So age 29 I’ve finally been acquainted with the multiple orgasm.
And feeling quite humbled to say the least.
Bar has officially been raised.
Eek.
Author Archives: Daphne Kali
Cancer Me Timbers
worried about getting cancer from this that or the other?
get over it. the era we live in, almost everything is carcinogenic. the list is only getting bigger and if you’re on a mission to evade all of them, you should probably stop breathing the air right now
don’t think you’re safe just because you’re a non-GMO gluten free, nut free, vegan, raw fanatic – kimchi is classified as a stomach cancer agent on the WHO monograph…
instead of fretting over it, you just need to decide which ones are worth sacrificing your already overworked cells for
along with having to go a job where we make cancer drugs that are ironically also carcinogenic, i am constantly faced with this dilemma each and every day…
eat burnt toast = not worth getting cancer for
eat black pepper = worth getting cancer for
consume “sugar free” anything = not worth getting cancer for
calling mils on my mobile to tell him my mexican carpet salesman joke = worth getting cancer for
cigarette after lunch = not worth getting cancer for
cigarette when i’m fucking shitfaced = totes worth getting cancer for
know what i mean?
When Fried Chicken gets Yellow Fever: WHITE GUY COOKS THAI
My work is crazy huge – it takes up both sides of an entire street, because cancer drugs need space to shine, I suppose. Unfortunately though, this year wasn’t looking so good on the annual site wide Christmas lunch in auditorium le massive because I’m not actually sure I’m at liberty to divulge such information, those crazy secretive regulatory cats…
As a result of minus venue, the usual sit down saga with mega roast feast was not on the cards for us but good on you, whatever department you were that organised this – 2013 Christmas consisting of a ton of awesome food vans camped out one of the carparks, Mariachi band included. Andele!
To be honest, all I was hoping for was a paella van and a crème brûlée truck, so I was slightly disappointed when the billboard was announced: Thai, gourmet sausages, wood fired pizzas, tacos, bagel burgers and ice cream. Ah first world problems much? I was already planning my makeshift paella/brûlée scheme – combine some sausage with pizza sauce and fish from taco shop with the rice from thai joint and bring a blowtorch to somehow magically incinerate the top of a Dixie cup (where there’s a will!)
WHITE GUY COOKS THAI FOOD VAN
Photo courtesy of bizniz FB page – because it’s a lot less scary without a massive crowd of zombie like nerds clawing away for a feed
Come 11:45am, I walked out to the festivities and I had no idea where to go, it just smelt that amazing. Walking past each food van and scoping out the menu, I wasn’t sure where to start, then the magical words beckoned upon me “Korean fried chicken with rice and asian coleslaw” from White Guy Cooks Thai (location via Twitter/Facey). White Guy? Thai? The fuck? While I understand the whole ironically cute aspect of this name, at the end of the day, you’re making a point that you’re not genetically predisposed to making South East Asian food, so what the shit are you doing putting Korean dishes on your menu?
Alas, I had no choice but to do it. “One fried chicken please”.
This was one hefty snack. 5 deep fried chicken wings jizzed with lime Kewpie and garnished with nori seaweed strips and fresh chilli, served with a side of fluffy steamed white rice and fresh asian coleslaw.
The batter thickness was on the medium side and mega crispy, thanks to the Panko* breadcrumb contribution. It was a little too salty, something which you started noticing after the third wing. Maybe if they used bigger pieces of chicken this wouldn’t have been so much of an issue, but I just found myself scoffing down more rice and coleslaw to even out the sodium chloride content, which meant less capacity in belly time for other yum food!
I love the little idiosyncrasies that come with this meal. Spicing up the wings with fresh chilli instead of the more conventional hot sauce meant every bite was a lucky dip of ‘holy shit my mouth is on fire’ explosion (a good thing by the way!) and the dressing-free asian coleslaw was so crunchy and refreshing which only reinforced my theory that salads don’t ever need dressing (if they do, it’s the salad that needs to be improved). The lime Kewpie mayo hybrid was joy, but it was a shame there wasn’t much of it with the meal. It was only really enough for the 2 or 3 wings on top.
