It’s been raining cats and dogs today. I have hardly known Melbourne to rain that much, and while driving today my windscreen wipers were on the faster setting, something I hardly used since I got my Jazz. Was out looking at houses today and saw one with an inverted design, the bedrooms on the ground floor, and walking up the stairs you’d have the kitchen and living area. Right next to the living area is an outdoor veranda, with an outdoor furniture set and BBQ, it looked almost ideal.

Prior to all the scurrying around, Vyanne and I had breakfast at Tom Phat, a west meets east kind of cafe. Had a grilled pork chop and egg on rice for breakfast, basically a reimagined Vietnamese pork chop on broken rice. Heh, the dish I had was good, with such an aromatic rice, and I’m most certain that the egg came out of a wok, with its crispy edges and puffiness. The porkchop had charred marks, probably grilled on a griddle. Vyanne had a roti omelette with salsa. This dish had an interesting taste profile and there was a slight chewy glutinous feel to the roti. Both were generously sprinkled with coriander, giving it a distinct Asian taste.

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Despite the current economic gloom, both Vyanne and I have managed to spend a little to acquire our own ‘toys’, although mine is a little bit more pricy than hers. She’s been wanting a Belgian waffle maker since forever and they don’t really sell these items in Australia. We’ve been scouring eBay and other international sites in hopes of finding one, but even if the logistics of shipping one from overseas wasn’t bad enough, the fact that most of them used the 110v plug (US based items) means that while we could import one, we still couldn’t use it. I tried to outsmart the system by considering the purchase of a step down transformer, but even that was a futile approach as most would only supply up to 1000w of electricity, and at a very hefty price might I add. Waffle makers have heating elements, so they also consume a lot more juice than most standard electrical appliances.

Heh, so when Vyanne found out that Sunbeam was bringing a Belgian waffle maker to Australia, she became very hopeful. It was announced in November on their corporate website that these handy machines would be available on retail very soon. After dinner on Friday night, we chanced by Myer to see if they had any available and after going through the shelves of electrical appliances, I instantly recognised the Belgian waffle maker. The amazing thing was that the machine on display was the first device brought out of storage, and it had only been put out on that very day. So after a little waiting for them to grab another box out of storage, Vyanne became the proud owner of a new waffle machine.

I’ve managed to sample some of the waffles with some Danish butter and Canadian maple syrup and it tasted quite heavenly. So now we’ve added to out arsenal of kitchen appliances and I can have nice, puffy, Belgian waffles on demand during the weekends.

Here it is with savoury toppings. Yummm.

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Heh, and what did I buy? My first paycheck spurred me to buy something a little more outlandish, and since flirting with the Eee PC while in NYC earlier in the year, of which I have sold to Vyanne’s mom, I have now acquired a newer model of the device. It was on sale online and I decided what the heck, I’d just get it. I have no practical use for it, since I already have so many computers at home (one of which will be eBayed off shortly), but with its portability, I can think of other uses for it.

It comes with the same tiny keyboard (which I can touchtype on as I’m posting this blog) but with a much more frugal processor (in terms of power consumption), a beefier battery (5 to 6 hours of usage on one charge), more storage space and most importantly, a slightly larger screen with better resolution. It runs cooler than the 7″ Eee I had and the fan hardly turns on at all, so it is virtually inaudible. Surfing the net feels more comfortable now and the device is really quick enough to do most tasks. It’s currently running Windows XP which came installed by default. Part of the reason I got the Eee was to experiment Linux on it. There are a lot of interesting apps for Ubuntu that I’ve been playing around with and as I keep reiterating, I’d like to become more familiar with it so as to not rely on Windows too much.