chocolate and cheese please

shin decided to use his raclette oven for the first time last night, and had a couple of people over to gorge on potatoes smothered with freshly melted cheese. yum. that cheese goes straight to the stomach, and just sits there. i'm still feeling full 16 hours afterwards. the best bit of the evening was trying out how the raclette oven coped with chocolate and cheese. of course the result was brilliant, and the one person i could convince to try some was in rapture for some time. that's usually the way it works - low penetrance, but great retention. you should try it at home too:

1 (thickish) slice of cheese
sprinkle liberally with grated chocolate
grill/bake until the cheese is melted and almost browning
pour over boiled potatoes, bread, or your filler of choice

yum!

i figure this is a perfect recipe to spearhead a revoultion in the swiss kitchen, switzerland of course being the traditional home of chocolate and cheese. it's not ".ch" by accident. Confoederatio Helvetica - what rubbish!

croissants, kylie and running home late at night

i had my first progress report for my phd research friday morning, and it actually went off pretty well. i was impressed at how i was able to speak for 50 minutes about what few results i've actually managed to acheive in the 4 months i've been in zurich so far (at the ethz). i think people were even reasonably interested, which is always a bonus. "investigating oligosaccharyl transferase function with quantitative mass spectrometry" does sound pretty cool don't you think?

after working so hard for the hour of my presentation i had to take it pretty easy the rest of the day to recover, which was just as well, since martin convinced me to join him for some thai karaoke friday night. he'd picked out the tong 999 bar, which didn't look too bad on their website. it was actually the cheesiest place i've been to in a very long time, and luckily there was a group of german tourists wanting to sing as well, otherwise it would have been a bit empty! i opened up my karaoke career (that's right, i'd never been before!) with some kylie, which the crowd loved. the clear favourite though was 'rock around the clock'. i'll have to practise my elvis for the inevitable return.

we hung out listening to very bad thai techno for a while, until we realised we'd missed the last trams home. so i had to run back to hongg. it was a very pleasant evening for the 40 min jog, although i do miss being able to do drunken very early morning runs over the sydney harbour bridge with the unsurpassed views of the opera house. i was right on cue arriving back at meierhoff platz just as the late-night bus from downtown zurich pulled in as well... some people don't seem to appreciate the deep understanding of a city you gain by running through her streets very late at night, preferbaly not completely sober. i, however, feel it's the only true way to get to know a city, and think everyone should try it once in a while.

my new guitar!

yay! i finally have a guitar again! after leaving my old one with fredrik back in sydney (along with the rest of my life - apartment, bed, stereo, michelle's car...), i've been marginally musically deprived. logic on the mac is a dream to use, and even though it's nice playing back what i've created, it's just not the same as playing music live.

so here are some pics so you can ooh and aah along with me about how nice my new one is. but you're still missing out - it's surface is smooth and rough like almost-smooth marble, and it smells like freshly cut wood. mmmm.

free (!) funk

thanks to my main-man social coordinator hirenj, i was up to date with the funkiest spot to be last night in Zuri-West (zurich's equivalent of the valley in brisvegas, or a tame kings cross in sydney). X-tra held their regular 'cool monday' night, with mr scruff's fine retro funk grooves and cute dancing-quaver animations keeping a smile on everyone's face. diplo the dj followed, and added a few extra bits of bass and beats to really lend some feet-shuffling spice to the night. i was very pleasently surprised at how many people were out 'wiggling their legs' (to steel a mr scruff phrase) on a school night, but i guess people will flock to quality. i may even have to make cool mondays a regular in my calender. you really can't say no to free (!) funk.

hmmm

in the wake of the australian federal election, i steal some letters to the financial review:

"In his victory speech John Howard strangely overlooked the magnificent efforts of the murdoch press across the country, whose unwavering commitment to the coalition party line was again absolutely crucial. perhaps howard's gratitute will take the form of some quiet legislation to assist the media giant towards full monopoly powers?"

and

"I accept the decision of the australian people in re-electing the howard government. i accept that we may now openly be heartless, ignore other's interests as long as our own self-interest is satisfied, and crush the hopes of those less fortunate. i accept that these traits have been condoned, although i ask that you excuse me if i won't embrace them."

email ben junk

i've been playing around with anagrams for a bit today. www.wordsmith.com is most helpful. it seems the consensus is that i'm full of junk :)

ben luke schulz: ZEKS BLUE LUNCH and ZEE SKULL BUNCH

benjamin luke schulz: LUSH MINCE JUNK BLAZE and JUNK BULLS MECHANIZE

and my favourites come from benjamin luke: JUNKIE LAB MEN, MINEABLE JUNK, LIME JUNK BEAN, MANLIKE BUNJE, BLUE MEN KANJI, NINJA BUM LEEK and EMAIL BEN JUNK

(please do, at emailbenjunk at benschulz dot com)

tüby with jo and leanne

the weather forecast said the weekend would be sunny, 19 degrees, cloudy and rainy. i'm not sure how it works either. in the end it turned out half right - fortunately the last half, since i was visiting jo and leanne in tübingen, germany. fortunately, because we got to spend lots of time inside drinking yum tea and glüwein. i always think groovy old european towns look better in the drizzle and cloud anyway.

leanne is having a bit of a european holiday after her months as a volunteer at a refugee camp in ghana (see here). i think the decadence of europe was getting to her a bit. the cold is a problem too. jo seems to be having a great time half way through her exchange year (from UTS). her german is going most imrpessively (even if she won't admit it), and tüby is a pretty fun town to hang out in for a bit. it was great fun to catch up with both of them - they're so much fun, and it's always nice to hang out and chat with old(er) friends.

there are some piccies of people and places there.

john for pm!

no. not that john. i was actually quite excited today when i read he wanted to give more funding to schools (impressive enough!) to teach people arabic and indonesian! Wow - now the yoof of straya could have some cultural understanding of our northern neighbour and the middle east! there's nothing like being able to have a chat to help people get along.

but no. what he actually wants is to give more money to a special SPY school, so not only does the rest of the population outside the secret service not get to know any of the goss, but what's heard is used to spread mistrust and antagonism. good on you for promoting international trust, brother(and sister)hood and understanding little johnny.

not that kim beazley is much better. he wants to have more bomber planes. essential equipment for the development of australia's place in south-east asia those are!

and definitely not jon. he's been stuck in my head all evening after nasty lab-neighbour mario played his favourite ballads a couple of times each today.

i meant john. he's the man, the only one who can save australia (except maybe for bob brown). he's got everything it takes to be a quintessential modern politican - he's an ex-musician, a religious freak, and has his own tv show (or three). he could even be counted as a real-life voice-of-yoof.

sorry for the rant. (don't forget to vote - and make it count!)

murgtal

another sunday, another trip to the mountains!

this week i had a bit of a sleep-in after a night out with martin, and so only managed to be at the base of my hill, in the village of murg on the walensee, by 10:30. luckily it wasn't too warm though, on what may well be the last weekend of summer - the weather was actually pretty much perfect for a day up high.

i went up the main ridge to the ski area of flumserberg and followed a skyline ridge of friendly peaks (the gipfelwanderweg) with most nice views back down to the walensee, west to the rocky mass of murtschenstock, and eventually south towards the bulk of the high alps. even though i was running most of the way, it took a fair bit longer than i'd expected, and so i didn't have time to peak-bag the nice looking gufelstock. the run down through the west branch of the murgtal was stunningly pretty, and good training as well.

my timing was somewhat lacking though, since just as i jogged into the train station, the train to zurich pulled out. so i had an hour wandering the lake front at muhlehorn watching the sun fade on the cliffs rising out of the north shore of walensee.

pics.