Spicy?

Last night I went to a cafe/restaurant with some work people. I ordered the Spicy Moroccan beef with rice pilaf etc etc. When the dish came out I had a taste - I thought - "This tastes great, but spicy? I think not." I enjoyed the meal very much. My theory that food tastes better when someone else (ie: your work) is paying for it is still holding true in my mind.

Getting back to the issue of spiciness. I suppose in my mind I associate "spicy" with "hot". If something is listed as being spicy then I would expect more than a mild tang. Now I know that everyone has different tolerances to hot food and comparing peoples' tolerance is like asking "how long is a piece of string?" Especially when I tend to like it when my food fights back a bit.
But all the same if I see the word "spicy" describing a dish on a menu - I think of really strong flavours. Then again, spices can be subtle or mild in flavor so perhaps I'm just full of crap.

www.dictionary.com comes up with the following definitions for spicy. Looking at these I think I'm off the mark in thinking that spicy=hot.

Excuse ME

When I was in Taiwan I tried to learn a few words of Mandarin Chinese. I did okay, by the end I had about 4-5 expressions that I was able to throw into everyday situations.

One of the first things I wanted to learn was the way to say "Excuse Me" if I wanted to, say, get a waiter/waitresses attention in a restaurant. One waitress told me that the relevant expression was pronounced "Boo Hau Ees". So I happily went along, Boo Hau Eesing my way through Taipei. My pronunciation must have been okay as I was always getting the staff's attention. I was quite pleased with myself.

Upon my return to Melbourne, I discovered that "Boo Hau Ees" DOES mean "Excuse Me". But rather than the "Can I please have your attention?" excuse me, it was more the "Sorry I just burped/farted" variant.

I looked back and remembered me, waving my arms at numerous restaurant staff, confidently saying "Boo Hau Ees" as I waved.

I can only imagine what they must have been thinking.

The first visit

Today I went to our new house for the first time since we bought it. Eric and Sophie wanted to have a look.

The "SOLD" sticker had been stuck onto the Real Estate board. It was such a great feeling - seeing that sticker meant quite a lot to me - it kinda made the whole thing real. I took a photo of it for posterity.

Currently there is an ugly Telstra substation directly across the road from our house.. We were horrified when we first saw it and thought "well we're not buying THIS house" It's funny how a lot of houses look great in the ad but some feature external to the house (council rubbish truck depot/huge factory/major highway.. etc) kills the deal in an instant. Fortunately the place is up for sale and has had it's zoning changed from "ugly government industrial building" to "Residential 1" - this is great as it means that we're buying our house while the street still has this huge ugly building in it, and hopefully by the time we get back from Europe - the street will have a few attractive new dwellings in it. You'd think that this can only be good for our property's value in the long run.

A friend of mine works for a property development company which is thinking of buying the land and turn it into houses/villa units..etc. Small world isn't it? I guess if they do buy it I will have all the inside goss as to what is going to be built there.

$821 million: the estimated cost of lost productivity to employees' office chatter about the Super Bowl (assuming that each person talks about it for 10 minutes a day for the week preceding and following the game).

$36,000: The money that I won't get at Ole Miss if I can't finish these essays for the Honors College and Croft Institute tonight. Wish me luck.

Two hydrogen atoms bumped into each other recently.
One said: "Why do you look so sad?"
The other responded: "I lost an electron."
Concerned, One asked "Are you sure?"
The other replied "I'm positive."