When you’re lounging in bed all warm and comfy, thinking it’s the weekend, and then the alarm clock goes off.
Happened to me this morning. Not good.
Tag: potd2014
First day on the bike
I biked in to work this morning. Took me about 20-25 minutes, and it wasn’t too bad. The road is fairly busy but the people aren’t too aggressive on it and there are bike lanes for most of it. Still, in the coming days/weeks, I’m going to look for a quieter track. There are some really fun downward hills on the way in, which means that there will be some really nasty upward climbs on the way home. Not looking forward to that one :)
Update: it took me 19 minutes to get home. I might have used a bit more assistance, but I was going 45 kph for a while, when the motor kicks off at 25.
Food labeling badness!
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As I mentioned previously, I bought pate at Aligro last weekend, and it turns out that it had a nasty surprise: unlisted pistachios. I brought it to work to give it to a coworker, and he confirmed our suspicions. I’ve phoned and emailed Aligro, and they said that they’d look into the matter. I’ll give them a few days before I go all scorched-earth on them.
Update: I got this reply:
On behalf of our supplier, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused. The ingredient list is actually not accurate enough. However, after having contacted our supplier, he assures us that there are no nuts in the composition of the product and you can consume it without fear for your health. There are however some pistachios in the composition of this very traditional recipe, appreciated by the customers. Following your message, this label will be corrected as soon as possible.
So, pistachios aren’t nuts. Except that they are. Idiots.
Sunday redux
We cut Bean’s hair. It was a two person job, but at least he doesn’t look feral anymore.
Also, after more than a year of waiting, Katy has finally gotten her well deserved beef Wellington. Highly passed off with Aligro though. The pate I was going to use seems to contain pistachios, which were not listed in the well scrutinized list of ingredients. Improvised with some boursin in the mushroom duxelle.
Also, I ate too much
I bought a bike, part 2!
I cancelled my previous bike order because the company kept jerking me around with back-order stock promises (it’ll be here in 2 weeks !), so I went to a smaller shop in Lausanne. After a really good conversation, I bought a KTM ebike that is in stock (in Vevey) and I’ll get it on Tuesday!! I paid a bit more than I had originally planned, but it’s a good bike and I’m going to kick myself in the ass to get my money’s worth :-)
Ian McKellen and Laura Linney to explore Sherlock’s twilight years
Oooooh! Now he gets to wear a t-shirt that says “I’m Gandalf, Magneto and Sherlock! Deal with it!” :D
In recent years the sleuthing of Sherlock Holmes has been depicted as ass-kicking and wisecracking in Guy Ritchie’s movies, and as drily witty and cerebrally thrilling in the BBC TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. But now a new, quieter side to Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective is set to reach the screen: his old age, after he retired to keep bees.
Ian McKellen is set to play Holmes in A Slight Trick of the Mind, adapted from the 2005 novel by Mitch Cullin which imagines Holmes’s twilight years, alluded to in Doyle’s novels. The film will depict him working on his final case aged 63, and also retired in Sussex aged 91, mentally frail and obsessed with the unsolved crime. Laura Linney will play his housekeeper, Mrs Munro, whose son Holmes has a fatherly attachment to.
The film will be directed by Bill Condon, who has worked on acclaimed films with each of the actors before: the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters with McKellen, and his Alfred Kinsey biopic with Linney. “It’s a really great mystery about who Sherlock Holmes is, but it’s also a lovely, delicate movie about what happens as you get older,” Condon told Entertainment Weekly. “I’m looking forward to the combined talent, skills, and smarts [of Linney and McKellen]. Both of them are incredibly detail-oriented and do an amazing amount of work before they get to set, and then they dive off the board and become their characters.”
Fantasy holiday clock
One day… one day…
Weeeeeird dream
Just woke up from a fever dream that involved a dance off with zombies, Santana, Simon Cowell, Starmania, Moby, Michel Jackson, a chase through a multi story car park, a were-dog and vampires, a wood planer, Victorian London, and so much more. It’s fading now, but oh what a West-End production it would have been!
Montreal, potholes and cynicism.
Potholes are every driver’s nightmare. When governments fail to fix them, photographers like Claudia Ficca and Davide Luciano come in handy. This creative couple decided to take a different look at the annoying experience of driving through cracks and and holes. Their ironic photo series, “My Potholes,” turns them into playful settings for the photographer’s imagination.
The idea for this project was born out of their individual experience after hitting a pothole in their own neighborhood in Montreal. First using themselves as models, Claudia and Davide were soon backed by their family and friends and the creative juices started running wild. What started off as a joke turned into quite a fun experience, taking them to cities like Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles. The artists say they’ve learned that sometimes changing our perspective on things is more important than actually fixing them.
[gallery] Ani-human project
Covered from head-to-toe in body paint, these brave models blend in perfectly alongside a succession of wild animals. After seven-hours in make-up over four days, they look completely at home whether tangling with a 12ft-long python, staring down cheetahs, or riding on the back of an elephant. The bizarre images were taken by wildlife photographer Lennette Newell and form part of her ‘Ani-Human’ series of portraits.
Growing up the daughter of a vet in San Francisco, her childhood dream was to become one of the animals her father used to treat. Some four decades later, the 52-year-old artist has finally realised her ambition – with the help of models who have nerves of steel. Ms Newell said: “I wanted to show humans and their animal brothers in a new light that we maybe hadn’t been seen before.”
A great amount of care was taken to ensure that the animals were treated humanely during the shoot. Ms Newell said: “Each of the animals came with their trainers and every second they were observed and watched whenever the models came in contact with the animals. Some like Susie the elephant were fine to work with, the only problem she posed was how to get the model Kaela on top. In the end we used a long ladder and then we set about photographing inside the mammoth studios. For another model, Jasmina, and the cheetah and tigers it was bit different. We had to make sure that they were comfortable around her and that she had ample time to make a getaway should they become uncomfortable.”
But the fun project had a serious side as it is meant to remind viewers that man is an animal himself. “I think that we forget our origins as animals ourselves,” Ms Newell said. “We need to reconnect with nature and we should be closer to the animals that live on this world. We should look on these pictures as something more natural and not as odd as they might first seem. I used to fantasise about being the animals that my father used to treat and now with this project I am a little closer.”
Working with 75lb snakes and playful tigers proved difficult for the thin female models. Ms Newell said: “The tigers just wanted to play, but with their claws and the fact that Jasmina was naked, it was a problem for her obviously. But that aside, the cats were watched at all times and everyone had a great time during the shoot.”
