luckykaa

I've had an annoying cold since Monday. This is the main problem.  Everything else just feels bad because I'm not in a mood to deal.

Work continues to go rather slowly without any concrete targets.  I really want to have some designs and specs and actual targets.  It's been three and a half weeks and we've started nothing.

Finding lack of useful utensils annoying.  I need a knife that actually cuts!  Or a knife sharpener.  Landlady is a bit of a hoarder.  That's why there are 7 pepper mills and no salt.  (Also 2 couple of bread makers that are never used and 2 irons for some reason).   The result is there's a lot of stuff but never what I actually need.

Landlady asked me to install a printer for her.  It was a freebie from her neighbour because hers was out of colour ink.  Most of us just buy a new cartridge.  Didn't come with cables or installer.  Landlady's PC is on its last legs.  Windows should not take 5 minutes to shut down.  Also found HP's installation software horribly slow.  Printer requires ethernet connection to set up wireless.  After waiting an hour and a half or so for the whole thing to install, it only printed in black and white.  Checked the ink cartridge.  No colour.

Spent far too long today getting PC to connect to internet  Is a bit of a faff anyway because my room is in the opposite corner for the house from the router - low speeds and frequent lost connection.  But even so - I was just getting the "connection issues" wireless message where it refused to give me an IP address.

Had some leftover spinach.  Googled for interesting recipes to use it up.  Saw a nice cannelloni recipe on BBC Good food. Put it in saucepan.  Knocked saucepan on the floor. As expected, there's no useful utensil to scoop up.  Also have no remaining ingredients.  Sigh.  Off to supermarket.

And LJ's been down all week so been unable to complain about it properly.  I'd switch to Dreamwidth or something but I refuse to let myself be forced into an action that would effectively legitimise the attack.

So, Christmas turned out not too bad.  Was at parents' friends place and she has space!  Was also round the corner from bearhaus so invated there for randomness. 

Christmas haul included new DMs.  Same as the old ones except newer, and with tread.  Also received new jumper, a wallet, some whiskey, some magnetic ball things and many many socks.  Played buckaroo with nephew.  Decided it's a silly game.  Ate world's biggest ever Turkey!!!!  With bacon and stuffing.  Played Apples to Apples with family and friends.  Drank lots. 

Boxing day I did as little as possible.  Went to see family and friend again and ate the world's biggest piece of beef!  Watched Upstairs Downstairs.  Drank less. 

And today I went into town.  I wanted to buy various bits and pieces for costume.  I found a ray gun and that was about it.  Am also tempted by new phobile.  The HTC wildfire looks tasty but they were sold out.  So that was a bit of a failure.  Will try again soonish.

And have now run out of things to do.  Well, wil be doing the long put-off house tidy.   Need to see people at some point.

Right now am making leek and onion soup.  Yum.

tictactoepony's birthday party.

Went to Laser Quest.

Shot lots of people

Discovered optimal tactic seemed to be walk straight at people, point gun, aim with both hands and shoot until either a hit registers or you get hit.  Guns are inaccurate enough that walking into the line of fire doesn't mean certain death.

Thing is, you lose 3-5 points for being shot.  You gain 10 points for shooting someone else  Aggression is rewarded.  Taking cover behind scenery works reasnably well but shoulders are targets.

followed up by going to Wetherspoons, and discovered my increasing commitment to ethical food (i.e. Happy Meat, or I'll pick the veggie option) does rather limit choice but the vegie roast they had was quite tasty. 

So, quick update while my laundry dries...

Went to Tim Burton Exhibition.  Was probably worth it just for the cute animated short - Vincent. Am tempted to make an Edward Scissorhands costume at some point or a mad hatter one.  Sadly no photos were allowed.  

Also had a look at ACMI.  Decent enough movie museum.

Bought a Myki card for the trams.  Similar to Oyster except Oyster works and these are really flaky.

