Jul 29, 2011

Woolworths - King Shaka Airport

It's not often that Woolies lets me down, but unfortunately the Woolworths at the King Shaka airport did just that on Wednesday.

I had what I can only describe as the most revolting roll I have ever had. The offending roll was a beef and pickle baguette, which I bought from the deli counter at the Woolies in King Shaka airport and cost a whopping R28. The bread was stale and chewy; and the contents of the roll were flavourless and nondescript. Fortunately Linda had the same roll as I (or unfortunately in her case), and so I know I wasn't imagining that it was as ghastly as I thought it was.

Katia asked why I didn't return the roll, but when you're hungry and worrying about a boss who has yet to arrive at the airport, and have a day of travelling ahead of you, fighting with the person behind the counter just isn't at the top of one's priority list. It's only after the stale bread starts wreaking havoc with your insides do you realise that you should have handed them back their revolting, over-priced food.

Some big-wig from Woolies H/O definitely needs to go in there and wrap the staff over the knuckles for selling stale, tasteless baguettes to unsuspecting travellers.

Jul 24, 2011

Dragon Girl :)

Seeing as I have magick on the brain...

Kahlua Tiramisu with Chocolate Shavings

Although I very much doubt that this is a traditional Italian Tiramisu, it certainly does look delicious. This recipe come from the Woolworths Taste Magazine website.

Serves: 8
Category: Easy / Kid-friendly
Prep time: 20 minutes, plus overnight to chill




Ingredients:
2 x 250 g tubs mascarpone
1 cup fresh cream
1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out
2 Madeira loaf cakes
1 cup strong black coffee
1/3 cup Kahlua
100 g organic dark chocolate, grated
cocoa powder, to dust

Cooking instructions:
  • In a large mixing bowl, whisk the mascarpone, cream and vanilla seeds until combined.
  • Cut the Madeira cakes into slices and dip each slice into the coffee.
  • Arrange the slices to cover the bottom and sides of your serving dish.
  • Drizzle over the Kahlua and any remaining coffee.
  • Spread the mascarpone mixture over the cake slices and scatter over the chocolate.
  • Dust generously with cocoa powder and chill overnight.

Woolworths Taste Magazine

Peeps, the new Taste Magazine is on sale now! Make sure you get it while it's hot :P

For Christmas I think I'm going to buy mom the Woolies Taste Cook Book. It is filled with some of the most gorgeous recipes :)

Happy cooking! :)

Another weekend, she has come and gone!

Is it just me, or do the weekends seem to fly past us at the speed of light? I feel like I’ve not had a weekend at all.

Ok, well… here’s the weekend round up.

On Friday night Daniel, Wayne and I went to watch the last Harry Potter at Galleria’s NuMetro cinema.

My heart is sad. We’ve been reading the Harry Potter books and watching the movies for what, ten years now? It feels like the end of an era. How do you say goodbye to some of your most beloved friends? How do you close the door on a legacy? What new adventures will we have to look forward to now? Look, I know I’m a 32 year old adult, but I have the imagination of a ten year old child and I’m hoping that will never change. I dream of wizards and witches, magick and spells, flying broomsticks, fairies, mermaids and pixies. What would life be without them? When the Harry Potter books arrived in our lives children started learning about these things again. A witch wasn’t just a costume that you wore on Halloween anymore; it was a person with a book of spells and wand filled with beautiful magick.

One day when I have children we are going to go on great adventures together. Some days we will be sailing the seven seas as pirates or go swimming in the deepest depths of the ocean as mermaids, to the great underwater city of Alantis. Other days we will make potions and cast spells to turn frogs into princes and flowers into butterflies. We will hunt pots of gold at the end of rainbows and dance in fairy rings. All of these adventures can be found in your home, inside a book. Books are the doorways to the most wonderful worlds and I wish that more parents would spend time reading to and with their children.

