Tonight, I shall be producing pancake goodness for House of Plot residents and associates. Should you wish to consume, let me know by some means so I have a vague idea of numbers. I already have a bunch of lemons, and the majority of required ingredients (if numbers get high I will need to get more eggs & milk, but otherwise I'm good). I also have maple syrup, and a few bits & bobs for savoury fillings. If you want other fillings / toppings then you'll need to bring them yourself.

Anyway, let me know if you're coming, or if you think you'd be expected and won't be there.

As possibly the only person I know who is likely to have lost weight over Christmas, I feel compelled to rectify the situation with a large takeout and some booze. Having bought plenty of food, I am far too knackered to actually cook / prepare any of it tonight.

So, that was my first day... It was an engineering kickoff, which basically consisted of being talked at about a bunch of stuff and then discussing a bunch of stuff. I now know the way forward for the core product and some subsidary products, some potential issues concerning different versions of the aforementioned, various potential things to be worked on by other people and the like.

I've still not actually seen the product, and only have a cursory understanding of what it actually does... but I know a lot about how it's being handled. I should actually get to have some hands-on time with it tomorrow, at which point I can start trying to work out what I've gotten myself into!

In other news, tonight I made less of my patented "too much chilli" than usual. It was still too much chilli, but there was less left over than is normal. Only about four or five generous portions, after it had served six people with all that they could eat (excluding pudding stomachs - which were of course reserved for their proper use). Usually I get at least twelve portions left, so I'm improving. It was a bit milder than usual, though. I need to work out the proportions a bit better for the smaller scale, I think.

A message for all House of Plot residents (in case I don't see you during the day) and potentially other interested parties:

Tonight I shall be cooking a vat of Chilli. If you would like to be fed, please let me know, along with any dietary requirements or preferences you may have. I can't cater for everything, but I can probably make a reasonable stab at catering for the odd one or two quirks.

For the uninitiated, my chilli is not usually particularly hot - but it can be bolstered by the addition of other ingredients to individual portions if required.

So, I was looking for Udon recipes on the web (ie: things to do with udon noodles to make them a bit more interesting than just plain noodles), and had to do a double take.

I know the word means more than it's current accepted meaning here in the western world, but I really had to keep reminding myself of that.

So, today I've been spending money again. I really need to do that less often, but hey, it was payday on Thursday.

Picked up four CDs in the MVC closing down sale. Cost me about the same as I'd normally spend on one CD, so I think that's not too bad... Two Mercury Rev CDs, one The Church CD and one Led Zeppelin CD.

Then I went to Rymans and bought a bundle of bits and bobs for use in the UA game, which I will refund myself for out of the game's funds when it has some (after the first game, most likely). Some of these supplies will quite likely go on to be used in subsequent games as well, as I do plan on running a lot of short-run or one off LARPs, and resilient folders for character dossiers are generally going to be a good plan I feel. Especially as I'm not planning on re-printing character sheets every game... the same sheet should last all the way through. If new sheets are needed then they can be printed, but they won't have all of your XP and skill progression on them... basically, losing your character sheet will mean losing your XP. So don't do it!

But I digress.

After Rymans, I decided it was ages since I'd had any dried banana chips, which I quite like. So I popped into Julian Graves to get some and found that they stock Boaters teas and coffees too. So I acquired a few boaters bits and bobs for experimental purposes.

I am now home, and testing my new CDs before embarking on a mammoth UA prep-session... about which, more shortly!

Well, tonight is my TV watching night, as ever, but I'm wondering about cooking a chilli beforehand. I quite fancy a chilli night, and my options are really tonight or tomorrow night, and tomorrow night the house gets invaded by V:TES or Board Gamers...

So... Who might be interested. I'm prepared to feed up to 8 as long as they are then prepared to let me watch my normal viewing schedule without drowning it out!

The quality of food at this place is pretty poor at the best of times, but today I went down to Southlands for lunch (this being the current on-campus venue of choice, on the grounds that at least the slop they sell is cheap) and had cottage pie. This was worse than usual... this could be used to destabilise the earth's orbit. It's excessive mass could also cause major ecological problems as it sucks superheated gasses from the surface of the sun towards the earth, bringing a massive rise in temperature. Even light would have difficulty escaping it's pull.

Still, at least it was better than last week's curried gristle hotpot.

...with vanilla choco balls to follow.

A tale of lunch at work...

Well, the choice today was chargrilled fish with noodles (cooked to order - long queue -would have taken about 25 minutes before I got it), something with a french name that looked like a leaf wrapped turd (didn't fancy that), or an alleged Chicken Korma, which somehow looked like it was glowing.

Anything from our canteen that has small pieces of chicken in it looks like vomit, but this looked like glowing vomit. Quite disturbing. But not as disturbing as the poppadom. It was fine around the edges, but in the middle, it was, well, more of a floppadom. Once removed from the rigid frame provided by the edges, it couldn't even support it's own weight. It was more of a pancake.

Oh well - it all actually tasted quite nice, despite appearances.

I'm now following it up with one of those yoghurt corner things back in my office. This particular flavour has the dubious name of "Vanilla Choco Balls". I am slightly peturbed by this.