Zorac's LiveJournal

Notes to self:

1. Do not use the washing machine and the tumble dryer at the same time.
2. Spare fuses are good things to have.
3. When a plug is scorchingly hot to the touch and both it and the 4-way it was plugged into have melted patches, that's bad.

Laundry is such fun.

So much for the weather. The distressingly nice Friday was, of course, followed by a wet and gloomy weekend. The rain forcing everyone indoors means that everywhere's full for lunch and the packed shops have ridiculous queues for the changing rooms. To add to the joy, both Slither and Silent Hill had moved to evening showings only, leaving me with my third choice, M:I:3. It's actually a pretty reasonable action flick, marred mostly by the annoying Tom "shark sofa" Cruise trying to insinuate himself into virtually every frame. Oh, and the new Superman trailer is rather promising.

Now that The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google is drawing to a close, the puzzles are really starting to get tricky - the first three tiers were fairly straightforward, but the fourth, not so much. Yesterday's sudoku-style puzzle was really quite nasty, and today's "Restoration" one was taking so long by trial-and-error, that I ended up writing a program to solve it (what, me, a geek?).

Last night we drank many cocktails. We then had fish and chips back here and dealt with some bad cases of Shrek virginity. Today, some of us arrived at the pub later than others - but lunch was better than at the Eagle and Child. After that, there was punting and Pimms. Nobody won the leiabelle Memorial Sweepstake - owlman fled after lunch, muttering something about work. In the end, I was the one who made a rather half-arsed attempt at falling in the river. Doh. Anyway, time for me to head back into town to meet up with the rest of the t00bs for PoA,

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.