nishatalitha

Friday night, maudlinrose and comrademojo and I went to the Up Close and Personal with Dvořák and the NZSO at the Wellington Town Hall. It was really interesting - the conductor kept stopping the music and getting one instrument to play its part. He did this layer by layer, and then the orchestra played it the whole way through. The main thing I took out of it was to listen from the bottom up; find the bass layer and and you can hear the rest from there.

After that, we ended up at Cafe Eis for ice-cream (I had pistachio and truffle), before we realised we'd missed the bus we planned to catch, that there was still half an hour til the next one, so comrademojo and I dragged maudlinrose to The Hawthorne Lounge, which she was initially dubious about, but didn't take long to appreciate. We started off with cocktails on the menu, and then got the bartender to make stuff it. They were good. Mmmm, have to go back there.

Went to the DCM bookfair on Saturday morning and there was even less that I was interested in that there have been previous years. I spent about $30, of which about $10 are gifts for people. Most of what I picked up was marked with the higher price tags, and several of those were replacement copies in better condition of books I already own. Probably the books I'm most excited about are Dark Angel and The Chosen, books 4 and 5 of the Night World series by L J Smith - in the correct UK edition. I'm missing books 8 and 9, would like a replacement book 1, and am still waiting for book 10 to be released. It was due out in 1999...

I also went out on Saturday evening to Alessan's birthday bash. It was good to see people, but I didn't stay late, what with the early morning that day and having ended up at The Hawthorne Lounge on Friday night. I aim to go to bed at a sensible hour tonight.

Dinner tonight will consist of a Gabure, which is a French soup made from a bacon hock, onions, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, potato, and several other things. It does take four hours to cook, so it's definitely a weekend food. Smells good. I'll chop the leeks before I go to frisbee and add them when I get back - that part takes about ten minutes. The messy part is removing the meat from the bacon hock after it's been simmering for three and a half hours.

This is sort of a half-mixture. It was going to be an actual half mixture, but as it turns out, I'd like a pot half way in size between the 10L or 12L stock pot and the 3L saucepans, and thus added more water as it boiled down, and some things in the wrong order, and more beans... oh, well. It looks like a fairly forgiving soup and I'm interested to see how it turns out.

Just now, we have finished watching part 1 of Sherlock - A Study in Pink. Too me, it had the same feel as Star Trek: Reboot does towards TOS. There's a respect for the canon, but also a wilingness to adapt as necessary. And hey, a competent John Watson. That's worth watching. Also, I totally hadn't realised that it was a three-part mini series. I can usually manage to watch a mini series, but fail at more than, say 13 episodes of something. And if I manage one season of something, I usually fail part way through the second. I realise Sherlock has a season coming up, and I make absolutely no promises about my ability to watch it all...

...also, just as with Alice in Wonderland, I don't like the Sherlock Holmes books very much.

Done

• go to frisbee practice
  
• make pesto
  
• plant spring onions
  
• cover books
  
• polish boots and other shoes
  
• pack up dragon tea set
  
• make up lego pirate ship
  
• catch up on Merlin
  
• catch up on Castle
  
• polish wood on armchairs
  
• handwash heavy wool jersey
  
• wash duvet cover to give back to maudlinrose
  
• other assorted laundry
  
• tidy room
  
• read


To do or failed

• go to church
  
• bake with bananas
  
• make crumpets
  
• bring up barbeque
  
• put away old lecture notes
  
• catch up on Dollhouse

I still think that the general ensemble cast in Dollhouse is much stronger than Eliza Dushku, but then, I've been distracted when I've been watching it with the internets. Merlin is crack of the same sort as Xena and should be watched with irreverance. Castle I like as a murder-a-week show, and actually find funny.

One more day off and then back to work. Public holidays are awesome.