Pablo & Rusty's

Just went down with Reuben to check out the new Pablo & Rusty's espresso bar at Homebush. Homebush is really coming alive as a business park and this espresso bar is perfectly situated in the centre - ready to print money. It's right outside the train station, and 3 new office towers are rapidly growing up around it. (Google earth still shows a park where the cafe now is!) In August, CBA are moving all their operations to one of the towers. 5000 customers right there.
My mate Chris is working for P&R, kinda like a cafe planter - his job is to get in each time they get a new cafe open, make sure it's set up, working properly, and then move on to the next one.

It was great. A really funky set-up, lovely staff, and delicious coffee. Reuben and I both had flat whites, which their barista absolutely nailed, and then I went behind the counter to play for a while on their 3 group Synesso. Chris let me make a few coffees and the groups are just amazing. Excellent extractions, nice and slow and rich, and oh wow - the steam arms. I made some of my best milk on my first go. I would love to work with that kind of machine.

If you get a chance to head down to Homebush and check it out, you really should!

SATC

Can a feminist really love the show Sex And The City?

An interesting article in the UK Guardian, republished in Spectrum to coincide with the show's movie launch next month.

I like this bit:

"And despite the shared understanding between the show's creators and its fans and analysts that every woman is one of the SATC ladies, it has always been crushingly obvious that hardly any of us actually is. The characters are, to a woman, white, rich, straight and apparently unencumbered by any strong emotional or practical ties to anyone or anything beyond their friendship group and, of course, the men they engage with. On one level, this is simply a piece of scene setting - it is a show about wealthy New Yorkers, not about all women everywhere.

Akass points out that because there are so few television programmes purely about women, "Sex and the City bears the burden of representation. No one expects The Sopranos to encompass the experience of all middle-aged Italian-American men." The lack of drama in any other aspect of the women's lives except their relationships - the fact that they don't generally have to deal with issues arising from, for example, financial burdens or family ties - clears the field for their sex lives to become their first priority. "They do exist in this kind of vacuum," says Whelehan. "The chaotic element in their lives is their partners. Everything else is ultimately fine, mainly because they have the money to fix most problems." Which also explains why SATC is often dismissed as being simply a show about shoes. With no real battles to fight, excessive screen time can be devoted to tales of trivial consumption."

soup.

My mother makes green bean soup in winter.

I'm not sure what it's called, but it's made from green mung beans, boiled in a pot of sugared water with round balls of sago. When I was a girl, she would make a massive pot and leave it on the stove in the kitchen. We would eat the soup late at night, in small plastic bowls with cheap plastic spoons and gulps of condensed milk.

I was in the Chinese grocery store the other day and needed another item to make up my minimum $10 to use the eftpos machine, so I grabbed a packet of mung beans as a last minute purchase. They looked so ordinary and mundane, packed neatly between plastic before they could grow into long bean sprouts. But once I put them in my pot and let the water bubble and churn, a smell wafted throughout my kitchen, sweet and musty, laced with sugar and memories so vivid I ached somewhere deep inside me.

My bowl is now empty, scraped of every last bean. Mmm...it was worth the effort.

wise words.

Ben had some wise words this week about his daughter's dedication. This is my favourite bit:

What made it click for me, was linking it to Hannah in the Old Testament. All Hannah wants is a child. She prays and prays, year after year, never giving up. Then God finally gives her a little boy (Samuel), and the first thing she does is give him back to God, 'dedicating' his life to Him. In fact she sends him off to live at the temple. That strikes me as pretty bizarre and amazing-- you want something sooooo much, and then you give it away?But for me, it is acknowledging Who gave us our daughter, and thanking Him, and saying that her little life is His, not ours. I do find it hard to 'relinquish ownership', but the truth is, she never belonged to me. She has always belonged to God, and He knows her, loves her, and will take care of her infinitely better than I ever could.

I found this very encouraging - what a godly way of thinking!

It makes me think: do we want babies to love and cuddle, or children who will grow into men and women that the Lord? Do we idolise the things we have been made stewards over? Are we unwilling, as Ben puts it, to relinquish ownership of the things that belong to God?

And for those of us who are childless and perhaps struggling with a desire for what we don’t yet have, do we trust our Father, albeit through tears, or fall into despair when His plans are not ours? Will we choose to be joyful and glorify him in our present, or spend our days dreaming of that “something better”?

