Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way

Recently been getting into Sharon Jones, the retro lover in me eats this right up. I had the chance to see her live at a festival and I missed it (hate when you get into someone AFTER you have the opportunity to see them play). Here's hoping it's some day soon.

Some Handy Tips For Keeping Germ Free At Work

:D

Some More Procrastination

http://bomomo.com/

This is a really cool little image maker, very much like paint but much more fun and interesting. I spent the better half of an hour experimenting with all the different types of brushes or whatever.

This is the first one that I made, my 8 year old self is utterly fascinated by it.

Holy Fuck - Red Lights

Yes, another cat video. This is a really cool band that I've been getting into lately (thanks to the beau) and not only is the music good and this video has cats but they're from Toronto. I saw them over the weekend at Laneway, an Australian festival. They were amazing of course and my beau bought me some Holy Fuck hotpants!

http://holyfuck.firebrandlive.com/item/holy-fuck-logo-hot-pants-hot-pink/12058/
http://perth.lanewayfestival.com.au/

The Cove

It's times like these when I wish I was a better writer, where I could properly express the way something makes me feel, be it a book, movie or song. Needless to say this documentary, The Cove, is unreal, basically about the slaughter of dolphins in a Japanese fishing village that happens every year. I don't want to give to much away because I would rather people see it than hear too much about it and form a biased opinion because it's another 'hippie Greenpeace type'. It isn't. If you have any sort of compassion not just for animals but in general this piece of film will make you cry and then make you angry that this injustice is carried out every single year and there are only a handful of people trying to stop it. This isn't for the faint of heart, it's quite violent and confronting but please do your best to watch it. It will change the way you think, about many things.

http://www.thecovemovie.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo

For My Berfday

I've been baking since I was 14 and have usually made my own birthday cake (Smarties Galore). With the exception of my 20th birthday where my sister and her husband made an AMAZING Oreo cake. Yes OREO. It took me a while to get into baking again because I wasn't used to an Australian convection oven and was thus scarred by burnt cookies and stayed away. This year I decided to make something a little different and more adventurous, well it was adventurous for me because I'd never made it before. I chose Upside Down Pineapple cake not only because it's not to rich and has a summery tropical flavour but when we were leaving Canada a friend of my mothers had us over for a farewell dinner where she made this beautiful cake and I had it for the first time and swore that I would make it myself one day. Finally got around to it. Here is the recipe and some pictures. I used a recipe from my Williams-Sonoma baking book.

Ingredients:

For the topping-

• Cooking Spray for greasing (I just used butter)
• 1/2 a fresh pineapple peeled and trimmed (I used canned, because not only does it come peeled and trimmed and in perfect rounds but it also has the juice)
• 60g unsalted butter
• 3/4 firmly packed brown sugar

For the sponge-

• 1 3/4 cup of plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 185g of unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of whole milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).Lightly grease a 9 inch (23cm) cake pan. Cut the pineapple crosswise into slices 1/2 inch thick, core, and then cut into half moons. In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter, add the brown sugar and stir until small bubbles appear, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into cake pan, arrange 7-8 pineapple half moons in a circular pattern and set aside. For the cake, mix flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg in a bowl ( always sift) set aside. In another bowl whisk the eggs and vanilla. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment ( I used a hand mixer and it worked out fine) beat the butter until pale and fluffy, slowly add the granulated sugar and beat for 2-3 minutes longer. Gradually add the egg mixture making sure to beat well after each addition. Add the flour mixture in 2 additions alternating with the milk and beating on low speed after each addition. Mix until the batter is smooth, and do NOT over mix, it should be quite thick. Spread the batter in cake pan and bake for 35-45 minutes until golden brown/skewer comes out clean. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes, then turn it out onto a platter and make sure to scrap out left over juices. Serve warm.

This is what it should look like when it comes out of the oven and it should spring back when touched. Turn it upside down, et voila!

Don't You Just Love Hipsters?

Ok I don't have anything against 'Hipsters' or any other genre or sub-group or whatever, there's just something about them (along with Emos) that you just want to make fun of. I guess, like most people, they have an annoying sense of self-importance and need for people to think they're cool/different. I can identify with that, I love telling people that 'No it's not an "ok movie" it's a terrible rip off of a foreign film that you clearly haven't seen because you're to much of a pleb to read sub-titles'. I know quite a few hipsters, they're good people...but I can see a slight grimace in their eyes when I praise Beyonce, because, you know, she's so 'mainstream' and isn't an obscure Norwegian folk singer with Bi-Polar tendencies and a pet reindeer. Who are they to judge? Honestly. So here are some tid-bits about 'hipsters' and some of them are funny and pretty much all of them are true.

A Day in the Life of Alessandro Cortini

This is a day in the life of the awesome and amazing Alessandro Cortini (as the title states). Not only was he in Nine Inch Nails during their With Teeth/Year Zero era and now has a successful band of his own (Sunoio) but he is a lover of cats. He has about 5 it looks like, clearly he has a bit of 'Crazy Cat Lady' lurking around in there. I think if my beau-hunk and I ever get a house of our own it's going to be filled with the two main things in this video, synthesizers (him) and cats (me).