Not sure I could think of 1000, so..
You know..
Apr 28 2010
cheesey bun
B&E roll from Bacino cafe in Balmain.. premade in the display fridge, nice roll, tasty egg, bacon was a little soft and it has provelone cheese in it. Delivered toasted and warm. Tasty, and the coffee’s good too. 8.5/10.
Apr 20 2010
quick bun
Just a quick B&E update.. had the B&E roll from XL (where I had that wrap). It was a little bland, a somewhat average turkish bread roll with otherwise identical ingredients. 6.5/10, if only because I didn’t really like it as a wrap.
Apr 09 2010
moar buns
Time for another Bacon and Egg in bread product review! They’re not the only thing I eat for breakfast.. but I ran out of toast this week. Both of these are from places in Chatswood.
Firstly is a bacon and egg bagel from.. downstairs. Bezini? Something like that. Given it’s in a bagel, it’s immediately compared to the B&E bagel from the Bagel House in Rozelle, which is excellent. Nice free range egg (I’m assusming by taste) but tends to be a little over cooked (solid but not dry yolk) and lots of tasty bacon on your choice of bagel. The bagel downstairs was a poppy seed one (I ususally get a cheese one at Bagel House) and was ok, but nowhere near as good as the BH ones. The egg tasted like a cage egg (demand free range eggs people!) but it was cooked nice with the yolk still a little runny and the bacon was fine. The accompanying coffee was also on the good side of acceptable. 6/10, would do again.
Secondly was this morning’s bacon and egg wrap (werd) from XL cafe. The egg was nicer, the bacon was good and it was wrapped in a tortilla and toasted on a cafe press. It was nice, but I think I prefer my B&E on more meaty bread products. Also acceptable coffee. 6/10, fine alternative to the bagel.
This may end up as an irregular series at this rate. It should be noted that I’m a harsh scorer, so don’t take 6/10 as discouraging. I’m not sure how someone could get 10/10.. duck eggs fresh from the arse and some sort of amazing bacon to end all bacon I guess. One day…
Apr 06 2010
tunsic
I shall attempt at this point to write something that’s been a ponderance of mine for a while now. The music I’m currently listening to is the soundtrack to a game some of you may have heard of called Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross is the erstwhile sequal to a game I’m rather fond of called Chrono Trigger, which was released for the SNES back in the day and recently (ish) re-released and optimised for the DS. You can read about Trigger here, the (excellent) article from the current book about the pair of them isn’t available online yet but will be at some point. Read the rest of that site anyway, it’s tops.
So anyway, why am I listening to a game soundtrack from a PS1 game that I never played. The best answer is of course ‘it’s nice’ but that wouldn’t make for very interesting reading, so I’m going to have a go at some sort of reasoning. It was done by a chap named Yasunori Mitsuda, who also did the soundtrack to the Chrono Trigger (as well as a host of other games) so there’s some definate familiarity to the style. It’s also from a PS1 game, which means it’s much more instrumenty than the SNES allowed for due to the CD format of the system. Most of all though it’s really just a nice series of music to sit down and listen to while, say, blathering about crap on the internet. It flows through lovely guitary pieces describing a town or its surrounding countryside to upbeat songs for battle scenes and creepy songs about a mansion or a fortress, and because it’s a game soundtrack it climaxes with epic battle scores and wraps up with peaceful melancholy befitting the game’s apparently rather sad at time story. Apparently the game wasn’t well received by fans (something along the lines of all the Trigger characters being killed off and whatnot.. there are treatises around, as mentioned earlier) so for some the soundtrack might even be the highlight of the game. If, that is, they ever got the chance to listen to it in entirety.
The other thing about a lot of game music from the PS1 era is that it’s an era from before game music when all hollywood blockbuster. Back in the early days you’d have a catchy tune for a town, a shop, an overworld, a battle.. the soundtracks had real character to them. Nowadays many soundtracks are unremarkable, uninteresting and not memorable at all. Or it’s just licensed music chucked in because you need music in a game. There are exceptions to this of course, and I’m sure if I delved into it sufficiently I’d disprove my own point so I’m not going to. Suffice to say, the game music I listen to is pretty much limited to SNES and PS1 stuff (even though I never had a PS1). Or the Diablo II soundtrack. Or Need For Speed 3. Or.. shit, there goes that point I was making..
Suffice to say, there’s a remarkable amount of care and attention in many game soundtracks. They’re still out there, ready to be aquired and sampled, so if I’ve piqued your interest get your googlin’ on have a listen. You may be pleasently surprised… or find I’ve wasted your time. Either way, my work here is done.
Apr 06 2010
more east than usual
Given that it was more east than usual over the weekend and they made it twice as long to celebrate the fact, I decided to go visit my Dad’s dogs down in Nearly Melbourne. I also took the opportunity to visit my Dad and his wife at the same time, given that where the dogs are, they generally are. Unless Dad’s at work, but that doesn’t happen when it’s commemoratively more east weekend. This retelling starts before then though, as the stage must be set for such things. So relax dear reader, and be taken on a journey through the power of my words. Or something.
