Guitar Hero Scarf. Sweeeeeeet. Of course, my version would be knitted instead of crocheted. (Link courtesy of Bex, who finds my obsession a bit funny, I think.)

So wait. Yesterday I got all excited thinking the government was giving me $950. Then today I was flipping through the Telegraph (I know, I know!) while waiting for my bagel at the cafe and they had a chart showing who’d get what… and that seemed to indicate that the pay thresholds applied to households. Which means we’d get zilch. So which is it?

Carrie Fisher is blogging. I especially liked her reminiscences on the not-so-metal bikini.

Pizza Bianco with Goat’s Cheese and Greens
We’ve had quite a bit of silverbeet in the fridge from the last two veggie boxes. (For those unfamiliar, it’s a green with long stalks and big ruffly leaves. Also known as swiss chard.) The classic ways to use it are in a quiche or in a soup, both of which we’ve done before. After searching around last night, I hit upon this recipe for a “white” pizza with garlicky silverbeet strewn on top. Yum! The only change I made was using a storebought pizza base, since it was a weeknight and we were too HUNGRY to make our own.

It was excellent. Highly recommended if you’re looking for something quick but also a little bit different.

We watched the premiere episode of Wipeout Australia tonight. It was great! They did an excellent job of capturing the fun of the original: stupid telestrator jokes, mockery, silly puns, visual gags, and people getting punched in the nuts. I was curious about the course, because it looked exactly like the one in America. To my surprise, it actually is the exact same course… and it’s in Buenos Aires! Who knew? But the only disappointment of the show was the prize: $20K. Man, the Yanks get $50K! That sucks.

If any of you have Guitar Hero: World Tour, be sure to log into the Music Store ASAP. There are two new downloadable Bruce Springsteen songs (including “Born to Run”!!) and they’re free for two more days…

The Smell of Summer
(This one’s going to make my Mom and sister go nuts.) We planted two containers full of basil this year, thinking we’d compensate for our perennial inability to grow it with sheer volume. Instead, we must’ve gotten something right as it basically went berserk. It’s been trying to flower for the past month, so every couple of days we’ve been going out and picking off the flower buds to keep it producing. We’ve got more than we’ll ever be able to eat before it wilts though, so yesterday we decided to do a big harvest and make some pesto.

I basically ended up picking about 2/3 of what you see there, which filled a huge bowl to the brim. Snookums then washed it and chucked it into a blender with olive oil, garlic, pinenuts, and parmesan. Mmmm. He made half a blender-full, so we froze it in ice cube trays in the freezer.

My hands still smell good today.

I checked out the BOM this morning to look at the weather forecast. Melbourne’s description made me laugh:

So basically, the BOM is telling Melburnians that today they’ll be living in a Tennessee Williams play.