EXCHANGE INTERFACE

1. How often do you hear live music?

Not very often. I never have been much of one to go see bands or even concerts. A few musicals. The occasional concert by an artist I enjoy. And sometimes bands on a Saturday night down at the pub back in university days.

These days? Very rarely.


2. What was your favorite live musical performance ever?

I don't know if I remember this one with fondness so much as just it's the strongest memory I have. One night after university computer lab, a couple of the people I'm working and doing uni with say they're going to a bar in town to celebrate the 18th birthdays of a couple of the guys we work with. The two of them room together, and their birthdays are back-to-back. It's not my usual scene, but I figure I should really do more socialising with this group, so I agree to go along.

It's a dive bar. On a Wednesday night. In a university town. Kinda quiet, but there's a band on stage that's doing rock covers from the 80s. The floor is an old nylon carpet and we're not going to think about how it's slightly sticky underfoot. The lighting is dim, there's about a half-dozen of us, and after a drink or two, we're singing along with the band who takes it pretty well.

They invite the birthday boys up to sing the Eagle Rock, but somehow end up singing Hotel California. I am served a triple-rum-and-coke having admitted to the others that I don't really drink, and they think that it's hilarious to get me an excessively alcoholic drink for my 'first drink'. The 2xrum&coke is foul, and someone else ends up drinking it. I go for a wine cooler, which is sweeter and easier on my palate. We bawl songs until it's midnight and it's the birthday of the second guy, and then we keep going for another hour.

TBH, the performers weren't standout. But I remember the night the best, simply for the hanging out and the friendships.


3. Do you play an instrument, or sing?

I play piano, I learned flute and tuba, and I sing - happy birthday, at church, in the car, on the karaoke machine.


4. Have you ever performed music onstage?

Does karaoke count? But even without that, yes, I've performed at concerts and eisteddfods when I was younger. Not for three decades now, but then it might even be years since I've touched a piano.


5. Who is your favorite musician?

That's a tricky one. Modern or classical? Artist or musician? Live, recorded, without autotune?

I can't choose. I love them all - Beethoven and his Ninth, Elgar and the Engima variations, Chopin's Impromptus and the haunting notes of Tchaikovsky's opening to Swan Lake. There's Queen's Rhapsody and P!nk singing about falling into trust, there's Billy Joel crooning smooth and sweet and Deborah Harry declaring she wants that man, there's Rihanna singing about being unfaithful and Anna of Cleves rmeinding us that she's the Queen of the Castle... I remember going to see Roxette and Offspring, singing with U2 in the car - raised by wolves | stronger than fear | when I close my eyes | you disappear...

You can't make me choose. I carry it all in my heart.

Gakked from rmc28:

The Last...
Movie I watched: Project Hail Mary, in cinemas with a couple of friends. It was very enjoyable.
Series I finished: Honestly? Probably Bridgerton, back in 2024. I haven't watched any TV series since. Just can't concentrate enough to watch something through. I started Bridgerton S4 with the sistren on Monday night, we're going to work out way through the series, a couple of episodes at a time.
Book I finished: Undercover Attraction by Katee Robert. Part of the O'Malley sextet - a Boston crime family. Rather interestingly, the male MC of the second book in the series was quite clearly modelled off Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy.
Book I bought: Archangel's Sun by Nalini Singh - I'm buying the Guild Hunter series in hardcopy, after receiving the first six books as a gift about a decade ago.
Book I received as a gift: ...something about work. It's to do with work and faith and the intersection of them and was given to me by a friend to whom I sold a couple of quilts.
Food I ate: Trout fillets. Bought by B1 and fried to perfection for dinner.
Meal I cooked: Hainanese chicken rice, recipe by Nagi of RecipeTinEats. Really good!
Drink I had: Fermented limeade - home-made lime soda, which I left on the dining table for a few days too long and now it's slightly alcoholic.
Song I listened to: Trustfall by P!nk.
Album I listened to: Probably 'Anjunadeep16'. I love deepbeat dance-trance music for focusing on work.
Playlist I listened to: Belt It - my 'singing in the car' playlist. Turn the volume up, and belt it!
Concert I went to: The Music Of John Williams II with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - a couple of months ago.
Game I played: Civ II. Was just playing it now when I decided I'd check DW.
Person I talked to: B1 - sister.
Person I texted: Sue - a friend who I arranged to pick up some gardening stuff with this evening.

