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• Hawaiian Pizza

Sam Panopoulos: Fricking champion. Imagine the scene. 1962, small town Canada, Ukelele mania is sweeping the world. The Aloha State has only just been added to the union, grass skirts are everywhere. Surfing is the bomb. You’re young. You’re smart, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re in the pizza restaurant business. What are you going to do to to ensure you absolutely kill it at next year’s Chatham-Kent Chamber of Commerce small business cafe innovation awards? Pineapple; ham. Bam.

Hawaiians hate it apparently. As do Canadians. As does everyone else, except us. Ham and pineapple is the most popular topping in Australia, at least according to a broken hyperlink reference on Wikipedia. I can’t find any recent research to back that stat up, but given that chicken menu items generally incur an additional fee of between $1.1-1.2 million, it doesn’t surprise me. In fact, I used to work as a Dominos delivery boy in Western Sydney when I was at uni and I must admit, the thing they seemed to want the most of, other than flannelette and heroin, was Hawaiian pizza.

Pineapple and ham naturally do go so well together so it’s no surprise Sam Panopoulos saw the connection. Pineapple contains the enzyme ‘bromelain’, which breaks down protein (meat is made of protein, so are protein shakes and body builders and Chinese swimmers), so when you have a fatty animal like pig, duck, or westie, throwing some pineapple their way can make them a lot more tender (depending on your aim).

I used to love ham and pineapple pizza when I was a kid so I thought I’d have a crack at making a more grown up version of this Italian/Canadian/Greek/French/Polynesian favourite. My food blog MaTTsterChef has the ingredients/method in a post I’ve entitled ‘The Fricking Ultimate Hawaiian Pizza Recipe‘. It may possibly *cough* be a thinly veiled way to write off a dinner party on tax as ‘research’ for a client, or it may not. That’s between me and Rob Oakeshott though really (he is the Treasurer now isn’t he?).

Me: So who are you going to vote for?

Jake: The girl.

*pause*

Me: OK. Why?

Jake: Because the guy looks like an over-protective dad who doesn’t let his 23 year old daughter use the phone.

I can’t be honest about how perfectly amazing Splendour was because you’ll cry. It was better than everything else in the entire world. I put some more pics up if you want to take a peek. Sarah had better band photos, my camera didn’t like the lights, but it does make everything look cool.

Highlights: I had a backstage pass so I could watch bands backstage. I mostly didn’t because they sound better when you’re in front of the speakers and the vibe in the crowd was just so darn lovely. Everyone was just loving it and not trying to push people out of the way or throw inanimate objects. Someone did throw a giant inflatable giraffe at Ted Mumford though. In a good way. You can kind of see it here: http://www.facebook.com/mattgranfield#!/photo.php?pid=5218360&id=621121839

That was most excellent. No one was wearing flouro. That was also good. As previously discussed, I watched The Pixies from the side of the stage. Sarah was my wing-man for the day and she frowned somewhat when I explained to her that I would be leaving her alone in the moshpit to go side-stage, but I think she dealt with it well. I came back and she told me that she had some nice alone time but that she was glad I was back.

These bands were amazing for the following reasons:

Mumford and Sons. They played so well. There was new material. They were tight. The crowd was so into it. They were just killing it. Their sound was amazing. I don’t know what he’s doing with Laura Marling. I like Laura Marling, but Ted could do better. She’s boring. I told many people this. I feel a bit bad about it now. I think I dwindled her crowd-size by 20. I met a couple in the bar near where Laura Marling played and the girl said she was good and the boy said she was boring.

The Strokes. Had to follow Flo and the Mo. That wasn’t easy because she is awesome and has wings and was amaze, but they are The Strokes. They could follow Jesus’s first and/or second coming. I pushed my way to the front and was able to collect some Casablancas sweat for you. It’s in a vial and appears to glow in the dark and also have special powers.

Alberta Cross. Small crowd = up front = loud = just shining musical brilliance. Ditto Earnest Ellis, he mentioned something about marrying you if you were there, but I said you weren’t and that you had to go to away and he seemed to understand. I think he married someone else instead. He was quite popular.