So thank you JK Rowling. Thank you for the smiles and the tears that you have brought into our lives. Thank you for the adventures and for making us love the most charmingly wonderful set of characters. Thank you for endearing them to us, and I hope that you start again… Write us another adventure and I will promise you that we will join you on it.





Saturday was a weird collection of things, sort of glued together with bubblegum and toothpaste. Wayne, Daniel and I went and wandered around Durban beachfront. We had a take away coffee from Circus Circus at the skate park and then walked along the beach front until we ran out of time and had to get Wayne to his violin lesson. Whilst he was there, Daniel and I popped to the Pav quickly for a muffin and juice from Kauai. I was hungry and Wayne was only going to be done with his lesson at 1:30pm. The muffin, as awesome as it was, made me feel utterly sick, so after we collected Wayne we made our way home. The boys spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping while I cooked dinner. Ya, I’m still not sure how that came about. Am I becoming domesticated?

After dinner, and a bit of Discovery channel, Daniel went home. Wayne and I chilled the rest of the evening and had a fairly late, although lazy night.
This morning (Sunday) was an “early to rise” one. I had to get Wayne breakfast and drop him off home before Robyn arrived. Thankfully she arrived later than expected and so I was home when she got here.

We spent the day working on the directory of her website. I think that we made some good progress, although I’m not sure how long it’s going to take until we’re done with the website spec. I can see this being a bit of a marathon, but once it’s done it will be superb.

And now I’ve updated my blog, had dinner and have neglected to wash my car once again. I feel sick at the thought of how dirty it is, but it’s just been so cold, or I’ve been busy on Sundays, so I just haven’t gotten to it.

The wind is howling outside… Should I? Shouldn’t I? Ugh…

Jul 22, 2011

This has been...

... an excessively long week. I'm very much over it.

Monkey Bread

I think I'm going to make this when I'm off my diet. No, it's not made with monkeys. It seems to be a bread or scone dough, dipped in cinnamon sugar, then baked in the oven until it's soft. Interesting...

Fire Desire : Travelling Poi & Staff Workshops

So things have started to fall into place and we are all systems go. We will be anouncing the venues shortly. Have a look at the updated information below. We have added dates and locations for the workshops. Detailed information on the Workshops and even some Special offers. Hope to see you all shortly and please invite your friends and share with them the magic if Poi and Staff.

Dates and Locations
Please Note:
The workshops will take place on either Saturday or Sunday in your respective city from about Midday till late. We will finalize the dates, times venue within a couple days. We are considering having a Fire Night/Jam at each city after the day’s workshops. Please contact us if you have any queries.

22 - 24 July: Clarence
29 - 30 July: The Vaal

06 - 08 August: Durban (Workshops Saturday 6th August)
11 - 13 August: East London (Workshops Saturday 13th August)
14 - 15 August: Molteno (Workshops Sunday 19th August)
19 - 21 August: Port Elizabeth (Workshop 20 August)
26 - 28 August: Knysna (Workshops Saturday 27 August)

02 - 04 September: Stellenbosch (Workshop Saturday 3rd September)
09 - 11 September: Sprung festival (Cape Town)
16 - 18 September: Cape Town (Workshops Saturday 17th September)

If you live in any of these areas above or surrounding areas please get in touch with us, we would love to meet you and possibly host a Workshop in your area.

Workshops will be held over the weekends at the above mentioned Cities. During the week we will be travelling from one city to the next. If you live in-between any of the cities above and would like to meet us. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Workshop Teachers
Jaco le Roux (Poi Beginner and Advanced)


Bruno Kopf (Staff Beginner and Advanced)

Workshops Information
Beginner Poi Workshops (Cost:R150 pp)
This Workshop is aimed at teaching you all the fundamental foundations to easily learn more advanced movements. The workshop will extensively cover: Basic Poi Theory and Terminology, Crosspoints, Plane Control, Changing Direction. Turning/Footwork, 4 Basic Modes of Spinning and Timing (Same and Split Time). Understanding and mastering these fundamentals is essential for any poi player who wishes to learn more advanced moves and techniques. One cannot run before you learn to walk.

