even more powerful. I wouldn't have thought Martha would have given the last of the oxygen to weird-medical-student (you'll have realised by now I can't remember his name) when there were suffocating kids and so on. (Unless, as nabusan on the Doctor Who Forums pointed out, they died from other causes) Anyway, I won't pursue that any more, the fact that I could talk about it for about an hour shows how well it was written.

Onto The Stolen Earth. Ever since I saw the trailer at the end of Turn Left, which showed a roughly equal share of time alotted to each spin-off programme (wow, that does sound geeky) I was very excited about it. I really like the idea of the spinoff shows being spawned by the Doctor himself directly, and then them all going about their business for a while, and then them all coming back together again to save the world from some great evil. They certainly seemed to do this in TSE, and that alone made the episode brilliant for me. While it was sad to see the end of Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister (who certainly did her part for the human race in the end) the way whole crew banded together instantly to reel in the TARDIS and the Doctor was admirable, and also one of the main reasons I disliked Journey's End. It was also nice to have Sarah Jane and Luke in because they'd already recycled Jack at the end of the last season, but not any of the characters of the Sarah Jane adventures. Arguably they couldn't have Sarah Jane without Luke anyway, him being her son and everything. I suppose they could have explained it away by saying he was camping with Clyde or something silly, but that would have been more annoying.

Number 2: The Companions in Journey's End

a) Jack Harkness
Why did he leave Gwen and Ianto in the Hub when they all knew the Daleks were bearing down on its position? Considering he really does care about them both I found it the second-most-hard-to-believe-character-interaction; see below for the first.

b) Martha Jones
She was rather good while she was in the Doctor's company last season, but ever since then she seems to have turned into some sort of single-facial-expression war machine. When she first revealed she'd joined UNIT I thought that was a good thing, but considering her actual self (not the evil clone thing) was only in the Sontaran double-bill for about 10 minutes we didn't get a good view of her character development until this episode. Now, comparing her to the other companions I think she's rather rubbish. However, that said, she wasn't bad in Torchwood so now she looks to be joining them full-time maybe I'll grow to like her again.

c) Sarah Jane Smith
She would NEVER leave Luke on his own! About half an hour earlier she was crying her eyes out (a sad scene, by the way, and excellent acting from Lis Sladen) and now she's just running off to find her precious Doctor. If I was her I still wouldn't trust Mr. Smith completely, looking back to the last episode of SJA and the revelation that he had been pretending to help her all along while really he was just trying to destroy the world.

d) Mickey Smith
He was only in this episode to introduce him as a new cast member for Torchwood, that much was plainly obvious.

e) Jackie Tyler
I don't know why she was in this at all. Did she do anything? Maybe it would have been a bit more powerful if she'd been disintegrated by the neutrino-whatever thing. Then again, one universes' version of her has already died.

f) Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones
The way they were saved was rather pathetic. The classic intruder-alarm triggers a previously unknown time-field that they're protected by? I don't know about you, but if I was Tosh I would have at least told someone about that before I died. Again, they didn't do much in the second episode.

g) Luke Smith
I'm sad he hardly got mentioned. There were so many possibilites to explore his vast intelligence and while I knew he wouldn't be particularly instrumental in saving the day it would have been nice if he could have at least helped in some way. As it is, he just got up, said "lol, who's there?" and then K9 butted in and did everything. I'm sure he'd be able to figure out the TARDIS base code quite easily, he's already fixed an energy capacitor that can handle the whole energy output of the sun itself.

Number 3: The Doctor(s)
While the method used to create the DoctorDonna was rather crude (and you'd have thought the Doctor would know it could happen) I think it worked really well. Lots of people were saying that leaving it with Rose was a horrible resolution to the plotline, but I disagree. It's kind of like in Star Trek : Nemesis when they have to teach the 'new Data' aka B4 all the things they've already been through with the original paranoid android. It's also nice that Rose accepts him, and the Doctor accepts the loss of Rose finally. Technically, he finally got to tell her what he never got a chance to last time they met on that fateful beach. It also closes up that line of enquiry (although that's what they said after Doomsday, admittedly) while leaving the possibility for...something, I'm not sure what...maybe a Torchwood in alternate universe special?

