Bike Repair

Short story, really - you serviced your bike. It was about time to replace the tyres, retape the bars and tighten the cables, so you overtook the lounge room one rainy weekend and got to it. With red and black drop bar tape you bound you drop bars, which matched the rest of the frame and looked really nice. It felt like a new bike again!

Switzerland is currently debating whether to treat bikes like all other vehicles and require registration and designated parking. It's this kinda crap that makes you wish, perhaps for the first time ever, that you could vote. Then again, if the hot topics include the protection of hedgehogs then maybe it's best left alone.

Poo Coffee

Last time Brendon holidayed in Europe he gave you some Kopi Luwak coffee he brought from Indonesia. Finally, you'd be able to try the world's most expensive coffee - although, you'd also heard of a more expensive one from elephants. It was a shame, however, that your espresso machine had kicked the bucket and wasn't up to the devine task of processing poo beans. Tasting was delayed.

Fast forward now to the present, when you finally took your machine in to be serviced. It turned out that fixing it could be more expensive that buying a new one, but it just so happened the bloke at the service centre had a showroom model lying around which he didn't need and was willing to sell. The latest model at cost price? Thank you!

You hurried home by bike with a big yellow duffel bag with machine on you back to test it on the poo coffee. Upon opening the neatly packaged ribbon-wrapped box and snipping the seal, behold - the coffee was pre-ground in Arabic style: finely ground to powder. Unperturbed, you carefully scooped a heap into the sieve and started 'er up. Loud PurrrrrrRRRRRNNNNNN noises came out but no coffee. After a few seconds you worried the machine would explode. The poo coffee was so finely ground it has blocked the sieve! You initiated an emergency stop and carefully loosened the sieve. This was met with a POP! as the pressure released and a splatter of diarrhoea (essentially) was sent across the kitchen. You scavenged the leftovers into a cup and followed the instructions provided: "put in cup of boiling water and let sit for a few minutes". The taste: earthy.