Don't Blame Technology

Over xmas I had a traditional family debate at the dinner table about the impact technology has had on our everyday lives. My parents always valued and continue to value sitting down at the table together and sharing the meals of the day. So when I was caught checking the premier league scores with my laptop at the table it started a heated debate on the way technology has changed our daily lives.

My mum and sister were quick to point out a number of incidents where they thought there was inappropriate or rude behaviour from both my dad and myself. Dad was caught checking the weather on his iPad in church and I was caught using the laptop at the dinner table. They then tried to argue that if it wasn't for technology then we wouldn't have committed such atrocities. Dad and I both admitted that what we did was something we shouldn't have done but we both agreed that we chose to look at the iPad and the laptop with the understanding that it was a little rude.

Technology among other things has led to an increase in the number of choices we as humans make on a daily basis. Dad and I made a choice to use technology at an inappropriate time, a choice that 15 years ago we didn't have. When the first credit cards started appearing in the 1950's people were presented with a choice as to whether to use what they had now or to borrow what they needed now and pay it back latter. There have been many people who have placed themselves into financial stress because they made the choice to borrow more than they could pay back.

Technology is not responsible for the choices we make it has only provided us with more choices and exposed some of the flaws in human behaviour. How humans make choices is a fascinating area of interest and one well explained by the book Nudge (Thaler & Sunstein).

Indian BBQ

I'm planning on having a belated 30th birthday bash at my place in late January so I've started trying out lots of different recipes in preparation. On the weekend I tried a bunch of Indian recipes perfect for the BBQ.

* Vegetable samosas
* Chicken tikka skewers
* Tandoori drumets
* Saute'd vegetables

The chicken tikka skewers were the best followed closely by the tandoori drumets. The saute'd vegetables were good but could have been better and the vegetable samosas were a bit of a disaster. The recipes were all pretty easy I just managed to stuff up the samosas when attempting to roll the filling up in the filo pastry. The pastry was a little old and had been defrosted a couple of times so it all just stuck together and I basically lost 75% of the pastry due to rips and tears. Not happy Jan.

The tandoori drumets were dam tasty but lacked the right color. Everything was supposed to be cooked outside on the BBQ but due to Melbourne's horrid summer weather. What's with the SUMMER weather? It's the 20th of December and Mt Hotham had snow. Crazy! Anyway, due to weather everything got cooked in the oven and under the grill. Again, I don't think I got the temperature just right so the bright red tandoori color never showed. I also need to add a bit more paprika next time.

Government Funding of Sports

Last week I attended the Zatopek 10 which is one of the bigger track events on the Australian running calendar. There was a good crowd, for athletics, and some big name athletes. Josphat Menjo was the star for the mens 10,000 metres as the quickest 10,000 metre runner so far this year. The Victorian government provided $10,000 worth of funding for the event which would have mostly funded Josphat Menjo's participation.

The Victorian government last year spent 1.5 million dollars in bringing Tiger Woods to Australia. That's 150 times more than bringing Josphat Menjo here. It would be fair to say that bringing Josphat Menjo to Victoria would bring almost zero tourism dollars. The government claims that bringing Tiger here will reap 19 million dollars worth of tourism dollars but has yet to reveal how it arrived at that figure. So from a tourism perspective bringing Tiger here is more beneficial but it's still not clear as to how much.

One thing this country rarely ever does is consider our health and well being as a measure of our progress. There is actually a very interesting TED talk by Chip Conley on this very issue which I think is worth a listen. So if we compared the participation rates and the associated health benefits of golf and athletics the imbalance in Government funding becomes profound. In the 2005-2006 census it was estimated that roughly 875,000 Australians participated in golf. If we exclude walking and aerobics then the there was roughly 775,000 Australians participating in running. On participation rates alone the imbalance in funding is glaringly obvious.

The health and well being of our citizens is as important as our GDP and government funding should start to reflect this.

Conservation vs Animal Welfare

Had a really interesting conversation with a couple of people at the Vigor xmas party about the difference between conservation and animal welfare.  Didn't realise that these two groups often have very different views on environmental issues.  Conservationists take a much more rational and objective view on what policies should be implemented on issues regarding endangered species where as animal welfare groups take a much more emotional view.

So a good example of an issue which brings out very different views is whaling in the southern ocean.  The Japanese have been much maligned for their whaling activities by many animal welfare groups.  What many people don't realize, myself included until tonight, is that the Japanese are whaling for Minke whales which are not endangered.  Minke whale populations are currently estimated at around 700,000.  Japan have been hunting around 1100 Minke whales per year which would be 0.2% of the total population.   So in fact Japanese whaling appears to have a lesser impact than snapper fishing in Victoria.

