It's been a while since I last posted. Still, Zoe has been keeping you all entertained with ripping tales of clothes shopping and what fruit she had for breakfast.

We have had a busy week.

On Monday we went to see Keb Mo at the Enmore Theatre.

Keb was fantastic but the evening was slightly marred by Twat Man.

Twat Man was sitting on the row in front of us about 4 seats to the right.

Whilst everybody else in the Theatre had paid to listen to Keb Mo he had paid to spend the evening alternating between two activities:

1. talking very loudly to his girlfriend;
2. shouting inanities over quiet sections of the set such as 'Go Kebby', 'Wooah' and 'Yeah Yeah Yeehaaa'.

He did this through every single song.

About three songs in the person to our left told him to shut-up.

Two songs later the person sitting behind him threatened to kill him.

This worked for a short period of time before Twat Man, obviously overcome with pent-up emotion exclaimed 'Feel The Blues' and started singing his own harmony line.

None-the-less Keb was excellent.

On Tuesday we went to see the Rolling Stones on their 'A Bigger Bang' Tour at the Telstra Stadium.

The Set List was:

Jumping Jack Flash; Let's Spend The Night Together; You Got Me Rocking; Oh No Not You Again; Dead Flowers; Angie; It's Only Rock And Roll; Tumblin' Dice; Night Time Is The Right Time; The Place Is Empty; Happy; Miss You; Rough Justice; Get Off My Cloud; Honky Tonk Women; Paint It Black; Sympathy for the Devil; Start Me Up; Brown Sugar; Can't Always Get What You Want; Satisfaction.

More than enough classics there to make the evening a huge success. My favourite was 'Honky Tonk Women' but then it was always going to be.

Keef is till the coolest man ever. His face is certainly a testament to the effects of a career in the rock 'n' roll fast lane.

'Its good to be here Sydney. But then it's good to be anywhere'

There were 60,000 people watching the Stones on Tuesday. You can see us all below...

On Wednesday we were going to go to a meeting of the Australian Skeptics but it had been brought forward to the week before so we'd missed it. This was probably a good thing as we were absolutely exhausted after two nights out. We will go next time. One of the best parts of the Australian Skeptics website is Dr Bob's Quiz. I guarantee that it will challenge even the most knowledgable pub quizer. It will also greatly increase your Google skills.

Warning: This next section recounts crustacean boling and is probably not suitable for anthropomorphising, malnutritioned carrot-huggers. Cat - you have been warned. Just skip the next couple of paragraphs and think about kittens.

Yesterday we decided to have a big seafood lunch outside on our balcony. To this end we went to Sydney Fish Market (which was very, very busy) and bought some prawns, some rocket and a crab. I was a little nervous as to how we would get the crab home but the assistant just picks your chosen crab out of the box and puts it upside down in a carrier bag which seems to quieten it down a bit.

Here is a photo of our crab.

It got a bit more lively when we got it home so we put it in the freezer to stun it.

There is nothing a crab likes more after being stunned than being boiled. This is a scientific fact.

I had to buy this pot specially on Thursday. It was the largest one they had and was still only just big enough. You can see the crab having a whale of a time at the bottom of the pan.

After boiling you pull off the claws and legs, chop the body in half, remove the lungs and other nasty crab entrails and voila...

It was extremely tasty and well worth the effort. I think we shall have crab again next week.

On the backgammon front I have been trying to do some work on Blitz Doubles. I had half a notion that I would come up with the Sean Formula that would accurately predict early blitz cube decisions. I would become world famous and backgammon players would talk about me in revered tones. Sadly the area is very complicated - still the research I have done has made me understand far more than I did. I also understand the relative importance of various factors in the blitz better - particularly the importance of the quantity of ammunition available to the attacker (Bagai notes both the importance and general neglect of this topic in Classic Backgammon Revisited).

I played a great 11 point match against Gnu yesterday. It was one game long with me winning 16-0. Most notably all the cube decisions were correct (at least according to Gnu 2-ply). I am particularly proud of my recube to 16 which I managed to time just right. Admittedly this was mostly luck as I had no idea what was going on but my intuition must be getting better!

I will post the game separately with some analysis. I won't do it here as I know not everyone is quite as obsessed by backgammon as I am.

Work is going OK. It is very busy and we are still nowhere near where we need to be but we are moving in the right direction.

I think that's all for now.

Sean