Food and Movies and Kitchens

Lets get back to what this blog is all about, food, movies and sex.

First up: Food

I made a really nice spicy Indian soup for the brunette bit last week. It was very 'warming' and I'd recommend some naan bread and dumping some rice in the soup. That's in addition to the raita which is dropped in there anyway.

As Adrian was leaving for more caffeine isolated pastures, and the blonde bit had a birthday recently, and I was free - I decided to go extreme cake baking. Hardcore. Manly. Chocolate overload. And by god, or darwin, or some deity of chocolate, this was over the top. More chocolate than you can waggle a fraggle at. See here for the hazelnut and choc cake. I pretty much stuck to the receipe but ended up using Whittakers 65% and some Lindt 65 or 70% choc as couldn't be bothered finding the Valrhona.

Second: Movies
I spent most of the weekend watching TV programmes and movies. In particular, as it wass my choice, the brunette and I watched Wolf Creek and Hard Candy. Wolf Creek is an average roadtrip horror flick from Aussie. Parts of it are excellent, but in general watch The hitcher and Texas Chainsaw Massacre PtI or DEvils Rejects instead.
Hard Candy is bloody excellent. Manipulative 14 year old meets older photographer on a chatroom and much disturbing action ensues. The 14 yo, whose name escapes me and I'm too lazy to look it up, was an absolutely stunning performance. Really one of the best movies I've seen in some time. Rivetting, tight script, brilliant acting, minimal sets all combined to make the descent into depravity more convincing.

And in todays link, thanks to P-man, Kitchens of the future.

As always, love and happy goblins, B

Thesis

It's in.

thats why there's been no updates for awhile.

But that is about to change. hell, I might even give you all some views on the Anapsida.

B

Oh God Oh God Oh God

And that's not referring to my impending thesis completion. My coffee pot just died, I washed it and it shattered!!!

ARRRGGGHGHHHHHH

*wimpers*

b.

Exposing the Organ

Mainly for those who haven't had the pleasure of pumping my organ, I've taken some pictures. A bit of background, this is a Reed organ rather than a harmonium. Harmoniums use a blow action to make noise - and are generally British/European. Mine is an American reed organs use a suction action, the air is pulled through the reeds to create the sound.

I'm aiming to record a couple of tracks so you can hear the beast, or I might just press onto waxroll :-p

Early influences in Biology and Firealarms

I saw in the obit's the other day that Nancy Adams died. Or to give her full name, Jacqueline Nancy Mary Adams. Most of you will have seen her drawings of New Zealand plants and animals. As a young lad I have fond memories of wandering around with books (published by Mobil if my battered memory serves) which were brillantly formatted to fit in the pocket and were spiral bound to facilitate page turning. I read as many of her books as I could, although I'd be the first to say her drawings of NZ flora, although gorgeous, never really stuck. Only the other day a labmate of mine from our undergrad days and I were reminiscing over our botany fieldtrips where we'd send the other two off to do the work cos we had no idea - although I can spot a coprosma...
So yeah, I'll raise a beer to Nancy at some point for getting me into biology and giving me fond memories of bushwalks.

In other news: I fixed a mac powerbook (12" like yours Patrick! oohheerr missus!) yesterday. It had had a hard life and was very dented, but the only thing really wrong was the harddrive had died, and the DVD was out of alignment thanks to some knocks. I also cleaned my wireless MightyMouse, which might just be the single greatest toy for my computer I have.

But in Signs of the Apocalypse, I went for a run last night. I cannot think when I last did that (outside of the hockey field), I can't even recall doing it when I was playing hockey seriously... hmmm. the plan was to get myself tired out so I'd fall asleep, well that worked reasonably well. Until the bloody building firealarm went off at 1130pm. FFS!!! So after getting back inside around midnight I couldn't get back to sleep til 2ish. So yeah, I'm a bundle of frickin' joy today. Oh and the internet is down so no idea when this will make it up to the blog.