Number 4: The Ending
When I first wrote up the table of contents on Saturday, I had a generally negative view of the episode. Here I was intending to write about how all the companions just wandered off their separate ways, and how they should maintain their special lil' Outer-Space Facebook. I still think they should, but fortunately something's changed my attitude somewhat. Murray Gold's music. This morning everything was a bit of a fuzzy haze, which was partly because I had woken up at 5am and finished reading Garth Nix's Superior Saturday (only one left in the series, woo) so I decided to flick through the episode on the DVR again. This basically meant flicking right to the end, and watching the tow-the-Earth-home bit. This is another thing that people say was the downfall of the episode, but I think it was brilliantly ingenious. I've gotten used to the entire programme being completely scientifically inaccurate by now - I mean, Z Neutrinos negating electrical charge?! Neutrinos are called so because they have no charge and almost no effect on physical matter, dumbos! - so it was a welcome and rather funny ending.

The music for this section was simply brilliant. It's right at the top of the 'Murray Gold awesome list' with 'Doomsday' in a close second, 'This is Gallifrey, Our Childhood, Our Home' third and 'The Face of Boe' fourth. I can't wait to get my hands on the season 4 soundtrack! The music made the whole 6-pilots scene bond together perfectly with the characters' brilliant acting and made it a scene I will remember happily for a very long time.

As a last note, I hope that the events of this episode translate somehow into Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures! It'll certainly be fun when they return later in the year to see how everyone's changed.

This is the longest post I've ever written, and over the summer I hope to write reviews and things more often.

And after about an hour of edits, rather conveniently spread out over the day, that's this finished! I'd be interested to see what people think of my writing style, I've never revied anything in my life before but now I've finished my GCSEs, and English as a subject along with them, I feel I'm going to somehow miss the analytical essays I always complained about in lessons. I've noticed I tend to use brackets a lot, I get easily off-track! I also start sentences with 'I' a lot. Just look at this paragraph: there's 11 Is in there I think.

by Jonty at July 05, 2008 08:50 PM

July 04, 2008

Thor-Rune

I draw my own lines

Because i think that i am the one who should choose what is right for me, and not nececerily norms and society. Allignment unlawfull good? But, i'm asking myself right now, is it really worth it for being myself, if i end up breaking a heart because of it? I just hope i've not, but i shall probably be more careful in the future.

by noreply@blogger.com (Thor-Rune) at July 04, 2008 07:41 PM

PikkaBird (Again)

There are some odd drivers out there.

This evening, I was driving alongside this young girl in a big shiny HSV. Every time the lights went green she'd make a gentle little rolling start, then put her foot down and make BIG V8 NOISES for about 3 seconds, until she got within cooee of the speed limit. Then she'd back right off and potter along at slightly-lower-than-average speed.

The other funny thing was that she was a weaver; she'd dart in front of multiple lines of traffic to get first-in-line at the traffic lights, she'd move into any clear space beside her. She must have changed lanes 20 times in the space of a few kilometers. And it was all completely pointless, because she wasn't driving any faster than anyone else so half the time she was changing back into the same position she'd been in three lane-changes ago!

July 04, 2008 01:17 PM

July 03, 2008

Raichase

V-Set at Gosford


This is in response to Phillip Clarkes editorial in the June 2008 issue of Railway Digest

OSCAR on The Harbour BridgeA comparison between the Intercity V-Set cars and the Outer Suburban H-Set cars is never going to be a fair one. They are very different trainsets, designed for different uses, and comparing one to the other is largely a futile excercise, as both were designed in different times, for different purposes. Really, the only thing the two trainsets have in common is their destinations.

The Commonwealth Engineering built V-Set cars (introduced in the 1970’s) were the first double deck interurban cars to run for the (then) Public Transport Commission (PTC), and were a huge step forward for commuters, as the new double deck cars could carry significantly more passengers, in air conditioned comfort, and without the hassles involved with being a locomotive hauled train versus electric multiple unit. Built to service the long haul passenger destinations along the electrified sections of the State Rail network (present day being Lithgow, Kiama and Newcastle), they were, and still are a huge success.

V-Set at Dora CreekThe interiors of the V-Set cars best demonstrates their intentions. They have plenty of two plus two reversible seating down the car, with toilets located in pairs at the ends of trailer cars. However, all of this space comes at a price - the cars are far longer than any other cars in service on the Cityrail network, which means that a full eight car train is unable to use the underground platforms at Town Hall, Wynyard, as well as those on the Eastern Suburbs Line. This is an important downside, as a number of peak hour trains from South Coast and Central Coast lines use the underground platforms, rather than terminating at Sydney Terminal.