Now I'm not necessarily in favour of Japanese whaling but you have to wonder what the motives of some of the animal welfare groups really are.  I'm sure there are plenty of other whale species which are endangered that deserve the same amount of attention that the Minke whales get.  And I'm sure the conservationists would agree.

Moroccan Lamb Backstrap (mechoui) with Olive Bread

Haven't cooked anything from SBS's food website in a while so decided to try Moroccan lamb on the BBQ.  http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/6/Marinated_lamb_backstrap_(mechoui).  It was very easy to make and the taste was great.  I didn't put the marinated meat in the fridge before hand but next time I probably will.

The oliver bread is also pretty easy to make.  I'm still having a hard time judging my oven temperature so next time I would bake it for slightly longer.

Improv and how it started.

The first term of improv has come to an end and in summary it was bloody brilliant.  After hearing briefly about improv while I was working in Canada, I first experienced what it was like at Thoughtworks.  One of my team members organised a 4 week training program which was held by Jenny from Improv Melbourne.  It's not something I would ordinarily do so it was going to be interesting to see how I would respond.  Well, respond I dd.  I loved it.  It was the first time that I had actually felt completely ok with doing something that didn't make any sense what so ever and feeling completely ok with that.  Not sure why I didn't take it up for real at that time.

My interest spiked again in 2009 when I went to a couple of improv shows at Theatre Works in St Kilda.  From memory, Patty and Tim from Improv Melbourne were paired up as a team and they brought the house down with some hilarious scenes.  In late 2009 one of my colleague's mentioned that she took improv classes with Improv Melbourne.  This sounded interesting but I still didn't quite have the appetite for it yet.

The beginning of 2010 was really quite a busy period.  I started dating someone and well didn't have that much spare time and the focus was on that.  Probably not the wisest thing to do but that's a whole another story in itself.  On my return from a trip to Africa in July I was a single man again and this would spark a whole new way of thinking about life.  Really wanted to start challenging myself in different areas and develop some new skills.  Not to mention just having some plain old FUN.

So, signed up for the last term of the year and wow what a blast.  More to come in my next post but the thing that surprised me the most was that I actually started noticing my improv skills being used outside of class.  Very cool.

Nanaimo Bars

So this attempt at blogging about my cooking and baking was somewhat inspired by Julie Powell.

Nanaimo bars are a Canadian slice full of sugar and coconut, two ingredients which light up my taste buds.  Got the recipe from here, http://www.canadianliving.com/food/nanaimo_bars.php.  This was actually pretty easy to make, much simpler than the chocolate eclairs.  You mix the base ingredients together and bake at 180 for just over 10 minutes.  Then cream the sugar with the custard powder  and vanilla extract and bit by bit add the icing suger and milk.  Once the base has cooled add cover it with the filling and put in the fridge for an hour or so.  I could have done with slightly more filling.  Once the filling has set spread over the topping.  Again i could have done with a little more topping.  Could definitely taste the walnuts and the coconut.

I think I'm going to have to stop taking photos with my iPhone.  Doesn't do the cooking any justice.

Chocolate Eclairs third time lucky

It took me three goes but eventually I managed to figure out how to cook choux pastry.  Chocolate eclairs have essentially three components, the pastry, the filling and the icing.  The later two are easier to prepare the choux pastry on the other hand is quite hard.  The first attempt failed dismally, I'm talking bin material, because the ratio's of water to flower were completely wrong.  The second attempt failed, still bin material, because I didn't cook them long enough.  The third attempt worked well.  The pastry was nice and crunchy on the top and slightly moist inside.

In order to ratify my last attempt I took some samplers to a house warming party and was given the thumbs up.  Nice.  I did find the reaction to my story rather entertaining.  On the first attempt I made all three components but as the pastry was a disaster I threw the whole lot out.  All of my female friends were horrified at this and started abusing me for not having eaten the filling.  Still can't quite fathem why you would want to eat the filling all by itself.

Achilles heel

This week our Sunday run took as along the Yarra river.  The conditions were quite humid so I started sweating earlier than normal and by the time I had finished I was completed drenched.  I've been quite tight in the achilles for the last week or so and that tightness turned into soreness on the way home.  I don't think it's too serious so with a bit of ice and stretching I'll should be fine.