Fat Freddy’s Drop. I thought they just played dub but they made some great housey stuff as well. The trombone player stripped. It was very good in an entertaining way. Apparently he does that all the time, but I’m going to pretend it was a special one-off for us.

Passion Pit. I didn’t realise that was how he actually sang. I thought it was pretend. It was shimmery and lovely and loud. Between them and Mumford I think it may have been the best two musical hours of my life.

Richard Ashcroft apparetly had a hissy fit and walked off stage mid-song because not enough people were watching him and he was on at the same time as The Pixies and Empire of the Sun. I really liked Richard Ashcroft but I was one of the people who weren’t watching him because I was at The Pixies, so I’m disappointed I missed the hissy fit, but also glad I didn’t see him being a wanker because now I can pretend that he’s not a wanker.

Luke Steel was also a wanker. He had a big golden hat on and appeared to have come straight from an ancient Mayan firefighters dance party. They played the song I like first, which was awesome, because then I could watch The Pixies. Sarah also liked this.

The Pixies were slightly underwhelming because they are old, but still cool. Did I mention I watched them from the side of the stage.

Two Door Cinema Club were cool. Not too cool for school. Just cool. I liked them.

There were some really bad buckwheat crepes. I had a nutella and banana one and had to throw it out.

There was a giant silver sculpture which I tried to climb but there was a man inside it working on some mechanical things. He looked surprised to see me. It’s hard to explain.

Warmest regards,
Me

Last week Annik walked past a person who may or may not have been lying dead in a park. She didn’t stop to help, but she thought about it, which was nice. She’s a writer so she wrote about it.  It was an interesting moral dilemma.

I have a confession mum. I bought some roma tomatoes from Coles the other day (four to be precise) and I was using the self-help checkout counter. Roma tomatoes were $4.99 a kilo. On the checkout screen they have a list of favourite items you can pick from and tomatoes were on the list. Not roma tomatoes – the normal ones. They were $2.49 a kilo. Half the price.

I was about to scroll through the A-Z list of fresh produce items to find roma tomatoes, but I didn’t know if they’d be under ‘T’ for ‘Tomatoes: Roma‘ or ‘R’ for ‘Roma Tomatoes‘. I suspected it would have been ‘T’ but I wasn’t sure.

I knew if I scrolled through it would have taken me an extra 10-15 seconds and I was in a hurry to get home. It was at that point a little voice inside my head, let’s call him Satan, said:

“Hey Matt, just pretend they’re normal tomatoes and you’ll save money and time. No one will ever know.”

So I did.

But then I felt really guilty. I was considering explaining my ‘mistake’ to someone in charge, but I decided they’d think I was an idiot. I got in the car and felt really guilty about it, such were the values you impressed upon me mum. I drove home and made a mental note to make atonement.

Next time I was at Coles you know what I did mum? I bought five normal tomatoes and put them through as roma tomatoes. Proud much?

So, although I technically shoplifted the difference between roma tomatoes and normal tomatoes, I paid it back with one tomato interest, which is, like, way more than they would have got if they’d just had the money in the bank. I think that technically anulls my shoplifting record back to zero shoplifting incidents. Apart from the time I wagged school with Luke and stole a steak knife from the op-shop so we could go fishing. But that was his idea. I was just an accomplice. We’ll talk about me wagging school some other time. Sorry about that.

Matt

Rather than moan about how we were going to get buried, we thought we’d run some ads taking advantage of the situation. It was too late to book anything anywhere, so we thought Google AdWords would do the trick.