Firstly, let me point out for the uninformed, my new job tends to lead to a few drinks or so on the last day of the week. In fact, the first two fridays lead to being pleasently surprised to find myself at home the next morning, but I digress. Last thursday was no exception, only without excess. This is mainly because after lunch (in a pub) an afternoon drink at the RSL, some drinks and nibblies put on by new work to celebrate an Occasion and a couple more back at the pub to farewell a team member, I popped off to Newtown (or N00btown if you prefer) for a few cocktails and some dinner/wine with a friend who was temporarily back from London. This was followed by heading into the city for a few beers with her other half, then getting home shortly before 2am, checking into my flight and packing my bag. I managed to forget nothing, which suggested to me that getting drunk the night before a trip isn’t such a bad thing after all.
5 hours later however, with the alarm cacophanising me from lovely slumber, that was revised back to ‘not ideal’. Tired and slightly queasy I staggered downstairs, called for a cab, leapt into the first one that came along instead and was whizzed off to the airport by a complete nutter. Nice guy, but part of the 95% of cabbies that give the rest a bad name when it comes to driving. A bit of lining up and a ham and cheese croissant later I was waiting to board, alternating between keeping my eyes open enough to read my book and closing them for a recharge. Which is also pretty much what I did after I boarded.
As an aside, I hate flying. If I had time/means I’d rather drive to places, but as flying is much faster and cheaper, that means I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like. Still, at least I’ve done it a few times.
So anyhoo, that started a sleepy day in Nearly Melbourne. That afternoon we visited a Buddhist temple that’s nearby (well, it took over an hour to get there.. we went the scenic route). It was in a great spot, but it was kind of a non-descript building with the gold horns chucked on the top. Nice though. On the way back we spotted a pub that had all day meals on, so with it being 3pm at that point we decided to stop and have a feed. Very tasty fish and chips, and Asahi on tap. Yum. Not pictured: everything.
The nice thing about visiting Dad is that I can drink his wine. He has very nice wine. He also has some Raki, which is a Turkish spirit that tastes like aniseed and burning until you put a bunch of ice in. Then it’s aniseed and nice. The other side of it is helping around the shop/restaurant they run, which is fine most of the time.. cleaning out the rangehood over the kitchen was a mucky job though. Ergh. Still, I earns me keep. Also I got to play with the pressure washer, so it wasn’t all bad. Squwoooosh! Only got a bit soaked…
Anyhoo, I got back last night. I decided to take the train and bus home from the airport, which is actually the first time I’ve done it from a flight home. Usually I’m too tired/cranky to be bothered with anything other than queuing for a cab, but I decided that the line would be huge and I might as well spend half the cashola to get home. (Though seriously, $15 is a ridiculous fare for about half a dozen stops.) Sitting on an empty train makes me want to think of something to write about, but it never happens.. probably because I’m not much of a writer.. I get writer’s block before I start. I think I shall call it aspirant’s block. Kinda makes you wonder why I’d have a blog with an imaginary flipside, but heigh.. why the hell not.
Mar 29 2010
new jeorb n stuff
Some of you may know I started a new job recently. I could tell you all about it, or I could just make something up. I chose the latter. The (bad) writing will continue until Project Ark reaches its natural conclusion. Whatever that may be..
In other news, I mended my wardrobe yesterday (pics if you ask nicely.. it’s uninteresting), am still pondering both whether or not I want a new laptop and why more manufacturers don’t make 11″ models and I bought a new secondary monitor. It’s a 23″ Samsung, a P2350. ‘Sgood, though the stand is a little wobbly so make sure you have a sturdy desk if you buy one. I’ve been motorbikling to the new jeorb which is good, though there’s rain forecast for the next while so that’ll be fun. Good thing I have plastic pants to wear over my real pants (they want to stop the ones who wear the plastic pants on real pants) so that I might remain dry. We’ll see anyway.. tomorrow might be a mite uncomfortable otherwise.
In internet news, here are links.
- The ping-pong door. I want to make it one day, in the mean time I may design a mechanism to achieve the tilt and slide. I have a few ideas anyway.
- Llewtube. Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge) gives people a ride in his car (it’s a Prius, but don’t hold that against him) and has a nice chat. Anyone who likes The Mighty Boosh should watch the Rich Fulcher one, and everyone should watch the Stephen Fry one. And a bunch of other ones. Or just listen to them as you would a podcast, they work well that way too.
- Earth hour was this on Saturday night, which is a load of tokenistic crap. See: this. In short if you want to be green, do it all the time.
- This comic. If you don’t get it, think back to when you were seven and loved space. If that’s still no good, try this.
- LASERS MAKE WATER GO UPHILL. Lasers, fuck yea.
Mar 09 2010
is this thing on?
If you’re reading this, I am dead have successfully shifted to a new webserver. Go me. The wordpress exporter doesn’t grab any settings and when I re-uplourde the media, it doesn’t add to the library. It all still displays and works though, so.. good enough.
