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Before is of the flood nearly at peak on 13/01. After is post peak on 15/01.

Click and drag handle at the center of each photo to interact (does not work if viewing via RSS).

Few more photos at Twitpic, instagr.am [0] [1]

Aerial photos at NearMap.


Please donate to the QLD flood relief appeal


jQuery Before/After Plugin from Catch My Fame

Brisbane Wheel

South Bank

State Library of Queensland

Offline it was a crazy month, but online, it was all about the laughs.

The Godfather (Rémi GAILLARD)
Prankster returns to form.

What Is Your Batman Name?
What was yours?

20 Great Moments In The ‘Am I Doing This Right?’ Meme
I found this hilarious. The progression of this post was genius.

The Best Viral Video Of 2010
I’m not sure about the ‘Best’ tag but it’s very amusing.

Ducks blown off their feet by the wind
So cute yet so exciting!

Logitech Revue with Google TV – Kevin Bacon
A celebrity endorsement done real well.

This Is Spinal Tap on IMDB
Dial it up to 11 (which inadvertently lowers the overall score)

This made my day, thanks @SuperMeatBoy :D on Twitpic
The climax to their incessant pro-meat marketing campaign. Buy it!

Mmmmmmm, Wise Men: The Meat Nativity
While we’re on the meat theme.

How To Turn Google Translate Into Google Beatbox
Isn’t technology grand?

… to the things that made me smile.

Get Your Own Street-Legal Tron Light Cycle
Really needed to be filmed at night time.

Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four
An augmented version of his famous presentation.

Casteller
Humanity is awesome.

Ben the Bodyguard
A very clever use of HTML5.

… and to the things that made me wonder.

DOD tries to uncover secret of flying snakes
Nature is strange.

NASA finds NEW LIFE. Arsenic based life form on Earth.
A good thread if you didn’t quite get the science.

Peering At The Future: Jesse Schell Speaks
These are exciting times for gaming.

The best way I’ve come up with to describe the music on Kid (keeping in mind that I don’t understand a word that’s being sung) is this: it’s as if someone bottled up all the good vibes from a song like Faith No More’s Easy Like Sunday Morning and wrote a whole album from it in Thai. Ignorant comparisons aside, this is the kind of record that you put on whenever you want to feel at ease and, well, quite simply, nice. Which for most people, I assume, is a lot of the time.

scrubb are a singer-guitarist duo, though keyboards, brass and synths can occasionally be heard peeking through the standard layer of drums, bass, guitar and vocals. The production is clean and clear. Singer and lyricist “Muey” has a smooth, very listenable-to croon that reminds me of Blur’s Damon Albarn (sans the cockney, obviously), and the music by “Ball” provides numerous nods to late-90s Britpop-rock whilst staying true to its own twist on the Eastern easy listening sensibility.

Rohi Toh

The ten tracks on Kid are largely split between upbeat, guitar-pop tracks like Prohm and Suk Jai that could transform any tedious household chore or workplace task into an excuse to bop your head, clap your hands and smile; and slower numbers like Ni and Lom Bao whose ideal listening setting would involve being stretched out on a lazy hammock under the stars on the slowly lapping shores of some largely tourist-free exotic island in South-East Asia, gently caressed by a soft summer breeze whilst sipping on the fresh juices of a ripe coconut.

There’s not an awful lot of variety on Kid, but as you find yourself unwittingly listening to it on repeat you’ll come to realise that that’s not the point. The point is that you’ll be feeling better about things after it’s over; that whatever problems or headaches or nuisances that should’ve gotten you down during the day didn’t turn out to be so bad after all; and that songs with intangible feel-good charms like this really shouldn’t be pretentiously deconstructed in a review, but rather shared and enjoyed with friends.

Tracklist
Kid
Black Sheep/SonyBMG Thailand, 26/06/10

01. คำตอบ (Kam Tohb)
02. พร้อม (Prohm)
03. รอยต่อ (Rohi Toh)
04. สุขใจ (Kid Edited) (Suk Jai (Kid Edited))
05. วันเหล่านั้น (Wan Lao Nan)
06. หนี (Ni)
07. ฉันก็เป็นเหมือนใครคนหนึ่ง (Chan Gaw Pen Meuan Krai Kon Neung)
08. คนนี้ (Kon Ni)
09. ลมเบาเบา (Lom Bao)
10. คิด (Kid)

Band

L-R:
ต่อพงศ์ จันทบุบผา (Torpong Chantabuppha)* - Guitar
ธวัชพนธ์ วงศ์บุญศิริ (Thawachpol Wongboonsiri)** – Vocals