Within an hour of the news about Julia Gillard taking the top office breaking we had an ad up targeting anyone who searched Google for her name. Here’s what it looked like (first ad at the top on the right):

While we were on the band-wagon, we also ran ads targeting the other political leaders, the copy was as follows:

Targeting ‘Kevin Rudd‘ searches

The Diet Plate
Lose weight while
eating humble pie

http://www.thedietplate.com.au

—

Targeting ‘Malcolm Turnbull’ searches

The Diet Plate
Revenge isn’t the best
dish served cold

http://www.thedietplate.com.au

—

Targeting  ‘Tony Abbott’ searches

The Diet Plate
Microwave safe. In case
of global warming

http://www.thedietplate.com.au

—

Targeting ‘Bob Brown’ searches

The Diet Plate
When you want to eat
more than greens

http://www.thedietplate.com.au

—

I usually prefer writing longer copy, but it goes to show, you can have a lot of fun with two lines if you try. I’m sure Ernest Hemingway would agree.

*Don’t try this at home

—

Killbot Kindergarten are electro folks. Two soul children with a glass-bottomed boat and pentatonic sails. Micro Korgs and mellow chords; hearts in Brisbane, ears abroad.

A retro-futurist collaboration of neo-soul tones draped over unashamedly binary bones, Youka Snell and Adam Sait’s project has graduated music college and arrived back at a pre-school for pandas bearing jet packs; Gorillaz in their midst. Like a soy chai latte in a styrofoam cup, the result is both organic and plastic. You won’t recognise the sound on your lips at first, but after a few sips, you’ll never go to Starbucks again.

It’s quirky café music, the kind the cool kids on Neptune are probably listening to right now, but it started in the parlour; in West End. Doornoch Terrace to be precise – about as far from London as it’s possible to get on this planet. And while they’re the polar opposite of Gilbert and Sullivan, elements of Killbot Kindergarten’s sound could have come direct from the overture of an oriental Damon Alban opera.

This isn’t the Mikado though, Youka, a classically trained violinist and Sait, an audio engineering dropout have thrown convention out the window to create a new form of operatic digital soul. Working from the Brisbane studios of dub maestro producer Paulie B (The Beautiful Girls) and the Gold Coast’s Govinda Doyle (Angus and Julia Stone) the duo have produced an epic five-track EP. A year in the making, the disc is a culmination of a six year creative journey for the two songwriters, who have known each other and played in numerous bands together since 2004.

Veteran tourers, the two have been criss-crossing the country with Grassroots Street Orchestra, (insert other band names here) for the latter half of this decade. Now, as Killbot Kindergarten, Sait and Snell are set to take on the world, with an Australian tour planned for the latter half of 2010 and a passport-destroying sojourn around the planet in 2011.

Lovers of digital neo-soul should be on notice. There are two new headmasters in town and school is never going to sound the same again.

—

Potential Band Names: The London Underground, Henry Sugar, The Black Rabbits

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Tattoo Artist, Buy Pants, Car Tyres, Sell Van

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Breathing Golden Stars. Raconteurs song, but with chick from other band

—

Sex partners expressed as an interwoven threads graph showing the generational change.

—

Rent a Puppy

—

‘Monday Leftovers’ you pick a different charity each Monday and get people to donate whatever money they have leftover to that charity online

Hi, I have a 1981 WB Holden windowless panel van in need of a paint job, I would be open to a proposal for you to use it as a tasteful mobile billboard. I live in Palm Beach on the Gold Coast and frequent most of the popular surf spots including Burleigh Heads, Currumbin Alley, Duranbah and Snapper to enjoy the Breaks as well as driving to Southport daily to attend uni. The deal would be basically you paint, I drive and you get good exposure in a variety of places. The Panel van is rare and attract a lot of attention even in its current state. If you think that you may be interested please contact me, Regards Mark

I think I’m going to say yes. What a champion.

I was going to enter the half marathon, but it starts at 6.10am on a Sunday whereas the full marathon starts at 7.10am, so technically I could still adhere to my ‘don’t ever never ever get out of bed before 7am on a Sunday’ policy and still be able to compete. My training has been going well so far but I’m not a morning person, so I always end up running in the middle of the day (or at the end of the day, and in Brisbane it’s just as hot then anyway). I think that strategy will ultimately fare me well anyway because if I’m used to running in 30 degree heat and 95% humidity, carving it up at 7.10am in winter is going to be a breeze. It’s a bit like training to ride the escalators at the airport by climbing Everest.

