Archive for the 'The Usual Stuff' Category

Quickly quickly…

Before we mooch off to the pub for our Friday drink…

I’m plotting a massive blog post. I don’t have the internet at home so I’m going to try to write it all there, and sort the photos out and then put it all up in one big chunk. I still need to update wordpress :S and my template. Ugh. Need a to do list.

Anyway, I had an awesome 21st birthday. I did lots of things, much fun was had. Including a trip to V Festival, a spa, and my balcony.

Stay tuned!

Sod’s Law

There’s a lot I want to do in my break between finishing uni and starting work (and finding a flat) however I’ve got a cold and am confined to my bed, unable to do much except stare blankly at the TV. I’m bored. This is my break. Sod’s law right? I really need to remember that in England, drying your hair properly is a must X(

Plus I’m running out of lemsip.

But once I’m better, I’ve finished the back end for my portfolio and just need to rejigger the front end (I made it entirely in Flash for my uni project, but want it half HTML/PHP for the one I put online). I also want to sort out a photo gallery on here and there’s another little project I have in mind :)

Fingers crossed I’ll be able to look at a screen for more than 10 minutes soon!

Super swamped!

I am indeed super swamped at the minute. Deadlines are next Friday and then we have a big presentation the following week. Once all this is delt with there will be some posts about GTA IV, photos, all the work I’ve done, the mister’s birthday and this place will be getting the wordpress update and a makeover. Hopefully I’ll be launching my own photo gallery on here and a few other things too :)

Recipe: One heck of a lasagne!

April 26th - Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese LasagneI can safely say yum! When we went to Avebury last week the pub had a “butternut squash and goats cheese lasagne” on the menu. I couldn’t afford it, but it did sound delicious. I googled and googled until I could google no more, but no recipes were found! A Sainsbury’s product was found which was a bit more descriptive and so on the basis of that I came up with a recipe. It’s a bit labour intensive and took about 2 hours to make and cook. But it was delicious! There will be a picture to follow!

Since it’s a made up recipe and all new, there are some kinks to work out. This is exactly what I made, however you might wish to double the tomato sauce to add more tomato layers, or change the order of the layers. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.

Vital Stats

Serves four with a side salad or green veggies. I ate two servings and felt like I’d over eaten so it is quite filling.

Suitable for vegetarians

450 calories per serving. 25.4g fat - 15.2g saturates (this is high, but it’s a cheesy dish…). These are rough estimates gained by putting the recipe into a calorie countingmagig. I have more stats if need be.

The Ingredients

For the tomato sauce:
1 tbsp oil
227 g canned tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

For the veggies:
1/2 a butternut squash (chopped into 2cm cubes)
1 leek (chopped in half lengthways, and smaller if desired)
1 red onion (quartered, will spread out once roasted)

For the cheese sauce:
1 mug milk
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp flour
240g goats cheese (not all of this goes in the sauce, about 1/4 will be saved for crumbling on the veggies)

Extras:
3 lasagne sheets
Some grated cheese (I used Derby for it’s mild flavour)

Instructables

1. Preheat the oven to 220*C
2. Chop up the squash, onion and leek ready for roasting

3. Throw the veggies into a pan, coating with oil (jumble it up with your hands if you will) and roast for 45 minutes - checking every 10/15 minutes

4. In the meantime, heat some oil in a frying pan and add the canned tomatoes, garlic, tomato puree, sugar, salt and pepper, bring to the boil and then allow to simmer for 10 minutes. If you double the sauce, up the time to 20 minutes

5. While this is doing, chop up 3/4ths of the goats cheese as best you can (tricky stuff, unless you use the hard variety and can grate it) and put in a saucepan

6. Add the flour, milk, butter and any salt/pepper/paprika to taste. Heat on the hob and keep stiring until it’s thickened. Don’t allow to boil.

7. With all this preparation and sauce making the roast veggies should be done, put half in the bottom of the dish, crumble some of the remaining goats cheese on and cover with the tomato sauce. Put the lasagne sheets on top.

8. Put the rest of the veggies in, crumble the remaining goats cheese and cover with most of the cheese sauce, put lasagne sheets on.

9. Put the rest of the cheese sauce on top and add a bit of grated cheese.

10. Bake for about half an hour at 220*C

11. Enyoy the deliciousness!

THERE IS NO INTERNET! South Park and Adbusters

MDWMy copy of Adbusters came today. Like every year they’re doing a TV Turn-Off week, only this time it’s called “Mental Detox Week” which makes more sense in that the digital explosion of the last few years means we’re hounded by more than just TV.

The premise:

“The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days. Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult - yet also how life-changing - a week spent unplugged can really be.”

Find out more at this link.

Last night’s South Park, titled “Over Logging” actually highlighted some key issues surrounding always being “turned on” to the internet in particular. It’s really hilarious, but also a little disturbing. I won’t spoil it, but I did want to mention a few things that have tied into things I’ve read in Adbusters material. Not knowing how to behave in a face to face situation, feeling compelled to check and reply to emails etc, becoming numb to real relationships and sex, having too much information etc.

I’m all for the internet, I just thought it was funny and thought provoking and tied in well with Adbusters’ message. Check it out if you get the chance :)

I think in America you might be able to view the full thing where this clip is, if not, here’s a clip!

Photo-update

Updates! I’ve not been keeping up with my photo a day as well as I should, but I’ve been really busy. No excuse really I guess… lots of things going on. Updates run with the photos!

Feb 23rd - N+ Feb 24th - Doey the Parrot Feb 25th - Creepy Kids TV Feb 26th - Waffles Feb 27th - Pub again!

