So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

She does react to text messages - unfortunately, texting is expensive over here, especially texting abroad. She told me she no longer had the attention span for LJ... whatever that is supposed to mean.

I miss her, too.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did see her in Heroes, her and George Takei both! I really loved the first season of that show, but somehow it lost me at the start of the second...

After reading her autobiography, I have had great trouble liking anything about William Shatner; I never was that fond of Captain Kirk in the first place, but I usually try to remember that actors are different from their characters and give them a chance even if they play someone I don't like. But Nichols tales of Shatner's behaviour just made really dislike the man, and I haven't seen anything of him to really contradict that.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am going to have to disagree with your here; I love aubergine, in many different forms! Your Mum's aubergine paste sounds delicious! One of my favourite things to get in the Lebanese restaurant, that I used to live near in London, was baba ganoush. All I know about it, is that it is made with mashed (cooked in some way; I think smoked) aubergine and it is yummy! Much better than hummus any day.

Say 'hi' to your Mum from me!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I have never watched either. When the BBC did their new version of Robin Hood I was quite excited, but I found the first episode so stupid and boring it put me off not only it, but Merlin as well since people kept comparing the two and saying they were similar. That is perhaps a bit hasty of me... So, tell me do you think I should give any of those a try?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

My mother used to do that -- urgh! I think there are some flavours that combine well with them (figs, goat's cheese) but I can't get over the slimy consistency. I dimly recall I once had some aubergine crisps (crispy, brittle) but how that effect was achieved I know not.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sometimes paste is nicer than the vegetable -- I've found I love beetroot paste when I dislike beetroot. Smoking does improve the taste of a lot of foods.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I hate this exodus from LJ. It used to be such a lively place, and now I feel like a fossil for not abandoning it for some form of microblog (a thing I abhor more than aubergine!).

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Halloumi is made with a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk, though I think the sort you can buy in the shops here also has some cow's milk in it. It is the only cheese I know that you can grill, and I think it tastes delicious! The texture is not like ordinary cheese, but rather chewier. It is not to everyone's liking; I have a friend who refuses to eat it, saying it makes a weird noise when you chew it. Being a vegetarian it is one of my favourite things to barbeque; it turns out a lovely brown colour and, as I mentioned, tastes great.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I did love the film Howl's Moving Castle, from the first time I saw it. There were bits that only made sense much later when I read the book though. I agree they two stories are very different, and I am inclined to indeed think of them as two very separate entities. I like the book better though, mostly because of my love of the Sophie in it.

I haven't seen Maurice, but I do indeed remember there being quite a bit of eye candy in Brideshead Revisited!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I shall try to find time to make some this week end. I have to do some work, to make sure I have teaching materials ready for my on-line course for the week after next when I am hoping to be able to go to Dublin to do some experiments. There should still be some time for a nice baking project; having some chocolate biscuits should also help with my 'motivation'... ;-)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Having gone to school for nine years in small communities in Sweden, I decided not to ever become a school teacher because they all were chronically undervalued. It always saddens me to hear of teachers not being properly appreciated, especially ones like you who really put some much effort into being good at it. There is sadly nothing much I can do to fix this, but I will offer you some (virtual) chocolate to show my support.

There was a really depressing statistical analysis by the trade union for Swedish employees with academic training a year or so ago, that showed you actually earned less over your lifetime if you trained as a teacher in Sweden! Given how vitally important teachers are, I think that is just horrendous!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sophie is a wonderful character in both book and film. Have you read the sequels (I have yet to)?

What's your favourite Diana Wynne Jones? Mine is probably Power of Three though I love Eight Days of Luke and find the Dalemark universe fascinating. I haven't read a lot of her later books -- I grew too old for them as a child, and have only learned recently to return to children's lit.