Anyway, I was in Toowoomba visiting my family the other day for Easter and I figured that it would be a good place to get in some altitude/hill training, because where I live in Brisbane is dead flat and at sea level and the most climbing I ever do on a run near home is the front steps. I don’t know if there are any hills on the Gold Coast Marathon, but I figure it’s best to be prepared. I canvassed opinions in mum and dad’s lounge room the other night and they suggested the best place to go for a hilly run was Tabletop Mountain, on the south side of town. Mum and dad had walked up it the other day and mum vomited and passed out from exhaustion so it seemed ideal.

Me: “OK cool, but I want to run up it, can I run up it? I want to run at least 10km or there’s no point…”

Dad: “It’s a bit rough, there’s lots of shale, It’s pretty steep.”

Brother: “Just start at the lookout in town instead of the actual carpark, then it will be about a five kay round trip and you can run most of it.”

Me: “OK cool, have you got a map.”

Brother: “Here, I’ll show you on my iPhone. You start near the water tower here, which Emily (Brother’s Girlfriend) thinks is a space ship.”

Brother’s Girlfriend Emily: “It’s near the big flag. And I don’t think it’s a spaceship, he made that up.”

Me: “OK, so is it all sign posted and stuff?”

Brother: “No, sort of, it’s a popular track, you’ll be fine.”

Me: “OK. What do you mean by ‘pretty steep’, can I run up it?”

Dad: “It’ll be hard, but…”

Brother: “You’ll be fine. Some guy rode down it on a unicycle the other day.”

Me: “OK. I’ll get up at 7 or something so I can start running at 8.”

Everyone: “OK.”

Naturally I was feeling pumped.

And naturally I slept in a bit so I didn’t get to the start of the run until precisely 10:37am. I know that because the second I started running BFF called. I’m calling him ‘BFF’, as opposed to his real name because, well…

Me: “Hey dude, I’m just about to go for a run, what’s up.”

BFF: “Are you going for a run in the Woomba?”

Me: “Yeah, it’s going to be cool. I’m running up a mountain.”

BFF: “OK, cool, I was just calling to let you know I took too much acid last night and I’m just going to bed now and I’m still freaking out a little bit so I won’t be coming to your place tonight.”

Me: “OK sweet, are you alright?”

BFF: “Yeah, I think so. The green bear left a little while ago, everything has been pretty quiet since.”

Me: “OK cool, well, I’ll give you a buzz tomorrow.”

BFF: “OK dude.”

Me: “Ciao Bella.”

BFF: “Me love.”

Me: “Me love.” (It’s a bromance thing my male BFF’s say which loosely translates to ‘hey man, nice talking to you, you rock, catch you later).

So I set off from Picnic Point in Toowoomba. For anyone who knows Toowoomba, you’ll know it’s one of the higher edges of The Great Dividing Range. To get to Tabletop Mountain you have to run down the side of The Great Dividing Range and then across a little valley, and then up Tabletop Mountain, which, at 700m above sea level, happens to be exactly the same height as Toowoomba. It could be best described as a folly. Smart people just drive to the carpark at the bottom and make the climb from there.

In picture terms, this was my goal:

In fact, it looked like a piece of piss. I’d run in the Swiss Alps before, this thing looked like an anthill. The thing is, it’s only 3km away as the crow flies, but because you have to run down a mountainside the track winds a lot and you end up running 10km as a return trip.

The first bit to the base of the mountain was easy. Because it was basically a road. In fact, it wasn’t ‘basically’ a road, it was a road. I could see why the family had recommended it to run on.

Then it looked like this:

And then it looked like this:

Which was quite a lovely rock climb, but not exactly running terrain.

The view from the top was nice though.

And there was some cactus. On the top of a mountain. Which I thought was strange enough to take a photo of.

Moral to the story: My family are crap marathon coaches, Tabletop Mountain is a nice rock climb and a crap run.

The End.

Oh, and if you’re interested, here’s a Google Map of the route you take. It’s a rough map, but you’ll get the idea.