Dan Q

Category: Personal

Recipe Of The Evening

Got a recipe suggestion for you all, again: Bryn’s Challenge is at least allowing me to be a little bit more imaginative and try making things that “come to mind” (the bad ideas don’t make it here). So, today’s meal – which Claire assures me is “really, really good”, is presented below:

Chicken And Bacon In A Mushroom & Leek Sauce, With Stuffed Potatoes
Easier than it sounds; make it and show off. Serves 2, but will scale well.

Ingredients
6 chicken goujons
6 rashers rindless bacon
1 medium-sized leek, thickly sliced
200g mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 slices cooked ham, finely cut
2 medium potatoes
50g tomato paste
50g grated extra mature cheddar cheese
Half pint milk
Plain flour
1 tablespoon dried onion/chive mix
Pinch of salt

Method
Microwave or bake the potatoes until softened, as baked potatoes. Wrap each chicken goujon in a slice of bacon and place into a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees celsuis. Meanwhile, boil the sliced leeks, stirring occassionally, until soft and seperated. Warm the milk in a saucepan, slowly stirring in the flour to make a moderately thick white sauce. Add the mushrooms to the milk, then add the cooked leeks and the ham and keep warm. Cut each potato in half and carefully hollow out the insides, leaving the skin and a thin layer of flesh intact. Mix the potato with the tomato paste, dried onion/chive mix and salt, and mash with a fork. Spoon this mixture back into the potatoes, sprinkle with a little cheese, and return to the heat until cheese melts. Serve alongside the chicken and bacon, drenched in the sauce mixture.

That doesn’t read very well; if I can be arsed, I’ll re-write it. Anyway: it’s really, really well-worth doing, and looks more impressive than it is, so it’s great to show off with.

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Curry With Friends

Went out last night for curry and beers to Cafe All Spice with:

  • Jen – professional cynic
  • Claire – professional mimic
  • Bryn – protestable critic
  • Andy – procrastinating graduate
  • Sian – political constitutionalist
  • and Paul – pineapple coconut

And a fantastic night was had by all, I feel. The food was brilliant, the beers drained themselves as we chatted about geekiness, jewelery, politics, relationships, dialects, body hair, relationships again, pub quizzes, the upcoming Troma Night…

I’ve one or two pictures from my phone to share with you, but I haven’t beamed them off yet, so you’ll have to wait.

Edit: Here’s the nicest of the pictures from the evening, which I’d promised I’d share with you:

Paul & Jen on their date

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Sam’s Spam

I just got swamped by about 150 bits of trackback spam. Not a problem – I know how to deal with it and I was able to get rid of it all in line of SQL code… and it was also interesting to see that I rank highly enough in common searches to find ‘open’ blogs that I was swamped by so much of it, so quickly.

I’ve been spam-free for months, since I implemented my solution to blog spam, which (as you’ve probably seen) involves answering simple (to a human) questions when you place a comment. But this most recent horde of spam worked by using trackback, a system whereby weblogs tell each other if people write relevant “follow-up” content. And, unlike the comments-spam, which I was able to easily prevent, trackback spam is more difficult, and I’m yet to devise a suitable solution (although I have a clever idea).

I wonder if it was the man interviewed by The Register yesterday who was responsible for this attack?

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Free Gift For First Hundred Customers

I’m sure that by now you’ll all be aware of the upcoming opening of Nice ‘n’ Naughty, the latest in a chain of sex shops (the latest of which was opened in Bangor, of all places), in Aberystwyth. It’ll be opening on Pier Street, on the site of the old Little Amsterdam (who’s web site still states that they have a shop here in Aber, despite the fact that it closed down some months ago) shop (which I reported on when it opened).

In any case, Nice ‘n’ Naughty is promising a free gift to each of the first 100 Aberystwyth customers, which is kind-of cool, as well as trying to put forward a ‘cleaner’ image than the infamous Little Amsterdam it replaces (so; no drugs, for example, and probably less effort made to piss of their neighbouring shops). If only they have the common sense to employ students (and therefore don’t suffer from the self-inflicted staffing problems Little Amsterdam had) they could be okay.

So: who’s up for a trip to Nice ‘n’ Naughty when they open, next Monday? I’ll try to get their opening hours so we can have a horde of us pounce them when the doors open… and give them a proper Aberystwyth welcome.

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Spoons

I can bend minds with my spoon.

That is all.

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First Season Of Diplomacy

As I’m sure I’ve said, I’m running an online game of Diplomacy: my web-based adaptation of a classic 1959 board game of strategy and diplomacy. It’s an unusual board game, in that (apart from the random assignment of countries, at the beginning), it involves no luck – the game is based entirely upon your ability to persuade others to help you, lie convincingly, and know when to trust your allies.

In any case – I thought I’d allow those of you who’re not playing (players are Sian and Andy R [Austria], Claire and I [England], Ruth [France], Andy K and Faye [Germany], Jon and Hayley [Italy], JTA [Russia] and Matt [Turkey]) to see what’s going on, as well, soo…

You can now spectate our game of Diplomacy by viewing the turns, maps, and reports as they are made available. And I’ll be providing updates as and when I feel like it here, on my blog.

Spring 1901 Orders in a game of Diplomacy

In the first turn, most of the Great Powers pushed outwards with their forces, as can be seen in the map, above. I’m particularly interested by the position of the new location of Austrian, German, and Russian armies, in Eastern Europe (and very close together), and by the decision of France to push towards Italy with her land armies (leaving only a ship to perhaps later claim the supply centres of Portugal and Spain). Also interesting is the Turkish ship moving into the Black Sea: which claims to pose no threat to Russia, but I’m not so sure…

As JTA says, it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out as a result of the aggressive stance taken by some – particularly the South-East European – nations. It’s a fascinating little game.

Suppose I’d better get some work done.

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