Saturday, July 11, 2009

Day 5 : Endings and Fish

What an ending. I must say, this entire season has been spectacular. The writing was magnificent, the acting was perfection and the execution of the whole show was amazing.

I was so sad and shocked to see Jack leave, what does this mean for the future of Torchwood? Esp with the dramatic loss of Ianto, who was the backbone of the entire operation if you ask me, and with Gwen being so heavily pregnant. Although I would love to see an entirely new cast, but headed up by Jack of course.

Overall, the rating were great, esp for a show that was run over a week in the summer. It's not being show in the US until the 20th, and I imagine it'll go down just as well there.

In other news, I've finally filled my fish tank in preparation for the new comers, will have Queevs and Derek the goldfish next week, and if they survive, some other fishes. Maybe a big fish, maybe a small fish. Time will tell.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Day 4 : Death and Revelations


Ianto... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Pic from bbc.co.uk/torchwood

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Days 2 and 3... and a Birthday Bash

Queevs, Ois and Rodge came over last night for dinner, a trip to Mantra (the newest club in Maynooth) and a birthday celebration. :) Here's the menu for the night -

Starter :


This was a twice baked potato with bacon and cheese :) First time making it and it went down really well. Simple but effective. I laid out some salad too, but apparently my friends do not eat rabbit food.

Main :



We had some chicken curry and some egg fried rice, the curry was runnier than I was happy with, and I forgot to put the scallions in the the fried rice, but people seemed to enjoy it regardless, so let's pretend everything was fine :D There was also some stir fried vegetables. There were many "mmm"s and comments of deliciousness, so clearly they couldn't taste the arsenic I laced it with LOL.

Cake!


The cake is a Victoria Sponge a la Nigella Lawson, with pink colouring for the princess herself. It's in 3 layers, with melted chocolate spread on each layer, with sliced strawberries and fresh cream. Oddly the cake took the least amount of time to make. And I was quite happy when the pinkness didn't disappear after baking.

After cake, and some amount of alcohol, we hopped into a taxi and headed down to Mantra, which just opened up in Maynooth last weekend. First impressions - impressed. It had that "new" smell. No stale beer smell, no vomit stench, no sticky floors. A very new experiance for Maynooth, I must say, and a HUGE step up from the old LA. Drink was reasonably priced, not cheap, but not any more expensive than anywhere else. Pity it was a mid week night though, so the club was closed, but the bar was very awesome. Some snazzy features include a cocktail bar, a 24ft waterfall (which was turned off :( ) and tables with beer taps! I foresee future visits :)

Breakfast :


Well, unfortunately Ois missed out big time on this delish fry up, since he had to head off to work in the am. Although, since most of it was done on the handy dandy George Foreman grill, it was hardly any work. Except the eggs. And too much oil. And splattering myself slightly with hot oil. Smart, real smart. I now have various blotches so I can remember this day for a few weeks. :D

Torchwood : Day 2 :

More twists, and more excitement as Torchwood's latest season continued. They blew up Jack, and of course he didn't die... then they trapped him in concrete, only to be saved by the dashing Ianto with a digger! Didn't see it coming and was so impressed :) Plus naked Jack is always fun.



Day 3 :

Well only got to see this episode this morning, since I was out last night. (I hope it's appreciated that I missed an episode for the princess!) I'm really enjoying how the story is playing out, and that it's just the one long story, as opposed to 8 - 9 put together in 45 - 90 min slots. Maybe my expectations are too high for the next two nights though, and perhaps I'm very odd, but I would prefer not to see the 456... I like the hiding, I like the not knowing, I like the mystery, and I don't think it will add anything to the story by showing them. It's enough to know the few things about them that we do.


Last two pictures from bbc.co.uk/torchwood

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Day 1 and Freedom... Spoilers within...

So, after some nastiness between themselves, my summer housemates are gone, leaving me in peace for 2 months :D

Tomorrow, is a b'day bash for Queevs, so working on that...

And last night, the first installment of the latest Torchwood season (Children of Earth)... Wow. Just wow. I was so impressed...

I was shocked to see some of Jacks family, I'm hoping it goes deeper into it tonight. I knew Iantos family would be shown, since he mentioned it at Vortex back in May. :D And Gwen being preggers... did NOT see that coming... oh Gwen, were you not careful!

