29.3.2004
ferret bite all cleared up now. goes-9 is a naughty satellite.
bah! not having new shiny things to post pictures of makes this all much less exciting. if i could find a picture of the new peppermint cream drumstick then i’d post that, as it’s the latest coolest thing ever (category: edible). however, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of pictures of icecreams on the internet. shame on you google image search.
meanwhile, i went out for a wander through the CBD after lunch, and saw trainee policemen practising their traffic controlling skills. which involved standing in the middle of an intersection and waving their arms and blowing whistlees a lot, while the traffic happily ignored them and just paid attention to the traffic lights, which were working just fine.
hoorah! it looks like we’re going to be hosting the australian uni rockclimbing championships down here in melbourne. now we just have to arrange a budget… and organise everything… and get sponsors… and blah, lots of work to do. but yay.
hmm… for the first time i’m watching the iron chef. so this is where elzar comes from in futurama! the voice-over and the voices of the chefs are dubbed, but the voice of the host is subtitled, which is odd. if you haven’t seen it, there are a number of “iron chefs”, each specialties in a different field “the invincible men of culinary skills”. in each episode, one of the iron chefs is challenged by another chef, with a cooking duel involving a surprise ingredient. this show’s battle involves… corn. sweetcorn… “the chef who offers a dish that best articulates the weeks theme will be the winner”
looking back at photos of ton sai beach from just 2 years ago, it’s alarming how much it’s been developed, and how much busier it is now. five years ago, there was only one set of bungalows there; a lot of people stayed over at railay beach. and now the entire beachfront has been developed – there are bars, and a travel centre, massage places, a sports bar with muay thai (thai boxing) …. and then there are more and more bungalows being built further and further back into the jungle. it seems like there’s construction madness everywhere throughout thailand – well, everywhere i went in the south anyway, everywhere there were areas of jungle being hacked down so more buildings could be built. you can’t really blame people though, when there’s so much money to be made from tourists.

well, my first play on the new and shiny clipless pedals didn’t end in disaster. after sitting on my bike in a doorframe for a while, clipping in and out successfully, i went out for a proper ride. everything went according to plan. the only time i nearly did myself in was when a sudden turn down a bikepath involved negotiating one of those zigzag slow-down set ups. at which point i had to grab at a pole to avoid falling over. but, being fair, if the pole hadn’t been there to hang onto, it also wouldn’t have been there to make me slow down and nearly fall over. score so far, me: 1, clipless pedals: 0.
EDIT. After a week of use I discovered the BBB Clip and Go pedals are useless – the cheapest pedals aren’t always best! I had huge issues with the spring screws loosening. Then I lost one. Then two. So I couldn’t clip into my pedals on one side. Then I got fed up and bought the Shimano SPD pedals, and they are FANTASTIC.