Nico's Journal

I might as well do this while I have some time.

Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicise the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of. And add any unusual items that you have that aren't on the list.

I wonder how many pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses / pipers, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks (known as beaters here) languish dustily at the back of the world's cupboards.

I also have an espresso machine (which gets used several times a week along with the coffee grinder and has its own milk frother), two cast-iron skillets (big and small) which also get a lot of use, and I'n considering buying a pizza stone.

Another meme I happened to come across. I really like the picture.

( How erudite am I? )

I did this to fill in some time (nicked from imhilien
). I wouldn't post it but my result was surprisingly accurate--but then no expense was spared in the writing of this quiz (see last paragraph in link).

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Who would I be in Star Wars?

( FInd out here )

OK, here's the rest of that word meme: me babbling on about the words sallymn gave me now I'm back and have some time. I'm pretty sure I've done some of these before.

Cats
I loved cats since I was tiny, even though the family cat was a bad-tempered grey Persian called Beethoven (he looked like the famous bust). If I saw a kitten or cat in the street, I had to rush over to it--and still do. They just have a huge fascination for me, in any size. I now have four cats, and believe me, it's hard to resist the weekly Lonely Miaow orphan in the local paper. I regard cats as the most beautiful creatures on this planet.

Art
I'm not that knowledgeable about art; do you mean mine? That's another passion that has ruled me all my life. When I was little, I even used to draw people in the air, create whole murals, rubbing out bits I didn't like with a wave of my hand. People must have thought I was cracked. I learned not to do that, and even not to doodle in meetings because people would become desperate to see what I was drawing. Drawing did make me friends at primary school (I cornered the market in war scenes with fighter planes, bombers, tanks, and little soldiers) and secondary school where I went into cartoons. I loved Ronald Searle's style and used to draw St Trinan's girls doing unspeakable things in the lab, and Romans doing even more murderous things to each other in the back of my Latin exercise book. I used to try to remember to rip those out until the Latin teacher, a deceptively conventional looking woman with a bun, asked me to leave them in because she and the staff room liked them. I wish I had more talent though. But I'm a dilettante.

Chocolate
What can I say? There are people who say this planet should be saved because it's the only one with cats and chocolate, and those are two damned good reasons! I just wish the supermarket would keep stocking the ones I've come to like. No more Cadbury's Old Gold liqueur selection for me, and I only discovered it a few months ago. :-(

Computers
Computers, or more specifically the internet, have given me some of the best friends I've ever had. I use mine mainly for LJ, writing, and drawing. I also spent a lot of my working life programming them till bastards in management drove me out. I'm not sure what else I can say about them, except that Zen made me cry, and I blame that little plastic rat Orac for S4.

Cheers
I assume I got this because of this very old icon. "Cheers" is used in my English as an informal goodbye, a casual "thanks, and a sort of "here you go!" And of course when having a drink. This has probably puzzled quite a few people here, so I hope that helped.

From linda_joyce:



I like Ver 2.0; it has a wider range of questions.

From communicator. YES! [punches air] I love his work. There are phrases of his which will always sing in my mind.

I named a planet Stryli in his honour (and another one Ataro in ours).

I am: Cordwainer Smith (Paul M.A. Linebarger) This inimitably unique storyteller created a future with so many deep layers of history that all the world we know is practically lost in it.

Fun test.



I suspect I got the US states one wrong.

From vjezkova, the return of the first letter meme.

Use the first letter of your first name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real places, names, and things. Nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person you got it from had the same first initial. You can't use your name for the boy's/girl's name question.

I did it with V for Vilakins last time, so here it is for N.

1. What is your name? Nico
2. A four-letter word: Nerd
3. A boy's name: Noah
4. A girl's name: Naomi
5. An occupation: nuclear physicist
6. A colour: navy blue
7. Something you wear: necklace
8. A beverage: Napoleon brandy
9. A food: nougat
10. Something found in the bathroom: nail brush
11. A place: Noumea
12. A reason for being late: ninjas with nunchukkas battling nuns with nitro-glycerine
13. Something you shout: Nooooooooo! [camera pulls back]

Oh yeah, and I'm:
75% Geek

Though I always find it hard to pick favourites of anything, here's one I enjoy.

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy
by William Shakespeare's Cat
(really by Henry Beard, from his Poetry for Cats)

To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell.
To sit, to stare Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state
A wish to venture forth without delay,
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand
As if transfixed by doubt.
To prowl; to sleep;
To choose not knowing when we may once more
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball;
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob,
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch,
And going out and coming in were made
As simple as the breaking of a bowl,
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues,
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom,
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears,
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will,
He might his exodus or entrance make
With a mere mitten?
Who would spaniels fear,
Or strays trespassing from a neighbour's yard,
But that the dread of our unheeded cries
And scratches at a barricaded door
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults
Than run away to unguessed miseries?
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all;
And thus the bristling hair of resolution
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought,
And since our choices hinge on weighty things,
We pause upon the threshold of decision.

From redstarrobot, my first Christmas meme.

You Are a Gingerbread House

A little spicy and a little sweet, anyone would like to be lost in the woods with you.