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I’m having the best birthday evar! Thanks to everyone who’s making it so awesome, but most of all to Lynnae for being the world’s best girlfriend!

Charly’s Bakery is quite surreal; when you walk in the door it feels a little like you just stepped onto a scene from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. I will keep you posted on how good the cake tasted.

Over and Out!

J.

So last night we finally signed and initialled all the bits of paper that basically say our combined asses belong to the bank until we pay off our newly incurred seven hundred and fifteen thousand rand, plus interest, debt. I’ve got to be honest, even though it’s hardly an expensive house, I did have those little voices in my head screaming something along the lines of “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”.

I felt very happy walking out of that office though. It was like taking a big step towards being a grown up… like the first time a salary clears in your bank account, or the first time you tell your boss to shove it. Steps towards being a big person basically ;)

Then we went home and opened the bottle of champagne. Although this last step was purely an administrative process, the fact that we signed something like 100 sheets of paper made it feel champagne worthy.

Lynnae had made a South East Asian curry for a shoot that day which we promptly consumed… It was so good it had me grinning from ear to ear. I’m telling you guys, being a grown up is underrated.

Hearting life!

• I made up an awesome pasta sauce based on “what we had around”:
  Put in a saucepan and mix:
  1. 1 can of tinned tomato and onion mix
  2. Two smoked chicken breasts cut into slices
  3. 1 can of tomato mix (Basically tomato and onion mix without the onion)
  4. One piquant pepper (thinly sliced)
  5. Handfull of chopped parsley
  6. Half a teaspoon of crushed garlic (More if you like)
  7. Half a teaspoon of chopped ginger
  8. A big handfull (or two) of a good quality grated mozzarella or gouda
  9. 25ml (table spoon) of Nandos Wild Herb Peri Peri (Double this if you like hot stuff)
  10. Salt and pepper to taste

  Serve with whichever pasta floats your boat and beer.

• It is amazing how long you can forgo the need to eat when you are busy hacking electronics in a cold garage.
• I saw two girls (12ish) in a bookshop, one was reading a book on Mayan Mythology and the other was reading an entire book about Zak Effron. This reminded me of a conversation I had with someone else about the hot girls from school who ended up nowhere in life.
• I distinctly despise being told to do something by someone who can not give me a rational reason for the intstruction. A Cape Union Mart manager dude told me to leave the shop because they had previously had a power cut. The power was back on, but apparently the policy was to close the shop anyway. “But the power is back on” I said… “Yes, but it’s procedure” he replied,  “Why?” I asked. “Because it’s procedure”. His procedure hadn’t been relayed to the rest of his staff because as we walked out they were happily standing by the door as more people walked in.
• Never watch a movie at Cape Gate. While the “common” people might be entertaining to watch as you walk around the mall, it is particularly NOT entertaining when you have to sit next to a kid who is loudly chewing on bubble gum with his mouth open the entire way through the movie, WITH his father sitting next to him doing absolutely nothing. Trailer trash.
• I met a girl I’ve heard about for about 4 years but never met. She is every bit as wonderful as I had heard. It’s awesome to see someone in a relationship with someone they were enfatuated with 4 years ago.
• It is very unawesome when one of your good friends starts to fall into the same stupid trap they’ve been in for the last 3 years… all over again. YES YOU! STOP IT!
• We had home made bread and tinned soup for supper last night. I guess weekend cuisine can be in the shape of a tin after all.

I just have to say it, Python (and Django) are wonderful and I loved spending a small part of my weekend with them. Thanks Brad.

My weekend was as such:

Friday night we stayed in, drank Urbock (my new favourite beer) and watched Rocky V.

Saturday we had a nice little breakfast at home, then went wine tasting and lunching at Anura, then went to Kerry Anne & Paul’s for dinner. Then fell asleep because we had eaten too much.

Sunday morning’s breakfast was Avo on toast with grated cheese and lots of nandos garlic peri-peri sauce. Next we we went to Lynnae’s place and tasted her first batch of home-brewed beer… and then set up the fermenter for a second batch… (23 liters at a time baby!)

Then we popped in at my parentals because I love them. My dad hauled out his 1972 Scope Magazine so that Lynnae could read the story about *his* real near death experience at sea.

1972 Scope magazine is crazy! It’s full of ads for things that you can’t believe anyone would buy, like high-tech weight loss machines and anti-smoking pills… oh wait… Surprisingly enough there were only 2 ads for cigarettes and no boobies. Another thing I noticed is how so many of the ads mentioned how the product is being widely used in America as if to legitimise it. They had a “food section” which Lynnae was rather taken by. The “food styling” which, albeit in a dirty men’s magazine, was rather atrocious. I think I might borrow it and scan some of the more crazy stuff.

Then I spend the evening working on my new pet project (out soon) while Lynnae killed zombies on the xbox.

When in Rome homies… when in Rome!

If you’ve got an hour I suggest you watch this video. Michael Pollan, author of various books, most recently “In Defence of Food“, introduces his book and attempts to break down the modern incorrect societal theories we have of food.

I particularly appreciate his analogy of the food scientists playing the role of priests acting as mediators between us and the magical (invisible) nutrients… priests who also get paid more when we eat more.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been adventuring into the wonderfully rewarding world of baking bread. There is something quite zen about baking bread. The effort that goes into kneading the dough until it is just right and then the magical chemistry that takes place while the yeast has a party eating up all the sugars and farting all that C02 making the dough rise.

The secret to getting inspired by bread making is simple… You need a simple fool-proof recipe to get yourself going and inspire you to try crazier and crazier things. Don’t be foolish and dive straight into something fancy because if it flops you might just lose interest.