* Nickname: บอล (Ball)
** Nickname: เมื่อย (Muey)

scrubb – Official Website (Thai)
scrubb – MySpace

It was a beautiful day. I was in Canberra for the weekend with a friend, who was lucky enough to have a local pal kind enough to spend his day taking us around. Naturally, being my friend’s first time in Canberra (it was my second), we were hitting all the usual must-see spots: the Australian National Gallery, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Parliament House, Black Mountain Tower, the Australian War Memorial, the international embassy district, etc. Personally, having first come to Canberra as a kid, it was nice for me to revisit these places with a few less (pre-blockbuster) Marvel characters battling about in my brain. Despite now being old enough to properly appreciate the impressive collection of cultural, “grown-up” things that Canberra has to offer, none of those places got me as physically and, well, emotionally excited as the prospect of BRODBURGER.

We were sitting around a small table in a cafe on Sunday morning, about to order breakfast. As I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, I was leaning towards the cafe’s “big breakfast” option, but our guide was hasty to advise otherwise:

“Hey, if you guys like burgers, I know this place I can take you for lunch. It’s next to the lake and their burgers are massive. The last time [his girlfriend] and I went there, we ordered two of their burgers and couldn’t finish them. We took half of them home to finish off the next day. So if you want to go there for lunch, you’d better go easy with breakfast.”

My eyes widened. I may have started breathing a little quicker. I almost certainly splurted out “YES” in a way that made everyone around me furrow their brows out of surprise and worry.

Shortly after, I found myself eating an omelette in lieu of the big breakfast, whilst mentally consuming tantalising thoughts of giant, un-finishable burgers. And not long after that, after a tour of the embassies and an obligatory tumble down the sloping grass roof of Parliament House, we found ourselves in a car on our merry way Bowen Park, and Brodburger.

If you’re driving in, you can’t miss it. It’s literally sat right next to the park’s carpark. And it’s bright red.

If you can’t see a bright red caravan, however, it might very well be for the crowds of burger lovers queuing up outside it. Apparently this is the norm. (Actually, the above picture may very well be considered “quiet” by Brodburger standards).

Whilst waiting in line, you’ll have plenty of time to peruse the menu. As we were leaving town that day with no immediate plans for a return trip in the near future, we simply had to go “all out”. In the case of Brodburger, this meant ordering the “Brod Deluxe” which, like all the other burgers on the menu, came with our own choice of three cheeses: brie, Swiss or blue.

We had to wait 20 minutes for our flame-grilled burgers due to the backlog of orders that had come before us (and that kept coming well after ours had been placed). We figured it was more time for our stomachs to get hungrier… something which, if the legends around this place were to be believed, was a good thing.

Soon enough our numbers were called, and with warm, hefty burgers firmly cradled in our hands and we found a lush, sunny patch of grass nearby to sit down and eat (puzzlingly, there were no picnic tables in the area that we could see).

And there we beheld them: our Brod Deluxes in all their monstrous majesties. Each contained: two “A grade” gourmet flame-grilled beef patties, two strips of bacon, two eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, Spanish onions, home-made aioli, tomato relish and our choice of cheese (Swiss in my case). They were, essentially, two burgers in one.

A small mouth struggled to accommodate a proportionally-upsized bite of the beast. It failed.

My turn.

Halfway there!

We all managed to finish our servings, some sooner than others (I’m pretty sure I got sunburnt by the time I finished mine). At the end of it all, we were united in our verdict: those were some tasty, tasty burgers. Despite the relative simplicity of their composite ingredients, each layer of the towering Brod Deluxe was well prepared and their combined effect was one that all good burgers should convey: it was unpretentious, delicious and filling. Simple as that.

Having said that, those looking for something with a bit more kick in their burgers may want to look elsewhere as some may find that the flavours here complement each other a little too well, i.e. nothing really stands out. But then again, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that if it tastes good.

It was a shame that we weren’t staying in Canberra long enough to be able to sample any of the other burgers on the menu. From what I gather, this little red caravan is a bit of a Canberran institution (even though our local guide — born and bred in Canberra — had only caught wind of it a few months earlier). Reports of hour-long waiting times abound, as does speculation over a potential forced relocation, and debate still rages over whether or not the burgers themselves live up to their now formidable hype. But one thing is for certain: the lovely lakeside location, quality ingredients, even the queues and the eclectic mix of people in them all contribute to an experience that stands playfully alongside (though obviously not equally in stature) the city’s more well-known cultural magnets as a fun twist on what may otherwise be a largely grown-up affair.

Brodburger
Bowen Park Carpark
Bowen Drive/Wentworth Avenue
Barton ACT 2604

Various Images
[1] [2]

Critical Hit LED D20 Die
So nerdy it’s almost unbearable (but so stupid awesome).

