Dan Q
I’ve been following Kamikaze Cookery (three geeks doing cookery… with science!) for a while now, and it’s got some real potential, but what really sold me on it was their recent series on the Fife diet (yeah, I know, it’s been out for ages, but I’ve been busy so my RSS reader’s been brim-full and I only just got around to watching it).
If you haven’t come across Kamikaze Cookery before, The Fife Diet videos are a great place to start.
Went out last night for curry and beer to celebrate Paul‘s birthday (yes, we’re all well aware that Paul’s birthday was almost a month ago, but this was the first chance we’d had to really get together and make an ocassion of it). It was great to get together with a handful of folks rarely seen in the same place outside of Troma Night – and in some cases, recently, not even then – and have a good night out.
At the end of the evening I was quite tipsy; a direct result of the fact that or a few hours before the curry I’d been “warming up” with ales in the Ship & Castle with Matt P. And, as you may have noticed by now, there’s a strong correlation between me going to bed drunk and me blogging about particularly unusual dreams. I skipped a dream that I couldn’t be arsed to blog about, near the end of last month, under similar intoxication. I’d made some notes on it, as I try to with everything I dream about, but never found time to write it up to standards of internet legibility (whatever that can be taken as meaning).
In any case, last night was a classic example of me dreaming within-a-dream, which I gather is something a lot of people haven’t experienced (for me, while not commonplace, it’s not terribly rare, either, for me to “wake up” within a dream, or to remember previous dreams as dreams within the one I’m currently ‘in’). Note the double-indentation to ease understanding of which dream I’m referring to:
I had been hosting a house party of some variety, in a somewhat larger (and significantly tidier) version of The Cottage, and it was beginning to wind up – most of the guests had gone home, except for a few small, scattered groups in different parts of the building (I mentioned that it was bigger than The Cottage usually is, right? – there are times that the word “mansion” could have come to hand). JTA, Claire and Ruth were somewhere upstairs; Bryn was talking to Andrew Rawlins (!) in a kitchen reminiscent of my dad’s house; and I was in the living room, talking to Penny.
If I remember rightly we were talking about oral sex technique. So, just a regular conversation for me, you’re probably thinking. And that’s about the time that we kissed.
We hid that we’d been kissing from Bryn and Andrew as they came through the living room, said goodbye, got their coats and left. And again, when Gareth, Penny’s partner, arrived by car to pick her up. And then I went to bed.
And then I woke up. I don’t specifically remember waking up, but I remember having a moment of realisation that everything that had just happened was a dream. It was an unusual dream, sure (although not entirely unpleasant: Penny’s pretty hot), but just a dream, and so I got on with my day. Leaving Claire in bed, I went to work, and I remember thinking about the fact that I would undoubtedly blog about the dream I’d had, and that I hoped I wouldn’t alarm or embarrass Penny by doing so!
And then I woke up. Actually, this time, and there was a moment of confusion as I remembered that it was Ruth I’d spent the night with last night, not Claire at all, and I spent the first few minutes of the morning trying to work out where the dreams began and ended. Perhaps more confusingly, I discovered when I woke up that I’d somehow, in the night, managed to cut my hand and I was bleeding all over the place. I snapped the following photo after I’d cleaned it up a bit.
Ruth theorised that she attacked me in my sleep because she was jealous that I was kissing Penny in my dreams, going on to add that she wanted to be dreaming of kissing Penny. But I’m not sure if she’d approve of me blogging that, so you should pretend that I didn’t.
Do you or anybody you know routinely dream that you are dreaming? Or wake up from a dream with an unusual injury? Or have dreams that involve your friends cheating on their partners with you?
I took Claire, Ruth and JTA to see The Australian Pink Floyd Show at the Cardiff International Arena last night. Claire and I had seen them before, back in 2005, and they were as fabulous as ever: I maintain that this tribute band is the only one I’ve ever seen that, at times, can be better than the band to which it’s a tribute.
What might be slightly sadder is that for me, one of the highlights of the show was that during the intermission, the screen at the back of the stage showed a recoding of the intermission sequence from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, as shown from time to time at Troma Night by Paul. If you can’t see the recoding below, try over here.
The music was typically spectacular, as was the light and laser show that so-traditionally accompanies it, right down to the biggest glitterball I’ve ever seen lighting up the entire arena with twinkly lights during the final numbers. If only I hadn’t had to pay £3.80 per (plastic) bottle for the privilege of a warm, watery beer, it’d have been even better. Ah well.