Am editing the thesis today. It's quite nice coming back to it after a month since I last saw it.

B xxxx

Music, Mozart and Dinosaurs

I probably am implying that Mozart isn't music by that title, and in my defence until his late era stuff thats not too far from the truth...

First up, thank to Neil the Psychochicken is a BBC report about the value of cd collections - and how most people undervalue them. I don't think I'm one of them, off the top of my head I've:
- starved to get to gigs or buy CDs
- skipped very good friends weddings as I already had tickets to a gig
- flown to the other side of the world (three times) to catch various bands
- have everything catalogued
- hate selling anything (alhtough I am clearing things at the moment - a bit)
- the blonde bit keeps referring to me as a 'music slut'

And in Science news, the 'Mozart Effect' has been debunked by a bunch of Germans (et ez ze Beethoven effect!) who reviewed all the literature and decided it was just silly. The only benefit they could find was learning an instrument, and that I can buy into. Just as language and social interaction is thought to stimulate brain size/activity so to would learning an instrument.

Of more interest, at least to my research, is the news that scientists have isolated protein from a T.rex fossil. Previous to this the oldest DNA was from a Mammoth sample (around 300,000 years old) published last year - good review in PLoS from memory. The T.rex is around 68 million years old. So far collagen has been extracted from the bone and it showed greatest similarity to chickens. The authors pointed out that there were no Croc or Turtle samples for comparison so whether the T.rex is actually a member of the Archosauria or not is still up for debate. But it is cool. Closer to my dream of baby T.rex's running around in the backyard, throwing the neighbours to them, letting the little blighters nibble my tootsies...

Love, B.

Admission of organisation

Ok so its more an admission of being slightly geeky, but it has made my life more organised...Thanks to the lovely Patrick's suggestion I'm now happily using NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds so I can read all of your posts. And I got to find out that Kate Middleton has dumped Wills so either of them is free for my charms! Yay for BBC news...

Music stuff: the new Gazpacho album is a blinder, a Norwegian indie-alt band I've liked for a while. But this new one is something else. A more detailed review to follow.
New Marillion album is shaping up nicely, although being marillion there's a period of settling in before I'll give a definitive.

New Porcupine Tree in a couple of weeks, which is definitely a cause for celebration.

New Dream Theatre and Rush following after that. Oh glorious days!

In more prosaic news, my supervisor likes my thesis so a few tidy-ups and its submission time.

Love, B

The bonking namesake

With thanks to girl-Alex for this one. Watch a tuatara shag! Rub your cloaca in time to a tut! View here.

Ignore the 'living dinosaur' crap and ignore the 'first time seen mating in 200 years' it should have been 'first time mating on the mainland for about 200 years'

Love, B

300

We wandered along to the 300 yesterday, with the expectation that it would be bad. We are quite seasoned b-grade watchers, but this was something else. The reviews, which haven't been kind, have given it around 1-1.5 stars out of 5. This is optimistic. Here's some tips from our movie watching experience:
* if you are a teenage boy, or have the mental capacity of a teenage boy, you'll love it
* if you replace spartan with 'republican' the opposition with 'democrat' and call the greek government the 'united nations' it makes a bit more sense

The acting is wooden, in the same way that Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly are convincingly outacted by the ship in Pirates, so too is the lead outacted by pretty much everything. The directing is hamfisted with the subtletly of a sledgehammer, the director also wrote the script wchih is always a good sign for a bgrade. If nothing else it saves on paying another person. And his scriptwriting is also highly cheesy and amusing, complete with long dramatic shots following utterly crap lines.

The CGI and lighting etc was good, but got a bit blah blah blah oh look it looks the same - again!

The bigbad man (either Xerses ?spelling? or Kofi Annan, depending on your take) is more camp than Julian Cleary. He was wonderful although the movie missed a great opportunity to have the first mirror ball in ancient greece! Again more evidence that gays shouldn't be in them military since his team lost! Wow the parallels are just frightening!

