and then there's Blake (In stereo where available)

We have been going out for coffee for almost three years now. It's funny how our situations back then just fell into place for us to discover we both enjoyed sitting at a cafe and conversing about what is on our mind. Now here we are, still enjoying ourselves and driving even further than before for our enjoyment.

We had just sat down at The Moon on Saturday when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. For a moment I freaked out (-1 manliness) but then I noticed that it was Tiffy. Running into somebody I know is a notable event because it rarely happens to me. Due to this rareness there is no schema in my mind for the brief hi/bye style of conversation. I think I talk to much in that situation and unintentionally keep the person around for much longer than they anticipated. Whoops.

Today I said good bye to Toni by organising a farewell lunch for us. We ate at The Lucky Shag. My BLT was fine, nothing amazing, and thus I deem it to be overpriced.

I'm always complaining about people leaving (mostly complaining to myself) but only because I am not leaving too. It's a little baffling to think that if I didn't screw up my degree then I would have been booked on that same flight as Toni. Oh well, there's no rush. Good things come to those that wait . . etc.

I am sunburnt.

There are some wrapped Christmas presents behind me that are testing my patience. It's not like I officially celebrate Christmas but I will feel guilty if I open them early.

I woke on Wednesday morning to see myself with what I refer to as cougher's eye [not a pretty picture]. I knew I'd been coughing all night but I didn't realise it was enough to make my eyes bloodshot. Yikes.

I decided to take the advise of others. Unfortunately I couldn't find loquat syrup but I have been drinking lots of lemon tea (which is eeww, just like Chris said it would be). I briefly visited Nuala and she made me some honey/lemon tea which was a welcome change. I've been drinking about twice my usual amount of tea lately. I'm doing five or six cups a day now. More if I visit Peter because we are always enjoy drinking hot beverages together. It's nice but I should start thinking of the colour of my teeth.

In related news I stopped drinking my instant coffee every morning. It has been a daily routine for eight or nine years and I am glad to have stopped drinking that stuff. Don't misunderstand - I love it - but it shouldn't be a cog in my morning routine.

The laryngitis seems to be departing. To be safe you still shouldn't kiss me for another week.

Peter and I are working our way through Mario Galaxy. We get frustrated over many little things and yet manage to have so much fun at the same time.

Earlier in the week I spent most of my nights recuperating and folding paper. I made some dragonflies. They're cool. It reminds me of when I made those papercraft things.

For three days last week I did not set a morning alarm. I did not need to. Apparently if I do not then I will not rise until after midday (bladder dependent). This is good information to know.

I was going to wait until the end of the week to post again but I feel I have enough to fill a nicely listed post.

Monday

Met with Peter at 0900 for Coffee and breakfast. Later we had lunch at Chatters. I ate a lovely Beef Omelette.

Met with Yen at 1400 to catch up and chat while enjoying ourselves at a café with drinks. We didn't have a long time out but we (or at least I definitely) had a fun time talking about this, that, and everything else.

Nuala suggested we get a coffee after she finished work. I agreed to this because it seemed a good way to end a day. We sat outside saying the things that we say whilst enjoying our coffee and tea.

I must point out that all three beverages consumed were from The Globe. Although it was fine at the time, I have since felt the need to not go back for a long while. It is time to focus on other locations on the street.

Tuesday

Staying inside completing some of many university tasks made me ache for some fresh air. Late in the afternoon Peter shined his light in my direction for a possible outing. Soon I came up with the idea of once again visiting Leaf. This, if I may say so, was a brilliant idea. Not only was I sick and tired of The Globe but it once again reminded me how good tea is. I drank a pot of Arctic Fire, an old favourite of mine. It is much better value than going for coffee, a mere $1 extra for a pot with about 3 cups worth of tea. I will be going back more often.

Wednesday

A dim sum lunch. I was looking forward to this so much and it certainly did not disappoint. I ate and ate until my stomach was poking out as far as it could. Yet I still wanted more. The cast of characters at the table included myself, Nuala, Marie, Weeena and new face by the name of Yen, a different Yen to the one I know. We were there munching on the many items of food for quite some time. Unfortunately for me they had run out of Egg Tarts when it was time for desert. As luck would have it though, Nuala kindly offered me half of her Ginger... Tofu... stuff... I actually can't remember what it was exactly - only that it was a warm and yummy desert.

To end the night I agreed to watch The Royal Tenenbaums. This movie has always been on my hate list. It didn't make much sense in my mind that I could hate it that much though. You see I love Rushmore and also like The Life Aquatic very much. After giving The Royal Tenenbaums one more shot I now respect it so much more. The writing, acting, sound of guitar, and camera work are all things I love about Wes Anderson movies. I will one day have to see Bottle Rocket, and more and more am I looking forward to the release of The Darjeeling Limited.