Today I Die for iPhone
Have already covered this game in a previous post but the iPhone version is as, if not more effective.

Typewriter as I/O; lets you play Zork
> attack tree

The Real Story Behind the Famous ‘Fainting Kittens’
A tear jerker.

Super There Will Be Blood
A brilliant summary in 8 bit.

Don Draper Says ‘What?’ A Lot
If you watch Mad Men, you’ll love this video.

Wishery
Snow White by Pogo. Amazing as always.

FPS map design: Then and now
As games and films converge. What is the right balance?

Media Surfaces: Incidental Media
Interesting conceptual ideas. Some already exist, the rest will surely come to pass.

Billboard Installation
Beautiful and accessible.

Acrylic Oil Painting Techniques to Transform Human Body in 2D Painting
Has to be seen to be believed. Would love to see a video and in person.

Exclusive: Man in disguise boards international flight
There has to be more to this story than meets the eye. Very very strange.

The Australian app specially designed for the new Samsung Galaxy Tab Android-based tablet
A great move from both companies. It’s interesting to see traditional media experiment in this way though it would have been way more successful on an iPad. I really don’t think the Samsung Galaxy Tab will take off like everyone’s hoping.


Image source (Fubiz, Lead Pencil)

A recovering coffee abuser’s worst nightmare.



Dandelion & Driftwood, each representing one of the owners (Peter and Penny Wolff), is a unique Brisbane cafe nestled in Hendra. What makes it unique is their focus on filtered coffee, notably via: Chemex, Syphon, Aeropress and Cold Brew (yes I had to look these up too).

When we arrived, Peter explained the concept of Dandelion & Driftwood (D&D for short… teehee) to us and you could see he was passionate about his coffee. One could imagine he could speak for great lengths about the many aspects of coffee making and the origins of each bean they stock. Thankfully it must’ve looked liked we needed some caffeine stat, so he proceeded to recommend a few brews to begin with. Begin. With.

For the vast majority of cafés, you don’t get to choose the type of bean your coffee is made from. In D&D’s case you can, and each type of cupped bean was accompanied with a card describing its origins. A nice touch that didn’t feel pretentious.

I opted for a more manly bean (apparently men in general prefer stronger beans to women) in both hot and cold form and it was a damn good coffee. The cold brew came in a ridiculously awesome amber bottle and it tasted as awesome – strong and flavoursome, and reminded me of the iced black coffee you can get in Malaysian hawker centers (in a good way). Sampling from coffees others were having around the table, each was remarkably different. The feminine Dandelion blend didn’t even taste like coffee.

Along with coffee, they also serve all manners of sweets and cakes. They looked great but we didn’t try any. We were already high on caffeine. We didn’t need to add sugar to the equation.

So we’ll definitely be coming back to D&D (…nope still funny). There are still many other beans and methods of preparation to sample. It’s a whole new world!

We left happy and wired, but then again, nothing like the group that left before us – rapidly mentioning something about 5 or 6 cups each before realising they should probably leave. I guess that’s the kind of place this is. Before you know it, you’re a full blown coffee addict (again). And you love it.


Dandelion & Driftwood
Shop 1, 45 Gerler Rd
Hendra, Queensland, Australia

The week on the Internet that was 25/10 to 31/10.


Being hooked on RSS, Twitter and Facebook, I encounter thousands of links every week. Most I skim but some are interesting or inspiring enough to share. These weekly posts are an attempt to collate these links in a single post accompanied with a short description. They are in no particular order.

Not sure if anyone will be interested but not everyone is on Twitter (where I normally share links) and I don’t think I’ll be spamming Facebook with them any time soon.

Never Mind the Bullets
A Microsoft sponsored HTML5 site that runs like a dog on anything but IE9. Not as conceptually interesting as Chrome’s, Arcade Fire – The Wilderness Downtown, but still quite an interesting project.

Doritos Late Night. Doritos presents Professor Green
A panoramic music video. The first I’ve seen. Has this been done before? Surely.

Kanye West’s Epic Hip Hop Opera “Runaway” Debuts Online
For all his uh, Kanye-ness, he does have a creative mind. This was to be expected.

iOS 4.1 Security Flaw Puts Your iPhone’s Information At Risk
This works, though thankfully not on a 3G. Seems more like an undocumented feature rather than a bug.

Fainting Goat Kittens
Latest viral kitten video with a sad ending. Too cute…

Floating cube optical illusion
Optical illusions are awesome because they break your brain.

Part Kid, Part Machine, All Cop.
THE Halloween costume of 2010.

