CS Lewis is the hammer.

When I name posts I just type whatever comes into my mind after I've written the post, I think this one doesn't make much sense. It has nothing to do with hammertime. But on to business.

Friday morning I was checking a friend's gift registry list. I've never used one before. I discovered I felt a bit envious, not that I wanted all that stuff especially anyway but because people who get married get presents and a holiday and the whole party, and single people don't, although if you are chinese I guess the red envelopes at CNY make up for it. I think I've blogged before about the singlemoon, the luxurious holiday on a tropical island or whatever I'd like to have one day whether I get married or not, because why live in a state of delay for an uncertain event like marriage to enjoy a holiday? Like that book I haven't read, called something like Single Women Should Have Nice Plates Too. Grrr, another friend getting a scanpan and I'm not. Although I could buy one if I wanted too, but that's not the point.

And then I checked my inbox and read my CSLewisDaily twitter:

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.

Nail on the head. Well, I went to Magnolia Square on Saturday and was all inspired to use my art and craft skills, so she'll get something home made now, which circumvents the envy enormously, I'm much better at loving people by making things.

Randomness and insanity.

It's been rather too quiet around jelssie for some reason. Here is some gap filler:

An underground ping-pong revival has sprung up in New York. All the hip, cool people are playing it. There are even hip, cool ping-pong bars.

I don't like apes in ads. Orangutans are the fashion at the moment. And sometimes they are people dressed up as apes. But I find chimpy faces off-putting. And I don't trust animal smiles. 

Does anyone actually watch Two and a Half Men? If so, is there a more horrifying reflection of our society then the fact that TAAHM is prime time TV?

WSFM has a digital station playing only Billy Joel all month. Awesome. I didn't realise so many songs I know are written by Billy Joel. They have a limited playlist unfortunately but I still get to sing along to Uptown Girl and For the Longest Time every day, there is nothing (musicly speaking) that makes me happier than a doo-wop backing vocal.

KESC 25: Ying something.

This is a Save The Date: Friday the 4th March, at the place to the left (north, towards UNSW) of Wang Wang, number in the 470s Anzac Pde, the name is Ying something I forget.

Socks.

I peg my socks on the line in pairs, 2 on one peg, to save pegs. And fold them together as I take them off. It's an efficient system I invented myself, but a bit fiddly to find your wet socks in the basket and pair them up.

I recently bought a 10 pair pack of socks, so that I don't have to wash as often, and I made a terrible mistake. I bought the pack with all pretty colours, instead of the 10 white pairs. I realised my error when I hung out my washing and had a basket full of different coloured toed socks to match up. If I had bought all white, I could be saving a lot of time. Stupid, stupid me.

So the logical solution, other than getting rid of the colours and buying whites, is that I now don't match up my socks. I pair them, and if they have mismatched toe colours I don't care. No one else knows if my toes are a different colour. I bet that's really annoying some of you.

One further revelation was that if I take a pair of sock off and they go inside out, don't turn them back in. Wash them, peg them and the wear them inside out and next time you take them off they will turn back through again. Again, nobody knows! I can now wear odd socks with one inside out, and it is LIBERATING!

The other trinity

Diet, sleep, exercise. I like to call that the other trinity. Or small-t trinity. I've realised how important those three things are to my health, general well-being, and how inter-connected they are.

For example, when I start sleeping badly, it starts to affect my diet. When I'm tired, I crave junk food more, so I eat more junk food than usual. This in turn makes me feel bloated, lethargic and I put on weight. Being heavier makes running or exercising that little bit less pleasant, and when you add tiredness on top of that, it makes exercise really unappealing. People generally find life harder to cope with when they are tired.

However, when everything in the trinity is going well i.e. eating healthily, sleeping well and exercising regularly, you have a much more positive outlook on life and you deal with situations a lot better.

KESC Review: Tensaya

• We went to this in October last year.
• Really lovely to have an authentic, reasonably priced Japanese restaurant in Kingford!! They greet you in Japanese when you walk in etc etc. I would definitely come here if I felt like having affordable and tasty Japanese nearby.
  
• Saw the sashimi dude run this hands through his bleached hair and then massage the fish. At least they use a fresh whole fish! I think Jess K was put off and vowed not to return. I've been back :D I still like it.
• Near the door there is a sign that says " I Heart Tensaya". I agree.

KESC Review: Wang Wang Shanghai Silverstar Restaurant

Speciality: whole fish in Szechuan sauce with noodles

Jellyfish

Chicken in wine (drunken chicken) at the back. Some pork dish with pancakes in the front. Latter was sweet.