I look forward to the rest of this week.

Tags: coffee, dim sum, food, leaf tea merchants, marie, movies, nuala, peter, tea, the globe, the royal tenenbaums, waking up, weeena, week, wes anderson, yen, yen2

Late last week I walked away from a terrible coffee. Weak, terribly made, soulless, shite. These are all words I would use to describe this abomination. If I ever see that barista at the bar, I'm walking out. There is no second chance draw for her.

Today I found the original Russian version of Solaris on sale and while snapping up that bargain I also purchased the not-so-cheap Sealab 2021 Season One.

Today we drank more tea in class, Arrowroot Tea. It was falsely advertised to me. I was led to believe it was bitter, that fact made stronger when Judy mentioned she didn't usually like it. So with this in mind I took my first sip. Sugar. Sugar. Sugar. I could not taste anything but sugar. Apparently Koreans have quite the sweet tooth, especially with tea and coffee. This was a bit of a shock to me, a man who never puts sugar in his drinks. The tea came in the form of powder which apparently has everything you need in it. I was given some packets to take home but I don't know if I will ever drink the sickly sweet contents.

It was one of those days. You know the ones where it's all fine and dandy until a piece of paper reminds you how many hours of work you have to do before you can truly relax. Translate this, translate that, don't forget to translate these too, oh and remember to get that presentation ready. It is no surprise my brain is so muddled at the moment.

Fifteen minutes to a student is the equivalent of half an hour, especially if they are waiting for a lecturer to arrive. When the class is thinking of leaving after fifteen minutes you better get there quickly. If somebody says their clock shows twenty minutes, you're out of luck. Your students, they are gone.

So here I am with my Bacon and Potato Cuppa-Soup getting ready to start other work. Oh it seems I have voicemail from the lecturer, I shall call him.
How very apologetic he is.
Now I feel bad for leaving.
Only a little.

The tradition of drinking tea has taken over from what used to be instant coffee. My bladder was shocked today after a strong instant coffee. Every twenty minutes was pee time. The ~45 minute journey to uni was a struggle.

A guy cut me off on the way home. I lightly tooted the horn. He gave me the finger. I returned the gesture. He didn't reply. I think that means I won.

I do enjoy having somebody experience a movie for the first time which you are already familiar with. It often gives you a fresh perspective or simply renews what you once thought of a movie. Saturday was a day for exactly that. I re-watched High Fidelity and Nuala watched it for the first time. It is a movie I see multiple times every year. Unfortunately by doing so I have become used to the characters and no longer look into the story as much. This time I found renewed love for it. The company I was with made me see it in a different light. More attention was given to the dialogue and I noticed a few subtle points I had forgotten about.

Over the past couple of years I have been watching movies and focussing too much on them being a feature. Focussing too much on how well they pit themselves against others within a certain genre. I had forgotten the relaxed feeling and interest in seeing what a movie has to offer me through its visual story telling. Sometimes if I am watching a very good movie I will remember how I used to feel but more often than not I just let the stories gloss over me. This leaves me only partially satisfied. Saturday managed to light a small fire within me again. I hope to recreate this with other movies.

Later we went for a coffee. The barista was a girl I have always seen in the kitchen and had spoken briefly to on occasion. While she was making my coffee I started to think this may be the first time she has actually done so. This filled me with excitement for you see lately the coffee at The Globe has been weak in regard to quality. It has been a fluctuating problem there for many months years now. What was brewed for me was actually one of the better cups of recent memory. This made me want to savour the contents longer than I usually would which meant we were sat in the café for quite some time. Longer than my standard quick visit when I am with company and more like the length of a visit when I am by myself. After many points of conversation we headed for Planet books. There were a couple of things I was tempted to purchase but I managed to hold back.

Sunday was a struggle with translations. It has been a wee bit longer than a month since last doing this kind of work and I had lost some of the automatic skills gained earlier this year. I've found myself once again relying too heavily on the dictionary for words and meanings known to me for over two years. It took a lot of effort to find my way to the end of the task.

That night I joined the lovely Swiss family Isliker for dinner. I was four minutes late and with them being the Swiss this meant that Peter was about to give me a call to check on me. Tracy jokingly added that if it was five minutes minutes they would have had to start calling the hospitals. Don't be late if you are meeting the Swiss.

I enjoyed my first Raclette. This involved placing cheese on a small pan with onion and seasoning and then letting it sit under a stove type device in the centre of the table. This device is for everybody and there are small compartments for everybody to put there pans. Whilst your cheese melts you could cook pork, bacon, and sausage. When the cheese had finished melting you could then pour it over your potatoes and enjoy. Various pickled items were also on the table to eat. The experience was similar to something I once had at the Trefry household which I was led to believe was a Dutch meal.

