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Recipe: True Organic Honey Chicken

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:01:32 -0000

All my friends know that I am a big proponent of the organic food movement. I am allergic to nuts, milk, eggs and non-ethical or non-organically farmed food, so it is important for me to have an arsenal of good recipes which I am capable of eating.

I sometimes feel that people don't take organic farming seriously enough. It is one thing to label your food organic, but another thing altogether to live the organic lifestyle with and for your food. My meals can be a little harder to prepare than some, but the result is worth it.

True Organic Honey Chicken

Preparation time: 7-8 years

Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 organic chicken breasts

1 cup organic flour

Organic salt* and organic pepper

1 cup organic water*

1 cup organically farmed honey

Sesame seeds, to garnish

*Some people might argue that water and salt are not organic because they do not contain carbon atoms. These people do not understand the organic movement, and should be ignored.

Preparation

Allow the ground in your field to rest for 5 years. Land which has not been used for organic farming before is impure and those impurities need time to dissipate.
The next 2 years should be spent on a pre-planting nutrient and fertility program for your land. It also helps if you conduct a short ceremony blessing the land each morning for these 2 years.
Once the land is ready you can plant your wheat.
Your chicken needs 50-100 hectares of prime farmland to roam free in.
When you choose your chicken, make sure he is not genetically modified in any way. Signs that a chicken has been genetically modified include: 2 beaks, chicken is size of dog, chicken comes pre-packaged and frozen and “super”-chicken (wherein the chicken can fly, talk and set up a farm of its own).
Your chicken should be allowed to roam free. It should be only fed other organic products. Some people frown on feeding organic chicken to other chickens, but it really is the best diet for them if you want a high-quality bird.
Start a bee farm. You will need about 200-300 bees to make enough honey for this meal. You should allow the bees to sting you as often as possible. Cave men did not have protective outfits or smoke on their bee farms and neither should you. Stinging people makes bees feel powerful and natural, and this is what organic farming is all about.
Kill your chicken / harvest your wheat. This can be done simultaneously since your chicken will be roaming free amongst the crops and will probably be killed by the harvesting machine as it passes over him.
Harvest your honey. Many bees will die during the process of stinging you, but this is part of nature and something we can accept in organic farming.

Pictured: Organic chicken

Method

Say a short prayer for the organic chicken.
Cut the organic chicken into bite size pieces.
Sift flour into a bowl with organic salt and organic pepper. Gradually add organic water until batter forms.
Roll the organic chicken in batter, a few pieces at a time.
Sing the theme song from The Lion King, “The Circle of Life”, while adding pieces to hot oil until golden brown.
In a small organic saucepan, heat organic honey on low until runny.
Pour over chicken and sprinkle with organic sesame seeds.

Why Coca Cola is better for you than water

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:19:40 -0000

From time to time I like to use my blog to keep you informed about the products and services which go into making me me. I can say "me me" in real life a lot better than I can write it. But you know what I mean. Today for my review I have chosen Coca Cola, a well-known soft drink.

Let me start by saying: this drink is fantastic! As well as tasting good, Coke is a versatile drink. It can be had on its own, with ice for a more refreshing drink, as an alcoholic mixer, or to clean rare and old coins overnight through corrosion.

The availability of Coke is astounding. There are few places in modern cultures where it is not available and it is served in a variety of packagings and sizes. If high-quality blue cheese was available in such abundance, I think it would be a lot more popular than it is today.

Coca Cola is sold in over 200 countries and their logo has been written in 80 languages. It's clearly popular. But how does it stack up against other liquids?

Coca Cola vs Unleaded Petrol, a SWOT analysis

Petrol:

STRENGTHS:

Has uses other thank drinking (Coke-powered cars are wildly impractical!).

Available in large quantities.

WEAKNESSES:

Absolutely devastating for your body's health. You will almost certainly die if you drink it.

OPPORTUNITIES:

With the growing emphasis on biofuels, petrol is likely to become a lot more appealing to vegetarians and your cost-conscious drink lover!

THREATS:

Coke-fuelled cars.

Coke:

STRENGTHS:

Taste.

At roughly $1.16/litre it is cheaper than unleaded petrol.

WEAKNESSES:

Not good as a combustable fuel for vehicle propulsion.

OPPORTUNITIES:

Promotion of heath benefits of Coke vs Petrol would be great advertising for Coke.

Electric cars eliminate the need for wide-spread petrol use thus increasing market share.

THREATS:

Bio-fuels.

Coke vs Water

I suppose it is easy to pick on something like petrol and make wild claims like "it will never make it as a popular drink" or "the market is already saturated". But first of all, I bet that Coke is better at saturating things than petrol is. Petrol is oil-based so probably doesn't wet things as much as Coke does.

"Coke. It's wetter than petrol"

But what about water? How does coke compare to that? First of all: water has caused more floods in the last two years in Australia than Coke has, by order of magnitude. The Queensland floods last year and the NSW floods this year were almost entirely brought on by rain (water). Coke has never led to cases of meningococcal or widespread illness in the community the way that water has. And between 2002 to 2012 The Coca Cola Company gave a total of $690 million to charity (Source: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/foundation.html) compared to the $0 that water gave. Some drink.

Some things you didn't know about water:

1) Roughly 70% of an adult's body is made up of water

We already have ENOUGH, drink Coke instead!

