Christmas Dinner

Last Saturday turned out to be a huge success. We picked up the Turkey and Ham in the morning, and Anica spent the rest of the afternoon preparing the food. Eventually I came back to help as well.

So, in typical Christmas tradition, we prepared a full meal with roast stuffed turkey, and roast ham. This turned out to be around 8kg of meat, and took about 4 hours to cook using 2 ovens. The recipe can be found on Taste.com.au. The mains fed about 12 people, and we had left overs! Everything turned out really well. Pictures will be up as soon as they're processed!

Kayaking in Sydney Harbour

Sydney Harbour is one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, and what better way spend a Sunday afternoon padding around on a sea kayak.

There are kayaks for hire at Rose Bay, costing from around $30 an hour. If you bargain a bit, and bring a large enough group, the operators might be kind enough to rent the kayaks for much cheaper. We ended up with about 20 people, at around $20 per person, for 2 hours. There are single and double kayaks for hire, so make sure you drag along someone to paddle for you if you're not too comfortable. They also provide you with a life jacket, and if you're lucky enough, some $300 worth of carbon fibre paddles.

The water within the bay is reasonably calm, depending on the weather conditions of course. As you paddle into the harbour, the water becomes much more choppy. It is often very fun riding the waves generated by a myriad of sail and power boats flying past you.

If you ever fall off and capsize, it is a royal pain to get back onboard, so unless you have about 3 other kayaks to help you get back inside, I strongly suggest you don't go for a swim.

There are some nice quiet beaches on the eastern side of the bay, and a 40-60 minute paddle will get you to Shark Island in the middle of the harbour. Get off here for possibly one of the best places to take in the views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House!

The Coast Track

I'm still recovering from my weekend trip to the Royal National Park, completing the Coast Track. The track starts from Bundeena and ends at Otford, traversing as you might have guest, along the coast. We started the day brightly from Cronulla at 8.30am. The ferry was delayed for about 10 minutes, and we sat on the bow of the boat. THe trip is $5.40 per person one way. Arriving in Bundeena by 9am, we set off to the first track on our left. Having thought that at least someone in the group would know where we're going, we didn't even bring a map or question our directions. The heavens soon split open and we were greeted with some refreshing but large rain drops. This was to be the beginning of a very long day!

Quantum of Solace

The latest Bond film was a blast, literally. There were plenty of action as one have come accustomed to, including car chases, boat chases, plane chases, foot chases, and just about anything else you can think of. The movie felt a little bit convoluted for me, but that might be because I don't remember much from the last film, and this one makes a lot of references to that. But then you don't really go to see a Bond film for its story lines. However, there seems to be something lacking from this film, maybe there weren't enough expensive cars, or high tech gadgets, or indeed hot women! Olga Kurylenko is stunning though, and actually makes the Bond look a little soft. The franchise though, for better or worse, is definitely heading towards Jason Bourne territory. Daniel Craig is more rough cut than the suave Pierce Brosnan, maybe that'll give us normal blokes a chance! 4 out of 5 for me.

Petrol Update

Unleaded: 110.9c / L
Exchange Rate: 0.6494 USD
Crude: 54.39 USD (83.75 AUD) / Barrel

Kensington Universal FM Transmitter

I got a nice surprise at my desk at work today. I had ordered this device last Friday, and had no idea when it would turn up. Having no auxiliary input jack in my car and many MP3 players makes it very inconvenient to play my music collection. Usually this required the burning of CDs, which more often than not would fail or simply go out of date in a few weeks. Surely then, an FM transmitter is in order, and surely they shouldn't cost all that much! I bought this Kensington unit for less than $30 delivered (from CatchOfTheDay), which I thought was a pretty good deal.


So I eagerly plugged it in my car on my way home. It is quite a compact unit, the buttons could be a little bigger, but they also suffice. The frequencies goes from 88.1 to 107.9 and increments by 0.2Mhz. There are 3 presets to configure. The display is nice and clear and non-distracting, with black LED on Orange back light. There are indicators to show which preset is selected. Power is drawn from the cigarette lighter plug, and is self on.

