Saughton Park

I've lived in my current flat for about 3 years now, just across the road lies Saughton Park which I've never really visited. This Saturday Rosie and I took our new toy (Sony Alpha 700) and went for a wander round the gardens there. Hiding in the middle of the park is a greenhouse with a winter garden and some pretty amazing outdoor gardens. Just goes to show what can lie on your doorstep if you never explore you surrounding area.

Lexmark X5650 & Sainsbury's ink refill kit

Maybe I should have expected it when I bought a Lexmark printer/scanner all in one for £40, but I've not been particularly impressed with the experience. I guess, the first sign should have been when we had to return the first printer because it wouldn't even power on.

The ink cartridges don't seem to last very long and the printer has a very annoying habit of just refusing to print when it deems the ink level is too low. If the last print out was fine, why can't I just print and deal with slightly faded print out until the ink fully runs out? Well, I assume if I did that, it wouldn't line Lexmark's pockets as much since I'd get another few print outs from the cartridge before I had to buy a new one.

So rather than spend another £20 on a cartride which wouldn't last, I went for Sainsbury's £5 Black ink refill kit. Compatible with over 1,800 printers and faxes, the kit comes with 3 bottles of black ink and some flushing solution as well as a syringe and tools to get into the cartridge if necessary. It seemed like a bargain, 6 refills for a quarter the price of a new cartridge.

But, 1,800 printers supported and mine has one cartridge that can't be refilled. Sure you can refill the Lexmark 36A black cartridge for the X5650, but I have a "36" cartridge which can't be refilled :( So it looks like I have to buy a new cartridge anyway, Lexmark win this round.

I've always owned HP printers, even since a child my parents always bought HP printers and I've never had a bad experience with them. Next time, I'm going to pay the extra and get an HP, because Lexmark frankly suck.

Spotify - Or how I stopped listening to Tool and started to buy CDs again

I'm a bit behind the curve on this one, but just got round to trying out Spotify earlier this evening. For those as out the loop as me, it's basically an app where you can stream music to your PC at no cost, a pretty large library of music is available and you pay for it by listening to the odd advert much like comercial radio. For £0.99 you can buy a day free from adverts and for £9.99 a month you can access all the content advert free.

The app itself is a black iTunes clone which is pretty straightforward to use. Search for music, add it to a queue and play the music. You can also set up playlists and it has the ability to link in to your last.fm account to track all your new found music. The only thing which appears to be missing is some way of rating tracks/albums you have listened to, in order to go back and find a band you though were pretty good later when you're buying CDs

I was a bit sceptical at first, maybe only 40% of bands I searched for are available. I thought this was a bit poor, and was thinking maybe it's aimed more at mainstream tastes rather than my strange musical listening habits. But after a bit of perseverance, I've found more music I want to listen to than I have time to listen to, and that's without searching for anything I am already familiar with, so it's not all bad.

The adverts are surprisingly well spaced, you can listen to a lot more music before being interupted than I thought would be the case. So far, the adverts have been about 20 seconds of adverts per 15-20 minutes of music. They're also not as intrusive as I thought they might be, although it would be nice if they tried to sell me some albums I might actually buy rather than the Pop albums they seem to be pushing. (Not sure if this will change based on my listening habits).

90% of music I listen to tends to be at work on my iPod and without the ability to stream from the internet there, I'm not going to be able to listen to Spotify. So it's back to either downloading music illegally (something I have pretty much stopped doing) or buying CDs (something I wish I did more). [Although it has to be said the UK's current archaic copyright laws mean that buying the CD and ripping it to my iPod is technically illegal as well]. The one strength Spotify does offer though is being able to preview an entire album completely legally before purchase.

It's a bit surreal though, if I was to find a torrent for an album I was interested in, download the album and listen to it before deciding to buy the CD, I'd open myself up to the possibility of a $1.9 million fine (at least if I lived in the US). But load up Spotify, listen to the same album with perhaps an advert for some album I'm never going to buy and that's completely legal.

