KESC 36 Taiwanese Express.

8 challengers, and it was not a challenge to fit into this eatery, there were only a couple of other people eating there. Which may be because the students aren't around, because the food was fine.

So it's sort of a Macdonalds format. You read a menu and order at the counter, then sit down and wait for it to be delivered. The cook hands it to the waitress through a small hole like in prison, and the food comes on a plastic tray with compartments, TV dinner style. I wouldn't say bento box, it wasn't really like that. Anyway all the meals are the same, you just get to choose a different main meat, which goes in the top right corner. The other sections have rice, pickled bean shoots, pickled ginger or something, and corn soup. They were all OK, but the meats were quite tasty. I had a spicy sour pork thing, it was delicious. Like a deep-fried pork version of shan dong chicken! So yummy. The other highlight was A ordered a snack before starting, which was some sweet potato chips, delicious. Those chips and small thing like that were about $5, the TV tray meals were about $10. They do free table water, and sell cold tea drinks.

Goodbye, fridge.

This fridge was donated by a colleague in Maitland from her mother's estate. It went with me to Bowral and then Kingsford and then Randwick, and then its life was cut tragically short by some kind of electricity thing during a storm. It faithfully refrigerated my food and the food of the 7 flatmates I've churned through in the last 6 years.

Here is the funeral ritual for a fridge before curbside collection.

1. Unplug fridge.

2. Remove lightbulb (location circled in last picture). Put it in the kitchen draw in case you can use it to replace a bulb in a future fridge.

3. Remove fridge magnets and menus.

4. Unscrew top door hinge and remove door. With an adjustable wrench from your GOSM tool kit.





5. Two people can carry the fridge to the kerb, and the door separately, without need of a trolly. Unfortunately it was collected before I had time to take a photo in location of fridge and door on curb.

Please marry my useless son.

With what joy did I stumble into PMMB last night, unaware that such a show was premiering—where were the fanfares? Elsie is away so I texted her and received the reply "I WANT TO WATCH THAT SHOW!!!!" The concept is too good to be true. Take a bunch of men who want love but are too precious to settle down, give them a harem to choose from and a bunch of awkward orchestrated romantic moments… so far so Farmer Wants A Wife. But add… MOTHERS. Mothers who get to choose the wife. Mothers who grill the harem and ask difficult questions and don't care about "chemistry". Mothers who aren't impressed by boobs. Mothers who make their son squirm with embarrassment. Mothers who have spoilt their son, mothers who want grandchildren, mothers who want their son to marry a nice Serbian girl, mothers who just want their son to grow up and move out. This is probably the trashy match-making show of our generation.

My Baking School.

If you would like to learn how to bake bread, I would love to teach you! Because I think it would be fun. Free lesson, free lunch, probably with some free games of Rummikub while the bread rises and bakes and cools. Must be on Saturday or Sunday. Ask me about it, and I will invite you over.

Keep a stocked toiletries bag

For people who go away a bit throughout the year, it's worth keeping a stocked toiletries bag. I used to pack and unpack toiletries every time I went away and returned. But it's annoying and a waste of time to do it several times a year.

It's taken me ages to work this one out, and I bet some of you are smart enough to be doing this already ;)

Roll with me, Henry

It's probably been discussed on jelssie how rolling your clothes saves luggage space. Jess and I have applied this principle to our drawers at home. There seems to be more space and it's easier to get items in and out of drawers.

Grace has a filing-system-like method to her folding of clothes.

Jelssie loves mainstream fiction.

We both planned to watch some friends swim in the harbour, and knowing there would be waiting and public transport at various times in the day, we both separately turned up with library books by mainstream best-selling authors—John Grisham and Patricia Cornwall. That's not a huge coincidence, I know. But we could both have brought no book, which is normal in this age of ipods and so on, or brought a second-hand classic, to impress other commuters, which is the normal rebellion to the age of ipods. It's quite unusual that A) we would both bring a book and B) both were from the library, which is a "frugal talent", and C) neither book would be an intellectual status symbol, and we don't care. We thought it was a photographable jelssie moment.

Mainstream, and we're cool with that

Jess and I like borrowing books of mainstream authors from local public libraries.

Photo by Georgina

I'm holding a copy of The Litigators by John Grisham, a very fun read.

Since I'll be doing quite a bit of commuting this year, I thought about getting a Kindle, an e-reader. I decided to do a little experiment first.

Firstly, to see how much I would actually read while commuting. If I do read, then more points towards getting a Kindle.

Secondly, to look at the cost of books I would want to read on the Kindle. On this point, the Kindle loses because books from the library are free (and I don't even have to keep them afterwards) and second-hand books are cheaper. However, a Kindle is thin and carries many books!

Currently, I am sticking to books.

Fathers and sons

I'm developing this bad habit where I call fathers by their son's name. It happened most recently at church on Sunday, where I didn't recognise my error until the father burst out laughing and pointed it out to me.

There is one trick I use to deal with this problem. Let's say the father and son are called Joseph and Jesus, but I can't remember which name belongs to who. My brain then goes, "It's Joseph and Mary [wife's name], Joseph and Mary, Joseph and Mary, therefore the son's name is Jesus, and the father's name is Joseph!". My brain seems better at names of couples, rather than names of individuals.

Just a minor quibble

Dear Pinterest,

Love your work, but a heart is not "like", it is love.

Better than Disney Princesses

After watching Arrietty, I have concluded that Disney Princesses are LAME in comparison. Arrietty is adventurous, brave and full of spunk. She is a risk-taker. She's not scared of bugs. Disney princesses are just pretty women with tiny waists.

Image from http://www.arrietty.com.au

This Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki Debate is a good place to start. (Miyazaki is the creator of Arrietty and other Studio Ghibli creations). I'll end with a quote from the debate:

Except for Mulan, almost all the actions of Disney princesses still seem to be defined in relationship to their man.

In contrast, Miyazaki’s female leads offer a far more complex picture of what it means to be a person. They often have agency outside of their relationships to men.