How's the sound quality? For the frequencies I chose, the sound quality was pretty good, comparable to commercial radio stations. The cord from the unit to the player acts as the antenna, so unwrapping the cord to its length made the transmission a little better. Drop outs and interference gets more frequent as you approach a more congested area, such as the CBD. Some times the unit just gives up completely and turns off by itself. To turn it back on, simply unplug and plug again. The unit claims to turn off by itself if there is no music playing for more than 1 minute, although I haven't tested this out yet.

Overall, quite happy with the package, and highly recommended. It's application will be best served on those long road trips, and I won't have to carry all those CDs anymore!

Broken things

Aside from a very fun weekend, several things are either under repair, or needs to be repaired. These included my Nokia N95, my Canon EF 50mm f1.4 IS lens, and my VW Polo GTI. So what has gone wrong with them?

Well, the N95 has died, and won't switch on, nor recharge. After trying to take the Sim out, micro SD out, battery out, attempted recharge overnight, I ran out of ideas. So I took the plunge and took it to the Nokia Care centre, and promptly got slapped a $35 inspection fee. I didn't bother with a loan phone for another $20.

The GTI? Well, nothing wrong with it really, I'm just being very pedantic. There are clicking noises coming from the rear suspension, and I know what it is - rear top strut mount. How do I know this? It was replaced under warranty about half a year ago. The noise is now back, but I had since modified my car. So I did a half-arsed job and took out the sway bar, but left the links in. Bad idea. Took it to the dealer, but they said they won't fix it unless the links are removed. Fair enough. At least I got a free wash out of the dealer.

Lastly, the lens. It has stopped auto-focusing. So the last few photos on the weekend trip was taken using manual focus, and I don't have a particularly sharp eye. So back to Canon it goes tomorrow to get it looked at under warranty.

You'd think with the cost of the above items, the quality would at least hold up...

Houseboat Withdrawal

What a weekend! After planning for more than a month, we finally pulled it off! Over the weekend, we held a surprise birthday party. What made it extra special was that it involved 11 people and a house boat. We hired out a house boat from Able and cruised the Hawkesbury River for 2 days and a night. To keep this a secret was no easy feat!

So we boarded the boat at Wisemans Ferry, and then hid on the boat, and waited for the birthday boy to arrive. I think the delight shown on his face was priceless! Over the weekend, we did some swimming, paddled a small dingy, tried to fish, sung some Singstar, drank wine and beer, cooked several barbies, and played some board games, such as Ticket to Ride and Balderdash. We also managed to catch a water ski race, got a tow from another boat (while trying in vain to paddle against the current in the dingy), and even managed to dance some Salsa.

A day later, I'm still suffering from the after-effects of the boat ride. Even as I type, I feel the screen is waving as if I'm still on the boat. Time to get some more missed sleep!

Petrol Update

Unleaded: 116.9c / L
Exchange Rate: 0.6696 USD
Crude: 59.38 USD (88.70 AUD) / Barrel

Diversification

Well, this blog hasn't been updated for a couple of days, mainly due to a certain lack of inspiration. After having a chat to one of my close friends, I decided to diversify this blog. I was told to consider blogging as an art form, and to discuss topics that I am passionate about. This blog will continue to exist of course, but it will be here mainly for my rants. I will soon start blogs on a few areas that I'm really passionate about (or at least I think I will be passionate about). These are the areas:

• Football
  
• Travel
  
• Motoring
  
• Taekwondo / Martial Arts
  
• Salsa / Dance
  
• Cycling / Hiking / Camping
  
• Photography
  
• Gadgets / Computers
  
• Events / Entertainment / Reviews

They will be updated a lot less frequently, but at least they will have a dedicated topic, although I'm not too sure where a review of a camera lens would fall into - Photography, Gadgets, or Reviews?