Oh my God. And I thought having a leech on my foot was bad!
This is one of those ones I just can’t remember (haven’t used it enough). Can do it when I look…
How excitement! A customer just called to ask whether it was going to be difficult to get into the shop today, as apparently there’s a movie – Superman! – filming down York Street. I had no idea! I’m going to sneak down at lunch and see if I can get a photo.
Update: Here they are! The two crappiest photos ever. (I only had my mobile and I didn’t want to risk getting too close for fear that I’d get, like, busted or something. I don’t know. I was paranoid.) They’d set up a big crane at Wynyard Station, not far from Krispy Kreme. It was holding a big roof-like structure over the area by the bus stops beside the Menzies Hotel. There were hundreds of people milling around, sitting on the grass and standing at the fences watching. This first shot is from up top in the little park-like area, looking down towards where all the lights were. At one point I heard a voice over a loudspeaker call “Action!” and then I caught a glimpse of a crowd of people start walking around that street. And then “Cut.” Hollywood in action is pretty boring, to tell you the truth. The second shot is down on Wynyard Street looking at the big crane thing. I didn’t see anybody that looked very important, though there were two swanky big motorhomes parked down one of the side streets.
Stupid anecdote: I was sorta disappointed not to see Lois Lane because I read in a magazine yesterday that she was going to be played by Mischa Barton from The O.C., and I had a crazy vision that maybe she’d be wearing yet another big ugly hat and I could yell something amusing at her. But then I got home and looked it up and it turns out that it isn’t her, it’s Kate Bosworth. Damn. That’s what I get for gleaning celebrity information from nine-month-old magazines at the doctor’s office.
Note to self: Next time you go to the States, remember that Hertz gives a car rental discount to ND alumni…
My sister will love this one: FreeKaraoke.com. They’re karaoke MIDI files! How delightfully low-fi. On my machine they play in Quicktime and the words light up as the song plays. How neat (and by neat, I mean sorta lame too) is that? We may need to have a karaoke MIDI party, methinks. The Snook also reports that there are other sites offering these around the internets too.
The Snook makes a grab for my tummy…
Me: Hey, don’t grab my schub! I’ve got a total muffin top today.
Him: “Muffin top”?
Me: Muffin top.
Him: Well, everybody loves muffins.
(Link courtesy of the non-muffin-top-sporting Andrew.)
Since Kevin asked, I just checked out the new Charlie the Chocolate Factory TV spot. Hmm. Okay, first the positives: They put back the squirrels! I’m really, really happy about that. I always thought the “geese-laying-golden-eggs” was stupid. And though the boat looked weird to me at first, the shot of it from above with all the Oompa-Loompas at the oars really reminded me of the original Joseph Schindelman illlustration. The bad: As Kevin said, Johnny Depp really does seem to be trying to channel a 13-year-old boy here. I don’t think that’s a good thing. We already had Gene Wilder as the literary-quote-spouting Wonka, and now we’ve got Depp as the let’s-boogie Wonka… neither of which seem very faithful to the book. I’m withholding final judgement til I can see the whole film together.
I finally managed to watch Michael Stipe’s interview on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton from Monday. He was surprisingly personable! The only bit I didn’t like was Denton’s introduction, where he went on and on about how REM didn’t seem like the stereotypical rock gods, like with the groupies and the doing drugs, and that it was so refreshing that they didn’t have any embarrassing scandals… to which everyone watching mentally thought in unison: “Except for that time Peter Buck went psycho on a flight to England.” But anyhoo, my personal highlights:
Note: I totally paraphrased Michael’s statements because I’m too lazy to transcribe from the video.
I don’t want to be all “100% DietBlog!”, but this is a useful list of WW points values for generic foods. The author’s got a couple other lists for restaurants too.
