Miscellany - Secret Sydney

Secret Sydney

follow this blog

36 followers

216 daily readers

rank of 1122

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Miscellany - Secret Sydney

Previous Page (1-14) | Next Page (29-42)

Huzzah! It’s another vindication of my coffee habit! It’s been taken off that very very long list of things that give you cancer and appears to have been added to the very very short list of things that might be good for you. Or at least good for your liver.

ATTENTION ALL TEA-TOTALLERS: it only works if you drink enough alcohol to give yourself alcoholic cirrhosis. Sucked in, no benefits to you.

ATTENTION ALL TEA-DRINKERS: tea won’t cut it – whatever the active chemical is, it isn’t caffeine. That’s right, remember? Tea contains caffeine? Good health move all you health nuts.

ATTENTION ALL HEDONISTS: always follow your big night out with a good coffee the next day – your liver will thank you.

Happy drinking!

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

How to Choose a Date Cafe

June 13th 2006 19:55

So The Lovers card comes up...
What to look for:

1) A neutral location – meet in the middle unless one of you is ultra keen to do the travelling. Some people just like to drive. Just consider the cost of petrol people. You also don’t want to come across 6 people you know in the space of an hour date – yes you look popular but one can never help thinking your ‘friends’ might be paid extras.

2) Somewhere you’ve been before – don’t be responsible for choosing a crap café at random, you’ll find yourself apologising before anything between you two lovebirds has even begun. Plenty of time for apologising when you’re married and bickering.

3) Mid-range – don’t embarrass your date with somewhere out of their price range. Similarly, rarely do you get a wholly satisfactory café experience at a bottom-end budget café. Go for reasonably priced to put you both at ease and make you more likely to order multiple coffees while you keep the conversation going.

4) Ambience – arguably this consideration should be your Numero Uno. Atmosphere is everything – it can push you in or out of your comfort zone, you can be distracted where you should be paying attention, there might be too much pressure. If you don’t know this prospective chicken very well, you don’t want the most exclusive little nook in Sydney: what happens if you run out of things to say? Find somewhere good for people watching (you can always bitch about strangers at a pinch) that isn’t too noisy. Also, look for lighting of the non-fluorescent kind – if we all lived in a fluorescent world the birth rate would be zero in no time at all.

5) Service – there is nothing worse than looking over your company’s shoulder every 10 seconds in an agitated fashion because you’re famished or parched or just impatient. You don’t want a 10 step, 40 minute strategy for getting the wait staff to take your order or bring the bill, so choose somewhere they will be attentive but not too in your face. After all, you don’t need them stealing the show/your thunder/your date.

6) Food – you know it, but you still ignore it – AT YOUR PERIL! Beware of spaghetti, lettucey salads, burgers and massive sandwiches. Make sure there is a reasonable range, though, so you can both choose what your stomach butterflies like to eat. Nobody likes a vomiting date.

7) Seatage – strange but true. Avoid very straight-backed chairs or very deep cushy armchairs – you want to be able to sit comfortably as well as in an attractive fashion. I’m not going to go all finishing school on yer asses, but posture is important. More important, however, is that you feel at ease. No sense sitting on the edge of a great big beanbag because you don’t want to show off your double chin actually being comfortable.

8) Always use protection. Ok, it’s not about cafes, and we might have skipped a few steps, but it’s good advice!

Eventually I'm going to need that back...

100

Vote

Comments (8)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Caffeine Induced Video Artistry - a good idea?

June 5th 2006 18:10

Judge for yourself - you might want to caffeinate before you watch it or it's hard to keep up!

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Temptation makes us all feel dirty...

May 18th 2006 20:33

Question: do we want a café that smells good all the time, hence purely by biological mechanics makes us hungry and salivating and likely to splurge on food we never intended to order?

Or do we want a café with a neutral smell that neither entices nor coerces us to eat? Sisi reckons she goes to cafes FOR the smell of coffee… Or maybe I’m twisting her words and she’s a victim of peer pressure…

At any rate, do we want the carrot dangling in front of us, looking and smelling pretty but not to be eaten, or would we rather pretend the carrot didn’t exist?

