The revenge of the two minute noodle

I'll let you make your own jokes up about that heading because it just sells itself. What I'm actually going to talk about tonight is the delight of two minute noodles. The yanks call it Ramen, but I think that's stupid.

I have this thing where if I'm after a serving of two minute noodles, I won't even wait those two minutes. If the situation is so bad that I am eating two minute noodles, then the kettle can jam it because I need a feed and I need it immediately. I'm not alone here - I eat them raw. "But Tasty!" I hear you cry, "That's nasty! it's... it's UN-NATURAL!" No shit! Of course it's un-natural! When was the last time you went for a drive through the countryside and saw Noodle Trees growing in the forest? You're eating a cake of wheat flour, vegetable oil and chicken salt. If you expect a delicious three course meal out of that bowl, seek help.

If you're eating instant noodles then you're already in a lose-lose situation. You might as well make it a consolation prize by chewing it like a sandwich. Let the crunchy, flavourless pasta dissolve in your mouth. Break the noodle-cake in half and pretend you are the Incredible Hulk. Wait -- what's this sudden explosion of sodium you are tasting? The chicken flavouring? You bet your ass it is! The packet says 'Instant Noodles' on it for a goddamned reason. I shouldn't have to boil a jug of water and stir, serving with or without broth as desired. It's the year two-thousand-fucking-nine here! I want my meals heated with lasers!

CHIKKUN! Leeloo Dallas Multipass!

Once you're done thumbing your nose at that barbaric water-boiling FOSSIL, simply finish off the noodle-cake, use your feet to flick the crumbs under the nearest furniture and you're ready to take on the day. If you find the noodles have turned into a lumpy paste in your mouth, swig down the water in the kettle and you'll be fine. I promise. If you decide to boil the water first then make sure you have a friend recording it on video because I am easily amused by people hurting themselves in the kitchen.

Ordering delivered food is interesting

Since I'm a 20-something guy living in a fairly interesting city, there is always going to be times when I'm feeling hungry, lazy or drunk (sometimes it's all three) and I can't be bothered to make proper food. This will most likely end up in me calling some nearby food joint and asking them to bring me food in exchange for money. What's that? Go outside and do some shopping? No thanks - I've got drunken mates over and I doubt they would see the fun side of "Yo, come over to my place. We'll play Xbox, play some music and then if you're lucky we'll go to Woolworths and hunt for specials on Continental Cup-A-Soup". We usually prefer the approach of "Dude, I've been drinking since 1pm. I'm hungry. BRING FORTH THE WHITE PAGES."

Now, I'm experienced enough to know that there are some numbers you need to have on speed dial. Those numbers are taxi companies, and takeaway places. The entire point of ordering a pizza from Dominos or chinese from The Golden Retriever is getting fed without walking outside, quickly. That's why the initial phone conversation is SO IMPORTANT. Luckily for me, my favourite chinese restaurant is always a memorable call.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love the chinese and their food, but this joint has stereotypes written all over it. It's a tiny little shop and I imagine their kitchen has one angry chinese chef wearing a white singlet and swinging a meat cleaver around. They're the best chinese place in town but explaining what you want to the girl on the phone is like negotiating a hostage rescue.

Girl: "CHINESE HEP ROO?"
Me: "Buh, wha-"
Girl: CAN I HEP ROO?"
Me: "Oh shit, sorry you startled me. Can I get a delivery please?"
Girl: "WHAT YOU LIKE" (Did I mention she talks loudly?)
Me: "Let's go with some dim sims, chicken omelette, and some mongolian beef. Oh, and 4 litres of coke. We're running out of mixers here. "
Girl: "THAT NO PROBLEM, BE THERE IN 45 MINUTE!" *hangs up*

I call back.

Girl: "CHINESE HEP ROO?"
Me: "Yeah it's me again - Just thought I'd let you know where I live so you can deliver the food."
Girl: "OH OK WHAT ADDRESS"
Me: "Wallaby St."
Girl: "WARRABY? THAT SPELL W-A-R-R-A-B-Y?"
Me: (Blown away) "Uh wow... no? W-A-L-L-A-B-Y."
Girl: "OK 45 MINUTE!"

