It’s Time

Well, after a two month hiatus I figure it’s high time I provide some sort of update for the google spiders – who are probably this blog’s only current readers. Today’s post will be brought to you by the prefix “ob“.

Observations
So, K-Rudd has been PM for slightly longer than my blog free period. In fact he was sworn in the day before my last post. So I blame him for my lack of inspiration. Really he’s just boring. Boring, boring, boring (coincidentally the prefix bo is the reverse of ob). Only slightly more boring is the obstreperous Mr 9% – Nelson and his hapless team. Anyone who the Courier Mail captions as Brenden Abbott – dig up a copy from the 31st of January – is in political trouble. K-Rudd’s problem is that he’s all symbolism and no substance – his response to any issue is to talk – form a committee, a war cabinet, a talkfest. His speeches are grand – and loaded with symbolic guff. His apology speech was well crafted – but not Obamaesque (I’ll get to him later). Two months in to his reign we’ve had a symbolic (some would say token) ratification of Kyoto (which expires in 2012 – hardly a long term solution) – and a token (some would say symbolic) apology to the obviously obscenely treated aboriginal people – an apology which explicitly ruled out compensation. I have mixed feelings about compensation – I think there’s probably a case for some form of compensation. Now that the government has admitted they did the wrong thing they should probably have to pay for that mistake. The proverbial can of worms has been opened.

Obsessions
Another reason I haven’t been blogging lately must be the disproportionate amount of time and resourcing I’ve been giving to my current obsession – coffee. Robyn would probably agree – although she’s enjoying the benefits.

Here’s the progression I’ve gone through in terms of my coffee “habit”
1. Discovered home roasting – through coffeesnobs.com.au – I highly recommend their starter pack. But I’ve since been ordering through Ministry Grounds. I purchased a heat gun from eBay for the purpose of roasting my beans – with the view to building a corretto when I can locate a suitable breadmaker. At the moment I’m just using the heatgun and wok.
2. I was less than happy with our existing grinder – a little bladed number sold as a “herb and coffee” grinder. It was good as an introduction to the freshness of ground coffee – but didn’t produce a particularly even grind – so I purchased an EM0480 Sunbeam grinder second hand from coffeesnobs.com.au.
3. I recently shelled out $400 (plus freight) for a commercial Rancillio machine on eBay – it’s yet to arrive, but I’ll edit this post to include some pictures when my browser will let me.

Home roasted coffee is terrific. I highly recommend my new hobby.

Obama
Barack – the man I’ve dubbed “the new black” when it comes to US Presidential candidates – Obama has just won his tenth straight contest for the Democratic nomination. I’m nominally a Democrats fan in the US thanks to the West Wing. And I picked Barack a year ago – before he was cool.

Obligatory references to real life
Married life continues to be a barrel of caffeine induced laughs (see above). It really is great fun. We’ve recently filled our fish tank with a plethora of new marine life. We’re now leading the kid’s club at church on a Friday night – putting the kibosh on our social life during school term. An unwholesome amount of our spare time is spent playing Tetris on Facebook. Robyn has posted an almost blasphemous score of 946,000 or thereabouts.