1. Did the house where you grew up have a newspaper delivered regularly?

Yes, I think so. This was back in the 70s and 80s and a newspaper was a standard delivery to most households. I think there were even a few 'free' newspapers around the area at the time.


2. Have you ever subscribed to an actual print newspaper?

Probably back in my 20s - the 90s, when newspapers were still very much a thing.


3. When was the most recent time you physically picked up and read a newspaper?

I sincerely do not remember, it's been a while. I saw someone on the train the other morning who had a full broadsheet, opened it up, and shook it out. I was transported all the way back to the early 00s again, commuting in to the city and having to contend with all the guys who thought that because they were doing important things like educating themselves on the state of the world, they had the right to shove a newspaper corner in your face.


4. Do you pay for news online now?

I do, in fact, pay a subscription for The Guardian Australia, because I do believe in paying for some news so that it's not all funded by billionaires. In Australia we still have ABC and SBS which are relatively sane and unbiased (where 'relatively' may be doing quite a lot of heavy lifting). I was subscribing to the NYT and the Atlantic up until the US Election 2024, and then gave up. No hope of sanity there and I couldn't be bothered.


5. Do you have any saved newspaper clippings?

Not I. What would I have clippings about?

B1, however, has newspaper clippings from the 90s about...topics she was interested in then, and which she intends to read. Someday. (Like all the other things she intends to read/sort. Someday.)

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Sitting in a section of the local pub with a glass of wine, my laptop out and trying to write. It's a bit of a lot.

I'm slowly getting more involved in the local independent candidate's campaign. Delivering pamphlets. Going to trivia nights with the team. Stuff like that.

I think we have a real chance if we can persuade people to put her first, and then their preferred candidate second. And we could. We really could. And the current MP is definitely running scared. They have dodgy tactics, stupid fwittery going on, and no sense of humour. So much brusque shooting down and angry internet postings going on, really. it's pretty sad.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some flyer deliveries up and around my street to raise her profile. (Or maybe I'll do that on Monday? IDK. Have to decide.) I've booked in to wander around the markets with her on Sunday. And I'm contemplating helping do point-of-contact at the major train station junction on Monday morning. I think they could do with at younger, visibly Asian helper for Hornsby - a lot of East and South-East Asians will likely actually think about it if they have someone who looks like them stumping for her. And there's a pretty high percentage of people from those backgrounds in the area...

I can hear B1 complaining about how I'm doing too much again. So maybe let's see how Sunday goes, eh?

1. Who was your first James Bond/which movie did you see first?

Octopussy. So...Roger Moore? I think I was about 10 - Dad was watching it on the TV and I watched most of it (not understanding) until I got chivvied off to bed. Actually watching one through? Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye


2. Who was your first Doctor in Doctor Who/which episode or serial did you see first?

Tom Baker, glimpsed on TV, again most likely in the 80s. Actually watched? Christopher Eccleston in the "New Who" series of the 00s.


3. What is the first Dracula adaptation you remember seeing/which actor as Dracula?

The one in the 90s, billed as "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman, and Keanu Reeves. I didn't get the appeal then. I still don't.

In fact, I'm not sure I've watched any other Dracula movies or shows since then.


4. Which Star Trek did you see first/can you name the episode/movie?

I think it was TOS at a friend's house back in 2003. I'd heard plenty about it, but never actually seen an episode, so we watched some OldSkool. Which...didn't appeal to me. I don't remember the episode, but I wasn't into it.