Maybe it works on a less animalistic level when we choose whether we find success encouraging/inspiring or resulting in jealousy and feelings of inferiority.

Or whether we want to watch Rom-Coms while we’re single – is it nice to know it’s out there or would we rather pretend it isn’t and stop thinking about it?

How bloody flawed is the human condition!!????!!!

This existentialist stuff is too hard, let us turn to more important yet simpler matters:

The question that has been plaguing me this week gave rise to a drunken mini-poll in the microcosm of the Brooklyn Hotel on Friday night (hello and welcome if this sounds familiar!). I need to know – and I have more of an interest than most as I will explain:

DO YOU SHOWER FROM THE FRONT OR THE BACK?
(this is not code, it’s not that complicated, I just mean do you face the water or back the water?)

Because it turns out I’m a freak. Or a guy. But I could list various references who will attest that I am not, in fact, a guy.

Nearly all girls shower from the front. Nearly all guys shower from the back. Actually very close to all guys. I don’t understand showering from the front.

Ok it’s only pub science and preliminary polls, and you wouldn’t believe what Google is giving me as research on the subject… well you might – use your imaginations. But at any rate, at this stage, anecdotal evidence appears to suggest a clear gender distinction – ask around, I’m not making this up – the reasons for which are a little unclear.

For example, if guys are avoiding direct flow onto their “more sensitive areas,” surely women should have similar sensitivity elsewhere.

Surely you’d think that women washing their hair would encourage them to spend more time back to the water – and personally I’m a wimp and am not that big on being hit in the face with a nose and mouth full of water for the entire duration of my (sometimes ten minute – Sydney Water *slap on the wrist*).

If you have a really hot shower, surely the steam eventually gets too much to be breathing in directly… ok maybe that’s a crap explanation.

But at the very least, the skin on your back is thicker (apart from your hands and feet it’s the thickest on your body) and can withstand more heat, allowing the rest of your body to benefit from the general temperature rise without being subjected to the hot water directly. Although Miss O says she has her showers so hot her skin goes pink, yet she’s happy to scald herself from the front. Then again, she’s white as a lily so maybe she just means a step up from luke warm.

If you have any ideas for explanations, please let me know. I’m feeling a bit alienated from my sex... a little bit freakish... a little bit X-men.

Oh, and here's some unrelated silliness. This song will never sound the same again - it almost makes you grateful we have war to give rise to such genius, a la Soundtrack to War, a documentary by George Gittoes about soldiers in Iraq and the music they create and listen to.

"If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?" - Scott Adams

Vote

Comments (12)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

But they will never take.. our French! (Och aye)

May 17th 2006 20:21

HAR HAR HAR!

Remember when the French (aka cheese-eating surrender-monkeys) refused to support the invasion of Iraq and the yanks went mental and started renaming everything “French” as “Freedom” – “Freedom fries,” “Freedom bread,” “Freedom toast”?

Apparently for a while (and really, it’s not surprising if you accept the above examples) the coffee plunger was known as the “Freedom press.”

Check it out: Boing Boing

Oddly, that idea makes this fact look obscenely normal a la mundanity de boredom. Never mind. Did you know that the Japanese have been known to bathe in coffee grounds fermented with pineapple pulp, for reducing wrinkles and improving their skin?

Don’t chuck those old grounds on the garden (DEFINITELY not down the drain please – don’t worry, you won’t grow a coffee plantation, I promise), stick ‘em in a bath!

This guy walks into a coffee shop and asks the waitress, "How much is the coffee?"
"Coffee is three dollars,” the waitress said.
"How much is a refill?" the man asked.
"Free," said the waitress.
"Then I'll take a refill!"

