I’m pleased to say it tastes amazing.

Eggs Benedict ice cream

A delicious ice cream with a candied bacon infused cream, bacon pieces and Hollandaise sauce, resting on top of a hot caramelised English muffin.

The candied bacon adds a sweet and smokey taste to the cream, while the Hollendaise provides tang. I made sure to only use a small amount of Hollandaise sauce and it paid off as it doesn’t overpower the taste of the other ingredients.

The clincher is the muffin. Bathed in a mix of eggs, milk and a healthy dose of Bacardi, it’s then cooked in butter. As the ice cream melts over the hot muffin it really does resemble poached eggs covered in sauce.

Bacon ice cream isn’t new. Nor is bacon and eggs ice cream. However, I’m not a fan of either by them self and this ice cream, coupled with the hot English muffin, I think provides a much more satisfying end result. It takes my favourite breakfast and turns it into a dessert that could be served with coffee in the morning or wine at the end of the evening. Breakfast dessert heaven.

Recipe to come

Production Shots

You be the judge:

Oz

The Sopranos

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Jersey Shore

The Wire with the theme music from Full House fits so nicely. Even the lyrics work.

I thought it would be interesting to compare this cost with the cost of train travel in some other major Australian cities and a few worldwide. I calculated these on Sunday night and while I did my best to make sure they are accurate, I could be missing cheaper ticket types familiar to locals. If I’ve overlooked something or my calculations are wrong, please do let me know.

All prices are in AUD and the train journeys are between 8km and 8.5km in distance. In regards to London, please keep in mind the conversion between GBP and AUD.

Firstly, let’s look at how single and return trip costs compare.

One trip and return trip train fares compared

Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney are around the same, whereas Perth is around the same cost as travel in Tokyo and New York. London is highest after conversion.

For commuters capped weekly and capped monthly tickets are most important. Here’s capped daily, capped weekly and 15 trips in one week:

Capped daily, capped weekly and 15 trips in one week compared

As mentioned, Brisbane does not have capped daily or capped weekly fares. I couldn’t find one for Perth either. Melbourne and Sydney on the other hand have a very reasonable capped weekly rate. New York and Tokyo are close to the same amount.

For 15 trips in one week, Brisbane is over $8 more expensive than the other three Australian cities. This includes the GoCard’s 50% discount after 10 trips are taken.

And monthly fares:

Once again Brisbane is considerably more costly than the three other Australian cities. It is $55 more expensive than Sydney and because no capped option is available, the cost keeps adding up. Tokyo is the cheapest by far, while Sydney and Melbourne are not too far off New York (the strong AUD helps).

Last but not least, a chart showing all fare types:

All train fares compared

No surprises that Tokyo is by far the cheapest for those commuting to and from work daily. Their weekly and monthly fares save a considerable amount off the normal daily return fares. Not to mention their trains services are world class.

Sydney, Melbourne and New York also have very reasonable capped fares.

What’s clear? Brisbane needs capped fares.

The names of secret hotels are hidden on Last Minute. Tripraider reveals them.

I had been mulling on the idea for some time and eventually gave myself a long-due kick in the ass to build it. My plan: launch lean, launch quick. Doing so would help me avoid getting bogged down in adding extra features and perfecting the design.

I set myself four weeks to go from nothing to go-live and as someone with a full-time job, that meant weekends (and weeknights when lucky). I’ve launched plenty of new websites in the past and in comparison this project was pretty small. I knew my time-frame was tight for a one man job but ultimately achievable. Defining the site’s aims and the stage at which the site would be ready for a public launch, as well as mapping out how to get there, was the key to getting it right.

I initially considered building Tripraider on WordPress as I find ongoing maintenance of WordPress sites largely enjoyable. It’s publishing capabilities and expandability through plugins has really become smooth. However, as I jotted down features and mocked up designs, it became clear I’d need more grunt. Thus I returned to a favourite CMS of mine, Drupal.

There are four main reasons why Drupal is perfectly suited to a project like Tripraider.

1. Intelligent content design and structures. Building a site that focuses on customised content, in this case hotel listings, is what Drupal does best.
2. Advanced user management. I can allow users to submit or confirm secret hotels and reward them for it.
3. Intricate control. I can customise URLs, page titles, publishing workflows and other essentials right down to the finest detail.
4. Theming. I can create different designs of varying complexity for different types of content.

A screencap of the Tripraider beta.

Where I would have easily reached the limitations of WordPress, I was confident I wouldn’t run into any brick walls using Drupal. It’s nearly limitless in terms of what you can do, but like any web project or CMS it’s also nearly limitless in the amount of headaches it can cause.

While most of the development process was pain free, some of the map integration was soul-destroying. It doesn’t help that oversights in code or design at 2am prolonged problems I normally would’ve spotted and fixed quickly during the day.

And as the deadline closed in, little things that should have been easy often become the most frustrating. I think I spent a good few hours trying to find the best image solution to display hotel photographs.

Thankfully, I launched on time and it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done this year. I pushed myself to kick off a project I’m passionate about and did it on time. Helping people get a better deal on luxury hotels is what I wanted the site to do and from the feedback I’ve received so far, it’s working.

The secret hotel deal for Jupiters Hotel and Casino is revealed.

Since launch I’ve focused on adding new secret hotels daily to ensure content is up-to-date and expanding. Currently the hotels are all on the east coast of Australia but I’ll soon add international locations like London and New York.

Over the next seven days I’ll devote equally as much time to opening up the user registration system and adding a blog to the site; both part of the overall plan to turn visitors into participators. The building is done and now it’s time to keep building.

Check out Tripraider, let me know what you think and next time you’re booking a hotel give it a try.

Take a look at this conversation I had with the posties on Twitter after I became dissatisfied with their basic, close to useless parcel tracking.

So Australia Post charge an additional $1.50 to use online tracking and their website says:

Scan events will typically be captured at lodgement, and throughout the delivery process and can be viewed online at auspost.com.au/track allowing you to track the progress of your item.

I guess we have different definitions of scanning ‘throughout the delivery process’.

Whether you think it’s worth $1.50 to know when you dropped it off and when they delivered it, that’s up to you.

This week we discussed meeting friends from the Internet and is there still a stigma. We also reviewed an ‘Alfajores Negro’, a chocolate bar my friend bought back from South America.

Digital Munch Episode 8

Subscribe using iTunes.

And here’s a video for the Alfajores Negro. That should give you an idea of how tasty this chocolate looks.

1. Remove Vodafone sim

2. Drop

3. Flush

I feel better.

Thankfully Vodafone’s Twitter team (@vodafoneau_help) made my last hours with the provider surprisingly bearable. If not for them handling my cancellation I would have had to deal with phone support.

Feel free to send me your own photos of you disposing of your Vodafone sim. Oh, and welcome to my new blog!