Posted by enigma on May 20, 2011 in
Uncategorized Harto, star of My Drunk Kitchen, did an impromptu Q&A with her fans on Twitter. To allow for easier reading, I’ve compiled a transcript.
And now, the lovely Harto and her answers:
From DeafSounds:
Q. What is your favorite wine?
A. Free wine. Particularly, free Zinfandel.
From BRiserMcawesome
Q. Why no bacon?
A. I don’t eat pork.
I know, you all have permission to leave me in disgust.
Q. what about turkey bacon?
A. Delish. In my mouth. Big party.
From freedom_coms
Q. What prompted you to start MDK? What’s your favourite alcohol?
A. One time I got drunk. THEN I got hungry.
From electrikpulse
Q. what made you decide to start doing mdk?
A. It’s all part of my 2044 presidential campaign.
From Scatterheart_
Q. Would you rather have complete mastery over time and space, or a written guarantee that your favorite show would never start sucking?
A. MOST DIFFICULT QUESTION I HAVE BEEN ASKED. Answer: Master of time/space so I could ENSURE my fave show would never suck.
From kenzekiel
Q. will you marry me?
#massachusettsherewecome
A. Sure. As long as you don’t mind me marrying all of the internet as well.
From thelinster
Q. I just want to know how many marriage proposals you get in the next half hour.
A. My favorite are the reverse double gay marriage ones.
From WilSamson
Q. Worst hangover?
A. I…can’t remember. Which is probably a sign of how bad it was.
From Kitsten Blenner
Q. What’s your personal favorite “Drunk Cooking” episode so far?
A. They are like my children. I love them and they all drive me crazy.
From DougCalderon
Q. Can we get a drunken instructional video on how you crack an egg with one hand? It’s an impressive skill that I lack.
A. You know, I’ve just always been able to do it! Maybe in the next one I will do it in slomo as a bonus vid.
From AndreT_NY
Q. Will there be a cider based drinking episode?
A. Ooh, I like. I’ll have to consult my budget of zero dollars….Lemme ask my sister to buy me some.
Q. You know the best way to open a Champagne bottle is to hold the cork and as it slips out to “push” it as if back in. Better Bubbles.
A. I did not! Thank you!
Q. Would you like for me to get some ( I work for them at Beer Festivals) I am too cheap to buy a ticket so I vol. to get in free.
A. If you can get it to my PO Box then I will drink it….that’s probably not a good rule to put out there on the internet.
