Sunday, October 09, 2011

Domestic notes from the weekend

*  Yesterday morning started off with a bang, and being woken up by a loud clap of thunder at 6 am is not that common for Brisbane.  The storms seemed to hang around then for about 3 hours, and it was very dark with many close lightning strikes in my area during that time.   The weather bureau predicted a stormy summer for Brisbane, and maybe this is a sign they were right, as indeed they were this time last year when they warned the Government that conditions were right for big floods.    

*   The mother possum hasn't been seen for a few days now.  In fact, her spot under the balcony on Friday morning seemed to be occupied by two smaller possums (as far as we could tell - we could only see one head but what appeared to be two rear ends.)   What do possums do - play a game of musical nests each night, and just stay at the one nearest them when the sun comes up?

*  Had a go at making limoncello this afternoon.  It now has to sit in the cupboard for a month before being strained and ready to taste.   I'm just hoping I sterilised the bottle enough - the last time I tried to do something with lemons (preserved lemons) they went mould pretty quickly in the jar.  I hope the alcohol in limoncello helps prevent that.  The recipe being followed is this one.   I'm using vodka as the base, which is a form of alcohol which I could never see the point of drinking.  I figure that even if one's intention is simply to get drunk, surely it's more interesting doing it with something with flavour.   In any event, I was aware that fancy schmancy vodkas of all varieties were trendy for a while, particularly in the US, I think, given that I had seen a Mythbusters segment in which they were seeing if they could really tell the difference between high end brands.  And indeed I was surprised to see today just how many brands are on the shelf in Australia too, most of which are only interesting for the nifty bottle designs.  It's funny, but in two different bottle shops, the cheapest brands were actually made in France.  When did they become a producer of cheap vodka?  I also see now that many flavoured vodkas are sold, which is fair enough, I guess.  Better than drinking plain old vodka.

*  Speaking of lemons, it's spring and the lemon and lime tree are having their annual outbreak of stinkbugs.  These bugs (the flat bodied bronze orange bug) appear to be extremely common on Australian citrus, and as this article notes, they do have a very vile smell when disturbed.   They  die pretty easily with any pyrethrum garden spray, but the big problem is reaching the one sitting up near the top of the lemon tree.  (By the way, while Googling around on the topic, I came this page:  Stink Bug Field Guide for Brisbane.   We do seem to have many, many stinking bugs in this region - something to be proud of, I guess...)

*  OK, this has nothing in particular to do with my weekend, apart from the fact that I just read it.  The Taiwanese have an indigenous population?  I didn't know that, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, because I had heard about the Ainu, being the Japanese equivalent.  Funnily enough, if you watch the video at this link, you'll see a spokesman for the Ainu who looks a little bit like a younger version of Geoff Clark.

*  I found out today that the McFeast is still on the menu at McDonald's as a "birthday special", but I remain concerned how much longer this will be the case.

*  I guess I didn't mind the last Dr Who episode of this season, but as the final episode in this season's big story arc of how the Doctor avoids his (apparent) death at the start of the season, it did come up with a trick that seems just a little too "easy", if you ask me.  Again, I see the Guardian (gosh they discuss this show a lot) has a long article about whether everyone is completely happy with the direction it has taken under Steven Moffat.  It's good to see that I not alone in preferring the better stand alone stories to the overblown (and increasingly silly in their way)  story arcs that Moffat seems most interested in. 

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