So, I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting tonight. Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive. I kept wondering when we were going to drink the Magic Kool-Aid. The room was full of boxes of WW-branded products and books and videos, but thankfully they didn’t seem to really “push” any of that too hard. I filled out my forms and paid my joining fee, and then I got to step on the dreaded scales. Ouch. I’ve officially got – and I’m just gonna say this – twenty kilos to lose. (I’m not gonna do the conversion for you Americans. My embarrassment does have its limits.) What really pisses me off is that a year ago I was within seven kilos of my goal, and now I’ve got to do it all over again… and this time make it stick. Anyway, back to the meeting. A lot of folks just seemed to check-in, get weighed, and bolt, but a half dozen of us stuck around for the meeting proper. Our leader is an older lady named Emily who was really, really encouraging. She even showed us her “before” photo! And get this – I wasn’t even the chubbiest girl there. (I know it’s shallow, but that was a total relief.) We talked about what our goals are and what sort of concrete changes we can make to achieve them. A couple of the attendees were “lifetime members,” i.e. people who’d achieved their goal weights and were maintaining it. (I felt much more charitable to them after that revelation, as I’d been sitting there wondering why all the skinny beeyotches had come to torment me.) It sounds cheesy, but they really were inspiring and they had some good tips about how to get started. Emily even handed out a couple gold star stickers to people with really good suggestions. I really wanted to think it was lame, but deep, deep down in my heart of hearts, I admit that I desperately want a gold star sticker of my very own. So lame or not, the encouragement is working! Afterwards I headed to the store to stock up on supplies. The hardest part right now is re-hardwiring my brain for shopping. Most of the things we were used to buying on Atkins are now verboten, and lots of stuff that was previously off limits – Potatoes! Honest to Christ, potatoes! – are back on the list. I mostly feel bad because we’re going to be cutting out a lot of the things that the Snook really enjoys: fat meat, fat milk, fat cheese. We’ve arrived at a compromise though, where he can have whatever he wants for lunch as long as he does the low-fat dinner with me. Tonight I made us some pizzas on Lebanese bread (from the Week 1 guidebook). Pretty good! I added up my daily points and I was just under my daily quota. It’ll be even better this week once I implement my first concrete lifestyle change: walking to work every day. Wish me luck!
For our big anniversary dinner last night, the Snook and I headed out to Neil Perry’s latest venture, XO. It’s at the site of the old MG Garage in Surry Hills. We were really looking forward to it as our previous Perry experience (Rockpool in 2002) was just magnificent. Also, my co-worker Leanne’s boyfriend Brendan is an apprentice chef there and we heard great things about it from them.
I never saw the site when it was the MG Garage, but the new fitout is really lovely: all dark woods with cozy pools of light and subtle Asian design flourishes. We were excited to see that the Banquet Menu was available (since we’d thought it was only for larger groups), so we both had that. It’s really the little touches that make a fancy dinner, you know? Like ordering a G&T and being asked which of three gins you prefer. And asking the waiter for a wine recommendation and ending up having a whole conversation about up and coming Australian vineyards. (We went with Nick’s recommendation, a Lake George Chardonnay, which wasn’t something that we’d have picked out ourselve. It was really excellent.) Then the food started coming. The pork wontons were very yummy in a moreish kind of way. The chili squid was surprisingly tasty; I usually find it rubbery and fishy. But this was firm and thick and spicy, and we had fun trying it with the three different Asian sauces they’d supplied. I’d been slightly dreading the trout salad, of course – I have fish issues – but it ended up being one of my favorites. The combination of the meaty fish with the coriander and pawpaw was wonderful. Of the mains, the tea-smoked duck was unusual but the smokiness was a little strong for my taste. I was apprehensive about the steamed fish fillet but it was fine; actually the Snook liked it less than me as he’s not such a fan of freshwater fish. (“It tastes kinda like mud.”) My favorites were the pork belly and the Eight Treasure Chicken. Of course, we were getting pretty stuffed by this point. We’d also polished off the whole bottle of Chardy and an additional glass of Pinot, each. We were really looking forward to that salty peanut toffee ice cream on the dessert menu, though. Imagine our surprise when the waiter said that Brendan was instead preparing a whole dessert tasting plate for us! So instead of one dessert, we had four. (I’m so going to Weight Watchers on Monday.) We had the peanut ice cream along with chocolate cake, panna cotta, and a fig and walnut ice cream. It was just a completely fabulous evening. I wouldn’t rank it equal with Rockpool; the food wasn’t quite orgasmic enough. But it’s definitely up there. I don’t know why Perry seems to get things right where other restaurants so often fail. His formula seems simple: good food, beautiful dining room, excellent service. I just can’t stress enough how much a difference the service makes. We left Nick the biggest tip we’ve ever left in Australia and still debated afterwards whether he was worth more. We highly recommend XO if you’re in the mood to be treated like royalty.
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
This is one of those ones I just can’t remember (haven’t used it enough). Can do it when I look…
so funny hhh
Really excellent. It’s had a Much extended run here so who knows!
Special thanks to Matt Hinrichs for the site logo!
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