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Sex in a cup not a canoe

May 16th 2006 20:41

Wow. I can’t tell if this is a dating service or a coffee appreciation site. Maybe it’s a fine line. I once met a guy in a café but it’s possibly more easily attributed to the fact that he was eating what looked like a pizza with cottage cheese and honey. Or was it? Some kind of mushy cheese that looked decidedly unappetising. Actually it was ricotta.

But anyway, Coffee Meetup reads almost like a fetish site*: if you’re into hot, steamy coffee, find similar for some loving… of coffee. Anyway it turns out that there are all these people ‘waiting’ for someone to organise a ‘meetup’ in Sydney… it just smacks of swinging coffee drinkers in the throes of orgiastic communal cups of burning hot fluid.

Here we go, we also have some kinky practice called “coffee cupping,” with the instructions: “Gather some coffee lovers together with a small cupping supply and let the fun begin.” There’s a home for every fixation on the internet! Ok to save you all the disappointment, it may be nothing more than an unfortunately worded description of the coffee equivalent of a Tupperware party… Ever been to one of those? I went to one where we had paperclip chain races.

That was one raging party.

Call it research, call it “me time,” I couldn’t actually find anything to satisfy the coffee fetishist. Although, to keep everything above board, there IS an interesting line in bodily fluids in coffee cups and coffee as a description of skin colour (unsurprisingly).** Although I was a little turned on by the revelatory scientific fact that the consumption of at least one cup of coffee per day was significantly associated with a higher prevalence of sexual activity in women and with a higher potency rate in men. Don’t worry, I calmed down when I noticed it was a study of ‘Sexual function in the elderly’. More on the healing and therapeutic powers of your favourite caffeine carrier soon.

It was the "aphrodisiac of the month" for Amy Reiley: For adrenalin junkies, coffee's aphrodisiac power is immediately evident. The drink is essentially the world's most socially acceptable stimulant. Its stamina-enhancing ability has led it to become a status symbol in certain cultures. Thanks to its high dose of caffeine and other alkaloids, coffee is well known to increase longevity in games of passion.

Meanwhile, if you like it furry… Go on, I dare you, CLICK!

*From my somewhat limited experience of them… Ok I’m no connoisseur.
** Do you own research you dirty coffee slut! I provide a lot of services here but they don’t include porn links. Sexual favours – what’s it worth to you?

"Coffee without caffeine is like sex without leather."

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Sweet like chocolate boys...

May 15th 2006 20:30

So you’re a ready to party but really should have taken that afternoon nap. Got a sweet tooth?

The feminist in me hates myself for suggesting it, but does anyone fancy a blowjob?

I’m not making this up for convenient double entendre (“I’d like to double your entendre!” – Scrubs) but if you’re game enough to rock up to a bar and order a blowjob, you should get a shot of coffee liqueur topped with whipped cream. You You might not. You might get whacked or you might get lucky.

If you go into a bar and ask for a Ukrainian coffee, they will look at you bemused and puzzled, but if you feel like instructing, those Ukrainians know how to have a good time – it’s their version of Irish coffee (unsurprisingly):

- 1 shot coffee liqueur
- 1 shot Grand Marnier
- 1 shot Amaretto
- top up with hot filter coffee
- cream optional.

The somewhat downmarket option is a winter comfort-food favourite: Nutella in your coffee. Not quite like a mocha and PLEASE don’t add any extra sugar!

On this sweet note, Cibby was complaining about the lack of good milkshakes in Sydney. I think this is because he’s a Canadian snob, but I did my research and have a reliably sourced tip: check out Three Steps Café, 113 Bondi Road, Bondi. Milkshakes are rumoured to be to die for – in fact I had to ask Master S to put his hand on his heart and swear his allegiance to the Milkshake Appreciation League and his faith in the Milkshake Gods.

And although this is altogether quite unrelated, here is the most tasteful nudity I’ve seen in quite a while: Bee-yoo-dee-full.

103

Vote

Comments (15)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

MWHAHHAHAH!

May 12th 2006 01:33

I LIED! No review today. Deal with it. Or I'll feed you to the angry mutated bass with frickin laser beams on their heads.

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Stand clear - neurons firing!