2) A healthy person can drink about 48 cups of water per day

GREEDY, wasteful.

3) Drinking too much water too quickly can lead to water intoxication

It's dangerous

4) Water plays a big role in controlling the Eath's temperature

Don't drink water and contribute to global warming!

(Source: http://www.allaboutwater.org/water-facts.html)

Final Thought

I'll leave you with one final thought when you think about Coke as a drink. No one is out there burning coke to power their vehicles. No one flushes Coke down the toilet. Coke is a liquid which is designed to be consumed and enjoyed, specifically for your enjoyment. Not something that floods Queensland or snubs charities.

You need to think about the choices you make in life and my recommendation this time is simple: drink Coke. It's fantastic!

Chris Sharkey on Sunday Business with Ross Greenwood

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:25:56 -0000

On Sunday I was lucky enough to be featured on the Sunday Business program on 2GB with Ross Greenwood and Charlie Brown. The interview was about my time creating Stayz, entrepreneurship in Australia and, of course, Bislr. If you would like to listen to the segment of the program with me in it, you can do so below:

Bislr websites you should look at

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:18 -0000

Now that Bislr is giving out invites to the beta version, we are starting to see a lot of great web businesses being produced with the system. I thought I would take some time and show you some of my personal favourites.

1. The Usual Suspects Band (www.theusualsuspectsband.com.au)

Starting off promoting a single band, Caitlin Benetatos and Gus Stephenson now promote over 20 bands in the Sydney corporate and wedding markets. Their main website is Funkified Entertainment, but they have started to use Bislr to create individual websites for their various bands. These include The Usual Suspects, Ellipsis Jazz Band, Salt String Quartet and several others.

By having individual websites for their bands, Funkified are able to show things such as: photos of the band performing live, audio of the band playing, individual set list, history of the band, details of booking the band and a blog about the various events the band perform at.

The individual sites help generate more leads by ranking well in the search engines, showing up for searches for this specific band, and catering to those who would rather book a band directly rather than deal with an agency.

The site also gives the bands an individual identity. You really have to see these bands live to understand how good they are. I have been to several events featuring Funkified bands and can't emphasise how entertaining they are. My favourite is when The Usual Suspects play "The Power of Love" by Huey Louis and the News, but don't tell anyone.

2. Just Dreaming Surf Safaris (www.justdreamingsurfsafaris.com)

Just Dreaming Surf Safaris uses photos, videos, testimonials and great copy to promote its surfing tours in West Java, Indonesia. Some of the photos are just spectacular and the videos, while scary to me, probably excite surfers in the way I get excited when I have a full night of programming ahead of me!

One thing you need before booking a trip is lots of details, and pages like the "what you get" contain absolutely everything you need to go on the trip. The only thing it doesn't include is whether you can come along and NOT surf, just for the great scenery and company!

3. Dixon Park Surf Lifesaving Club (dixonpark.bislr.com)

Often smaller organisations which do not have a lot of spare time or funding for their website, suffer by having out-of-date or unprofessional websites. The great thing about Bislr is that it can allow these organisations to set up something which is quick, informative and easy-to-update and this is exactly what Dixon Park surf lifesaving club have done. The website contains a dearth of information about the club and is updated regularly.

4. Your business on Bislr?

Are you happy with your business's website? Is it easy to update? Does it have social media integration, email marketing, analytics, and a contact management system built in? Can you add youtube videos, maps, audio, image galleries and other features just by dragging them onto your page? If not, you need to go and sign up for a Bislr invite. It is free, and I will help you get started.

Get a Bislr invite now

Gardening tips with your pal Chris Sharkey

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:54:00 +0000

Running a successful inner-city garden is not something to be taken lightly. In this go-go 24/7 world, fresh herbs are almost as important as water to sustain basic life. Without a regular supply of parsley and chives in your diet, you risk a certain early death.

Below are some instructions for how to set up your own pot to grow things in with a fresh supply of fertiliser brought to you by our garden friends, the worms. The idea is that the old fruit will attract worms who will break it down and fertilise the dirt.

Instructions:

Clear an area in dirt where worms live. Worms are shy and tend to live below the ground. They are allergic to shell fish and all natural light (including strobe light) so under the ground is the safest place for them to live.
Get a Styrofoam or other container and stab a bunch of holes in the bottom. The holes are for the worms to get in and for drainage. If you are having trouble stabbing the holes, just pretend the container is a Camry driver.
Next, grab all your old and gross fruit from your fridge. I like to keep a supply of old and rotting fruit in my fridge at all times, but if you don't have any just put some fresh fruit in there and wait 1-2 weeks. Wrap the fruit in newspaper (or in my case the Inner-West courier) and put it into your planting container.
Ok now fill it up with dirt. I chose to use organic potting mix (Note: organic things are a scam).
Finally, plant your things. This time I planted baby spinach. See pictures of other things I have planted in the gallery above.

Well I hope you enjoyed my first gardening tip. It makes me happy when my girlfriend Nicole and I water it each day.

Creating Pong in Coffeescript using the HTML5 Canvas

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:14:00 +0000

On Friday night I thought I'd have a play with Coffeescript's classes and the HTML5 Canvas. The result was a simple Pong game.

The source code is available here: https://github.com/chrissharkey/pong