happy birthday davidnarby

davidnarby's birthday was last weekend. i made icecream cake - it was fantastic. i think everyone had a good day. dinner was lovely, dessert more so. there were balloons, and a ribbon around the computer.

here is a photo of the cake (mostly eaten):


i also made french toast for the first time on saturday. it was yummy, and simple. whisk an egg with sugar (or salt). coat the bread. fry. what could be more simple? i made it for penelope_stone on sunday, and again today for breakfast today (we ran out of cereal).
this afternoon i got around to making my own granola in the slow cooker. i think it may be burning slightly. not sure. i'll see when it's all done (in a few minutes).
i have a small tip, if anyone's interested. if an egg floats on the surface of water it is gone off. if it does not, you can still eat it. this morning, my eggs' best before date was 26 august. i floated them, they sank, i used them and they were fine.

in other news: i'm drafting my query letter at the moment. it is very hard. i kind of have what i want to say, but saying in a way that is concise and engaging is hard. draft 3 is off being read by people, so i'm kind of at a loose end at the moment. i find myself spending time on absolute write reading other people's queries. yea - it's hard trying to spend all day on one query letter.

ps - i am wearing a vest for the first time this autumn today.

DIY day

it's my birthday and i've gotten hardly any writing done. first thing this morning, i walked to the shop to cash the lotto tickets mammy and daddy had gotten me (i got €40). then i sat down for a bit of writing. then i looked up diy book binding. i found a very cool article:
http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/2006/03/fun-and-easy-how-to-guide-to-binding-your-own-paperback-books-at-homefast/
and then i spent the rest of the day making the 'jig.' That involved a trip to barrett's to buy gorilla glue. i was very surprised they had it. and now i'm thinking of going back to get wingnuts and carriage bolts. and possibly a bit of wood for the clamping bar. i couldn't be bothered sawing out two lengths. sawing with a pen-knife-tool thing is really hard.
yea... it's possibly a bit premature, considering i've not finished draft 3.1 yet, but i hope to have copies to the people of taleweavers on the weekend. it's no big deal if i don't get it done by this weekend, though. i'll be around the next weekend as well.

and because this is a day of procrastination: here are some photos i've taken of stuff over the last few weeks.




i made banana bread in the slow cooker (aka crockpot). it turned out yummy.

the book binding devise. half finished. i couldn't wait to paint it - perhaps i should have waited. anyway.

my tomato is taller than me.

the pepper a few weeks ago.

this is not zoomed in - this is them grown.

tomato flower.

happy birthday to me :)

Hello, Livejournal.
Just had a great meal (in donatellos - a bit shabby looking, but the food is amazing). then drinks in mantra. it was 70s, 80s, 90s night tonight, and we had so much fun bopping out to queen, primitives, cure, mc hammer and loads more while drinking cocktails and having a brilliant time. it was just me and lordkilljoy but it was really, really good.
i got a new shirt - kind of blue check and i wore the shirt-vesty thing i got in singapore. i think i looked cute. lordkilljoy thinks i did too. i should post up pics - maybe tomorrow. it's a bit late right now and i'm way too tired for taking pics and resizing them for the web and posting them here.

i have other news all marked down on a post-it, but i'm writing by the light of the hallway right now and it's too dark for reading. so maybe tomorrow or the next day i'll get around to that.

until then, fare well and good night.

ohh, p.s. - they played the neverending story song - it was brilliant.

almost a month's worth of news

lordkilljoy and i went to see star trek last night. i loved it - everything about it made me want to watch it again. it was funny, exciting, adventuresome, i liked all the characters and seeing how they all ended up together.
i want to go back and see it again this weekend; we'll see how things work out.

i finally started the rewrite of the fall. lots of things have been changed, mostly from the first half, because i was never really happy with it.

it's been almost a month since i made a proper post, gosh - that's terrible. i guess script frenzy just kept me from updating and then i was down in cork and things just got ahead of me. so this will probably be lots of short points.

in pet news, newt died. he hadn't been eating and then we went away for the weekend and he was dead when we got back. even if we'd been around, i don't think he would have survived. he just seemed to go off his food and that was that.

ooh - we got a surround sound system in the apartment. it is so cool. the sound out of it is so clear and loud and rumbly. playing games on it is fantastic. and it makes finding gargoyles in fable2 way easier.

yea, we went to see wolverine too. it wasn't nearly as good as star trek. i seemed to lack something, or the story just wasn't grand enough, or heroic enough or something. i did like gambit, though. he seemed cool.

it was lordkilljoy's birthday last week and we went for korean barbecue. the way that works is there there's a little firepot at the centre of your table and you cook the food they bring you. it was delicious. then we went for after-dinner drinks and dancing at the village. that club is way trendier than i had expected. but i still had a really good night. i got to see lordkilljoy and goblin_insane get their boogie on. it was funny to see.

so... what other news do i have? yoshi is eating voraciously these days. it's good to see. nymph isn't eating so well, but he's eating a little. i think he's turning into a nocturnal newt. he just seems to sleep until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.

i don't think i have anything else to say...

a post over dinner

there is really nothing better than fried rice. i could eat it every day and be very happy. well - as has been proven, after 2 months of mainly rice one does start to crave pasta. oh well. i need to make a note to myself to make rice more often. 'cause it's yummy.

i got penelope_stone the first part of her birthday present. i havn't a clue what to get her else, but i have most of the month to find something.

i really can't think of anything else to say. i'm just going to go now.