Dumplings aka xiao long bao 小龍包

• They have seating upstairs, so can cater to slightly larger groups. We had nine peeps.
  
• They served us with disposable cutlery: wooden chopsticks, plastic spoons, plastic cups
• The tables looked quite new
  
• Their sizzling plate was not in the shape of a cow
• The food came quickly
• They were reasonably attentive with water.
  
• I didn't pay too much attention to the food, except that I was satisfied
• I was surprised to find the Szechuan fish a bit sweet. I am not familiar with Szechuan cuisine (except that it's spicy). Is it meant to be sweet?
• Very pleased to have three newbies join us
• Very pleased to see people try jellyfish
• They have dumplings and I squirted Hayley I think. I like pan-fried buns.Mmm...bunly goodness
  
• I quite liked it. I'd go again :) Next time I'd like to try more of the fried/oily stuff e,g, shallot pancakes, taro cakes/buns, pumpkin thingys and egg custard bun which is one of my favourite buns!
• Quite good value. I think it came to $84 for nine people? Can't remember how many dishes we ordered.
  
• ABCafe ran out of super fudge brownie ice-cream! So Dave and Felix got two scoops of another choice instead. Also you don't get a mini biscuit with a hot chocolate; only with a chai latte or coffee.

Hairdresser, style thyself.

Getting your haircut is totally a matter of faith, because if you were going to base the decision to let someone cut your hair on the hairstyle of the person with the scissors, no WAY would you trust them near your head. Hairdressers have the ugliest, unhealthiest, weirdest hair. And half of them don't know the definition of the word "trim". I place my faith ultimately in the unchanging truth that hair re-grows.

The one redeeming skill they have is that they can do amazing styley things with a hair-dryer, and I can only use it to dry my hair.

Mango cheesecake, Re: lack of.

Dear Sara

One week ago I was looking for a mango cheesecake. There are none. I bought a chocolate cheesecake, and it was very nice, but I feel that there is a hole in the market and if you developed a mango cheesecake it would be very popular.

I am in general a satisfied customer. Please accept my appreciation of your other fine dessert products, and consider my suggestion in all seriousness.

Regards,

Jessica

Write it out.

Tests have been done: worry takes up brain space. Writing about what you are worrying clears the brain before the worrying event, e.g. speech, exam, swim race or whatever. Then with a clear brain you perform better. It only works if you write about your worry, apparently.

This is proof, in my opinion, for the helpfulness of lists. Lists take things out of your brain and put them on paper, so you don't have to remember them anymore.

KESC: Wang Wang Shanghai Silver Star

Jelssie is your "someone special" this Valentine's Day. Join us at 6:30 pm on Monday 14 February at Wang Wang Shanghai Silver Star Chinese Restaurant, 476 Anzac Parade. Here's a penalty notice to put some thrill into your life, and a review or two.

Come on time or let us know beforehand you're coming otherwise risk being a nigel.

No news is good news.

I heard that the new channel ten all news all evening lineup isn't rating well. I could have told them. I'm their target market, and I don't want more news. Who wants more news? I watch a rare fragment of news on ABC or SBS, if it isn't about sport or anything depressing. Gen X and Y get a drip feed of news all day long, on the car radio and smart phone, and I personally don't want to sit down and watch the same news again at night, in a big block, with ads. Boring. I want to watch How I Met Your Mother or QI.

KESC 23. Tasty Eating House REVIEW

Monday night went off. Who would have known you could have so much fun on a school night? Monday morning we had 4, by the time we sat down we had 10 challengers, 1 a newbie.

This seems to be Chinese food.  They had no banquet menu so we just ordered off the menu: 2 entrees and 8 mains, I think. The rice came right away, then the mains interspersed with entrees, which was an interesting way to do it. I guess if you don't have to wait for your main the entree is redundant anyway. The staff were very efficient and fast, giving us chairs and water very quickly.

We ordered some Aussie fav dishes like mongolian lamb and sweet and sour pork, some more adventurous like a fried potoato and eggplant thing and cumin beef, and some special favourites like San Dong chicken and honey pepper pork ribs and salt and pepper squid. A few of the dishes were a little bit too salty or soy or oily, but overall they were tasty, as the name promises. They had lots of meat, but not much veggies: onion and capsicum was in every dish, must have been on special this week. The San Dong was good, although I prefer it with nuts as a garnish, not herbs. The cumin beef was unusual and a pleasant surprise, cumin not being a tradition Chinese sort of flavour.