This morning I sit here trying to finalise some translations and wonder what this week will bring. Something typical or something different?

Apparently there is nothing like an extra shot of espresso in your night time coffee to have you crawling out of your skin in the wee hours of the following morn. There is also nothing like a Rocky Horror sing-a-long to energise and roughen those vocal cords. Of course when there is only going to be two people one of you has to ask who is going to be Janet. I'm always happy to be Janet. By the end of it though I'm usually singing for every character because I get a tad excitable. You only really need to work out the Janet role for Brad and Janet's debut song.

I watched the first season of Life On Mars this week. The stories were enjoyable and the characters grow on you. It would only occasionally become frustrating when obvious clues were focussed on too early in an episode. Those moments force you to sit there while you wait for Sam to work it out for himself.

I believe my health insurance fund want to send me a MP3 player. I was reading a letter last week and stumbled across a line that says, 'eligible for MP3 player to be forwarded by separate mail'. There is no other mention of it in the letter which makes me wonder if it is a typo. Maybe somebody was talking about MP3 players in the office and the person who put my letter together wrote that down accidentally.

I know I have stated in the past that I write about mundane things but sometimes it is difficult putting trivial events into words. I must be boring myself. There is a certain lack of brain function during the daylight hours which probably is the cause of my current dull imagination. I don't think about what I'm doing and the result hinders my ability for afterthought.

mr_lambi says I'm a snobby bastard.

some back story:
When at a café I always get the same thing, a long black (hot water with two shots of espresso). Last night a new barista failed on many accounts to give me what I wanted.

Her positive demeanour does not somehow make my drink better. I appreciate her attitude, I really do, it makes the establishment a better place. Unfortunately I don't go there to have a pleasant time ordering. If I wanted to drink some on-the-go-poorly-made-black-watered-swill then I'd go down the road to a commercially franchised café like Dome. I've had adequate cups of coffee there once or twice but you can't deny that the larger percentage of staff only care about how quickly they can fulfil your order. There is no heart in their method of creation.

No you can't have perfection every time but you can have something that has been made with some care and consideration.

What I'm trying to emphasise is that there is expectation. We don't go out to order a cup with two teaspoons of instant coffee. We go out to get something we can't get at home; Something that is worth spending money on; Something worth going out for. Go to a restaurant and order your favourite meal. Do you expect it to be served in a bowl instead of on a plate (or vice versa)? What about the quality of the food, is it meant to taste bad? Is that why you ordered it?

Maybe all of this does make me look like a snob to some people. Last night wasn't the first time somebody has told me I expect too much. Why shouldn't I? Be happy with your drink but don't make me feel bad for expecting something made properly.

When I got home today I was absolutely knackered. This is probably due to the heat and the test I had. After a snack of crackers, cheese, and pickle I grabbed the apple remote and placed myself in a comfortable position on the couch. As the music went over me I became more and more tired. Eventually I needed to eat because my stomach was complaining which is all it seems to do lately.

I was ready for bed at 20:15. My intentions were to stay up tonight finishing things but I got to a point where I threw my arms into the air and said, "Fuck this. I'm going to bed". Not two minutes later I received a message on iChat from Peter. It was an invitation for a coffee run. Could this be a sign, I asked myself. Should I not go to bed so early? I agreed to this outing and we ventured to our regular haunt.

Last week we were served with nothing but superior cups of coffee. Since we oft get a mediocre brew I found that I welcomed the change of quality. Tonight the same barista put herself behind the machine metalic des dieux. Apparently the apparatus superum had been serviced and cleaned today. We were told to expect nothing short of brilliance. A few sips later we felt the need to wave our arms to attract the attention of the barista from our seats outside. We gave her a thumbs up to signify that once again we were happy with what was concocted for us on this night. We thanked her for the continued quality and in turn learnt little bits and pieces about the place. Apparently she co-manages the café with another barista whom I am familiar with. I like getting to know the person who makes my coffee. It's like talking to the artist who has just painted you a picture.

This ramble was enjoyable to write.

Since The Globe is closed it's difficult to know where to go for a chat and relax. Soto Espresso was mentioned but that place has some of the worst parking. Since there was nowhere to park we ended up at The Moon. The vegetarian pizza wasn't too bad. They lost points though for giving me a long black in the wrong type of cup, I'm getting very specific about my type of cup these days.

It's been ages since I've been there. I like the place but it's never high on my list of places to go. Maybe I don't like it that much. Maybe I'm neutral about it. How confusing.

Anyway, they had postcards and I liked the picture.