After spending some time on the fundamentals we will then start building on these by covering the following moves and their variations, Weaves, Butterfly, Corckscrew, Windmill, Hip and Shoulder Reels, Basic Stalls, Linking Moves, Threading the Needle, Freely Turning(All Moves), The Fountain and Going beyond the Basics.

The beginner workshops are intended to teach you how to freely turn and dance with all the basic modes of spinning and their timing variations. If you want more information regarding specific moves we will be covering please get in touch with us and we will send you some additional Information.

Beginner Staff Workshops (Cost:R150 pp)
This workshop will cover all the basic principles of single staff manipulation and basic footwork. The eginner workshops are designed to give you the proper foundation to easily learn more advanced staff arts like Contact and Double staff.

The following topics and their variations will be covered in the Beginner Staff Workshop: Staff 101, Basic Staff Theory, Weaves, Rotors, Hip and Shoulder Reels, Hand Transitions, Exploring your Space, Stalls, Finger Twirling, Turning Freely with basics.

If you want more information on the variations and moves we will be teaching in the beginner workshops please contact us.

Advanced Poi Workshops (Cost:R250 pp)

The Principles of Poi: Planes, Time, Form, Footwork and Flow
The Advanced workshop requires you to have a good understanding and feel for Planes, Timing, Footwork, 4 Modes of Spinning and flow. By using the basic principles and fundamentals of Beginner Poi we will show you how to apply this knowledge to more advanced theories and movements, providing you step by step instruction so you can easily advance through the huge list of moves available.

Think of your Journey into Advanced Poi as if you are in a long hallway full of locked doors. For each advanced movement you learn you will get the key to open another door. Each new move you learn opens up new possibilities. We have structured our advanced workshop to show you what we feel is the best path forward in the vast world of advanced poi. Some moves are more advanced than others and will require knowledge of various advanced moves to learn.

We will be covering the following in the Advanced Workshops: Arm Movements and Timing, Anti-spin Theory, The 16 Wheelplane Flowers, Wallplane Flowers, CAPS, Advanced Stalls, Isolations, Pendulums, Crossers, Hybrids, Hyperloops and Orbital’s, Turning with Advanced Moves and our favourite Plane Changing/Plane Bending.

Sadly we will not be able to cover all the moves and variations in the above ‘families’ of moves in a single workshop as there are way too many. We will however explore some of each and advise where to start within each ‘family’ so you can go home practice and start progressing further on your own. Flowers and Stalls will be looked at extensively as we feel learning this will open up and simplify many other movements.
If you want more information regarding specific moves we will be covering or feel you know all the above already please get in touch with us so we can talk and give you further information.

Advanced Staff Workshops (Cost: R250 pp)
This workshop is aimed at building on the basics by looking at more complex variations and moves of single staff manipulation. The following topics will be covered: Advanced Staff Theory, Throwing and Catching, Anti-Spin Flowers and Contact (Fish Tails, Shoulder Rolls, 360 Halo, Half Steve and Conveyer Belt.) The advanced workshop will also explore some more advanced footwork and body language that will further enhance your performance.

Additionally if anyone is interested I can even cover some Double Staff, but this is so vast that there could be a Beginner and Advanced Double Staff Workshops. So let me know if anyone is interested in learning some double staffs and we will make special arrangements. If you want more information regarding specific moves we will be covering please get in touch with us and we will send you some additional Information.

