DeskCam: Anybody want to go to the GUN SHOW? (I’m showing off my new Spudds shirt. And my new bicep.)

Cool kids go to the library. LOVE IT. (Spotted in Nora‘s shared Google Reader items.)

Uninterested Cat Bento. Ha! Nice one, Eva. Now you just need to create a bento of a 7 pound cat leaping on a sleeping person’s stomach and you’ve basically documented half my life.

I know cane toads are a menace and everything, but good grief – MEAT ANTS?! The very name is going to give me nightmares.

Major power outage in Sydney CBD. Now that was fun! At about 4:45pm this afternoon, everything went ZAP! And all the computers shut off. We all looked around. There was a few minutes of joking while the office manager ran to find out what we should do. I sent an SMS to the Snook saying that our power was out. His reply: “Ours too!” Okay, THAT changes things! (His new office is at the Rocks.) Somebody noticed that the traffic lights were all out on William Street. We stood at the windows and looked down at the growing rush hour traffic chaos. Somebody joked, “You should be twittering this.” HELL YEAH, I should! I grabbed my iPhone but the 3G network kept crapping out before my tweet went through. I called my friend Kunaal whose office is at Wynyard, but oddly they had power! (But no Internet, so he had no idea what was happening.) Eventually most of us decided to leave, so I shuffled down ten flights of fire stairs with everybody else. Then I hiked up to the park and towards the city. While waiting for a bus on Castlereagh, I managed to get through to Twitter and did a search on blackout. That’s when I discovered that everyone was attributing it to zombie attack. Oh man, that was fun. I tweeted* all the way home. Snookums managed to train it to Central and met me at the house. Thankfully, Chippendale seems to have power (and Internet). And now here we are, enjoying a beer and feeling sorry for all those still trying to head north over the bridge!

* I really think this may have been a turning point in my relationship with Twitter. The explosion of the zombie blackout meme was fun and addictive. I told the Snook it was like this amazing spontaneous virtual chat room with folks from all over the city. Plus I picked up seven new followers thanks to my tweets!

For Snookums: Best Beer Map of America.

B.A. Baracas Sock Monkey. As an accomplished sock monkey artist myself, I have to say that’s one of the best ones I’ve ever seen! I’m all about people who push the sock monkey medium.

Earth Hour has started! The only light in the house is coming from two candles and two laptops (on battery power).

Lamb and Barley Stew
The Snook and I watched the “Barley” episode of Good Eats last weekend, and I became obsessed with his lamb and barley stew. I picked up the ingredients Monday night (one lamb shoulder, one bag pearl barley, three carrots). I soon realized I had a problem. The original recipe actually calls for barley grits. Well, neither Coles nor Harris Farm had that. Snookums did some research and found this recipe, where someone in the same dilemma decided to make her own. We decided to follow her advice. (You can’t just substitute plain pearl barley, as it takes a lot longer to cook.)

 

Thursday night Snookums roasted the barley in a pan on low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally. Then he whizzed it up in our spice grinder (an old coffee grinder) to chop it up a bit. Meanwhile, I went to town on the lamb shoulder with a big sharp knife. We browned the lamb in seasoned flour, then combined the carrot, lamb, barley, and chicken stock. It then cooked for about 35 minutes. I was worried that with so few ingredients, it might be bland. I WAS SO WRONG. It was all nutty, roasty, lamby goodness. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s so warming and filling. This is the perfect recipe for winter. I highly, highly recommend it, especially if you can find the barley grits pre-made. But I’d say it’s still worth the extra work even if you can’t…