Learning to drink coffee - Day 2

So today at dinner, I walked up to the table beside the coffee machine to get a mug. The mugs are stacked on trays, and for reasons of structural integrity you should take your mug from the top tray. There were two mugs on the top tray - one was the same as all the other mugs, and the other was also identical, with the exception that it was shorter than the others - more like a teacup. With Paul's advice in mind, I decided to make my own mochaccino. I put milk into the short mug, cappuccino into one normal mug and hot chocolate in another, and took them to my table, having added half a tablespoon of sugar to the cappuccino.

This time I was able to have a few sips of the cappuccino without flinching, but I still played chemist with the three mugs until I had a drink that smelt like coffee and tasted like chocolate. It was good. We had ice cream and this juicy berry stuff for dessert, so I add ice cream and berry juice at some point. And that was good. Sort of drowned out the coffee though.

Learning to drink coffee - Day 1

At dinner, I went to get a hot chocolate from the drink machine, and then thought "Wait a minute, I'm meant to be learning to drink coffee!" Why am I meant to be learning to drink coffee? Because I want to see if I can learn - I love the smell of coffee but not the taste, and people have told me that it can be an acquired taste. So I'm seeing if I can acquire it.

My friend Paul had said "Start with mochaccinos", but the machine only had hot chocolate, hot water, black coffee and cappuccino. So I pressed the button for a cappuccino.

It didn't fill the mug entirely, but I'm used to that - it does it with hot chocolate too, and I usually top it up with milk. So I topped the cappuccino up with milk and took it back to my table. I took a sip, and it taste fine until I got through the froth onto and into the actual coffee.

"Blegh!"

I put it down and pulled faces at it. Iris leaned over the table and said "Did you add sugar?"

"Nope."

"The machine doesn't add sugar. You have to put it in yourself."

"Oh, right. That might be why it tastes so bitter, mightn't it?" I carried it back to the table next to the coffee machine where the mugs and sugar are kept, and dumped two tablespoons of sugar on top of the foam, where it slowly dissolved through it and into the coffee. I stirred it with one of the little wooden popsicle sticks that they give us instead of teaspoons to stir our drinks with and tried again, back at the dinner table.

"Blegh!"

I put the mug down again. "That is way too sweet." Note to self - spoonfuls of sugar are usually measured in teaspoons, not tablespoons. Duh. I had thought that that sugar spoon looked a little big. I kept drinking, slowly, and alternating the coffee with orange juice and the chicken curryish dinner glop. At one point I said to Tap, sitting on my right: "Maybe it's like drinking whiskey. You don't grow to like it, you just get used to it." Whiskey's not so bad, but the first time I tried it I told Dad it tasted like turps. He was horrified by my lack of appreciation for fine booze!

People can grow to like all sorts of things, just because they're used to them. Like city traffic noise, or loud music, or going to hospital. Personally I don't mind hospital (getting to lie in bed sleeping and reading and drinking ginger beer!), but I dislike the circumstances that put me there (painful things like peritonitis and broken bones). Although I have to say I prefer coffee to city traffic noise.

Something Interesting Happened In Tauranga

Cat warns owner of fire

~

The thing I find interesting about this is that the cat was "making noises like a fire alarm". Do they mean that he was wailing like a siren, or beeping like a smoke detector? Was it simply just coincidence that the cat was making fire alarm noises for a fire, or does he make different noises for different emergencies? If the cat made a "WeeeeoooooooOOOOOooooOOO" noise like an air raid siren, would that be a sign that the house was being bombed? Did Julie Woodhouse immediately think "Fire!" upon hearing the cat's fire alarm noise, or did she only describe it as a fire alarm noise after seeing that her house was actually on fire?

~

If it were a dog making fire alarm noises, I would infer that the dog had learnt the fire alarm noise and learnt to associate it with fire, and so was making the noise in response to the fire. That's how dog intelligence works - although I'm less surprised about fire alarm noises coming from a cat than a dog (cats are inherently much more capable of the wailing noise than dogs). Cats are intelligent too, but not so eager to please, so although they're capable of being trained, they don't tend to "train themselves" as often as dogs do.