As the cars were built from the 1970’s, it is important to note that they are not especially easy for disabled passengers to use. Unlike all other electric and diesel stock on the Cityrail network, the doors on V-Set cars must be opened manually by the passengers when unlocked by the guard. While the V-Set cars have many toilets, they are little bigger than a closet, and it would be impossible to make them wheelchair friendly. Doors between the vestibules and the passenger saloons are also very narrow, and next to impossible to fit a wheelchair through.

The V-Sets excel at what they were built for, which is for interurban travel to destinations a few hours away from Sydney, such as Newcastle, Fassifern (Lake Macquarie) Katoomba, Lithgow, and other destinations a similar distance away. They were built during a timeV-Set at Adamstown when people would take their family for a weekend or holiday away from the city by train, rather than by family car.

The OSCARs, or Outer Suburban Cars are very different from their V-Set “counterparts”. They are not designed for long haul passenger travel, rather, they are designed to make long distance peak hour commutes more pleasant.

Built by United Goninans from 2006, the OSCARs are essentially a suburban commuter train, with a number of additions to make longer commutes more pleasant for passengers, as well as bringing areas such as Gosford, Kiama and Wyong a wheelchair accessible railway service to the Sydney Metropolitan Area. Advantages of the OSCAR train over a normal suburban train are many. Firstly, like the Millennium train before them, they feature a number of hidden CCTV cameras around the train, which can be viewed at any time by the trains crew (who can them quickly and discreetly radio for police to meet the train at a station if they notice any disruptions on board). This makes the train far safer for passengers and crew alike.

Importantly, the OSCAR trains are also designed with Wheelchair passengers in mind. Where the two intermediate motor cars meet is where the disabled toilet is located, which is adjacent to a section of flip-up seating so that wheelchairs are not parked in the middle of the vestibule. To make the toilet wheelchair accessible takes up a lot of room. For there to be more than one toilet on the train would mean sacrificing a lot of passenger space. This would be a serious issue, as trains from Wollongong and Gosford can get especially crowded as they go straight into the city underground, saving passengers changing at Central to get to busy inner city stations such as Town Hall, Wynyard and Martin Place.

OSCAR at BomboAnother key feature of the OSCAR train is it’s length. By designing a train the same length as the rest of the suburban cars in service, this enables an eight car train to fit wholly on the underground platforms at Wynyard, Town Hall, Central, Redfern, Martin Place, Kings Cross, Edgecliff and Bondi Junction. Prior to the introduction of the OSCAR’s, these services (originating from Springwood, Wyong, Gosford, Port Kembla, Dapto or Kiama) would use the fleet of Outer Suburban Tangaras (G-Sets). Due to their not being enough G-Set Tangaras to operate all of these services, a number would be forced to run with standard suburban (T-Set) Tangaras with no toilets, and no reversible seating at all! With the introduction of 8-Car OSCAR services on the South Coast and Central Coast Lines, this has freed up the G-Sets to fill the remaining, non-OSCAR services as 8-car trains.

With the price of petrol rising higher each week, more and more people are turning to public transport as an option for their daily commute. This is especially highlighted on the trains from Gosford/Wollongong, as suddenly a lot more people are trying to cram onto a train which was designed for fewer people to travel in comfort - not as a mass commuter train. Again, this is an excellent example of the OSCAR living up to it’s design principle. With it’s three plus two seating on each deck of the train, more people are able to sit down on their train trip to work, which can be as long as two hours each way. With more people seated, this means less people standing in the vestibule areas of the train, which again is an increase in passenger comfort. Those that do have to stand will find it far easier on an OSCAR, with plenty of room in the vOSCAR at Adamstownestibule of the train, and plenty of hand holds. Those who have tried to stand on a V-Set interurban will know that there is little, if anything to hold on, and no room to stand that doesn’t block people walking down the isles to get off the train!

The introduction of the OSCAR EMU has allowed the building up of a number of suburban services from six to eight cars (by releasing T-Set Tangaras from interurban runs, this has allowed a number of R-Sets to be made into S-Sets), as well as the building up of a number of V-Set interurban runs from four to six, and six to eight cars. Considering the petrol price crush is affecting commuters in western, northern and southern Sydney as well as those coming from Newcastle/Katoomba, this is most beneficial to them as well as those directly advantaged by the OSCAR trains.

