..., actually, that's not entirely true - I've been to Hanging Rock on a photography trip, then I spent last weekend's long weekend in Castlemaine, checking out the steam trains, Bendigo trams, and a cidery with alisaura . I have loads of photographs to sort through and upload. Will do that sometime. But for the most part, I've sat here at my computer as if something's going to reach out, ...

NY Times Op-Ed on the local pork movement

Is free-range pork better and safer to eat than conventional pork? Many consumers think so. The well-publicized horrors of intensive pig farming have fostered the widespread assumption that, as one purveyor of free-range meats put it, “the health benefits are indisputable.” However, as yet another reminder that culinary wisdom is never conventional, scientists have found that free-range pork ...

... a few decades after major logging) with a little bit of space where a family lives, experiments with permaculture, and holds an annual weekend-long reggae festival. They power their stage/cidery with photovoltaic panels and huge batteries, and I think they use solar power elsewhere and possibly micro-hydroelectric power. They have several constructed ponds for water storage, and they’ve created ...

Terracon

... pie shop and enjoyed the landscape. On the way back more singing and less throwing up... but I slept for a fair bit. Teesh, Tequila Ben, Elder, James and I stopped and had lunch at Bridgetown Cidery. Yum. No convoy for the way back. During Terracon? Lots of smooching James, and I believe I pretended to be a leech while hugging Fripp this morning. Lots of liquor and all the usual events, Nic's ...

Tentacles Wrap

... grounds mill young men wearing sashes, straw hats and plush toys they’ve won at the booths, having just been inducted into Germany’s official drinking age with a punishing week of cidery binge drinking. The night concludes with a torchlight parade led by past inductees, from eldest to youngest. Oversized flags are flapped with phallic mock-menacingly at spectators and drinking songs belted out....