OMGWTFBBQ
The perfect site to have up on a big screen at a party full of Internet addicts.

Invasion of Privacy
Step by step on how to discover all kinds of information on an individual via the Internet. Not enough people are aware of these methods. Protect yourself already.

Miwa Matreyek’s glorious visions
Beautiful TED performance. The amount of everything that went into this is staggering.

Various images that caught the eye more than others (perhaps this should be on tumblr?)
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Doritos Late Night. Doritos presents Professor Green

Image source (ffffound, キリペチカ)

It was Tuesday.

“Just another café”, I thought, but hey, why not give them a try? It’s not like there’s much else of note in the commercial end of Newstead. Well, I guess there’s the newly revamped Waterloo, but I don’t particularly feel like fighting for service today – and so I mosied on in.

The place is small. There’s no doubt about that. But there’s something about it which isn’t quite… normal. Firstly there’s a chef-lookalike person in the kitchen. If you’ve ever worked in this area, you know this is a rare sight. He surely can’t be real. Secondly, the wait staff are all smiling, and are really friendly. Before I know it, I have a menu in hand, a table, and a glass of water.

I peruse the menu and a few things catch my eye. All day breakfast. Not my thing, but I know a few who would be over the moon. Then I flipped over the menu and there it was – the word, “Chilli”, twice – combined with the word, “Chicken”. This was destiny.

Chilli Chicken with Potato Salad

… and it nearly made my stomach explode. It’s a half chicken AND a choice of salad. It’s tender, succulent, tasty, and they provided an extra bottle of chilli in case I wanted more. They could they read my mind. It’s not spicy hot, just delicious hot, and an hour later I fell into a food coma. The rest is a bit fuzzy and before I knew it…

It was Sunday.

I suggested to the breakfast crew that we give these Symposium folk a chance.  They’re new, they’re friendly, and they make great chicken. Surely this would translate to great breakfast? Fortunately it seems on Sundays, they manage to expand their alfresco seating. It makes the place feel much larger and more Sunday.

Once again I examined the menu and realised something was amiss. There were new things that weren’t present on the weekday menu. New and interesting things, and mouth watering things such as a…

Filo Parcel lined with Prosciutto & filled with Creamy Scrambled Eggs, topped with Hollandaise Sauce

An edible pastry cube lined and filled with the things I like, in my mouth. When I read ‘parcel’, I thought triangle, or at most a square – not a deep 3D square!

It tastes as good as it looks and is now one of my favourite breakfast dishes ever.

And then there is this monstrosity.

Ham Soufflé with Wholegrain Mustard & Cheese Sauce

It really is a reverse cheesy hot pocket. Dip the bread into the sauce. Close your eyes as your taste buds are assaulted. Once you have recovered, cut into the pocket. The pocket is ham and eggs. Brilliant.

I’ve been back several times since. I’ve never been disappointed. Their chefs make great food, and once in awhile their ‘quicker’ food cabinet will ‘magic up’ delicious one-off surprises. The young lads at Symposium are friendly, attentive and have an energy about them. I think it’s because they know they have a great thing going – and it’s about time the rest of Brisbane knew that too.

Symposium Café
Shop 2/26 Commercial Rd
Fortitude Valley, Queensland, Australia

Vote and more after the jump...

Is this what success looks like? I’m not sure. It’s certainly not how it’s spelled. Makes one recall Homer Simpson’s little song and dance upon receiving news of  being accepted into college: “I am so smart, I am so smart… S-M-R-T, I mean, S-M-A-R-T!“ You want to be happy for his success, but the manner in which he celebrates it reveals the occasionally vast chasm between the person enjoying the success and the success itself. What hurdles did the owner of this plate have to overcome in order to feel like such a public celebration of his/her achievements was warranted? As we stare hypnotically at its boggling letters, we can guess, but we may never know…

Thanks to Andrew G. for sending this in!

This poll will run for a week and result in this plate being tagged as shame, fame, or tie.

Vote and more after the jump...

I snapped this plate mere hours after arriving back from Japan, in a shopping centre carpark near where the airport bus dropped me off. Nothing says “Welcome back to Straylia” quite like a muscled-up black ute with a customised plate forged from 110% pure Aussie testosterone.

Coincidentally, a good friend of ours captured and sent in the exact same car a short time later:

“I humbly offer for your perusal an almost certain entry in the licence plate hall of shame – TUFN UP.   I am dismayed to say I saw this in Sunnybank.” – Jon.

Thanks Jon. We have concluded our initial perusal, and now it’s time for the public to judge.

This poll will run for a week and result in this plate being tagged as shame, fame, or tie.