Seaweed, Panko*, Kewpie, sounds more Japanese than Korean, but hey they all look the same** and it was a satisfying feed so, you know…can’t blame white guy for his take on it. Well done ol’ chap. You seem to have done well, your fried chicken was popular, not long before you were sold out of it!
So…what’s the overall verdict?
CRISPINESS: So much yes. Breadcrumbs in fried batter is so underrated, and you can’t ever go wrong with Panko*. Seriously!
OIL POCKET FACTOR: This one hit a bit of a hard note with some. I personally rate the mini explosion of oil in my mouth when I bite into a hot fresh fried chicken, but it seems quite a few peeps are against this because it’s just too much grease overload. To be honest, what’s the point of even eating fried chicken if you don’t like oil? Anyway, oil pocket factor for this was zero, which pretty much everyone except me and my compadre were very happy with. If healthy fried chicken is your thing, White Guy has you covered.
SIZE: This is a solid sized snack for sure. The rice and coleslaw make quite the filler, just keep in mind it falls a little short of main meal size.
PRICE: Suffer in your jocks, everyone else! This was FREE for me because my work paid for it, so no doubt it was totally worth the zero monetary output. Gloating aside though (because I’m a pro reviewer) I’m assuming for the rest of you heathens, as this is the product of a trendy Melbourne food truck, it’s safe to say this would cost somewhere between the $9 – $90 mark. Hell, I’m not even sure if the combo I had is something they sell normally or they customed up a meal just for us special chumps (like how I customed up the word ‘custom’ just for this? Too good!)
COME HERE AGAIN? Yup I would, although going by the overpriced food truck craze that’s currently sweeping Melbourne, I’d be dragging along some lovestruck chump to fund the feed. Haha, oh, I shouldn’t say that, I don’t even know how much it costs.
—
*Product may or may not have been Panko, but it was definitely something that tasted like it.
**As consolation for having a Malaysian heritage, I hereby proclaim amnesty towards making racist jokes against the entire Asian race.
The Fried Chicken Chronicles: TAIWAN CAFE
So actually, I was on a mission to try out a particular hole in the wall fried chicken joint but motherfuckers decided to close early this very night for Christmas festivities or some shit. Not to worry! I had a back up plan, and it was only a few shops up from where we were anyway.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Taiwan Cafe on 273 Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD (next to McDonalds on the corner of Londsdale Street). They’re BYO charging $3 a head corkage. Beer was around the $5 mark and wine was who cares for a glass, I don’t know because fuck glasses, I headed straight for the big one at $19 a bottle (admit it, it’s the only way).
This place was…cosy, I suppose. Pretty narrow, but it is two storeys and upstairs was a little more spacey so it could actually seat quite a few. It was pretty fucking packed, which was a good sign, although that said, it is the CBD and this vortex is notorious for false positives (fucking n00bs!). It was nice, not too cramped so we had space to expand our impending fried chicken induced mass. Toilet situation was one cubicle for guys, one cubicle for girls. Because I’m an impatient motherf, I went to the mens because ladies was being used and wow, was I impressed! It was really clean and didn’t smell. Well done! Plus, the toilet door makes a dolphin squeaking noise when it’s being opened and closed which was entertaining for a few seconds.
Taiwan Cafe have a shit ton of different fried chicken dishes, there are more than 5 pages dedicated to it specifically (although that said, most of the pages were images of the food). Despite having a bunch of people at the ready to sample their numerous fried chicken wares, we had barely scratched the surface of their huge variety list.