After the show, the four of us found the most disgusting food in all of Cardiff from a take-away around the corner from the venue. While you can imagine how they fucked up my chicken burger, it’s beyond me how they could make a mess of re-heating a spring roll for JTA or even of cooking corn on the cob for Ruth, but somehow they did.
So, what have I been up to this weekend, you ask. Well…
On Friday I took the train up to Preston. The train I was on broke down at Machynlleth when they linked it up to the carriages that had come down the Pwllheli line, and the repairs set me back by almost an hour, but it turns out that the rest of the rail network was running behind schedule that day, too, and so I didn’t miss any important connections. I arrived in time for a quick “birthday tea” with my family (for my dad’s birthday) before rushing off to the Waterstones for the launch party for my friend Faye‘s first published novel, Cover The Mirrors.
I drank as much wine as the store were willing to give me and bought myself a signed copy of the book. I even managed to get the photo, above, under the proviso that it’s only allowed to appear on the internet thanks to the fact that I’m holding a carrier bag in front of Faye’s face (she’s more than a little camera-shy). I haven’t started reading Cover The Mirrors yet, because I’m virtually at the end of The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, and I’d like to finish that first, but little doubt you’ll hear about it here in due course.
After the book launch, my sisters and I took my dad out for a few drinks to celebrate his 51st birthday. It turns out that, in my absence, Preston’s nightclub scene has really taken off. We started out in an 80s-themed bar which is part of a chain called Reflex. It’s so 80s it’s unreal: all 80s hits playing, David Hasselhoff and Mr. T decorating every wall, glitter balls and spots and mirrors everywhere… deely-boppers available at the bar… and so on. Really quite a fantastic theme venue. Then, under my sister Sarah’s recommendation, we tootled up the street and into a cafe/club called Manyana, where my dad got hit on by somebody young enough to be his daughter.
I snatched this picture. I’ve no idea who she is – we didn’t get her name – but she seemed genuinely surprised to hear my dad’s age. So I had the DJ announce it, just to make sure there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that there was an old person on the dancefloor.
This influx of Preston nightclubs is making them all remarkably competitive with their drinks prices, too. I bought a few rounds for the four of us and none of them ever came to over a tenner, and one – thanks to the “buy one get one free” policy at Manyana – came to under £6, which is quite remarkable for a city nightclub on a Friday night for four people!
On Saturday I had brunch with my sister Becky, my mum, and her boyfriend and then got back onto the trains to head back to Aberystwyth. Owing to line maintenance, the stretch of track between Crewe and Preston is unusable every weekend within sight, and so I was re-directed via Manchester Piccadilly. Yet again, my train ran late, and I found myself sprinting across Piccadilly station, trying to find a train that was heading Shrewsbury-way…
…meanwhile, my friend Katie, having slept through her stop, woke up in Manchester Piccadilly and, not quite awake, clambered off her train in an attempt to find a connection. I’d apparently featured in her dream, and so she was quite surprised (and not quite sure if she was seeing things) when I sprinted past her. She sent a text (which I chose to ignore: my pocket beeped but I was too busy looking for a train to take the time to get my phone out) and then phoned me before she was able to confirm that yes, it really was me.
As we were headed the same way, she joined me on my train for one stop, which was a nice surprise for what was a long and overcomplicated train journey. A few folks have suggested that this might not be a coincidence, and that she might be stalking me, but I’m yet to be convinced.
In any case, I don’t have a picture to go with this part of the story. Sorry.
YATN. If you were there, you know how it went. Big thanks to Jimmy and Beth for coming along.
In case you’ve not been anywhere that I can pounce on you and go “squee!” recently, here’s what you missed out on. You’ll remember that last week I mentioned that Poultrygeist – Troma‘s new movie – was coming to Aberystwyth. Well, it did. And it rocked…
…and better yet, Ruth, Claire, JTA, Paul and I got to hang out with Lloyd Kaufman, president of Troma Studios and producer of The Toxic Avenger, for a couple of pints and to share a bowl of nachos. The guy’s fabulously chatty and friendly, and if it weren’t for the awestruck feeling of “wow, we’re just sat here chatting with Lloyd Kaufman in Lord Beechings” we’d have probably been more interesting company.
When he said goodbye, kissing the cheeks of each of the girls, I genuinely thought that they were in danger of exploding with excitement. Thankfully they didn’t, because I’d already bought them tickets to see Poultrygeist later on.
Which was, as I’ve said before, fantastic. It’s even better seen with a nice, energised audience, and better still when the director and several other people who worked on the film are hanging around afterwards to answer questions, chat, autograph things and so on. There are apparently 15 prints of Poultrygeist and the capacity to make more on demand, so if you want to see it and can’t wait for the DVD release, go speak to your local cinema now and ask if they’ll show Poultrygeist, even if only for a week (as Lloyd himself said, it’s better than showing Transformers on all 24 screens of some soulless megaplex). And hell, with Troma’s current financial situation, they could probably do with a helping hand with getting into as many projection booths as possible!
