Stuff

Atticus has excelled himself. He’s been the very model of canine good behaviour from the outset and might even have won a reprieve in my affections. I especially like Sally’s new name for him, Asparagus.

Record time again for the homeward journey, 5 and a half hours. Sita drove the first 2 hours and i took photos out the window of pylons for Flash’s site. So if you’re into blurred pictures of industrial structures, check back here in 5 hours or so…
Read More “Just back from Los Angeles”

In Home Catering Menu (Chez Prit et Sam)

Hors D?Oeuvre served with Henriot, Souverain Brut,NV Champagne
Bouchee aux Champignon with mushroom duxelle and Gruyere Cheese

Tuna Tartine- Seared Fennel Crusted Tuna with Olives on Herb Toast
Salade D?Epinards- baby spinach, Roquefort, red grapes, walnuts, pears

Poisson- served with Chateau D’Aqueria, Tavel 2002 Ros?
Bouillabaisse- saffron based seafood stew

Volaille- served with Ch?teau La Roque, Pic Saint Loup, Languedoc 2002
Canard- seared duck breast, Camargue rice, orange gastrique

Dessert- served with Graham?s, Six Grapes, Reserve Porto
Fondant au Chocolat- served with espresso ice cream

And now I’m full. If I get the chance I’ll explain all about this post. Crazy busy and time for bed…

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15 days to make a better one…

More photos from today’s walk with the dog up the coast by Davenport.

Similar pictures to a fortnight ago, except now there’s a few poppies out. Still featuring the patented Atticus-shakycam-action.

I saw these potatoes in Safeway today. They’re individually wrapped ‘Bakers’ with instructions on how to microwave them (‘7 minutes’). No warnings that once microwaved, contents may be hot.

Quietish day today, thanks for asking. Tanya, becky, scott and naiomi came round last night for another in our series of sophisticated dinner parties. at the end of the evening tanya and I finished a game of scrabble we’d started last monday at sita’s basketball game on me pda and we managed a draw. how often does that happen? very good use of the board too…

i bought meself Zuma and downloaded a demo of Text Twist too for the Palm which is grand. (Them there links’ll take you to the online versions which are fun enough too). So when we were walking Mr.A today I could stand outside Safeway and Blockbuster with him playing PDA games whilst sita shopped.

A friend of ours, Val, roped me into playing backing guitar for a song she’s going to sing at the 2005 Santa Cruz Queer Youth Leadership Awards. So today we auditioned at the diversity centre and got through to the next round… I’m doing the translation for the event again. It’s a laugh and all for a good cause. They wanted to know what we’d be wearing for the event and thought it strange we hadn’t the first clue. It’s not till mid april for christ’s sake… i’m thinking a cute little black number… but anyroad, val and her daughter Sage, took us out for lunch at the Walnut Avenue Bistro. Which was well nice… I’m starting to be a bit fussier about me food these days… a mixture of stress, more chewing than usual and old age has brought on Temporo-Mandibular Disorder whereupon my jaw is trying to escape from its hinges so i’m all about nice soft food and small little bites right now.

Young Mr.Craggs has been back in touch after I forwarded him an article from the taunton times about someone impaling themself on the gates of Vivary Park in Taunton. Which has some very similar details to an accident he himself had himself about 10 years ago… and that’s stirred up some interest in these here pages from the bristol, ahem, posse. Gav’s in Melbourne of course, now. I think i knew that…

Mother’s day tomorrow- Thanks for the reminder, Annelise, and me Grandma’s birthday any day now too. Am off to watch Curb your enthusiasm series 3. Couldn’t be collectively arsed to get to the cinema for The Aviator. Maybe next week. Possibly more blogging tomorrow. Got lots of translations to do. Stay in touch, like. Fond regards…

Web design? Social work? Oaxaca?

Just rang me Nanny to wish her a happy Saint David’s Day and in return she gave me a quick lesson in Welsh pronunciation. Bless. Promised to have a proper chat this weekend.

Your Oscar Bingo Cards
All kinds of new plans for the future were discussed this weekend, unfortunately lack of anonymity prevents me posting them here. So the only ‘news’ to post is that i went to Berkeley yesterday for a change, bought some 2nd hand books at Moe’s excellent bookshop on Telegraph came home & watched a video with young sita. Today has been spent researching XML and catching up on a bit of TV… Nathan Barley, Fry and Laurie and Look Around You. Nothing too dynamic really.

It must be getting close to easter because these here bunnies were staring down at me from above the frozen lasagnes in Safeway.

MOMA had this here Rivera painting and a couple of Frida’s. Which was nice. But there wasn’t much else that was my cup of tea. I was a bit miffed that we’d come to SF to take pictures and here we were stuck in a museum with a no photography rule. I can understand it when flash photography is banned because it can damage ancient paintings, but here it just seemed like a ruse to sell postcards and uphold copyright. It’s not like i wanted to take pictures of the exhibits themselves, neither, just the people there. I discovered in the museum that you can’t silence the photo taking noise on me palm neither. Hey ho. Not too impressed with that. Anyroad, in the absence of possibilities for ‘classical lookalikes‘, I tried to persuade sita to play the ’10 points for someone stoking their chin game’, and got to 70-odd points. here’s sita stroking her chin and contemplating ‘untitled’, a big blue piece of canvas, no doubt representing “Anger …. Pain …. Fear …. Aggression”.

And finally, today there was a gorgeous sunset on the way home for work, and a traffic jam so i could take this picture:

There’s the collage, here’s the link to see the pix as individual photos.