Please Take Note
  1. As we arrange and confirm workshop locations, dates and times we will update the event page to keep you updated. 
  2. Please share this with your friends, Family or anyone you think might be interested.
  3. If anyone is willing to help with accommodation, travel, food, arranging the workshops or any way you think you could help. Please contact us.
  4. Besides the group workshops on the weekends we are willing to give private lessons during the week if we are travelling past your area. Contact us for more information.
  5. All Profits from the workshops will be used for transport, food and accommodation to the next location. Please help us achieve this and invite your friends. It’s about sharing the passion not money.
  6. We aim to meet and connect with as much of the SA fire community as we can and encourage them to register on http://www.firedesire.co.za/ (A social networking site for Fire Dancers) by connecting all Fire Dancers/Flow Artists on our community website it becomes easier for us all to Chat, Meet, Interact, Share, Learn and keep up to date with the latest news and events here in SA. Please Join today and help start the revolution.
If you have any questions, suggestions please do not hesitate to contact either Bruno Kopf or Jaco Le Roux.

Contact Details:
Bruno: 072 033 5535
Jaco: 071 766 6935
Email: Bruno@firedesire.co.za

The Fire Desire Community - Spreading the Desire for Fire!

Jul 20, 2011

Pumpkin, Cheese & Rosemary Muffins

How utterly delicious do these sound? This recipe comes directly off the Taste Magazine website.

Serves: Makes 6 muffins
Category: Easy
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes





Ingredients:
175 g stoneground wholemeal flour
½ cup organic rolled oats
2 t baking powder
¼ t salt
100 g organic Cheddar, grated
120 g organic pumpkin, cooked and seasoned
4 organic eggs
½ cup organic olive oil, plus extra for greasing
freshly ground black pepper
60 g organic feta, cut into large cubes
3-4 T grated Parmesan
a few sprigs rosemary

Cooking instructions:
  • Preheat the oven to 190°C.
  • In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and oats with the baking powder and salt. Mix in the Cheddar.
  • Blend the pumpkin with the eggs and olive oil and add to the bowl, mixing well with a fork. Add a twist or two of pepper.
  • Brush 6 extralarge muffin pans with oil, then spoon in the muffin mixture and bury a cube of feta in each one.
  • Sprinkle with Parmesan and tuck a sprig of rosemary into each. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and baked through.
  • Allow to stand for a few minutes before turning out. Serve warm, while the feta is still molten and gooey.

Nine words women use

I'm not really big on spam mail, but this one made me laugh.


(1) Fine:
This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

(2) Five Minutes:
If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

(3) Nothing:
This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.

(4) Go Ahead:
This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

(5) Loud Sigh:
This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)

(6) That's Okay:
This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

(7) Thanks:
A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you're welcome. (I want to add in a clause here - This is true, unless she says 'Thanks a lot' - that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say 'you're welcome' . that will bring on a 'whatever').

(8) Whatever:
Is a woman's way of saying F-- YOU!

(9) Don't worry about it, I got it:
Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking 'What's wrong?' For the woman's response refer to #3.

Photies of Wayne

On the weekend I took a few photos of Wayne. This photo is my favourite out of the lot of them :)

Jul 14, 2011

Fire in the Park - Barry; my IT guy

This is Baz spinning his fire staff :)



Fire in the Park :) - Martin, my friend from Eshowe :)



Martin is just one of those people who are really great at fire dancing and I can literally watch him for hours. He's also a really good friend and I'm happy that I met him through Home of Poi. I've learned much from this man :)

Very quick update...

My games arrived! Yay! Now if I could just find some time to play them; that would be awesome.

On a side note... Fire in the Park was awesome last night :) Everything just was perfect... there was even a halo around the moon. The people were especially warm last night, it felt like I was "home" :) I took a couple of videos with my little point-and-shoot camera, so will post those either this evening or tomorrow :)

x

Jul 12, 2011

Crush Magazine Online

The latest issue (Issue 10) of Crush Magazine is on the shelves! Er... make that the virtual shelves.

Check it out and subscribe
(subscription is free)!

Filled with awesome recipes, beautifully laid out interactive pages and an absolute wealth of foodie knowledge, this is one fantastic e-zine.

One for the Office Book...

