Carrot Margarita - sounds very wrong but tastes very very right...

Folks, I finally made good my promise to whip up a batch of Dusty V-styled carrot margaritas to enjoy with a group of friends (all of whom share a September birthday) over Sunday brunch.

The verdict: muchas tasty and perfect daytime drinking. A healthy veggie/fruit drink with just enough alcohol for a sunny Spring 'buzz'. Here is my recipe for a two-litre jug:

1. 600ml unflavoured Tequila
2. 400ml home-made Limoncello (in lieu of other citrus-based liqueurs, like Cointreau or Triple Sec)
3. 500ml fresh carrot juice (2 bags of carrots blitzed in a Sunbeam juicer - too many carrots for so little juice, I know...)
4. 500ml combined freshly squeezed orange and lime juice (about 5 medium-size Navel oranges and 3 big thin-skinned limes)

Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon and leave to chill in the fridge for 30-60 mins before serving.

To serve, I used a square-based whiskey tumbler, rimmed in lime juice and black ‘Falksalt’ (flakes gently pulverised in the food processor to a fine grain) with a little Mexican chilli adorning the glass.

The ginormous ice-cube kept the drink cool without diluting its kick.

The verdict: 8 out of 10. Points deducted for the black salt turning the bright orange a murky colour after a few sips.

I have joined the ranks of Vistaprint.com-aholics. Help me.

I have to confess I've always regarded personalised Christmas cards and photo-based birthday invitations as more than a little cheesy, on a par with Round Robin Christmas updates and people who put turn baby photos into fridge magnets. I recall cringing every time Slim Venetian would send us photo frames made from family holiday snaps. Yes, you read correctly, photo frames made from photos. Postmodern and narcissistic, yes?

I swore I would never be one of those people. Ever.

Recently however, I wanted to make some personalised adhesive labels as a birthday gift for a friend who makes his own preserves (and has presented me with some amazing samples) and was stuck about how to do it and where to go. My brief to myself was: cheap, cheerful and not massive quantities, incorporating a low-res image, glossy stock and able to be delivered in a couple of weeks. Frustrated by my complete ignorance about where to start, I hassled a talented craft-fiend friend of mine who recommended I try Vistaprint.com. According to her, Vistaprint is "easy to use and very addictive. I use them all the time."

So I gave it a go.

I take issue with the first part of her statement as it took several goes and the eventual hands-on help of another talented craft-fiend friend to help me navigate the site and select a suitable template. After a few dodgy attempts, we found a cool template, uploaded an image to preview, selected a whizzy font, typed in the required text and voila - a page of sticky labels was born. Quick click to the shopping cart and checkout despite Vistaprint constantly prompting you with suggested added extras...(no thanks, I don't need the personalised desk calendar and shoe tree combo).

A week later, some really funky sticky labels arrived in my post office box. They are BEAUTIFUL and my chutney-making bud will most certainly love them!

Affordable? Quick? Excellent quality? Yes. Yes. Yes.

I have ordered and received graduation party invitations, another set of adhesive labels for me, and have two design projects ready to review.

Stop me before I stick my nephew’s face on a coffee mug.

Bullshit Bingo – Part 3

Just when you thought the incorrect use of nouns as verbs hit a new low with ‘impacting’ or ‘solutioning’ (very common in IT), here’s a ripper I heard at work yesterday:

‘performancing the network’.

Yep. A moronic, functionally illiterate boffin with IT guru pretensions ala Steve, Bill, Jeff et al and a half-filled thimble’s worth of charisma stood up at a workshop and talked about some soon-to-be-installed technology hardware / infrastructure with this very phrase.

Yep.  

Performancing the network.

He then walked his audience through a Powerpoint presentation  describing the process by which selected software would be tested on this new hardware. Second dot point read:

‘Selected subjects have been targeted for execution [in the test environment]’.

(Sigh)

It truly is a corporate (IT) jungle out there.