Anyone for Soup?

So, I've been trying to alter my eating habits. It's funny you know, there are some really healthy things that I just love! But, drive thrus are easy and chocolate is addictive (i havent had either in 2 weeks tomorrow - along with chips, lollies and softdrinks).
Anyways, I made 2 ripper soups this week, one this arvo, and one on Wednesday.

Wednesday Soup.
2 Cloves of Garlic (minced), 4 stalks of celery (diced), 2 Carrots (diced) and 2 Onions (sliced).
Throw em in a stock pot on Med Hi, with a little water, to soften everything (it steams up like crazy). Give em, 8 minutes or so...
Add 1.25L of Veg Stock, and 4 Parsnips (rough dice) and just under a teaspoon of dried thyme.
Let it simmer (in my case, for the time it took me to get Makhyah from Day care).
Blend it up
Check the seasoning (more salt?)
Yummo

Tonights was similar...
no celery, carrot or parsnips... instead? Start with 3 onions, then add 3 leeks, then when i put in the stock used potatoes (instead of parsnips).
The potatoes need a fair bit of seasoning...
again!
Yummo

These soups are dead easy, and taste great... take advantage of it being winter and take these bad boys for a burl!!

Mado

Last night Karz and I went out for dinner to a new Turkish Resteraunt in Southbank - Mado - pronounced Mah-Dough.

We ordered some dips with Turkish Bread to accompany our mains, which I think was a good idea - I love an organic experience where your grabbing a bit of this, a bit of that.

So we got 3 dips - baba ganoush, homous and another one ??? that had walnut and capscicum in it - my fave i think.
Karz got this really interesting pasta. Basically it was a fairly simple tomato based sauce, with these little ravioli(ish) things, with a spicey lamb filling. I on the other hand went all out and got the mixed grill! it was terrific! chicken, lamb, more lamb, lamb kofta sorta things, just tops!!

So, give it a burl. We got away for just over $25 each, which is a pretty good price. Much better than Ahmet's up the road!

j award 2006 - mid year thoughts

anyone who has followed my reandom mutterings for a while would know that last year i took a particular interest in the J Award - that is, the australian album of the year according to triple j. check out my archive for december for some more thoughts on the whole thing.

anyways, im rather impressed in most part with the nominations for this year.
they are
living end
augie march
hilltop hoods
goyte
the grates

thoughts?

i would put the hard road (hilltop hoods) as the front runner at the moment. it does seem that there are alot of releases in the 2nd helf of the year, but that may just be my imagination. so who knows what will happen

augie march. decent album yes. nowhere near as good as sunset studies though. so in that light its not worthy of the award, but definately worth a mention in the top 12 - 15 or however many they list

living end??? i dunno so much about this one. to be honest i havent give n the album a huge listen. i imagine that it would be very hard for them to release an album that didnt get nominated. they are a great band (but no powderfinger).

the grates. ummmmm. i like some of their stuff, i love science is golden, and i go to church with john's (the guitarist's) grandmother. i also think that patience is a bit of a crazy dancer (well hey, so am i)

goyte! stay tuned for more entries on this genius! A very clever album. I've only just got it, so i cant say more than that at this point in time. but... "your hearts a mess" should be song of the year!

the hoods - its just brilliantly pieced together. look, to be honest, there are some songs on there that dont totally float my boat, but the value in them isnt lost on me.


so???
all in all i think the list is good at this point in time. not too sure if they've missed anything that should be there. future nominations? maybe something for kate? probably youth group... and the dark horse??? true calling from melbourne - everything i've heard about them makes it sound like their album is going to be a standout.

troubled and somewhat concerned

as i drift thru the hours of life, i have to say I'm a little concerned about the future of the christian faith. I'm a little concerned about things like this, where people are too busy cutting others down to promote their great structure that is their version of the faith.

and well, i was going to comment on that dudes blog (along with 50 or so others who are taking emerging christianity seriously), but i thought... and well... no... i wont comment there. i will comment here.

what frustrates me more than anything, is that tony jones is a person who has inspired me like crazy. i was flickin thru some old blog entires of mine and funily enuff it was a little over a year ago that i was saying how inspiring the guy is (here). so yeah...

that dude is obviously happy with his version of our faith, but im still exploring, and i've found a road to wander down that seems to hold hope.

sometimes hope is the only thing we have. but its a great thing to have

a thousand words

as i do from time to time, i was checking out 10by10 tonight. for those who havent heard about it, its a really interesting way of tracking what is most popular in world news at any given time - its updated hourly.

so here's some photos off it that spoke to me. All these are to do with the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Remember - its updated hourly, so you might get different photos.
note: the links i found for these were on 10by10 but the photos were orignally posted on BBC and NYtimes.