Taiwanese XL Crispy Fried Chicken :: $7.50
This was greasy hands down the best fried chicken out of all the others tonight. It’s a decent sized boneless chicken fillet that’s been hanging out in some awesome sweet ginger marinade for eons before being deep fried in a heavy crispy batter. Using the thigh fillet for this was nothing short of genius – oh god, that moist and juicy chicken once you cut through that fried exterior, SOLD.
Taiwanese Style Popcorn Chicken :: $7.50
Ok, so let me be the first to say, never take a good marinade for granted! These bite sized chunks of chicken were fried in the same crispy batter as the XL chicken, but sans awesome ginger marinade. Result? Pretty bland, and for some reason, not as crispy either. I would have thought (with my zero background in physics), smaller bits of chicken would crisp up better than bigger pieces, right? The lack of any specific flavour married with the fact it was chunks of breast making it a little dry had me thinking this dish really could have done with some kind of sauce on the side to give it an extra kick.
Chicken Drum :: $5.90
These cute chicken drummetes came in a gaggle of four with a side of sauce (although I can’t for the life of me remember what type it was – I don’t remember it being spicy, maybe it was sweet…I think?) They were coated with some kind of pepper seasoning then dunked in some breadcrumbs before facing their destiny with the deep fryer so the skin is slightly lighter than the typical fried chicken batter we’re all used to. Considering it was just coated in pepper and breadcrumbs, you can’t really expect an explosion of flavour, but what it lacked in epic taste it absolutely made up for in crispiness. Holy peanuts, that crunch!
Fried Chicken Wings :: $5.50
When I think chicken wing, I go to a heavenly place in my imagination where wing and drumette remain together in harmony. So I had to dig deep to come to terms with the fact that these two would be separated into individual dishes, and meet completely different fates! Somewhere in the depths of the Taiwan Cafe kitchen, some heartless chef with no regard to companionship is busy not only breaking the drumette away from the wing, but then cooking it in a completely different style from its counterpart! Maybe I just need to change the way I think and stop judging people for their cooking methods – after all, the fried chicken wings were actually not that bad. These bad boys come in 5’s and once again, could have really done with sauce on the side as well. They’re deep fried, yes, but with minimal seasoning on the outside, making it the lightest skin out of all the other chook meals. No batter, simply chicken wings coated in a pepper heavy seasoning then fried. I quite enjoyed it because pepper is my jam, but I could understand if someone found it bland – especially since it was zero saltiness (once again, something that I like because I don’t know).
Taiwanese XL Crispy Fried Chicken Rice Box :: $10.90
Now it doesn’t look like much, but my god this was a huge feed. A bento box containing a mammoth piece of XL crispy fried chicken, a bowl sized serving of rice garnished with mince pork (yea, I don’t even…), chinese vegies and a fried egg. Awesome hot cleavage required for scale, obviously. This is definitely worth the money. So much chicken. SO MUCH CHICKEN!
Taiwanese XL Crispy Fried Chicken Noodle Soup :: $9.90
Yea, sorry, the failcase that I am completely forgot to take a pre-devour shot of this because I was too distracted with cleavage chicken rice box (fair enough, right?) so here’s a mid eat shot with only minimal chicken left. Big ol’ noodle soup bowl containing standard noodles with chinese vegies, and the chicken was served on a separate plate to add at your own leisure. The broth was delicious, tasted like it had come from a pot chock full of spices and herbs, just simmering away all day, getting more flavoursome by the minute.
Lemon Chicken on Rice :: $9.50
Woooo, almost let this one fly under the radar. I just noticed this was ordered and the suspect was about to eat it when I yelled across the table “STOP! IS THAT FRIED? Yes? Ok, hand it over for a photo”. I didn’t get to try this because cleavage chicken rice box again probably, and he was still in the midst of Bali belly so his sole review will/is probably/definitely be the most shithouse one out of all the others: “chicken was juicy, yea, and crispy and lemon sauce was thick and sweet”. I never really got an overall rating response, I was just too overwhelmed by the other fried chicken that covered our table.
