No one died I think but even at home, I can feel this dustyness in the air and my castle’s all closed up as well. There’s been this immense dust storm in Sydney that’s blanketed the city in a red haze. It’s like someone exploded Uluru or summat. Check these beautiful if eerie pictures from the Sydney Morning Herald’s online edition. IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!
So how come I watched a pseudo post apocalyptic film with a red overcast filter? OMG! I can tellz da futur!
I have this travelpass in Sydney which basically lets me travel anywhere I want within a week. I use and abuse it by travelling in multifarious ways to and from work. One place I pass by occasionally when I take a particular bus and get off at a particular stop is called Crow’s Nest, a suburb well known for having some decent grub.
Within that place was Macro Wholefoods Market which basically only sold organic produce. I thought I’d traipse around for a bit and ended up buying some stuff. First, the good.
The Ecor Group hails from Italy and they make a variety of biscuits and pastas and stuff. What caught my eye is their brilliant packaging, which is good simple graphic design, clean modern and tasty looking. Check out their website and you’ll see more of what I mean.
Then there was this slab of fudgy brownie from Phillipa’s, which is local, well Melbournian but you get the point. Its ingredients included Callebaut, which allowed for the moniker Belgian Chocolate Brownie, because Cadbury just doesn’t make up for the 12 bucks I forked over. It was pricey but pretty good. Crumbly, moist and choco-loco. Despite the fact its packed in plastic and off a shelf. Tyler Brule thinks her bread is hot if that means anything to anyone.
Now the bad.
I’m still not convinced my organic orange allowed to blemish naturally by the use of less/no insecticides is actually a good thing. For one, the acceptance of crop pests does zilch, flavorwise at least. At worst, you get larvae nesting in the skin. Dude, wash your fruitz and maybe half the poisonous insecticides is gone. But mainly, I’m not that willing to part with more money for what may not be better. This is grotesque generalization of course. I’m sure there are brilliant organic producers who make the best stuff around but I’m also sure there’s producers out there who make stuff just as good or better and don’t brand themselves under some trendy catchall term that healthnuts go bonkers for. Pro organics will claim the stuff tastes better and its healthier and the animals that were slaughtered lived a good life. And it may do but it also uses more land, yields less and costs more. Also, stop kidding yourselves over the plight of chickens in overcrowded farm videos on youtube. Fact is, humans eat meat. Stop being hypocritical and accept it. If you chose veganism/vegetarianism after watching dem chicken videos, I ask if you wondered about the plight of those plants you’re mowing down and the animals it once supported. Balance is key. Stupid fads do sweet f-all. I’m totally ok with farms that rear black-hooved pigs that only eat acorns freerange that become lovely slabs of ham because they taste good. I really don’t need them to label themselves as a form of marketing.
Also, in case you missed the bit about the price. Here it is again. I can’t afford organic produce and I’m whinging about it. So there. I must mention though, that I found some produce at Macro to be only marginally more expensive than big supermarket chains. Yet, all the good stuff, was always really really pricey, like Duchy Originals for instance. Then again, I suppose you have to pay more for quality. You just have to scrounge around more for good deals.
The launch of the old Sony Playstation 2 brought a lot of things with it, including a game called Crash Bandicoot, which had a bandicoot character wearing blue pants jumping around smashing stuff. In terms of its appearance, it actually looked very little, if at all, like a real bandicoot apart from the nose slightly. In terms of its character, its probably about as completely opposite as you can get given how shy the real ones are. They really don’t go around smashing stuff in real life, only ever coming out at night and completely oblivious to the built up human world around them.
I saw this first hand thrice. The first was a corpse lying outside the front gate to work being pecked to crap by crows a few months back. The second was one we slowed down and barely avoided 2 days ago. The third was roadkill (from another car, not the one I was in!) a minute after the second. We stopped for a second to confirm it and it was indeed a bandicoot lying on the road, until the next 2 cars came along and lets just say things got a touch ugly what with the blood and guts and stuff.
The long nosed bandicoot is native to the eastern side of Australia and I happen to work right where there’s an endangered population of them in Manly’s North Head. They’re not an endangered species but the bunch of them that live in North Head, they can’t actually get anywhere and their numbers keep dwindling mostly due to cars running them over and the hamlet of Manly with its surfers, fish and chips and chicks. The only way out of North Head is a single long, winding road that I trudge up and down on a daily basis. There’s actually a board up on the roadside that tells motorists how many bandicoots died. It was 7 in ‘07 and 7 in ‘08. Right now, its 1 in ‘09. Pity then, that most motorists are still speeding up and down the road, unaware of the possibility that they could be spilling blood in the night. C’mon mateys. Give the cute little fellas a fighting chance.