Ok, foolproof recipe. I know it off by heart… (funny saying that… seems quite apt)

Jonathan’s No-Bread-Tin-Required White:

Ingredients:

• 3 and a half cups of regular cake flour (basically flour)
• 1 and a quarter cups of warm water.  (body temperature)
• 1 table spoon of salt
• 1 table spoon of sugar
• 1 sachet (10grams) of yeast

Directions:

1. Put the warm water in a small bowl.
2. Add the yeast to the bowl, stir it up a bit.
3. Put the flour, salt and sugar in a bigger mixing bowl. (you could use a pot if you wanted to)
4. Add the yeast water to the flour, salt and sugar and mix it up as best you can with a fork in a minute. (This is to try and keep your hands relatively clean)
5. Once it’s kinda mixed up start using your hands and mix it up some more until you have one big clump of dough.
6. Next, sprinkle some flour on a counter top and start kneading the dough on the flour. The flour is to try and stop it from sticking.
7. You’re looking for something about the same consistency as play-dough. It mustn’t be gooey or sticky.
8. Depending on the flour and a whole myriad of weirdnesses, you might need to add some more flour or water to the dough to get it the right consistency BUT don’t be lazy. It might look too dry initially but once you knead the dough for a while it might end up seeming too wet.
9. You should probably spend about 15 minutes in total kneading the dough. The best technique is to repeatedly fold the dough over on top of itself.
10. Once you’ve got a nice big ball of dough, put some oil in a clean pot at least twice as big as the ball of dough you currently have and then put your piece of dough in the pot, making sure to cover the ball with a thin layer of oil.  You want the sides of the pot/bowl to have a thin layer of oil too so that the dough won’t stick to the sides of the pot when it rises.
11. Cover it with a dish towel (if possible some cling-film too) and stick it in a warm place. On top of or near a hot water cylinder is awesome.  The dish towel is too keep out the light and keep in the heat.
12. 60 minutes later it will have risen to almost it’s complete size. Without punching it around too much flip your ball over onto a slightly oiled baking tray. I like to put the tray on top of the bowl and flip them over together to try and minimise how much I beat up the dough. It will disappointingly collapse as a lot of the air escapes. Never fear.
13. Leave the pot on top of the dough for another 20 minutes to give the dough a second chance at rising and then put the tray with your huge lump of dough in the oven on 200 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. You’ll want it to be golden brown but not dark.
14. Take it out, give it 2 minutes to cool and cut yourself a slice…
15. Bread and butter is an awesome thing.

Eggs Haust Ed… Long weekend. Totally Awesome though.

• Drinks with Tania and Co
• Sushi (and Beer) with Jonathan H. and Graham.
• Drinks with Kira, TRACY PAYNE, Helene and Ex G2Aers.
• Free beer, food and fire dancing at a winefarm in Franshoek.
• Breakfast at Arnolds.
• Canal Walk for too many hours.
• Braai at Lourens’.
• Interspersed with lots of Flight Of the Concorde “Rhymenocerous”

Totally Ossum.

Check out the pics. 

GeekDinner Time.

Ok, so if you’ve never been to a GeekDinner, why not make 2008 the year when you start going. It’s hugely fun and can possibly maybe be a little bit educational… Did I mention that at the last GeekDinner we discussed what to do if the Queen of England happens to start flirting with you on Facebook?

31 January 2008, Sloppy Sams, 51a Somerset Road, Greenpoint. 19:00ish

It’s open to everyone, all ages, all genders and all levels of technical innefficiency.

As usual, sign up on the wiki.

The next in the series of awesome get-together-and-talk-all-things-geek geekdinners is on Thursday the 27th of September at Summerville in Camps Bay.

Amongst other great talks, my friend Derek will hopefully get to share a bit about his experiences running an online business… A subject that usually wouldn’t be all that interesting except for the fact that Derek is/was a big time old-school marketing director type person for airlines, hotels and large travel consortiums spending multi-million budgets on traditional media marketing… Only to get better results out of his kitchen and some well thought out online advertising.

The wiki is still where it’s always been. Sign up there.

ath.

j.

Hi there

It’s me, Jonathan. We haven’t talked in a while. Sorry ’bout that, been a bit busy you know. Yah, me too.

GeekDinner time is drawing near and the registrations are slowing growing.  We still have some space, so please blog about it and invite your friends and your mom.

We’re also in need of a projector and screen, so please if you can organise one please let me know.

ok, the free alcohol story. The other day we went to the bottle store to buy some wine for dinner. As we walked in we were greeted by a promo girl holding two empty Stella beer glasses. Before I could avoid her she said “Hi, we’ve got a promotion on, if you buy this case of beer we give you two free beer glasses!”.

I’m not a big beer fan… I was not taken. Then I noticed there was a promo-boy(18 year-old PFY) standing to my left with a couple of Jack Daniels bottles. I asked “What’s your promotion”. “Oh, I’m just giving away free alcohol” he said with the wryest smile an 18 year old can pull off.

ORLY? Awesome… It struck me then and there (not some other time and place because that would be a delayed reaction and I am sharp as a marble) that this kid represented the entire body of marketing knowledge known to man. People like a good deal. Free Jack is a good deal.

I didn’t partake though since it was probably 10am and really, who drinks *in* a bottle store?. BUT, I did buy a bottle of Jack to replace the unopened one that my friend Jan is meant to come collect for services rendered.

Oh, and the spammer. Steinser Training and some guy called Billy Snyman: If I receive repeated emails from you and am unable to unsubscribe then you are a spammer… Telling me that my email address is not in your database of “addresses out of the yellow pages” is not a valid answer. I await Billy’s feeble excuse and I will keep you posted.

lots of live, peach and shabbiness

j.