The title of this post – Quickly, Before They Turn The Glass Into Lesbians! – is a reference to one of my favourite lines in the film.
Paul might have bitten off more than he can chew, though, as he hinted on his blog. After some discussion with Lloyd, Paul is likely to be responsible for:
I’ll leave it to him to go into detail, if he wishes.
Between places, we also joined a growing crowd at the foot of Matt‘s bed in Bronglais Hospital. His operation was a success, but he’s reacted unusually to the general anaesthetic and they’re likely to keep him in for observation for another few days. If you haven’t had a chance to visit him already, he’d probably appreciate the company (although Sarah seems to have barely left his side): visiting hours are 3pm-5pm, 6pm-8pm: just ask if you need to know what ward he’s in and how to get there. If you’re feeling particularly cruel, mock him by talking about how well your bodily excretions are working, or swap his drip with his catheter bag while he’s not looking.
But seriously: I’m sure we all wish him well.
Finally – as if we weren’t full enough from a large Sunday lunch – after leaving the cinema, Gareth, Penny, Amy, Ruth, JTA, Rory, Paul, Claire
and I slipped down for a late-night curry at the Spice of Bengal. Which was delicious, although there was a little much food for those of us who were already quite full.
Nonetheless, a fantastic end to a fantastic weekend! I’m sure everybody else will have a different story to tell (Paul spent longer with Lloyd and went to more films; Claire and Jimmy got horribly drunk together on Friday night after she, Ruth and JTA failed to see a Meatloaf concert; Matt’ll have his own morphine-fuelled tale to spin, and so on), because it’s been a rich, full couple of days for many of us abnibbers.
Rory‘s making some more of his delicious-looking all-steak burgers for tomorrow’s barbeque. If you want one (and are willing to pay for the mince!) drop him a comment on his blog.
This evening, I kicked off with a few hobbies I’ve neglected lately, starting brewing some wine and juggling some fire on the beach. It’s amazing how quickly you lose the fitness to juggle clubs effectively if you don’t do it for a year or two. Must get more practice.
A balanced diet, like that depicted in the pyramid, will help you stay healthy at Troma Night:
I’ve always enjoyed free food at pizza places. On my 16th birthday, I went to Winston’s Pizza in Preston for their lunchtime buffet “all you can eat” deal. We took board games. Four hours (and many, many slices of pizza and bottles of beer) later, we were finally thrown out: the manager let us have the food and even the drinks for free in exchange for us leaving. That was a fab birthday party.
Once, I got a free meal from Pizza Hut when they used to do their “food in 10 minutes or it’s free” deal. The timers are tamper-proof, so the trick is ensuring that the waitstaff get distracted by something on the way back to your table. They don’t do that special offer any more. I wonder why?
But here’s somebody who really takes the biscuit. Well; the salad, anyway. A number of particularly creative Taiwanese students have found the way to maximise their ROI at Pizza Hut, using their engineering inginuity to fill a salad bowl (without spilling) to over a foot high. Well worth a look.
Hot on the heels of the news that the café below us is for sale, a new café has opened just across the road, where Serendipity (a restaurant I never got the chance to go to) used to be.
Fresh Ground Café can now be found at number 14 Cambrian Place. Claire thinks it’s name is clever because they’re on new and on the ground floor, but that seems a little contrived to me: rather, I think that they’re trying to play upon the fact that they feel they’re bringing some “fresh ideas” to the Aberystwyth coffee shop ‘scene’.
And they’re certainly giving “fresh ideas” a go, at least as far as Aber’s concerned. They open from 10am ’til 11pm, so you can have a late-night coffee and cake before getting back to a long night’s code-hack/NaNoWriMo-writing/Civ IV game. They’re getting wireless internet access, so you’ll be able to surf the web while you much your croissant. They do hot and cold food (both light meals and snacks) throughout the day. They have board games to play. They have huge leather couches. And most of the produce seems to be organic and/or fair trade.
Bryn, Paul and I each ordered the soup of the day – tomato soup – which turned out to be a deliciously thick and delicately spiced soup that was more filling than we’d expected. Claire ordered a cream cheese bagel. Bryn and Claire tried out the coffees, Paul had a warm-milk-with-syrup drink, and I sampled the hot chocolate, which sent me giddy for most of the evening.
