Hanging with Brett

My buddy Brett came over this evening to have dinner and watch a few screeners. I haven't had a chance to spend some one on one time with him so I was really looking forward to this get together.

Brett and I met on The Guild, he's part of the Guild of Extras. I think we actual talked for the first time while at Comic con and I really though he was a nice guy. So we continued to chat here and there on facebook and he finally attended one of my movie marathons and that sealed the deal.. Brett instantly become a new member of my "Geek Mob".

And I have to say after spending about five or six hours with him today I like him even more. He arrive a little before six and the first movie he picked was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I had seen this movie a few weeks ago when my buddy Aaron, but I loved it so much that I had no problem watching it again. I have to say I loved this movie even more. And Brett really enjoyed it as well, so that made the rewatch worth it.

I made us lasagna and garlic bread for dinner and by the time Perks was over the food was ready. So we ate and started our second movie, Cloud Atlas. Again I went to a screening of this about a month ago with my buddy Robert and totally loved it. But watching it again with Brett I loved it even more. It truly is going to be one of my favorite movies of 2012. I saw and understood so much more. And watching with Brett (who I found out is a human IMDB) made it so much more enjoyable. I can't wait to watch this movie again.

Once that movie was over it was late so we just sat for a few minutes and chatted. Said our goodbyes around 11pm and he headed home. It was a great day and I can't wait until we get to hang out again.

Burger and Lobster - London Dean Street

I know Burger and Lobster has been blogged about all the time but this is my very first time eating lobster in a restaurant. And it is a messy job I tell you. Messy. However, it was enjoyable doing this in public!

This time I went with an old uni friend who is now a colleague at the place I work. I'm calling her Miss Posh, because she really can be posh at times!

So we left work on time and took the bus, it took us an hour to get there, and luckily we BEAT the queues! Miss Posh told me that you can't really book tables unless you are in a big group. Plus queuing time can be up to an hour and half (or longer maybe). So as soon as we entered we got seated straight away. Happy Geek gives a thumbs up!! (^_^)b

Outside Burger and Lobster

Burger and Lobster Kitchen

My bib ^^ (I ate like a baby!)

Miss Posh ordered water (and I had a beer)

Right, so there's ONLY 3 options all served with chips and salad:
1. 10 oz burger
2. Lobster roll (meat is cold)
3. Grilled / Steamed lobster

Miss Posh and I both chose the grilled lobster, but I had butter oil served with mine. Also another small bucket of chips was ordered (but I'm not supposed to  talk about that ¬_¬"). Here's our food...

Yummmmmmy!!!!

My chargrilled lobster

I felt like my lobster was smaller than Miss Posh's! :( It looked as if she had more meat, a little disappointed but the meat was amazing!! It was a little tough, very fresh as I couldn't taste that unpleasant fishy taste, (in Cantonese we call it 鮮味 sin mei). It was also chewy and easy to swallow... Ah, it melted in my mouth... YUM!! You could also taste the chargrill flavour...!

They also provide you with a nut cracker plus a metal pick, and I was so proud of myself in my last attempt to pick out the meat from the claws! :D

So proud! ^^

I thought the salad was GREAT!! It was lightly topped with cheese and had a vinegar dressing. I loved it because the rocket used gave that spicy and bitter kick. ^^

The chips are actually French fries. Miss Posh and I asked for no salt to be added (too much salt is not good for your blood pressure!). They were ok. I could've had more. ^^

The only disappointing thing was that my food went cold so quickly because I was trying claw out the meat from the legs... I will be quick next time!!

Here's our finished product!

Our finished plates

Close up of my plate, I hardly touched the butter oil

Total came to £55.97 with drinks and the extra bucket of chips. ^^

If I go there again, I'm going to try out the 10 oz burger or the lobster roll!!

