General Update

[spudtater]

The sky is absolutely lovely right now. I'm sitting in Appleton level 5 labs^[0], and the sun's lighting up the underside of all the clouds a firey orange as it sets. An artist's palette of blue, orange and gray in the sky. It makes me happy.

The Synod last night was both fun and illuminating; I believe it was established that while all types of chocolatey goodies are Good in their own special way (except of course evil milk chocolate), there is in fact such a thing as too much chocolate. In too short a time period, anyway. I brought the Goddess some lovely Swiss dark chocolate, and saved her from an evil bar of nut-stippled G&B milk chocolate (now already half gone). Oh, and much brandy was put into Alexanders, to my approval.

Garlic schnapps was presented as 'honorary chocolate', but general opinions of the beverage dropped rapidly as soon as it was uncapped. Opinions from those brave enough to taste the drink:

• Plain: While I still hold that plain garlic schnapps is Good and Right, tisme presented a countering opinion, claiming rapid death of sense of taste as a Bad Thing, particularly when there is still chocolate to eat. I declare this opinion mildly heretical, as orthodox cult doctrine holds that there is no such thing as too much garlic. Sadly, no other tasters could be procured to finalise the issue, for some reason.

• Ginger Ale: a miserable failure as a mixer. The sweetness with the garlic really didn't work. Perhaps ginger schnapps would be a better idea. I decided not to impose this drink on any other testers.

• Cranberry juice: both I and tisme agreed that this was "rather odd" and left it at that. I feel that pure cranberry juice, rather than the diluted drinkable kind, should be employed instead.

• Tomato juice: a 1:4 ratio of schnapps to tomato juice was tested. I still prefer the schnapps plain, but tisme declared this to be her favourite combination. nickys tasted but declined comment. I then added salt, but this merely altered, rather than improved, the taste.
  Later, a ratio of about 1:10 was tested. Surprisingly, I found this far more palatable than the 1:4 ratio, and proceeded to mix myself a large drink which I sipped over the course of the evening. I propose to later experiment with classic Bloody Mary combinations; diluting the schnapps with its base alcohol (Doornkaat), topping with tomato juice, and altering the taste with tabasco, worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and/or salt.

Did anyone else taste the schnapps? I seem to recall managing to persuade batswing to taste something, but I can't remember which one.^[1]

Synod ended at around half-twelve. I briefly considered proceeding to Mission, but decided I lacked the caffiene to get there while still awake. I may instead go to Neon today. I shall remember my earplugs this time. It is on today, correct? Anyone else going?

Karate was fun today; a smaller class than usual, which meant we got through stuff faster. Continuing on from Friday, more simple combination attacks/defences were studied. I particularly like "punch, reverse punch, roundhouse kick" as an attack. Must however practice my triple-punch combo, as I always seem to start with either the wrong hand or the wrong foot.

Oh, and deralte; further to our conversation about straightening the back leg: I asked the teacher about this (over a pint), and he replied that a straight back leg was indeed sub-optimal in the long run. He teaches the beginners the straight-back-leg posture in order to learn 'correct form', but this form should become less strict and more dynamic as the student progresses to higher belts. Oh, and one of the sequences we studied today did in fact include a kick to the uke's^[2] front leg.

Lastly: I keep forgetting to spam on behalf of Zoga. 'Tis a middle-eastern sandwich & wrap café on S. Clerk street, opposite Lidl. £2 for a feta and salad wrap which is both large and very very tasty! Friendly people too. Next time you need a sammitch, try them.

[0] Thor's a skirt-wearing pansy who couldn't hit an elephant from five yards!

[1] Which drink, that is, not which batswing. There is only one true batswing, and she is small and purple.

[2] Customary immature *giggle*.

Comments

[batswing.livejournal.com]

Persuaded me to taste.... I'd evidently consumed too many brandy alexanders to remember!

From; The small purple one!

[peerietrows.livejournal.com]

Will see you at neon- if you go!

[becksinthecity.livejournal.com]

Is Karate a good source of exercise? (this may be a stoopid question!) I need to get more exercise.

[mr-purpleduck.livejournal.com]

Hi,

Finally gotten round to adding you to my friends list.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I thought the garlic schnapps with tomato juice was 'odd but quite nice', as you may recall...

... although Certain Elements were threatenning to take that quote out of context and use it in nefarious ways... :-)

[deralte.livejournal.com]

Did he make you do jumping jacks or waas it the kind of warm up we did on Friday, cause I liked that?

And it's nice to know the sensei agreed.