Official Coles Trip #7

Sorry for the slight delay (you impatient bastards) but without further ado, I bring you, Coles; V7.

So, once again, it was a record week for participants bringing the budget up to a healthy $45. I’m pretty sure that could feed someone for a week pretty comfortably in some conservative way, but in our case, it satisfies 9 starving uni students waiting for Elec, and that’s good enough for me.

Attendees: Ben, Jack, Joel, Jordan, Kieran, Kieren, Nick, Robbie and myself. (2 lines of names, just.)

Purchase Inventory:
In order of appearances on the docket…

1. 2x 2L YLC Juice (Yet again, Orange and Apple.)
2. White Sandwich Bread 700g
3. Coles SB White Bread 650g
4. Coles SB 20 Paper Plates
5. TNCC Forbidden Fruit 180g
6. TNCC Squirms 180g
7. Scotts 6 Pack Meat Pies 900g (We did pay a slight premium here for a ‘brand’ name. crazy huh?)
8. YLC Chicken Nuggets 400g (You know, there is a 750g version available for a mere 12 dollars as opposed to the 5 dollars we pay for 400g. Just think about that for a second. Who comes up with these prices!? You would have to be clinically insane to buy the 750g pack. for less money, you get more, and in a more convenient way. It boggles our minds week to week. Furthermore, surely someone has noticed this because I bet, NO ONE buys this pack, but i digress.)
9. Coles SB Frozen Party Sausage Rolls 900g
10. Coles SB Frozen Hamburger Patties 1Kg (More on this later.)
11. Coles SB Chocoalte Wafers 125g (For a mere 65c, we considered stocking up big on these, but decided it was important to test drive them first.)
12. Coles SB Assorted Family Cookies 500g
13. YLC Ultimate Choc Chip Cookies 400g (One of our all time favorites.)
14. Coles Bakery Chocolate Mudcake 500g (Marked down to 4 bucks and made of multiple kinds of chocolate; it had our names all over it.)
15. Coles SB 20 Plastic Knives (To cut the cake, of course.)
16. Coles SB 20 Plastic Spoons
17. Chilled Pepsi 2L (We all agree Coke is superior, but the price was right today for the Pepsi Co.)

Come on, you can’t tell me that’s not impressive for an afternoon at uni…
As far as details go, there’s a few things I should mention.

Firstly, I would like to say hello to Natalie who may eventually read this. After a little friendly chit chat at the counter about our trips, we were soon talking about Facebook, gave her the link to this website and even snagged a photo to post up. No doubt the team and myself consider her, our official, Coles checkout chick. Thanks Natalie.

Secondly, 9 uni students with bags are NOT ‘Toowong Coles aisles’ friendly. Perhaps one day we may need to send shopping bitches representatives so as not to totally clog up the store, but for now, it’s too much fun otherwise.

Also, there was a record number of push ups dealt out in “The Game” with everyone out to get each other and Nick getting hit up before we even got there. Check out the photos for some proof, but from memory, at least 50 or so push ups were completed in the name of humiliation and possible sickness.

Oh, we tried a few new products this week, with some successes and (epic) failures. To start with the bad, the Hamburger Patties may have had you wondering “How did you cook that up with just a microwave?”. Well, the thing is, Ben someone said they were precooked and we need only heat them. Brilliant. However, on the contrary, they were raw slabs of; I don’t even know what. Still, I’ll hold dear to my heart the moment I saw Ben take them out of the microwave (we still tried) and immediately throw them in the adjacent bin with no explanation. Apparently it was that bad.

As for the good, we were quite happy with our pies. Not only did they taste surprisingly good for something that came out of the microwave, they provided us with some entertainment. Firstly,  Ben demonstrated his legendary “Pie Sandwich” (Patent pending, I believe) which he claimed not only shielded ones hands from the excruciatingly hot pie, but also conveniently allowed sauce additives. Speaking of excruciatingly hot, our very own walking brain machine, Jack, was stupid enough to jam his finger into one of these pies. His priceless reaction had everyone doubled over in laughter.

Finally, it would be a crime not to mention the big topic of the afternoon; the sandwich press. Perhaps more accurately, our desire for one (of the flat hotplate variety of course). Just imagine the possibilities, and particularly with the microwave quickly becoming a food bottleneck, it was a hot topic.

After talks of “saving” up over a number of weeks, or splitting the cost, university cheapskateness prevailed and Nick agreed to bring in one of his own. We will all be looking forward to the coming monday to see what new wonders a flat, hot piece of iron can bring us.