There's already been a couple of bizarre twists and I'm loving it, cannot wait for tonights, in a mere 2 hours and 12 minutes... :D

Monday, June 29, 2009

Life and the Who-niverse

Life in general has been pretty hectic lately, but it's calming down now. I finally unpacked after my trip to Vortex in Belfast (yes, yes, I know it was almost 2 months ago), so I have a big box full of books, comics and dvds to get through. :)

I'm almost finished my nu-Who marathon. Tonight I'll be watching Midnight with commentary, then on to the final disc of season 4 :) I'll have watched it all before Torchwood : Children of Earth kicks off next Monday. Absolutely cannot wait to see what this season brings, with a prime time spot on BBC 1 for a whole week. I have no doubt it will be amazing. Housemates have been warned not to so much as breath during it, on pain of death.

I've started to paint again. It's so good having the time for it again :)

This is my Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, so I originally started to paint in early 2008, possibly even as far back as late 2007. But he is finally finished, and now sits in glory on the mantelpiece along side these two guys....



Excuse the dates on them, they were in fact taken in mid 2008. The top one is an Ogre standard, the lower one is Khazarak the One Eye.

My next project is a dragon with an elf on his back :) My intentions are for a yellow/orange/red scheme.

For now, dinner bekons. More posting next week as Torchwood is shown :D

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Goals and Collections

Hit my first 5% weight loss goal this week :D So happy, though still not doing the WW program to it's full extent, like not getting enough water, not doing enough exercise (or any for that matter). But to reward myself for hitting this goal, I've ordered some classic Who dvds, which I can hardly wait to watch.

I've decided that since my Dr Who book collection is nearing completion, I would start collecting the classic DVDs. My first step is to get caught up with the 70 odd releases. The order has been determined by price and offers, starting by buying the cheapest ones and the ones that are on extra special offer. However I'm not going to start watching them until I have them in order (ie going to watch Hartnell before I watch any of the others).

In the mean time, I'm re-watching NuWho. It started with the re-watching of Torchwood, and then with commentries. Although I then discovered that the season 2 box set has no commentries! I was pretty disappointed, especially since this is the better of the two seasons. I finished Ecclestons Who a few weeks ago, and was annoyed to find that he didn't participate in any of the commentries, but then as a man who was never a Who fan I don't know why I expected him to. Barrowman and Piper however gave great insights on their commentries. I'm currently in the middle of Tennants first season. The man has skills, and is very involved with the commentries which is great. I can't wait to rewatch the finale so I can see Rose's demise, she's one of my least favourite characters.

For now, soup making bekons.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Weight Loss and Fanaticism

Last week went pretty well (back at WW), lost a pound and a half, bringing my total loss up to 1 stone! Finally, it's gathering momentum.

So, to the real news. Yesterday saw Ireland's largest Doctor Who convention, Vortex, run by UT Events. I volunteered to be a steward, which just meant standing at a door for a couple of hours. I met a few very nice people, one of whom was from Dublin, and also going to the same Uni as me! Small world...

Anyways, my camera was kaputt for the first part of the day, so I missed out on photographing some of the awesome items on display, including three Daleks (black, red and bling-bling), K-9, Casandra from The End of The World and New Earth, Davros' head, a nuWho Cyberman head, an Empty Child costume and the stage had been turned into a mini TARDIS interior.

The one display I did manage to get a picture of was the TARDIS which the event organisers built. It was perfectly to scale, and looked magnificent. The whole display was surreal for me, it felt wierd being in the same room as these wonderful things.


Walking around throughout the day was an Ood from The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit and Planet of the Ood, a Clockwork Droid from The Girl In The Fireplace and the Black Dalek. The cotumes were amazing, and those dressed up happily obliged every photo opportunity.

The only store at the event was Doctor Who Gear dot com, who supplied a varied array of Doctor Who goodies, from books to toys, posters to t-shirts. I picke up quite a few things, mostly books, and a few little presents.



The event itself was well planned, and came together very efficently, perhaps a little more could have been squeezed into the day, as some parts went a little quicker than expected.

First on the schedule were Q&A with the guests, who were Paul Marc Davis- [The Trickster (Sarah Jane Adventures), Cheiftan of the FutureKind (Utopia, Doctor Who), Cowled Leader (Exit Wounds, Torchwood)], Chipo Chung- [Chantho (Utopia, Doctor Who) , Fortune Teller (Turn Left, Doctor Who)] and Gareth David-Llyod- [Ianto Jones (Torchwood)].

