September 2, 2008 (4 days ago) – 11:24 pm
It’s perhaps a sign of where I should be moving in my career to see that I’m more excited about the tour of Google Chrome’s features - the explanation of how it will work, and how clear Scott McCloud’s illustrations are - than I am about a new browser.
September 2, 2008 (4 days ago) – 8:47 pm
A reader asks - what is something that you’d could be persuaded to buy when you go for your coffee: specifically, something with a long-ish shelf life. No one wants, for example, stale croissants, but it’s possible that you might like to have a small, gourmet chocolate.
In my travels, I’ve seen a lot of different places, with a big variety of options for things that will go with coffee, but most are highly perishable:
- Portuguese custard tarts from sweet belem
- The selection of tiny chocolates (free when the place first opened) from electric bean
- a range of cafes that home-make their cakes and biscotti to order
- cookies from Byron Bay Cookie Company
- nougat
- toffee, if it’s stored in the right container - my wife makes an amazing pistachio toffee
- if there’s room for a toaster, banana bread or fruit bread
- muesli in a takeaway container, maybe with berries and yoghurt - one of my favourites from home espresso
Do you have any favourite long-life snacks to go with coffee?
August 27, 2008 (2 weeks ago) – 3:06 am
My little brother recommended a threadless t-shirt - I can now testify to its inaccuracy.
August 24, 2008 (2 weeks ago) – 11:34 am
[k10k] What better way to combine a calendar with bubble wrap than the bubble calendar?
August 24, 2008 (2 weeks ago) – 11:20 am
Little Marionette Coffee. 1A Booth St, Balmain.
Across the road from Gladstone park, if you’re lucky you can find a parking spot just across the road. Though not a large cafe, it manages to fit a couple of bookshelves on the wall, giving that welcoming sense of a second hand bookshop. Indeed, locals sit enjoying the atmosphere reading the paper, or books that they have brought.
Coffee is deservedly well-reputed. The decaf is rich, with a strong, slightly sweet flavour, with a lingering aftertaste. Well worth a visit, just for the coffee.
August 24, 2008 (2 weeks ago) – 11:08 am
Artecaffe Coffee. 487 Darling St, Balmain
The outdoor seating is the first thing that strikes you when you approach here: a mix of locals from different walks of life sit chatting and enjoying coffees and the all-day breakfast. Step inside (and you’ll have to - it’s order and pay at counter) and there are a number of large wooden tables where people are sharing - there’s a sense of community gathering here. The prices are quite reasonable for balmain; the scrambled eggs with sourdough is only $9.50, with sides at $2, $3 or $4. If you’re not after a big breakfast, there are a good range of toast options - even a raisin brioche.
The decaf here is pleasant enough: nothing amazing, but quite a good complement to the rest of the experience here.
August 23, 2008 (2 weeks ago) – 3:21 pm
I managed to get almost half of these movies by one letter from the poster - it’s easier and harder than you think.
August 21, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 10:03 pm
Can you really judge a book by its cover? To some extent, this is a good starting point - each commentary series has its own goals, and relative technical difficulty level. Best Commentaries dot com takes you further, though - you can see the books on a virtual bookshelf (comparing their relative sizes and thicknesses), and click on them to see their covers. Additionally, they’re all scored, based on an aggregate of different reviews. You can also see a list of forthcoming commentaries on a book. Well worth a look, if only to get a feel for how many commentaries are out there.
August 19, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 10:04 pm
Is anyone else surprised to learn that an Ampersand character is a conjunction of the letters “e” and “t”, because the word “et” means “and”?
If you’re trying to find the right ampersand for the job, you might find a cross-platform list of ampersands a good place to start.
August 19, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 9:51 pm
A couple of sites dedicated to surveying other design sites: design snack and scrnshots.com.
August 18, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 10:45 pm
It’s taken me years to get around to this, but we finally have a pantry whose organisation makes sense to both myself and my wife. And in the end, it was a matter of thinking about what little I know about cooking, and working out how to group everything together so that the most used things are the easiest to reach (rather than stacking everything by “what fits” or “what looks like it goes there”)
I’ve ended up with “oils”, “spreads” (and behind them “cans”), then “sauces”, “kel’s weird baking stuff”, “junk food”, and “pastas and rice”.
