No, I'm not bitter. Not at all.

It's taken me a while to post this, because I had to wait for the bile in my throat to die down. You see, I was cheated - CHEATED - out of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You see, late last year, Aussie TV channel SBS held an Iron Chef competition ("a seven course extravaganza cooked by Iron Chefs Hiroyuki Sakai and Chen Kenichi"), and I DIDN'T WIN.

I'm convinced there was foul play afoot. There is no other explanation. Then the father and son had the gall to gloat over their prize in an interview. Bastards. That should have been me gloating! MEEEEEEE!

The winners. That 12-year-old certainly looks capable of subterfuge, don't you think? Look at him, sucking up to my precious Kenichi. Jerk.

If you couldn't tell by now, I love Iron Chef. LOVE. I even own the official book. Strangely, the American version of the show does little for me - it's the original or nothing. There's something about the drama, the flair, the over-the-topness of the Japanese version that just can't be duplicated. It's like a boxing match. In drag. With awesome food. And subtitles. I mean, Sakai once wrestled a live octopus - how much better can TV get?

Good part starts at about 7 minutes. Other four parts of this episode are here, here, here and here.

Here are some of the goodies the winners cheaters were treated to:

"An eggshell filled with a white seafood mousse topping a sea-urchin risotto was a flavour-filled play on the traditional boiled egg. An espresso cup of white asparagus mousse covered with a clear tomato aspic was a subtle introduction of the meal to come"...

I'm dribbling down my front and there is nothing I can - or want to - do about it. Gawd this looks good.

..."consommé of lamb with Chinese dumplings"...

I'm not a big fan of consommé but I would dive into this face first. Table manners be damned in such emergencies as this.

...and "a translucent bottle green basket filled with a rich vanilla ice-cream, sitting atop the slow roasted apple and surrounded by an intense mango sauce. The plate was dusted with cinnamon to highlight the treat for the eye and add a contrasting aroma."

Ohhhh come to mama!

SBS has run this competition for two years now, so hopefully a crappy economy won't prevent a third year. Because all of this shall be mine next year. Oh yes. It shall be mine.

Pushing 30

Well, today was the day. Today, I turned 28. I'm officially no longer in my early or even mid-twenties. Nope - as of today, I'm most definitely in my late twenties, with thirty looming around the corner. Well, not really "looming." I'm actually looking forward to the next decade. "Looming" just sounds cooler and more dramatic than "waiting mildly in a non-threatening manner."

But anyway, all of this means that it's now time to wish myself a happy birthday, Simpsons style!

Ben was ridiculously good to me (as usual), stuffing me with a delicious Thai dinner at my favorite restaurant and presenting me with this gorgeous ring:

*sigh*

*drool*

*swoon*

Yeah - he's not a bad husband. I might keep him around for a while yet.

Aussie Tip - Australia Day Edition!

Celebrate Like A Local

Every January 26, Australia goes into true blue Aussie mode celebrating Australia Day, the national holiday commemorating the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.

It's also a time when the Australian government launches some surprisingly quirky advertising to encourage Australians to observe this historic event in the "proper" Aussie manner: with much boozing and BBQing, those being the time honored methods of celebrating, well, pretty much anything in Australia. Although the Sam "Eat Lamb" Kekovich ads are popular, I prefer the significantly nerdier official ones:

I searched online for AGES for a copy of the newspaper ad, but frankly the Australia Day website sucks ass - under their Media & News section, all they have is "coming soon" even though the ads have been running for weeks (and I think the TV ad is even a replay from last year). Someone's dropping the ball, fellas... Anyway, the print ads incorporate an Official Australia Day Checklist, which includes:
- Overcook a selection of meats on a semi-hygienic BBQ
- Do a reverse horsey into an inflatable pool*
- Make some disparaging remarks about English cricket
- Do something cultural, like watching the fireworks

I also like somepharmacyguy's additions to the list:
- Begin drinking as early as possible.
- Speculate on the position of silverchair in Triple J Hottest 100
- Participate in a water-sport
- Declare something "un-Australian" (i.e., foreigners)
- Have and defend an opinion on Ricky Ponting's future as Australian Captain
- Work out just who was Australia's last right-handed opening batsman

Finally, I'm going to turn this into a much longer Tip than usual by stealing borrowing an article from BBC News on the topic of barbecuing in Australia - a must if you're going to understand how to properly celebrate this day.

Australia's thrill for the grill
By Nick Bryant - BBC News, Sydney

Scotland has the haggis, Turkey has the donor kebab, England has the Yorkshire pudding and from the land down under I give you... the overdone sausage.