~

If you're in Tauranga and their church asks you for money for their fund for the Woodhouses, you should give them some. If only because they have a cool cat.

Sketchbook - 28/10/09

A doodle of a dog. Don't ask me what breed it's meant to be, for I have no clue.

~

Today's lesson: Red pen + butcher paper + webcam = bad resolution.

Something Interesting About 2Degrees, or somethinginterestingaboutmobilenetworkscontinued

So this new mobile network, 2 Degrees. One of their highly-advertised perks is "free stuff when you top up". Today I decided to test this theory, as I need to top up my "texting Jack and Paul" fund. So I bought a $20 voucher, after walking past a sign telling me that I would get 100 free texts if I did. Well! Not only did I get 100 free texts, but also calling to NZ landlines and 2 degrees mobiles for 22c a minute, for the next 30 days. Hurrah! So I'm going to ring lots of people in the next thirty days.

Something Interesting About Mobile Networks, or Adventures in Foodtown Continued

If you're not from New Zealand, or live under a rock, you should know before reading this that we have three cellphone networks here - Vodafone and Telecom, the two ancient rivals, and 2 Degrees, a relative newcomer.

I've been meaning for a while to get a 2 Degrees sim card, because you can pick them up for $2 at the supermarket, they fit into a Vodafone phone (which mine is), you can call people in New Zealand and 21 other countries for 44c a minute, and you can text people for 9c a text instead of Vodafone's 20c. I'm on Vodafone's txt2000 plan thingy, which means 2000 texts to other Vodafones each month for $10 a month, but I have some friends on Telecom, especially two lovely boys I know who don't live in Auckland.

I don't know why, but something about being female and living in Auckland means you just automatically have a Vodafone. No exceptions. I think it's because of the txt2000 thing - it works best if everyone's on the same network. I know one or two in-Auckland-males with Telecom phones, and one or two out-of-Auckland-females with Telecom phones, but in general it's the out-of-Auckland-males that are the worst offenders. Shout-out to Jack and Paul!

Anyhow, it turns out that 2 Degrees sim cards are actually free! Free, I tell you! Sure, one pays $2 for the actual sim card, but it comes with $2 credit on it, so it's... free. So I grabbed one at the supermarket yesterday, while on a quest with Sinead and Conall to find cannelloni (that's where the photo of me looking all crazy in the supermarket on yesterday's post came from). So now I had a new free sim card! I sent some celebratory 9c texts to Jack and Paul, but then stopped so that I didn't chew through my hard-earned $2 too quickly. And then I got bored, so I put my Vodafone sim card back in and texted Sinead.

This wasn't really all that interesting, come to think of it. I'm just excited that I got a free sim card. FREE SIM CARD! Take that, Rhys Darby!

"Lifestyle" Drinks, or Adventures In Foodtown

I just moved some photos off my phone and thought it'd be worth sharing some of them. These were all taken in the Foodtown near my school, but on different occasions. Foodtown: it's where all the cool kids take photos on their phones. Here's the first, and the cause of the post title:

Lifestyle drinks. I don't know why "lifestyle" is a euphemism for sex, but people always talk about "lifestyle shops" and "lifestyle expos" and "alternative lifestyles" - I find that last one particularly irritating. Being gay or into BDSM or anything like that isn't an alternative lifestyle, it's an alternative sex life. An alternative lifestyle would be living in a treehouse. Which would be really cool. But anyway, lifestyle drinks. For the person who has everything; sex drinks now available in the beverage aisle of Foodtown! Unfortunately not. They just turned out to be "alternative" (read: cranberry/tomato) juices and sports-type drinks. Alas. Way to get our hopes up, Foodtown.

Of course, Foodtown is concerned for the wellbeing of peanut allergy sufferers:

No, really? Foodtown, you're not actually suggesting that chocolate peanuts contain PEANUTS, are you? Shop here if you have a peanut allergy and can't read small writing. They'll be sure to make it obvious.

Last of all, me. Posing quite spectacularly. That mark on my right shoulder is the scar from collarbone surgery mentioned in a previous post.

I love that whole split-personality thing my face is doing. Sinead said that this photo was scary. Can't imagine why.

That's all folks!