Paul and Chipo came out together, and had great banter between them. They discussed what it was like working on the shows, about the make-up/prostetics (Paul as The Trickster and Chipo as Chantho), about trying to choose between getting next weeks lotto numbers or meeting Jesus if they had a TARDIS trip and general Doctor Who questions about cast members. We even had the treat of a duet between the pair, of the Doctor Who Theme, they even managed to get the audience involved!

Gareth David-Llyod was a great presence, he kept a tight lid on the upcoming Torchwood: Children of Earth, but did reveal that we would find out much more about Ianto's past, such as meeting his family, and discovering the reasons he tore apart from them. There were a lot of questions from young children, whom I doubt ever saw an episode of Torchwood, and were curious about the whole show. Again, there were stock questions such as favourite alien/Doctor/companion, where would he go in the TARDIS etc etc.


Also at the event was PJ Holden, comic book artist on 2000AD and Judge Dread. He was a very nice man, and an amazing artist, I got two sketches from him, of The Trickster (who he had never even seen before, and considering that, the sketch was amazing) and of Chantho. My intention was to then get them signed by Paul and Chipo. The sketches are intended as a pair, with Chantho looking at The Trickster in a very fearful way.


Next on the schedule was the photo session, I regret now not purchasing a group photo with all the guests, as they were very nice people, but I did get one with Gareth/Ianto... In fact, I was first in line lol.


There was a short intermission for lunch, before Ianto's Coffee Club and the first game of Doctor Who themed Weakest Link started up.

The Coffee Club was an amazing treat. There were 4 tables of 9, and the guests moved from table to table in 10 minute slots. And while it was a great laugh chatting with them all, the time was so short. All three actors commented that they had just started having fun when they had to move. We discussed bras, long hair and bad movies with Paul, silly voices and shiny tops with Chipo and drinking brains, welsh curses and how toned down he'd been at the Q&A with Gareth. It was refreshing to meet these guys out of the Who-niverse context, and as real, down to earth people.

With being at the Coffee Club, I missed the first Weakest Link.

And then came my downfall of the day, which sucked up all my monies, the charity auction. The only plus side is that all the money I paid has gone to a great charity, The Northern Ireland Children's Hospice. After a little bidding, I won two signed books. A new series adventure with Martha and Tennants Doctor, Snowglobe 7, signed by Mike Tucker, and a Torchwood book, Twilight Streets, signed by Gary Russell.



The third item I bid on was a big one... An old style Cyberman head, signed by Colin Baker, the 6th Doctor (and my favourite old series Doctor). The bidding began at £100, and then the fierce battle began, I knew I could go to £300 and no higher, and fortunately I was on the even. Thankfully, the bidding ended at £300, and I sighed relief. I got talking to the guy I bid against later in the day, and he had also given himself a budget of £300. I got lucky.



With another brief interlude, came the Autograph session. With Ianto on the cover it seemed only right to get Gareth's autograph on my newly aquired Torchwood book, and I asked Chipo and Paul to sign the skethes from PJ Holden, which they were happy to do.




The convention closed down for dinner soon after the autograph session, which ended early. This gave me a chance to move all my purchases to the hotel room and have some dinner.

On return, there was another game of Weakest Link, which I got chosen to play in (it was pulled from raffle tickets). I was the 4th person knocked out, and for good reason, my knowledge was not as good as some of the other players, including a boy who didn't miss a single question through the whole game.

The fancy dress competition was mostly kids, and some of them were so cute, while others were very creative, including a very realistic (if a bit short) Dalek, and a TARDIS.

And with that, and a short closing ceremony (thank yous etc), that was it. Well, a disco ensued, but I didn't stay.

All in all, a great day, had such a fun time, met some very nice people and picked up plenty of great items.