My geeky rating: 5/5 (a very generous score for efficient service but would've given 4.5 for the lobster going cold so quickly and I bet I had a smaller lobster. I want a king lobster!! ^^)

Good points:
- Seated quickly (as we beat the queue)
- Tasty, fresh lobster
- Not much choice of food so easy to pick from 
- Good, friendly service

Bad points:
- I bet my lobster was smaller than Miss Posh's!! :(

Address: 36 Dean Street, London W1D 4PS
Tel: 0207 432 4800

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My Twinkie Adventure

So I went to the grocery store today and while in the bakery section I looked for any more Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dong or Cup Cake (those 3 are my favorites). I wanted to pick up three or four boxes of each to store as they are no longer making them. I know the news broke a few weeks ago but I honestly didn't expect everything to be gone. I assumed they had thousands of boxes in warehouses and they be on the shelves for a few months.:(

I checked a few more stores and no one had any hostess anything left. I was bummed. I went to ebay to see if anyone was selling anything and of course there were 10,000 auctions going on with people selling everything hostess. It looked like the average cost of 1 Twinkie on ebay was about $5.  There was even an auction of 1 box of Twinkies for 5 million (not joking).

Now I love Twinkies but there is no way I am going to pay $5 for one Twinkies. I did bid $5 on six or seven auctions for full boxes of Ding Dongs and Twinkies but if I get outbid, so be it as I won't pay anymore for those things.

I  know other companies are vying to buy the secret recipe and continue to make them so I'm not that desperate to find some.. but I'd still like to get my hand on at least a box of each. So if you see any boxes of Ding Dongs, Twinkies or Cup Cakes pick them up for me and I'll be happy to pay you back.

Buffy Rewatch Continues

Once again I struggled to motivate myself to do anything other then watch TV. I wasn't successful. Lucky for me I had plans in the evening...  I was heading out to my buddy Robert's place for our Buffy night.

Got to his place around 6:30pm, we ordered our dinner, Italian this time and we picked a new place. I always get the same thing, spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian sausage.

Caught up a little bit with Robert before starting our Buffy rewatch / first time. Again we are watching Buffy from the beginning. This is a rewatch for me and a first time for Robert. We are currently on season three. Our first episode is episode 5 "Homecoming", I thought it was an okay episode... nothing too special. It's always fun to see Buffy go head to head with Cordelia. 

After that we moved on to episode 6 "Band Candy". Now I told Robert that this was one of my least favorite episodes but I guess I forgot how awesome it really was. I laughed so much in this episode. Of course the highlights were Giles, Joyce and Snyder all acting like teenagers. It was a blast. Both Robert and I really enjoyed it.

Our final episode for the evening was episode 7 "Revelations". I really liked this episode as well, it started the rift between Buffy and Faith. And I can say that I truly dislike Xander. I don't remember him annoying me so much the first time around, but now he's just so horrible and annoying. And I totally forgot about the whole Willow and Xander thing. I mean I know how it ends but it's fun to see Robert so involved with these characters.

As always it was a great evening and fun hanging out with Robert. It had been a few weeks since we hung out for our last Buffy rewatch and I've been missing him more then usual. Gonna try and get one more Buffy rewatch in before the end of the year.

Also I got a new screener tonight.. Wreck-it-Ralph. Now I've seen this in the theaters and loved it so I can't wait to see it again.

Men's boxers for women, now with 20% more crotch pouch!

Genuine conversation I had with my Mum today:

ME: Why don't more girls wear guys boxers, and just use the pouch for holding things?

MUM: ...

ME: What would you even call the pouch?

MUM: The pee-pee flap?

ME: That sounds like a gay bar Mum. I was thinking more like... the penis compartment?

Dad, later on, suggested the cock pit, which is perfection.

Jodie said that she has wanted to buy guys boxers for the storage space (or, maybe she just wanted guys boxers because let's face it, they are much cooler than the shiz girls have to put up with when it comes to underwear). I read it out to my Mum, because she didn't believe me.