Peter Costello's AWA

found this on the chaser site. i thought it was gigglesome.

a big night in... leads to a big weekend!

huge weekend!

Friday night...
We had our inaugural "Big Night In" which was our Superhero night.
The night went well. Bron, Shona and Sallyanne ran the games and did a good job (mind you the distribution of points was a little shakey at times... (I'm so competitive when it comes to games). I managed to get a knee in the face playing the games, yeah for the black eye - it was my own fault though.
We had pizza, hung out then watched some movies (which i fell asleep during). at some point i woke up with some boys charging around making wierd noises. I put on my authoritative voice, then promptly fell back to sleep.
Thanks heaps to eveyone for coming and cleaning up the next day - especially Simo for organising it all.

Saturday Morning.
woke up, took some photos of everyone asleep (hehehe), then showered quickly and had to get to a training session on grief.
it was terrific, but i was falling alseep a bit... oh well.

Saturday night
Mum, Dad and Jenny (were there amongst many, who came to see the passing out parade at pukapunyel! where was i...?) and the fam, went out to Taj Mahal! Terrific as always - MJ even got stuck in and ate these lamb Shami Kebabs. Jenny enjoyed it, i think it was a smidge too rich and spice filled for Dad...
Yumo anyways.

Sunday!
We had Zayden's baptism. it was good. Went back to our place and had lunch with about 20 ppl... just hanging out, havin a good time... good stuff anyways...

thanks heaps to:
Caine, Sally and Orlani for coming up from Adelaide. And for being Godparents (not Orlani obviously)
Mum, Dad and Jenny (were there amongst many) for coming up from Sydney. Mum for the cake, Mum and Jen for helping out with the food on the day and Dad with the BBQ. and for the Krispy Cremes.
Rachel, Julia and Conner for coming up from the Sensual Coast (or Central Coast i cant remember?)
Rich and Jude for the Godparent thing too. And Rich for coming even though he was sick as a dog.
Kenn and Andrea for everything! and Kenn for doing the Service and the TOILET!!!
Grandma Betty for hanging out with us!
Steve and Fi for sorting the church stuff out, and Steve for giving my Dad a supplier (its not as dodgy as it sounds)
and...
NJ, MJ and ZJ for being a terrific family. I cant overstate how much work Karz put into the weekend! The house looked awesome, the food was terrifc (those red kebabs, my goodness the were great!) the muffins, cleaning up, ironing stuff, just everything!
So yeah, maybe I rely on other ppl too much, but i have a great group of ppl to rely on, so that makes it ok.

reflections on gathering number 2

well, another one down... and for me, i think its another lesson learned (or maybe several).

1 - are we focussing too much on the event at this point in time?
2 - are we trying to do something that is relevant for 2 distinct groups?
3 - are we going too fast?
4 - is there enough people stuff?

thats my main thoughts at the moment. i guess the underlying thought for me now is...
just keep going...
learn from your mistakes...
by prepared to make more mistakes...
its organic, and fluid, so let it be what it will be!

starting point: Luke 4:16-21

Tonight we have our 2nd gathering of the experimental church project.

To be totally honest, we just didn't have the time to put into this one that we did the first, which does seem a little strange, given that the first was organised in a week, and with this one we had a months notice. Both Richard and I have had very busy weeks - and before that, trips away. Anyways, I wasnt feeling too confident about the whole thing a day ago, but after speaking to Richard about it, and spending a few hours working on it last night, i think we will be right.

We are basically running 6 stations (i think it will be 6), each reflecting on a piece of Jesus' reading from Isaiah in Luke 4. Its definately just being used as a starting point, and not just going from that one scipture, but seeing where it can take us.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour

then we will are going to wrap it up collectively in some way.

thats all i will say for now, should right a bit of a reflection on the night in the next few days.

some albums i've been chekin out

Just wanted to get down some thoughts on 3 albums I have been checkin out over the last 2 weeks or so.

