is there an official term for my condition?

being a non cook, i sometimes struggle to justify my favourite tv show ever being the iron chef. despite it ending in the early 2000s and having to watch repeat food battles fought out in kitchen stadium, sometimes a decade ago, chairman kaga and his team of cullinary maestros never fail to entertain me.  [our library has a copy of the iron chef ‘official book’ and this has just reminded me to borrow it again as it has been a while since I have read it.]

the other day i found my newest ‘cool thing that i need’. its the nintendo wii Cooking Mama: Cook Off game, where chef is pitted against chef in an international cook off. 55 dishes from 10 countries. unfortunatley they don’t cook australian dishes – I am an expert in vegemite on toast, sometimes with cheese to offset the bitterness of the vegemite. 

i don’t know if there is an official term for my condition but it could be that i am a non practising foodie. but far more likely it is the result of having extremely bossy friends who drag me to great restaurants even when i say i dont want to go [YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE].

the spatula forum

because i really do care about semantics i needed to be certain about what the world calls the kitchen utensil pictured above [thought not heart shaped ones in particular, i just liked the picture].

being the very learned reference librarian that i aspire to be one day, i went onto google images and did a couple of searches using different search terms.

the kitchen untensil under scrutiny is often referred to as some sort of flipper or turner – be it kitchem egg, pancake, or just straight flipper/turner. however it is most commonly referred to as a spatula.

but the problem I have with it just being a spatula [Latin, flat piece of wood, splint, diminutive of spatha, broadsword] is that the spatula family is quite extensive. different spatuli are used on different occasions, so you need to be really sure which item you are referring to when you ask your cooking assistant to pass the spatula.

so, in my own small attempt to make the world less complicated, i am asking that all english speakers refer to the above kitchen utensil as a ‘flipper’. a ‘metal flipper’  if it is metal or a ‘nylon flipper’ if it is nylon.

freshly baked usb

this usb fortune cookie also comes in green pink and blue, which I am a bit unsure about. you can also get pizzas and donuts. on my nice to have but not essential gadget list for this week.

dont diss my poncho

The uk daily mail recently published a survey of top ten fashion winners and disasters according to a survey of shoppers.

I own one of the “winners” (stilletos) . However I own four of the “disasters” (poncho – several of these; hooded sweatshirt – several; leggings – several; puffball skirt) and want to own a fifth “disaster” (velour tracksuit).

however given that bikini, wonderbra, mini skirt and aviator sunglasses were in the “winning” list I am not that concerned that i am a walking fashion disaster.

white gadgets

I have a confession to make and it’s that I have a penchant for white gadgets. 

not having the patience to wait for apple to realease the iphone here in australia, I yesterday wandered into a phone store and bought a new phone, for no particular reason my old one still works perfectly, on the superficial criteria being that it was sparkling white, and that it was designed by my favourite surfwear label. 

but this post is not about my excellent roxy phone, its about Kindle, the wireless reading device from amazon, pictured above.  i have never been a fan of electronic reading devices, but this one looks really nice. being white helps, but it does also seem very clear and user friendly.  i have added this to my white gadget wish list.

november was a good month

most libraries don’t use these check out slips now because we get our borrowing stats from our library management systems.  the melbourne athenaeum library is one of the few libraries that does still use them, and I checked a book out to  a patron a couple of weeks ago with a last use date of 1974.  that was over 30 years ago!

this t shirt from threadless is kind of cool and not just for librarians (but not as cool as my jump mania monster truck t shirt).  there’s lots of really cheesy ‘librarian wear’ available. i recently saw some website dedicated to t shirts and other merchandise with library slogans on it. I would advise all to avoid unless you actually do wish to announce to the world that you don’t have a very interesting social life. great gifts for your non librarians friends though.

elude your stalker

 Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine.

read the full story here.  this is one of those ‘only in japan’ things….

i heart origami

   

as if its not obvious already, but origami is my current obsession.  yesterday when I was flicking through magazines at the athenaeum library (aka working) I came across the same excellent emerald green Dior dress with origami pleating in both the latest Vogue, and a New Yorker edition from last month.

i checked out the slideshow of the Dior 2007 spring summer collection which was inspired by Puccini’s opera madame butterfly – it’s amazing. it always makes me happy when geisha chic makes its way into haute couture because it’s so theatrical.  here’s one of my favourites, i love the hokusai detailing on the bottom.

cocktail builder

this cocktail builder takes what liquids you have around the place and tells you what cocktail you can whip up. i found it on the web 2.0 awards site, where it won first place in the ‘fun’ section. and deservedly so. 

however, one small flaw that i noticed in this 2.0 application  was that it only accepted legitimate beverages into the cocktail equation. that is, when i tried to enter ‘detergent’, ‘bleach’,  ‘grey water’ and ‘molotov’ into the text field i was summarily rejected.

which means that the site won’t be of help when i want to invite my older brotheraround for ‘catchup drinks’ [payback time for those camel bites 20 yrs ago] .

daiquiri anyone?

one day a guy walked into the library and asked to take a photo from the window of a big mother fucker glittering stilleto that was on the roof of the theature across the road.  it turns out that he was the publicist for Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical which was playing at that theatre.  jill b and anna the librarians had the good sense to seize the opportunity and ask for tickets, and the rest is history. front row, too. good work girls!

these daquiri glasses, plus the frozen contents, were one of the highlights of our night.  except for jill s, whose highlight was to go on stage and bush dance with the cast during the performance. oh, and the ping pong ball performance too…