From LeadPipeLuxy
Q. Do you like waffles?
A. I LOVE WAFFLES.
Q. How many crackers can you eat in a minute?
A. All the crackers.
From xavierrn
Q. what are the odds of a collab with @EpicMealTime?
A. Errr. I think they are big fish. I am a tiny fish. A tiny, salty fish.
From Menooch
Q. wanna come to basil (restaurant in BK) w/ me and my friend this summer? we’re the resident wine-o’s there.
A. Sure! But I’m broke. Is it on the cheaps?
From dgittler
Q. What are you going to do with your new internet fame?
A. Probably sit and answer questions on Twitter for a bit…then go to bed..and then go to work in the morning…
From river_dawg
Q. do things actually get cooked when you’re not drunk in the kitchen?
A. Let’s just say I eat a lot of food in can form.
From geekstra
Q. On a scale of 1-10, how drunk are you during the #MyDrunkKitchen show?
A. Every #MyDrunkKitchen is an adventure for me and my liver. Impossible to define numerically.
From BradBullock25
Q. When (if ever) did you come out to your family?
A. Ooh, shit’s getting real. I came out to my family last year. It was…was.
Q. Won’t ask you to go into details, but was it easier or harder than you expected.
A. It was…exactly what I expected. Though, I still felt unprepared.
From Thatshortgirl88
Q. did you free the cheese from its trap?
A. The cheese is currently trapped in its eternal home of my belly.
From Spidlerc
Q. What’s the proper salutation to give a tranny whens he leans into your car from the curb on a rainy night?
A. “Cheers, my sodden friend! Mayhaps an umbrella would suit you better hence?”
From JHWestover
Q. what kind of wine is your favorite kind of wine?
A. Free wine. #ischeeky
Q. my roommate would like to know if you’d marry him. Id just like to know if you’d cook with me drunk?
A. Yes and yes. Can I be drunk cooking at the wedding? We don’t need no stinkin’ caterers.
From Dezzles
Q. Are there any foods that you don’t eat?
A. Yeah, I avoid beef and pork for the most part. But eat anything that I can catch and kill with my bare hands.
Q. By avoiding pork, does that include bacon!?
A. ;(
From Narutofreak1012
Q. do you get predrunk when you film?
A. The answer to that? Yes. There is both a kitchen pre- and post-party. The post-party is also called “Nap.”
From 7efnawi
Q. whats your favorite video game, book, and movie ?
A. TOO HARD. Most recent instead. Game: Portal 2. Book: The Master and the Margarita. Movie: Muppet Christmas Carole (always, always).
From sothewordparty
Q. what’s the tastiest thing you’ve ever drunkcooked?
A. I drunkcooked my forearm this week. It was pretty good.
From McScooterson
Q. What would MDK the sitcom be like?
A. Uh. DELIGHTFUL. Obvs.
From geekstra
Q. are you like the reverse Rachel Ray?
A. R-cubed is my street name.
Q. have you thought of doing an “IAMA” post (I Am ____, ask me anything) on Reddit? You’re pretty popular there. I’m ********* there
A. I would definitely! Just taking my time.
From unruthless
Q. Strongbow: great cider, or greatest cider?
A. My cider knowledge is sadly limited! But I’ll just say “Yes.”
Q. Followup: if one were to mail a 4-pack of cider to a P.O. box in New York, how many laws would that break? (Yes, this is an offer.)
A. Hopefully none!
From JHutler
Q. Why did you decide to do the whole drunk kitchen thing?
A. About…a month and two weeks ago?
From anenigma
Q. How drunk are you actually during your vids? Is there any acting-drunk involved, or is it just you?
A. Let’s just say that there’s a reason I have to find a new kitchen every week…
From v_butchface
Q. For all your talk of cheese, it was only actually a (used) ingredient once. How do you plan to remedy this?
A. I plan to remedy it…thusly..
From LifeInHoboCamp
Q. My favorite part of the cookie episode is the expensive Kitchenaid stand mixer behind you. Is it part of the joke?
A. LOVE THIS QUESTION: I had NO IDEA what that thing was. In my mind I was like “Ooh! Orange accent color! Lovely.”
From mountaingeek96
Q. what is your favorite alcoholic beverage???
A. Free wine.
From paradigmjim
Q. do u like my sense of humor?
A. I don’t know – tell me a joke!
From sohma_g
Q. i wanna have drunken foods with you…. how does a trip to redneck land sound for you? moonshine could be in the mix.
A. Moonshine has always intrigued me so…
From subtleparty
Q. What is your favorite board game?
A. SCRABBLE. So. Hard. My crew and I like to play drinking scrabble like no other.
From Mogomra
Q. If I come to New York, do you promise not to steal my wallet and/or shank me?
A. Um. That’s just how we say “Hello.”
From phizzled
Q. (1)what’s the best advice you ever got that you didn’t take?
A. How can it be “best” if the outcome is unknown?
Q. (2) if you were in the pacific ocean in a yellow dress, would you got east or west?
A. Depends on which way I’m coming from, no?
From lorenreid
Q. be my best friend?
A. Sure! Can I borrow some money?
From rachelcvaughn
Q. do you film yourself or do you have a camera-human?
A. Film myself with my lovely lappy-toppy.
From JCannonHubka
Q. You are now the first piece of evidence I will use to argue in favor of marriage equality? CANT DENY THE CUTE! Your thoughts?
