UK Watercooler Conversation 3: The Revenge of the Cookie

Morning kiddies. How was your weekend?

I finally slept. It was glorious. I think I slept for 10 hours on Friday night and 12 hours on Saturday. I took a pill last night to help me sleep through my cough, and ended up sleeping through my alarm clock as well.

Saturday I lay in bed reading the papers and Country Life. Sunday I did some work on NaSoAlMo (new song!) and then went to see Architecture in Helsinki. Discovered that a former crush's band was supporting. (Thanks for warning me, Chuck No.4) That was bizarre. Watching him, I felt nothing. Kind of like an empty vessel that passion had once passed through. AiH was entertaining. Managed to avoid getting in a fite with my friend over pop music, which was a bit of a relief.

I still don't feel entirely well (physically or mentally). But less mental and stressed than I did.

I still think Gentoo is better, TISSP

My God man, I don't have eight years spare ;)

In other news my Powerbook IS HERE!*

*if by here, we mean, "at the factory"

I learned how to make parsley sauce yesterday as well, which I'm super excited about - no longer will my potatoes be dry!

Glad you had a HQ weekend Kate, that the band was good, and you're feeling a little more recharged after the weekend!

Poor FP - are you still poorly today?

You and your powerbook - it puts me off buying an apple EVER - at least I know how to fix a PC if it breaks.

*runs away*

saturday morning spent reading 'pattern recognition'. spent a couple of hours in the afternoon ripping and typing up tracklistings for this years cds and recent ebay purchases.

sunday morning spent watching tv, including cenotaph marchpast. afternoon spent rendering snowflakes (little php script to generate povray script for snowflakes, results here: http://home.clara.net/koogy/snow.png - idea is to use them as covers for this year's christmas cds). lord of the rings part ii. woken at 1 by mouse...

My God man, I don't have eight years spare ;)

Pah! It doesn't take as long as people think, you know

I like your snowflakes, Koogs, and the geeky way in which they're made. I rather like Povray.

We couldn't put him down at his usual time as we're in a studio apt (no bedroom). I suggested putting him to bed and switching off the lights, tv etc until he fell asleep, then once he was out, resuming our friday night. (Once he's asleep, we're ensured, he'll sleep through anything)

So, nine of the clock, we put him down, tuck him in, say night night and sit there in the dark waiting for him to conk out. 30 minutes later I switched on the lamp. The little man was lying wide awake looking at me and Mr Pumpkin was snoring gently.

Sat up with my charge until 12.30 watching The Scooby Doo movie which is not enhanced at all by a child asking five times a minute "What's Scooby doing?" followed by Pete's Dragon and Madagascar.

Up at seven thirty. I'm still recovering.

Glad yer gig went well, sounds like fun, TISSP. Do we get to see these photos when you get them back, huh, huh? Man, I hope yer powerbook turns up soon. But it will be worth it when you finally get it.

Oh dear, JB, you don't need any more crushes. Though a crush must be strong if it can survive seeing the becrushed vomiting up white russians. ::shudders::

Oh yes, I learned how to cook oyster mushrooms at the weekend. It's mushroom season, mmmm, and they had a mixed pack all pink and yellow and white. The first lot I think I kind of overpowered with too spicey a sauce, but the second I made a much more subtle honey and mustard sauce and added steamed bok choi and they were DEEEEEEVINE!!!

Also, how glad am I that mulled wine season has begun?

x-x-x-post hello everyone!

Scooby Doo, tee hee. Awwww, the little anklebiter was probably excited. :-)

i think there are 256 snowflakes in that picture. each one has 6 radial lines and 24 other lines, all chosen at random (php does the randomising and scripts 5 of the lines, povray script does the rotational symmetries of each flake). look closely and you'll see some that aren't joined up. takes about a minute to render on my P3 1000MHz at 640x640, nothing really. the bigger plan is to do the same thing in opengl and get them animating in realtime as some kind of screensaver.

Oooh, mulled wine, I didn't think of that! I'll make some of that.

My spanish co-worker has just told me about leek cake, which sounded horrible, until he googled the recipe and it turns out it's a subspecies of quiche, and looks v. tasty. I've told him to translate the recipe for me, cos it looks scrummy.

Should I become a mushroom freak? I quite like the idea of tramping through autumnal forests to find yummy mushrooms. So long as I don't get killed by malevolent fungus.

Aaawwww, I need to go do some new second hand bookshop browsing. But only after I move. I don't want to have to carry even *more* books than I've got.

I think this one was genuinely just dropped. Though usually my best book finds have been when people are moving and just can't be bothered to take all their books with them. Several times I've found a big box full of books by an empty house with "free books" or the like written on them.

The best lot I ever found were in LIC, great art books and things - big book of brightly coloured bugs, Einstein's Dreams and science books and things like that. Pretty good find in Islington as well. Rubbish finds in Swiss Cottage - usually Grisham novels and crap like that.

I've got a couple of the photos back--I really wish I'd cut my hair before the photoshoot now. It looks terrible. D'oh.

http://static.flickr.com/26/63191090_5bdb7d9a02_o_d.jpg

Errrmmm... PHWOAR! But I am probably just saying that because I totally have a *thing* for boys in shopping carts.

Is that you on the right? In which case, your hair is just right. Don't change a thing.

