The Archive

Here you will find everything from the "latest news" section which is no longer the latest news

17th January 2004 -31st December 2004

 

31st December/1st January - Bonne Annee!

A big happy new year from Paris, France! What a night... the Ballet was AWESOME! That Rudolf Noureev guy sure knows what he's talking about when it comes to choreographing a ballet, oh and that Tchaikovski guy ain't bad with the music either. The free champagne was of an unusually high quality and the talent on the stage... incredible.

After finishing at 11pm, I rushed to the underground in an effort to make it to Le Tour Eiffel in time for the countdown, but, at 23:55, I realised that I would have to settle for the Champs Elysees instead. After witnessing a fairly lacklustre fireworks display and watching many French people get very drunk I wandered over to the Tower to witness the mob throwing glass bottles at small groups of riot police... how exciting. After that, I got on a train to go home where everybody had to exhale so that the doors could close.

30th December - The Louvre

Ticket to the Louvre - 8.50 €
Sony T1 5 megapixel digital camera complete with 512 megabyte memory stick - 600 € (approx)
Satisfaction of COMPLETELY filling up a 512 megabyte memory stick - priceless

And I thought it could never be done. 512 megabytes is alot of memory, and I've only visited 2 (out of 4) levels of the Louvre

I have created a picture gallery especially for the Louvre here. Warning - may contain spoilers...

29th December - Paris? Paris, France?

Today I saw the Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Place de L'Opera, Notre Dame and walked around the courtyard of the Louvre. However, by far the highlight of the day... wait for it... a nutella crepe...mmmMMMMmmmm. If I lived in Paris, I would just spend my whole time eating. I also picked up a ticket (one of only 2 remaining tickets to all performances for the next week!) to the ballet "Sleeping Beauty" on the 31st of December, performed by the "Opera National de Paris", supposedly the world's foremost ballet company. I feel very sorry for my parents at home in Hong Kong who watch helplessly while I blow out (you'd better sit down dad) 130 € for a single ballet ticket. (If it is any consolation Dad, I put it on my credit card, not yours). With any luck, future spending will not be of such an extravagant nature.

In other news, I have all but given up on sending postcards. I simply don't have time to write them and send them anymore. I shall try my best to send the rest of them off, and I will probably just give the postcards to people on my return.

Photos of Marseille and Paris!

25th December - Christmas in Marseille

Marseille is such a quiet quaint city in the South of France. Oh, and everything they say about French food is absolutely true. I ate a brilliant christmas lunch at "Le Canard Boiteux" for 45 €, then followed it up with a Christmas dinner which I can only describe as "Orgasmic" at "Restaurant Miramar" which included two divine dishes for entrees which I picked rather at random (not being proficient in the French tongue, yet) followed by a Bouillabaisse, a dish which, for normal humans with normal appetites, should not be consumed with two Perriers, two entrees, a dessert and a pot of tea. I was actually quite full when I handed over the 100 € which my pleasures had cost, a novel, Nöel experience.

23rd December - Excuse moi, parlez vous Anglais?

Oh, the French... So far everybody's English has been of about the same quality as my German, which is a bit alarming. Contrary to popular opinion about the attitude of the French to foreigners, I have found people here quite friendly, and they drive in a far safer manner than the Italians. Despite Marseille being quite a picturesque place, I have taken very few photos and suspect that I will not be taking very many before I leave.

22nd December

Today I went to the Sistine Chapel.... WOW. I have finally gotten up off my arse and made a photo page... here

21st December - Roman Holiday

Rome... I shall start a roman photos page soon enough. For now, an interesting view of St. Peter's square... er... ellipse. Here

17th December

Not much happened today, we tried to get into some Roman baths, but they were closed for refurbishment. Bloody Romans! I am now up to page 5 with the photos. We had a bit of an adventure yesterday with the Gozo ferry when two of our party got left behind, except they didn't really get left behind, they just thought they'd missed us and went ahead... so one of us, who stayed behind to find them, ended up having to rush to the ferry. In other news... in the interest of air quality in Malta, I am abstaining from the consumption of baked beans for breakfast. I also wrote a poem during one of our lectures, not so much because it was boring (although the poem does start with "I am quite bored") but because the lecturer spoke at a pace which would have shamed continental drift. You can read the poem in the poems section or just go straight there.