Imagine that, with the nose intact and the rest a smodged pool of dark red. Bit like tomato paste after you cook it out slightly, lathered over some pizza dough. Only the pizza dough was grey and furry.
A couple weeks ago, I ran across an article on a guy named Shai Agassi, who has absolutely no relation to the tennis legend. Instead, this is a guy that WIRED thinks might just change the world. Agassi’s idea is to replace existing petrol driven motor vehicles with electric ones, which isn’t fundamentally new at all. The difference is he’s coming up with the whole infrastructure to make it happen and how it is to be marketed. He wants to manage and control the demand for energy. His company, Better Place, is working together with Renault and Nissan to make the ubiquity of the electric vehicle a reality rather than some poncey celebrity environmental consciousness fad.
So electric cars. Are they all that much better? Whilst they produce zero emissions, won’t the fuel burnt to create said electricity still be an issue? Some argue that the pollution would at least be concentrated to power plants whilst others also look into the fact that alternative energy sources are becoming increasingly viable. I’m leaning a lot more to the latter these days, being the eternal optimist.
Agassi’s plan is radical in that he intends to fuck over the petroleum companies as well as major car manufacturers. He intends to convince whole cities and nations to build an infrastructure system to accommodate electric cars, including recharge stations and a grid network that can move the electricity freely from point to point, to account for changes in demand and supply. You pay for the electricity and lease the car instead, possibly even borrowing it for free. Its a bit like using a car like a mobile phone, where you have a monthly subscription or some such. Recharging can be done faster than at present, by changing battery packs at recharge stations or recharging at home overnight.
The point is, we all know burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment. That and just as important, it doesn’t last forever. So we need to be looking at a solution and they’re all around. The question is why aren’t things happening? One reason is the pace of technological advancement and the other is simply politics. Agassi’s plan, detailed more on the Better Place website, simply throws such problems aside and sounds pretty darn convincing in talking about how to really get the wheels rolling. It already is in fact.
I am awaiting the Jonathan Ive designed iCar sometime circa 2015 that can accommodate my 2015 version iMac (which is actually the iDSLR + iPod + iCamcorder + iWallet + iPhone + iKeys + iMac) whilst I dream about some iArabica to go with some iSourdough with iRoastPork, iceburgLettuce, iDJon and an Apple chutney.
An old Beyond Tomorrow vid but you get the idea… Its about the compressed air car engine and the 2 inventors that came up with it. MDI is a company headed by Guy Negre, a Frenchman who came up with an idea to make a car run on compressed air back in ‘97. Engineair is a Melbourne based company run by Angelo Di Pietro that also has a similar idea, only his engine can be held up by a baby.
Both engines run on compressed air, promising decent performance when commercially available. The other pluses include zero emissions and cheap, easy refueling. At first glance, I have to say I was skeptical and still am somewhat but I hope its legit.
Ok, so of course compressed air doesn’t come without the use of electricity or burning of fossil fuels but the thing is, not all of it needs to come from that. It could come from solar/wind/hydro/nuclear stations as well. Pollution would get concentrated where the power stations would be and roads would probably get a whole load cleaner.
Another thing is safety. With compressed air tanks under the car, the engineers’ solution is to use carbon fibre tanks, which splinter under duress but do not create shrapnel. I still wonder if there’s gonna be a big bang if that happens anyway and you get forced through your windscreen by compressed air.
Then there’s performance. Will it ever be possible to have a compressed air car run like an Bugatti? Perhaps only time will tell. Tata Motors of India is apparently already in contract with MDI to try to actually produce the Air Car soon-ish.
Looking to buy cheap food in Sydney? Look no further than Sydney Markets of course. Located near Homebush bay, the Flemington markets are where many restaurants go to buy their shit because its good and its cheap. The only drawback is you have to buy in bulk. Its a pretty huge space as expected of a wholesale fruit and veg market separated into several sections.
There’s the Grower’s Market, shown above, which is a place where you can find anybody and everybody who has got produce for sale. The quality and prices vary pretty greatly. Although I’m pretty sure some of the sellers were quoting with bullshit prices. Then there’s the Produce Market, where its all agents where it used to be that the quality of stuff was be better but also slightly more expensive. That’s apparently not the case nowadays, as the Grower’s Market stuff I saw was pretty good as well. There’s also the banana market, where you can buy bananas obviously. Its kept separate because bananas actually ripen everything else it comes close to. The flower market rounds out the rest of the place and I guess is a good place to pick up fresh flowers for any establishment. Apparently, 90-95% of the produce on sale comes from Australia so you’re most likely buying local.