Mad Hot Ballroom.

Watched Mad Hot Ballroom tonight with Sam. It was quite good - a documentary about 10 year old New York kids who take free ballroom dancing lessons and compete in a competition. Most of the kids are from racial minority groups or lower-income backgrounds, so a lot of heart-warming Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds-type moments.

One thing that struck me about New York kids is how mature and articulate they are, particularly compared to Aussie kids. The 10 year old kids in this movie talk like young adults; they say things like, "Oh well, it's just a contest, you know? I think winning shouldn't overtake the ultimate goal to have fun" - complete with little hand gestures and mock-adult facial expressions. It was pretty cool.

(Confession: I hope my kids - God willing if I have any - are bright, expressive and good talkers. I'm not so great at the kiddy talk. I never understand what they're saying, and so find myself guessing what they're saying half the time and usually I get it wrong. I also hope my kids are good looking Eurasians...but that's another story....)

We also borrowed Bridge to Terabithia, but I've decided I don't want to watch it anymore. This may sound silly, but I'm scared it will be too sad when Leslie dies at the end. I loved the book, but it was the first time I'd ever read anything where a real-life character died and didn't come back to life, so I just found the whole thing horribly traumatic.

holidays.

Holidays tomorrow - Sam and I are going to MacMasters for three days. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get everything ready at work so I don't fall too far behind when I get back on Monday. The magazine is a bit relentless at the moment.

I think it will rain most of the time we are there, which means a lot of DVDs, reading and sleep ins. Maybe a bit of painting too, if I'm feeling inspired.

U2 3D

Off to see this at Imax today with Lairdy. Should be great. They have a 15,000 watt sound system to deafen me with the sweet sounds of "Bad" and the like. Love that song. Hope it's on the set list.

Fixing my machine.

Pulled apart the steam arm of the Giotto today and have found the culprit causing the leak from the steam arm:I ordered a replacement seal for a whole $1.30, and also ordered a new 4 hole steam tip. The spare parts guy reckons it'll speed up steaming time pretty significantly, looking forward to giving it a go when it comes.

Weird Al Parody

Weird Al is a very funny man. Soph and I heard this on the radio yesterday. If you're a star wars fan, it should be up your alley. Love the sith piano player!

personality test.

Apparently I'm a Benevolent Creator.

Cool.

High Traffic

This site gets about 100 unique hits a day, which usually equals somewhere around 200ish total per day. If you get a link from Craig, you normally cop about 30 extra hits. Yesterday we got a link from the boarsheadtavern. Check out the stat jump:

They must have a stack of readers.

Friends.

Sam and I have a theory.

A while ago, I borrowed my mum’s box set of the TV show Friends. As a teenager, I used to love watching this sitcom on Monday nights. Six attractive, funny friends who hang out all the time at a coffee shop - what’s not to love?

Sam and I have been watching a number episodes when we get a moment to relax on the couch, which is a lot of Friends in a short space of time given that each one only takes 20 minutes. In doing so, we’ve noticed a distinct trend: every episode contains at least one porn reference.

It could be Chandler’s secret stash under his bed. Joey’s penchant for threesomes and G-strings. Lesbian fantasies woven into a joke (always lesbian, never gayness. This is interesting - I think male homosexuality is still taboo on the show because lesbian fantasies still allow men to express their heterosexuality by objectifying women. On the other hand, male homosexuality is emasculating - we have to wait until shows like Sex in the City turn gender on its head, make women the aggressor and having a “gay bf” acceptable) Every episode, without fail, contains at least one reference to pornography.

It’s incredible that with one hit TV show, pornography can go from something only seedy men looked at to something which normal blokes enjoyed – freely and liberally in broad daylight, even in front of their sisters and girlfriends. No longer veiled in secrecy, it is now openly flaunted on the cover of popular magazines and in daylight. After Friends, men no longer had to hide their porn stashes. It became acceptable, commonplace, even applauded.

I would be interested to see what people think about our theory. I ask though that commenters please try to post thoughtful and constructive comments, not judge-y remarks like “porn is evil, Friends is of the devil, lets boycott it”, or “aren’t people who look at pornography disgusting”. Like it or not, Friends was a widely popular show which influenced the Western World – and not just through Jennifer Anniston’s haircut.