Until next week, stay hungry…

(Enjoy the record number of photos.)

Official Coles Trip #6

Hello again.
This week we have for you, a very special Coles trip.

In one way, Its special simply because its being posted on the day of the trip for the first time ever!

Even more so, it was a little bigger than usual, the biggest ever to be exact. Then again, Robbie couldn’t make it and word is spreading fast, so we feel there’s yet bigger Coles trips on the horizon. I guess we’ve still got some tricks up our sleeve. Alright, here we go.

Attendees: Ben, Ezra, Jack, Kieran, Kieren, Kirsten, Nick and myself.

Food Inventory:

1. 2x YLC 2L Juice (It strikes again! Apple and orange this time.)
2. 2x YLC Frozen Chicken Nuggets 400g
3. 2x Coles SB Family Assorted Biscuits 500g (1kg of biscuits for less than the price of 500g, need I say more?)
4. YLC 2L Coffee Flavoured Milk (Tears of angels accoring to Nick)
5. Candy Lane TV Mix 400g (It’s got sultanas, licorice bullets and everyone’s favorite; nuts. Then, its all coated in chocolate. For 150g more than a block of chocolate at the same price, whats not to like?)
6. YLC Shredded Tasty Cheese 250g
7. Coles SB White Bread
8. Homestyle Large Slice White Bread (Jack’s signature)
9. Coles SB 100x Napkins
10. Fountain Sweet Chilli Sauce 250mL (It was a dollar!)
11. Allens Family Size Snakes 450g (Half a kilo of sugar in snake form for 3 dollars? Yes please!)
12. Bulla 2L Cookies and Cream Ice cream

As you can see, it’s a pretty solid haul. Infact, reading through the docket now, I’m pretty sure they never charged us for the (expensive) bread. Score! That’s $2.69 that we will be keeping in our pockets…

The more astute readers of this will note that once again, YLC Ultimate Choc Chip cookies are absent from our shopping. Coles and the team will have to have some words if this is ever to happen again in the future…

This week was a bit of a mission with such a huge group, and such small aisles. More so, on the way we finally decided to settle the score with which was is quicker to Coles; Via Hawken Drive, or By the colleges. Well, Nick and Kirsten took the win going by the colleges, however they were later disqualified due to cheating. In the end the rest of us met up with Ben and Kieren at the exact same time! (They also went by the colleges.) So, in the end we figured Hawken Drive was quicker since we lost a little time due to being gang-raped on the way. Nick however disagrees that this is the superior route due to the possibility of being violated. I dunno, you be the judge.

Anyway, we eventually got out and headed back to the uni with 7L of liquid (ice cream counts), 1.5kg of bread, a kilogram of biscuits, 800g of nuggets and similar amounts of confectionery. Thinking about the numbers like that was kinda scary.

I’m sure you can guess that we had far more food than we could really handle. Thats the way we like it. Speaking of more than we can handle, I would like to bring up another thing we indulge in of a Monday. It is tradition that Nick get stuck with at least 10 pushups in “The Game.”

What? You don’t know what The Game is? Well it’s probably because you aren’t studying Mechatronics. Regardless, if you love doing pushups in public places, like Nick, you’re missing out, I assure you.

So that’s about all for this week. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now, time for Mech study…

Oh, and to make up for one of the trips which i slacked off on the photos, I made up for it this week (in quantity, not quality). Speaking of which, we might need to upgrade our picture taking ability from the craptacular offerings of Apple…

Note, Ben’s blue hair (that’ll teach him to sleep anywhere that isn’t his house…) Also, Jack is such a machine that he codes while walking, stare in awe.

Official Coles Trip #5

Coming Soon!

(This is just a placeholder, ill get around to it…)

Official Coles Trip #4

And we’re back.

Firstly, my apologies for the significant lack of photos this time.
I’m going to go with the excuse that i was hungry and couldn’t be bothered. It won’t happen again, i swear…

Attendees: Ben, Jack, Kieren, Kirsten, Nick and myself.

Purchase Inventory:

1. 2x YLC 2L Juice (We love it how some of our favorite specials live on week to week. Although, we did have to trade the orange for apple juice this time, due to a lack of any other stock.)
2. 2x Coles SB Hotdogs (8 per pack)
3. Coles SB 24 Party Sausage Rolls (Always goes down well at under $4.)
4. Masterfoods Squeeze Tomato Sauce (To go with the BBQ from last week, now we have the set.)
5. HomeStyle Thick Slice Bread
6. Arnotts Assorted Creams (500g)
7. Candy Lane TV Mix Chocolates (400g)
8. YLC Belgian Dark Chocolate (Only 150g, but for a dollar? We couldn’t leave the store without it.)
9. The Natural Confectionery Company Squirms
10. Paper plates (We were running a little low.)