The market opens officially according to the website at from 6am but in reality, people come in from 2am. The place is also open for tours where you get to view the markets and listen to a guide whispering information as you traipse around the place, trying your best not to get in the way.
Its a tough ask as well, with loads of giant trucks and forklifts all over and people tugging trolleys filled with boxes of stuff. You pretty much have to look out for danger as much as you’re looking out for some good food.
The markets also start closing pretty early. I went at about 6ish and by 8, most places were closing. The Grower’s Market looked pretty devoid of life by 9.
Just to compare prices, you can basically buy a box of Golden Delicious apples for $30 a box, which has 60 apples in it. The fresh fruit market nearest to me sells the same stuff for about $5.99 a kilo, which gets me say 5 or 6 fruit. Its like half the price basically. A bunch of basil goes for $1.60 at the markets compared to 2 or 3 something at the supermart. If you have a massive party, this is defo the place to go to pick really good stuff. There’s a pretty great selection, with some agents offering some produce you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere. If you did, you’d probably pay rape prices for it as well. At the very least, it’s worth a trip just for the sights and smells.
The lady you see above goes by the name of Tommi Miers. The axe wielding male next to her is Guy Grieves. Together, they are The Wild Gourmets, which is a telly series on the UK’s Channel4 but also shown here in Australia on cable. My latest vice is basically spending an entire day just watching the lifestyle food channel on Foxtel which is really really addictive somehow, more or less how I came across this odd couple.
Back to The Wild Gourmets. Now this pairing like to hunt and forage for food and then cook and eat it, a sort of back to nature kinda vibe with a very honest approach. The episode I watched had warning labels flashing across before it started and I soon found out why when Guy shoots a squirrel dead. We’re told that apparently, they are no more than a “tree rat” and they are more vermin than anything else. An American import to the UK that is causing grief to the local red squirrels.
I’ll put the ethics of prioritizing one species over another down to the survival of the fittest but before I could actually digest my thoughts, Mr. Grieves was then chopping the arms off the squirrel before proceeding to skin and gut it in a particularly brutal fashion. Ms. Miers meanwhile, readied a pot and made a stew of sorts, braising the squirrel meat, before making a sauce out of wild berries, wrapping the squirrel in handmade little pastry circles and pretending that its “Peking Duck”.
I have to say I was taken aback, not least by the no nonsense, guts and all display on camera but also how they were able to actually transform what most people consider to be strange into something that actually looked pretty damn tasty.
Alongside some deliciously rustic recipes they prepare on a campsite, with mostly food culled from mother nature, they spurt musings about environmentalist issues and the human psyche. Its an interesting take on a food program, one that reminds me once more of the cruelty in living. The food isn’t the most amazing but there’s something everyone can learn about receiving all the gifts mother nature serves up.
Back in Sydney and less than a day gone by, I’m on the road again. I love holidays. This time, it was going to be a massive group going canoing in the Kangaroo Valley. “2 hours” from Sydney. We were led by a guy whom my friends gave the name Leon Lai, on account of him vaguely resembling the singer. He was slung low on his motorbike and rode like he was the business, with only our car managing to keep up with him. The rest of the convoy was pretty much lost.
So anyway, Kangaroo Valley. Sounds wonderful dunnit? I didn’t see a single roo but that wasn’t what we were there for. We were there to canoe. Which we did, although we turned up about an hour later than expected. Renting a canoe costs about 30 bucks a person, including a mouldy lifevest, a choice of single, double or triple canoes and the pickup bus sending you back whence you came.
I think back about the canoeing club 10 years ago, in junior college, as I slug my canoe down to the riverside. It was pretty much filled with dimwits who were perpetually tanned and muscled and mostly dull personalities. You joined it cos you wanted to get buff and browned like toast. Me, I’d rather eat toast than be toast. Still, I had to cast aside all prejudices about 5 minutes in when I crashed into a tree and was forced to step out of the boat, into the freezing cold river. I was pretty much the only loser who “capsized” although I maintain that I did not, technically anyway. Ok fine, I capsized.
I had to overturn the damn thing and pour out the water before I headed back in. And at this point, the haughtiness of before had disappeared into a tiny joy, one abetted by the tiny rapids we sometimes went over. We’d actually picked the easy route, on account that most of the group had never set foot into any sort of river flotation device. I’d imagine, as Leon himself commented, that it’d be a much more exciting venture if it was really whitewater rafting. Controlling the boat is easy enough, until you start hitting rocks and shit. That’s when the river flows just a bit faster than you can react and the current throws you along.