May 11th 2006 03:48

Greg Grant, Wacky Packages

It’s a randomist (ala Ross Noble - and what an ugly muthah he is) kinda day today. I keep having totally incoherent and incongruent and incomprehensible thoughts (call it procrastination – I call it eccentric genius in the making) so I have no choice but to subject you all to said thoughts.

NB: Hardcore review set to land tomorrow, crashing into earth, shaking the very core and breaking all your best champagne glasses – be careful what you wish for!

1. Shane Warne was being discussed with some highschool students I tutor. One sent me an email most concerned about whether he was setting a good example to wannabe cricketeers, citing the recent “alligation” against him. Watch out, it bites!

2. Enough already of the pamphlet prossies and T-shirt tarts around universities at Union Election time (or any election, or sometimes just on days that end in Y it seems). Stop buying friendships and acceptance into the politically ambitious mobs of ignorant famewhores (*tips hat* to Steph who may or may not have coined the term). I’ve recently discovered that cronyism is the unfortunate bastard Siamese twin of democracy (yes I’m sure it’s possible for Siamese twins to have different fathers… yes, so shut up), not to mention the very reason that most edumacated people never go near politics.

Fashion advice on that note: If the T-shirts are cool enough NOT to look like ass-licking propaganda, they’re ineffectual anyway. Get naked. THAT’S cooler. (Back me up Sisi!)

3. What exactly does a pornographer graph?

4. Did anyone else accidentally laugh when Tasmanians were talking about the God Squad being down at the pub after they extracted those two rough diamonds (yep jumping on the feel-good media train) from the Beaconsfield mine? Here was me thinking it was Aus-slang for ‘church affiliate’ – especially after the funeral of the one-that-didn’t-get-away – I was convinced it was the minister or whatever. So I laughed. And now I fear for my life because a bikie gang called the God Squad is coming to get me.

Then again, how scary could they be if they’re called the God Squad?!?! I’ll take em on.

5. Let us finally give a moment to the paradox that is advertising for radio advertising on radio. Let me take you through my logic:

1. Radio ads keep claiming that radio advertising is soooo effective.
2. If radio advertising is soooo effective, they shouldn’t have to advertise it, businesses should want to use it.
3. If businesses thought it was effective, they would fill up the airspace.
4. If airspace was filled with business advertising, it wouldn’t have space for advertising radio advertising on radio.
5. Therefore, advertising lies.

Oh, wait a minute, was this deduction ever in doubt?!? Forget you ever read that. Or, in the alternative, pretend that it was the “amy theorem” that led you to that indisputable conclusion.

6. Not to cut the grass of an affiliated blogsite, but if you need a distraction that will take you more than a few tries to crack, get into this!

Peace out faithful readers, and for caffeine-induced giggles:

"I want you to drink a cup of hot water every morning," prescribed the doctor.

"You gotta be kidding, Doc! I've been doing that for years, but my wife calls it coffee!"

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Top 20 Silly Names for Cafes!

May 4th 2006 14:27

Well it's 04/05/06 today and it won't be again for another 100 years... I have nothing else to say about that.

What I *DO* have for you today is:

The silliest, funniest, worst café names across the world!

Submissions very welcome.
Just try and knock off numero uno!!!

21. Tsunami (Utah, USA)

20. Same Same But Different (Cambodia)

19. Greasy Spoon (Havana, Cuba)

18. The Squat and Gobble (San Francisco, USA)

17. Mile High and Red Hot (California, USA – apparently refers to coffee and hot dogs)

16. The Full Monty Cafe (UK)

15. Beast Row (San Francisco, USA)

14. The Dred Lox (Carribean)

13. Chez Prune (Paris, France)

12. T’art Café & Gallery (Houston, USA)

11. Feelings (New Orleans, USA)

10. Coffee Messiah (Seattle, USA)

9. Apocalypse Now (Vietnam)

8. Cafe de Cancer (Japan)

7. Ein – Stein Café & Pub (Toronto, USA)

6. Arousal (Barmouth, UK)

5. Spread Eagle Café (Ohio, USA)

4. In Purgatory (Kosovo, established by Belgian troops)

3. Garden of Eat’n (Texas, USA)

2. Miso Funny Café (Idaho, USA)

1. A Perkle Ate My Baby (not yet in existence but if anyone wants to back me, I’ll run it =P)

PS. Those of you wondering how to combat the coffee kack monster: step one is to accept this proof that
the devil drinks Starbucks when he's in town.