Feb 24 2010
average bun
Given that everyone seems to have a foodblog nowadays, I thought I’d give it a go. Unfortunately, the thing I decided to blog about is today’s breakfast. Oh well. It was a bacon and egg roll from the Mobil servo in Raglan, which is near Bathurst in countryside NSW. I was out there for reasons I cannot disclose. Anyway, I was on my way back and has missed breakfast at the motel due to setting the alarm for pm rather than am. Just one more reason I prefer 24 hour clocks. Anyway, after housekeeping woke me and I dropped into certain clients, I was on my way back in The Little Yaris That Could and came over all peckish like. So a servo it saw, and a B&E roll it was. I must say, the egg and bacon were tasty, fresh and cooked very nicely. The bun was merely a cheap hamburger bun, but it wasn’t sugarey like some. All in all, I was most satisfied by my repast. The coffee wasn’t bad either. 7/10.
So, I hear you pondering, what is The Little Yaris That Could? Why, it’s Ronan, my steed for the trip. Ronan is a Toyota Yaris 1.3 auto I hired from GoGet, a mob that both hire and name cars. It’s a car share thing, so it’s designed around people who sometimes need a car for an hour or two but don’t own one or occasionally need a second one. It’s very handy for me, given I fall into the first category. Unfortunately, poor Ronan isn’t terribly suited to driving through lumpy countyside at 100ish kph, what with a tiny engine and automatic gearbox. Still, we got there and back so I’m not complaining. The accelerator didn’t stick at all, for one thing…
Certain frogs can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice, so that they actually never freeze even though their body tempurature is below 0C. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as supercooling. If you disturb one of these frogs (just by touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.
Also you’re a bit of a bastard. Poor little froggy..
Feb 12 2010
hunting for the valley
Hey you! You look different.. have you had a hair cut? No? Well, whatever it is, you smell funny.
So on Tuesday, myself and the bossman decided to ride up to the Hunter Valley (wine country NSW) on our respective beasts. This is the route map.. not embeded to make it easier for you to zoom about and follow along at home. Got that going? Good, cos I’m going to point out a few things. Firstly we head north, and it’s all mostly boring until we get to where it splits.. except you get imagine me crouched over the handle bars, chin on the speedo, providing amusment at 80kph for anyone coming the other way. If I sit up, all I get is 75kph, see. Well, I could open it right up, but riding for hours at wide open throttle (that’s WOT to those of us in the know) isn’t a good idea. So 80% WOT it is. So anyway, it splits at Wiseman’s ferry, and on the way up we took the route to the west. The plan was to have lunch in St Albans, and that all went well. The route from the ferry (yes, there really is a ferry at Wiseman’s Ferry.. two even!) was rather fun, nice and twisty so I could lean off the bike ans scythe through the bends. At least, that’s what I was imagine myself doing. I’m sure it all ended up rather comical really. Still, after lunch is where things got a little.. rough. See, it looks like a main road on the map doesn’t it.. now a main road in country Australia doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wide… or well travelled.. or asphalt. It does usually mean that there’s some sort of maintenace routine for it though. From looking at the google maps street view and having ridden up it, it seems that the maintenance involved REMOVING the asphalt some time ago, then letting the rain wash away most of the surface. Not the most condusive surface for a leisurely bike ride, but not really a problem at all on a postie bike.. they were designed for trails after all. The bossman’s 125 scooter with 14″ wheels with smooth road tyres on the other hand… pretty damn awful. Unfortunately the first half of it was not so bad.. it wasn’t until the second half when we were going up hill that it got unbearable. Still, he soldiered on and we got out.. mostly unscathed. From then it was pretty uneventual.. then boring through Cessnock. That night, a few well deserved beers were consumed at the local irish pub.
Wednesday was wine tasting day. We hopped on a bus (ok, 10 seater van) and pootled out to a few different vineyards with mostly disappointing or uninspiring selections of wines. Except for Vinden Estate wines, with whom I signed up for a half dozen bottles to be sent every six months. Yum. All in all, it seems as a general rule I prefer South Australian reds to anything else. The rest of that afternoon was spent doing some work so we could claim this all as a work retreat. We were nearly productive!
The ride home was a little more considered than the ride up.. we considered going further west down Putty Rd, a well known route for motorbiklists out for a day’s ride, but the last/only fuel stop between us and there (in Broke) had no power, so we couldn’t fill up.. and we wouldn’t have made it to the next stop. Even with fill tanks we’d have been pushing it, so we decided to turn south towards Wollombi and head back down that way. On the road between Broke and Wollombi we saw the results of an accident, there were a couple of cars on the side of the road and some people in the grass off the other side giving CPR to a guy. His bike lay nearby. We stopped, as you do, but they said they had the situation under control.. as much as could be anyway. So, with nothing we could add, we headed on. This time we decided against going through St Albans for obvious reasons, instead going through Central Mangrove back to Wiseman’s Ferry. This ended being a good idea, as the road between those two is a nice peaceful jaunt along the river, very pleasent. From there it was home again home again, jiggady jig.
The beastie stood up to the rough treatment rather well, though I think it’s a little low on oil now. Not surprising really, given the workout it had. I think I’ll change it again anyway.. ’tis about time.
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