I am being a tad unfair perhaps since multi-cultural Australia boasts some of the most mouth-watering food in the world. But that just makes it all the more intriguing why one of Australia's great national dishes comes partly incinerated.

The great Australian barbecue, of course, occupies a singular place in the national psyche.

Come the southern summer, Australians do not have water cooler conversations, they have barbecue conversations - the forum at which the most pressing national issues of the day are given a beer-fueled airing. This year, it has been the state of Australian cricket, normally so dominant, but now so imperiled.

National pride

It is also the place where Australians can speak freely in their national tongue.

The barbecue, or barbie, gives people the chance to chew upon a sausage (a "snag"), drink a few beers ("blow the froth off a couple of cold ones") which usually come in ice-cold bottles ("stubbies"), which are stored in a refrigerated ice-box (an "esky"). People normally arrive wearing their flip-flops (their "thongs"), while a beachside barbie might even see a few pairs of swimming trunks ("budgie-smugglers").

Australia's most successful ever tourism campaign lured international visitors by promising to throw another shrimp on the barbie. And in recent weeks, Australians have been bombarded by another series of government-sponsored advertisements designed to promote Australia Day.

Their star is an officious young bureaucrat who arrives on the door-step of a suburban bungalow to lambast its bewildered occupant for spending last year's national day on the couch. "Not a fan of barbecues?" he asks, disapprovingly. A search of the back garden uncovers a rusting barbie prompting even more official censure.

Then there is the newspaper version of the campaign, where the bureaucrat carries the official Australia Day checklist. It calls upon true patriots to celebrate their national day by making a disparaging remark about English cricket and overcooking a variety of meats on semi-hygienic barbecues.

Licensed to barbie

Having recently married an Australian, I now have to take my barbecuing with the utmost seriousness. In fact, one of my first gifts from my wife was a set of cooking utensils, knives, tongs, kebab spikes and the like, which came in the kind of the gleaming silver attache case James Bond might use to carry his Beretta.

I am now licensed to barbie.

But even in this most egalitarian of societies there is a distinct sense of hierarchy when it comes to the barbecue. In my wife's family, there is a rigid pecking order in which I have been relegated to the role of hapless spectator, while more senior brother-in-laws stand proudly at the grill.

Topping the barbecue league is my oldest brother-in-law who can boast an expansive repertoire of barbie dishes, from a whole snapper doused in lime juice and wrapped in an envelope of aluminum foil, to barbecued bananas oozing with melted milk chocolate. So masterful are his barbecuing skills he does not even burn the sausages.

Gender divide

The barbecue brings to the fore Australians' generosity of spirit.

I regularly serve up scorched snags that resemble one of Australia's most lucrative exports, a lump of coal. But judging by the response, you would have thought I had just produced a plate of Beluga caviar. "What a beauty," they might say.

There are other national traits which we can mine from the veneration of the barbie. The love of the outdoors. The fondness for humor, often lubricated with one of the aforementioned stubbies, or anything else that has alcoholic content and arrives chilled. Humor quickly evolves into the kind of slap-the-back bonhomie that the Australians call mateship.

Then there is the love of competition. You can tell a lot about an Australian man, for instance, by the size of his barbecue, and some are so very capacious that they resemble small mobile homes.

It is also worth pointing out that at an Australian barbecue the segregation of the sexes is complete. The men burn the meat, while the women tend to the salads. Rarely is this unwritten doctrine ever breached. I have only ever spotted one woman slaving over a hot barbecue, and she turned out to be French. I spotted her at the local beach last weekend, happily barbecuing alongside a Swiss man at a neighboring grill and a group of Indians from Punjab at another.

If you want to successfully assimilate into the mainstream of Australian life then hurl a crustacean in the direction of a flaming grill. Here, the barbecue takes the place of the multi-cultural melting pot.

If you have not partaken of this antipodean ritual, then I would thoroughly recommend that you do. Tell me when you are coming, and they will have an overcooked shrimp awaiting your arrival.

* I had to ask Ben about this one - a reverse horsey is a cannonball

Lisa the Australian - Part II

A couple days ago, I received a booklet I requested from the Australian Government on becoming a citizen, prompting me to revisit the idea more seriously. Naturally, this is something Ben and I had discussed, but after reading my previous post on the subject, he was quiet for a moment - and then slowly asked, "Would you only become a citizen for the sake of convenience?"


