Zorac's LiveJournal

If book!Gollum used to be a hobbit, then movie!Gollum used to be a Yoda.

That is all.

This posting was brought to you by the Rigby-Jones Family Insanity Engine (Pat. Pending)

Well, that's Christmas day over for another year. We all got up rather late, so after breakfast it was all hands to panic stations to sort out the turkey in my clearly under-equipped kitchen: No string to truss it? Try some cotton from a sewing kit! No skewer to keep the flap over the stuffing in place? Matches (decapitated, of course)! By the time that was sorted, it was time to retrieve presents from beneath my hobbit-sized Christmas tree. A good selection of loot - various eatables and drinkables, some kitchen equipment, a magnetic sculpture, a complete set of Hitchhikers' books, an umbrella and a photo of the original Star Wars cast looking hilariously posed.

We then did some improv jazz carols before the final stage of Kitchen Chaos and sitting down to our traditional Christmas dinner - turkey, sausage, bacon, roast potatoes and parsnips, carrots and broccoli with plenty of gravy and cranberries, followed (after a significant pause) by Mum's home-made Christmas pud and lashings of rum butter. A few 'phone calls to the rest of the family and it was time to veg out in front of the telly for a bit of Frank Capra - how much more Christmas can you get?

After the film, we had a game of Cluedo (Mrs. White in the Dining Room with the Rope, for those who care), before getting our second wind with some turkey and cranberry rolls, more drinks and a bit of Gilbert, Sullivan and Leigh. Oh, and some Christmas Cake - a few problems there, as Mum was unable to get hold of any ordinary marzipan in France, so that on our cake is ... pink ...

Having a fun night in, doing the French Christmas Eve tradition of the thirteen desserts (not as belly-bursting as it sounds) accompanied by a good selection of alcohol. Watched a classic musical (White Christmas with our traditional Christmas eve dinner (freshly cooked ox tongue with Cumberland sauce). After that we moved onto Jenga - a game that we bizarrely seemed to get better at the more we drank. The rest of the evening moved on to various discussions including the evil of the RIAA and the death of quality music, plus our formative films (apparently Dirty Dancing, The Lost Boys and The Rocky Horror Picture Show - now there’s a selection...)

Anyway, best wishes to you all!

Thankyou for all the birthday greetz! This years gift list: Slippers (although not from the expected giver), Jenga, Toffee, HMV voucher and a nifty Makeshift Hamper in a shoebox ;-) Had lunch at Pierre Victoire before the movie (although a somewhat under-the-weather Dad sadly had to pass on the meal) - another nice one: Parma ham and mozzarella parcels with a red pesto sauce, a very nice roast beef, and a chocolate orange mouse almost as nice as mine (must post the recipe some day).

This evening, I had a Tarot reading from my sister - actually quite interesting. Like horoscopes, the meaning is very much in the eye of the beholder (to mix a metaphor), but without the instant "but how can 1/12th of the world have the same day" dismissal. Reading (AFAIR) Page of Pentacles, Seven of Pentacles, Knight of Wands, Page of Cups, Nine of Cups, Ten of Cups, Chariot, Ace of Swords, King of Wands, Moon. I made a few interpretations of this: One kind-of ties in with some things going on at work, another could be encouragement to get on with my fanfic writing, a third would be a suggestion that the correct answer to this poll would be the one that currently has no votes (but I'd like to thank those nice optimistic people who went for the first option, although I'm sad to say that they're only 10 days from being proved wrong ;-(

Finally got to see TTT. Not squeeing quite as hard as might be expected - but the same applied after the first time I saw FotR. I'm sure that'll all change after the second viewing. I really can't point at any particular flaw, just a vague feeling that it was less than the sum of it's parts - but what parts ;-)

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OK, so I've now reached the grand old age of 27. It doesn't seem so very different from 26 if you ask me... More random thoughts: Carol service was good, got to sing some familiar tunes. Unfortunately, the guy reading about the Three Wise Men made a bit of a slip and read the gifts as "Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh". Had great difficulty keeping a straight face, but somehow we managed. Went into town for a couple of drinks with friends after dinner, couple of items of note: A notice in the pub said that ID is required to serve those between the age of 12 and 18. Huh? Also the case of the probable drunk mouthing off at everyone who picked the wrong target in the form of a police van - he got ignored for a little while and then 4 cops decamped to ... uh ... "have words"

Just re-watched the first part of Lord of the Rings in preparation for tomorrow. Due to my continued curse of visitors selecting DVDs I've only

After yesterday's extra hours, I felt able to sneak off from work fairly early - and only just in time. I barely had the opportunity to vacuum the kitchen after last night's shampooing when the vanguard (Mum) arrived, later joined by Dad and my recently widowed step-grandmother, and later still by my Aunt who'd come up separately from London. After tea, and later drinks, we headed off to Le Petit Blanc for dinner. A slight problem with the taxi (they only sent a 4-seater) meant I had to get there by bus and Shanks' Pony - but the others had barely had chance to get seated by the time I arrived.

The food was uniformly excellent - I had a Cepes (wild mushrooms, don'ch'a know) Lasagne for the starter - absolutely delicious and just the right sized portion. This was followed by a confit of Guinea Fowl served with a fondant of potatoes topped with caramelised onion (to die for), assorted veggies and a Madeira jus (also to die for). We had some other vegetables on the side including some heavenly honey-glazed roast parsnips. Desert was a chestnut vacherin served with a chocolate sauce. All in all, the best meal I've had for a long time - it came to around £30 a head (including wine), but that was a la carte, the prix fixe menu is £15 plus drinks but wasn't available between 7 and 10.

Feeling much better.

Someone in the office picked up a bottle of this on the grounds that "it'll probably be foul, but I feel the need to try it anyway" - much the same feeling as the rest of us got when he brought around for tastings. There is some vague hint of chocolate in there somewhere, maybe a hint of Bailey's and some other 'chemical' tastes. We suspect that the main reason for the use of artificial sweetners is the fact that you couldn't dissolve enough sugar in the water to make it that sweet!

Verdict: Just Say No!

Ah, the joys of data recovery! First we have a disk that's causing it's server to throw errors left, right and centre. After replacing it, we had to try and retrieve it's contents: ( Collapse )The second duffer came from an NT box, but the BIOS wouldn't even recognise it, so we had to give that up as a lost cause. About 5 seconds after binning it, I realised that I've always wanted to dissect a hard drive - as did everyone else in the office. I've taken apart plenty of dead floppies in my time, but this was much more fun. Blithely ignoring the "Warranty Void if removed" stickers (some of which could only be seen after disassembling half the drive), we broke it down to it's component parts. Highlights include the disks themselves - possibly the most perfect mirrors I've ever seen (until they acquired grubby pawmarks), the heads (but they're so tiny) and a pair of surprisingly powerful magnets (as in you can barely pry them apart). Much fun was had by all.