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So, in conclusion – I’m looking for inspiration, topic requests, things people like to read about that are consistent with what I like to write about…
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.
K-Rudd has been caught with his proverbial pants down on Burkegate. This is an event clearly worthy of “gate” status. More details about MPs from both sides of the fence meeting with the shady former WA premier (and convicted felon) turned lobbyist will probably come to light this week and I’m tipping more casualties following the resignation of Ian Campbell. John Howard wants to make distinctions between ministers and MPs, and leaders and followers – which is fair enough to an extent, but there’s really no need to be meeting with someone like Burke. Lobbying is an interesting kettle of fish. It’s where politicians get their lurks and perks. Doctors get their fancy meals from pharmaceutical companies eager to secure future business – politicians get theirs from representatives of industries, interest groups and professional power brokers who are likewise eager to secure something for nothing (or for a meal – politicians are expected to sing for their supper). Benny reckons lobbying is an essential part of the democratic process –
“I love lobbying. i think its how things should work. lobbying and interest
groups should demonstrate the facts, views and opinions. the members of
parliament should act as mediators and decision makers. the MPs should take in
all the information to make rational and logical decisions. lobbying is part of
this process.”
I agree to an extent but I think professional lobbying probably circumvents the political process and ties up access to politicians from the run of the mill members of their electorate – the fact that my employers work as a lobby group backed by the collective might of our members from the North Queensland business community doesn’t bother me – but when you’ve got a disproportionate amount of funding (lobbying) poured into the exercise by an unpopular lobby group (say advocates for nuclear power) might have a disproportionate impact on the political process.
The political machinations behind Burkegate are fascinating – Ian Campbell’s decision to resign – or the decision for him to resign – was a masterful manoeuvre from Howard. Finding the moral high ground in the murky realm of politics will be an important step in the upcoming elections. If it’s going to be a “morals” debate the Coalition need to have their position on issues like AWB, the Iraq conflict and Hicks firmly entrenched on the “right” side (as opposed to wrong, rather than left) – Rudd probably has the advantage in terms of positioning because it’s much easier to criticise government than to govern. This scandal could go a long way towards undermining his integrity – but it could also burn the government if it comes out that more coalition MPs have met with Burke in the past.
It’s an interesting time in politics with the battle of who cares raging in New South Wales and Debnam resorting to physical comparisons with James Bond. The US race for preselection (it’s not even the real thing yet) is heating up with candidates from both major parties vying to outdo their own colleagues (with the amount of muck they spend throwing around within the parties it’s a wonder that any new stuff comes up in the actual campaign) – my early favourite Barack Obama is polling well and catching up to the “impossible to like even though she stood by her husband in America’s largest sex scandal” Hillary Clinton. The Democrats have the opportunity to make history with their leading candidates a female and an African American male – Joe says the Republicans should kill two birds with one stone by endorsing Condoleezza Rice.
In other news – I tried the spectacular “cat poo” coffee last week, I’m not sure I’d pay $50 a cup, but it’s an amazing brew, so smooth and sweet – without the standard bitter bite of a regular cuppa.
LarkNews – a good source for “Christian News” has been updated – my favourite story for this edition is the debate on whether the word “sucks” is appropriate for church – for those of you who have trouble differentiating between fact and fiction, please note that this is parody.
Have you ever bought a coffee that was so terrible you winced as you drank it? I have. Don’t buy coffees from the ferry terminal in Townsville. They are bad. Maybe it was because I decided to be healthy and sample the “skinny cappuccino” – I won’t be doing that again. If I didn’t need the caffeine to I would probably have tipped it down the sink. I had to hold my nose to get it down. Seriously. Bad. Coffee. There are some good coffee outlets in Townsville – don’t let my experience curtail your plans to holiday here. Townsville is the tourism capital of the world. At least it will be. Maybe.
I had another strange North Queensland experience yesterday. My job is all about networking – and using this network for leverage to gain favours for other people in the network – it all balances out in the end. I exerted some leverage to obtain some video footage of the area for a conference organiser from the Burdekin (it’s in the sticks man… about 45 minutes south of Townsville). This guy has a reputation around town for being a pretty prickly character (or a bit of a …). He hassled me and hassled me on this footage – I can’t make the WIN production people do their stuff any faster, particularly when they’re doing me a favour – but I eventually produced the goods and this guy, as a demonstration of gratitude, produced the produce. He dropped a pumpkin, and some homegrown eggplants and avocados around to our office to thank me. I’m not sure what the message here is – pay peanuts you get monkeys, pay vegetables you get me? Hmm…
North Queensland people do some strange stuff… ‘ey. See I can type in their lingo. But to the MPC people going on the youth leaders training thing this weekend – be nice, and don’t tell any lies about me. I’m doing a good enough job of selling myself up here without your “help.”
There were a couple of noteworthy stories in the newspaper yesterday.
Apparently James Blunt’s song “your beautiful” (I’m not capitalising it because I don’t believe it deserves proper noun status) woke a young girl from a coma. I guess that makes the scoreboard on the damage wrought by James Blunt vs good stuff caused about 10000000000000000 – 1. That was a completely arbitrary number of 0’s you could add some more for good measure.
An employee at Australian’s money producing factory (I can’t remember what they’re called) made a mint out of his job (see how I set up that pun…poetry) – walking out of work with $600 worth of $2 coins every day for 10 months. He put the coins in his shoes and lunch box.
And finally a plug for two websites… Would a website unplugged be a blank screen? Or a letter? Interesting questions… interesting interpretation of the word interesting…
Scooter gave me an inside look into his upcoming Interesting Pigeon facts. I’d encourage all my readers to become his readers too. I imagine if a number of readers from here went there it would be a real coup/coop/coo (that’s two puns in one).
I can’t encourage you strongly enough to check out the works of those two crazilly flawed nuts at from Everybody’s second favourite segment productions – Phil and Smiley (I will refer to myself in the third person for the sake of this advertisement). Check out their all new comedic endeavours at philnsmiz.blogspot.com. At the moment you can read an exclusive interview with the cast from the highly successful, but never released, MADE IN CHINA – The Art Rock Musical. It’s highly likely that reading it will cause your sides to split – whether that’s from a skillfully inserted knife, or laughter, is yet to be determined. We’re not actively encouraging people to go developing post musical stigmata or anything… but hey.