At first I was surprised by his question, knowing me as he does, but then I understood: this is his country, his pride. It's reasonable for him to want prospective citizen to join for the right reason - not for ease of a visa or getting to join the short line at Customs.

My answer: "Of course not."


My previous post was about the practical applications of dual citizenship - the discernible difference (or lack thereof) that it would make in my everyday life - and not really the emotional ties behind it. So now, I'll explain this a little.


I've lived in Australia for nearly seven years. That's a long time - much longer than most people understand or appreciate. Every time I take a trip back to the USA, that point is driven home. Everything is new - everything is changed. Businesses appear or disappear, people move, children grow, roads are added or demolished, even cultural expectations undergo a subtle shift. Everyday practicalities are frustrating - hell, the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car! (Have you ever tried getting off a plane after a fifteen hour flight and into a rental car before driving on the opposite side of the road in LA traffic? I don't recommend it.)


It's difficult not to get churlish when well meaning friends and relatives impatiently ask why it's taking me so long to adjust - why I don't know things that are obvious to them, why I have to ask for detailed directions before driving anywhere, why I have no understanding about widely accepted new fads - even something as mundane as a new catchphrase or a hit TV show - that are so clear to them. Many don't understand why I grow frustrated when I'm expected to dig through the layers of exhaustion to muster instant enthusiasm when all I want to do is sleep before cautiously reentering a world that has changed dramatically during my absence. Whether I like it or not, some aspects of America a have started to become foreign to me. It breaks my heart to write that, but it's true.


And whether I expected it or not, Australia has become more and more familiar. I love this place. I love the country, I love the people, the culture - hell, I cheer for Aussies in the Olympics. I complain about it and even mock some customs, but I'll also be the first to defend it. And while I freely admit that I wouldn't sacrifice my American identity to become an Australian, I would be very proud to join this country as a dual citizen.


Perhaps some time in the future, we'll move back to the USA, and then my cultural affinity will revert to the way it once was. But right now, I can truthfully say: this is my home.

Just a quickie

I've mentioned before that even after living here for nearly seven years, I still hear new phrases and slang all the time. Sometimes it's a little, well...weird.

First, you must know that my darling friend Elise is no longer incubating womb fruit - in fact, little Olivia Anne was born on January 15th.

Shockingly, I have to say that Olivia is actually quite gorgeous - and you know if the Baby Hater is saying that, it must be true. That's right Elise, you heard me: she's gorgeous. You did good, kid.

Personally, I think the entire thing was just a scam to see how big of a basket of chocolates she could get Ben to bring her during our hospital visit. Since he's a disgusting baby loving person, Elise and her chocolate addiction weren't disappointed - that sucker should keep her in sugar for at least a month. Anyhoo, since we're co-workers, everyone at work was pestering me the following day for Elise's Official Baby Update. One particular conversation went a little like this:

Co-worker, codenamed Aqua Net: So, you saw Elise's baby last night!
Me: Yup, they're both doing well.
Aqua Net: Oh good. So, did you get a nurse?
Me: I - wait. What?
[Thinking: a nurse? Like a doctor? Did I get one?]
Aqua Net: A nurse. Did you get to nurse her?
Me: Ummmmmmmmmm.....
[Now thinking frantically - does she mean did I nurse on Elise? Because although we're buds and all, we're not THAT close.]
Aqua Net (seeing my confusion): Did you get to nurse the baby?
Me: --!
[WTF? Why would I nurse Elise's baby? I may have also clutched my boobs protectively at this point.]
Aqua Net, growing impatient: Well? Did you get to nurse her? Did you get a cuddle?
Me, realization dawning: AAAAHHHHHH. Oh. No. I don't cuddle babies. Sorry. I looked directly at her though. That's pretty good for me.
Aqua Net: *eyeroll*

So children, here is your lesson in Aussie speak for today: nurse = cuddle or snuggle when referring to visiting with a baby that's not yours (confusingly, it can also mean breastfeed, depending on the context). Please use this information for the good, not to scar innocent baby visitors such as myself. Thanks in advance.

I have no words

You've seen me rant about leggings and ruffles. I've cursed smock tops and tunics, and in my daily life I stare with horror as bright young things walk around in "dresses" that I'm positive are re-purposed shirts (for the love of little green apples, PUT ON SOME DAMN PANTS).

But no more. From this day forward, I won't bat an eye at leggings or dresses that invite the world to be your gynecologist. You see, the bar for appalling fashion has risen - now, Japanese company Sanna's Brazil Fashion has introduced the Jeans Bikini Pants:

Yup. That is a bedazzled denim half-bikini sewn into a pair of ultra low-rise jeans. The close up:


And they give us bonus action shots!