Vote

Comments (12)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL! (it doesn't like you)

May 4th 2006 08:28

In only a matter of hours you will be the first privileged audience IN THE WORLD, in the vast space of cyberspace (what do they DO with all that space?), ever in the history of mankind to see this...

It's the authorititative, possibly not exhaustive, definitely provocative list to end all lists, but more to the point, you really can't find another one like it on the internet.

Yes I got off my lazy mousepad and did the hard yards, the leg work, the research - all so you could have a quick giggle then vow never to come back to this waste-of-time site!

You really want to know what the list is, don't you?

I'd recommend stopping by tomorrow then!

(It will be up very late tonight. Past your bedtimes. Trust me. I'm pulling another allnighter =P)

Meantime....

I met someone in the elevator who was drinking coffee and complaining about how coffee made him nervous. I said, "Why don't you quit drinking it?"

He said, "Because if I didn't have the shakes I wouldn't get any exercise at all."

Drink up you fat lazy slob!

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Ten Things I Hate About YOU!

May 2nd 2006 09:24

Aunty amy’s top tips of the day:

1. If you MUST drink instant coffee, the best I’ve been forced to resort to is Nestle Gold. All those fancy Kenyan and Arabic ones taste too much like bad coffee. Nestle Gold is ordinary coffee you don’t need to pay attention to. It does the job.

2. Avoid Kit Kat Temptations. They are all temptation, no follow-through. It’s like a model who’s bad in bed. Don’t be fooled!

3. If you MUST drink chai tea at home, I recommend Twinings chai teabags. I’m still chasing the chunky stuff they have at some cafes…

4. Green M&Ms – we like! Welcome to the pack.

5. If your barista uses a spoon to DOLLOP your cappuccino foam on your coffee, RUN. With wind in your hair and freedom on your lips. Vote with your feet: go next door. As Master P* correctly points out, this is bad practice and inevitably results in overly aerated foam that is cold and entirely the wrong consistency. WRONG.

6. Boost Bars are deceptive (albeit chocolate). They boost nothing. I was not boosted. I wanted to be boosted. Either I was unboostable or the name is just boostful (heheh and not in a good way, am I right? Am I right?). Choose something with more substance. If you are boostish, please refer to emergency protocol.

7. What do you call a cow who's just given birth? De-calf-inated!

8. Learn to do this. It is truly phenomenal and combines two of the beautiful things in this life – well on the way to hedonism that would do Lia proud. If you promise to do this on command for the rest of my natural life, I will love you forever. (Fair’s fair)

9. Odd numbers are evil. Like left-handers. A minority you can bag without being politically incorrect! Hurrah! Did you know that the word “sinister” comes from ”sinistra,” the Latin for LEFT?!? Proof dammit!

10. You know the kacky grounds that are left in coffee machines? That baristas bang out into a bin? At night they regroup, reconstitute, recompose themselves and roam the earth looking for the weak and defenceless. Only I have the secrets to your protection.

You are well advised to come back soon.

* The names have been changed but the stories are real.

Vote

Comments (10)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

Safety First - Emergency Measures by the Teaspoon

April 30th 2006 03:05

Safety around the home is a very important topic of conversation for every household. Secret Sydney encourages responsible emergency planning of all kinds, but today we will be addressing an emergency situation that you might never see coming. Implement defensive action plans in your home today!

EMERGENCY 72: FALLING ASLEEP AT THE COMPUTER WITH HOURS UNTIL A DEADLINE

First aid is the most important skill in most scenarios that require fast responses to get the situation under control. It requires leadership, fast reflexes, and a steady head.