The first Star Trek that stuck was the JJ Abrams' movie - the NuTrek one, I think they're calling it.


5. Which Star Wars movie was your first?

My earliest memory of the Star Wars universe is watching Return of the Jedi which had been recorded painstakingly from the TV and which skipped the ads. But I had at some point watched A New Hope, obviously, because I knew what happened. I just don't remember actually watching it.

By the time RotJ was screened on Australian TV, though, it would have been at least 1985, two years after it was released. I don't remember exactly when I watched it, just that I did.

✨ holiday love meme 2024 ✨
my thread here

(Does anyone know if you're supposed to reply to the people who comment all at once, or as they come along, or commenter's discretion?)

Where do you go when you need to get out of the house but it's raining?

I...don't understand the question. I stay in the house when it's raining. The library? The shopping centre? I'd probably pick the library before the shopping centre, and I'd probably drop in to a garden centre rather than a shopping centre.


What's your go-to tape?

Go-to music? Or movie? Or some other meaning of 'tape' that I don't get?

Music? My Spotify "M&P Conn-Pod Playlist"

Movie? Pacific Rim. Happy, world-uniting, brain-sharing, soul-melding, feelgood saving the world. We so need something like that right now.


What's in your freezer right now?

A lot of things. If I took an inventory, it would get a little crazy.
- meat (salmon, beef, chicken, lamb, goat)
- dumplings (home-made and shop-bought)
- vegies (at least three or four different mixes) and pumpkins
- croissants and flaky butter pastries
- stock (chicken, lamb)
- beef bones for making stock
- scallops, prawns
- dairy-free ice-cream (for the sister)
- gelato (2 tubs, also the sister)
- assorted herbs or herb mixes (garlic, ginger, coriander, shallot sauce for Hainanese chicken, home-made pesto)
- sourdough starter (don't ask how old it is; I don't even know if it's alive)
- breads and buns (several gluten-free breads, hot cross buns)
- individual serves of soups and curries ready for defrosting and eating

I also think I have two containers of bunya nuts in the bottom of the murder freezer. They've been there entirely too long. The woman I was going to swap them with is flaky about actual delivery (I once swapped her some things in advance for a cabbage that was growing in her garden; by the time the cabbage was ready, the cabbage moth caterpillars had gotten it, so she dropped it off and said "maybe the chickens can eat it" and that was it. No offer of a replacement or something else. So, yes: FLAKY is a good thing for pastries, but a terrible thing for people.)

That's the short version of what's in there; there's undoubtedly a lot of other stuff, much of which we've forgotten. We try to cycle around what's in there, work our way through it; it doesn't always turn out that way, though...


Last concert you attended?

My brain is telling me "Roxette" but that's the first concert I attended. I know that I saw Offspring in the late 90s, early 00s with friends. But I'm pretty sure I saw U2 during the 00s and it was an utterly miserable experience. Nosebleed seats and I think it was just me and a friend, and I wasn't hugely into U2 anyway.

Oh, wait, P!NK! I saw P!NK around 2013, and it was an awesome show, because she does showmanship with flair and style. So good. I was going to see her again earlier this year and simply couldn't get myself out there.


Favourite grocery store?

This is a bit of a weird question to me: we don't really have the kind of "brand loyalty" that Americans seem to have. My local is Harris Farm Markets/IGA Supamart and that's where I go for just about anything. I don't price-shop, I occasionally use the local Woolworths ("Woolies") when it's at the edges of 'open hours' for shopping, but I very rarely do Coles (the other major supermarket in our duopoly). I almost never do Aldi, unless it happens to be the easiest one to access (after physical therapy or when picking something up at the little shopping centre).

Probably Harris Farm Markets/IGA Supermart, if you go by frequency. But if there's local markets on, I will always go there and buy a few things at the least.

I saw spiffikins call this 'Old People's Meme' and I'm going to answer a few questions every couple of days:

What was the first piece of furniture you bought?