Putting the phone down, it took me a few seconds for it to soak in that she actually swapped L's and R's while spelling something. I found that incredibly funny because that kind of thing just shouldn't happen. I mean, if you have a lisp do you thpell everything like thith?

Twenty minutes later I hear my doorbell ring. Turns out that famous Chinese efficiency is alive and well. Damn those guys are quick. I open the door, give the starving uni student delivery boy some cash, and run upstairs. I am victorious! I have ordered exotic cuisine!

Turns out the girl confused "dim sims" with "onion rings". No biggie.

The local pizza joint isn't anywhere near as precarious as that, but because pizza and beer go together so well it just seems like the natural choice. I used to order from my local joint all the time when I had friends over. And they are GOOD. So I found it a little bit creepy when I just had moved to a new unit and I ordered pizza for the first time. I opened the door and the delivery guy goes "Oh! hey dude. You moved house?"

Well shit - I might as well just open an account with them. BBQ CHICKEN OR DEATH!

Also, I don't actually live in Wallaby St. I'm doing the Internet thing where I hide my address in case one day a crazy woman shows up at my house wearing a wedding dress covered in motor oil or something. The street I used to live in DID have R's in it however. Shit, I mean L's. Damnit now I'm doing it.

Quick everyone! Split up!

So it's Australia Day, and while everyone else is out getting plastered and sunburnt our house is a little different. My flatmate is playing Fallout 3 on my Xbox and I'm chewing on a Maxibon and wondering why I have to work tonight. Nestlé is Australian as far as I can tell, so that will do.

Last night I met up with a few buddies and went drinking, which is something I haven't done in a while. And then I was faced with that startling reality: Whenever guys get completely hammered and THEN try to go on a pub crawl, they will undoubtedly get split up and spend precious drinking time trying to find each other by fumbling on their mobile phones. Getting an SMS that says "hey duder im with this chicks come met us at teh back" doesn't help me find you at all. The back of what exactly? And more importantly, did she bring friends?

Here I am with a stripper. You probably weren't there.

The best example I can give would probably be Parklife 2007, where a mate of mine replied to my "Where the hell are you?" with "dude im near the lights, look for the glowsticks". This incredibly descriptive message has two very minor things wrong with it:

1) We're in the middle of Moore Park and there are lights absolutely fucking everywhere
2) It's a music festival - every ecstacy-fuelled pinger brought a crate of glowsticks with them.

I later found him arguing with a bus.

I guess my message to anyone reading this would be IF YOU'RE OUT DRINKING FOR CROM'S SAKE BE SPECIFIC. Dude I'd love to find you again and talk about the time we nearly died but I can't unless you at least tell me which pub you're at. Thanks. I mean it.

It's hot, we get it

So while I was sitting in a nice cool windowless government office today eating mince pies and savouring the best the local vietnamese slave bakery has to offer, I kept myself amused by spamming Twitter on my iPhone. So anyway it turns out that it was really hot today and everybody except me knew about it. Everyone was carrying on like the sky was falling, posting things like "MY FACE IS MELTING OFF" and "IT'S SO HOT MY KIDNEYS ARE FAILING" and such. I found it very entertaining - probably how Arnold Schwarzenegger feels at the end of Conan The Barbarian, sitting on his little mountain of skulls ruling the known universe. Comfortably.

However the most promising thing about summer is that whenever you step out of an air-conditioned office smack bang into a wall of flame and humidity, you know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton, bitches! I'm talking about the epic storm that is soon to follow, bringing lightning and thunder and drowning kittens to the masses, people watching from their hospital beds as they recover from the day's heatstroke. It's a well known fact that thunderstorms fucking rule, and everytime I see my street flooding I can sit and watch it for hours. It's very therapeutic, if not a little bit morbid.