ME: See, other girls would use it as a storage area!

MUM: What are you going to store there? Nuts?

ME: Cashews?

MUM: No, peanuts. Besides, lots of women wear men's trunks. *pauses* Trunks! 

She then makes an elephant noise, whilst making a boner gesture with her hand.    

Just your average, every day mother/daughter conversations.

Lauren xxx

Tip for those wanting to film drug deals... don't.

Drug dealers are camera shy.

Tuesday marked the first time that our College class were out on location, filming.

We had been preparing for that day for countless noons... Okay, not countless moons. Seven noons. As in seven afternoons. Or one week to you normal people.

On Monday night, a bunch of the class went to Slain's to do an open mic comedy/music thing. Let's just say, the majority of our class turned up late, still claiming to be drunk.

Katie (our group's director) didn't turn up, so as production assistant, I had to warily accept the role.

Reasons why I didn't want to be director:

1. Directing people on pre-planned shots that are not my own is not something I'm good at
2. I don't deal very well with bossing people about, usually I just start babbling aimlessly and pointing at things, before doing it myself and giving whoever I was supposed to be giving directions to a thumbs up
3. If anything goes wrong (i.e. the video is rubbish, we lose equipment, one of the crew gets kidnapped by a German leprechaun etc) I'll be the one that gets the blame.

But hey, I'll take one for the team.

And because I was leading the team, I got the honour of naming them... again. 

We were the beliefers, but I renamed us Team Pineapple juice because pineapple was the day's codeword for hungover, as well as every swear word in existence when out-with the college.

We headed out of the college around 9.45, after having to wait forty-five minutes to get equipment ready and for Sara to give us a pep-talk:

SARA: Please, mind your language whilst your out filming. You guys are representatives of Aberdeen college, and we don't want anyone phoning us up to say "Oh, your students' language is atrocious."

ME: *To group* Okay, we're replacing swear-words with pineapple today. Are you ready to do this pineapple, you pineappling pineapples!

 

Cheeky.

Go out of the class and tried to find my directing style, along the way. It started off as the mother...

ME: Now, does anyone need to pee before we go?

DEAN: I'll go.

DANNY: Me too.

ME: Good, good. We'll wait here.

*Maddie's group comes along*

MADDIE: *holds boom mic out to Shelby* Feel my muff.

SHELBY: *feels mic* Ooh!

REBECCA: Dyke!

SHELBY: Wahhh, she called me a dyke!

MADDIE: That's a horrible word!

Walked out of college, only to be greeted by the stench of weed.

Joanna told me of a story of when she was away on holiday when she was little, and there was a stall selling weed products. Including weed lollipops. Obviously, kids love lollipops, and don't understand the concept of drug use...

So little Joanna wanted a weed lollipop. Well, she wanted a lollipop, not realising that there was weed in it. But got high off of the fumes instead.

Got down to the beach about 10.15am. The rising sun was reflected perfectly off the wet ground, blinding us all with it's beauty. The boulevard was bathed in golden light, whilst a full rainbow hung happily in the sky overhead.  

ME: ... No, this is all wrong. *To sky* WHY MUST YOU FAIL US ABERDEEN!? It's beautiful down here. Look, look at that! *Points to sky* Blue! We wanted dark and depressing, and we get this instead!

 "Quick, someone do a rain dance... and get me a coffee 

whilst you're at it."

Seriously though, Aberdeen was looking very beautiful. After taking a moment to appreciate the beach's beauty, we got down to business...

Business involved buying ice-cream cones.

Joanna was incredibly happy with her cone.

Bless her.

In all seriousness though, (Other) Dean did need an ice-cream cone for his beach shot. Joanna went with him to get one, and decided to get one too whilst she was there.

SHELBY: I want an ice-cream!

ME: Guys, if we're good, we can all go for ice-creams, before we leave.

Danny got a few shots of the beach whilst I shouted at the perfection of the beach.