A. There is so much cuteness being denied. Far cuter than I.
From oo_da_lally
Q. You’ve gotten marriage proposols, but are you actually single?
A. Hella single. I’m married to my art.
From playmoby
Q. how’s your black mold doing in that bathroom of yours? I suggest you attack it… naturally, while drunk!
A. Black mold is no joke!…I may or may not have poured whiskey on it. I’m qualified to make these decisions.
Posted by enigma on Jan 17, 2011 in
Uncategorized Tuesday the 11th of January started off fairly normal. I woke at a normal hour, had a normal breakfast, and started normal work. As lunch time approached, however, things started changing.
All of a sudden, there was a lot more talk about Brisbane flooding, and I started paying more attention to all the news broadcasts.
I soon realised that my paltry kitchen stocks would not last me long, so I set out on a journey to the Toowong shops. The crowd was immense, but incredibly calm, and food was low, but not severely so and there was no panic. On the bus trip home, however, I was shocked to see a mass exodus of cars leaving St Lucia. All of Sir Fred Schonell Drive was bumper to bumper, as well as all the roads leading towards Coronation Drive.
By mid afternoon I was out and about. Nick and I were out, seeing what the impact was so far, and if anyone needed a helping hand. Everyone so far seemed to be in control however, so we decided to check out what the river was actually doing.
I think that was when I first started to realise how big this was going to be. Small causeways were no longer small. The Brisbane river seemed to be a lot closer now, and also a lot faster, and a lot more dangerous. This was all confirmed when I managed to get to Guyatt Park. The whole ferry terminal was basically under water. This already looked pretty bad, but it had an eerie holiday feel. I think the general populace had already accepted the fact that we could not stop this raging monster. The flood would come, and we would have to weather it. In fact, some took it as a time to take some snapshots, including me.
I came home and everything I could see still seemed dry. I settled on the couch for some relaxing TV, which was interrupted at around 10pm. And by interrupted, I mean I happened to look out my window and was shocked at what I saw. My neighbours had around 30cm of water covering their carpark. I should stress, this is about 2-3 blocks away from the river, and this is also a day and a half before the peak was meant to arrive. Things didn’t look good.
I’m not really sure how the next few hours passed, somehow between me watching the news on TV, keeping an eye on Twitter, and also keeping an eye on my neighbours I managed to lose track of time. By 1am the water was still around ankle or knee deep next door, while my carpark, being slightly up a hill, was still dry. I managed a fitful sleep, waking every 30 minutes to check on the water levels.
At 4am the angels arrived. And by angels, I mean the SES workers. It was then that I realised that somehow in my sleep-deprived stupor I had missed the water levels rising next door to the point where the inhabitants could no longer leave via normal methods. I distinctly remember standing on my balcony, eating cereal, and watching my neighbours wave thankfully at the approaching SES who rescued them from their first story apartment where the water was almost lapping at their feet. Almost laconically, I would glance down, reassure myself that my entranceway was still completely dry, and return to eating my breakfast.
Quite soon, however, the news really struck home. This wasn’t the worst. The river would rise a lot more. At first I was going to wait for the SES to guide me, but I soon realised that they had better things to do than to tell me how to survive. It didn’t take long to pack some necessities and soon I was trudging up my street, wearing shorts and work boots, with a bag on my back, a guitar in one hand and a black garbage bag full of clothes in the other.
I was very cheery while leaving my place of residence. I knew exactly where I was going, as I already had been offered places to stay. And soon after, I was standing outside Aido’s apartment, staring at the paltry belongings I had managed to bring with me. Aido and her flatmate Lee were both out helping evacuate a Radiology clinic, heart-warming volunteer work from lovely people. They soon returned to show me my new temporary home.
Soon after I arrived, power was cut to St Lucia. All of a sudden we had no TV, and we realised that all our phones would eventually (or quite quickly) run out of power. Luckily there was an iPhone car charger, but only one amongst us had an iPhone. Pity all phones can’t charge off the same type of charger. The food situation was also looking bad, the fridge was heating up, and the stove was electric. Luckily, we did have access to a gas BBQ. We quickly piled into a car and went food and battery hunting. Food was going rare in Hawken Village, I believe we snapped up the last of the steaks, as well as a few bags of ice to hopefully keep some food cool enough to keep.
