My hairdresser sleeps naked

[slowfox]

It's 3pm and it's dark out there - and wet, too :-/

P & I have just returned from a mission to a deli in Beverley where I'd ordered a Christmas hamper for the parental units. Long-term readers may suspect that I'm singularly ill-equipped to judge the quality of a foodie's hamper as a present... and they'd be right, but I figure even if I have, by some stroke of misfortune, managed to duplicate existing beverages and/or consumables in the parental abode, they'll still get used eventually, right? And it looks impressive. Have also got some DVDs and books for them, so I think I'll be calling it a day/week/month/year on present buying on that front, at least.

Comradette K got me into the Morganville Vampires books by Rachel Caine by lending me the first two instalments. I, in turn, suggested to cynthia_black that aki_itsuki might enjoy them, given her prediliction for things vampish, and it so happens that she's now reading them faster than I am. Which means that book 3 has been borrowed from Grimmauld Place, rather than Comradette K's library shelves. 's all good, either way: actually, Book III is proving to be quite fun (it's notable that both Oliver and Monica have both commented to Claire that she's now a proper player in Morganville, as a consequence of her derrings do in tomes previous), and is more than compensating for the suspicion that Book 2 didn't quite have the same 'zing' about it as the opener).

I started a new gamer profile on the 360 - RedDogFever (you have to pick a unique gamer tag, and I chose that because, hey, what were the odds of it already having been claimed? Absolutely), and have thus set about building up my gamer score through the noble art of Achievement Hunting on Braid and Geometry Wars, principally. We've also picked up Defense Grid, a Tower Defen(c/s)e game that's rather addictive, although the achievements on offer in that look as though they're going to take a lot of playing hours. The 'proper' discs at Castle Fox (the aforementioned all being XBox Live Arcade titles downloaded to the hard disk) are Forza 3 and Assassin's Creed II. I've made a start on the former, but I think it's the latter that's going to be taking up my evenings when I'm not Wired.

Speaking of The Wire, the h264 rip of 1x01, courtesy of Badaboom player rather nicely (albeit with a 'watermark' bottom left that I'm hoping the full version dispenses with). What was more noticable, though, was that I was able to understand a little more of the witness speech when he was talking to McNulty in the opening scene...

And finally, I got my hair cut yesterday.

Comments

Your hairdresser probably showers naked, too.

[linaelyn]

Thank you. I'm going to steal the Christmas Hamper idea for my own parental units. I have soem other items for them, but it was feeling a little sparse. I can easily put together something like that myself, and have it be welcomed.

Your posts re: h264 are being read with careful attention, here at our Casa. I've got years of home movies to cross-archive and it would be lovely to be able to play them on the big screen PS3 in the living room.

Re: Your hairdresser probably showers naked, too.

[slowfox]

I did feel slightly guilty about the hamper, but ... books and DVDs will only get me so far when I hardly ever visit the parental abode, and M&D are perfectly capable of procuring titles of interest themselves. So that's a high risk game to play (buy them something they've alread got vs by them something they don't even want vs buy them something they've always wanted but haven't got around to purchasing yet).

The guilt (lack of imagination) is offset by the knowledge that at least the hamper contains nice stuff, and if the worst comes to the worst and they *still* don't like it, the individual elements thereof can be recycled as gifts for further onward transmission.

I'm hoping they like it, though, if only so that then I can establish a 'tradition' of getting them a Christmas hamper year on year, thus removing the stress of having to think up something new next time...

Post on DVD ripping coming up soonish. Need to do some screen caps and the like, although I should stress I'm hardly An Authority on the subject!

[aome]

What sorts of things go into a British Christmas hamper?

[slowfox]

Well, mainly it's stuff that can be stored at room temperature.

M&D's hamper contains, amongst other things:
wine (red, white, sparkling)
port
selection of mustards
after dinner mints
various condiments (chutneys, sauces, relishes etc)
a few different kinds of pasta
some different types of marmalade, some different kinds of jam (do you guys call that jelly?)
a couple of different blends of coffee
some gourmet mince pies
rich fruit cake
christmas pudding
...and other stuff.

All in a basket. It's quite impressive - assuming that M&D actually like the contents. *frets, slightly*

[aome]

Jam and jelly are technically different things to us, although they are sometimes used interchangeably. Jam has bits of fruit still in it, whereas jelly is strained and clearer, if that makes sense. I think "jelly" to you is the dessert we call Jell-O?

[slowfox]

I suspect that yes, what we call jelly is what you call Jell-O - component of trifle, and poured into rabbit-shape moulds for children's birthday parties :-)

[cynthia_black]

So go on - tell the story connected with teh title :-D

[slowfox]

Disappointingly little to tell - her central heating packed up the other month, and she went four weeks without a source of hot water in the house. So we were swapping notes about life without central heating and stuff, and she was saying how she couldn't get warm enough in bed; although she slept naked, that was offset by the fact that her husband was a prominent heat source. Unfortunately, she could only ever heat up one side of herself that way... :D