Useful things we did learn about Sparta: they had a wonderful dental care plan, or that fluorodation of water can be dated back to Sparta. Spartan warriors were real men, and their women real women (i'm resisting the urge to complete the Douglas Adams line there) and real men fight commando.

We laughed a lot during the movie, but sadly it dragged on to the point were the laughter turned to tears as no end was in sight...
It's probably worth seeing at the Embassy cos its nice and big and loud n stuff, but don't expect anything watchable.
Love, B.

B-grades II

Part 2 has kicked off, we are watching another Santos movie, Santos and the monsters with a midgit (who has a hump), werewolf, vampire, female vampire its all there! I seem to have had some beer by now. Now Blue Demon has found a cave (very fake!) with green people, the midgit, and the 'master'. Ooohh fighting. Blue Demon lost. I'm sad now. Theres a false Blue Demon, I'm lost and its only 24 min into the movie! Eekness! It's shocking, lots of monsters, no story, I'm following it well. I think. Now the cyclops is being patched up at the secret lab. Hey there were s[ecoa; effects. Santos won, bad guys dead. All good.

i think it's pub time now!

b xx

More movies and beer!

I know, it's all getting a bit repetitive, but b-grade movies and beer on a Saturday afternoon seems so right. Today my guests are Smackers and Wesley, with the potential arrival of 'Jewish' Blair.

First up is the Ray Dennis Steckler movie, The Hollywood Strangler meets the Skid Row Slasher. Ray Dennis is a very very bad director, cheap is giving him kudos. Lots of naked chicks get strangled, and their legs waggle around alot. Lots of breasts, although none (so far) have been very good breasts. Apparently shot for a few thousand dollars (US) and it shows. Although some shots are quite good. And he shot it with no sound, and dubbed it later. There are a lot of pigeon shots and alcoholics. There are a lots of wino's in Hollywood. Lots of sluts and shocking acting, duelling serial killers!!! How can it be bad movie? Oh my god, it just finished. Well that was mercifully quick (just over 60min). Thinking about wots next...

We've decided on Alice in Acidland a classic B and W 1968 movie about Alice and her explorations with acid. Now three chicks are taking their clothes off. Whoot!!! Lots of late 60's jazz too. Choice! Ohhh lesbian action, Alice's friend, Frieda is abit of a carpet muncher. Having got Alice drunk she's taking advantage of her! Shocking!!! I'm shocked and appalled. But the jazz is nice. The jazz disappeared for some early psych, which has changed into a kinda jazz/psych bit now. Alice is now a wildcat for sex. Trust me, I heard it on the movie. "The shagpile carpet is just wrong" yeah thanks Wes. Ok *now* its got weird. It's switched to colour and is doing a psych mind fuck thing. We are all very freaked! Oh god, now its got a sitar!!! Alice is a mental vegetable!!!

After excessive amounts of porn, or at least semi-porn, we are going with a classic Bela Lugosi 'The Corpse Vanishes'. This movie concerns, strangely, a corpse apparently called 'Phylis' my god the dead bride has been stolen! And not like a german cake!!!! Comments whose meanings have changed over time: "If the brides keels over, there'll be no snatching!" The main actress, Luana Walters, is hot. Curvy cute and quite shaggable, and sadly I dont think we are going to get to see her nekkid - dammit. This movie is by far the best of the three, so far. Script is better than the storyline wold suggest and the acting is good. Not bad for a 65 yo movie. 'Send the sawbones in' about the doctor. Great! Ohhh dwarf action, great stuff! Oh they left the midgit behind, the cads!!
The clever cops went immediately to the hidden cupboard, tey knew more than they were letting on.

Great stuff!!!

Break now while we wait for the Rhodester.

b xx

The day could be better

My horoscope (DomPost) for today:
Don't spread rumours - it might affect your position or a partnership. Mixing business with pleasure will only lead to disaster, mistrust and possibly unemployment.

Righto. Back to bed for me. Alone.

b xx