The only downside was that it was a one day event, that the Coffee Club was so short and that there was only one vendor who didn't have any DVDs and a relatively small section of books.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Dieting and Baking, a lethal mix

This week I went back to Weight Watchers, possibly a foolish move on my part, since I had some baking to do this week for Daring Bakers. It's been over 3 months since my last meeting, what with the NY trip and just generally not getting up early enough on a Wednesday morning. Anyways, I somehow (and don't ask me how, because I really don't know) managed to lose 10lb (or just over 4.5kg for you metric-savvys) in those months. I knew I'd lost a little, but I wasn't expecting it to be such a drastic drop. I'm just 3lb away from my first 5% goal (going by the start weight of 2009), and have lost a full stone since beginning originally :D

Also this week I've been doing this months Daring Bakers challenge but no, I can't tell you what it is :P. I can, however, tell you that I ended up baking 48 mini treats, over two days, in 8 flavours, and I can't let myself eat any because a) the points are probably astromical for such a small thing and b) I don't want to have to try to work out the points. So, for that end, I decided to bring them to work and unload them on my workmates. This morning I wrapped one of each flavour together in a bundle (5 bundles in all), sent one up to the Maths Dept, one for each of my 3 workmates in today to take home, and one for them to munch on during coffee breaks. I hadn't even tasted any of them myself, but they went down a storm. All three of my workmates told me I'd make a fortune selling them, and got an email saying that they went down great with the Maths Dept and that I have an alternate career option as a caterer. I was so flattered :) I think I've spent most of the day blushing :)

You may be thinking, wait... 5 bundles of 8... that's only 40... Emma, you said you made 48... Well, indeed, I needed to keep 8 back for decorating for posting at the end of the month on the flip side. :)

Tutorials are finishing up next week, so expect a post on this semesters average results, which I can already see are waaaay up from my earlier post. :)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Paddy's Day Rant

So I'm doing my usual daily rounds of the interwebs, which includes a site called tastespotting.com, it's like a big gallery of recipes, great, and I notice sooo many for Paddy's day, or at least claiming to be, I mean since when did adding Guinness or something green make a recipe Irish?! I'm outraged.

Also, what's the big fascination with corned beef?! As a typical Irish person, I've never eaten the stuff in my life... Seriously. Cabbage and Ham, yes, Cabbage and Corned Beef, eh, no, what fucking Ireland do you think exists, one that has actual leprechauns and pots of gold?!

I mean soda bread, yes, that's Irish. Irish stew, yes, but it's not Irish stew if you make it with beef, you moron, then it's just beef stew, and then you think adding a can of Guinness makes it Irish, who the fuck puts Guinness in stew?! No sane Irish man or woman would waste good stout in a stew! And Shepard's Pie, don't even get me started, for one it's a British dish, for two you can't make things "Irish" by adding alcohol, for three you made it with beef and it's therefore Cottage Pie NOT Shepard's Pie...

As for this - ["Irish" for a day, corned beef on rye.], there are so many things wrong with that sentence, not to mention the picture, where's it's covered in that "traditional Irish ingredient" - mustard...

And then there are those who abbreviate incorrectly to St Patty's Day... eh, who?!

Sigh. Bloody Americans, it's bad enough they all claim Irish heritage, but then they have to stomp all over our day with misconceptions and ignorance.

Monday, March 2, 2009

The Joys Of Tutoring - Or Rising Failure Levels

Sigh.

Having just finished a batch of assignment correcting, with what seemed to be an unusually high bunch of failures, I decided to check out if it really was a higher set of failures.

Unfortunately I have no basis for comparison... Yet. I can't consider this week to be my baseline, since the assignment seemed to be beyond the grasp of a considerable number of students, so I am planning to use next weeks assignment as a baseline, as if I recall correctly this is one of the easier assignments of the year.

What I've discovered so far :

Of my 101 students, only 55 actually handed up the latest assignment. I have no way of determining which students do not take the course the question, but I will endeavor to find out.

I have 4 classes, one of which is based in Arts, the other three are in the Science discipline. The Arts and Science course is the same, however they do have different lecturers. I will make a comparison here.

Of the 55 assignments which I had to hand to correct, 24 failed, that is achieved a mark below 40%.

The analysis :

Well, it's only a basic analysis as yet, but here's the figures :

Class : Failure / Total Handed in , Failure + Not handed in / Total class size

Arts : 8 / 19 , 11 / 22
Sci 1 : 7 / 11 , 26 / 30
Sci 2 : 4 / 12 , 16 / 24
Sci 3 : 5 / 13 , 17 / 25

All : 24 / 55 , 70 / 101

What it means :

Well, nothing as of yet. I intend to continue looking at the failure rates for the rest of the semester, Arts having 5 more assignments and Science having 3. Hopefully in a few short weeks, I'll be able to see what this means, if in fact it means anything at all.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Lombardi's - A review

During my NY trip, I decided to pop along to Lombardi's one lunch time, to see what all the fuss was about.