So…what’s the overall verdict?
CRISPINESS: Look only to the chicken drum – it’s the breadcrumbs I tells ya!
OIL POCKET FACTOR: It was difficult to gage OPF for the dishes we ordered because they were share-size chicken, and the larger fillets were already pre cut into strips before they got to us. Oh shit, no, the rice box one wasn’t but I forgot to assess. Look, considering how moist and juicy the XL was even in post-cut mode, I can put money on the fact one will be thoroughly satisfied with the mini oil explosion in their mouth when they bite into that lucky pocket of ooze between skin and meat on a big arse piece of chicken
SIZE: XL chicken rice box. Nuff said.
PRICE: El cheapo! Starters were around the $5-7 mark, mains around $10, most being just below. Score!
COME HERE AGAIN? Fuck yea! Everyone was pretty chuffed with the feed. This place has a huge range of Asian style fried chicken that’s easy on the dollah, can’t go wrong eh?
My Neighbourhood’s so Ghetto (Weekend at Gurnies)
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
thieves steal airbags from your car
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
mechanic shops get set on fire
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
the phone exchange box is held together by cable ties
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
there’s a trolley in my living room
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
the tuckshop lady lives next to me
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
chicks that stay over throw their tampons on the wall
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
we play happy birthday when the kebab shop piss us off
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
elias just walks straight into our house
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
bin morning is like a game of dominos
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
my housemates avoiding the chick in his bed
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
he’s denying what i said
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
this is considered eloquent to the neighbour
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
we got a full proof plan for stealing nangs at iga
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
some jerk graffed my bedroom window
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
there’s a tv under our dining table
my neighbourhood’s so ghetto
there’s a morning after pill dealer
know thyself
Maybe its the fact that I just saw my best friend and boyfriend last week, and knowing that I won’t be seeing them for another two months
Maybe it could be the series of catastrophic bad luck that has been unleashed on me all week (it doesn’t seem to be slowing down either!)
Maybe it could be not having a phone for the last 6 days and the subsequent laziness of not getting a new one that has resulted in my inability to contact people as easily as I’d like to…
…but I’m feeling kinda lonely at the moment.
I think on a deeper level though, on top of this, I’m experiencing an overwhelming sense of disappointment in myself – that my emotion can be so easily influenced by these factors which, considering, are actually very much within my control. At age 27, I really should be at one with myself to not be affected by these petty little things.
First world problems, I know, but I guess it just means I still have a lot of growing up to do.
Ugh.
mmm…
imagine
if you installed some kind of 3d camera system into a stem cell.
the type of system that projects the image all around you, like imax, or ironman 3.
and you sit back with a cup of tea and watch from the stem cells view, giving rise to all the other cells in the body. watch the cells move off into the distance to do their own thing.
you watch the entire existence of the stem cell, until the point where it stops self renewing and eventually dies.
you would be sitting there for quite a while, and you may run out of tea, but wow. it would be like watching the universe in action.
Ethical hentai?
Maybe the tentacles might seem messed up, but heaps of countries have laws in place to censor regular whats happening so you know, other creative measures are used in place. I think sometimes people forget to factor this in.
Also, I guess most of us don’t have the luxury of choosing what we’re into and whatever, you have a fetish. Big fucking deal.
But damn, heaps of those girls are made out to be way too young.
So just that one thing, in my personal opinion, is enough to call out the entire industry as a no-go zone.
The end.
That first person you ever fell in love with
I guess it’s like, you never really get over it, rather, you just kind of get through it. I suppose.
Hmm…
Century of confusion in my head.