14th December

As you can probably tell from the decreasing frequency of these updates, I'm starting to get over looking at rocks and holes in the ground. The University of Malta department of Archaeology Christmas Party was good fun. The food was a little average, but the company was good as we got to meet some of the students from the university here. I also entertained some students from London (also on a field trip) with my sub-minute rubik's cube prowess (5-try average, 50.4 seconds) and someone remarked on my "bulging trousers" referring, of course, to my speed-skater thighs.

9th December

Results... hmm... not good. H2A in Discrete was a nice shot in the arm although I would've liked to do a little better (and it increases my chances for getting into honours). H3 in Methods was a pleasant surprise considering the fact that I came out of the exam with a very sinking feeling in my stomach. N (43%) for Latin was expected... but that doesn't mean that it didn't hurt like a punch in the guts. Tanti sum quanti fungus puditus! Perii! (I probably got all that wrong)

We also got to handle some pottery today. Spent a little time at the university of Malta, which was cool, everyone down here is getting sick and taking days off... but I seem to be in perfect health. Don't forget to check the photo pages.

Oh, and by the way, there still seems to be a problem with "writeme" at "danielyeow.com" (I can send emails to myself just fine, but nobody else can send emails to me... go figure). So just send stuff to "dyeow" at "bigpond.com" as per usual.

8th December

Today was our first "day off" it is a public holiday in Malta, for the festival to celebrate the immaculate conception. I went scuba diving... y'know, because it is an essential skill for archaeologists to have. It was quite a bit of fun. Two nights ago we went to a harpsichord concert in Valetta, which was great. My legs are finally adapting to the strains of jogging every morning, the key to this is to not try to do the mile in four minutes every time you go out. Don't forget to check out the photo pages, I'm nearly up to four pages. Oh, and please email or SMS me any comments. I have a new email! "writeme" at "danielyeow.com" the other one still works, of course, but this one is way cooler!

Someone also sent me the COOLEST link today, check it out!

Speed cubing 5-try average is now 58.76 seconds.

5th December

Happy birthday to the King of Thailand! Oh, and incidentally, it also happens to be my birthday. I went for a run this morning. What a silly idea, I'll remember not to do that anytime soon (so, maybe tomorrow). We went for a cruise around the bay yesterday, which was fun except for the bit where some of us got a little wet.

2nd December

We went to Gozo today. Gozo is to Malta like Tasmania is to Australia. After a 20 minute ferry ride we were there. We examined a megalithic stone structure which is apparently the oldest free-standing man-made structure in the world (assuming the Pyramids of Giza are only 2500 years old). I also found my first piece of early punic red-slip pottery today.

1st December

Today I gave my tutorial presentation. It was all about "cart-ruts". They are rock-cut grooves which are found all over Malta which were hypothesized to be ruts for carts to be dragged through. There is, however, no agreement in the Archaeological community on their purpose and suggestions have ranged from agricultural uses all the way to water channels for Atlantis.

29th November - Malta

Today we visited the Ghar Dalam cave which was interesting. We then visited the Cathedral for St. John in Valetta (the Capital of Malta) then checked out "Casa Rocca Piccola" the 16th century palace of a noble Maltese family, which I found to be unusually... "British". However, by far the highlight of the day was finding three bathtubs in bins and going to the most beautiful place (photos here). Also, I've started a gallery containing selected photos from Malta here.

27th November - The British Library

I thought I'd start preparing for my "tute presentation" in Malta today. What better place to start than in one of the world's biggest public libraries. The best thing about this place - wireless broadband internet access, yay! Oh, yes.. and there are an awful lot of books here as well. Perhaps I'll check out the National Gallery while I'm here as well, there's a Raphael exhibition on at the moment. Check out photos of my first london segment here.

26th November - The British Museum

This place is incredible... countless priceless artifacts which I have only previously seen in books. Some of which I have written entire essays on. I walk in and the first thing I see... the Rossetta stone! With mouth agape, I browsed very quickly through most of the exhibits there. Definitely worth another look (and why wouldn't it be, its free!).

I also stopped by at Harrods to have a look around. Picked up a fridge-magnet chessboard and a pack of cards... everything else seems a little pricey. The food in London is terribly expensive, and its not particularly good, sort of reminds me of boarding school (ok, its not that bad).

24th November - in transit in Singapore

Guess where I am... I will be in London in about 17 hours.

