Wigs

I have a spiffy bit of software on my laptop which allows me to use some 'special effects' on my webcam.  Some of them are a bit lame, most of them are quite farnie.  My favourite effects are the wigs and hats.  The camera has a face detection mode and so your accessory of choice follows your head movements, making it all that extra convincing.

Here are a few samples:

Rastafarian Pooey. 

Whitney Houston in her Bodyguard days Pooey.

1980s boyband/Kevin Bacon Footloose Pooey.  I am actually wiping away a tear of laughter here.

I should have taken more snapshots but I was too busy laughing and crying.

RIP Knut

I woke up this morning to some very sad news.  My beloved polar bear, Knut had tragically passed away :(  He was only four years old and very young for his species which can otherwise survive up to 30 years in captivity.

I'm glad that I managed to visit him back in 2007 shortly after the initial Knut-mania.  By then, he had definitely grown out of his puppy-like phase but he was still Knut and I was still happy to see him.  I'm not going to delve into it, but his life was not without controversy.

Knut had recently been put in an enclosure with a few other bears (including his mother who had rejected him) and he was supposedly subject to bullying.  Witnesses who saw the moment Knut collapse report saying it looked like he was having a seizure.  I'm not going to post up the footage, but you can view it here.  It is pretty traumatic to watch :(  Theories are rife that his seizure may have been stress-induced :(  I felt even more sad after reading this German paper's obituary.  :```(

RIP Knut.  I hope you meet your keeper in the Berlin Zoo of the afterlife.  

[Note - It has now been confirmed that Knut died from epilepsy which correlates with the apparent seizure witnessed.]

Understanding Wine - The Final Class

Tonight's class began with blind tasting four wines and a quiz.

The first question was a toughie - is it a red or a white wine?  Super hard question!  Hehehe.  Some other questions included:
- Is it a varietal (one grape type) or a blend?
- Identify the grape.  Chas made it a bit easier by giving us a few grapes to choose from.
- Is it oaked or unoaked?
- Where is it from?  That was one damn hard question.  No one can ever really guess.  But based on chance, we should always guess it is South Australian as they are responsible for 50% of all Australian wine production.
- What vintage is it?  This one did require a bit of analysis of the wine's colour and taste.

Anyway, I fared ok.  17 out of 24!!!  But our table was cheating and discussing answers between us.

The second session was a free for all.  We were meant to bring in any wine we pleased and present them for tasting.  Obviously one bottle of wine can't be tasted by 30 or so people, so we each went up in threes or fours to judge one of the random bottles.

Of the eight bottles up for tasting tonight, three were deemed faulty.  Wow, that's a pretty high strike rate.  It just goes to show that plenty of us are buying and drinking bad wine.  Chas reminds us that you should never be embarrassed about sending a bottle of wine back in a restaurant.  The restaurant doesn't make a loss because the wines are bought on consignment and the winery collects any unsold bottles after a period of time.  But don't make an idiot of yourself, says Chas.  You can't claim a wine to be affected by cork-taint if it had a screw top!

We all snacked on cheese and chocolate and we even got a spiffy little certificate at the end.  Here's to more drinking!!  Cheers!

We Doodle

When I was little, one of the careers I contemplated was 'artist'.  That innocent childhood dream died a long while back when I realised it wasn't a viable career.  However I will say that I am quite a deft hand at drawing crap and this skill has been reignited by the game We Doodle.  It's a Pictionary of sorts but for the Iphone.

Drawing with a mouse is hard enough and drawing on an Iphone is probably only slightly easier.  Either way, the precision of a pencil or a paintbrush is just not there.  But that just all adds to the fun and you get the hang of it!

The We Doodle app is somewhat annoying.  Lately it has been constantly crashing, generally quite slow and it frustratingly forces me to turn my phone off and on to reset it.  Normally, that would mean I would delete the frigging thing but alas it has me kinda hooked.

The game gives you three different inks - red, blue, black and a pencil.  As you accumulate more points, you can buy more colours, writing instruments and stencils.  I put quite a bit off effort into my pics and if I am especially proud of what I've drawn, I get a little upset if they are guessed incorrectly.  That being said, some words are a challenge and I do have to take an abstract angle.

Anyway I've created many masterpieces and now I'm going to show them off:

I personally think this was a pretty awesome drawing of 'soul'.  How else would you draw it?!?!  Also, I know I am cheating by using letter/symbols of any kind but no one here is judging me.  

