3Bns&Dnr43

Today, we were a couple of people short today and after a certain time it was just me, all by my lonesome on the counter with 6 groupheads and 3 grinders to play with and 2 of the coolest dudes on the floor looking after the whole show.  When you have a whole lot of stress coming down on top of your head, it pays to relax and trust in the people with you and work from there.  Luckily I’ve shared many a beer, meals and good times with Matt and Ramiro, two of the most exceptional people I’ve ever had the chance to know so we somehow managed to stay heads above water, not freak out and break shit and save the day while keeping customers happy.  The bossman came in at around 4ish and helped to pack up while being apologetic so alls well that ends well.  It turns out that installations down south were hampered by either a suicide attempt/drunk being run over outside of a pub which was alongside the motorway they were on.  Inertia is scary when it kills.

About six months ago, my mate MC behind the bar had struggled with form and was getting a bit down on himself, I’m not really a kind and caring person so I tackled it in a rather mannish way.  Being mr macho comacho barista, I remember playing the tosspot and hogging all the sit-down coffees to pour while giving him all the takeaways.  Somehow, the Hand of God took over and I was assing so many sweetly symmetrical patterns that I could barely believe it myself.  By 10.30 I felt like an ass, so I got him to do all the dine in coffees afterwards and howzat… he had no trouble pouring.  Four hours of watching some dickhead show off the ‘mesmerising fern-like foreplay pour’ trick seemed to kickstart something within.  Sometimes frustration can build a drive to succeed or whatnot according to 7-steps-from-outtamyass.  I think the week afterwards, he managed to find form and he’s kept it ever since.  But hey… it worked and wow, there you go another one of those oddball moments in hospitality training/leadership.

Or… How to fuck up and make world news.

In daily life, my preferred mode of transport is the Maymobile, a cute little 2 door hatchback that quickly gets us from A to B, driven courtesy of May herself.  I’m one of those slackers who went for the auto license, and more than 10 years on I’ve never looked back.  The dividends in a way are paying themselves off now, because whenever I need to go somewhere that my scooter can’t safely reach, then May HAS to drive me because SHE bought a manual car.  Speaking of my scooter, I have one of those pissy little 100cc 2 stroke lawnmovers attached to two wheels and a handlebar.  Being asian, I just had to pick a black one with a flame on the side.  Being asian, I just had to get the new tires that were more suited to the road.  Nowadays when I lean the scooter over, it leans so freakin far that I am even a bit scared of how low it can go.  Wowowowow.  Sooner or later, I need to double May, so there goes the lean, there goes the flame and in comes some freakin kitten sticker.  *sigh*  But in the meantime, that person doing 30-40kph and accidentally trying to look like casey stoner while riding that totally pedestrian corner with all the safety gear… that’s probably me.

A little while ago, I had to send the scooter in for a service or something but I can’t quite remember what it was exactly.  I had a bit of time to kill in the city so I browsed the local firesale bookstore that pops up every now and again in a vacant cbd city lease and managed to pick up a low carb diet cookbook for a paltry $7.  A fantastic bargain offset by a bus ticket that cost almost as much and I was on my way home.  Being around knock-off time, the bus was doing its best to imitate a can of sardines and to alleviate boredom I explored my culinary prize for the day.
My little black streak hoped that someone big would sit next to me and the little angel on my shoulder fretted over what I should do if someone big did sit next to me.  The former occurred when a lady who erred on the larger side of voluptuous sat down.   Suddenly all the stunningly similar things that whiny stupid readers bitch about when talking crowded public transport and fat people to the trash rag almost all came true.

It started off with a ’she sat on me..hard’ reaction but that was quickly followed by the “she’s still sitting on a part of me” look from me and quickly followed by a minor variation of “excuse me but would you mind moving part of you so I can reclaim that part of me..that’s still underneath you” .  I can’t believe that this type of interaction even happens on a daily basis and what’s worse, there’s usually a stoush in the local ’smsvent’ about this shit every couple of weeks.  The one novel interaction that somehow defines me as the tip of this bullshit iceberg however, is the fact that I had the diet book open and in plain sight of the ‘fat’ person next to me and she saw it. I kept reading, taking the decision that closing the book after I’d noticed her noticing me reading it meant that I knew that she knew and suddenly there was an elephant in the room just waiting to be pointed out.  I didn’t know whether I was right or wrong about it, so to get an even balance from some friends I sent out a few sms afterwards about my predicament and here are the following responses.  I was hoping for a genuine response to my silly social context question but didn’t really get a satisfactory answer.