The seating in OSCAR trains has been called “uncomfortable”, when compared to the V-Set seating. Again, this is an unfair comparison, as the V-Set seating has been designed for train trips of over two hours, when passengers really need the comfort the most. The OSCAR seating should ideally be compared to the seating of a normal suburban train. Most people would prefer to sit on an OSCAR between Wyong and Central as opposed to a T-Set Tangara! Especially when you consider an OSCAR has a toilet, when a T-Set Tangara does not! Another under appreciated aspect of the seating on OSCARs, is that the seats have been designed with vandals in mind - a number of unsavory people over the years have found it very entertaining to rip open or dismantle the seats on the V-Set trains. This negates the comfort factor of the seating, as it is very hard to sit down when there is no seat to sit on! The OSCAR seats, are of a much more robust design, with fabric that is hard to tag or tear, and next to impossible to take the seat apart.

V-Set at GosfordComparing a V-Set to an OSCAR is comparing an apple to an orange. If an OSCAR was running for a three plus hour trip between Sydney and Newcastle, or between Sydney and Lithgow, as the V-Sets do, there would be more of a basis for comparison. Both trains are designed to get people to and from the city in as much comfort as possible. The V-Set, for the longer runs over many hours, while the OSCAR for the shorter runs from the outer suburbs.

Authors Note: My next goal is to get some decent photos of the interiors of both trainsets to provide further basis for comparison.

by raichase at July 03, 2008 02:54 AM

July 02, 2008

Thor-Rune

Hiking Kvarven


Since i started working here at Kjerringøy, i've been wanting to climb the nearby mountains. It took me a bit over a month before i managed to get so far as to climb Kvarven, but man was it worth the wait! Now i've had two trips up there, one überperfect 9-hour trip and another far less perfect, far faster trip where i also went to the second, taller pinnacle.

Normally the 9-hours trip would have been a 2 hour one. You are free to guess what prolonged it. I'll just leave it at saying that there is nothing more perfectly romantic then a mountaintop view.

The walk up to Kvarven is a particularily nice one. It starts out with a lot of forrest walking on a relatively good path. There is the odd bench to rest on, and after not too long a time walking you reach the first good views, where the forrest has a clearing or starts thinning for good. Perhaps two-thirds of the way up is Kvarvkjonna, the Kvarv-puddle as it translates to, wich is a small but stunning mountain lake. 

(Fullview)

Max, my sisters Cairn-terrier, is stick-crazy; hes favourite thing to do is fetching sticks that we toss. He is not, on the other hand, too happy about water. It's clear though, if it is craving or loathing that wins in hes mind;

Yes, we threw a lot of sticks! Poor Max wanted us to throw more and more, but eventually was so tired that he could hardly manage to get them. The last stick we threw he went underwater with twice before he finally had to give in and let go of it. 

There was a lot of insects. None of the particularily nasty biting buggers, but enough to make a unplesant buzzing at times. But there was one pequiliar thing there, that i've never seen before. Using my human encyclopedia, i found out it was a (in norwegian) Bjørnespinner, wich translates to bearspinner. Cool name, eh? Googleing now i find that the english name is none the less cool - It's called ether a tiger moth or a garden tiger.

Upwards from the Kvarv-puddle was the last and steepest part of the climb to the first pinnackle. No more trees, only rock and heather. But at the top was a soft green patch just in front of a steep plunge, wich provided a perfect spot to lay and rest for three hours.

(Fullview)

The secound day of kvarven the hike went on to the taller pinnacle close by. That meant climbing down a stupidly steep slope, maybe 100 meters, and up another long and steep slope. The top picture is the view from the first to the second pinnacle. I took my sweet time on this part of the climb, it was not possible to rush it or i would have risked a deadly roll.

Finally i reached the top, and it was epic! If the plunge on the first pinacle was awsome, this one was proper ninety degree, and i doubt that i am exaggerating if i propose a height of 400 meters straight down. It's not possible to photograph these plunges and make the scale visible, but this might give you an idea;

(Fullview)

Epic, eh?

There's one more particularity worth mentioning about this trip. The first day as we went down, one of the forrest benches wich we were looking forward to resting on had ben conquered by a herd of particularily giant, feroceous and rugged cattle. I'm used to cows, but most of the time they will run away as you approach. These ones sure didn't! We tried to make them move so we could reach the bench. I had to apply all the guts i have to make my way to it, and when we finally were sitting there the most furious of the cows repeatedly attacked poor Max who had been trying to seem tough towards the giant beasts. Lucky for Max he can run the fastest. Such ill-tempered cattle i have never met before! We had to eventually evacuate and settle for the next bench.

by noreply@blogger.com (Thor-Rune) at July 02, 2008 09:09 PM