The atmosphere :

The restaurant is warm and inviting, the staff were friendly, but all this is to be expected from any run-of-the-mill restaurant in this day and age. But I digress, it was nice at first glance.

I was seated at a small table directly in front of this wall :


On the wall were many awards and accolades, I was excited.

The menu :

The menu is simple, with few choices, as would be expected from a restaurant with such highly acclaimed food. The choice of pizza toppings were basic, nothing spectacular. The only exceptional seeming item on the menu was the seafood pizza, unfortunately I'm not a seafood fan.

The food :

I ordered a raspberry seltzer soda, and this was the least disappointing part of my meal. It had a good raspberry tang, and the cream added a little pizzazz, but it was just a drink...


I decided on bruschetta to start, expecting something amazing. The tomatoes were piled high, a little too high in fact as it led to soggy bread underneath. It lacked that something special that I was expecting, but I held my breath for the main, since pizza was what they were famous for. "Best pizza in New York"...


I ordered my pizza with a topping of mushrooms and homemade meatballs. It was spectacular in only one respect - it was spectacularly disappointing. It looked like any pizza from any average pizzeria, it was far from the "best". In fact, I'd go so far as to say I've had better pizza from Irish takeaways. The meatballs lacked any excitement, and left a tangy, unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth. The mushrooms were tasty, as was the mozzarella, but even the base sauce was unimpressive. The crust was thin, yes, crispy, yes, tasteful - oh hell no. It was, by far, the most boring and underwhelming pizza I've ever had, with the possible exception of frozen pizza, and I've had quite a few pizzas...


The final thought :


I definitely would not return to Lombardi's, and I certainly won't be recommending it to anyone. As pizza places go, the only reason I can see for it being the "Best in New York City" is if every other pizzeria is utter crap.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

No Muppets In Manhatten

I was rudely woken at 6am local by a text from Sylvia, as I'd missed an appointment yesterday.

Sleep was broken from then until about 8am when we decided to get up. Had breakfast about 8.30am, discovered that 5th ave is only 7 blocks away!

Saw a mouse... a friend to share the apartment with.

Went outside... it was snow everywhere! And within minutes our feet were soaked from stepping in puddles that were a hell of a lot deeper than they seemed. :)

Decided we best get the bus since a 7 block walk with numerous puddles and Jia's Uggs would not be a pleasant experience.

So, hopping on the bus we discovered that 1 dollar notes were no good, we needed change or a Metro card, thankfully a nice woman who was getting on after us paid for us with her card and we gave her some notes. She then was very helpful in letting us know where to get off for our first proper day in NY - 5th Avenue!!!

Our first stop – FAO Schwarz, the biggest toy store I have ever been to! And I intend on returning before our trip is over! The ground floor is packed to the hilt with stuffed animals, a huge sweet shop, and the Make Your Own Muppet area! Something I didn't do today, but plan on doing before we leave if they get more Muppets in! Down in the basement floor are the pre-school toys, so we gave that a miss. On the maze that is the top floor lives the infamous Giant Piano, which again we didn't get around to, even though I spent 6 hours in the store, as well as a make your own Barbie and make your own doll sections. After an hour of looking around I discovered my favourite section by far - the “Make” area. We decided that Jia would go off shopping in the likes of Louis Vitton and Chanel while I got to work, and that we would meet 2 and a half hours later for lunch. Alas it was not to be, for when someone mentioned it was 4pm, I had well missed the 1.30pm deadline. :D So what kept me, well, they had a range of ceramic odds and ends, from plates, bowls and mugs, to picture frames, boxes and animals. What's so special about that? You get to paint them yourself, then have them glazed and fired and shipped on to you! I choose 6 pieces, a plate, a bowl, a mug, a duck savings box and two picture frames. Pictures will follow when they arrive sometime next week :D

Next stop for me – The Disney Store, 3 floors of the Magical Kingdom that is Disney. I spent the guts of an hour just looking around and picked up a few nice items. One shop assistant commented on how nice a bag I had, I was puzzled until I remembered it was a Tigger bag that I picked up in the Disney store in Birmingham late last year.

By then it was after 5pm, I was starving and tired, and my feet were soaking, so we headed off to the bus stop (I say headed off to, I mean wandered aimlessly for an hour before actually finding the stop), but the fun didn't end there, we got on the bus on the wrong side of the street and added an hour to our trip home!!!