E.H: !!!!

N.S:  That made my day.

C.C: Haha, maybe you should of stretched out so she could read it too!

K.: She’s probably gone home to emotionally eat her way into a diabetic coma whilst crying over a skinny bloke who clearly doesn’t know the first thing about obesity.  I hope for your sake you put the book away.

R.M: Hey you probably did her a favour..

May has been cooking up a storm and I’ve been eating and abusing the privileges all too often.  It’s an amazing journey to be able to look back on your relationship and chart the small milestones in the relationship that make it all so massively comforting.  The other night, May and I were sharing the couch and blankets with one head on either end looking for all the world like a massive hot dog while playing the playstation till the wee hours of the morning.  2 player co-operative games are something that never fully gets explored in the console gaming universe, and the weird usage of the camera in onimusha 4 was definitely a clear sign of that.  Little did I know, it was suddenly 3am in the morning and I had shit to do the day after!

As you may or may not know, Ant and I have been doing “low-carb, high complex carb” diet for the last two weeks. You may want to read about it more in my previous post. Well. I think after two weeks it started to show results of my positive eating saga…

Hypothesis:

• If we include more complex carb in our diet, I will lose weight, Ant will gain more energy
• Ant may lose weight (AHHHH!!!!)
• I may lose weight up to 5 kg(YEAHHH!!!!)
• Ant may nibble more food after work because he will crave for deep-fried-greasey shit
• If we cook almost everyday, 3 times a day, we will have less wastage from the fridge

Methodology:

From the previous post:

• Cook everyday
• Include salads within 3 meals (this was a challenge since Ant seems to avoid salads)
• Increase vegetable contents
• Switch to wholemeal (this wasn’t so bad since we love wholemeal)
• Increase up to 75% in fruits

• Increase his fruits up to 50% for his training days

Results:

Firstly, things that has changed about us physically:

Ant

• Has more energy for his training at 7pm
• He still looks fucking lean
• Has more energy during the shift
• He doesn’t come home from training with bruises around his face
• He avoids internet and computer games (YES!!!!)
• He is now a deep-sleeper (!?)

Me

• I lost 2kg (YEAY!!!) around my hips and breasts (Noooooo!)
• My zitful face is becoming more of fair and healthy skin
• I crave more for fruits (My nickname is now fruitbat)
• My wallet is saving up to $50 per week
• I avoid useless online activity instead I go out and socialise more
• I feel like I want to release my hyperness (but I can’t…)
• I am a light-sleeper now… (not good….)

It’s that time of the year when I need to get really organised for 1 simple task for 1 hr of my 365 days. Alas, TAX RETURN returns. I receive an email from good o’ ato.gov.au reminding me that ato_2008 are now available online. I now face a problem.

• The downloadable version of e-tax may not work on operating systems or browsers other than those we have recommended.
• If you choose to use an operating system or browser that is unsupported by its vendor, you may experience problems using the e-tax software.
• e-tax is not compatible with Linux or Apple Macintosh computers. However, e-tax has been tested successfully on an Apple computer running OS X v10.4.3 with Virtual PC 7 software emulating a recommended Windows operating system.

The Tax Office is committed to providing you with easier, cheaper and more personalised service. Part of this initiative is a commitment to the continuous improvement of e-tax. The Tax Office will continue investigating to make e-tax available to different computer platforms.

Waaaahhhh!!! no .app for macs…. sob sob. I’ve been using the online application for 5 years now, and I’m totally used to the convenience of “click-and-go”. Maybe it’s because I get lazy when I see 10 pages of application form, which I tend to fill it 1 day before the closing date. 

Ant’s computer is a bit of non-user-friendly at the moment because he uses VISTA, the second worst OS platform ever released by Microsoft, and I have a feeling the tax program will create more problems with system performance. 

Yeah, three cheers to the crack-book yeah.

It was my last day at Naked Coffee on Friday.  For the past two week’s I’ve been the facilitator and systems trainer teaching those that come next what we do.. It’s been a mixture of pleasant success and unlikely challenges but I am sure my boys will do me proud with a bit of seasoning.

