餅 Mochi Time!

"Mochi (Japanese: 餅 is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time." - Wikipedia

I have always enjoyed the texture of cakes that are not quite cooked properly,.. things that are kind of rubbery and chewy. I remember once, my mum was making cookies, and I went into the kitchen and stole a ball of dough,... then hid behind the couch eating it. Delicious dough.

Tonight i'm going to a mochi party so I am getting amped up.
餅 わ　たべります！

Experiments in Happiness.

"Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi made people carry a pager, and told them that every time it went off they should write down what they were doing and how much they were enjoying it. The idea was to avoid the memory’s tendency to focus on peaks and troughs, and to capture the texture of people’s lives as they were experiencing them, rather than in retrospect. The study showed that people were most content when they were experiencing what Csikzentmihalyi called “flow”—in Haidt’s definition, “the state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one’s abilities.” We are at our happiest when we are absorbed in what we are doing; the most useful way of regarding happiness is, to borrow a phrase of Clive James’s, as “a by-product of absorption.”" - from imomus.

The death of Jørn Utzon - the architect behind the Sydney Opera House.

Here's a quick tribute to the Danish architect, and designer of the Sydney Opera House, Jørn Utzon. I was disappointed when I first learnt of how Utzon was treated by tne NSW government during the construction of this landmark building. Government construction projects invariably go into the red,...I don't know the specific details, but how could you blame the architect?

What is the point of architecture? Of course, function is extremely important. But something interesting happens when art meetings construction. This is when a building becomes 'a place', 'an icon' and 'a landmark'. In the international collective perspective of the world, what would Sydney be without the Opera House? Ambitiously edgy new buildings are always risky when it comes to public opinion and politics, but it would be even worse if we never tried at all.

Baby Mama - lazy chick flick times on a Saturday night.

Looks a little cheesy, right? In a way, you are correct,...this movie is definitely like a big fluffy (yet ultimately enjoyable) marshmallow. On the other hand, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are sharp, sarcastic and bubbling with that kind of smart, self-aware humour that few actors can really pull off. Making it in comedy is hard, and I'd guess it'd be even harder for women.

So although yeh, this is probably a 'chicks flick,' that doesn't make it instantly dismissable. Though some of the jokes are a little obvious and lame, the film never takes itself too seriously. My new method of assessing a film is this: - at the end of the film do I feel cheated of 100 minutes of my life? The answer in this case is, no, not at all.

*****
Why does the office smell like vinegar? Maybe it's me?