Feb 28th - Depth of Madness Feb 29th - Roxy <3s Smelly March 1st - Cogs go round and round. March 2nd - Clouds March 3rd - Cookies

March 4th - Skellybones

March 5th - The sun is always in my eyes...

March 6th - Cat and Mouse March 7th - Bright Eyes March 8th - Sudokuuuu March 9th - Delicious Brownies March 10th - Rainy Days

March 11th - Angel March 12th - HAARP March 15th - Butterflies March 16th - Weetos! March 17th - Visitors

March 21st - Sam March 22nd - Snow! March 23rd - Happy Easter! March 24th - Aliums! March 25th - The Seaguls...

March 27th - I can see you!

March 28th - Posies

Or maybe not! Quick rundown I guess. I got a first for my dissertation. Saw Muse’s Wembley DVD at the cinema. The mister bought me flowers. Angel got delivered. A cat visited. It snowed. Aliens!

Lots of work to do. Exciting future things!

An update on my 365!

I’m all up to date since the last update I think, here are the thumbs. Actually this is going to turn into a massive post now that I think about it, interspersed with thumbs of my 365.

Jan 26th - Cups Jan 27th - What day is it? Jan 28th - Space Dimentia Jan 29th - Chocolate

Jan 30th - No Smoking

I had this photograph featured in a piece on NowPublic.com about the government maybe enforcing some kind of smoking licence scheme. I know it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s really nice that they asked to use my photograph. Also VOTE PETE for student support officer. This be him, pictured here.

Jan 31st - E4 Feb 1st - Think Pink

Feb 2nd - My arm...

I saw Sweeney Todd. Whever it was, with the Mister. I thought the movie was good. Not my favourite Burton, but it kept me entertained. Here I tried drawing with white on black paper, which is much harder than it sounds. I will post the finished piece, when I finish it, I guess.

Feb 3rd - Crystal Water Feb 4th - What makes a beast? Feb 5th - Cop out! Feb 6th - Steamy Veg Feb 7th - Digital Squirrel

Feb 8th - Camel

The Mister’s mum sent us pressies from Egypt. This is the little wood camel we got. Name suggestions in the comments please!

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Feb 9th - Tinted

My best friend came to visit that Friday. Haven’t seen him since Christmas so it was a blast. The Mister cooked us up a good dinner and good times were had by all. These are some of the flowers he brought me.

Feb 10th - Light Feb 11th - Love Feb 12th - Thirsty?

Feb 13th - Skyways

I honestly adore how in England going to the beach in winter isn’t a bad idea. I spent the best part of my day down at the beach whichever day this was, just listening to music and sleeping on the pebbles. It was awesome. The weather was nice too. I love this photo.

Feb 14th - Rainbow Feb 15th - I want to kiss you...

My Valentines present was oil pastels which I asked for. Expect an art in the next few weeks :D This is also the card I made for the Mister, the idea for which I stole from Dinosaur Comics. Check that out. Hilarity with dinosaurs. It’s hand painted anyway. Check me out. Little miss artist.

Valentines day itself, the Mister cooked me a lovely meal, we had lots of wine, and watched Lost in Translation. I quite liked the film, it kind of reminded me of Eternal Sunshine in the way it was formulated and how it was two people making a connection.

Feb 16th - Olympus

Selling my blue Olympus 410. Buy it here.

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Feb 17th - Bleeding Rose

Massive emo moment, haha! I’ll post when I have the rest of this set up, I have a few of them. They’re sort of a sequel to my Descent themed set and part of my Self Elected project.

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Feb 18th - Liberry! Feb 19th - Pancakes! Feb 20th - Claddagh Feb 21st - Jenga

Today’s picture is about something so exciting, it’s getting it’s own post.

I DONE A DISSERTATION.

I have to bind it. On the deadline. KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED FOR ME.

And no lectures about time management either, there were issues with this project.

Just a note to say I do have my daily photos, almost all of them, I think I missed one. You can see them when I have time to upload them, maybe Thursday. Provided I don’t drink too much after hand in tomorrow and cease to exist.

I dyed my hair today. Tis black. Also, I’M SEEING SWEENEY TODD ON THURSDAY.

I have the photos!

I’m just too tired to upload ‘em now. Dissertation madness and all that jazz. Maybe tomorry. Maybe. But I do have them, I’m still right on track :)

The Christmas Haul

Butterflies and HurricanesI had a lovely Christmas, I spent Christmas eve and Christmas morning with the mister and his family, which was great and I really enjoyed myself. We spent Christmas eve snuggled up watching telly, drinking Champagne, and then woke up uncharacteristicly early Christmas morning to open our presents.

We’d decided to do a “serious” present, a “silly” present and a bunch of stockingy presents for each other. I’d bought him Mass Effect (Xbox 360), the Muse poster from the gigs we went to in June, a Screaming Flying Monkey and a lot of chocolate and sweeties :D

He’d accepted my suggestion of jewellery, and got me the beautiful set shown here. I picked butterflies because of the Muse song “Butterflies and Hurricanes” which is my favourite song of all time, it’s pretty special. He also got me Lego Star Wars II (PS2) (which I haven’t had chance to play yet), a make and display Play-Doh parrot which is awesome, and lots of sweeties. :D

My Mum got me a subscription to Adbusters magazine which is awesome because I won’t be able to read it at the library once I finish uni ;), I got money, a new duvet and set, lots of chocolate and sweeties, a nail varnish set, Sleepy Hollow, Design Without Boundaries: Visual Communication in Transition and I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff.

As an aside, watch Toy Story, it’s awesome. I’m Woody, howdy howdy howdy.