As Easy as Pie

Heat up the frying pan with a tad bit of oil. Add chopped onions and fry until translucent.

Then dump in all the things that you'd like to find inside the pie...... the meat(s) of your preference, mushrooms, capsicums, sun dried tomatos (mmm...)..........whatever takes your fancy!

A wee bit of white wine or vinegar helps to infuse the flavours together.

Don't forget the salt and pepper!

Grease and line up the pie dish with pastry dough.

Chuck the filling into the pie base, add tons of grated cheese, and if you, like me find that the filling is not enough to fill-in the whole dish, just think of something to make it full, maybe pieces of bread or some leftovers or something.

Use another pastry sheet to cover up the pie. Leave an incission on it to let the steam escape.

And pop it in the oven (pre-heated of course).

Your nose will alert you when it's done

Enjoy!

Random Memories

The incident happened many many moons ago......in Sri Lanka at home. We were wrapping up an ordinary day, past 9 o'clock in the night I think...... When our Bindu started barking somewhere in the garden. It was a bark with a certain alarm to it, as if saying "I'm not too sure what this thing is but I need to get some one's attention here!!!"

Now Bindu has always been a garden dog as he was never granted visa to enter the house by his superior, Bingo. So one would expect him to know his territory well, and he's not the kind of dog who barks at just about anything, so naturally this got us worried.

So torch in hand we approached the suspicious scene cautiously. The sight of 'back-up' sent Bindu into a frenzy! and he started jumping around this suspicious object and then looking towards us for an explanation.

Upon closer inspection the black rounded heap on the ground, turned out to be a tortoise with its head inside its shell!
Naturally we bursted out laughing! which seem to add to Bindu's confusion.
It wasn't the first time that we found a lonely wandering tortoise in the garden, but it has certainly never happened in Bindu's lifetime.

My father told us what they used to do (back in the good old days) when they found a tortoise like that. Light a candle and erect it on its shell, and send it on its way!

This was all good fun but somehow Bindu didn't seem to be convinced, so he decided to continue with his woofing and waffing. What with the tortoise going nowhere fast, we decided to lock Bindu up in a room, unknown to Bingo that is! ah the drama!.

And that's how we managed to get some sleep that night.

Points to Ponder

Been a long time since I last put anything up here. I'm rather caught up with work these days so here are some interesting questions for you to ponder on in the meantime.

Enjoy!


1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?

3) From which animal do we get cat gut?

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?

7) What was King George VI's first name?

8) What color is a purple finch?

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?


So you think you are smart eh?

The Tessellaar Tulip Festival

The annual Tessellaar Tuip Festival held in Victoria is an event dedicated to celebrating the beautiful flower that has captured the imagination of many a poets, artists and laymen alike.
It's an excuse to put on a spectacular display of colours that just make you go "wow!"



Despite the fact that it's the spring time, the weather wasn't too kind and spoiled half the day with heavy rains and gusts which made things a bit difficult for us tulip admirers.


Rows and rows and rows of tulips


Red Hot beauties


Stepping out of the conventional image, a more modern look.


A little touch of Holland....the home of the tulip.


Some Dutch folk dances and music


A taste of Netherlands.....'poffertjes' small fluffy pancakes with a dab of butter, icing sugar and maple syrup. mmmmmm........


A mix of colours
Couldn't find the precious black tulip that caused so much trouble in Alexander Dumaas's "The Black Tulip". However it was easy to imagine the grand tulip festival mentioned in the book, the only difference being that here there were no candidates from Ceylon who were exibiting tulips, only admirers. Yes Dumaas was misinformed that tulips were grown in Ceylon!




A close-up with rain drops


Blues and purples


There were some others who were screaming out for attention.

The LHC, Dark Energy, Black holes and us

I'm sure most of you have heard of this new experiment running at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland. It's just one of those pieces of news that you have trouble avoiding with all the hyper media attention. Black holes and the possibility of the world ending as the scientists push the button for this gigantic machine to work!

Remember the Y2K bug? yeah almost forgotten by now, but at that time there was much speculation of the possibility of the world ending, with all the computers getting confused and unimaginable chaos to follow....... but you just woke up the next morning only to find that you are still alive and you still have to make your own cup of morning tea and go to work.

Same story.


So what's this thing about this LHC experiment?

Warning: Mild Science Content!

When I put on my scientific shoes, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments are one of the most exciting things to have ever happened, right there along with the man landing on the moon.
We might finally find the answer to the age old question of how did the Universe begin and
this might sound funny but what are we made of? and also was Einstein correct?

Now the possibility of answering these questions would get any scientist jumping up and down with excitement! And that is quite understandable for these were THE questions that kept these people awake at night for centuries. And the uncovering of these answers might open up a whole new dimension literally!


So what's the big deal you may ask, we can still go on living life without knowing these gobbledygook. That's where I put on my philosophical shoes.