ME: Look at that dog! *An adorable dog leaps through the water, the wet sand beneath him reflects the dog perfectly* THAT IS PERFECTION. Even the bloody seagulls are looking good today! *gestures towards seagulls, who are being reflected in the same way as the dog*.

Shelby then pointed out a group of baby seagulls, standing by the water's edge. Whenever the tide would nip at their feet, they would waddle as fast as they could away from it.

'Waddle, fat bird, waddle'

Coming to a computer screen near you.

We walked through Codonas. We realised upon getting there that shooting on the premises would be considered illegal. So, not only did we not get our shot, we didn't get our ice cream either.

Life just isn't fair.

We walked back to town, realising that we were grossly behind schedule. 

I didn't know how to get a good shot of Union Street I took a decision to get the Union Street shot later on and decided to skip to the Union Terrace Garden shot. Danny took the camera out, away to film the graffitied sign for the gardens when suddenly, a hooded man popped out from behind a pillar. 

Followed by five of his angry looking friends.

Long story short, we kind of entered Union Terrace Gardens whilst a drug deal was going on... and then took a camera out in their presence.

ME: Um... umm... Let's get out of here, and go to the other entrance, because I don't any of you to get shot or stabbed. Or for the camera to get stolen. I'll get the blame either way.

SHELBY: Surely if you were away to get stabbed, you'd protect yourself with the camera?

ME: Yeah, Kevin's just standing there looking at us like "Why is there a knife sticking out of this camera? 

We came across this sticker on our way to the other entrance.

Part of this wonderful tumblr project.

When we finally go there, a woman was seen jogging around the gardens. We took her on for a brief moment, before returning to filming, only to be interrupted by a passing cyclist.

We film our shot, and then look back to see...

That the cyclist has his arms around the jogger, in an embrace. They sway with joy.

SHELBY: Woah, are the cyclist and the runner getting together?

ME: "You exercise? I exercise! Let's exercise togethaaaaaa."

EVERYONE: OHHHHHHHHH!!!!

SHELBY: I see what you did there! 

We had a group huddle (mostly to keep warm) before having lunch at triple kirks.  

For some stupid reason, they'll only serve you if you're over eighteen. Joanna is only seventeen. So I had to go up and prove that I was eighteen, pretending to be Joanna, so she could get her meal.

Only, that meant that I couldn't get a meal for myself, because I had to pretend that I was Joanna... you following me thus far?

Dean ordered me a side of chips though, so I was quite happy!

Whilst we were filming we saw another two rainbows. Shelby described how rainbows come into existence:

SHELBY: Do you think that Jesus just says *puts on bratty kid accent* "But Dadddyyyyyy, I want a rainboooowww!"

When we got back, Sara had a quick scan through our shots. She seemed pleased. 

SARA: You've got a lot of footage of seagulls. You could have a seagull montage...

SHELBY: OOH! I've got the perfect music for that. Hillbilly metal.

But that would only work if seagulls were evi...

 Never mind.

The one closest to the screen looks like

a screamo front-man.

We ended a great day with a four way high-five. A high-twenty. 

Kevin walked in at this point, with all of us preparing to jump, our hands linked like some sort of satanic chanting ritual:

KEVIN: I'm not even going to ask. 

Lauren xxx

The Yellow House - London Surrey Quays

A few hours later after the Scandinavian Christmas Fair, Miss Pinky, her friends, middle brother, Mr Fly (who I haven't seen for a long time) and I went out to celebrate Miss Pinky's birthday at The Yellow House in Surrey Quays. It's just opposite the Surrey Quays Overground station. However Miss Pinky didn't book a table at the restaurant part, so we had to wait... And I was starving... :( 

Outside The Yellow House

Finally after about an hour and a half when everyone arrived, I already had a bowl of handcut chips and we were all drinking we were told our table was ready. Yipee...