How does this help us engage with people engrained in Western culture? How does it help us understand the difficulties our society faces when it comes to pornography? How does it contrast to God's view of sexuality?

Blogs in my RSS feed.

These are the blogs I read that are updated (at least semi) regularly.

Craig, Nixter, Ruth, Matt, Michelle, AB, DMDC, Guthers, Matt and Thea. I also reckon Justin's blog is a great read.

There are a couple of others that I click through whose RSS I don't get, but these are the main ones I check out. What blogs do you read?

procrastinating.

I’m currently editing a piece written for us by a freelancer on shopping centre advertising.

Having never edited raw copy before (I’ve only ever subbed articles. If you aren’t in publishing and have no idea what I’m talking about, that means checking for spelling and grammar errors rather than shaping the piece as a whole so it works with images, headlines and overall direction of the feature), I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Whenever I hand in my articles, I always make sure my copy is “clean”. This means that the editor, in theory, should not have to rework my story too much because I’ve checked all my facts, kept close to the brief and woven my stories well.

The copy I’m currently editing is not clean. There are spelling mistakes. Grammatical errors – lots of them. Things don’t make sense. Facts are left hanging. Nothing flows nicely. In short, it requires a lot of work.

That got me thinking. This guy gets paid for this copy. Other freelance jobs I’ve done have paid 70 cents a word – that’s just under a $1 000 for one piece. This guy got paid close to a grand for copy that I’ve had to spend the last two hours reworking!

Anyway.

I’m keen to freelance after I finish full-time work and (God willing) have children. I think it would be a great way to keep my mind occupied, keep a hand in the industry and earn a bit of money on the side. I just need to build up more contacts…

4 ingredients

Yesterday I was given the book 4 Ingredients, which according to this article from the Courier Mail was an Australian bestseller for 2007, even ranking above Bryce Courtenay's latest book.

The book was written by a pair of Sunshine Coast mums and is based on the premise that you only need four ingredients to cook a tasty meal, such as Polynesian chicken, zucchini hash-browns and pasta with crab and lemon cream sauce.

I have a theory on why this book - which the authors produced and printed on their own so looks pretty cheap - did so well. It has a really homey feel about it, with sweet interjections (e.g. try this recipe - it's really scrummy!) and an unprofessional manner about it. I like cook books like that; it reminds me of reading through my mum's old handwritten recipes.

I'm keen to try some of these recipes out. I received the book at a perfect time - work has been crazy busy lately and my editor had to leave for a few works because of a family emergency, so I've been working lots of overtime and essentially doing my job and his. Quick and easy dinner meals will definitely help!

Restaraunt Review: MuMu Grill

Tonight we're checking out MuMu Grill (perhaps it's called that because they slaughter on site??). It's a steakhouse in Crowsnest. They don't have a website, but I found another review here. Will let you know how it goes. Supposedly it's all organic and healthy... I'm not fussed as long as it's steak!

Fresh Prince.

I loved this show as a kid. Carlton's dances were awesome.

Latte Art

Last coffee photo's for a while, I promise! Spent a bit of time working on my latte-art today - this is the pick of the litter.

Mac image software

Sadly, Picasa's stuff doesn't run on a Mac. But if you're looking for a half-decent piece of software with which to crop, edit and play around with your photo's before putting them on-line, give Acorn a try. It's pretty straight forward, it's free for 30 days, and not too expensive after that.

Most helpfully you can use layers, and the resize/crop functions are very straightforward.

But if you're after something completely free, you can join the 'Photoshop Express' site, which allows you to store 2GB of photos online and edit them on-line too. Pretty groovy!

more coffee photos

This time I used a good camera. Latte Art tomorrow hopefully. Am thinking about spending an hour or so tomorrow just making coffee. What do you think of my extractions?

The ugliest part of Sydney...

< open rant >...has got to be the stretch of Pacific Highway between Tempe and St Peters.

