February 2012
2 posts
Summer Camp ads from the NYT magazine
I find Americans’ “Summer Camp” fascinating. My childhood school holidays were typically spent at the beach with my family, hanging out with my friends, or in later years, on the internet.
Here are some things that kids from New York will apparently do this summer:
How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign
I’ve written about Kickstarter before. The Boy pledges to a lot of projects. I pledge to some. Usually when there’s something on offer that I want. Very occasionally out of the goodness of my heart.
Matt Haughey recently wrote a good post about a bad experience he had with the site. I haven’t had anything bad happen (though I acknowledge there’s always a risk), but I have...
November 2011
1 post
Things I'm doing at the moment...
It has been a while, hasn’t it?
Reading
Townie by Andre Dubus III
Reading about other people’s dysfunctional childhoods makes me realise how easy and white bred mine was.
The Monthly magazine
My folks got me a subscription for my birthday. I try to keep up generally with shit that’s going on in Australia, but it’s pretty hard when you’re not there to live it....
October 2011
1 post
Mexico in photos
We’ve been in Mexico the past 10 days. First Oaxaca and now Mexico City. Today is our last day. I’ll do a full post eventually, but in the mean time here are some photos:
September 2011
4 posts
The Story of My Coffee Cup
There’s a bunch of cafes in Melbourne’s CBD called Blue Bag, several of which are close to my old office at Crikey. I used to call it “blue balls” because I’m 12. It sells pre-packed sandwiches, salads, soups and coffee (and by “coffee”, Americans, I mean “espresso”). At some point, the owners created these reusable plastic coffee cups called...
Things I'm doing at the moment...
Playing Doodle or DieThis game is so freaking addictive. It’s like Chinese whispers, but with drawings. It’s annoying when people interrupt the flow of the game with pictures of cocks, but other than that: massive time suck. Beware. Watching AuntieI thought all the ABC’s online content was geolocked, but recently discovered the ABC 24 stuff isn’t, so I’m eating that...
Trash Talk
About a year ago, I bought a box of 50 garbage bags. I remember buying them, because I usually buy small amounts of things at a time (one tube of toothpaste, one can of beans), even when it’s clear we will run out eventually and I’ll just need to buy more. I don’t know why I do this. But this time, I talked myself into buying the 50 bag box of garbage bags and I was inordinately...
Postcards from strangers
The Boy really likes Kickstarter. We both do, but he pledges to far more projects than I do. So many, he forgets who’s who. Every few days in the mail, he receives postcards thanking him for his support to so and so project. By the time they arrive, he has often forgotten exactly what the project was. And so we get mystery postcards from mystery people. It’s fun to guess what the...
August 2011
2 posts
Things that shit me on Twitter
People who tweet conferences. Speeches can’t typically condensed into 140 characters. The reason a speech is good is largely because the SPEAKER is good. They’re rarely conveying ground-breaking information. It’s usually just a pretty simple point, well presented.
“@speaker says newspaprs r vital”
“@speaker says media is not dead yet”
Just watch the...
Four Australian films on Netflix Instant worth...
This is one for the Americans:
Lately, Netflix Instant has put a heap of Australian films. Cheap I guess. Some of them are good ones. I really have no idea what made it to these shores and what didn’t, but here are the ones worth a look:
He Died With a Felafel In His Hand: This is based loosely on a book of true(ish) stories of share-house living in Australia by John Birmingham, who now...
July 2011
4 posts
"Smile!" Get fucked.
I have been in LA for the past few days on a weekend holiday. I’m currently stuck in LAX airport (kill me) so I’m going to pass the time with a little venting:
In the time I’ve been here, two different strangers on the street have said, “Smile!” to me.
This has been happening my whole life, but curiously has never happened in Portland (theories why?) so after a...
Stupid email
My work email address has apparently found its way to some big PR databases, and so I now receive lots of press releases about things that are totally irrelevant to anything I write or care about. They amuse me, though, because publicist speak is so weird and they’re funny to read aloud.
Now I’m working at home again, I have no one to read stupid press releases to. So here are some...