And now I am going to turn into The Horrible Geek. I don't want to, but I think I have to. Well first the bar and waiter were utterly nice, but I think were a bit forgetful at who ordered what (we got a few wrong orders being served at our table). I thought the chef was too over-excited to be a chef. (I am actually used to seeing head chefs who shout at their staff and will at least have a sweat on their foreheads! - My Dad used to be one!). 

Now on with the food. There were six of us. Miss Pinky was catching up with everyone, so we took a while ordering food.

The Starters

First off was my garlic and mozzarella bread. This had a really STRONG garlicky smell. (Miss Pinky told me the next day that it really stunk! Well that's what you get with garlic bread!). Since it was so strong, and I could see the others glaring thinking "get that food away from me!"... so I offered around the table. Thankfully Mr Fly took two pieces, and one of Miss Pinky's friends took a piece too! Phew! Never again! ... I did like it by the way minus the smell. ^_^""

Garlic and Mozzarella

Not many of us had starters, but had starters as their main meal. Here's another starter. Lamb Kofta. All the men at our table had this as their main and starter. They all said it wasn't bad!

Lamb Kofta

The Mains (plus Starters as Mains ¬_¬")

One of Miss Pinky's friends had two starters as her main... But I didn't catch the names of her dishes... I think this was a mixture of it all...

Don't know what this is!

I had the Steak Halibut (I was actually wanting a beef steak but forgot that halibut was fish!!! Stupid me!!). Anyway, mine was not bad! I like the sauce, the mussels, the fish didn't smell, and the mash went well with the sauce and fish. Happy Geek!

Steak Halibut

Miss Pinky had the Rib-Eyed steak... Hmmmm... It wasn't good... Too much seasoning going on in there. Too much salt. The peppercorn sauce also looked like barbeque sauce with peppercorns added in... (I'm sure peppercorn sauce isn't supposed to be that brown!!!!! I thought it was supposed to be creamy-gray looking).

Rib-eyed steak

Mr Fly had the Lamb... I didn't try this out, but he said that it was too fatty... Cooked with too much oil I guess...

Lamb

The Desserts and Coffees

I had the Pecan Brownie with Ice Cream. It was so-so. A bit sweet for my tastebuds. I also had a latte with mine. Not bad!

Pecan Brownie and Ice Cream

I like the way they made my latte!

My Fly and Miss Pinky shared the Dessert of the Day. The waiter was explaining what it was at the beginning, but I don't think any of us got what he was saying...

Dessert of the Day

I swapped my dessert with the others. Theirs wasn't too sweet and I liked the chocolate ice cream!

Finally Mr Fly had an Irish Coffee... Nice!

Irish Coffee!

Unfortunately after the dinner, my stomach didn't do so well... And I hadn't even eaten much during the day... :(

My geeky rating: 2.5/5 (I would've given this place a 3.5 but after the bad stomach and overly-friendly chef, this lowered my scores) ... it may have just been a bad day, but I would try this place again... Maybe...

Good points: 

- Nice staff

- Big restaurant area
- Pub area is ok

Bad points:

- Miss Pinky said there was no music!

- Overly-friendly chef

- The food points made above (too lazy to point this out all over again!)

Suggestions:

- Change the recipe of the Rib-eyed steak

- Make a proper peppercorn sauce

- Put some music on!
- Put some table numbers on the tables so that the staff know who ordered what!

Address: 126 Lower Road, Surrey Quays, London SE16 2UE
Tel: 0207 231 8777

Website: www.theyellowhouse.eu

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Most Beautiful Song & Video

I came across this video from a tweet today and I'm surprised that I had not seen it earlier. The song itself was released in July and the video early October and already has almost 8 million views. I normally don't enjoy hip hop or rap so I know nothing about this artist other then he wrote one amazing song.  I've listened to this song about ten times so far and every time I watch this video it makes me cry. I love the words behind it, he speaks truth and honesty. This was a must have as soon as I heard it. So I went to itunes and found it.