Am I sad at leaving?  A little bit yes, but moreso in that this is basically the end of an era, and a last goodbye to so many loyal customers but times change and you have to upskill, otherwise it’s a dead-end.  Oh yes, it’s going to be day 15/16 tomorrow, two more 10hr days on my feet followed by a night of training and then it’s time for all the other shit to be sorted out.

It’s a bit of mayhem here… well, from calculating kilojoules to minerals to grocery budgets. Basically my new type of food-exploring began when Ant came home from training and said,

“I have to be on low carb diet.”

I literally, nearly slapped him across his face. HE IS SO FUCKING LEAN ALREADY, that’s why. Considering I am the MAIN and the ONLY chef in the house, I felt a bit offended by him saying that. His metabolism is out of human pace, he eats like a horse… And I’m thinking, absolute WTF. But when he explained the whole situation, it turns out that he is getting his ass-kicked by his trainer and fellow trainees because of how he eats his BREAKFAST and LUNCH. Since he does killer shifts like 6am-5pm, he usually skips his breakfast, throw down a macchiato or piccolo (or worse case scenario, short doppio to wake him up) in his mouth, and starts his day. BAD, BAD, and BAD. Then he ends up having either Japanese from Himawari (which I think it’s ok before training) or greasy turkish bap from work, adding nothing but saturated fat into his system. Then, goes to training… a hardcore 1 1/2 hrs of fighting fitness.

I knew what I had to do. I’m on a mission to boost energy into his diet. There are few things that I had to do to accomplish my goal;

• Cook everyday
• Include salads within 3 meals (this was a challenge since Ant seems to avoid salads)
• Increase vegetable contents
• Switch to wholemeal (this wasn’t so bad since we love wholemeal)
• Increase up to 75% in fruits

Well, eating lunch in time was crucial part because if he doesn’t have enough energy by 7pm training, he would come home with bruised eyes. I really hate seeing that on his face. I found that out on Thursday when I missed the bus to take his lunch, and he missed out on his break and lunch- HE WAS PISSED OFF.

So, here’s my ideal lunch for Ant:

Day 1: All day at work, training after work 

• Sandwich made on soy and linseed bread with pro-active margarine, wholegrain mustard and lean honey leg ham
• Salad of sunny lettuce, field mushroom, thinly sliced tomatoes, chopped shallots and cucumber (so he can make salad sandwich himself)
• Fruits: 4 bananas, 1/4 honeydew melon, pineapple, nashi, orange, 5 strawberries and ruby grapefruit
• AND NO CHEESE!!! YEAH~~~~!!!! 

In terms of describing what I do most days, usually it can be set around these three markers.  A quick example of it’s application to three things;

enjoying a 3/4 sized full cream latte at campos today

Beginning: On the first sip creamy milk coffee and chocolate tones in the microfoamed drink

Middle point: Feeling the fullness of the sweetly textured milk as well as experiencing the drink hitting all areas of the palate - almost like someone inflating a ‘balloon’ of taste that stimulates and leaves no tactile area of the mouth uncovered

End point: Feeling more chocolate and also a light background of orange in the aftertaste well over 3-5 minutes after finishing the drink.  Smelling the empty cup and being reminded of the smell of the raisins in a fruit loaf.  Not even a coffee smell to the cup… is that even possible?!

Throwing a single right leg low round kick

Beginning: Selecting target, then stepping off with the left leg slightly bent and pushing off with my right leg at the same time whilst keeping a slightly tight core to help the rotation of the hips while keeping my left elbow reasonably close to my ribs and left hand near to my temple

Middle point: Focusing on pivoting with the left leg while fixing the right leg in the correct ’shape’ of knee raised, toes pointed, shin slamming into the target from a horizontal angle, keeping the right shoulder up a bit and right arm in the way of any counter punches

End point: Returning to kamae and being balanced enough to either retreat or attack again.

Steaming milk:

Beginning: Finding the correct angle for the sweet spot after purge and starting the steam.  Listening to the hiss and crackle in the beginning

Middle point: After finding the correct amount of foam holding it in position

End point: Turning off the steam at the right time so it shoots up to temperature in the jug.  Simultaneously removing milk and wiping then purging.