Not only that, the Princes Hwy is a terribly planned road. Despite appearing 3 lanes wide, there are always cars parked in the left lane, you can turn right pretty much everywhere (but no turning lanes mind you!?!) making the right hand lane a waste of space too. You just have to crawl down the middle lane and stare at ugly buildings. Behold the ugliness.< /rant >

Wouldn't it be great if the NSW government planned and built something like The Big Dig? But it would be nice to have it without all the stuff-ups though...

What other parts of our city are total eyesores?

Sometimes I think my life would be better if I had...

...a big enough salary to put a deposit down on a house.
...enough disposable income to travel to Europe.
...a baby to love.
...a plan for our lives that went beyond the next nine months.
...a job I was passionate about.

But then I remember I have all that I need to make my life wonderful.

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
- Jesus Christ

Latest espresso.

I was stoked with this coffee - in both taste and looks. It's a double Ristretto flat white, made in my favourite cup. I've felt in fine form behind the machine this week. Wish I had more time to practice!

For beans, I'm currently working through some of Cafe Bianci's Etruscan, (chocolate-y central!) and about to start some more of Lovell Roasters' Brazilian. My machine has developed a bit of a leak around the steam arm which is a little frustrating, but seeing as I'm on holidays for the next 2 weeks, I'm going to hunt down a replacement seal, and use the opportunity to take my machine apart and give it a major clean.

roast vegetable and hummus pie

Baked an easy roast vegetable and hummus pie tonight, from April's Delicious magazine.

It was so easy to make after a busy day at work and heaps tasty, so I thought I'd share the recipe.

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
2. Roughly chop and mix 1 onion, 50g of broccoli, 1 capsicum and 2 zucchinis together in a roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil and 2 tsp of cumin seeds (I accidentally bought ground cumin seeds, but this did not seem to make a difference to the taste).
3. Toss and roast for 30 minutes or until tender; when vegies are done turn oven down to 200 degrees.
4. In a bowl, mix together a 200g tub of hummus, the zest from 1 lemon and a good handful of chopped coriander.
5. When roast vegies are done stir them through the mixture in the bowl.
6. In a rectangle baking tray, line the bottom with thawed puff pastry (the store-bought kind for busy people!)
7. Cover with a layer of thinly sliced sweet potatoes. Make sure to leave a 2cm border
8. Top with roast vegies.
9. Brush the border of the pastry with a bit of egg and/or milk
10. Top the mixture with another layer of pastry; wrap it around and fold it along the edges
11. Bake for around 30 minutes.

Eat!

Contentment.

Paul says that he has learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. He says that Godliness with contentment is great gain. The writer of Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord leads to contentment.

This is something I'm praying God would teach me more and more.

I like study?

Yep it's true. I'm having a great time writing an essay. This never happened at university. Ever. I guess in those days I just wasn't into what I was studying all that much. My pattern at Uni was to look at the question the night before, read a few articles by midnight, punch out two thousand words by 4am, drive to uni and hand it in at 6, and be home by 8am to sleep through the following day.

But this time round it's different. I have found reading for an Ephesians essay these last few weeks really rewarding. I started thinking about the question over a month ago. I've read stacks of different books, mulled over the letter, and just enjoyed throwing thoughts around in my head.

It's definitely helped me order some thoughts I've had on the head and body metaphor that carries right through the letter. The idea of headship (especially in regards to marriage) gets talked about lots, and often simplified (unhelpfully I think) to leadership alone. As if to be a head is only to be a leader. But as you understand something of the headship of Christ over his body the Church the metaphor becomes much richer and deeper.

I am thankful to God for a chance to study his word like this. Thanks to those of you who support Soph and I, and give me the privilege of studying full time. It really is a privilege.

Coffee in Leichhardt?

I was asked today where you can get a good coffee in Leichhardt. Although Leichhardt has managed to become synonymous with good coffee, I'm convinced it's a myth. There are good coffees to be had in Haberfield, Summer Hill, Annandale and other surrounding suburbs, but as far as I've tried, I can't find anything in Leichhardt itself. I have heard Grind is supposed to be okay, but haven't tried it yet. Bar Italia is total rubbish, despite their (and SMH's) claims to Sydneys best coffee.

Have you found anywhere good?

Velluto Nero

This is on my list of places to visit in the holidays. It was at the top of the list of an SMH review recently. They use a naked portafilter on their machines, and have a massive roaster sitting in the middle of the cafe floor. Awesome. Any of you city/coffee guys keen to come along?

