The vast majority state if you’ve nothing interesting to post, don’t post anything. But that’s only advice for professionals, I reckon. Amateur, personal blogs are exempt from golden rules like providing consistent, interesting content.  And with that in mind…

It started off bright today and well nippy, Atticus’s water bowl had a thin layer of ice around the edges. I got a picture of the sunrise, but that’s nothing too impressive because it happens at about 7.15am these days…

I played about 10 games of scrabble in an hour with a 60% win rate, posted that I was going to post and nipped off round the ‘hood with my camera and brownie-starflex-pringles-tin contraption. Only joggers, dog walkers and the Starbucks crowd were about but I was afforded very nice views looking over the Willamette wetlands towards the town centre. For the record, those looking for American etiquette tips might want to take note that joggers ignore you. Dog walkers wish you Happy Thanksgiving. Starbucks only wants to know if you’d like room for cream.

We’ve got a friend coming over at 3ish which’ll give me ample time to fulfil my homework for the day. Make potatoes. DrSita asked me how many to buy and I said, get loads, and when you’re looking at them thinking did I get enough? Double the amount. So I’ve got a lot of spuds. Half are destined to be mashed and the other half will be perfectly par-boiled, rolled around the pan to encourage an absorbant outer layer, drizzled in olive oil, be-sprigged with rosemary and roasted to perfection. Probably. You can’t go far wrong with our tuberous friends. We started on the CostCo ham on Sunday and have been eating it every day, frankly I’m sick of the stuff now, though I’m looking forward to making a (split) pea soup with whatever’s left by the weekend. Still reading?

Erm… what else? Work’s been going grand. I’ve been adding intrusive javascript to several pages to make them fancier. Though an overhaul of the entire site is due in a few months to a tablefree CSS so it’s all pretty academic. law.lclark.edu is the site I spend .60 of my week on now. TV? Colbert’s Christmas Special was fun, but we’re discovering (8+ years later than most) Freaks and Geeks. I think we were in Spain when it was on telly the first time round, and it’s great stuff.  Music? Looking forward to getting hold of Guns’n’Roses’s 13-year-in-the-making album. I heard a track on the radio and it sounded great. The beginning riff is the same as The Darkness’s I believe in a thing called love, you know the one…

Forgot how much I liked that one… Also I’ve found I now fully fit the demographic for Chris Hawkins’ show on Radio 2. He plays a nice mix of music from when I were a lad peppered with the occasional new offering. Thanks to that programme I got into Elbow properly.

Books? Just finished Nick Hornby’s latest, Slam. It’s about a teenage boy who gets his girlfriend pregnant. And I get the impression it was also aimed at teenaged readers but was harmless entertainment. I’ll be nipping out and getting Making Money by Terry Pratchett tomorrow so I have something similarly lightweight to replace it.

Photos? I’m still obsessed with Through the Viewfinder shots and checking on camera prices and hoping the whole worldwide-economy-going-down-the-toilet has some kind of fringe benefit regarding the price of a Pentax KD20.

Films? Quantum of Solace were grand, I thought it was a leaner, better film that the last one. Hellboy II was also a treat and Guadalajara native, Guillermo Del Toro’s trademarks were all over the film. I watched From Russia with Love too and it holds up very well. I especially liked his miniature tape recorder housed in a camera not unlike my Kodak Duaflex.

Plans for the weekend? A drive to the country somewhere, it’s meant to be nice weather.

Alrighty, that’s it for now. Thanks for bearing with me as I find my blogging feet again. I’ve got competition from my dad now so I’ll try to post more regularly… hasta pronto 😀