The battery situation, however, was looking more dire. We had a radio, but it required 8 D sized batteries, and we could only find 6. Even Naughty But Nice did not have any. We took our chances with some C batteries, and with some luck and some engineering, we had a working radio that only occasionally need a slight tap or heavy thump to work.
With food and batteries sorted, there wasn’t much to do. We went to see how St Lucia was doing, and the people looked surprisingly calm faced with the grim situation. My old residence already had a 1m of water in the garage, and I had no idea how high it would actually rise. A further walk helped reinforce how high the water had actually gotten. Only yesterday I had walked halfway down the ramp towards the ferry terminal. Today, I couldn’t even see the hand rails at the top of the terminal, and Guyatt Park was now truly Guyatt Pool. We met up with quite a number of residents, and traded stories, of both what had happened, and what various tradesmen had said regarding our power and water situation. With light fading, we realised that cooking food soon was a priority and headed back home.
Our meal that night consisted of marinated steaks with salad, accompanied by a red wine. It surely didn’t feel like anything bad was happened, except we had no power, and as the sun went down all of St Lucia started going dark. We saw a few flickers of candles being lit, but that was it. Surprisingly, however, it didn’t get that dark. I guess one good use for light pollution is to keep power-cut suburbs slightly lit up, but after that day, I simply went to bed and crashed.
Breakfast again was a very nice meal. Fried bacon and eggs, with juice. Quite a distraction from the true matter at hand, while we slept the river had hit it’s morning peak. Soon we were out and about again for another survey of the destruction. For once, I had good news. The water in my garage had not risen significantly overnight, and had even seemingly receded since the 4am peak. Good news, could you finally have come?
A few minutes later, I was brought to another stark realisation. We were walking back to the apartment, when a group of immigrants stopped us. I can’t tell you what nationality they were, because I didn’t know myself. Actually, this group also was not well versed in English. We managed, through hand gestures and simple words, to decipher their plea of help. They had run out of food, and needed to find a supermarket. We tried giving directions, but with no real common language it seemed useless. Eventually we convinced them to stay put and we went to get a car. We drove them to the nearest supermarket, where it seemed the only thing really in supply was bread, so stock up the family did. I wasn’t trying to pry, but I noticed at least 6-8 loaves of bread in their bags, and little else. Not that the supermarket was running low, they seemed to have an almost endless supply of bread, somehow. We drove the family back home, and they were extremely grateful. Spare a thought for those who don’t have anywhere to turn to, those who may be alone in this city of millions.
Despite the good news from the morning, we still had no power, and had to restock our ice supplies. After checking a few local places, we found out that Woolworths at Indooroopilly still had ice, so we stocked up and headed home. Despite having ice, the fridge itself was definitely heating up, so food and ice were stored in the laundry sink, and the fridge was given a good clean out. I guess at least some cleaning had started. Once that was done, however, we still had to wait for the water to recede. With nothing better to do, we took another walk.
I lied, we actually drove, a bit, to see what roads were open and were possibly going to be open tomorrow. You see, the two girls in the apartment I was staying at are both employed by hospitals (OTs I believe, although I may be wrong), so it was more than idle curiosity, a hospital cannot take a break because of a flood. However, things soon started looking better than expected. We saw first hand the high tide marks noted by the huge debris piles, but even at 4pm (the second peak of the day) the water was easily a metre or so lower. This was good news, the water was finally receding.
Home we went again, this time to meet another friend of the girls. Despite being affected, Kate (I hope I got that right) hadn’t seen the full nature of the floods, so we took yet another walk. We ran into more people, and soon we were somehow up on the top floor of one of St Lucia’s riverside apartment blocks. This block had not been evacuated, and even the garage had remained completely dry, so there was no real danger. All the residents of the apartment block met us up the top, there was apparently a flood party going on. Since nothing else could be done, and the food would be spoiled if left alone, it seemed like a good idea at the time. From this high up, we could really see the effect of the flood on nearby streets however.
The afternoon faded quickly, and we rushed home to cook dinner before we lost light. We had roasted rosemary chicken and vegetables, a very delightful meal, and chatted away what few hours of light we had left before heading off to bed.