Learning to Love You More
I’m back from San Fran, which was excellent fun, as always. I may write more on it soon.
When we were at the SF Museum of Modern Art, I came across a little exhibit about the website Learning to Love You More, which was an online art project thing by Miranda July and some other artist that ran from 2002 to 2009.
I had totally forgotten it existed. I came across it very early on. I was a...
Things I'm doing at the moment... San Francisco...
I am in San Francisco hanging out with my folks. This is my favourite city in the US. I have fun every time I come here.
Reading
Skippy Dies
I started reading this a while back then forgot, so I had to start again. It’s funny and well written and clever but a breeze to read. I like that it’s set in Dublin. I am fond of books set in countries other than Australia or the US. The...
June 2011
1 post
Coffee, coffee, coffee
Well I’ve been lazy here, haven’t I? But I finished up my gig at Willamette Week today and finally have a spare second to catch up on what I’ve been doing:
A lot of my time was taken up writing about the rather controversial sale of Stumptown Coffee. It started with this, which turned into this, which was followed by this. Chasing down sources and leaks and documents reminded me...
May 2011
1 post
Lots of food
Here is an article I did last week with a guy making his own chocolate. Thoroughly enjoyed spending that morning sitting out on his deck eating and discussing chocolate. I’ve spent the last few months mostly inside, not speaking with many people face to face. Fucking delicious chocolate, too.
WW’s Devour Guide also came out last week, which is easily my favourite special section the...
RIP Arthouse
So I hear the Arthouse has closed. I’m not too into mourning the death of music venues. I mean, it’s sad, but it happens, circle of life, etc. I know people who still moan about the loss of the Punter’s, almost a decade after the fact, and it’s stupid and pointless.
That said, the Arty holds a lot of fond memories for me, and as I didn’t get the chance to visit one...
April 2011
5 posts
Things I'm doing at the moment...
It has been too long, no?
Eating
Kimchi
When the farmers market returned, it brought with it a new vendor selling kimchi. This lovely Korean family who make napa cabbage, white cabbage and bok choy variations, as well as awesome pickled radish. I make Koi Fusion-inspired kimchi quesadillas with it.
Hot cross buns
I made hot cross buns for Easter, as few bakeries make them here and the ones I...
OMFG WTF LOL BBQ
I’m really happy with this article I did with local designers OMFG. It started because I couldn’t work out why I wanted to visit the sports bar mentioned in the article, Spirit of 77. I hate sport. I realised I knew it would be inherently ‘cool’, and then I got thinking about what makes places cool, and then WHO makes places cool. It was a really fascinating poke behind the...
Coffee and bestiality
Last week, WW’s cover was a big feature on coffee. Coffee has usually come under the regular cafe reviews, but the scene has just gotten so crazy here in such a short amount of time—the number of micro-roasters and specialty coffee stores per capita now surely eclipses that of Seattle or San Fran (I can walk to eight different specialty coffee houses from my apartment, four of whom roast...
Is my accent THAT thick?
Setting: Quiet cafe.
Me: “I’ll have a latte, please.”
Server: “Eight, 12 or 16 ounce?”
“Eight.”
“Sorry?”
“Eight.”
“What?”
“EIGHT.”
“I don’t know what that is…”
“I have an accent. The number eight. Ounces.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
...
March 2011
6 posts
I write things
Yeah, here is one of those things.
I love articles like this, where I know nothing about the subject matter going in. I spent about an hour at the type foundry, while Jeff very patiently explained to this internerd generation member about how printing stuff worked before computers.
One interesting fact I didn’t include was that most old typecasting and printing machines were sold off to...
Things I'm doing at the moment...
Eating
Real scones. Americans have a pastry they call a “scone” but it is nothing like the scones those of us in the Commonwealth make. American scones are hard, dense triangles, often with a layer of jam or fruit or chocolate or whatever baked in. Our scones are more like American biscuits, only made with cream instead of buttermilk. It’s all very confusing. Anyway,...
