Swandives

I’ve rabbited on before about fab Irish band The Frames and lead singer Glen Hansard. Well, today he and Marketa Irglova won an Oscar!

I am doing a little dance of glee. Yay!

I don’t subscribe to the Valentines Day clamour. But that doesn’t stop me from using it as an excuse to make cake! Not that I really need an excuse, but this one was a new recipe for me. Chocolate, of course, but using blackberry jam for extra rich yumminess. And since there was no blackberry jam in the fridge, I used raspberry instead. I think one of the joys of this world is the combination of raspberries and chocolate. I even made icing (I normally eschew icing - only because it’s not one of my strong points, cooking-wise).

The raspberries on top were frozen. I did pop them on a paper towel before I used them, to drain off some of the moisture, but it was only partly successful. For some things you need to go all out and fresh raspberries are worth the expense. That’s assuming they make it to the cake - they last about 2.5 seconds in my presence before they end up in my tum!

Definitely making this one again as it’s gone straight to the top of my favourite cake list!

With all the hullabaloo, hand wringing and haggling surrounding Facebook, MySpace, Twitter et al, it’s easy to become complacent and cynical about the social networking phenomenon.

Then something happens to remind us of the potential positive power these networks have.

Today, thousands of Australians have in their own small way helped reconciliation in this country - making a profound statement simply by updating their social network status of choice. All over Facebook, for example, individuals are saying sorry. And suddenly, it’s not just our government making an apology in parliament - it’s about Australians being part of that sentiment. Which in turn makes it more than just sentiment. Now that’s powerful.

If I had my way (and the time and space), I would have a black standard poodle as a pet. Sadly, living in a flat and full time work mean we have to make do with a tank of tropical fish. I should add that I love our fish, and I would have them even if we lived in some marvellous alternate universe where somebody was always at home, we had a lovely large yard and owned a dog and a cat.

But I must admit that I have a favourite in the tank - a large blue gourami which we’ve nicknamed Gutz.

The name is self-explanatory: the fish loves to eat! For, well, years now, we’ve thought Gutz was a boy because of its beautiful colour. But it turns out that Gutz is a girl (apparently, you can tell from the dorsal fin, which is shorter and rounder in girls and longer and more pointed in boys). So we’re going to try to get her a boyfriend blue gourami, because she’s currently suffering from ‘biggest fish in the tank’ syndrome and thinks she’s pretty tops.

Sometimes, being right sucks. It took Channel 9 nine weeks to completely screw up the programming for Moonlight. Actually, it took seven weeks, seeing as they managed to screen episodes eight and nine out of order. Now, instead of watching noir cute vampiry goodness, I am here venting. That’s right - three episodes of season one to go, and the show has been taken off air indefinitely. Now, I know the writers strike in the US is playing havoc with programming, but these episodes are in the bag. There is no excuse not to show them - and certainly no excuse to take the show off air for a Leonardo Di Caprio movie rerun, which is what they’ve put in its place.

As a general rule, I don’t BitTorrent television. But I will make an exception for arrogance.

And, if you think I’ve got my tits in a knot, I suggest registering with the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and reading the Aussie comments on its message boards regarding this. People are mad, Channel 9. They hate you. And your current viewers are starting to shuffle off this mortal coil. That can’t be good.