kjp

Looking to buy a car? Good second hand 1993 Subaru Impreza going here.

If my memory serves me correctly, at Chinese food places you can usually get Steamed Rice, Fried Rice, and Special Fried Rice.

Last night’s yummy-ness was a fried rice with way too much stuff in it: bacon, egg, mushrooms, broccoli, bok choi or something similar (can’t remember it’s name), corn, bamboo shoots, those round things that I can’t remember the name. Was very yummy. It would have had prawns in it, but the shop didn’t have uncooked prawns; so instead I just bought a bunch of normal prawns, and scoffed them pre-dinner. Life’s tough.

This was topped off by one of the best deserts in the world: a chocolate Paddle-Pop.

During the organisation of my stuff down in Canberra during the summer holidays, I brought back a puzzle that I hadn't seen in ages. It's 4 wooden blocks, each side of each of the blocks has one of four colours: red, yellow, green or blue. The objective is to stack them up so that each surface of the pile of blocks has each of the four colours on it.

I think that, ages ago, I did it by trial and error. I did it again yesterday afternoon. As I'm likely to forget the solution, I've included it below.

Solution:
Identify Blocks: they all have each of the four colours, plus two extra colours, being:

A - RY
B - YY
C - RG
D - GB

A condition for the solution is that there must be four of each of the colours available. Ie: you won't get a solution with 3 reds, 5 yellows, 4 greens and 4 blues.

Each block can be rotated so that are three options available on the outside squares: (ie: the two colours that are not hidden). 0, + and - symbols = difference to 1 of the colours R, Y, G, B.

A1 - RYGB: 0, 0, 0, 0
A2 - RYYB: 0, +, -, 0
A3 - RRYG: +, 0, 0, -
B1 - RYGB: 0, 0, 0, 0
B2 - YYYG: -, +2, 0, -
B3 - RYYB: 0, +, -, 0
C1 - RYGB: 0, 0, 0, 0
C2 - RYGG: 0, 0, +, -
C3 - RRGB: +, -, 0, 0
D1 - RYBB: 0, 0, -, +
D2 - YGGB: -, 0, +, 0
D3 - RGGB: 0, -, +, 0

Need to pick exactly one of A1, A2, A3, exactly one of B1, B2, B3, etc, so that the total number of red, yellow, green and blue = 4 each.

Combinations that result in four of each colour:
A, B, C, D
V - 1, 1, 2, 1
W - 1, 3, 1, 3
X - 1, 3, 3, 2
Y - 2, 1, 1, 3
Z - 2, 1, 3, 2

V is the only one that works. Can check this by lining up one side with various combinations of R, Y, G, B - the other side must have all colours. If not, does not work. If reverse side does, then the side surfaces need to be checked. The pieces can be rotated around 180 degrees if needed (flipping the side colours).

Pieces are rotated so that A, B, C, D have the order (assuming A = R): R; B; G; Y.

May need to flip pieces around to get correct colours on the side panels.

I'm about to chuck a whole bunch of road magazines (from NRMA and RACQ) in the bin. I've just finished reading them (well: skimming through them, reading an article here and there). The latest magazine was the December 2006 / January 2007 RACQ edition, while the earliest was the NRMA September / October 2004 magazine, complete with mail redirection from Everton Park to McDowall... this was unopened until a few minutes ago...

Well, at least I'm (slowly) getting organised. Pity about the other stuff I should have been doing this weekend (i.e.: assignment).

Broulee Island, taken from the connecting bit of land. That's right, it's not really an island.

Looking back (south - from the island) to the South Broulee beach (around the rocks to the right)

Some of the rocks on Broulee Island.

One of the residents of Batemans Bay.

I’ve just taken apart my old Creative Muvo TX FM MP3 player / flash drive. It died a while back, which was most annoying. It then got lost, and then got found just a little while back. I couldn’t revive it, so decided to open it up to take a look. It took a bit of prising to open it up, but succeeded in cracking the LCD - it was stuck upon the main chip on the left hand PCB).

One of gifts I received for Christmas was a most excellent frying pan. For some strange reason I decided to call it something. And I was thinking about Danger Mouse (as you do) at the same time. So, my new frying pan is called “Penfold”. This morning was the first frying - some yummy bacon and eggs. Yum yum.

And at some point I'll fry up some crumbed meat of some description.

(yes, that was a un funny joke... what was one of Penfold's catch-cries?)

Boo to Kphoto. What it Kphoto, I hear you ask? It's a program you download from K-Mart's website that allows you to send your images over the internet to the photo printing place (ie: your local KMart), and then a few days later, you pick them up.

I was trying it out with 3 recent photos, at 29c each... ie: total cost of 87 cents... right?

Wrong... total cost = $2.86 - inclusive of $1.99 processing fee.

Hmmmm... when the admin overhead is 229% of the cost of the actual photos... I think that it's stupid and not worth it. Next time I'm at the shops getting food, I'll just go into the shop and use the yellow photo booth things... and their money (labour cost) when I drop the receipt in with the person.

Boo Kphoto.

Just some housekeeping:

In December a friend and I went to the newly opened Gallery of Modern Art - a gallery of the Queensland Art Gallery. It’s pretty good: diverse art. Some bits weren’t my thing (a bit too modern...), but it was all pretty good, I thought. Worth a visit if you’re into the art thing.

Well, it's 2007 - in case nobody noticed.

We (my elder sister, BIL, and their cutey) got back to Brisbane at 3.30 am on Sunday morning after starting our journey at the south coast of NSW at 9am the previous morning... A long drive. We went the coastal route (Pacific Highway), which was remarkably good - there were few cars on the road. So we had a good run.

The week down the coast was pretty good... a pretty good break. Maybe some more details and photos later.

The few days before that were in Canberra. It was a bit weird to go to dad's crematorium and pick up his ashes, and to see where there will be a spot for him...

On the Thursday morning (day after I arrived), I started my Christmas shopping. Something to be said for leaving it too the last minute putting the pressure on. Anyway. In that evening it was good to catchup with an old friend.

So, what's in store for 2007? A move at work in a month or two; being more organised and disciplined - giving jobs their correct priority; lots of people tasting my culinary wares; perhaps a big purchase in April / May; starting to learn the saxophone; continuing clarinet playing in my bands - maybe an increased role in one of them; sorting out my spiritual issues; and who knows what else??

But I hope that 2007 will be a better year than 2006.