I woke up this morning in a much different frame of mind. We still had no power, and by this stage I was starting to accept that I won’t have power for a while, possibly days or weeks, because buildings on my street had been inundated, and simply flicking the switch back to “on” would not be safe. I fled this, my second home, to live with my parents for a day to collect myself. It is here, after purchasing new boots and work wear for the clean up, that I sit and finish these thoughts.
Posted by enigma on Sep 6, 2009 in
Uncategorized I am a uni student, and yes I get Centrelink payments. While I know many of you tax payers may already be willing to rip out my heart and eat it for this travesty, I think you should at least listen to what I have to say. Thanks to the convoluted system currently in place, if I “earn” another $100 by working a few extra hours each week, I am actually going to be worse off. It sounds weird, and inconsistent, but it’s all thanks to the magic that is Centrelink.
The rules are that if a person is entitled to Rent Assistance, they will only receive this payment if they are also receiving another payment. That means that if I recieve a $3 Youth Allowance payment, I am eligible for Rent Assistance, which is around $75 per fortnight. Now if my gross incoming improves by $5 a fortnight, my Youth Allowance disappears. And since I will no longer be getting that payment, I also lose out on Rent Assistance.
Being the geek that I am, I’ve actually graphed all of this. As you can see, there’s that sharp dip around the $850-$900 mark. That’s where I am now.
Actually, I’ve since lost the graph image. But I did earn, at that point, $850-$900 per week.
If I want to receive any more money, I need to earn at least $150 a fortnight more. That’s another 6 or 7 hours of work, per fortnight. It’s not a lot of work, but that’s just to break even. To put it in other words, whether I earn $850 or $950 makes zero difference to the amount of actual money I have per week.
Posted by enigma on May 24, 2009 in
Uncategorized Hi TV Execs,
“Acquiring” tv shows in this day and age is not terribly hard. It shouldn’t take much longer than 5 minutes on Google to find any recent episode of a semi popular tv series. And these “pirated” episodes are actually high in quality. Sure, there might be a few seconds missing here and there. Or maybe some tearing. Maybe the audio is out of sync. Those are some minor issues faced by people who choose to download these episodes, but these are also things which are “nuked”, or fixed, very quickly in the “scene”.
Now lets imagine I used one of the current, existing methods of purchasing tv episodes online. Firstly, I’m in Australia, so not all recent shows will be released to me. Anything I do purchase, requires invasive DRM. If I buy from Apple, I generally have to use iTunes or something similar. The same holds for almost any place where I can purchase tv episodes, and most of these don’t even have recent releases. So what I can do is pay someone some money, install their software, and then possibly watch the episode, assuming my internet is working and that the DRM servers are still running. Oh, and I generally can’t watch it on my TV either, since apparently even me playing the episode on my TV is against your idea of copyright.
There’s nothing here that attracts me to your economic model. I understand that making TV shows cost money. You have to pay for writers, actors, special effects, editing, directing, make-up, hair, costumes, etc. I get that. But just give me something that’s usable by me. Here, I’ll make it easy and give you a short list.
- Release the episodes at roughly the same time world-wide and media-wide. That means the online downloadable episode comes at roughly the same time as the on-air TV show.
- Release it without any restrictive DRM. Let me play it on any of my computers. Don’t force me to run your specialised software.
- Use common and open standards for the audio and video. H.264 is a vaguely open (patent encumbered) standard for video, with free implementations available. Most/all recent media players accept it. AVI is pretty much a given when talking about media files, so that’s a suitable container (although I won’t complain if you use Matroska). Audio has generally been MP3 (even though it is encumbered by patents), but if you want something free I’d suggest FLAC.
- When I purchase the TV episode, I just want the TV episode. Don’t place advertisements all through it. Advertisements are used in free to air television, since viewers don’t pay anything. If I’m paying for this, I don’t want to see ads.
- Use reasonable pricing. A box set (DVD) of a season runs around $AUD50 for around 20 episodes. That’s $2.50 per episode, something I’d be happy paying.
Do that, and I’ll start subscribing.