Went to the SF MOMA for the 1st time and sneaked a few crafty pix in with the zire palm thing. Generally not too impressed with that museum. anyroad, maybe tomorrow i’ll post them with a few thoughts about the contents of the museum. meanwhile, gotta take the canine round the block… constantine’s been universally slated, and so to plan b, Anchorman.

Sita’s performing her ablutions, I’ve just had a chat with me folks and have been checking out the usual B3TA nonsense. And we’ll be off for a drive in a minute… Hope there’s no burglars reading. Maybe I should wait till we get back before i hit the ‘post it’ button… US/UK difference #452, collect the set: The verb ‘To burglarize’ (US), versus ‘To burgle’ (UK). Both look odd when you stare at them, but why use, sorry, utilize 3 syllables when 2 will do?

Anyroad, back to b3ta, i overestimated by about 10 quid the prices on this ‘guess the price of the Tesco Value grocery item’ game. Can’t believe the price of sliced bread. It costs an arm and a leg down the local safeway here. and tastes like sugar.

Any to any burglarizererers reading… we’ll be back at any moment and the dog will deafen you if you get near the house. then chew your foot. he may eat your toenails given half a chance. also, i’m taking my zire 72 with me so there’s nowt to steal. got that? you scoundrels…

have been to Salcombe for a couple of days, looking forward to hearing how it went on a marathon phone session tomorrow. Dad’s already posted some pix of them pottering around the seaside (click for bigger, 87k).

I have a 3-day weekend which started 10 minutes ago courtesy of the presidents of the united states of america. Which is the first nice thing they’ve ever done for me, frankly. I am pitifully grateful. Not just a 3 day weekend, but also a four day week. What are the chances, eh? Shall fill every waking minute with soul-nourishing activities. I promise. Mind you, I fancy seeing that Constantine film too, I’ve not read any reviews of it yet though… and i have to watch anchorman first before i take it back to blockbuster. despite the “end of late fees” they’re trumpetting, if you don’t return it in time, you’ve just bought that DVD and its crappy yellow case. harumph.

My new driving license arrived today with the cheesiest of grins on it… 10 out of 10 for speed of processing, bugger all for pressing the camera button at the wrong time. I refuse to take any responsibility for how I look in that photo. Someone at the DMV owns a copy of photoshop and has too much time on their hands.

A couple of new signees on the guestmap- let’s give it up for Tash and ‘Naridu‘ from blighty and oz respectively. It’s quite fun to surf around the world via people’s guestmaps. 7 degrees of separation and all that.

So the camera in my Zire 72 isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad. here’s a couple of shots. One, as promised earlier, of waiting in Trader Joe’s queue for the checkout. You’ll just about make out a lot of wine and After Eights. There’s no flash, but the second picture is beter: a view of the Bay Bridge from Treasure Island next to San Francisco where i ended up this morning by accident on the way to Berkeley.

Is it so wrong to post my site statistics like this? I find it immensely gratifying that people surf by from Algeria to San Jose searching for information on schipperkes, pictures of bunnies and Michael Jackson Dance moves. And talking of searching, S**ita’s name’s been searched and replaced with Sita in all previous entries, just have to wait for a reindexing by all the major search engines to get her web anonymity back. And to break into Mountain View and wave large magnets around next to Google’s data bank of cached pages. Maybe tomorrow on the way to Berkeley…

A n t s found my desk today so i went to the local chinese 99 cent store and asked if they had any insecti cide, sprays, powders, or chal k maybe? He asked how many, I said 5 (cos this stuff is hard to source) and he solemnly reached into the depths of the area behind the counter and quickly put them in a black plastic bag and took his 4.96 +tax. This chalk stuff is incredible, ants sniff it and fall down dead. I’ve always been amazed that this ‘non-toxic’ mix of homeopathic herbs and lemon extract could do that… Maybe a little naive on my part… Anyroad, I read the label and this time, instead of ‘non-toxic’ it says low-poisonous which was a little concerning… so I googled it and here’s one of the articles about it. Not quite as homeopathic as I’d thought…
On the other hand, the active ingredient, deltameethrinee is a common insecticide, the D E A seems to have issues with it being in handy chawk stick form which kids might eat/use. Which is fair enough, but we don’t have kids. just a dog and rabbits and they’ll be kept well away.
What do you reckon? Comment me your thoughts…
In other news. Une autre jour infernale chez CA 95076.

A n t s found my desk today so i went to the local chinese 99 cent store and asked if they had any insecticide, sprays, powders, or chal k maybe? He asked how many, I said 5 (cos this stuff is hard to source) and he solemnly reached into the depths of the area behind the counter and quickly put them in a black plastic bag and took his 4.96 +tax. This chalk stuff is incredible, ants sniff it and fall down dead. I’ve always been amazed that this ‘non-toxic’ mix of homeopathic herbs and lemon extract could do that…
Maybe a little naive on my part… Anyroad, I read the label and this time, instead of ‘non-toxic’ it says low-poisonous which was a little concerning… so I googled it and here’s one of the articles about it. Not quite as homeopathic as I’d thought…
On the other hand, the active ingredient, deltameethrinee is a common insecticide, the DEA seems to have issues with it being in handy chalk stick form which kids might eat/use. Which is fair enough, but we don’t have kids. just a dog and rabbits and they’ll be kept well away.
What do you reckon? Comment me your thoughts…
This post contains a few strategic misspelllinggs…