I just - they're just - I have no words. There is nothing I can say that can accurately convey my horror. I'm out.

Nerding up for the evening

This weekend, Ben is at an overnight geekfest, so I'm indulging my own inner nerd and spending my evening in the traditional manner: eating single people food*, painting my toenails and watching documentaries that Ben hates. I'd been looking forward to tonight's show for literally months: tonight, I got to watch Helvetica.

As you might have guessed, Helvetica is about a typeface - more specifically, the mother of all sans serif fonts. It was heralded as the savior of design in the sixties, hated as a corporate symbol in the seventies, spurned as obsolete in the eighties, and grudgingly re-accepted by some designers in the late nineties after ubiquitous grunge fonts left them seeking a cleaner aesthetic. It is everywhere you look, and I do mean everywhere - tax forms, NASA and about a bajillion retail brands all use some form of Helvetica:

I found this endlessly fascinating. In my former life as a fine art student, I adored the type segment of my graphic design class, which I'm sure comes as no surprise - the sweet precision, the ability to tweak the tiniest element, the beauty of every detail...just dreamy. Anyway, it was a brilliant documentary, and love it or hate it, you have to admit that Helvetica (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) is here to stay.

As a side note, I'm now slightly obsessed with a brand that was briefly shown during a typeface montage: Freitag makes bags and accessories from recycled products, most notably old truck tarps. Which means you can get a messenger bag that looks like this:

Or a wallet that looks like this:

Or even a tote that looks like this:

I'll take twelve.

* Single people food = stuff you can't get away with eating as a meal when family are around. Like making a dinner of just crackers and cheese. Or a pack of Oreos and a glass of wine. Oh please. Like you don't eat random crap when you're alone.

It’s time to come clean

Last night, Ben scared the bejeezus out of me my sneaking up behind me while I was lost in a fantasy about zombies attacking the house. Yes, zombies. In light of that event, I’ve decided it’s time to come clean: I’ve previously confessed to an unreasonable terror of Garbage Can Jumpers, so now I’m going to fess up about the rest of my irrational scary-thing-in-the-dark fears. (Yes, I’m turning 28 later this month and still have bogeyman fears. What about it?)

Click for a bigger image. Oh go on. You know you want to.

At night, I can’t go to sleep uncovered, no matter how hot the room is. I just can’t – the last thing I need is to suddenly feel something freaky drooling on my leg while I drift off to sleep. But as everyone knows, bedsheets provide an impenetrable fortress from monsters, so as long as I stay at least partly covered, I should be safe from becoming something’s midnight snack.* True, there probably aren’t any monsters, but would you really want to take that kind of risk? REALLY?

Would you believe I've never actually seen The Shining?

I also won’t open a closet in a dark room, since that’s nothing but a good way to free the axe wielding maniac within. Exactly how the axe wielding maniac can create a savage master plan, narrow his potential victims down to me, sneak into the house unnoticed – and without tracking blood all over the carpet – and then get trapped in a closet and lack the mental facilities to figure out how to get out again is a unsolvable mystery.

I tried to find a scary picture of Lugosi, since he was the best Dracula EVER. But instead I found this one, which is very "I want YOU...to join the vampire corps!" Which is also kind of awesome.

Similarly, I avoid looking in the mirror in a dim room – for some reason, I’m convinced this will allow me to see the vampire standing behind me. (Yes, I’m fully aware this flies in the face of conventional vampire lore, since it’s generally accepted that mirrors don’t reflect their image. I never said any of this was logical.) Ben, on the other hand, won’t even bother flipping on the bathroom light when he brushes his teeth at night. Clearly he is ignorant of the undead’s prowess at slipping unnoticed into darkened rooms – and needless to say, some day this shall be his undoing.

Heebie jeebies. For realsies.

Remember that scene in The Sixth Sense where the little girl ghost grabs the boy’s ankle from under the bed? Nearly made me pee my pants, because that’s another of my fears. Even with my current bed, which only has about three inches of clearance from the floor, a small part of my mind remains stubbornly convinced that someone could still sneak under there. And of course, this impossibly flat person will have scaly clutching hands with preternaturally long fingers and scraping talons to wrap around my ankles. Oddly, this little fantasy never progresses past the shock and horror of the initial grasp, probably because the likely outcome after the screams faded would be that I’d just end up standing there with nothing else to do, the flat person holding on but unable to do much more than that. Eventually I’d probably offer them a cup of tea and make small talk about the weather.