The other nice thing about paddling along a river is the calm bits, which were, as one friend put it, tranquil. A serenity forged by the surroundings, which were quite pretty really. Trees glinting in the sun, birds chirping like vultures and pretty girls by my side laughing at my stupidity from before.
I also enjoyed the ride back though, seeing as I had the chance to drive my friend’s BMW down a mountain and back to Sydney as he and the girls helped to keep me alert with their hypnotic snoring.
I’m not too sure if its worth it to drive 4 or 5 hours there and back given how much petrol costs. It is a little far but it is a nice little place to go canoing and check out wildlife and nature and shit.
When I can, I love to travel. Just something about a sense of temporary migration that appeals to the soul. Or perhaps a malfunctioning, obsolete gene forcing its way into my subconscious. Either way, that feeling was one reason why I found myself popping into a plane and flying up to the Gold Coast for 5 days before the ANZAC weekend. That and a lady friend of course.
The Cool Gray Coast.
The last time I went to the Gold Coast, I was 14 or 15 and dying to see the famed uncovered boobies that abound Australian beaches. Unfortunately, we didn’t even really go to the beach on our tour. I had the double misfortune of going on holiday with my parents and going on holiday with my parents in a package tour. Which pretty much meant I didn’t get to see the famed beach of boobies. Which sucks when you’re 14 or 15 and dying to see boobies after a decade and a half of conservative Asian appropriation.
I still didn’t get to see what I’d come to see half a lifetime ago as the pic above testifies. The fact that it was fall was probably to my undoing. It was pretty blustery down at the beach, which was a lovely long stretch, juxtaposed by a slew of tall buildings behind.
That’s the thing about the Gold Coast. It’s really just a long stretch of lovely sand beaches and not much else. Everything else is pretty much man made and man made for tourism. The place felt like what Vegas would be if it were at the beach. Tacky neon lights aplenty lit up the nighttime, which had an atmosphere perpetrated by the smell of tourists and an easy dollar. It was pretty much otherwise, quite dead. I would surmise summertime would be immensely more crowded with even more tourists and yet still retain a certain vacancy, even if it were diminished by the howls of obnoxious babies and children of parents who bring their kids on holiday.
Daytime was spent pretty much going for breakfast and then hitting a theme park before coming back for a nap, then dinner and bedtime. Sounds boring, I know. It wasn’t really. I enjoyed the theme parks and the lounging around. I’m not quite the party animal. Meals were largely terrible though. The theme parks serve expensive fast food that sucks whilst Surfer’s Paradise was filled with sub par restaurants. I knew there were probably better places to eat but unfortunately, I didn’t get to go to anywhere close to that. Instead, I relented to subjecting my tastebuds to mediocre and paltry experiences, safe in the knowledge that I’d get back to Sydney soon enough.
The Superman ride @ Movieworld.
The theme parks though, are fun enough. Movieworld is an ok pastiche of Warner Brothers related stuff, filled with stores and decent rides. The one above revolves around this idea of you getting into a train there being some kind of accident, only for you to get saved by… Superman himself, who pushes the train at lightspeed out of the tunnel and into the light. That initial blast apparently takes you to 4.2Gs because its superfast, then you drop immediately after, like 85 degrees or so. Its the biggest vertical loop you can see in the pic and whilst I neglected to include some scale references in my photo, it was high enough and fast enough to deliver a certain thrill.
Wet ‘n’ Wild was pretty fun too, basically a big waterpark, where there’s slides and tubes and water and bikinis. And the bikini’s didn’t automatically claim prominence either. Seaworld was a more languid exercise, with more marine life shows than rides. I didn’t even bother to take the coaster. I skipped out on Dreamworld and Whitewater world but I did drive and stop by for a looksee. Couple of the rides there certainly looked menacing.
On the final day of our trip, we also made a sojourn up to Tamborine Mountain, where we chanced upon a paraglider failing to take off and crashing into some kids as well as hanggliders narrowly missing some treetops. Also included was a trip to a “$1.1 million” glowworm cave, which was completely man made and about as big as a toilet in a hotel room. I then received a lecture in the help glowworms granted to cancer research and a treastise on environmentalism in a fake cave. Fascinating.
I have to say, the GC is one big bundle of bodaciousness. Between the shittiest fish n chips in the world and a barren beach, what else can could one ask for on a holiday?
Sometimes, my instincts hone me for the better by taking me to places which toughen me up. This trip has taught a valuable lesson aka “Who the fuck goes to the Gold Coast when its not Summer?”. One day, I will overcome my struggle with moron syndrome and disregard the wiles of women who tug at my sleeves in painted voices.