23rd November - Dinner in Vue de Monde

Tonight I had dinner at this quaint little French restaurant in Carlton (y'know, getting the stomach used to the european pallette). It isn't bad... in fact, it is equal with Grossi Florentino. Seriously. Eight courses went by so quickly, by the end of the night, it still didn't seem like enough... that was, of course, until the bill arrived. Yikes.

15th November - Maths for cash?

Today we were sitting in the MUMS room just minding our own business... and we get a text message, or rather Damjan gets one which informs us that some people are offerring money for solutions to maths problems. Naturally, we were all very interested. Unfortunately, it was all a con. The citizen's electoral council (a very-left-of-centre political party) were having a little challenge where they offered $150 to solve three problems. First, a general proof of pythagoras, easy. Then we had to trisect a line, which, with a little help from our friends, was also relatively straightforward. However, the last problem was constructing a cube wich was double the volume of another cube (doubling the cube) using ruler and straight edge, which is, unfortunately, impossible. Of course, they believed that it was possible and even had a method for doing it which made NO sense... go figure. Some later searching by Damjan has found some methods of solving this, but all use a bit more than just a ruler and straight edge. They can be found here.

Speed cubing 5-try average is now 65.34 seconds.

7th November - Speed cubing

Inspired by a topic in one of my uni subjects - "The Rubik's Cube" from 620-353 Discrete Mathematics (not to be confused with Discreet Mathematics - a subject which nobody really notices anyway), I have taken up speed-cubing. My long term goal is to crack the 30s barrier. My current 5-try average is 91.2 seconds.

4th November - A pain in my heart

The world's most dangerous and stupid man - George Walker Bush, has been re-elected to the office of President of the United States of America. The "big corporation disguised as a human being" (and not very well disguised) has done it once again. Perhaps this is a reflection on the world in general. I weep for those who knew not what they did when they voted for Bush, and while God may forgive them, the world that dubya has divided may not be so kind.

In lighter news, "Chariots of Fire" has been added to the reviews section.

29th October - How do you like them apples?

It's official. Stand Up For Your Rights is in the black... to the tune of $19499.33. Hooray!

28th October - SUFYR account

Want to know what it was like to organise a really, really, really big comedy gig? Click here to find out.

27th October - Good food guide?

Today I purchased a "The Age Good Food Guide". It contains reviews on many of what are supposedly the finest restaurants in Melbourne. Having been to many of the restaurants listed in this book, I am inspired to write some reviews of my own based on my own priorities when it comes to fine dining, and including, of course, good restaurants which I have been to in cities other than Melbourne. Coming soon...

17th October - Around the bay in a day

224 kilometers and about 10 hours of riding... a fun day. I have a sore bum. I came home and felt like I'd just spent a night out sculling yard-glasses but otherwise ok. The packet of instant pasta I got in a showbag was actually quite nice. Not quite Grossi Florentino, but still a long way above the Scotch College boarding house slop. Check out the photos here.

16th October - Grossi Florentino

Apparently this restaurant is a Melbourne institution... so when I heard about an "Old Scotch Wine and Food Club" event which was to take place at this quaint little restaurant on Bourke St. in the city, I signed up. As it happened, the food was exquisite. So much so that Grossi is now my new "favourite Australian restaurant", however it isn't quite as good, in my opinion, as Gaddi's or Spoon in Hong Kong... although I daresay its slightly better than Amigos (but only just).

9th October - Good news - bad news

Today was an interesting day, at one point I described it as "being strapped to the front of a bullet".

The good news is that "Stand Up For Your Rights" went quite well. The comedians seemed to enjoy themselves as did the backstage crew. From what I've been told, the crowd didn't have a bad time either. I, personally, had a great time and I made a cameo appearence in a candle suit and tap shoes. In the end 1549 tickets sold, a result with which I am well pleased. How do you like them apples?

The bad news is that the election didn't go the way I had hoped. John Winston F**ckwit Howard was re-elected by a population which probably deserves him. The small percentage of the population whom I know, are appaled by this and are contemplating moving to New Zealand.

Perhaps I shouldn't have ran my comedy night this year. I recall something that good friend and former maths teacher John B. Taylor once said - "there's a fixed amount of happiness and sadness in the world, by doing your maths [students name], someone, somewhere is probably a bit happier." My point is, by not having my comedy night, all the "goodness" which was obviously present there, might have gone elsewhere and swung the election result. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Look out for a minute-by-minute personal account of Stand Up For Your Rights.