This is from ZombieTools, which sells - you guessed it - tools to kill zombies. Plus shirts and whatnot, since I'm guessing the zombie killing tool trade is probably a little slow.

Finally of course, there is the zombie phobia. It was never a problem until filmmakers decided zombies would change from slow moving slabs of dead meat that you could knock over with a plank of wood into freakishly fast cannibals joined by a collective consciousness. However, I recently discovered the existence of two books, which may very well be the most important written in modern times. They are The Zombie Survival Guide and the sequel, The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks.


I think I may need them. Especially if Ben keeps inviting the undead into our house by brushing his teeth in the dark.

*Am I the only fan of The Far Side here? I tried really hard to find a picture of Larson’s “Monster Snorkel” cartoon (“The Monster Snorkel: Allows you child to breathe comfortably without exposing vulnerable parts to attack”) but Far Side comics are notoriously difficult to find online. Damn copyright…

Lisa the Australian?

I'm asked fairly often if I intend on becoming an Australian citizen, and up until this point my answer has always been a very definite "no." You see, when I researched it a few years ago, the information I got from the US Embassy website was that the United States doesn't encourage dual citizenship - and if you voluntarily apply for naturalization and make a statement of allegiance to another country, you can be stripped of your American nationality. Since that wasn't something I was particularly interested in, I dismissed the idea and continued on with life.


But yesterday, while sorting through my 156,845 bookmarks (it's a sickness, I know), I inadvertently visited the Embassy's website again. And I made a very interesting discovery. They've reworded the information on dual citizenship since I last read it, when it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that I would have to forfeit my status as an American. As it turns out, duality is actually quite a simple process.


Just to make sure I wasn't reading it incorrectly, I emailed the local Consulate asking for clarification on what I would need to do in order to apply for naturalization here and still retain my American citizenship. This was their answer:

If you would like to apply for Australian citizenship and would like to retain your U.S. citizenship, you are required to provide a short statement upon the renewal of your U.S. passport providing the following details:
* Date you became an Australian citizen
* Your full name, date of birth, signature
* Explanation regarding your intent to retain your U.S. citizenship

That's it. That's all you have to do. And since my passport is due for renewal next January, this year would be a very opportune time to apply if I decide to go for it.


Since permanent residents have all the same rights as citizens, holding citizenship here would essentially only make two differences in my daily life:
1) I'd have to vote (yes "have to" - it's compulsory in Australia and you can be fined a small sum if you don't participate in an election)
2) I wouldn't need to renew my permanent residency every five years (the need to do this makes "permanent" a bit of a misnomer; residency is granted for a term of five years - you are welcome to stay past that point, but if you want to travel outside the country you have to apply for a Resident Return Visa)

The obvious benefits would be that I wouldn't need the RRV and I can get in the short line at Customs when I'm returning from an international trip. The negatives...well, I really can't think of any.

Lisa the Australian? Yeah. It could happen.

Well, it's nice to know they have somewhere to shop

While thumbing through the weekly issue of our local "rural sector" newspaper (I swear I never thought I'd live in a place where tractors and sheep dip feature heavily in the advertising), I found what has to be the best - and yet, at the same time, worst - typo in history. Here's a close up:

Obviously, some copy editor needs to learn the difference between "facets" and "fascists."

Either that, or the owner is trying to draw in some new business by appealing to the local chapter of the elusive Benito Mussolini Pony Club.

Subtle hints and beautiful gifts

I suspect that Ben's mother is trying to give me a gentle nudge in the direction of adding to her existing brood of grandchildren. You see, a little while ago, she generously gave me a very charming and sentimental gift: a beautiful set of Royal Doulton's Bunnykins nurseryware that was Ben's when he was a baby.


The pieces include a sweet bowl and plate:


Plus a beautiful little teacup and saucer:


And since they're made by a British company, an adorable eggcup:


What makes Bunnykins special is the incredible detail they use in their designs - just look at the teacup with its sweet rollerskating bunnies:


Or the saucer decorated with rabbits at a playground:

I adore the little eggcup with it's contrasting images on each side:


And the gorgeous plate with a stern ticket master and a young traveler sitting patiently by his suitcases:


But I think the bowl is my favorite...


...the Beatrix Potter-esque store name...


...the momma bunny prettily attired in her going-out hat...


...the little girl bunny and her dainty parasol...


...and the little boy bunny chasing butterflies with a net:


*sigh* I simply adore them.

And no, I don't really think Ben's mom is trying to give me a hint.


Well...maybe just a little hint.