Just for the record

As I promised I would last year, I ran 10km today. I even got a medallion to prove it. I didn’t train as much as I had anticipated in the lead up, but I was fairly pleased to be able to run the whole distance anyway.

Most importantly – my time: one hour, one minute and six seconds. Looks heaps cooler written in words (like all those trendy houses with the word numbers on them). I was hoping to come in just under an hour, although this was fairly arbitrary as I had never actually run this far before today.

I think I might enter another run.

A change in reality

I watch a fair bit of TV. Although maybe less than some stay-at-home mums who are addicted to day time soaps and infomercials (sorry mums). I’d like to watch less TV, but the damn thing is addictive.

Anyway, my TV addiction is not the point of this post. I tell you this only to explain how I’ve come to watch a lot of rubbish shows I don’t even particularly like. I’ve never been much of a fan of reality TV but, as explained above, I still watch a lot.

I may not be the first to point this out, but reality TV seems to be subtly changing lately. There was a time when the most popular reality shows thrived on people bitching about other contestants. Shows that did this especially well were Big Brother and Survivor. We loved it because it made us feel good about ourselves since our lives seemed so nice in comparison. And we all hated that two-faced dude who made multiple alliances anyway.

But last year something happened. Masterchef was one of the best rating shows of 2009. Channel Ten discovered a new winning formula for reality TV – feel good reality TV; edit out the bitching and edit in the parts where they hug and cry. In this show we only heard the contestants say nice things about each other. Interestingly, media reports quoting eliminated contestants suggested that there was actually plenty of mud-slinging going on that was edited out.

What’s more, it appears they even awarded first prize based not on cooking skill, but on who missed their family the most. Okay, that’s probably not true, but who didn’t want to hug Julie? Me actually, but I’m quite adverse to hugs.

Channel Ten have now started applying this new formula to their whole reality line-up. We first saw it in Idol. The most recent season of Idol probably featured the most dismal line-up of talent ever (sorry Stan). But despite performances hardly rivaling Britney’s first come-back gig, the judges just couldn’t find a bad word to say about the contestants. What’s more, we kept voting for some bloke with the stage presence of my old school principal (sorry Bill), just because he was so damn nice.

And now with the “ratings season” underway again we’ve the return of The Biggest Loser and So You Think You Can Dance. Dance has been particularly interesting. They’ve shown hardly any of the awkward auditions that we used love to laugh at. Instead they’ve chosen to focus on the feel good stories of people who’ve danced through adversity. It seems as though every dancer in Australia has either had a miscarriage, lost a parent or been dumped by their fiancé via text message. And in The Biggest Loser we now feel like the contestants are all in it together; there’s far less emphasis on the fact that they’re competing against one another.

So is this a step forward for reality TV? Well I like it a bit better. I think it’ll actually help win back a lot of males who don’t really get that much joy out of watching people bitch about one another (yeah, probably some females too, but I’m just making some broad generalisations here). I certainly feel less dirty after watching it. But then I think that old criticism that reality TV isn’t very “real” still sticks; they’re now just selectively editing out what they used to edit in. But hey, reality is way too boring for TV.

I’m a happy clapper who froths at the mouth

At least that’s according to the front page of today’s Mercury. According to some bloke called Dr Garland, people at my church, Wellspring, are into a style of worship that involves “happy slappy stuff and frothing at the mouth and speaking in tongues”.

So how accurate are Dr Garland’s comments?

Firstly, I have never seen anyone froth at the mouth. Unless someone lets a rabid animal loose in our church, I also doubt this will ever happen.

Secondly, I am not aware of speaking in tongues featuring in our corporate worship at any stage. I’m not saying there’s not a place for it, it’s just never happened.

Yes, we sometimes clap along to the music. This is a commonly culturally acceptable manner of enjoying music. I personally have clapped along to music at other times in my life – sometimes at concerts, and other times even in my own loungeroom.

Finally, yes there are usually some people at church who are happy. Most of us quite enjoy meeting together. That said, there are also sometimes people who are sad or angry because they’re going through hard times in their life.

Dr Garland, like anyone else, is most welcome to attend our church and find out for himself. We’ll be meeting tonight at 6pm and then at the same time every Sunday after that.

I love Matthew Bowditch

WordPress is cool. It tells you what people searched for to arrive at your blog. On Saturday 3 January someone searched for “I love Matthew Bowditch” to get here. I checked and it wasn’t my wife.

Almost as good as this one.

Facebook Ad

I often find the ads that come up on Facebook a little strange. There’s this one that seems to come up heaps about hair removal for guys. I like to click the “x” and then tell facebook I find it offensive.

Today this one caught my eye:

It was so good I had to click on it. It takes you to this website: www.sydney-herald.com

There’s even a comments section with fake comments down the bottom. Awesome.

A guide to making coffee at home

I’ve written a few posts on finding good cafes (here, here and here). But sometimes it’s nice to have a coffee at home. Either that or it’s Sunday in Hobart and most of the shops are closed. So here’s some of my tips for having a nice cuppa at home.

