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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Mitch's LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 | | 9:44 am |
Food Porn
( Food Porn )
PurpleGril ... I still owe you a posting about pompoms. It's on the way. Honest. | | Thursday, September 21st, 2006 | | 10:23 am |
| | Monday, September 18th, 2006 | | 8:42 pm |
A Pint Of Prawns
I was out for dinner with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sara_lou last night, at The Butcher's Hook in Fulham, an excellent pub as a joint late birthday celebration. It's over the road from some crummy soccer club, Chelsie or something; yesterday was a home match I believe, and there was not a single football hooligan supporter in the pub! Absolute bliss! The owner (manager? seemed too keen to just be a manager and not the owner) was very friendly and welcoming; about one third of the seating was walled off as a non-smoking area. The menu is not huge, but the food we had was excellent quality; we shared an artichoke globe for an entrée, then I had roast chicken breast for my main and she had a tree huggin hippie salad, which looked rather good. Behind us though, was a table of four Americans, which was ok, until their entrées arrived. One of the blokes had ordered "a pint of prawns" which came served a pint glass - very cool! He was not so impressed however, the prawns were unshelled, which by me, is good, but he wasn't having any of it ... "too many eyes" and "not what I expected" he said. Hmm. He definitely didn't want it and sent it back! Now, if I get crap service I'm all for making a fuss, much to the chagrin of my work colleagues, as most of the pubs around work are rubbish for food service and I'm in the habit of letting them know when they screw up, but guess I was a bit surprised at the lack of adventure. I mean, there are things I don't like eating and some things I have to say I would be hard pressed to even sample, namely snails - I hate the damn things with a passion when they're alive, why on earth would I want to eat them? But he ordered prawns, so he must have some liking for seafood, and, well, surely he could have just given it a shot? If he didn't like peeling 'em that much after trying it, well, fair enough, but to send it back just because it was "not what he was expecting" just seems a little lame. I've no idea what he ordered for a main - I lost interest after the pint of prawns was carried off. Anyway, next time I go there I'm ordering a pint of prawns for my entrée, they looked bloody good. | | Saturday, September 9th, 2006 | | 10:43 am |
Birthday Sushi
The sushi eating went down very well, thank you to strawberryfrog, short_mort, funkabubble, the_puzzler, Alex and Malindy (WANOLJIDT) for coming along! strawberryfrog and short_mort kindly and thoughtfully gave me a copy of War and Peace and a clever holdy-openy-booky-thingy, which I will have to take a picture of.
Today is the BBQ and we're all running around like mad bees getting things prepared, the chocolate bread is in the bread machine, there are silly amounts of dead animal in the fridge, and I really must get the place vacuumed. If you're coming, see you later on, or, hope you had a great time, depending on when you read this, or if not, you're missing out! | | Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 | | 9:39 pm |
Ashes to ashes
Paul sent me an email on Tuesday, offering to ship some of Grandma's ashes here. I feel a bit weird about it, but I also feel that somehow it would be a pleasing completeness, especially if I took them to where her parents are buried. I think that also it may help me deal with what's happened; I don't think I've really taken it in all that well. I feel quite disconnected, like watching something on television; I know it's happened, I feel, well, probably what one is supposed to feel, but it's kind of second hand. While not surprising for a few different reasons, it's also a bit worrying. So. I've looked into the necessary paper work needed, it's awkward, but not difficult.
Nb. I met Paul when I was 10, I used to play with his children. Over the years he's become one of my closest friends, even now despite the distance and our sometimes long times between talking. In the last few years, he also become a good friend of Mercy's, visiting with her regularly and taking her out and about which I suspect is a lot more than many residents of the care home have.
| | Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 | | 11:33 am |
Housewarming!
We're doing a housewarming BBQ this Saturday, 9th of September. strawberryfrog and I shall be lighting the BBQs at 3pm, and as short_mort points out, this is somewhat of a sight to see as it generally involves large amounts of spectacular flame[1]. We'll have two BBQs, one for veggie things and the other for charred animal things. We will have BBQ sauces and marinades available, as well as some veggie and dead animal things and some booze, but feel free to bring things you'd like to either drink or see turned into charcoal cooked by our excellent selves. We'll probably start cooking things around 4.30 and the Red Arrows will be doing a flyby[2] at 5pm so it's worth being here by then.
If it's raining then we'll be going ahead regardless, in which case you'll get to look out the window and laugh at strawberryfrog and me BBQing stuff in the rain.
The address details are available in a locked post, so if you can't see that and wish to attend please drop me a line at quinnmj at gmail dot com.
[1] One of the BBQ grills has started to bow downwards due to the heat; I've not checked the other but I suspect the same has happened.