How would you split up your pantry if you had six shelves?
August 17, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 11:00 pm
[matt] Granted, the stock market average of 12% is a little optimistic at the moment, but this presentation is a slick way of arguing against getting a car loan.
August 16, 2008 (3 weeks ago) – 5:59 pm
Movie: The Bank Job
Another Jason Statham picture; as you’d expect with a bank heist film set in London, there aren’t a lot of guns in the picture, but it makes up its MA15+ rating with more nudity than the trailer would suggest. Most of the violence is off-screen (or over quickly), but there are more than a few scenes with a sense of menace to them. Somehow, towards the end, we have a scene where Statham seems to take on more of his “Transporter” persona than the rest of the film would suggest.
Is it worth a watch? Perhaps as a one-off. If you like character-driven heist movies, it’s a good example of this: the plot is not completely straightforward, and there are enough players involved in the conspiracy that it becomes interesting to watch them all play out.
August 15, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 10:55 pm
Mister Roberts
An old classic, I remember watching it with my dad. As it turns out, I didn’t remember as much of it as I thought. Amazing to see how much content can be smuggled past the censors back in the day. A slow-paced film - based on a Broadway play - its pacing was a little tough to put up with. Understated performances were the order of the day - for the main characters - but the viewer is left with much to think about.
August 13, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 10:53 pm
Years ago, when we still lived at Hurstville, there was a large paperbark tree out the front of the unit block. One Friday night - just before friends from Canberra were coming up to visit us for the first time - someone parked a car next to the tree, and set both alight.
Kel famously slept through the whole thing: I woke in the middle of the night, saw that the fire engine had everything under control and went back to sleep.
In the morning, when Kel finally noticed what had happened, we had to explain to our friends that they would be parking their beloved ute next to the burnt out car and the burnt tree.
Walking past that same spot today, it was encouraging to see that the fire hasn’t done any lasting damage to the tree - it’s still as strong as ever.
August 13, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 10:44 pm
There seems to be a whole sport built around stacking cups at high speed. Don’t forget, when you’re stacking cups like that to use both hands.
August 11, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 10:24 pm
Toby’s Estate Coffee. King St, Sydney. Outdoors, in the shade of one of Sydney’s oldest churches (which, incidentally, looks like it’s pretty high Anglican with its talk of Eucharist and healing ministry), is this coffee cart, with its umbrella-covered outdoor seating. Having walked past and seen a line of suits, I thought it was worth a look.
Up close, there’s a coffee machine, a choice of soft drink or water, and a series of pastries: the aim here is to have things that can be prepared easily - the barista is also the one taking the orders, and handling the cash. It’s clearly popular with the local business people - as many people are ordering two coffees as are ordering one.
The decaf lives, pre-ground, in an open air jar atop the coffee machine: not a good sign for fresh coffee. Indeed, the flavour is a little flat, and the milk, for some reason, tastes a little buttery. Having said that, it’s a pleasant enough drop, even if the charge for a large decaf latte is $4.
August 10, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 11:42 pm
Great post from Mike on someone who looks for truth all over the place, but ultimately finds it in a location he’d ruled out before his search began.
August 10, 2008 (4 weeks ago) – 11:40 pm
Movie: Wanted
I couldn’t get into this one. There’s too much repetition in the start, trying to set up the character as a ne’er-do-well with a miserable life that he doesn’t enjoy: in its rare moments of characterisation, it forces the point too much - we understand that the little girl is a young Angelina Jolie, you don’t need to shout it at us from the rooftops - and though its stunts and physics-defying scenes make for entertaining viewing, and are even clever at times, it never quite rises above “average action movie” fare.
August 8, 2008 (5 weeks ago) – 7:04 am
This old slate article explains that you can (could?) get a short cappucino at Starbucks - a better, cheaper coffee, but it’s a secret. Why? It’s all about extracting the most money a customer is prepared to pay. If someone has no idea there’s a cheaper version available, they will spend the extra money on the next size up.
