Wednesday 28 December 2016

Starry (warsy) Christmas

The crossed Mas has come and gone for this year. I hope many had one at least as great as I did (ahh, a calm and quiet Eve, bit more lively when the nephews showed up the next day), and I think of the ones who didn't/couldn't. Although some say the thought counts, in the end it hardly does, and I hope one day I can do something about it. But, one thing at a time. (For my own reference, I have no idea where that came from. Getting old and sentimental I suppose.) Great Christmas ham this year btw.

Watched the new Star Wars yesterday with friends in the big city. High quality cookie cutter action movie. Very well made, incredibly polished. In other words, a bit boring, one of my friends almost fell asleep. It's amazing how skilled they are at making these, it's the same shiny paste over and over and over, every time I'm invited for cinema. Fortunately I don't go so often so I save a lot of money and time of my life. Oh wait, Mad IMax was rather decent.

Strange how Rogue One ended with a close-up CG version of a young princess Leia, and now we get this sad piece of news. I never liked being too direct and I'll stay that way, we all know what piece I'm referring to. Silent geek minute, and then the next topic: CG recreations are amazingly detailed these days, too much in fact that it looks really freaky. "They" just cannot settle for the much more beautiful old trick of only showing their back, and then you go back and watch to the properly amazing original trilogy while skipping the rest. Which reminds me, I haven't watched them for some time.

Playing the brass flute turned out to be really hard, even just blowing properly into the head joint takes a lot of practice, never mind blowing octaves eventually... Fortunately I gave this hobby/challenge to my mother, I'll just keep raspin' ma fiddle, I almost have the first part of Gavotte kinda nailed down... And now my father is enjoying music through the amazing medium of 580V, if you know what I mean *nudge*. Well, whoever you are you probably don't, but I do, and this is my monthly diary, and that's good enough for me :p

Few more days and then it's lobster and champagne time! There's also something about the calendar shifting over quite a bit, but whatever, I just want good food and drink at home with my family. And the same to you all, if you actually read this nonsense!

Sunday 11 December 2016

Neverending change

Took a chance and watched the new QI with Toksvig, and was happy to see her do a really good job. She's better as a host than as a panel member. Will definitely watch the rest.

Was really happy to have a big bowl full of oatmeal after I came back from Japan, there's something special about cooking even the simplest thing compared to buying even very good ready-made food. Although very little beats yuba kaiseki:

Expensive, but one of the best courses I ever had. A one Michelin star restaurant in Gothenburg was ridiculous compared to this. Also, 3 karaoke in one visit, bit much...

Tomorrow I'll bake Swedish kanelbullar and Lussebullar and take to work on the 13th. I haven't baked for such a long time.

I tried a pair of Stax again in Tokyo, and they're really on another level compared to most other cans. Not very nice for messy/dirty music, but clean music is absolutely incredible to listen to.

Off to finish the current QI episode...

EDIT 2016-12-16: The Violent Sleep of Reason is absolutely phenomenal, their best yet. I can listen to every single thing from start to finish, headbanging secretly inside my mind at work. Carpenter Brut is still up there as well of course. And today I started trying Gavotte on the violin, great fun to almost be able to play something actually musical in contrast to the Etüden I'm torturing myself with the rest of the time.

And how about some more photos, first a rare event that I was fortunate enough to experience in Tokyo:
Morning 1:
Morning 2:
Next, I made these for a guest who comes to GSI twice a year:

I was told this was a second order gift... I just like folding, giving things away to make people smile. and then go into hiding, normally I throw everything in the trash bin.