This is all second hand, so I'm giving you what I remember of my conversation with Katia this afternoon...

Siya decides he's going to drink the left over juice in the fridge, however, it's so old and so fermented that the bottle is ready to explode it's so gassed up.

Katia: Siya, you can't drink that, you'll die!

Siya: What? No, it's fine.

Katia: Siya, you can't drink that, it will make you very sick. Throw it away!

Siya: No, that's a waste. I will be fine.

Katia: Siya, take this bottle upstairs to Ashley and see what she has to say about you drinking it.

Siya: No, no it's ok. You can throw it away.

Katia: *throws bottle of fermented juice away*

...

I laughed... loudly.

Google... Educating the world, one colourful header at a time


You know, Google really is an amazing thing. If it had not been for Google's beautiful header image I would not have known that it is the 450th Anniversary of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, Russia.

The internet is truly a wonderous thing.



Fluffy

For whatever reason, I can't add comments to my own blimmen blog! Ugh! I will figure this out and reply to all of your comments :)

I love you! I wish that the ocean would sink just enough so that we can walk across the gap between NZ and SA and visit each other whenever we wanted to.

Miss you lots my friend
xoxox

Jul 11, 2011

Jul 10, 2011

Two more games to be added to my collection :)

In order to keep my ebucks going I have to add to them at least once every few months. The easiest way for me to do this is to shop online at Kalahari.net

I enjoy shopping at Kalahari because very often I can get games which I can't find in the store, I earn ebucks and I often find bargains... like these two.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is an RPG for my PS3. On first inspection it looked a bit "meh" but then I started to have a look at the screen shots on Gamespot and it looks pretty cool. GS also gave it a 7, so it can't be terrible. Will be able to give a better opinion of it when I start playing.










The other game I ordered was Tales of Symphonia - Dawn of the New World for Wii. Gamespot gave it a 6.5 rating, so I'm not holding very high hopes for it, but it looks pretty. The characters have a bit of a Final Fantasy look about them, so I thought "what the hell, may as well buy it."










A bit of a disappointing day

It’s been a frustrating day all round. The Ballito Prawn & Jazz festival wasn’t nearly as good as it was last year. All the stalls with lovely home décor goodies just weren’t there and the majority of the remaining stalls consisted of beaded jewellery, kids cheapie toys and Indian clothing. The one shirt I liked enough to try on didn’t fit across my boobs. I did find colourful little hackey sacks which I’m going to use for juggling practice. Mom bought me a bracelet and some nail polishes for Christmas stocking fillers, but there really wasn’t anything there that blew me away. We didn’t even end up eating there. Actually, we didn’t end up eating anywhere because we had (yet another) fight in Gateway. Ugh. Anyways…

It’s just been an incredibly long and kak day.

Jul 7, 2011

Alice: The Madness Returns

I'm in two minds as to whether or not I want this game. It looks, from a gaming point of view, well epic... but from a horror (read: I am a complete and utter wimp) point of view, I'm not so sure I want to take the leap and buy the game. I would also get it on PS3, so the grapics would be both awesome and scary. Yes, I am indeed a bit of a wimp :P

Gamespot did give it a review rating of 7. Bear in mind I generally won't buy a game if Gamespot gives it a rating lower than 6.










Note to self...

I really must make an effort to remember to take some decent photos of Wayne at some point in the very near future.

Fire in the park photies from the other night :)

Here they are... not great, but they give you a sense of the vibe :)


Dieter (I think - first time I met him) on the left and Wayne (my babes) on the right


The boys jamming :)




Rayson spinning awesomeness


Rayson and the buzzsaw of doom


Martin with Rayson's monkeyfists... that is a seriously scary pair of poi


Martin with behind the back ... er ... flowers?


Rayson on the left, Martin on the right... Look at the difference between Rayson's regular, medium-weight poi and the monkeyfists that Martin's spinning.


Rayson & Martin