1. Get fresh coffee – if you’re not currently using fresh coffee, this will see the greatest improvement to your home enjoyment. None of the other tips here will help if you don’t use fresh coffee. To clarify, you want coffee that was roasted no more than about 30 days ago. You can’t find this at the supermarket. Fresh coffee can be bought from a local roaster, or some cafes. Alternatively, you could roast your own coffee (but you’re probably not that hardcore).
2. Buy a grinder – if you don’t already own one, buy one. Ground coffee is stale about ten minutes after grinding. If you buy freshly roasted coffee but then get the shop to grind if for you you’re missing out. Oh, and don’t use a spice grinder or something with blades – I recommend this grinder if you don’t want to spend a fortune. It’s not a bad idea to spend more on a grinder than an espresso machine.
3. Store your coffee in something air tight – doesn’t really matter whether it’s a fancy one-way valve bag, a tuperware container or just a zip-lock bag, just keep the air out. This will prolong the life of your coffee. Sometimes I forget to take my coffee out of the grinder hopper – it’s not air tight in there.
4. Don’t use boiling water – this rule can be applied to most methods of making coffee. You want to use water roughly in the range of 85-95 degrees celsius. If you’re making plunger, let the kettle cool for a few minutes before using. If you’re making espresso, you probably need to flush your group head to cool the water (i.e. just run a bit of water out before brewing). Percolators just suck because they require the water to boil before it reaches the coffee.
5. Timing – for espresso you’re aiming for about 50-60mL of coffee in about 25-35 seconds (this is for a double shot; for a single shot you want half the volume in the same amount of time). It doesn’t matter whether you’re making an espresso, cappuccino or flat white, you still only want this much coffee. I know, it doesn’t look like much, but just trust me on this one. If your coffee is coming out faster, try grinding the coffee finer or putting more coffee in. There’s much more room for error with plunger or syphon; try starting with a brew time of around 2-3 minutes and experiment from there to see what you like.
6. Get fresh coffee – just to reinforce my earlier point. If you don’t know when it was roasted, it’s probably not worth the risk.

I don’t understand love

I was watching a show on ABC2 the other day called Being Erica. There came a moment in the show when Erica’s boyfriend of three months confessed that he was “in love” with Erica. This then created some awkward moment where Erica failed to respond with the commonly accepted response of “I love you too”. In a subsequent conversation with a friend she discussed how “crazy” it was that this guy was in love with her. In fact, Erica’s friend said, “Who falls in love after 3 months?”

Scenes like this seem quite common in American sitcoms/dramas/romances/trashy TV. One person in a relationship says “I love you” and the other person doesn’t know how to respond because they aren’t sure if they love them back. Now we’re not talking about people who have been going on occasional dates here, but people involved in exclusive sexual relationships.

I don’t get it. I thought it was normal to love someone by the time you’re in an exclusive sexual relationship (I don’t just mean in Christian-land). Heck, three months seems like a pretty good timeframe to start making your mind up about that sort of thing. So I think I’m missing something. Maybe “love” in this context must mean something more. Does “I love you” equate to “I want to marry you”? Is “love” used in a different way in the States to Aus? Or am I the only person who finds this strange?

Enlighten me oh wise ones.

Common Coffeegeek Misconceptions

I wear the label of coffeegeek fairly happily. But us geeks are a misunderstood bunch.

1. You must drink a lot of coffee. No, not really. Sometimes I don’t drink any coffee for a few days. I probably average about 1 cup a day at the most. This is because coffeegeeks are also coffeesnobs; we think most of the world’s coffee sucks. Good coffee just aint readily available, so we can’t drink that much.
2. Adding flavoured syrup to coffee is nice. No, it’s not. You don’t need some sugary syrup to give coffee flavour. If a coffee tastes like chocolate it’s because of the way it was grown, harvested and roasted (and probably a bunch of other stuff I don’t understand). Fresh coffee has flavour and it’s inherent in the bean.
3. I want coffee related presents for my birthday. No, I don’t. I’m really sorry if you’re one of the people who’s given me coffee stuff for my birthday, but I probably only pretended to like it*. It’s just that I’m really picky with that sort of stuff.
4. Tea is the enemy. No, tea is quite nice sometimes. Tea can even be a good alternative to coffee, especially when the coffee on offer is average.
5. Espresso is king, plunger sucks. No, they’re just different. Coffeegeeks enjoy coffee prepared a variety of ways.  Sometimes a coffee that tastes really nice in a plunger just doesn’t work as espresso.

*I have received a couple of good coffee DVDs for my birthday. I think my wife bought me both of them.

I’m going to run 10km (I think)

I decided today that I am going to enter this “fun run”. I also decided I should post this on my blog otherwise I would change my mind.

Who else wants to join me? C’mon ya lazy bastards.

I wrote a letter to the Editor

I wrote the following letter to the editor of the Mercury just over a week ago.

Dear Editor,

Regarding your story “’Sexing up’ our tweens” (online Tuesday 6 October, http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/10/06/101725_todays-news.html).

I am interested by the paragraph that states: “Experts said that by age six girls want branded clothes, at seven they want styled hair, by eight they diet, and by their early teens girls engage in sex or “sexting” — explicit text messages on mobile phones.”

It is not clear in the article who these “experts” are. Are you able to provide some further information to substantiate your claims? Can you please advise who these claims have been made by and on what research they are based?

As your own David Killick suggests, it is problematic to base claims on “anecdotal” and “preliminary” evidence (“Damn lies and enrolments”, 7 October 2009, http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/10/07/101955_opinion.html).

I eagerly await your response.

Regards,

Matt Bowditch

They haven’t written back to me yet. The story appears to have been run in most major News Ltd papers with exactly the same wording.

To clarify, my gripe is around the use of the phrase “experts say” without further support. After conducting some research, the expert appears to be Maggie Hamilton. Although she is mentioned towards the end of the article, there is nothing attributing the statement to her.

Experts say that News Ltd has used the phrase “experts say” in an unsubstantiated manner in excess of 1000 times this year.