Pub crawl.  Started off with a piss up in a brewery.  Directions were rubbish.  Stops out in the sticks aren't all labelled on the route map.  Brewery directions don't mention stop numbert.  Just the name of an adjacent street.  Eventualy got there.  They did a sampler platter - 4 smallish (third of a pint?) glasses on a wooden board, each with a different beer.  Nice idea.  4 very different beers. 

Followed up with the Lambs Go Barrrr.  Bad pub.  Huge selection of bottled beers from around the world.  Chocolate porter was interesting.

Apple/Pear Cider in Mrs. Parma's.  Pub #4 was Penny Blue.  By the time I left there were only 4 of us.  Then there were three.  I'm sure the others went on to the next pub after I left.  

Feet are really killing me.  Am going to spend as much of the con as possible sitting down.

The pub closest to me has recently been refurbished and reopened as The Dyke.  They've spruced it up and it looks like they've made it a little more Gastropubesque. 

I actually think this is a shame. 

It's not that I liked the Dyke Tavern.  It was a grotty place full of the type of rough bloke I didn't really feel comfortable around.  It was also kinda tatty. 

But the thing is, the clientele liked it.  They wanted that sort of a place.  It fitted a niche.  It served decent enough beer and food and had a dart board and a pool table.  I didn't need to go there.  The rough blokes who like that sort of place all went there.  Now a place they liked has been changed for the benefit of a more middle class crown (which would nominally include me).  The darts board and pool table are gone.  More tables for the fancy restaurant have been added.  I can't help but feel we've stolen something from them.

The problem with sitting on a train for a couple of hours a day and not going dancing or doing trapeze or even walking to and from work each day is that I've been getting a bit podgy.  So I'm trying to cut down on calories. 

The maths:

Daily calorie intake for a man is about 2550.  Now this is just an average.  I'm sitting down all day so it's probably closer to 2100.  Fat people eat more than thin people without gaining weight, and a pound of fat burns a few calories just by itself.  The point being that just be reducing calorie intake, or increasing calorie expenditure, the body will eventually reach an equilibrium position.  Fat is a highly efficient energy storage unit (3500 kCals per lb) so this would take time.  Mathematically it would take an infinite amount of time because we're looking at a convergence but the real world isn't quite that well regulated.

Ideally then, If I avoid the equivalent of a mars bar a day, or do some light exercise for an hour a day, I'd burn of a pound every 2 weeks. 

And this is where things get complicated.  And also slightly surprising.  There are more calories in the healthy looking crunch cereal I had this morning than the sugary crunchy nut cornflakes I had last night.  100g of rice has 350 calories which is more than that in a mars bar (granted that's a lot of rice and the rice is probably better for you).  Adding 30g of cheese to my pasta will increase the calorie count by 100.  I have no idea how much the difference is between the healthy option at work is and the normal option.

Long and the short of it is I have no idea how to accurately gauge my intake.  So i figure I don't really care.  I'll just take some ad hoc exercise and snack on fruit rather than chocolate.  I would let you know how it goes but I have no intention of being a fitness fanatic.  Still, would be nice to be below 13 stone by September.

Baked potato with blue cheese, sausages, mushrooms and courgettes, accompanied by wine and an episode of Sharpe makes me a very happy kitten.

Pancakes!

I really like pancakes.  They're tasty, and they're really good fun to make!  Something about beating the batter and gettting a nice hot frying pan where the butter sizzles and pouring out just enough batter and flipping the pancakes to end up with such a fine and tasty dish. 

Food questions for all you foodies:

I seem to have developed a taste for soup recently.  Anyone have any suggestions for interesting soups I can make? 

I bought a packet of Miso and found that that's about enough for 300 gallons of Miso soup.  What else can I use the stuff for? 

Same problem with carrots.  I only needed one.  Local Tesco only sells one and two tonne packets. 

So, I went to the cobblers thumb in Brighton./  One of many delightfully quirky venues.

They had a DJ. with quite and eclectic music collection.  It was when Bill Bailey's Dr Qui came on that I decided this is my sort of place.