If you liked Brideshead Revisited, Maurice is definitely worth a try. It has an early Hugh Grant, before he stopped acting and his looks went off, plus a very early Rupert Graves. And there's the most candid m/m sex scene I can recall from films of that era.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

We are in complete agreement about Shatner. I liked him when I saw him in T.J. Hooker, but I was a young girl back then, and that was just a stereotypical cop show. Every other role he'd ever played was a jerk. Including Kirk. I guess he simply played himself.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

The Importance of Being Earnest was shown on Swedish television when I was in my early teens, and we recorded it on a video tape. For years it was my sister's and my go-to thing to watch if we had nothing better to do; it got to the point where we could probably quote it all by-heart! Surprisingly the tape didn't actually wear out. I looked for that version of the play for ages without finding it, and then one day when I had almost forgotten it I looked at some DVD box sets in a knick-knack shop in Leamington Spa and there was a set of Oscar Wilde plays and 'our' version of The Importance of Being Earnest was one of them! I bought it on the spot, not bother about how much it was!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

As I said: all our friends are mad about Mum's aubergine dish, so she has to make it every time we have guests. I usually go out of the house while she's doing it. *g*

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It has got to the point where I actively avoid watching things with him in it.

And in other news: The threads have started collapsing on this page, too. Hurrah! Chocolates all around!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Robin Hood is laughably terrible. I bought the DVDs for the first two seasons (in the throes of an extreme Richard Armitage lust that the first The Hobbit film cured) but have never finished watching them they are so bad. The young actors who play Marion & Robin are abysmal and have no sexual tension at all, and I'm only a fan of deliberate anachronism when done consciously and sparingly.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of beetroot paste; is this something one can buy, or did you or someone else make it? I very much dislike beetroot, so I am not at all sure I would buy it if I saw it, but I love the colour of it so if it really tastes very different to the vegetable I might give it a try. Having said that though, I have had borscht and very much didn't like that either, so maybe I wouldn't...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

At least it means there's more of the real food for you!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The first season of Merlin is lovely - more a fairy tale for young adults than anything else. It treats the source material very loosely, and some aspects simply don't make sense, but it has a unique charm, and the young actors are very likeable. And, of course, they have Stewart Head as Uther Pendragon, which is great. After I stopped looking for Buffy, I enjoyed his performance very much.

Season 2 is still quite lovely, but later on the show loses its footing, IMO, and the main turning point, Morgana turning evil, is totally unconvincing. I couldn't buy that, and as a result I couldn't really buy anything that came afterwards, but the whole thing is still enjoyable. And Colin Morgan is simply amazing.

Camelot is closer to the original legends, save for the fact that there's no Lancelot, or rather that the love triangle is turned upside down. There is a lot of gratutious sex and nudity (it is a SyFy show, after all), and none of the main characters are even remotely likeable. Sir Kay is cute, but everyone else is a jerk. Still, it is an interesting approach, even for women. I'm told that the guys mainly watched it for Eva Green's boobs that are revealed while practicing evil magic.

No wonder the show only lasted one season. It ended with a semi-cliffhanger, too, annoyingly enough.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's a bought paste, which tastes utterly delicious despite having some beetroot flavour. The main ingredients, aside from beetroot, are borlotti beans (which one can't taste at all), yoghurt, sour cream & tahini, and it does taste a lot of sesame, which might explain why I like it so much. I've taken to it with rice cakes & low-fat Greek yoghurt as a relatively low-calorie snack.

I'm not fond of borscht, either.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

You think Armitage was bad in the first Hobbit film? I find that the first film was the peak of cinematic artistry and canon compliance compared with the second one.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I agree, it is a sad thing. LJ was such a great way to keep tab on your friends, to discuss shared interest leisurely... Perhaps we are fossils, but why shouldn't we intent on keeping our fossilic ways when they suit us better?

I don't feel the urge to join every new internet phenomenon and abandon the good things we've had for a decade or more. This entire faster, faster, faster tendency makes my brain hurt. Plus, I find Twitter and Co utterly confusing.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Given that I loathed and detested the first film, and had suspicions about the canon compliance of the second, I decided to give it a miss. My blood pressure is high enough as it is...

It wasn't so much that Armitage was bad as that film-Thorin is a travesty, and the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Tony Head is wonderful. He'll never convince me to drink Nescafe, but otherwise the guy can do no wrong.