Month: December 2009 (page 3 of 5)
9 Fattiest Christmas Creations. I take offense to the inclusion of the sausage tree. They’re classy.
Coles Broadway Frustrations
This is pretty much the exact debate the Snook and I have every time we’re in Coles. I REFUSE to use the self-serve checkouts. As a former checkout chick, I know that trained checker is always going to be faster than a bunch of slack-jawed shoppers tentatively poking at a touch-screen. I’m also extremely dubious that Coles is passing on the savings they make from cutting those checker jobs. (Why should they? They have a duopoly.) I am also still unhappy with the store redesign, which makes no logical sense whatsoever. No one can find anything. (Example: Cat food and cat litter are in two separate aisles, and while you might assume that the store would want to make it convenient for shoppers, they’d obviously rather get us to spend thirty seconds longer in their hamster maze.) They’ve also put an aisle across the middle of the store (breaking every aisle in half), so there’s no clear traffic flow and the whole thing is a nightmare. I also refuse to use their butcher while there is a perfectly good independent butcher fifty feet outside the entrance (who they’re obviously trying to drive out of business). So why am I still shopping there? It’s the only place around to get the stupid cat supplies.
Mmmmmm. I found a recipe for Momufuku Bakery‘s famous crack pie. Apparently Anderson Cooper is a big fan. Maybe a project for Christmas if it’s not too hot to turn the oven on?
Elvis Cupcakes. Those are brilliant. Definitely one to remember for next Halloween.
St. Brigid is growing
I’m up to row 117. The back is meant to be 178 rows long, but algebra tells me that at my present row tension, it’s going to be about 10cm too short. So I’ll probably be doing an extra repeat to bring me up to 200 rows. I’m getting 35 rows to the ball of Silkroad Aran Tweed, so it looks like the front and back will take about 12 balls in total.
Knitters’ Festive Season Celebration
Saturday was a banner day in the Sydney knitting community. First we had the final Inner City Guild meeting for the year, a massive affair that topped out at forty people! I’ve put some photos up on the IC website. We had some amazing food, with Tia’s Christmas Cake Balls as my personal favourite. After the meeting, about half of us headed across the road to the Sidewalk Cafe at the Opera House. Sue had organised a summer “knitting in public” event for us billed as the “Sydney Festive Season Celebration.” We had a Kris Kringle gift swap (I got some yummy snickerdoodles!) and spent the afternoon knitting and chatting in the sunshine. Crowds of people drifted past as they left Handel’s “Messiah” and did double-takes as they saw 20 people knitting. (Many thought we were doing some sort of charity event.) It was a lovely day, even if I did get sunburnt on the back of my shoulders! There are photos over at Bells’s site.
Hm. Ebert reviews Avatar and gives it four stars. He says Cameron is the only guy in Hollywood who knows how to spend $300 million wisely. I hadn’t been planning to see it – the trailers bored me – but his opinion carries a lot of weight…