Once again I’m going to go shorthand on you and abbreviate The Natural Confectionary Company to just TNCC in future. Why? Because I’m lazy. Deal with it. (Nick will understand…)

You may notice if you actually bother to read what we bought, that our beloved YLC Ultimate Choc Chip Cookies were strangely absent from the shopping list this week. I assure you, this is no mistake.
I could go on endlessly about the unspeakable travesty that bestowed the shelves that day, or rather what didn’t.
The Ultimate cookies were sold out! (It seems others may have also discovered our secret cookie nirvana.)

Instead, to tide us over, we opted for the Assorted Creams which wasn’t a bad alternative. However I can say that I wasn’t alone in my longing for 40% of choc chips mixed with some cookie, but i digress.

Some other noteables for the week was the bread.

You will see a step up from the simple Coles SB White, to some brand name thick slice with even more breadly goodness. This was due completely to Jack.

After weeks of insisting we move up to the big time and grab some real slices to wolf down, he finally got his way. I should also add that this came at a whopping 240% of our standard bread cost, although Jack did offer to subsidise this outrageous price hike.

I think that was pretty much all from this week.
Later that day however, Ben went out and purchased a few more blocks of the 1 dollar dark chocolate block on his own coin, only to share it around during the 10am Mech lecture the next day.

We love you Ben

Official Coles Trip #3

Hello and welcome to another installment of Coles.
Coming at you, courtesy of WordPress…

This week, I have for your viewing pleasure, a picture of the very docket from this particular Coles expedition. Are you excited? I am. Lets get to it.

Attendees: Ben, Jack, Kieren, Nick and myself. (Noticing a pattern yet?)

Purchase Inventory:

Since it might not be entirely clear, ill list the items as they appear on the docket.

1. 2x YLC 2L Juice (Orange and ‘Right Start’)
2. YLC Ultimate Choc Chip Cookies
3. Coles SB White Bread (650g)
4. Wholemeal Lebanese Pita Bread (400g)
5. Coles SB Frozen (party) Pies (1Kg!)
6. Coles SB Frozen (party) Sausage Rolls (900g)
7. YLC Shredded Tasty Cheese (250g)
8. Masterfoods Squeeze BBQ Sauce (500mL, because we had to have BBQ for this one)

All this comes to a wallet busting total of just $25.23, merely 23c over budget. Nice. (We did cheat a bit by walking around with calculator in hand, like any annoying shopper should, but its still an achievement. Our lifelong dream is to spend exactly our budget. We will be sure to take pictures of that when it happens.)

Its also worth mention that we were served by Natalie. She was quite nice and friendly, even encouraging us to write some kind of complaint. It was clear she was incredibly envious of our haul and wanted to come back to UQ with us. Alas, she had to work.

Ok, onto the food.
Probably the first thing i wanted to point out was that we bought 1.9Kg of frozen goods alone, for only 5 people. It was clear that someone was going to have to take up the slack. It just so happened to be Ben, his will to make himself sick, greater than that of ours.

Then there was the drinks. You may notice we upgraded from cheap “sugar with flavoring in water” to some actual juice. This did come at a price, but when they’re selling off 2 for 5 dollars, who are we to resist?

Finally, incase you can’t figure it out from what we bought, or know first hand, the plan was to make Meat-Pie/Sausage-Roll Sandwiches/Wraps.

Oh, be sure to check out the evil look in Kieren’s eyes in the second photo. God knows what goes on in that mind of his…

Official Coles Trip #2

Yep, we’re pumping through them now.

This particular week was quite an odd one and may have some of you thinking “What the…” and naturally questioning our sanity. We set out to make Nachos, but with a twist (pun, intended). While we learnt that microwaved Twisties weren’t the best, it was yet another win for the team, and of course, Coles.

We went with the orange crush again this week, due to the incredible special of 2 for 3 dollars. Thats 5L of softdrink for 3 bucks; how could we resist?

Attendees: Ben, Jack, Kieren, Kirsten, Nick and myself.