Another favourite.  How else would you draw a pole?!?!?!  Sure I could have drawn a thin cylinder but no one would guess that.  It's gotta be in context people!!  What better context than a pole dancer complete with boobs?  

One of my utmost favourite doodles.  The symbolism!  The stereotype!  Of course, it's a terrorist! 

The above three I thought were just plain cute.  

How awesome is the dead husband!?!

Superb detail.  I even drew a Tarzan.

Well it was either going to be a frog or a toad. 

I even drew a little bow on the bra. 

Yes, cheating again using words.  But he's quite obviously beastly.  

The poor amputee. 

This is how I feel after I burn myself on the iron. 

Part of my earliest collection.  Ok, I admit, I googled to find a picture of sphinx to help me draw.  Yeah I cheated when I wrote Kikkoman.

More of my early collection. 

Once again, I emphasise the importance of context.  You can't just draw 'dip'.  What is a dip without chips and other party food?  A noodle is just a squiggly line when it's not in a bowl being held up by chopsticks.

Ok, I really didn't know to draw bluetooth.  In hindsight I should have just drawn the bluetooth symbol.  I wasn't thinking that day.  

Alright I was a bit upset that this was guessed wrong.  It's so obviously Godzilla!!!!!!  Look at those little stick men running away!!

Oh come on.  It's a roulette table!!!  

I had a bit of difficulty drawing just a chandelier.  It just looked so crap.  So I had to draw people dancing underneath something chandelier-esque.  I'm pretty proud of my Elvis drawing but again I did use google to get a better grasp of his jumpsuit.  

All that Harry Potter reading has paid off.  My wizard drawing skills have been refined.  My scarecrow is pretty scary and maybe even a little depressed. 

Yes I cheated by writing 'Extra! Extra!'  Clearly the man is a journalist.

Here are a few of my faves by other We Doodle players. 

Chief.  Pretty damn good!  So good that if I ever come across chief, this is how I will draw it. 

Hunt.  I felt sorry for the deer!!!  It's fate is sealed!

Snuggle.  This would be hard to draw.  But with the letter clues given towards the last 10 seconds, you could see what was being conveyed.

Now, along with the good drawings, come the errrr... not so good.  I'm not here to lambaste other people's drawings or offend them (and names have been removed to protect the innocent) but I'll acknowledge that a 'wavelength' connection between players can help considerably.  Things which are wtf to me can be crystal clear to others.  Likewise, what may be exceedingly obvious to me can be clear as mud to others.  

For example, I had to draw a picture of 'focus'.  The best way I could represent that was to draw a basic physics diagram of an optical system.  No one would guess that if they didn't do physics!  I also had to draw 'relative'.  How the hell do I do that?  So I drew a genealogy chart.  A bit difficult for those without a science background to understand and regardless, I admit it was a fairly roundabout way to draw 'relative'.  I was banking on the clues to help with the guessing.  

Here are some of the few I had difficulty guessing.  You take a guess of the following.  Like We Doodle, I'll give you 30 seconds!!!  (Answers at the bottom)

1.2.

3.4.

5.6.

7.8.

9.10.

11.12.

Answers:

1.  Safe.  All the important features are there.  

2.  Goliath.  Very obvious in hindsight.  I had guessed victim, recipient, injured.  Haha.  

3.  Tape.  Believe it or not.  This is tape.  I'm pretty sure that looks like a cheerleader and another player agreed with me.  All that effort to draw a cheerleader, so how do we get 'tape'? When we questioned the drawer we were told, 'I was drawing a cheerleader but somehow when I submitted the picture it changed to tape!'

4.  Throat.  You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a spade/shovel and that the arrow was pointing to the handle of the spade/shovel.  Some eyes to the person's head would've added more context.

5.  Headphone.  Another person actually guessed it was 'pizzaphone'.  

6.  Porch.  Pretty obvious when you break down 'pea' + 'torch' = ptorch = porch.  But with a time limit, I first had to figure out that it was a torch not a lamp or flashlight and therefore not 'plamp' or 'peaflashlight'.

7.  Board.  A basic drawing but the point is quite clear.  

8.  Sand.  Again quite basic but the important thing is that it's quite a clear point.  Some colour would be nice though.

9.  Greens.  I guessed grass.  This is hard to draw though.  I had drawn some green veggies together and it still wasn't clear.

10.  Bottle.  You can see I initially guessed spade and shovel.  

11.  Cloth.  I had guessed paper, sheet before finally with the letter clues, I got cloth.  Hard to draw but I would've drawn a kitchen with a cloth hanging from an oven door handle.