6th October - Break Even

Stand Up For Your Rights is officially in the black. As of 9am today 860 tickets sold! We're all the way back to row V in the stalls, we should be opening up the seats in the balcony for sale soon. Thank you to all of my friends who went and bought tickets! Anyone who hasn't bought tickets... well, what are you waiting for?! Scroll down to the 27th August entry for more details about the night. Click on the link above and it will take you straight to the page on the ticketmaster website.

27th September - Bike Ride

Today I went on a bike ride with some friends to train for "Around the bay in a day". Here are some interesting statistics:

Kilometers covered - about 100
Time taken - about 5 and a half hours
Average Speed - about 22 km/h
Maximum speed reached - 62.8 km/h
Time and place of lunch break - 1 hour stop at KFC in Sunbury
Unplanned dismounts - 3 (damn clip pedals!)
Riders at the start of ride - 4
Riders at the end of ride - 3

25th September - Spring Equinox Party

This is the bit of my website which becomes like those tacky magazines with paparazzi photos of celebrities at parties. Except, of course, that there are no celebrities... the page is here, hope you like the photos.

24th September - Book Review!

When I'm not skating, shooting arrows, driving into walls, watching movies, getting stuck in airports, organising comedy nights or throwing huge parties... I read the odd book. Here is a book review of "Positive" by Werner Reiterer.

22nd September - An oldie but a goldie

I just realised that I haven't linked this on my website. A short video of Gethyn Sharp-Bucknall taken at this year's Oceania Speed Skating championships in Auckland. What a voice...

17th September - Victory in the Maths Olympics!

"The Quantum Mechanics - no job too small" were victorious in the annual Melbourne Uni Maths Olympics, a maths competition which is run by the Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics Sociecy. This year's team was - Geoffrey Chu, Andrew Kwok, Sally Zhao, Nicholas Sheridan and Daniel Yeow.

1st September-14th September - Inline Speed Roller Skating World Championships 2004

Click here to go to the "Yeowie Power Worlds Diary"
(be patient, the page may take a while to load)

 

29th August - in a Funny Mood

Today I am in a funny mood. Its really just an unusal combination of many different emotions which are all being felt strongly at this present time. To start with, tickets to my comedy night went on sale recently - relief, happiness even. On Saturday some of my buddies from uni threw a surprise going away party for me which was really touching - happiness, joy, surprise, a hint of confusion. Today one of the few people in the world who I genuinely hate, John Howard (Prime Minister of Australia), has given me yet another reason to hate him - he has called the federal election on the day of my comedy night - anger, frustration, boiling hatred, homocidal urges. To top it all off, on Wednesday I'm going to Italy to skate in the 2004 Inline Speedskating World Championships - excitement, nervousness.

27th August - Tickets to "Stand Up For Your Rights" go on sale!

Amnesty International Australia presents the biggest annual one-night comedic event in all of Australia. Featuring Lano and Woodley, Dave O'Neil, Greg Fleet, Rod Quantock, Tom Gleeson, Gerard McCulloch, Justin Hamilton, Terri Psiakis, Akmal Saleh, Dave Williams, Lawrence Leung, Chris Bennett, Man Bites God, Matthew Hardy, Subby Valentine, Sean Choolburra, The Pinch and The Six. It will take place at the Arts Centre, Hamer Hall at 7pm-10:30pm on Saturday the 9th of October 2004. Tickets are $35 concession and $50 adult and are available through ticketmaster7. What a bargain!

Click HERE to buy your tickets to this comedy extrava-gala-ganza.

22nd August - Discovery Day

I discovered a great deal toady. I discovered that, despite wearing a T-shirt which clearly said "Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics Society", I still look enough like a school kid to be given volumes of information on how to do well on my VCE so that I could get into Melbourne University. The SMO (Schools Maths Olympics) was won by Scotch College and the SMO lunch took place in a room with furniture arranged by some old Scotch Collegians... pictures of the arrangement can be seen here.

On a side note, an interesting set of photos of my friend Damjan as he tries to negotiate the chasm between two automobiles.

20th August - New Look!

I'm trialling a new look website (this one). I've had some feedback on the colour scheme and navigation system which suggests that it isn't entirely as user-friendly as I had hoped. So I've ditched the fungus-swamp colour scheme in favour of a lighter flavour with nice grey text. Any feedback (positive or negative, real or complex) on the new look is more than welcome.