Sore legs today

Spent too long as part of 'team number 1' in King Caracticus (Not I sir!) at Crossfire yesterday morning. We meet in a kindy classroom, so the chairs are tiny. Going up and down on those chairs gives your quads a serious workout!

frozen in time.

Check out this cool street theatre stunt (it makes the spray painted man outside the MCA at Circulay Quay look lame).

If you click on the site's homepage, you can see a human dominoes yawning stunt.

Car Insurance

Today was the day to renew our insurance, so I spent a good hour or so trawling through the different insurer websites to find a good deal. Here are my 5 tips for renewing your car insurance.

1. Don't just renew your insurance with the renewal notice your company send to you - get a new quote from the insurers website: that's where they offer the most competitive price. Last year we were insured with Allianz, and the when I went on-line as if to set up a new quote for this year, it came in $250 cheaper than what was quoted on my renewal notice. Dodgy.

2. Don't be fooled into thinking you'll lose your No claim bonus by changing insurers. Unless you've had more than one at fault accident they'll generally offer you the 60% anyway.

3. Pay the premium on-line. Apart from NRMA, most insurers will offer you 10% off the premium if you pay on-line.

4. See if you can use a comparison website. They don't seem to like the details I provide for our Peugeot, but it might work for you.

5. Read the fine print to see what happens if you actually have an accident. Do you have choice of repairer? Will they give you a hire car? How big is the excess? Don't just look at the premium amount. One company I looked at offered a premium that was $400 less than others, but the excess was $1200!

What are your tips for good insurance?

In the end I went with Just Car. They came in super cheap, and are just AAMI in disguise.

Old CDs

Home alone today, while waiting for my hokey pokey biscuits to bake, I rediscovered an old CD I've had in my collection for years - Invincible by Michael Jackson.

I can't remember why I bought this CD, especially since Michael's best stuff is from the 80s and 90s and he descended rather rapidly into mediocrity after HIStory, but it has some really funky songs. My favourite tracks are Unbreakable and You Rock My World - tracks which I think influenced Justin Timberlake's most recent sound (which I love).

Anyway, that got me looking through my old CD collection and reminiscing. Have you ever noticed how when you visit the homes of people who are from the same generation as you, their collection resembles your own? I'm turning 26 at the end of this year, which means my teenage years was largely spent listening to Alanis Morisette, Green Day, Blur, Oasis (how good was Wonderwall??), Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the Corrs, Powderfinger, the Spice Girls, Coldplay (before they were mega-famous), Silverchair in their "alternative" phase (before they sounded just like Coldplay), No Doubt (before she was just Gwen Stefani) and Britney (before she went crazy).

Whenever I peruse friends' living rooms, I see the same CDs with their tell-tale covers peeking out from their CD racks. The funny thing is I don't listen to these CDs on a regular basis. It's like there was a definite point when iPods and online music stores came into popularity, resulting in a mass halt of CD purchases around the late 1990s/early 00s. I can't remember the last time I actually bought a CD. My current collection is frozen in time - music taste which will one day have the same gravitas as The Rolling Stones or Jimmy Barnes.

There will come a time when I will no longer listen to or appreciate the music culture of today. I already find this happening. I can't stand some of the "emo-style" or modern hip-hop music on the radio. And forgive me for sounding dowdy, but girl bands are so inappropriate! Whereas the Spice Girls and others of their ilk sang about friendship, girl power and independence, these days it's all about being sexually aggressive and putting out to get a man.

So it won't be long until I will tire of the iPod and cling to these CDs, with my children complaining about how lame mum's Greenday CD is. Then another ten years will pass, long enough for the music I love to be considered retro enough that its cool once again :)

Conspiracy theory

I'm convinced we are getting done over by a national chewing gum sales scam.

Have you ever been into a small business, say a newsagent or a post office and you end up spending $4.60 on something small, only to realise you have no cash?

At this point, you normally whip out your eftpos card, quietly thanking God that you live in the electronic age, only to be pointed by the attendant to the ridiculously inconvenient and technically untrue sign 'Minimum eftpos transactions - $5'. This is ridiculous. Those machines can process any amount: there is no good reason why they won't let you spend less than $5.