Market Day
Today is a good day. The sun is out. It’s coldish, but no rain. The farmers market is back. The market closes for winter, but with Spring threatening to rouse the city from hibernation, it returned to the South Park blocks this morning. I miss the farmers market back home. It was neither as big nor as frequent, but it became a ritual to head down to Abbotsford every second week to buy quark,...
Cheap Eats
The WW Cheap Eats guide is out. I wrote some of ‘em.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Gee, Ruth, getting paid money to eat food must be awesome!” But let me tell you something: you’re absolutely correct. Nya.
Vegetarian in New Orleans
This is separate from my other post about NOLA, because I had to do a fair bit of online research on the subject before I left, and thought I’d make a contribution to the web’s collective knowledge on the subject.
I was a bit worried there wouldn’t be much for me to eat in New Orleans, being the South and a city known mostly for its meaty munchables. Eventually, I found a bunch...
Things I did in New Orleans
We went to New Orleans. I wrote a whole post about it at Stump’d, but instead of trying to cram in every single thing we did and saw, I figured I’d just list them here. I am so smart.
Museums, galleries, etc
Louisiana State Museum: Three stories of exhibitions on the history of the state from native American times to a bit after the Civil War. An excellent place to get a good grasp...
February 2011
7 posts
Going South for the Winter
Apparently it’s snowing in Portland. I would have no idea, as I am in New Orleans, where it’s positively balmy. This city is absolutely batshit insane. We’re staying in the middle of the French Quarter. I just watched an amazing jass band play while drunken frat kids drank daiquiri slushees out of plastic hand grenades. I think they were filming an episode of Cheaters outside....
Are you lunch?
This post — The Freelancer Game: “Are You Lunch?” — seems to be doing the rounds of the freelancetwittersphere at the moment. And with good reason: it’s sadly, sadly accurate.
Working from home is both awesome and horrible. You can work in your pyjamas! In bed! Watching TV! Be your own boss! But also: you can go all day (many days, really) without seeing a single...
Things I'm doing at the moment...
Watching
Kings of Pastry Fascinating doco about French pastry chefs preparing and competing in the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition. It’s a great insight into the importance of tradition and prestige in French culture and a window into a completely different world. It’s a great feat to make a movie about desserts both heartbreaking and hilarious. It also reminded me about the...
This is an actual sign in my building...
Things I'm doing at the moment...
Listening
Pure Country Gold. There isn’t a lot of great hard rockin’ music in Portland. There’s a lot of great music, but most of it tends towards the indie, folk side of things. These guys are a local garage bluesey two-piece that wouldn’t look or sound out of place in a sticky-carpet Melbourne rock dive. Or they were: they played their last show on Friday night at a...
It's business time
I’ve never had business cards. Several jobs I’ve had have promised them, but never delivered. Now I’m just a bum freelancer, but it’s probably more important, because I am my own business (of sorts), and there’s no other way for people I meet to contact me. Also it makes me feel less “unemployed”.
So I wanted to get cards, but I didn’t want to...
Australia through the eyes of Netflix
I don’t really watch much TV any more. I’m not one of those “Oh I’m too cultured for the idiot box” wankers — TV is awesome and the lower-brow the better — but I just don’t watch it much, because Netflix is better. Netflix has a bunch of movies an TV series and for a wee subscription fee, you can stream as many as you want. Onto your laptop or iPad....
January 2011
3 posts
Grilled cheese and tomato soup
Here’s an article I did where I ate eight grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup combos in the space of a week. I’m ready for my Pulitzer…
Things I'm doing at the moment...
Reading
The Instructions by Adam Levin Longest. Book. Ever. Got it from Powell’s Indiespensible. Brilliant, but will probably take me five years to finish with my attention span.
Watching
Outsourced It’s a sitcom set in an Indian call center. I disliked it at first, as it was nothing like the film it is based on and it has Elle from Neighbours in it, but it has gotten better every...
The OTHER Blog
I’ve been writing my blog Stump’d for about nine months now. The layout of the blog has really dictated what it has become: long pieces on big, single topics that take a lot of effort and time. I’m really happy with what I’ve done there, but at the same time, I’ve never been entirely satisfied. Sometimes I just want to write a paragraph on a new band, or post a few...