I spent last weekend in Chicago, my last visit to the old chez hermorrine, hopefully I'll be visiting the new chez hermorrine sometime next month, time off and flights permitting. ( Collapse ) On the way out, I had a nice selection of ground-based delays: the bus into Oxford got stuck in traffic forcing me to catch a later coach to Heathrow which had to skip the M25 and head through London's suburbia. This just left me enough time to check in and take a much delayed (and extended) lunch break before I was due at the gate. We then proceeded to get stuck in traffic on the taxiways for the best part of half an hour before take off. On the plus side, I was through immigration and customs and out front of the airport in less than ten minutes from arriving at the gate at O'Hare.

The weekend itself was mostly full of movies ( Collapse ), strange (but good) American food and generally Quality Time - see hermorrine's entry for more details. We also got to talk some things through on person rather than on the 'phone or via Y!M. The trip back was rather more straightforward, despite being laden down with several tons of Mountain Dew and Reese's. Spent the rest of Monday jet-lagged and resisting temptation to go to bed too early.

Back to work yesterday (albeit from home in the morning as there were builders doing work who needed access to my flat), but clearly the jet lag is still at large - yesterday I went to run my bath to discover I'd forgotten to turn the immersion back on again after being away - and then failed to do so properly. Today I went to cook my dinner only to remember that I hadn't been able to get ingredients at Sainsbury's yesterday (they only had large packs of beef, pork and turkey mince, and using lamb mince in bolognese has unpleasant side effects). Fortunately, I actually had something other than ice-cream in my freezer for once.

In case you hadn't realised just how virulent the SoBig-F email virus is, our virus scanner logs show that we've found more than twice as many copies of SoBig-F in the last week as we found all viruses in total for the preceding year.

Last night's movie was A Knight's Tale, a film I knew was going to be fun the first time I saw it - when Queen's We Will Rock You starts up, it manages not to be incongruous with the medieval setting, and it takes you a while to realise that the amassed peasants (and indeed nobles) are stamping, clapping and singing along. This interweaving of the modern and the historical continues throughout the film to good effect.

Re-watching that was inspired by my re-reading of Tamora Pierce's swords and sorcery novels - some of the later of which feature jousting. I've been reading these books for the best part of twenty years - they are "Junior Fiction", aimed at a slightly older age group than Harry Potter - and the three Tortall quartets continue to be among my all-time favourite books. Happily, I can see from Ms. Pierce's site that she has plenty more books planned for the next few years.

Have been quoted by the (not so) mysterious somebodies.

D00d! It appears that the Romans committed the unforgivable fashon crime of wearing socks with sandals.

I have so lost any respect I ever had for them.

Watched The Shawshank Redemption this evening. It remains in my estimation one of the greatest movies ever made - if for no other reason then because it's a film that I can watch whatever my mood, and always get something out of it. The film manages - eventually - to be feel-good without restoring to romance or sentimentality, and puts you through an emotional grinder along the way. There seems to be a huge amount of plot and character crammed into it, and yet at the same time the pace is leisurely, never rushed. It never puts a foot wrong, and it seems a shame that none of its seven Oscar® nominations produced a statuette - Morgan Freeman in particular was robbed in my opinion. It does have popular acclaim, though - both IMDb's Top 250 films and the top 100 movie list on Channel 4 a few months back had it in the number two spot, behind The Godfather and Star Wars respectively. Oh, and it serves as a reminder that Stephen King can write more than just trashy horror tomes...

Every year, Sir Richard Branson (he of Virgin fame) has an open garden in aid of charity. Every year, I mean to go along as his house is about fifteen minutes walk from my flat and I'm, well, curious. Every year, I forget, so this time I made an extra-special effort.

So, yesterday morning, I caught the bus up the road and paid my four pounds to the British Red Cross to get in and have a look around. Descriptions of the Branson home as a mansion are misnomers - it's a big house, but no more than that. The grounds, however, are extensive - swimming pool, tennis court, cricket pitch, etc - and the gardens feature a large lake and plenty of waterways. Round the back of the lake I came across a bramble patch - and who am I to resist ripe blackberries? I'm sure the multi-billionaire won't miss a couple. Coming back towards the marquee, I noticed a something attached to a tree-stump:

Dear Harry,

We have to figure out how to rescue Hermione, and quick! Meet me at 3 o'clock this afternoon outside Hagrid's House.

Ron

Needless to say, I was somewhat "Huh?", but on browsing the stalls, I soon discovered that this must be part of the Harry Potter-themed treasure hunt. Needless to say, t00b that I am, I promptly paid up the entry fee, slapped on a name badge and set of with pen and paper to beat those darned kids to complete the hunt first. Mostly it was just a case of following the simple clues to find a picture, sometimes with an extra question (e.g. How many brothers and sisters does Ron have?). The weirdest bit was the question about which friend Harry goes skateboarding with. Attached to the half-pipe, I found a picture of a certain house elf. (Challenge: Write a Harry/Dobby Sk8r Boi fic)

But wait! The Potterification of my day was not yet over. Later on in the afternoon, I come out of the Westgate shopping centre in Oxford to be confronted by a bunch of owls! It seems a local owl sanctuary was soliciting for donations. Sadly, there was no Hedwig, but they did have a convincing Pigwidgeon. After that, it was off to Office World to find a replacement for my disintegrating desk chair. This time, they did have the one I wanted in stock, so had a nice heavy box to lug home. Last time, I got an end-of-line one, so it was the display model that I took home, fully assembled - this made it rather easier do wheel down the road, onto the bus and into the wheelchair spot for the ride home.

Update: Read more about the treasure hunt at The Leaky Cauldron.

Happy Birthday hermorrine!

*great big hugs'n'smooches*

OK, is it just hermorrine and me, or is Y!M misbehaving for other people? It seems to have developed the intensely annoying habit of randomly and silently dropping messages in the middle of conversations. It started during the Mother Of All Power-Cuts, so it might be related, but the problem hasn't yet been fixed.

mark_rigby_jones:

Well, the excessive heat continues to ... er ... continue. I'm not sure exactly how hot it is, as my Galileo thermometer only measures up to 27°C and has been off the scale for weeks (although it could be hotter - Mum's reported temperatures up to 41°C in the shade at their place in the south of France). Thankfully, my freezer is well stocked with Ben & Jerry's from the last time that Sainsbury's had a sale, so I have been able to do something to combat the heat. I've been largely inactive (outside of work, at any rate) this week - reading books and watching DVDs are two activities requiring little effort and hence suitable for the current climate.

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I had a letter from my credit card company this morning asking me to call them regarding unusual activity on my account. It turns out that someone has been trying to use a counterfeit card with my details on it to purchase computer equipment. Thankfully, they got the name of the bank wrong, so it has been picked up and the card cancelled (snippety-snip - I should get a replacement next week). You can be sure that I'll be checking my next statement very carefully, though...

I happened to spy this newspaper from a distance, and all I could clearly see was the large H/H picture, and the main headline at the bottom of the page. Needless to say, I had to investigate further:

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