The first that I shall mention is a great offerning from New York based "Yeah Yeah Yeahs". Apart from their terrific name, there are a few ripper tracks on this album. In particular "Gold Lion" which triple J have been spinnin a fair bit lately (they've also played "somethin like a phenomenon" over the last coupla months. Good stuff.

Next, I have to mention an album that may well likely become a favourite of mine, if for nothing else - due to its connection with the event of finishing my degree - i was listening to this whilst doing the assignments.
Apart from that, its a terrifc album that Triple J featured last week. Ofcourse I am talking bout Muse - Black Holes and other revelations. I havent got into Muse before, I'm not too sure why, but this album is excellent! I listened to it 4 times whilst doing my essay, and i loved it! In particular "Starlight", "Exo-Politics" and "Knights of Cydonia" are the tracks that are really floating my raft! I rackon this album will be a big success for these guys, its a real mix of stuff, including electronic elements, orchestrations and everything in between (no banjo though - i think?).

Lastly, and somewhat predictably at the moment I wanted to mention St. Elsewhere. This album is just a standout! It really blends bits a pieces together that you wouldnt expect - and well, with danger mouse behind the wheel (the guy who put together Jay-Z and the Beatles) its not surprising.

I wouldnt say that I've listened to this album a heap as of yet, but i definately admire everything that they do on it. Crazy is a great song, and I also dig Gone Daddy gone. May well blog somemore on this after a few listens.

Well, there you go... have i covered enuff genres for a single blog entry? I think so.
Let me know what you think if you're into any of these.

hows this for prophecy

Don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America: 'You are too arrogant! If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name

Martin Luther King Jr. in a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, April 30, 1967

cricket and politics - a metaphor lurking?

John Howard - a Traditionalist? who would have thunk it?
Well, today good ol Johnny came out and said he didnt like Twenty20 Cricket! its here. Oh well, to each their own opinion I guess, I personally like the game and think it will lead to a place for a new style of cricketer (where we will seldom see test players playing Twenty20, as they are just so different).
Anyways... I got off track by actually talking about the game.

I wonder if why JH doesnt like the game is because he lives life, and in particular his political life more like Justin Langer in a Test (or maybe even more like Virender Sehwag) than Michael Clark, Andrew Symonds or Mike Hussey in the faster form of the game.

How?

Well, in Twenty20, if you dont get out, you are either playing perfectly; have the hand of God guiding every stroke; or, not playing properly (too slow). Its very common to smack some awesome shots, get a quick 40 - 80 runs and get out (or maybe a lot less runs).
Why?
Cause
THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO!!!
THEY ARE GETTING THE JOB DONE!

In politics, they are so concerned about protecting their own backsides, that they often dont do what they need to do.

So sure, a bad politician doesnt keep the people happy (they dont meet the needs) - and i reckon JH is probably a good politician (please dont take that out of context)... he's good at getting re-elected, yeah? Where-as, maybe its when leaders do what is best for the country, they use their wisdom and... well... lead. take risks and do the right thing... then... they risk getting out (Gough).

having said all of that. maybe the new IR stuff is what John Howard and his band of Merry Right Wing Nutcases really thought they had to do. And well, if the opposition can get its act together (yeah right) then it wouldnt be hard to convince people that they are not better off with the IR reforms. But then, even if they did get elected, they wouldnt do what is right, what needs to be done...
why?
fear
if i do the right thing, there is a good chance i wont get re-elected.

and thats what our country is at the mercy of
as is every democracy

self interest

back from sydney... well sort of

At the time of typing this blog entry, I am at work. On the beautiful (yeah right) gold coast. I've actually been here for almost 26 hours now, as nakri dropped me off here, straight from the airport. So, in short, I'm back from Sydney, but I havent been home yet.

The boys were terrific on the plane. Actually, the were perfect. Both had their bottles and fell straight to sleep. MJ woke up just as the seat belt light turned off at OOL.

Anyways, there are a couple more things I wanted to blog, but I don't have the resources with me at this point in time to do so (reflections on magazines and books). So... I shall leave it there and hopefully be blogging soon.

Oh... and lastly. I will probably have a crazy week finishing assignments - I get thru these and I get a degree! So, I will be finishing them.
Amen

smashed at settlers

Last night, Mick and I went round to mate of Mick's, and played a couple of games of settlers.

I tell you... I put all my pieces in the right spots (particularly in the 2nd game. And just had crap luck and got smashed. Oh well, you get that. I had a good time though.
Anyone wants a game sometime just let me know... I'm up for it.