12.  Donut.  Some coloured sprinkles and pink icing would have been nice.  You could mistake it for a plate or dish though.  

Yes, I have laughed out loud at my phone many times when playing We Doodle.  The novelty is wearing off because I've had the game for over a month now but get the app if you love drawing!  

Understanding Wine - Aged Wine and Fortified Wine

Tonight Chas was sick and our substitute teacher was a winemaker from Penfolds.  He looked a good jolly sort and very informative.  The first half of tonight was devoted to aged wines and the changes wines undergo when left to develop characteristics.  As a general rule, wines tend to become less fruity in flavour and take on more 'complex'  nutty, toasty notes.  However that doesn't mean that the longer you age a wine, the better it will taste.  White wines in particular go through a lull where there is a loss in flavour as it changes from the fruity to the more complex.

Teacher tonight (I forgot his name) wisely said 'I would rather open a bottle five years early and enjoy it now than wait another five years for it to potentially get better but has instead been ruined.'  He suggested that if we ever bought wine with the intention of ageing, we should open a bottle every few years and taste it.  Hmmm yes, when I have my wine cellar I will do that.  *looks sideways*.

We were also given tips about ideal wine storage conditions.  We were told of a lady who had $200K worth of 30 year old Penfolds Grange which was ruined because she kept the box sitting upright above her wardrobe for many years.  Eeep.

On to the tastings.  There are white wines which are not designed to be aged e.g sauvignon blanc, pinot gris (drink it quickly!) but there are some which can benefit - riesling, semillion and chardonnay.  Funnily enough, the riesling and semillion take on chardonnay characteristics.  Prior to tonight I had assumed that all white wines were intended for immediate quaffing but now.. yes now I know better :D  The aged white wine served tonight was a 2005 Penfolds Aged Release Riesling.  Rieslings are usually ho-hum with me but this one was really nice and yes, Teacher was right, it was chardonnay-like!

I learnt that aged red wines tend to accumulate sediment in the bottle and so should stand upright for about 24-48 hours before serving.  Teacher talked a bit about decanting but I've largely forgotten what was said.  We then went onto fortified wines and hmmmm well, I liked the less sweet ones.  Some of the others were just like drinking maple syrup.

As a side note, our table felt pretty smug to see that other tables had brought cheese tonight.  Heh!  Next week will be our final lesson and involve blind tasting.  Putting our skills to use!

Understanding Wine - Red Wine

This was the class I was hanging for - red wine.  Our dunce table decided were going to enjoy this to the max and we had brought along three different cheeses to compliment our wines.  All of the other tables watched us with envious eyes.  Hey, our table may be full of wine dumbos but the rest of you were pretty stupid to not bring any cheese for tonight's class.  *nyah nyah!*

Tonight I learnt that pinot noir grapes are difficult to grow in the warm Australian climate.  All 'burgundy' wines from France are pinot noir and decent Australian versions are few and far between.  I shall keep that in mind!  Where Australia and especially the Barossa does excel is the shiraz.  No news to me.

Tonight's tasting began with a rosé.  Chas was a bit 'that's interesting' as he considers rose to be a 'pink white wine'.  They are mainly made from grenache grapes which were historically used for cheap cask wine.  In other words, rosé is a quaffing-style wine.  We were advised that rosés generally tend to be either very dry or very sweet and it's hard to tell until you open the bottle.  I'm not big on dry rosé wines generally but tonight's one was slightly sweet and finished dry.  It was actually quite nice and I would pick up a bottle if the occasion demanded it.

We also tasted a pinot noir (ok), a nebbiolo (Whut?  Never heard of that.) and sangiovese.  The last two are associated with Italian wines with the sangiovese being the main part of Chianti wines.  The nebbiolo I really quite liked!  Aaah yes, wine tasting class has opened up a new world for me.

I (predictably) liked the merlot.  It's the wine you should drink to ease yourself into the whole red wine scene due to it's soft tannins.  I still don't quite understand what tannin is.

The tempranillo wasn't that great.  This is a grape which is abundant in Spain and is usually one of my picks from a wine menu.  However that was when I was in UK and had easy access to many Spanish wines.

We finished off with a shiraz and the king of reds - a cabernet sauvignon.  Both were pleasant.  Chas also ran through why wines are blended e.g merlot blended with cav sauv makes it 'softer' and easier to drink.  *thumbs up I say*.  Our dunce table polished off our cheeses and left the night a happy bunch.