Here's another one:

http://static.flickr.com/30/63191087_28936ae218_o.jpg

I love when pop star boys get in shopping carts. Usually cause it's hott boys like Thom Yorke (which is the video? Fake Plastic Trees? Ohmigod, that gives me the horn) and Alex James and James Busted Son of Dork.

Blimey. You and Chris need to be locked away for your own protection.

Mulled wine season is k-great. As is mince pie season. I actually fixed out boiler yesterday - we put the heating on for the first time this winter and, naturally, it didn't work. So after trying to fix it the proper way, and having no luck, I decided to just hit it with a hammer AND IT WORKED. Result!

http://static.flickr.com/30/63191095_0b3c0001f3_o.jpg

Mmm, mince pies. Mark, that reminds me I should re-release the last book crossing book I got. But it was rubbish and I couldn't finish it. Then again, maybe that means someone else will like it.

STOP THIS SHAMELESS FLIRTING. Anyway. Ha HEM.

http://static.flickr.com/32/63211064_41d5a7fe64_o.jpg

tissps webcam service - www.dirrrrtyhair.com - subscription only $4.99

I think I'm going to go and get lunch now. If anyone needs me I'll have dragged my laptop in the ladies' room. ;-)

Carrot-Fennel Soup
Adapted from Amanda Hesser in The New York Times Magazine, and, I think, Cooking for Mr. Latte

This light soup strikes a perfect balance between the delicate springtime flavors of young carrots and fennel. Be sure to choose carrots that are sweet and worthy of being eaten on their own; if you make this soup with tired, winter-weary ones, you’ll be sorry.

1 Tbs olive oil
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced; fronds reserved and chopped
1 ½ lbs carrots, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
4-5 cups vegetable broth (I used Imagine brand)
¼ tsp salt, or to taste
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

In a large, heavy saucepan, warm oil over medium heat. Add the fennel slices, and cook, stirring, until softened. Add the carrots and garlic, and cook for another minute or two. Pour in 4 cups vegetable broth (if, after puréeing, you feel that the soup is too thick, you can add the final cup, but it’s better to err on the side of adding too little at first), and season with salt. Simmer, covered, until the carrots and fennel are very tender, about 20 minutes.

Remove the soup from the heat, and stir in the orange juice and reserved fennel fronds. If you have an immersion blender, purée the soup directly in the pot; otherwise, transfer it in batches to a food processor or blender, puréeing until smooth. Season with salt and pepper as needed, and serve warm.

xpost it is quite liquoricey, yeah, but not overbearingly so. if you do the soup above it goes all caramelly but without making your soup into horrid sweet gunk (this is why you need the stock).

i have just booked a ticket to amsterdam next week on the national express for NINE QUID to see d34d m34dow and bl4ck m0unt4in at the paradiso, yeeha! nine bloody quid!! ok it's a 48 hour journey, 24 of which will be on the bus/ferry, for a 3hr show, and i'll have to hang around in amsterdam between the end of the gig and when my bus leaves at 8am cos i can't afford somewhere to stay (don't mind that really, there are plenty 24hr places in amsterdam, right?)... i am EXCITED!

couple of xposts, yeah i can't believe this nine quid thing. i keep looking for the catch - does it not include the ferry or something? but it all seems to be in order!

yeh i can read anywhere... i am a very very good daydreamer though and able to entertain myself and stay happy on long journeys unless it's running late and the late-running means i might miss whatever i'm going for or my next connection or whatever, in which case i can go a bit caged-animal.

Oh, you're going to Brakes and not Sonic Cathedrals? Psaw. I'm going to the shoegazers. x-post

i am pretty torn, but i keep missing brakes. i keep missing sonic cathedrals too though. but i don't know them. but i asked them if you could play there and they haven't got back to me yet.

IIRC it was something like £35!

that is bluddy extortionate. i hope the hostess was, er, jolly, at least?

Well, time to go round to Colleague M's mum's house, at least.

And someone wrote me on the dating site, but you only get 3 emails a day and I've run out - and even though I told him to email my setup address, he wrote me back through the site, argh. Oh well, guess he won't get a reply until Monday then. Serves him right for not listening to me.

"There only 1.99er"

"She's lovin by proxy"

I ended up going round to Colleague M's mum's house *twice* over the weekend - and as we were leaving, she said "see you two again soon". *However*, she is also very interested in what M keeps telling her about me flirting with K all the time.

Spent the weekend in the studio, and it went SUPER WELL. Terry, the producer, is GRATE!!! Little Irish DDB who's really into MBV and Stereolab and stuff. Plus his boyfriend David is a photographer, so it was a one stop shop for all our demoing needs. It went really really well, the prelim mixes are sounding great, I'm very excited.

Pink: don't worry, so do I.

Call me paranoid, but I don't like it. I've asked if they can disable it on the mod board. I mean, call me paranoid, but gee, I think with the recent behaviour of certain folks on ILX, I have every reason to be paranoid.

2) If you want to hang out on this thread, come out and hang out on this thread. Don't get it emailed privately to your email account - it's worse than lurking, it's like eavesdropping or something.

Yeah I wondered about the emails too. It ain't me. Not wrong, just... odd. Someone's going to get 50 emails about soup and snow and sleeping in. More fool them

UK Watercooler 4: A New Beginning