Like most people, I’ve been following the progress of the Syrian uprising. But over the last few days I have literally been losing so much sleep over it. Last night it made its way into my dreams and I’m so goddamn tired right now it’s not funny. I certainly cannot claim to be a real human rights activist, and it’s going to sound fucking ridiculous but this middle east anxiousness is mostly triggered from my childhood exposure to what was going on in Bosnia during the early 90’s during their war for independence when I was still a little girl living in Kuala Lumpur. I would pray to God every night before bed to protect the young girls being raped by soldiers in detention camps because it was somehow instilled into me that the deaths of over 100,000 and displacement of 2 million in the name of freedom were partly my fault as a 6 year old. Yay religion.
I suppose prayer got me through a lot when I was a child but thankfully somewhere along the way logic and reason rose from behind the bushes and punched me right in the face. Now, whenever I have a freak out, I turn to science and (I guess to an extent) philosophy to level me out. That said though, there’s still a lot that goes on inside my head that has staggered my mental growth so my psychological and biological age are so far apart I know what I should be doing, but almost…am not capable of really getting into that mind frame.
Anyway, Syria. I don’t know why Syria. Sure there have been much worse outcomes but for some reason this is the lucky one that messes my head up. Of all people, my dealer gave me a book a while back called The Age of Extremes, by that brilliant Marxist nutjob Eric Hobsbawn. In a nutshell it describes the 20th century as paramount violence and how all political systems suck. But here we are, now in the 21st century, the digital age, but there’s still heaps of fall out from our past. Fuck, it doesn’t matter what era you live in, everyone is going to claim that NOW is the time that really matters because we are at that crossroad of manifesting that incredible future that will blow our minds or completely destroy what’s left of our pathetic existence.
It’s this whole “too smart for our own good” argument. On a very basic scale, we have adapted to almost any environment and if not, have changed it to fit what we want. The industrial revolution was the beginning of what would propel us into this digital age where we are now creating living cells and curing the sick to the point of overpopulation. Instinctually (did I just create a new word, or is spell check being anti-Australian again?) we are curious beings, which have resulted in our abundance of knowledge, but we are also selfish – so do we use what we know to create a better world? Or feed our egos and benefit ourselves and let the next generation deal with the consequences?
Ok, so an example of that fine line between infinite possibility or complete disaster can be drawn from Craig Venter and his team creating the first self-replicating synthetic cell. So while he hasn’t actually made life from scratch per se, rather, created an organism with a synthesized natural genome, it is still enough for us to see our evolution from hunter gatherers to almost God-like. It seems like with this knowledge, Venter has begun research into synthesized algae fuel, as current natural methods will never yield the amount needed on a global scale. This could go two ways – the holy grail of renewable energy where algae fuel becomes a practical and common source of energy, or these cells are let loose to the outside world and catastrophically turns oceans into a sea of lipids. Ok, so the latter is grossly oversimplified but whatever.
Holy shit. How did I go from the Syrian unrest to a synthetic cell destroying the ocean? I don’t even know what point I’m trying to make anymore. I need to go for a walk.
Besties with your exes? Hmmm….
Some time back, I was in the kitchen with my then housemate who expressed his frustration of his girlfriend spending time with her ex boyfriend. He was upset that despite voicing his concern prior to their little adventure together, she still went ahead and did it anyway.
He finished his little rant with something that stayed with me for several weeks:
‘An ex is an ex for a reason. Once that relationship is over, you put it behind you, move on and never look back.’
Now, this isn’t by any means a profound revelation. Of course most people cut their former partners off forever and never see them again. But this was something I was expecting to hear my mother say. Not a friend of who has a similar lifestyle to mine…and ‘lo, to proclaim it with such conviction. Twist!
‘Am I right, Daphne?’
I never answered. I just kind of looked outside and veered the topic of conversation elsewhere. But in my head I was thinking ‘I…guess so?’, it sounded like an accurate enough statement, but if so, why am I still close friends with my ex partners?
