Birthday Treats for the Office

For work today I fulfilled the tradition of bringing in some goodies for the office by providing a hobbit-appropriate second breakfast of crunchy nut cornflakes (which I'm not sure people totally appreciated) followed by a second lunch of mini mince pies with Baileys cream and lembas donuts - which were simply a donut wrapped in one of my office grown leaves. I though it was fitting for a hobbit who has just come of age.

lembas donuts and some mini-mince pies with cream for my office
This evening Dr K and I went out to watch the final The Hobbit at the lovely Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge. I was able to make use of both Orange Wednesday and a members ticket = free cinema for the both of us. Great seat right in the middle middle of screen one. Not quite the impact of the IMAX at the weekend, but a good place to watch a film. The film itself was good and enjoyable but not really a scratch on the original LOTR. I fear that perhaps Peter Jackson isn't a very good story teller preferring instead to make superfluous sweeping camera moves rather than focus on character development or plot. I think the films were seriously hampered by being split into three making them oddly both overly long and waffly and yet unsubstantial. The music didn't compare anywhere near as good as the original sound track (which reminded me to play it tomorrow at work). I shouldn't be too hard on the film though, it was fun and after all the book is itself a much softer version of the tome to come.
2014-12-17

Just Before I Come Of Age (as a hobbit)

What to say on the eve of my coming of age as a hobbit? I stumbled across my post that I wrote this time last year in which I expressed my like of the number 32 and less so of the number 33. However, that second number does have the Middle Earth significance, which is good, and as such I'm going to have a little hobbit celebration tomorrow by going to watch the final Hobbit at the Picturehouse in Cambridge with Dr K after a curry somewhere in town (perhaps Cocum, the South Indian restaurant up Castle Hill. The other hobbit influenced celebration will be at work where there is a tradition of providing some sort of stackable sustenance on your birthday. I'm going to provide second breakfast in the form of some crunchy nut cereal and then second lunch in the form of mince pies with cream.
We had a mini early celebration at the weekend by watching the new Christopher Nolan film Interstellar at the IMAX in the Science Museum. it was a really good film and thoroughly enjoyable, but sadly I was suffering from a severe migraine so was a little throwy-uppy (the sick bay had kindly given us a couple of sick bags to make use of). The science museum itself looked most exciting and it was a shame we didn't have more time to enjoy it. We will have to go back soon.
Tonight has been a nice evening. After cooking a vegetable rich evening and updating the Christmas tree with an additional set of lights (LED fairy lights, nice but a bit cold overall), I had a good potter in the shed fixing Dr K's puncture and swapping both her tires out for new Continental Gator Hardshell Duraskins which will hopefully hold off the sharp flints of Cambridgeshire slightly better. She's had a very bad run recently with multiple changes on some days. I also gave the old girl a clean and de-grease (by which I mean her bike). Mine is in need of some desperate cleaning and TLC but that will have to wait as instead we settled down in the lounge to watch the new Black Mirror by Charlie Brooker. It was yet again an excellent piece on the future of the future including a small warning flag for the smart home.
2014-12-16

My Precious

Many moons have I waited for this day. I remember seeing the rush of people buying the Fellowship DVD's when they first came out all those years ago. But I waited. Then I looked on at amused their dismayed faces when, just before the second film was released, the Fellowship extended edition box came out and they had to buy that. But I waited. Still further, as the Two Towers DVD appeared and went, I waited. And sure enough out came the exvended edition and yet again these poor hapless souls forked out for that too. By this time I was sure there would be an extended edition boxed set and so still I waited. The third film, third DVD and third extended edition came to pass, and still I bided my time. Then, finally the boxed set was released!

But at 60 odd quid I though it best to wait a little while longer. For a few months it harboured, festered almost, in my Amazon wish list, untill one day, as I loged in to my shopping basket I was presented with a notice saying that the boxed set had dropped in price by £7.

And so here I am, master of delayed gratification, finally with the boxed set sitting on my desk. It is a many splendid thing and I look forward to delving into it's depths (though I've caught glimpses here and there of the various bits (yet never actually seen The Return extended edition).

My geek status has been enhanced

Lord of the Rings, LOTR extended edition box set