End of my short break. Just a little less than 5 weeks to go, I'm telling myself. It had been a wonderful 2 days off - settled a couple of admin stuff (including getting that CPF IA - I'm hoping I did get there in time), had a fun night at Merchant Court with Monty and Kermit, watched KT Tunstall (I learnt with regret that she actually came out to autograph stuff some 45 mins later, but heck - I had enough fun that night!) and made a spanking new carboy of mead, this time with Tasmanian leatherwood honey. Used a different yeast strain, and added a lot more honey, so hopefully it'll turn out to be a sweet mead, somewhat like a late harvest wine.
Complete indulgence. I just couldn't help myself, and succumbed to going for KT Tunstall's Drastic Fantastic concert. The seats were far from the best (only bought tix the very same morning) but were good enough. She's quite engaging, actually, with some weird humour - I suspect it's the Scottish in her. "I think plastic surgery should be funnier - .. people will actually remember you if you had ONE very long leg, instead of big boobs."
But otherwise the concert was GOOD. I actually liked it much better when she did her songs solo, without the band. It's just plain amazing to see her doing the looping so quickly, like in this video:
About half of the songs were from her new album, which is quite unknown to me except for "Saving My Face", but she did also belt out some of her oldies, of which Black Horse & The Cherry Tree was absolutely the best.
Yx's birthday weekend - made a roast platter served with mead. Apple bacon rolls, pork ribs, lamb french rack, spicy Italian sausages, sauerkraut and pork knuckle with apple gravy.
If you remember, this mead was made some 4 months ago, and has aged very nicely. I'm thinking of abandoning all beer-making efforts just to concentrate on mead. Tastes somewhat like a very light, mellow white wine with honey (duh) and floral hints. I actually added some spices (cloves and cinnamon) to the mix before fermentation but unfortunately those flavours got lost.
A game of Taboo at Clarice's place, after the cake. It was Venus vs Mars.
The potluck dinner. Made chilli con carne, bottom left. Quite a fiery version, with peppers, chilli powder, chili padi and japelenos.
And finally, Molly. =) It's like holding a toilet brush.
Had good fun today at Settler's! Hmm .. and we somehow managed to get 2 memberships for the price of 1 - not that it's extremely useful though, since it's always the same bunch of us that goes there anyway.
Fun time too, with Samba lessons. I really enjoyed them, and it's honestly the only other dance lesson apart from Lindy that I look forward to. The instructor's fun, and the lessons go at an excellent pace. Very envious though, of how the more experienced people can move their hips. Really makes me want to lose all that flab.
Will be on call again later today (Sunday), and it's seriously sickening to do it so often. 3 times in a week! What's more, Monday's the start of a new coverage, so I'll be lost AND tired. And will be going on leave Thurs and Fri, so effectively I'll be working only 2.5 days next week.
Haven't blogged properly for ages, and it'll be even more difficult this week - I'm on call almost every other day, including today. It's depressing. Have a few other issues to settle too. Wish me loads of bedsores tonight!
On the other hand, there are a lot of news articles on the BBC regarding scientists getting OBSESSED over finding underground oceans and water on other planets, thinking that they might harbour life. If you ask me, go look for trees first. What's the chance of extraterrestrial life resembling what we have on earth? A lot, if you are going to assume they need the exact same stuff as we do - water, oxygen, not-so-hot temperatures. Just look at what we got from parallel evolution. Go look for something that survives on hydrogen and minerals, if you will.