[2] Ok, so this might not actually be strictly speaking, y'know, true. But it'd be cool if it happened.
| | Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 | | 12:13 am |
Life and Friday night
Ok, so, it's Saturday night now. Well, Sunday morning. Anyhoo, Friday night was spent at the ever-charming purplegril's house with short_mort, and strawberryfrog, and some other people who may or may not be on LJ. Most of the evening was spend enjoying short_mort's delightful, thoughtful Australian opinions of the rest of the world, that is to say, slagging off all and sundry; it was most amusing! I took along the second chocolate bread attempt, which went down rather well, leastways, I dont think there was any left by the time we left. Sadly there are no photographs this time! But my alterations to the recipe worked perfectly so there will be more of it in future; I have rough plans to serve some as a desert next week at our housewarming BBQ ... I'll get photos of that, because, with any luck, it'll be a bit special, in a chocolately type of way. | | Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 | | 10:13 pm |
Political Stuffs
Apparently you're not allowed to have a political opinion when travelling through the US anymore. Good thing he was not Brazillian, they'd probably have just pumped 7 bullets into him. | | Monday, August 21st, 2006 | | 10:30 pm |
| | Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 | | 4:16 pm |
Grandma
In the early afternoon of Sunday the 13th of August, Mercy, my grandmother, passed away. | | Thursday, August 10th, 2006 | | 2:53 pm |
I'm not being funny, but ...
Who'd be dumb enough to put a bomb on a plane? I mean, honestly, someone could easily get hurt doing that kind of thing. | | Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | | 7:22 pm |
Grandma
They took the drips out they use to feed Mercy today. The amount of fluid they were putting into her was causing the veins to break down; essentially they can't keep her alive anymore. She has two, maybe three days, certainly no longer than a week. She's not been conscious since the stroke and is showing no signs of recovery. They have her on morphine, so even if she is awake at all, she won't be in pain. | | Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 | | 9:18 am |
Grandma
My grandmother had a stroke last week. She's in Waitakere hospital. They didn't seem to pick up on the stroke for two or three days after she'd gone into hospital. At first they thought she had a blocked bowel, as she had phenomena (don't ask, it is icky), but when they looked they didn't find anything and eventually got to doing an MRI scan for a stroke. Unfortunately with this kind of haemorrhage the chances of a secondary bleed are very high, so it seems that there's a strong possiblity that has happened. The doctors are playing a bit of a waiting game as far as surgery goes, and for that I can't really blame them, as quality of life is a strong consideration. She is a very independant spirit, and being dependent on other people beyond simple things would be very distressing for her. | | Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 | | 3:07 pm |
Tuesday
I'm a stress bunny right now, had the worst night's sleep in a couple of months last night, only four hours; I only got that much because i went out for a run, if I hadn't I'd probably only have had one or two. I suspect I'll be skipping salsa class again as a result. Things are going ok at work, I'm in the final stages of the invoicing project, finding the bugs in my boss' code and trying to fix them before he does (we're two for two so far!). Fortunately I can sit here listening to music off my MP3 player, which helps me concentrate a lot. On the downside the AC is broken and everyone's in a mardy mood as a result. Considering my lack of sleep and general stress I'm floating along ok. | | Thursday, July 13th, 2006 | | 7:30 pm |
Bugger
I was offered the chance to go out to Israel next week, but I can't. I checked my passport and the Israeli embassy site, and you need a passport with at least 6 months left on it and mine expires in September. Arse! I'll talk with my boss tomorrow, maybe it can wait while I get a new passport ... Current Mood:  annoyed | | Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 | | 2:22 pm |
| | Monday, July 10th, 2006 | | 1:44 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 | | 7:48 pm |
Ajax Stuffs
Edit: I've updated the code a bit this morning, it's much better behaved now, and stops itself properly when it's done.
So I managed to get the Ajax stuff* working that I've been on about ... it's not exactly fantastic looking but there's some clever stuff going on there, if you notice as the bar and count goes up, the page does not refresh, but the data is coming from an aspx page which generates the count data when the Javascript requests it (if you're interested you'll be able to poke around and find it I'm sure). The server code will connect into my windows service via the sockets/XML interface I was going on about yesterday, and provide data on what the service is doing - the company's invoicing, which I will start on integrating with my Windows service code tomorrow. Currently it runs on an asp.net site which means the invoicing process stops if the client navigates away from the invoicing page. Don't ask me who's idea that was, it happened before I got there!
* I fixed the caching problem with Internet Explorer.
| | 8:54 am |
The Storm Fairy
The Storm Fairy visited just after 6am this morning arriving with a thunderclap so loud that my window slid shut, and a deluge of Noahtasic proportions. I lept out of bed, grabbed my car keys which I'd thoughtfully left right in front of the door (I'm not sure why so don't bother asking), and my dressing gown, ran downstairs, opened the front door, put my dressing gown on, ran out to the car, got in ... and shut the sunroof. Current Mood:  busyCurrent Music: Buena Vista Social Club | | Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 | | 11:40 pm |
Ok, so I lied.
I wasn't annoyed enough to not go to salsa. I got home at 6.30, grabbed a quick shower, hauled myself down to the station and was in Kingston by 8. The first class was ladies footwork only due to one of the teachers being lost in traffic for the flower show, so I sat that one out. Second class was waaaaaay to advanced for me, but some nice blonde lass (ok, maybe not lass, she was older than me) dragged me into it regardless and I struggled along somehow and was even complimented a couple of times, although I think the ladies in question were clearly delusional!
The train home contained a very drunk young lady who had just thrown up in the carriage. She was getting off at Wimbledon so I escorted her to the station attendants who looked less than pleased at having to deal with her. One can be a gentleman and evil at the same time it seems, heheheh.
I note there's some nice Ajax code on the update page now if I'm not mistaken (the auto save updater).
Two posts in one day. I must lay down now, it's all been too much. |
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