We were in and out in an hour and it was pretty busy. It came to $13.50 each, so was good value, considering we all got to eat so many dishes. I think the last 2 thai places we went to were better, but this was at least 3.5/5, and one of the better Chinese joints on the street.

Kitchen real estate.

When you have a small kitchen or you share a kitchen with a flatmate who also has kitchen stuff, there just isn't much space to stack plates and pots, let alone store appliances.

There are essential appliances, like toaster, microwave, mixmaster, kettle. There are also so many appliances it's really handy to own, like a breadmaker, electric wok, rice cooker, food processor, cafe grill, slow cooker… let alone the novelty things like donut maker, milkshake maker, popcorn maker, deep fryer...

What do you reckon is the most useful appliance in the 'handy' category? I'm trying to decide. Grill? Slow cooker?

Bonus thought: I reckon a great idea for bible study dinners or something similar would be everyone taking turn cooking with a rarely-used appliance using the appliance cookbook. Soup from the food processor, skewers from the grill. Use those forgotten kitchen treasures.

Puma Love Run

Puma Love Run. Meet someone fit. The weekend before Valentine's Day. Love the concept!

Dessert/clothes analogy.

From lunchtime conversation with some members of the cheesecake club (a worthy alternative to Eat Street! just get together to cook and eat different cheesecakes):

Cheesecake is the dress of desserts. i.e, you wear a dress, which is an easy thing to wear because no matching the top and bottom, and you get compliments because you look a little bit more fancy than normal. Cheesecake isn't always hard to make, tastes great even if it doesn't work 100% (I have been known to freeze a chocolate cheesecake I messed up, and it was like a bavarian, whereas a failed normal cake is not really presentable), and you get MASSIVE kudos for having a go! Like dresses, they are expensive, because of the creamy ingredients. Like mud cakes they are best made the day before, rather than needing to be baked fresh on the day—I can't find a parallel dress analogy for that one.

Mud cake is probably little black dress, a trusty staple, non-spectacular but quality. Cupcakes are the high heel of desserts. Pretty but useless. Cookies are sneakers. Always loved, but don't have the fancy factor.

That's as far as I've got.

CNYE Dinner

When Chinese New Year comes around, it's a really big deal to have dinner with your family on the eve of the new year (think of it as the Chinese Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner). My family has started going out to Chinese restaurants for that meal since it's a lot less hassle than cooking up a storm. That's great for us, we get to gather as a family on an important date. But what about the Chinese restaurant workers who are serving us? Kinda ironic that in order for us to eat at said restaurant, they have to miss out on the same meal with their family and relatives.

Happy Chinese New Year. It's on 23 January next year.

Hot nights, cold cuisine

If you go out to eat during this hot weather, cold cuisine is definitely the best. Think Northern Chinese (cold jellyfish salad, cold mixed noodles, cold sliced meat) and Japanese (sushi, sashimi, seaweed salad, cold soba, other salads).

I don't think the Cantonese do cold food except for dessert. So you might want to rule out yum cha (but I guess you'd be in air-conditioned comfort).

Sydney should have a Cold Food Festival (you heard it here first). Cold desserts. Cold drinks. Cold mains. Get Sensodyne to sponsor the event. It'd need a jazzier name. Can someone make it happen?

Hair, no hair

I spent $2.50 on new hair ties. Then I went and chopped off my hair, so that those new hair ties are useless for the next five months. WHY?

Dressing for an Aussie summer

Summer's here and I'm wearing a lot of sleeveless tops because I don't like what I call the farmer tan (i.e. t-shirt arm tan line) and it feels cooler than wearing sleeves. However, I've noticed a lot of freckles, moles and sunspots appearing on my arms (even though I wear sunscreen sometimes), so I don't know if cancer scare and vanity will get the better of me and I start wearing long sleeves in summer.

I know I've mentioned this before somewhere, but I really feel we should dress like this in summer:



With sunnies.

If I weren't so self-conscious and I knew where to get an outfit like that from, I'd wear it.

Hmm...Jess can sew though...

KESC 23. Tasty Eating House

Monday 7th Feb, 6.30. Elsie's last proper feed before her wisdom teeth are ripped from her jaw.

Girly gigs

PROS

• No bad B.O.
• No fear of being squashed up against shirtless, sweaty guys
• No fear of drunken males

CONS

• Epic toilet queues

Have I left anything out?