Zorac's LiveJournal

Lasagne + alcohol + Lion King = a much happier zorac

Anyway, it's invent-a-meme time. We watched Channel 4's 100 Greatest Musicals programme over Christmas, and inevitably it leads to a meme:

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Phew! 30% (possibly a bit higher, but if I'm not sure I've seen it, it doesn't really count) - there are a lot of the "classics" that I haven't seen, and plenty of things on that list that I would like to see at some point.

Short-haul flights are so much fun. Not. As mentioned earlier, my flight out was delayed a little. The one back was worse - pretty much as soon as I got to the gate, they flashed up "delayed 45 minutes...". Three quarters of an hour after the scheduled departure time, we were still sitting in the departure lounge, and the message said the same (and that pisses me off as much as the delay itself - I can understand how bad weather and striking baggage handlers can cause delays and there's not a huge amount that the airline can do about it, but how much effort does it take to update a sign or make an announcement so that we, the cattlepassengers know what's going on?). Eventually we were bussed out to the 'plane (propellers - how quaint!) and I noted its registration code was G-JEDL - certainly the force is not strong with this one. We finally arrived in Birmingham over an hour and a half late (and without so much as a complimentary drink), by which point it was too late to catch a train to anywhere useful (my admittedly poor initial planning did allow for up to an hour of delayage), and rather than trying to find a taxi willing to take me to Oxford (doubtless at vast expense) I ended up checking into a hotel for a few hours before catching an early train this morning. As I'm sure my fellow Brits have guessed, the railway companies jumped at this opportunity to prove that they can be every bit as useless as the airlines - the direct train to Oxford wasn't, and the one to Coventry was late, then later, finally arrived, sat around for a few minutes after I boarded before expiring completely. Fortunately the second attempt was more successful, and the second-leg train failed to deliver the coup-de-grace by being sufficiently late that I still managed to catch it.

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Yes, it's airport internet kiosk time again. They also have WiFi access, but that's £4 for half an hour, whereas using this is 10p per minute. Interestingly, it seems that the WiFi would happily allow me to send ping packets out - clearly I need an IP-over-ICMP tunnelling protocol which would allow me to cunningly get free internet access. Although possibly this is is of dubious legality.

Needless to say, they haven't actually announced the delay (despite the fact that we should have started boarding quarter of an hour ago), and merely put it up on the departure boards. On the bright side, if I was flying to Chicago today rather than Toulouse, I'd be delayed in excess of seven hours instead of just one.

I'm off to the south of France for Xmas with the parents. Hopefully it will be at least a degree or two warmer there. I'll be back online in the office on Monday. Thanks to all of you who I've had cards from: addedentry, frayer, expetesso, heidi8, hermorrine, akahannah, imc, jiggery_pokery, kay_taylor, maggie_malfoy, nmalfoy, sophie10, wednesdayschild & huskyteer.

And for those of you who haven't seen it, here's my fandom card design - in Glorious Technicolor!

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The last few days in brief:

Thursday: Saw Return of the King. It was good.
Friday: Made t00by faces at hermorrine via webcam when she wasn't looking. Well, except that she was...
Saturday: Went Xmas shopping in London - traffic very light, Oxford St. not really any busier than a normal Saturday. Found many presents, then had lunch with my aunt in the National Portrait Gallery - a very-nice rooftop-level restaurant with excellent views across the London skyline. Did more shopping, then came home and collapsed.
Sunday: Did the last of my shopping in Oxford, including sever tons of Lush stuff. Saw RotK again with kay_taylor and justamephit. Still good.
Monday: Had birthday. Felt older (OK, not really).

So, I went into London to see Peter Pan at the Savoy Theatre with other t00bs.

We all turned up and waited outside for them to start letting people into the theatre. After a few minutes of waiting, with no signs posted or any word from staff other than to someone who actually went to the box office window to pick up a ticket, we discovered that <grolsch>this play is not ready yet</grolsch>. ARGH!