Later, we examined their selection of board games: just the typical “family games pack” affair: a chess set with plastic pieces, a copy of “snakes and ladders”, Chinese checkers, backgammon etc. I taught Bryn to play Arimaa while Claire and Paul played checkers. Not much to excite board game geeks like ourselves, but the large tables and availability of freshly ground coffee might make the cafe a suitable venue for games of Chez Geek, Chrononauts, Fluxx, and other (friendly, civilised – Munchkin is out!) games.
It looks like this new café is trying to tap into a so-far-undiscovered market in Aber: for an evening venue without alcohol or smoking in which one can enjoy a civilised drink with friends. The prices are a little more than we’re used to – we paid just under £20 for 2 coffees, 2 teas, a hot milk drink, 2 hot chocolates, a ribena, three bowls of soup, and a bagel – from the likes of MGs or The Mecca, but are still quite reasonable. The venue itself is pleasant, although it may be a little “out of the way” for some patrons and will certainly have to compete with MGs for some of the business lunchtime traffic (I note that the Fresh Ground Café has already launched a reward card scheme very similar to that of MGs).
Worth a look.
Paul M: fucking nutter. The most random person you’re ever likely to meet. But you’ve got to love his sincerity.
This morning, I’m happily sat at my workstation, staring, as I do, at program code and pausing from time to time to check the RSS feeds of the usual crew, when the phone rings: Matt answers it; it’s Technium reception – they’ve got a parcel for us. Ooh; that’s exciting, but Matt’s deeply involved in some code so I offer to go and collect it. The arrangement here among us lazy folks is that the receptionist puts the parcel in the lift, and one of us toddles along the corridor and takes it out of the lift on this floor.
I stood outside the lift and listened as it came up to the first floor. The door opened, and I lifted out the parcel… and that’s when I noticed the first strange thing: the parcel was addressed to me, personally (which is very unusual) and the address was written entirely in marker pen (rather than being a printed label, as most goods delivered to us here are). I’m not expecting anything; least of all at work: I never give my work address to anybody. Who could have sent this?
I opened it and laughed out loud. It took just a second to realise what was going on, as I recalled a conversation in the RockMonkey ChatRoom yesterday lunchtime…
[11:38] * Ava_Work goes to nuke food
[11:38] <Ava_Work> Hmm… spaghetti hoops on toast for me, methinks…
[11:39] <Pacifist_049> You’re microwaving spaghetti hoops?
[11:41] <Ava_Work> Yup.
[11:41] <Ava_Work> Why?
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> Philistine
[11:41] <Ava_Work> So…
[11:41] <Ava_Work> …how else can I do it?
[11:41] <Ava_Work> And think carefully now…
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> Pan
[11:41] <Ava_Work> A pan. Which I don’t have. But let’s pretend I did. How would I heat it?
[11:41] <Pacifist_049> I know you don’t have a cooker at work, but that’s not the issue here. It’s the principle, damnit!
[11:42] <Ava_Work> So; as it pisses YOU off so much, feel free to bring me a pan and a cooker. Then I’ll do it your way, which is – in the end – preferable.
[11:42] <Ava_Work> However, it doesn’t piss ME off enough that I’ll go hungry rather than nuke spaghetti hoops.
Click on images for larger versions.
The parcel, as shown above, contains a pan, wooden spoon, loaf of bread, tin of spaghetti hoops, and a strangely familiar electric hob.
Which is a fab gesture, although if I use it for my lunch today I’ll have to do so on the sly, on account of the fact that the Technium facilities manager is in today and this particular piece of electrical equipment has not been electrically safety-tested.
What the fuck. Thank you, Paul!
For the benefit of they that asked: a Scoville Scale worth seeing. I’m impressed that I own a bottle of the hottest sauce they do that’s actually intended for consumption.
If I had £140, I still wouldn’t spend it on a bottle of Blaire’s 6A.M.… when a pepper sauce is contains three times the capsaicin level of police-grade pepper spray, it’s not designed to be used as food. I mean, really.
Freshers’ Fayre was a success, as Kit reports. Although it must be said that he’s probably right to be concerned that this may be the last year we’re able to pull such a stunt. Which is a real shame. We worked really hard – harder than we ever do at the jobs from which we took a holiday just to make this possible – to sell burgers and hot dogs and bacon rolls and things to freshers, and we raised a considerable amount of money to donate to Aberystwyth Nightline.
On which note, both Claire and I sustained thumb injuries as a result of our efforts – see the picture! Mine was caused by sheer stupidity – picking up a hot pan I melted my thumb to the handle, and required a trip to A&E. Claire’s was caused by damn blind stupidity – while seperating two frozen burgers, she levered them apart using a bread knife, and in doing so took a large bite out of her thumb when the knife slipped.