But I digress, we got back in the end.

Not long after we arrived, the housekeeper came in to show some guys around the other room in our apartment, and we got to complain (but in a polite way :)) about the mouse, about the lack of internet and about the non working tv. She pointed out the computer in the room she had shown the boys and said we were welcome to use it, she would leave the door unlocked, just not to sleep in the beds. The tv in there works too, so we have pretty much all the hiccups sorted :D

And now, it is after 11pm local, after 4am at home, I am sleepy, and so I bid you a good night.

In a New York State of Mind

5:00am ... “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never go-”

5:10am... “Never gonna give you up, ne-”

5:20am... “Never go-”

And there I am, still in a haze of sleep, trying to remind myself to tie the ribbons on the cases so I can identify them easily.

5:40am... Is that the damn taxi already?!

Hiccup 1 – Taxi was 15 minutes early, cutting out any breakfast plans!

5:48am... “we're outside... okay... yeah... okay”
“She'll be 5 minutes :D”

We arrived in the airport about half 6, checked for the check in gate, and we were off to a great start.

Hiccup 2 – The lady behind the desk hands me a green visa waiver form. Wait, what?! Didn't I fill this out online already?! Paranoid Yanks...

Breakfast courtesy of McDs, and off through security in Dublin Airport. A mess of inefficiency as usual. But we stumbled through uneventfully.

Border control went fine, fingerprinting (no crime spree for me I'm afraid!), and a smile for the camera.

Boarded the plane about 8:15am, plenty of time to get everyone seated for the take off.

Little touch screen in the head of the seat in front, and to my delight an episode of Dr Who. I also watched Big Bang Theory, some of How I Met Your Mother, played a trivia quiz (and won twice!), played a few other games, watched the majority of Hellboy.

Meal was ok – bread roll, jam, butter, cheese, crackers, fruit cup (which hit the spot quite well), some chicken thing that I didn't even open, a choc bar, the most rank orange juice I've ever tasted and a complimentary diet coke. Second round was a pizza with pesto (I ate my way around the pesto as much as humanly possible), some water and a biscuit.

By the end of the 7 hours my ass was numb and I was exhausted (from what, I don't know!)

Bags came through without mishap, and sailed through customs. Awaiting all the arrivals were some “express bus” tauts, and we decided what the hell. So we got dragged up to the airport car park (serious alarm bells ringing at this stage) along with an older English woman. And the guy stops at a stretch limo! I thought all my xmass had come at once! Sure enough bags were shoved in and we were informed that another 2 passengers were on the way... However they did not appear and so we were moved to a smaller cab, and away we went.

The pleasant Brit was over for a wedding, and for some reason the taxi driver took an immense dislike to her. But I digress, we dropped her off first, and over the Queensboro Bridge! We had quite an animated chat with the driver on the way, including a brief phone encounter with his Irish girlfriend! And soon we were at the door to the hostel/apartment. Of course not before the driver bumped his price from $19 to $21 each lol. He did however give us a true New Yorker experience of Jay walking, thank you Mark the Jamacian New Yorker driver.

So after 10 minutes of ringing the various bells to the apartment building we finally got let in... and so to many more hiccups.

Hiccup 3 – I specifically booked a ground floor apartment having read that the building had no lift, and knowing we both planned on bringing luggage. Alas nay, we are situated on the 4th floor (that's the 3rd floor for those of us with a normal sense of flooring).

Hiccup 4 – The wireless Internet connection that connects for 2 seconds, then disconnects, reconnects, disconnects, reconnects, quicker than I can type this! Even the wired one does it... Not as promised I'm afraid!

Hiccup 5 – The promised tv with satellite channels, again not so, apparently the tv has no signal! Goddamit.

But, despite all that it's quite a nice room, simple, but nice. And for the moment at least we have a little kitchen and a bathroom to ourselves. With any luck it'll remain that way.

It's now... 10:41pm home time, 5:41pm local time, and I'm starving!

Granny called rather unexpectedly, to wish me a late happy birthday, and was mightly surprised to hear I was in New York.

Had the most wonderful shower here, so it went back up one on the scale of hiccupness.

Went to the supermarket, just 2 blocks away, bought some basics as we've decided we're going to cook breakfast and dinner here, to save on moneys, and have lunch out most days.