Purchase Inventory:

1. 2x 2.5L Orange Crush
2. 2x jars of Salsa
3. 2x Doritos (nacho cheese and tasty cheese, variety, eh?)
4. Coles SB Coctail Sausages
5. 190g packet of Twisties
6. 250g YLC Shredded Cheese
7. YLC Ultimate Choc Chip Cookies
8. 20 Paper Plates

You may ask where the cookies were, the answer is we ate them before we even got back. (You can actually see Ben holding the box in one of the photos.) This has become tradition for Coles trips and will likely remain so for some time due to their unbelievably moorish nature.

In hindsight, it also became apparent that paper plates were not the best choice for greasy nachos and we ended up using double plates for some things due to seepage…
Lesson learnt.

Its also not entirely apparent from the photos, but the cocktail sausages were broken in half and ‘sprinkled’ over the ‘nachos’. Sick puppies, I know, I know…

Official Coles Trip #1

I use the word official loosely here, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

It’s partly official due to the inclusion of Ben, but mostly due to photographic proof!
First a quick run through, then pictures…

This particular week we made ourselves cheap ‘hot dogs’.
As you can see, we did quite well for ourselves and ended up with more food than we could eat, with leftovers going to the needy. (I.e. Nick took the bread to spread copious amounts of peanut butter on it for breakfast later.)

All this and we were even under budget!

Attendees: Ben, Kirsten, Jack, Robbie, Nick, Kieren and myself.

Purchase Inventory:

1. 2x 2.5L bottles of Orange Crush
2. 2x 1kg Coles “Smart Buy” Sausages
3. 2x Coles “Smart Buy” White Bread
4. 250g YLC Shredded Cheese
5. YLC Ultimate Choc Chip Cookies
6. YLC Belgian Mint Chocolate
7. YLC Belgian Milk Chocolate
8. Allens Party Mix
9. Bag of Jellybeans
10. Heinz Squeeze Tomato Sauce
11. Plastic Cups

Also, Coles “Smart Buy” will henceforth be referred to as ‘SB’ for short.

Finally! Pictures!

Coles: How It All Began…

So, onto the legend of lunch at Coles.

It all first stemmed from Ben and I discussing how we could feast for minimal cash if we could just be stuffed to walk over to Coles. So, one day while we were procrastinating in the METR room (whoo, satellite!) we took the trek, and had us a fine feast of cold sausages in bread, with 2 litres of breaka to wash it down.

Enter the semester of Elec (you love it…) and we are all stuck at uni for a few hours between Csse and that damn 4pm Elec lecture. I gathered up a posse consisting of Kieren, Jack, Robbie and myself then set out to see if we could replicate past success. (Unfortunatly Ben was unable to make it this time.)

You could say we started small, coming away with but a few things. Between us, we managed to muster:

• A bag of Jubes
• A bag of Licoriche Bullets
• A Box of “You’ll love Coles” Ultimate Cookies
• 12pack of “You’ll love Coles” Chocolate Custard

I should also note that in future, I will refer to the “You’ll love Coles” Brand as simply “YLC”, due not only to the frequency of such purchases, but also the validity of the statement.

There may have also been other things, such as spoons and maybe more food, but such details elude me after so long.

Now while it may not seem much, the custard proved to be an unwieldy beast, bringing many of us to our limits. In the end, Jack consumed but a mere 2 tubs, with myself on 4 and Kieren downing a massive 5 tubs. As luck would have it, Nick stumbled across our little party and promptly snapped up one of Jacks uneaten tubs.

The next week, we regrouped.
Same time, same mission, bigger numbers.

Now, every Monday, a select few make the trek across Hawken drive to the nirvana of nourishment that is Coles. Each of us with a hunger to tame, and a common goal:
To feast; on a fiver.

Trip details to come…

Greetings

Hello everybody.

Welcome to my little space on the internet until such time as Ben fixes Nestermix.com for me. (no it doesn’t go anywhere and my limited web skills mean i refuse to do anything about it myself, for now.)

I guess you’re asking, “Why Gavin, oh god, why do you have a blog!?”.

Well, it feels dirty, i know, but the answer consists of 3 parts.

1. Jack has a blog, and Jack is probably the smartest person I know, so if I do what he does, that makes me smarter by association. It’s simple (infallible) logic and obviously the only way i will boost my GPA.
2. Right now I should be doing Elec2004 work, and of course, i would rather repeatedly slam my head against concrete, which is somewhat akin to writing a blog.
3. We need somewhere to record the awesomeness that is our Monday trips to Coles, not just for history’s sake, but so that others may look up to us as the gods we are…

Ok, thats enough procrastination for now, stay tuned as i post up the backlog of coles stories in the coming days (maybe)…