I mean I love the video and music together but the song is just as powerful without the images. I also did more research on this artist named Macklemore and hope to listen to more of his stuff soon.

Hope you enjoy this song and video as much as I did.

Orc Themed Mysterious Objectives

Skyfire Nexus markers for my Orkuisition army.These things were super fun to build, and more are on the way(targeting arrays and sabotaged markers are up first).  The machineguns/big shootas are based loosly on tutorial provided by Wazoo on DakkaDakka.

I still need to add a few fiddly bits to the first one so the foot pedels will look like they control the rotation of the platform.

More pics below of this fellow and a second skyfire nexus objective marker.

Comments are always welcome!

Doctors and Dinner

yeah that's my Doctor

Today I had my annual yearly check up. I won't go into great detail as some of my life I like to keep personal (I know shocker), but I can say that my blood pressure is the best it has been since my teens. It was 121 over 80. Of course this is because I'm taking blood pressure medicine. I'm hoping with my continued weight lose I'll be able to get off the meds and still get those kinds of numbers. But for the most part I'm in fairly good shape for a 42 year old man.

After dinner I headed out to Burbank to have dinner with my bestie Will. Only problem is that I got to Burbank at 5ish and Will wasn't getting off work until 7:30. So I drove over to the empire center and did a little Christmas shopping. Not doing alot this year since I have been jobless for most of it... but I was picking up a few things here and there. After a half hour I had had enough. The lines and the crowds were just to much for me so I went back to my Jeep and just sat there listening to podcasts and texting friends.

The time flew by and soon I was having dinner with my buddy Will at Zankou Chicken. Will and I hadn't seen each other in a few months which we try to avoid but it happens more often then we like. But we both agree, it's not about the quantity but the quality of our hang outs. This was a great dinner. We sat and talked for over three hours and closed down the restaurant and then went to my jeep and continued to talk for another half hour. It was nice catching up with Will and a great way to end my evening.

Scandinavian Christmas Fair in London Rotherhithe

I received a comment on my previous post about the Rotherhithe Festival that there was going to be a Christmas Fair around the Rotherhithe area between 23rd to 25th November, and it was Miss Pinky's birthday weekend, so we needed to have a meet up and have a look around.

Unfortunately it was raining on the Saturday. :( But we still had a look around... I didn't realise it was a Scandinavian Christmas Fair (Norwegians, Swedish and Finnish)! I didn't even realise Rotherhithe was an area of Scandinavian people... Interesting! 

Norwegian Christmas Fair in the church

Swedish stall

Pillows!

Ooo... Looks like origami!! ^^

Some naughty bottles... ^^

Cute husky!!

Time for some mulled wine!

Very sweet mulled wine

The Albion School stall

Loads of Christmas cards!

I also did not buy anything, but I had enjoyed looking at the Christmas atmosphere! We went into the Finnish centre which was a £1 entry and where there were loads of groceries, cards, Christmas decorations, carol singers and a cafe above! 

At the Finnish Centre

Christmas market opened on those days and at those times!

Loads of people!!!

Loads of suggested gifts :D

They are big on Moomin!!

The Carol Singers and a puppy :D

So many gift ideas!

Santa Claus tins of pate

Stationary!! My favourite section on the first floor!!!

More gifts

Nice Chrismas tree :D

Loads of knitwear! They are big on knitwear...

We saw this person on stilts! Hope that person didn't fall over!!

A person on stilts

Then Miss Pinky and I went into the church which was also a £1 entry... And there were loads of Christmas stuff there too!!

Cute Christmas gifts

They even dressed up for the event!

I wish English people could do the same thing. I remember when I was in primary school, my local school church held a Bazaar event, which is similar to a Christmas fair. I wonder if they still do it!

Anyway, hope to see more Christmas fairs in the future, English or not!!

More info about this event:
http://www.scanevents.co.uk/christmasmarket/partners.html