eleventy one

It’s the time of the year when we look back at the year that was. Here is the list of the important people who have died in 2008, who have really touched the lives of us all. Things not listed here include the global economy, which is actually still dying and not yet pronounced dead.

Momofuku Ando (5 March 1910 – 5 January 2007) was the Taiwanese-Japanese founder of Nissin Food Products and invented the world’s first instant noodles and cup noodles. He was dubbed Mr Noodle and The Noodle Papa. Without this man our lives without instant noodles would surely be different. Mi goreng instant noodles are listed in Safeway-Woolworths top ten items bought this year in Melbourne.

Ernest Gary Gygax (27 July 1938 – 4 March 2008) co-created the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson. Gygax’ contribution to nerd life can never be forgotten. After his death hackers at MIT paid tribute to Gynax with a giant 20-sided die.

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction author most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick brought the film to the screen and after 160 mins, those who have managed to stay awake (or have taken LSD) have said that it is one of the greatest films ever made.

Edward Norton Lorenz (23 May 1917 - 16 April 2008) was an American mathematician who was the father of chaos theory and coined the often misunderstood term ‘butterfly effect’. The flap of the butterfly wing can cause a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events, so if the butterfly didn’t flap it’s wings then we would never realise how freaky Jeff Goldblum could be in Jurassic Park.

Albert Hofmann (11 January 1906 – 29 April 2008) was a Swiss scientist who invented the psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). He realised the psychedelic effects of LSD on the mind after accidentally ingesting the drug, then later testing it in larger quantities on himself.

Morgan Sparks (6 July 1916 – 3 May 2008) was the aptly named American engineer who helped invent the microwatt bipolar junction transistor in 1951, a critical step in making transistors usable for every-day electronics. Without transistors there would be none of these new-fangled dvds, computers, blogs or atari consoles.

John Michael Crichton, MD (23 October 1942 – 4 November 2008) was an American author best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. He is most famous as the author of Jurassic Park and its unfortunate sequels.

Richard Peach (1949 - 30 November 2008) was a former ABC news anchor, and the voice of the Australian speaking clock. You can still hear him talking beyond the grave by calling the phone number 1194, “At the third stroke it will be…”

Box Hill was either named after a hill where old boxes were dumped, or a towering construction of boxes which in colonial times became so large that it looked like a hill, but such an unanswerable question matters not (to those who can’t be bothered doing actual research). Box Hill is an Eastern suburb of Melbourne typified by is Asian-ness, because this is what makes this place unique, aside from the more Asian Springvale, but let’s not dwell on that one and keep focus here kids. The population includes a large proportion of Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Australians. The Chinese call this suburb ‘bo shi shan’ (博士山) in Mandarin, which unfortunately is not literally a hill of boxes, but is the pronunciation of ‘box’ Chinese-ified, then attached to the word for ‘hill’. This literally translates to something like ‘extensive scholar hill,’ which actually refers to the fine students of Box Hill Tafe.

Inside Centro

The Centro shopping mall is a box-shaped architectural wonder and the focus of what some people might call the multicultural melting pot of Box Hill. Surrounded by the usual generic franchises we see in every other Australian shopping mall are the strange little Chinese shops. There’s the take away food outlets selling pancakes, dumplings, noodles and odd little buns containing custard. There are shops and stalls selling Chinese language books and magazines, as well as Chinese DVDs which are unusually wrapped in plastic instead of professional case – you wouldn’t download a car. There are also some cute two dollar shops such as Everything’s a Goodbuy which is the most hilarious nonsensical pun for a shop name ever.

Korean Oreos

The Asian supermarkets are a major highlight to any visit in this fine mall and make the trip to the eastern suburbs worthwhile, especially for any starving student or backpacker. There’s fresh fruit and vegetables which are actually much cheaper than your major duopoly-supermarkets. Most starving students know that Mi goreng can provide a diet that is not only filling (and lacking any nutrient value), but also very cheap. These supermarkets stock every flavour of Indomie Mi goreng and sell them in boxes for bulk savings. These are of course cheaper than major duopoly-supermarket prices, as are the many, many sauces and packets of flavour-bases. They have a million types of soy sauce and chilli sauce. Whole aisles contain weird dried foods and not even the Chinese know what these dried foods are, until they’re chucked into a hotpot. Some weird Asian products like Wasabi Peas can become very addictive. The best aisle has to be the Asian candy shelves full of funny weird things like Hello Panda, or the delicious Pocky which are savoury sticks covered in chocolate or strawberry, and sometimes even melon, coconut or green tea. Pocky has a knock-off rival called Peppero, but can’t be trumped by Men’s Pocky flavour. A mainstay of Asian candy is the chewy, creamy White Rabbits, but since products containing the toxic melamine have been removed from shelves, it might not reappear for some time.

The Box Hill train station is located under the mall. The train can get to the city in almost twenty minutes if you’re lucky. To find real authentic Chinese dinner go to a Box Hill restaurant outside the mall. The best restaurant can be identified as the one packed full with Chinese people, showing that this is the place to go for good food. Another important sign is the shinny, glazed duck hanging in the window. One last significant product of Box Hill is the bazillion types of international phone cards, which are quite noticeable because their advertising enshrouds entire shop windows, but are probably only really useful when prank-calling the Whitehouse pretending to be the funny supermarket woman – ‘You want bok-choy? I know you want bok choy. Here, now you have bok choy.’

While sitting at home doing nothing, I ask myself the question, ‘Why not create a multi-author blog?’ and a few hours later a blog is born. The tagline explains it all, ‘A blog about books, food, trams and life in suburban Melbourne.’ The title hints to a subtle geekery. Now let us begin our blog with a tale from long ago.

When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Each year the Bagginses had given very lively combined birthday-parties at Bag End; but now it was understood that something quite exceptional was being planned for that autumn. Bilbo was going to be eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number, and a very respectible age for a hobbit.