I mean, of course, even if the decision to end a relationship is mutual, people still need time and distance to get over it and move on. But at some point, you’ll probably find yourself knee deep in platonic friend-goo with this person again. Maybe it’s the Perth bubble that forced me to see the world this way (At best, you’re going to bump into them at some local gig down the road after a couple of weeks, at worst, they live with your best friend). Maybe it’s the incestuous social circles I find myself part of all the goddamn time. Maybe it’s the parasitic effect of social network madness that bring me and that person back into communication town (population: GTFO). But whatever the reason, I never questioned what the point was for having a former lover as a close friend. Just because it happens all the time to heaps of people doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy, right? Why haven’t I ever stopped to think about this?
I guess it’s all circumstantial and everyone is different. Like many of the people I know, I have remained close with most of my exes, and it was something that progressed organically over time, devoid of any real forced intention. It’s not an uncommon relationship between people, so I never really put much thought into it.
For me at least, relationship breakdowns were usually caused by differences in personality or ambitions. We didn’t want the same thing or we just couldn’t see eye to eye on enough to make it work comfortably. I mean, obviously if someone is going to frustrate me enough for the most part of a relationship, I begin to dislike and resent them as a person and then lose interest in them sexually – so there’s not really much left to hang on to when the headfuckery pushes on and banging sessions kind of dwindle away. Argh, but even if I stuck around long enough for it to get to that point, at the end of the day, we broke up because we had deeply rooted issues, rather than just straight up lost interest in each other sexually.
The problem with this particular scenario, is that the sexual chemistry is still there. So while having an ex as a close friend works brilliantly 99% of the time (they’ve seen me naked, at my worst, at my core and they didn’t run away at the time – I mean, I never forget that loyalty so I genuinely feel safe confiding in them and don’t hold back, and vice versa), there is that occasional period where one of us is in a state of vulnerability and while it may not necessarily backfire, it definitely throws me back about a million steps from where I originally was, and that is definitely not ideal. Wow, that was a really long sentence. Anyway, I guess after reading that, it’s the comfort part that makes me willing to keep them in my life this way.
…or is it selfishness?
I mean, that’s all well and good when two people just kind of (and lets be honest here) mindfuck each other, even if it’s only in minuscule amounts. All fun and games, ego boost, safezone, bang potential, whatever ok. But that’s actually really shit if someone is already in another relationship.
Even if nothing was ever going to happen, I would be pretty pissed if my partner was playing around with ideas like that while they chill with their ex. So it’s total selfish hypocrisy that I would feel this way after I just admitted what I did. I’m just thinking now though, that maybe I’m just really deluded and this doesn’t actually happen so often, but you know what? IT DOES!
Ok, so. Stay with me here. I know it might not sound like it relates to my last sentence, but I just need to impart some background (lack of) knowledge so it (hopefully) makes sense at the end. Now I’ve never actually gone so far as to get back with any of my exes. This whole thing is foreign to me. Not that I’m for or against it, I just haven’t really felt that compelled to revisit relationship city with them for whatever reason (well, except one but fuck it that’s a whole other thing that I probably won’t ever get into because crying is strictly reserved for Björk). Ages ago I was having dinner with 3 of my friends. I can’t remember how we got onto the topic but I was the only one to not have dated an ex. “Really Daphne? You’ve never gotten back with someone for even a little while?” Nope. Ok, so maybe 3 out of 7 billion people isn’t the most compelling evidence for this claim but whatever, I just know that it is what it is.
Fuck, I’ve rambled on for over 1000 words and gotten absolutely nowhere. Well, not unlike me I suppose. I guess I should finish up with something. In conclusion, I suppose keeping an ex so close under platonic conditions is probably more effort than it’s worth even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. Unless you can honestly draw the line at that (which I’m convinced a lot of people can’t), it does slow or even reverse the moving forward process which isn’t actually so good for your soul even if you don’t notice it. Plus, it is pretty selfish because you’re creating a scenario where an innocent party might actually get hurt. You probably have other people in your life that you can let your guard down with just the same. You just prefer not to.
Damn. Take that Daphne.
Bad Ideas Factory 