It's true that we don't need to know how the world began or whether relativity is correct to go about our daily lives. And besides what's all this knowledge for? ok suppose we did prove that there was a big bang and the universe is expanding and we are made out of this elusive Higgs boson and that Einstein was correct! So what? We still have to take that crowded train to work, we still have to put up with the troublesome boss and we still have to eat through our mouths.

The pursuit of all this incomprehensible knowledge is just to quench the humans thirst for curiosity.


Or is it?


Since the beginning of time humans have had this curiosity, to know who's living in the next cave, to perfect the art of hunting and to find out what's up there in the heavens. This curiosity is what has brought us to where we are now.

Most of the time when discoveries are made we don't realize it's potential straight away, it takes time to find applications. So could these experiments at the LHC be one of those that hands us the key to unlocking a door, behind which lies endless possibilities???


Only time can tell!

The Mystical Dendenong Ranges and other stories

The Dandenong ranges are located just about an hours drive Eastwards from the City of Melbourne.

The area is a horticulturists paradise! Which does explain why there were so many plant nurseries, bonsai nurseries, gardens of all sorts and fertiliser vendors all over the place.

Mist.....thicker than the Beijing fog! This along with the winding mountain roads made driving a bit scary at times

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils

There were Lots of unknown flowers like this one, even in the winter.

A green flower, looks like a variety of Euphorbia.

More Unidentifiable flowers and plants

Huge Gum trees!! makes you feel kind of ............... small.

?? Not sure what this was all about

A Crimson Rosella

A Laughing Kookaburra. There were plenty of these around but none came so close as to get a good shot. Why is it called a Laughing Kookaburra you may ask, well in that case you haven't heard the Kookaburra's call. Unfortunately I couldn't catch one on video for your listening pleasure so you'll have to have a listen here.

I wish more birds would sing like that!!

There are some very interesting aboriginal stories built around the Kookaburra. On Saturday night I read that aborogines in the area had this story that the Kookaburra's loud call is a request to the sky people to light up the mighty fire that lightens up the world. And sure enough the next day I heard the Kookaburras going on about something before day-break, and what do you know before long the sun was up!

A puffed up Australian Magpie

Ruby! One of our very friendly hosts for the night

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... a local lunch!

The William Ricketts Sanctuary

One of the renowned gardens & parks in this area. William Ricketts was a sculpture/ artist who was inspired by the spirituality among the aboriginal people.

It is said that the aboriginals have (more so had) a very close connection with mother nature, instead of fighting nature and overcoming it, the aboriginal people knew that the best way is to live with the nature in harmony.

This lead William Ricketts to do his bit to let the word spread. Therefore his sculptures depicted aboriginal figures blending in with the soil and the trees and the rest of mother earth.

A man with two lyer birds on his shoulders

Mother Earth

Thun Sithaka Raavaya

And to top off the great weekend, we got to listen to some intoxicatingly beautiful voices.

Dooooowili.................

This was not really in the Dandenong ranges, but it's not often that the diaspora get to listen to this kind of thing so didn't want to miss this!

The unforgettable Apple mala

Thun Sithaka Raavaya taking leave from the stage.

They didn't forget to sing all my favourites.........which was quite a lot!!

Typical day with machines

Through the eyes of a wild animal: Part 2

Our general idea of an eye is a round white ball with a black circle in the middle of it. However not all animals have this kind of geometrical arrangement. One example you would be most familiar with is the cats eye, which takes an elongated oval shape during the day time. But you probably wouldn't have come across some of these unusual pupil shapes that I've got below.


Most of us know the cat's version of the story. These cute fur balls have eyes that are able to see in dark conditions, increasing their sensitivity to light. Thus to protect their eyes from the glare of the sunlight during daytime the pupils contract to a mere thin vertical line. And if you see a cat lying around with droopy eyelids with that typical 'don't care' attitude, it's nothing more than trying to protect his eyes!


Next time you visit New Zealand, you can directly look in the eye of a local and see if this is true. Sheep and even horses (below) have a horizontally elongated pupil, increasing their field of view to around 290 degrees. Again another adaptation for a animal of prey.


I have no idea why these beasts have got a bean shaped pupil, the elongation is probably to do with being the hunted party.


Look at those heavy eyelashes! Would work very well for a mascara advertisement!!?
Seriously, the square shape is a very uncommon shape in nature. The heavy lashes are to protect their eyes against sand storms, but square pupil?? no idea.


That shape looks quite funny, but that bump in the pupil is to give the hippo the ability to see out over the surface of the water. So he can keep himself half immersed in his luxurious bath and gaze out over the water level.


The magnificent horse has a blind spot directly in front of it, so even if he can see a wide field of view, the image will have a dark slit at the front.


This half circle can be rotated. So when the deer is grazing the hemispheric pupil will come down, keeping level with the horizon.

I must mention that I borrowed these pictures from this site (what with all these allegations of photo theft going around in the blogosphere!) And if you do like to know some more interesting stuff about how frogs, birds etc use their vision you will find them here.