Here's where my conspiracy theory comes in. What is it that you decide to buy at this point? Generally, you'll quickly calculate that the difference is less than a dollar, and so look around for the cheapest item at the counter - which is inevitably chewing gum, usually 'Extra'. And ever so conveniently it's on display right below the eftpos machine - waiting for this very moment.

My theory is that Wrigley (who also sell everything else cheap at the counter) have a scam deal going with these business that lie about the '$5 dollar limit', in order to sell more gum to suckers like you and me who won't just put back the $4.60 worth of stuff and leave on principle. If I counted up the number of times I've done this, I reckon I've spent a good $20 on gum I never wanted to buy!

Next time I'm going to stick it to the man.

Speaking the truth in love

But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head —Christ. (Eph 4:15 Holman CSB)

Here are some recent reflections on this verse which is being debated around the blogosphere.

Sometimes I think we mistakenly try and hold love and truth in tension as if we searching for a balance between the two. We ask 'How much can truth can I say before it feels unloving'? I've even encountered people who think 'speaking lovingly means I can't be as truthful' or 'the only loving words are harsh truths'.

But this is not how Paul is thinking in Ephesians 4. The issue on the table is not how to find the balance between these two. Rather the issue he's considering is the issue of 'truthing' (what our English Bibles translate as 'speaking the truth') and the manner is 'in love'. (For the language nerds, In the greek: truth = participle, love = noun. Lit. truthing in love.)

Love is the manner in which members of the body are to speak the truth to each other. Which means that it is possible to speak the truth without love - otherwise why give the exhortation? In particular, Paul gives it in the context of 'word gift people' exercising their ministry of building up the body (v 11-12); that if they exercise this ministry correctly, it will cause the body to grow to maturity, and up into Christ as the body themselves speak the truth in love. So speaking the truth in love is a mark of spiritual maturity.

But what does it look like? Paul is not absolutely clear on what it looks like, but he uses the phrase to contrast the mature member of the body to those outside the body. These people (v14)are deceitful (as opposed to truthful), and speak with cunning and cleverness (as opposed to in love).

But not only is 'in love' the opposite of cunning and cleverness, it seems that Paul is coming to a culmination and climax of the virtues he listed at the start of chapter 4: humility, patience, gentleness, love, unity and peace (v2-3).

Truth can be like spoken without love. But the mature believer will not fall into this trap. Instead, the holy Spirit will teach them how to speak to their brothers and sisters in love; With humility, patience and gentleness in place of arrogance, short tempered-ness and harshness.

Are these the virtues you try to adopt while speaking to your brothers and sisters?

For Sale: Engage Tickets

I have two extra tickets to Engage, which apparently sold out pretty quickly. I'm keen to pass them on to someone I know, cos that's just easier. If you know me, and you missed out on tickets, shoot me an email, and I'll see what we can arrange.

No promises.

Interest Rates

We've never paid any interest on our credit card (we pay in full each month), so I've never had any reason to check what the interest rate on our card is. But today I got a letter telling me that it had just gone up to 20.73%! It doesn't really affect us, but I was astonished - is that really how much people are prepared to pay for stuff they can't afford? Yikes. You would be better off just getting a personal loan for 20 grand and paying that off!

on beauty.

Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has been praised by many women for its positive and healthy portrayal of female bodies, beauty and self image.

But is the campaign a hypocritical marketing ploy? Unilever - the company that manufactures the Dove brand - are also the owners of Lynx, a mens' deoderant that freely makes use of busty blondes, porn stereotypes and Barbie-proportioned women in its ad, as displayed in the image above.

You can compare their sites here:

Campaign for Real Beauty vs. Lynx's Boom Chicka Wah Wah campaign (I'm not going to link to their site).

Lesson number one: behind every "feel-good" message is an even better marketing tactic.

I do love the virals for Dove's campaign for Real Beauty though. 'Evolution' has been widely publicised, in which an ordinary looking girl is transformed into a glamazon promoting cosmetics. Their second film, Onslaught, is powerful in its message about how the media feeds young minds with unhealthy concepts about beauty and the female body. I wonder if Christians could create campaigns like this, combating the world's concept of our bodies and replacing it with a God-given view of ourselves.

Lesson number two: should we remain a cynic or plunder the egyptians?