So here we are on pretty much the hottest day in months, and it's 9:30pm. I'm sitting in my room STILL wondering why I donated my electric fan to the Salvation Army (oh, that's right, nevermind) and typing at my computer, waiting for the storm. Except it ISN'T COMING. That's right, it's the meteorology equivalent of buying backstage tickets to the Pussycat Dolls, wading through hordes of screaming overweight teenagers, sitting through the shitty support acts and then finding out that the hot one has laryngitis and took the night off. FUCK. THAT.

If I can't wake up at 4am tomorrow and catch fish from my second floor balcony I'm going to kick Mother Nature's ass.

Hey bro I heard you like photos

... so I put a photo on your photo so you can photo while you photo. *sigh*

Anyway the entire point of this post (besides starting in the worst fashion possible: A MEME) is to announce to the internets that I did the "nostalgic housewife" thing and bought a digital photo frame. They were going cheap at this dodgy-ass little shop in Cabramatta. It was pretty much the only place where you could buy bubble tea, a mango, and a digital photo frame all in the one store. Pretty much like an asian Aldi.

Random asian attentionseeker proudly displaying the model of photo frame I bought. I wonder how they're operating WITHOUT BEING PLUGGED IN.

It's a pretty shitty one as far as digital photo frames go (They have ones that are wireless for god's sake) but I guess it does the job. I'll head to JB's in a few minutes to buy an SD card for it because 120MB of internal storage isn't fooling anyone.

The day I nearly got exploded

Strangely enough, for someone who really CANNOT COOK AT ALL, I seem to have this knack (read: passion) for cooking and eating pizzas. It all came about a few years ago when my parents built an outdoor entertainment area at their place and decided to add a woodfired pizza oven. This was a brilliant move for quite a few reasons:

- It gave me an excuse to burn things
- Woodfired pizza without some smug fuck dumping lettuce, artichokes and sundried tomatoes on your pizza.





"Excuse me waiter, what the fuck is this?"




While I’m at it, I would like to point out that I have absolutely nothing to do with the slice of SHIT pictured at the top of this post. I took that photo at Cooney’s one night. I can tell why their pizza is free.

Anyway I digress. The pizza oven was built with a gas system included (I really don’t know why, it’s a WOODFIRED OVEN) and this was pretty fun for a while when I learned that I could yank on a lever and have an Xbox-huge jet of burning death engulf the inside of the oven. I did this for a few months until one day when I was peering inside watching the flame, and the flame sucked back in on itself.

Now, I don’t trust gas systems in the slightest. I’d never seen the flame retreat in on itself. The very next thing I remember is a loud BANG and getting knocked on my ass a few metres back from where I was standing. Seems that there was a small leak in one of the connections and it allowed gas to collect underneath the oven. Eventually it got a spark and the whole pocket of gas exploded. It blew the front of the cupboard in half and the explosion took off a lot of hair from my legs. The oven itself was unharmed (Resilient things those woodfired ovens). I was fairly lucky that I had instinctively leaned away when the flame disappeared because I was usually poking my head pretty close to the oven. Apart from a few slight burns, the stench of burnt hair and a few grazes from where I slid across the concrete, I was okay.

We don’t use the gas system anymore.

Wait, I don't get it

You know what? I’m not going to say ‘Welcome to my blog!’ because everyone does that. The problem with welcoming people to a WEBPAGE is that you’re giving them the impression that it’s a nice friendly place with campfires and grief counsellors and dogs and stuff.

Instead, I’d like to let you all know that this is a webpage that may be updated regularly with tales of my heroic exploits (lol) and random thoughts (wtf). If for some wacked-out reason you find this page entertaining, I wish you luck. For the rest of you, AHGLGAH.

The main reason I started this is because right now it is ridiculously bloody hot and I can't sleep. Between sweating like a dog (ie: through the bottom of my feet) and death by electric fan, I'll take my chances and sweat like the dog pictured above.