So, instead of watching a pantomime, we spent the evening in the pub drowning our sorrows and indulging in t00by discussions. In partuclar, the whole (not) explaining the true meaning of squick to those who didn't already know. Via the method of interprative dance, of course.

Whilst still an enjoyable evening, it was six hours of travelling to not get what I expected. Plus my DSL has been migrated and is not working at present, so I am posting this over a dialup connection.

Here endeth the woe - I'm off to bed.

Examples of recent t00bularity:

1. Remember to check public transport availability before booking flights
   So, I booked my flights to the south of France to spend Christmas with the parentals around a month ago. Last night I got around to checking train times, and discovered that there are no trains from Birmingham to Oxford after my flight gets in. Arg! I am left with two options: train to London, coach to Oxford - this is doable and in fact gets me home at a not too indecent hour (provided everything runs on time) - or a taxi from the airport all the way home (I feel my wallet melting at the prospect of that).

2. The lid stays firmly on the cocktail shaker, but the cap doesn't
   A couple of days ago, I was experimenting with home-grown cocktails again. I know my shaker holds together well (indeed, it's sometimes difficult to get the bottom and top apart afterwards), but one does need to hold the cap that goes over the strainer in place while shaking. Can you guess what happens next, boys and girls?
   Corrollary: Experimenting with making your cocktails pretty colours does not necessarily result in tasty flavours. Curaco + grenadine does make a fine purple colour, but not a flavour I'm in a hurry to repeat.

3. When planning to make chilli, it helps to buy chilli powder
   Er... yes.
   Corrollary: The stuff in that strange bag in the back of the cupboard labelled "Chilli" is probably much hotter than the mild chilli powder you normally get.

Sundays are strange. They have this weird way of just disappearing into thin air, and I find myself totally unable to account for much of the time that has passed. Admittedly, today I didn't actually crawl out of bed until noon, which really isn't a good start. I headed into town to do some shopping which I cunningly forgot to do yesterday, and got some lunch while I was there, but was back not long after two. Somehow, the six hours since then have gone by without me actually doing very much. I finished sorting out Christmas cards, and have the first one ready to go (folk, on the grounds of having a last posting date of tomorrow - the rest will follow later this week - so let me know your address now if I don't have it and you want a card), but that certainly didn't take all that time. Yes, I checked email and LJ, and played a little MAME, but...

I suspect the laws of relativity are to blame. Perhaps my flat has been zooming around at 99% of the speed of light or somesuch. Yes, that must be it. *t00bs off to work on RS stuff*

Last night I had the last cocktails of the year at You Know Where with malachan and owlman, taking advantage of the new happy-hour menu. After that, it was up the road to Pepper's for some food (we vote them the best burgers this side of the Atlantic). As this left me a good way from the centre of town, I decided not to pick up my ticket for Return of the King, and instead to sort that out this morning. Oops.

I don't trust the Odeon website for ordering - the one time I tried, it managed not to actually book any tickets (although thankfully, it neglected to debit my card either), but I did have a quick look to check availability this morning, discovering that the Magdalen St showing was already sold out, but the two screens on George St had seats available. So a hurried into town and queued up for the box office, only to find that both showings were now sold out. Woe! Woe!

At this point, food was called for, so I consoled myself with pizza - during which I recalled that I'd had an email earlier in the week letting me know that RoTK was also showing at the Phoenix Picture House (a mostly art-house cinema, but also some mainstream movies, albeit usually second-run). I went expecting them to be sold out for opening night too, but happily this was not the case, so I will be seeing LoTR on the 17th after all! *bounces*

Ack. I meant to post this earlier, but I lost track of time while designing Christmas cards. Anyway, I am in great need of going to see The Return of the King on opening night (Wednesday 17th), but going to London to do so is highly impractical, so I'll be heading to the Odeon in Oxford instead. Times are 19:15 at Magdalen St. (my preference) or 18:45/19:00 at George St. I'm going to get tickets tonight (Friday), if anyone else would like to come, then drop me a comment and I can get you a ticket either tonight or some time tomorrow (assuming there still some left).