On which note, what idiot decided that the Sports Centre’s emergency first aid kit should be stored behind a double-locked door to which nobody on site has either key? Our designated first-aider eventually had to run to his car and collect his own first aid kit in order to stop Claire’s bleeding. Had the injury been significantly more serious, we’d have gotten to a point of having to improvise a tourniquet to save her from bleeding to death while she waited next to the locked door. Ah well.
And there’s another thing – how could the union justify telling us that we couldn’t cook indoors because “no food or drink is allowed in the building”, forcing us to rent a generator and stand in the rain for hours on end, then allow Spartacus to sell sandwiches in the foyer… and then, better yet, let some of the clubs and societies give away beer to their members. The mind boggles.
I’ve had three days of meeting lots of 18-year-olds, fresh to the University, setting out for their degrees and away from home for the first time. I feel old again. =o)
But happy.
A new-looking manager (young, with a shiny badge) is making Changes at the Burger King around the corner from us. From Monday, the entire restaurant will become No Smoking (yay!), and the old upstairs toilets – once closed owing to vandalism – have been re-opened. Claire and I were in there this evening, discussing our comparative days (mine at work, hers learning Japanese), and met the new-looking manager, who gave us vouchers each, redeemable for free meals there in future. Nice.
This morning, while picking up my microwavable Cottage Pie from Somerfield (the best microwave meal I’ve ever had – it’s really quite good considering that it’s re-heated mincemeat and dehydrated mashed potato), I noticed a new product – a similar item but in a slightly smaller container, as part of their “So Good” range. Upon examining the back of the packet, I realised that the major differences by weight ratio were that the “So Good” version – apparently better for you – had very slightly less salt, potato and onion, and worcester sauce added. It seems that the biggest reason this new product is better for you than the old one – and worthy of an increased price tag once it’s introductory special offer expires – is that there isn’t so much of it. I’ll be sticking with my normal cottage pie, thanks.
While I’m busy complaining, why is it that I have to work somewhere that’s to the East of where I live, which means that when I cycle to work in the morning the sun is in my eyes, and it’s still blinding me when I cycle back home in the evening? Bring on the winter, I say! Back to the blizzards and the short daylight hours when I was able to cycle both directions in the dark with no lights on. That’s the way forward!
As Kit relates, too, we made a fab chilli con carne (and, using Quorn mince, a ‘chilli non carne’ for Paul). Recipe as below (feel free to steal, adapt etc.):
AUGUST CHILLI
serves 81 225g tin chopped tomato
1 5-portion bottle “sundried tomato” pasta sauce
4 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 tube double concentrate tomato paste
1 tube chilli paste
1 200g tin kidney beans
6 cloves garlic
12 medium closed-cup mushrooms, sliced
1 tblspn herbes de provence
6 mild green chilli peppers, sliced and de-seeded
1 small drop of “Da Bomb” mother-of-all-chilli-sauces (who dares burns)
2 teaspoons monosodium glutamate
pinch of salt
500g lean beef mince
250g quorn mince
olive oilFry the mince, and, in a separate pan, the quorn – in a little olive oil. Toast the garlic (again, olive oil) in a separate pan, add the mushrooms, and fry until cooked. Meanwhile, mix together the remaining ingredients in a large pan over a medium heat, stirring frequently. Add the cooked mushrooms and garlic to the tomato/chilli sauce, and heat for a further 5-10 minutes. Pour 2/3 of the sauce over the beef mince, and the remaining 1/3 over the quorn mince, and stir in. Serve with fajitas, tacos, or whatever else you like. Also tastes great re-heated, or with a little Worcester sauce added (not vegetarian, so don’t add it to the quorn pan!).
Without a doubt, Kit and I’s best chilli to date. Not hot enough to injure anybody… Bryn, who considers a medium curry “hot”, went back for seconds… but well-rounded, fruity (if substituting “Da Bomb”, use a good-quality chilli sauce), and warming. Brought my nose-end out in a sweat, and left us all sitting around in a mild chilli-induced euphoria. Fantastic.
As this hilarious BBC news story tells it, an artist came home to his Liverpool house to find that:
(a) A criminal had broken in to his home.
(b) Mistaking a piece of his artwork as a human head in a jar, the criminal turned himself in to the police to tell them about it. He also confessed all of his crimes to his mother.
(c) The police broke down the door and raided the house, and found that the contents of the jar were merely formaldehyde and a mask made from rashers of bacon.
I laughed.
Now I’m going home. I’m not feeling top-form today.