19th August - Watching olympic archery semi-final on TV

Absolutely nailbiting... Tim Cuddihy vs Hiroshi Yamamoto. 17 year-old Tim trails by three points going into the last end, 41 year-old Hiroshi puts his first arrow into the 8-ring. Tim replys with 3 10s while Hiroshi replys with a 9 and a 10 to put both of them equal. Both of them equal the olympic record at 115 after 12 arrows! So it comes down to a one-arrow shoot off. Yamamoto goes first and with ice-cool nerves places his arrow neatly in the 10. Cuddihy manages... a 9. Oh, the agony! So close yet so far. I'd be lucky to hit the gold at 70m...

Cuddihy went on to win the bronze medal and Yamamoto failed to win the Gold from Italian Galiazzo. The final wasn't nearly of quality that the semi was... and I will probably fall asleep during methods tomorrow morning, or later this morning I should say.

10th August - "Hero" added to the movie reviews section

4th August - an update, an article

Someone recently commented that I didn't update this page very often, so I'm doing it now. Invariably, "now" will very soon become "then" (in fact, it already has) which will, in turn, become "back then". I should probably add a section to my website to include links to the pages of friends as I am beginning to realise that I actually have some friends...

The article is about Hong Kong, its not really a travel guide, so it doesn't make it to the travel section. Instead, it has been placed in the miscellaneous section. It got published in Farrago recently, but the life was mercilessly edited out of it, so here's your chance to read the "real" article, exactly as the author intended it.

13th July - Crash and Burn

Had a rather nasty crash at Greensborough car park last night (on my skates, not my car). I think my boots came off the worse. Have a look at the photo here.

1st July - Rally for Universal Suffrage

"the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it" - Albert Einstein

So I decided to do something about it... and I was not alone. Photos here.

26th June - Winter Solstice Party

"The Shoebox" as I so affectionately call it was host to the Winter Solstice Party this Saturday. The party who's organisation drew critical acclaim for the simplicity of its online invite and accompanying FAQ page, went off without a hitch. 7pm saw the participants begin to trickle in, after about two hours, the piano was unleashed along with some bongo drums and a trombone. As promised, the twister board made an appearence, there was singing, dancing, and a joyous time was had by all... By about 1am, the party had died down somewhat but some chose to arrive as late as 3am. As the morning wore on, the few of us who remained played cards while waiting for the Euro 2004 football match between Sweeden and the Netherlands.

Here are some photos... not too many, unfortunately, as I misplaced the camera halfway through the night and only found it with the assistance of the sunrise. Look out for a review of the various bits of fruit that people brought along.

16 June 2004 - "The Planet of the Apes" added to the Movie Reviews

It has come to my attention that I have so far only reviewed movies which I really like. To balance things out a little, I have reviewed a film which really sucked in my opinion. Planet of the Apes should be bad enough so that I can write at least three or four more reviews of good movies now.

9 June 2004 - "Sharpen Your Minds" added to the Miscellaneous section

9 June 2004 - Interview with Michael Byrne added to the Miscellaneous section

This interview has been on the Eltham Roller Skating Club website's (link to the right) messageboard for quite some time, I thought it would be nice to have it on my website, seeing as I conducted the interview.

8 June 2004 - "The Dark Crystal" added to the Movie Review section

8 May 2004 - Daniel elected to Amnesty International Australia Victorian Branch Committee

7 May 2004 - Daniel elected to the MUMS committee...

22 April 2004 - First Gadget Review!

Would you like to know if my Bang & Olufsen headphones are any good? Then go to the gadgets section to read my little spiel about the little buggers.

8 April 2004 - "Without Limits" added to Movie Review section

6 March 2004 - First Movie Review!

So here I am on the eve of the Australian National Inline Speed Skating Championships and what do I do? I write the first movie review to appear on this site. Click on the "Films" bit on the top nav-bar thing. The movie under scruitiny is the Hayao Miyazaki film "Princess Mononoke"

29 February 2004 - Amnesty O-week report

What did do you do for the once-every-four-years extra day of the year? I took it upon myself to do a little reportage on each of the different campus amnesty groups' orientation weeks. You can read the report (complete with pictures) here.

17 January 2004 - danielyeow.com launched!

17th of January sees the "official" launch of danielyeow.com. Missed it? I'm not surprised, because I didn't really tell anyone and the stupid domain name pointing thingy insisted on pointing at the "website under construction" page. Lets hope that future updates will be a little more newsworthy and interesting. The email address "writeme@danielyeow.com" still doesn't work, arrrgghh!