A cow at sovereign hill grazing. It was making a lot of noise before the caretaker came with a whole lot of hay and after that, all you could see was it lazily munching away.

* * *

Have a backlog of images I haven’t processed yet. I’m usually pretty enthusiastic about reviewing the images I take, but this past couple of weeks I’ve just been busy. Vyanne’s family had just left the night before, and on the first day they arrived, we went to Ballarat to visit Sovereign Hill. Heh, it’s a little community there and since we got out of the house late, only managed to look around there and the Gold Museum nearby.

We rented a 12 seater van/bus as there were 6 of us in total and my tiny little Jazz can’t fit so many people. Heh, it was a different kind of experience driving such a large vehicle, but I somehow managed it.

The days after was work in the day, a few hours of Starcraft 2 when I got home, and dinner after that. Heh, it was a rinse and repeat process until the weekend. On their last day in Melbourne, we went to the Macedon Ranges, had a delicious breakfast at the Braeside Cafe, visited Hanging Rock, Fernleigh Organic farm, Trentham Falls and Red Beard Bakery. This time round, I managed to get a Toyota Tarrago, and it was a really comfortable ride, pretty much the vehicle we wanted to rent to begin with.

Fired up the barbeque for the first time in many months. Had recently bought one of those barbeque chimneys, which is basically a perforated metal cylinder. You put the coals in and light it up from below. The purpose of the chimney is to reduce the surface area of the coal, so that when the bottom ones light up, it burns upwards and lights the rest of it as well. A barbeque fire used to take me 30 minutes and a few extra firelighters to startup and this time around it was just one matchstick and 10 minutes later, we had a whole stack of blazing coals. It’s never been easier.

Cooked a marinated, butterflied leg of lamb on the grill and it was just done perfectly, slightly pink on the inside, and slightly charred on the outside, so you get that slight smoky flavour. Absolutely tasty!

* * *

Heh, now that are guests are back home in much warmer weather, the house is a little quiet again. Did some tidying up, finished my game and now getting ready for the week to come. I need to start studying now that I’ve put Starcraft 2 behind me (the campaign was great, the story was well fleshed out, and at least it didn’t leave me hanging). A few more days of quiet and my mom will arrive to stay for a couple of weeks.

Duck confit. The French have interesting and marvelous ways of cooking stuff. The above dish is made poaching the duck drumstick in duck fat for a couple of hours, after curing it in salt and herbs for 48 hours. After the poaching, you take it out and grill it in the oven again. The outcome is crispy duck skin and meltingly soft duck flesh. Served on vegetable stew.

* * *

This week’s been sort of hectic. Got my copy of Starcraft 2 on the Tuesday. It’s a game I’ve been waiting to play since they announced it in 2007 when I was in NYC. Heh, it’s finally out and after many days on it, it’s definitely a favourite in a long while. The campaign missions have been crafted so you don’t turtle in your base and wait for the enemy to throw sticks and stones at you. It’s usually in your best interest to finish the mission quickly. I’m not quite halfway through the missions yet, given the other commitments I have, and since I’m playing it on Hard, I’ve had to restart some missions a few times over just to get the right units out in time to counter whatever the enemy can throw at me. The other interesting point is that they introduce one new unit in each mission, but it doesn’t cheapen the experience as you make do with the units you have and there is still a challenge in completing it.

* * *

So that was Tuesday and the days after. On Friday, the iPhone 4 was released in Australia. My friends went for the midnight launch and waited for at least 5 hours to get the phone. One came home only at 430am. I was happily playing my game and sleeping in that time. Tried out my service provider upgrade line on Friday morning. Waited 10 minutes before I gave up. Tried again at lunch time and waited 25 minutes before I gave up. Read the local forums and some people waited 45 minutes before being disconnected. Decided to give it a go again the next morning when the lines open at 9am. This time I waited for 11 minutes, before talking to the customer service rep for 20 more minutes and this is the first official Apple product I’ve purchased for myself. I have iPods but they were either a gift or an exchange. Heh, it’s okay to wait 2 to 3 weeks before they ship it out to me, but I’m in no rush to get it. It’s strange with researching items to buy, you get all worked up over it but once the deal has been done, you stop thinking about it, which was just what I needed it to be, to get it out of my mind. I was considering the HTC Desire a few months ago, and the Samsung Galaxy S caught my eye later (both are Android phones) but as long you are practical about it, the iPhone 4 meets the needs I require. I guess the most important part of it being a smartphone was the better battery life that the previous iPhones simply did not provide.

* * *

Anyway, off to pick up Vyanne’s family. Heh, the first guests to arrive and stay over at our new place. It’s going to be another busy week.