Catan-mania!

Shhh... don't tell anyone, but we're kind of hooked on a slightly nerdy board game.

We blame our pal Tim, who gave Settlers of Catan as a gift to his wife Fleur's family for Christmas. They all started playing and couldn't stop. Then Adrian arrived in Oz and stayed at their house for a week in February, and played Catan all week. Instant convert.

Dayle was a little more skeptical - only slightly - but in less than the time it takes to play a game (like an hour or two), she was a Catan junkie as well. Soon there were many Settlers of Catan afternoons and evenings happening between the four of us, meanwhile we probably should have been out enjoying the beach, or strolling through the eucalyptus forests. (But whatever! We didn't come back to Oz for beach or exotic trees... right?) And then our friends (and now housemates) Megan and Justin came to visit, and we spread the Catan love to them too (and have since hooked their friends). It's like a disease or something!

Rufus the cat and Fleur face off

So, in case you're looking for a new pastime, and going to the movies/watching sports/going bowling just isn't doing it for you anymore, we'd have to say it's time to check out Settlers of Catan. It's nerdy enough that we had to buy ours in Mind Games, that store that's filled with Magic Cards and stuff. But it's also really fun! It's something like Risk, in that you need to expand your empire turn by turn, but it's a little like Monopoly where you build houses and hotels (well, settlements and cities, but close enough) once you collect enough "resources". There's a lot of strategy and a lot of trading and shifty deals happening. And did we mention it can get pretty nasty?

Anyway, it seems there are others out there like us - Tim has discovered there's a somewhat-secret Catan club at his workplace! And when Adrian discovered and downloaded the iPhone game for Catan, it was the best $5 he'd ever spent. No more boredom on 2-hour train rides, laundromat waits, or evenings when there's nothing on TV. We think you should check it out, if you haven't already....

Rufus contemplates his next move

Surfers Paradise Hit List #1: Our Favourite Cafe

We've been itching to tell everyone all about our very favourite coffee joint in Surfers ever since we first visited it in May -- it's a real gem of a place and totally unlike anything else in Surfers Paradise. Hidden away on the second floor of an open-air arcade (a type of mall), by a language school, a Japanese restaurant (Yamasakura, which by the way, is also awesome!), a few real estate agencies, and an internet cafe, is a great little spot called Black Coffee Lyrics.

It's fairly new and just off the main strip, and we might not have ever just stumbled across it on our own, had someone in a local shop not told us about it. It's just the sort of cafe we would dream of creating ourselves: with exposed brick walls and full of antique couches, vintage wallpaper, rustic wooden shelves, mismatched old chairs, and old books and board games galore! Not to mention, they play all of our favourite bands on the stereo and make a killer chai latte. It's all about the details: even the outside is done up with wooden shuttered windows, and each hot drink comes with one of those adorable tourist-souvenir spoons from a far-off place to stir your sugar in with. So from our very first latte date on the couches next to an antique birdcage (with some sort of mangy fake bird inside), we were in love.

Sure, Black Coffee Lyrics is more than a tad hipster, and it's definitely the kind of place you'd find on Ossington in Toronto, or tucked away in a tiny laneway in Melbourne. It is even run by a team of 20-something hipster dudes in skinny jeans, who must know we're real suckers for old furniture and good coffee and tunes. We can't help but love the place -- and just want to bring everyone we know there too!

We've been happy to see it get busier and busier as the weeks go by -- in fact, on one cold night we stopped in for a coffee, it so was packed full of hipsters in giant glasses and scarves swilling whisky we couldn't get a seat. We're just happy that such a cool place is enjoying so much popularity in a town where overpriced, ordinary seafood restaurants and cafe chains are the norm. Love!

Even the outside is cute.

Fancy some Scrabble?