Bought? Probably the Apple IIe computer from work with modem capabilities and I used it for uni and writing.

Might have been the tallboy (multi-drawer set of drawers) that held my clothes for, oh, a couple of decades, and the bookshelf. I still have the bookshelf, but we sold the dresser when we moved out of the old house.

Or else it might have been the couch set, which were 2nd hand, foam, and sooooo incredibly comfy for sitting on, flopping over, sprawling on, or cannibalising the big, puffy back-and-arm cushions.


What proportion of your meals do you cook?

Between 60-80%? Right now, there's a lot more buying of pre-prepped food because I simply can't be bothered half the time, but at the height of things, at least 80%.


Favourite chore?

None of them. That's why they're chores.


Least favourite chore?

All of them. But probably cleaning toilets. Oh, I know. Mopping floors. It's just such a huge inconvenience, and you have to get everything up, and then there's the whole issue of whether or not the damn thing is clean. Changing the water out, making sure that the mop gets all the things and doesn't just move them around to elsewhere. Awkward and not!fun.


Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?

Can't think of anything right now. Something they've peed on? Lounge room curtains, perhaps? A box of fabric? Don't think they've ever been given the opportunity to break anything. They've destroyed couch corners, but also we deliberately get old couches (and we keep our couches for a long time). My bedroom door has a series of scratches on it thanks to the cats clawing to be allowed in...

Cake? Mal once munched on a brown butter cake I made for bible study...

How do you pick the places you go when you travel around the world and have you ever been disappointed when you went to certain places? asked by timespirt

Mostly? I choose by the people I know. I've chosen cities that I wanted to see before, and while it turned out okay, it was pretty lonely because I travelled by myself. These days, I try to go somewhere that I know people, so I can catch up with them. And when they're busy, I take tours to see the city sights (and sites) and get a feel for travelling around the place by public transport as much as I can. (Or as much as the city allows.)

Previously, I would stay with friends wherever I landed, particularly in the US. One of the difficulties was that, in a lot of smaller cities (or even the large ones) you have to go by car, full public transport isn't an option. That's okay when you have friends who have the time to take you out and about. It doesn't always work that way, and so when I visited people in my late 20s and 30s, I would spend the day at their house (usually writing) and then we'd go out and do things in the evening. Or I'd stay with someone who could take the time off work that week.

Perhaps the biggest 'disappointment' has been New York City. Maybe that's an odd one to pick, but if I think about how I felt while visiting there (twice) then it's been interesting but...just another city, if you understand my meaning? I had no connection to it but a general touristy connection, and that wasn't sufficient for me to really feel like I had a "great time" in the city. So if I was going to recommend NYC, it would be as somewhere that you need to go with at least one person that you know, or as part of a group. I knew a few people who lived in and around NYC, but I stayed by myself, went sightseeing by myself, and only met up with the friends for a meal. If I'd had a travel companion, then I'd have gone to museums and the sightseeing places, and maybe had more emotionally connected memories of NY than I do.

You know that saying about "people don't remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel"? Well, the same thing holds for cities. If i don't have an emotional connection with cities - friends, memories with friends - then it's...just a city.

gingicat asked Any thoughts about gender?

I'm kind of in the camp of "gender is what you make of it". The problem is that gender is also often what our society and the people in it make of you as you perform gender. And in some parts of the world one's safety is wrapped up in how well (or perhaps how normatively) you fit into typical gender brackets.

( long and probably not very clear )

So, uh, yeah. Just a few thoughts.

What is the hardest thing you like growing in the garden? (i.e. it's complicated or difficult, but worth it) asked grav_ity

Fruit. Stone fruit, specifically. Peaches and nectarines in particular, because when you buy them in the shop they're large and sweet and perfect, but they're not tasty. The ones off my tree are tasty.

( just what it takes to produce tasty fruit )

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And if you have a question, you can pop it in the March Memeness question post.