Random musings

I've been busy this past couple of weeks, but nothing seems to be blogworthy of late. Sure, I've been doing lots of 'stuff' ... it just all seems to have been overshadowed as the days pass by and we roll head-first into winter. Here are some random musings from the last week:

• I melted my caffettiera on the gas stove by not having enough water in the bottom half. It's the one I brought back from Rome several years ago and now it's dead. I could see smoke and smell the distinctive scent that could only be melting plastic; as I went to lift the caffettiera off the stove, the whole handle came away in my hand and all the metal bits were steaming hot. Thankfully there was a(nother) Briscoes sale on today and I replaced it with a cheaper model. I figure I can melt a cheap caffettiera just as well as an expensive one from overseas.
• Our last cleaner used to drink Jif. (When searching for an article to link to, I discovered that Jif is also a brand name for peanut butter and lemon juice. I'm talking about the cleaning product here - apparently known overseas as Cif.) Well, we assume she drank it because she'd go through a full bottle about every third time she cleaned for us. Our new cleaner instead drinks orange Mr Muscle or Spray N Wipe. It appears most frequently on our 'cleaning products to be replaced' list. I guess everyone has their preferences. Maybe citrus flavoured cleaning products are all too tempting for some people?
• I performed some major surgery on my iPod touch apps this week. It was an anxious time seeing if my apps would back up and transfer correctly to my PC as I installed the latest software upgrade - none of the help articles made any sense and various online forums suggested that many people had gone through the same process as me and lost everything. Thankfully, I can report success, but not without some worries.
• I finally bought the Classics app for said iPod touch. This is a collection of classic novels which are now out of copyright, converted to be read on an iPhone or iPod touch. The interface looks pretty user-friendly. 23 classic books for $4.19 seems like a good deal to me. I'm looking forward to (eventually) reading titles including Frankenstein, Gulliver's Travels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and A Christmas Carol.
• Chocolate chip cookies are gooooood. I made another batch this week. They won't be around for long.
• The oven I do most of my baking in got tested yesterday, as I've been complaining that it is faulty for quite some time. Turns out the element had fried itself out. This was due to a faulty thermostat operating at 63˚ Celsius above the temperature on the dial, ie 100˚ = 163˚, 180˚ = 243˚ etc. That could explain a lot ...
• I had a 25% discount voucher to use at a café today. My order (food and coffee) came to $16. I expected to pay $12 as 25% of 16 is 4 - quite simple, really. I was charged $12.20. I asked how this could be. "Well, it says on the board that at 25% discount on $15 is $3.75, so that makes it $3.80 for a $16 bill." Really? She checked with her boss; 25% of $16 is, indeed, $4. Oh. Yes, I was quibbling over 20c, but the logic of that equation astounds me! 
• I'm about to start a short-term contract for an overseas company in a "work from home from any computer/Internet connect" type scenario. (It's legit - not like one of those dodgy spam offers.). It turns out than "any computer" = Windows-based PC running Internet Explorer and Java. It won't work on a Mac or in Firefox. *sigh*
• I discovered, when browsing through Allyson Gofton's cookbook Bake, that a flapjack is a sweet oaty bar, and not necessarily a sweet pancake rolled around whipped cream like I'd always known them to be. You do learn something new every day!

So, what have you been up to lately? Any random musings of your own?