In descending order of preference, administer immediately:

Wiki-pic

1. Adrenalin shot, Pulp Fiction style.

2. Double cappuccino with two sugars from your nearest and dearest walkable cafe.

3. 2 x cans of Red Bull - with or without sugar, it's a question of how stretchy your jeans are.

4. Plunger coffee - beg, borrow or steal - with 150% of the usual dosage and two sugars.

5. Instant coffee - hold your nose when you drink it if necessary - be careful about ODing on the preservatives in one cup - I recommend several cups with the usual dosage.

6. Non-diet caffeinated corporation beverage that will go unnamed this week.

7. See 6, but diet. Come on, you really need that sugar.

8. Chocolate - also good in combination with any of the above - also pulls you out of that deadline-proximate funk you're in. Love those love chemicals. They always love you back - sometimes they give you a permanent hug around your waist. Noice.

9. Now you're getting desperate. Raid your cupboard for sugary biscuits.

10. Time to check out the baking resources. I recommend brown sugar - the clumps almost give it the constitution of real food.

11. Icing sugar - best sprinkled generously on some sort of cut up fruit. Hire the kid next door to cut it up for you.

12. Raw or white sugar - WARNING: ONLY IF YOU CAN FIND CINNAMON, BREAD, BUTTER AND A WARMING DEVICE FOR TOASTING.

13. Honey - on anything - preferably with peanut butter.

14. Get off your ass and find the nearest vendor of anything and work down the list again. You have to weigh it up: 10-30 minutes errand time versus 10-infinite minutes sleeping time.

Respect your limitations people! Keep your household stocked with the appropriate emergency supplies and avoid accidents. Prevention is the best cure!

For now, if you're content just to procrastinate in a half asleep fashion....

Here is a little test I like to call:

IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOUR AS MESSED UP AS I THINK IT IS?

It consists of one question and one question only, but your answer to that question will determine your normality or otherwise; your sanity or otherwise; your acceptability as a human being.... or OTHERWISE.

QUESTION 1: Which is funnier?

a) Swallowing potentially lethal electrified glass rods full of mercury gas as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival - ha ha ha.

or

b) The #1 screensaver in the USA currently (ignoring your prejudices against all things American for a minute): everybody's favourite president doing the splits, having his body disconnect, bouncing and crunching and smacking into (otherwise innocuous looking) balls - all at the mercy of your mouse - ha ha ha.

When you've checked out both those links...

Scroll down....

No peeking...

No cheating...

Trust me, if you got this wrong, cheating won't make you any more acceptable as a human being...

ANSWER:

If you answered a): you are as big a freak as Piercey McGlow-Worm there.

If you answered b): this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

102

Vote

Comments (20)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend

RSS for the Really Slow and Stupid

April 26th 2006 14:47

RIGHT.

I am getting technologically SOR'ED (ala The Streets - dig that cockney obnoxion). GET AMONGST IT!

If you blog, read blogs, or get bored easily, here's the uber-idiot's guide to RSS.
exp
RSS = compiles all your fave blogs into a handy menu so you can see what's been updated without having to trawl for new entries. Who cares what the acronym stands for. If you really can't contain your curiosity, kill yourself or ask Cibby.

Easiest way, Cibby tells me, is to download Mozilla Firefox (a simple browser) and the RSS extension, known as Sage.

Just download it.

No, really. Do it. It's so ridiculously easy I can do it. There's no thinking involved. Then again, the vast amount of my clicking is sans thinking...

Play smarter. Be saner. Be connecteder. Be technologicaler.

What Moroccan nerds drink... (ARABIC COKE!!!!)

And by the way, all good nerds should drink coffee. Or at the very least Coke, but I already hate myself for the product placement. Mr Cola, you know where to find me - I'll scratch your back....?

Hey, not so hard!!

Vote

Comments (4)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: amy - Category: Miscellany

Email this Post to a Friend