Anyway, I don't see me ever paying £9.99 a month for the service, the adverts are too unintrusive to make it worthwhile and I'm unlikely to listen to more than a couple of hours a week. For that £9.99 I could buy a CD and listen to it to death for 37 hours a week (Interesting fact: for the past month or so I've basically been listening to the last 3 Tool albums non-stop while at work, but now I want something new, hence the Spotify experiemtn). Being able to sample music free of charge before purchasing the CD definitely helps, it saves me loading up the MySpace page of the band in question and dealing with the Flash hell to listen to maybe 2 tracks off an album. It also frees me from the poor quality 15 second samples Amazon allow you to listen to on their website.

Since signing up for Spotify this evening, I've added 6 albums to my Amazon wish list which I will probably buy in the next week (maybe ... ;) and 5 of them were from bands I haven't ever heard before.

Overall, Spotify is a pretty good service, could it be better? Yeh, it could have every album available on Amazon available to listen to, but that's no mean feat and the range that is there is still pretty good. It's more appealing that last.fm radio since I can choose all the bands up front and listen to a whole album if I want. To sum it up:

Amazon recommendations + Spotify == Expanded Horizons.

Blue Dragon - Katsu Curry Mealkit

Homemade Katsu Curry, originally uploaded by chored.

Japanese Curry Rice and Katsu Curry are Japanese dishes that I really like. I had never even thought of attempting to make Katsu Curry at home until we saw the Blue Dragon Katsu Curry Mealkit in Sainsbury's.

In the kit you get:

2 x Curry Sauce pouches
2 x Boil in the bag rice
Panko breadcrumb mix

You also need:

Chicken/Sweet Potato/Butternut Squash
2 Eggs
Oil for frying

It's all ready meal ingredients, which seems a bit like cheating, but next time we'll try and do things from scratch, now that we know it's possible to make this at home.

You need to boil the rice on its own. Beat the eggs together and then dip the chicken/sweet potato/butternut squash into the eggs and then into the Panko breadcrumb mix, then stick that into some oil and fry it until it's crispy and golden brown. Heat the sauce up in a pan.

To serve, put the rice on a plate, put the katsu on top (slice up the chicken) and then add the curry sauce over the top.

As I said before, it is a bit of a cheat since it's basically a ready meal, but next time it should be easy enough to make the breadcrumbs and I'm sure I can get a recipe for Japanese Curry sauce.

Anyway, the mealkit is pretty tasty, it's great fun and the sauce is good, but not amazing, so I'd give the whole thing 3.5/5

Lords and Ladies - Edinburgh Fringe

On Saturday, Rosie and I treated my parents and Neil and Gwen to a showing of Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies which was being staged as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show was put on by Southampton University Students' Union Theatre Group and is on at the C-venue on Chambers street.

As a family of Terry Pratchett fans, it made for a good day out. The plot sees Lancre Witches Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax dealing with an elf invasion in the run up to Magrat's wedding on Midsummer's Day.

There was absolutely no set decoration, with the cast relying on props and their acting along with the audience's imagination to create the settings for the scenes as required. This worked out quite well, especially if you've read the book and are familiar with the characters.

All the cast were excellent in their roles (various cast members were playing more than one), me only criticism would be that the two main witches were a bit young looking (Understandable since this was a Student Theatre Company) and the actor playing Nanny Ogg seemed to rush her lines a little bit (Again, cramming the book into the time can't have been easy).

Overall, a good rendition of Terry Pratchett's book. A testament to the cast as well as the author. I would however recommend this more to people familiar with the source material.

Score: 4/5

Taco Rice

Taco Rice, originally uploaded by chored.

When we were in Okinawa in March, we came across a little cafe place near our hotel which sold only one thing, "Taco Rice". This strange Okinawan take on Tacos is a big thing in Okinawa and in the same way as how every Omiyage (Souvenir) shop in Hokkaido seemed to be selling Curry Rice kits, in Okinawa, they were selling Taco Rice kits.

So back in the UK and we've been meaning to try and recreate this for a while. I don't really know the recipe, so we just winged it and our first attempt was actually pretty tasty. So if you want to make Taco Rice at home, you will need:

Beef Mince
1 Onion
Taco flavouring
Cheese, Salsa, Mayonnaise for garnish
Lettuce
Japanese Rice

First of all, we made the basic Taco beef, for our first attempt, this consisted of frying some beef mince and the onion and adding Uncle Ben's Taco Seasoning (Next time we might splash out and try and spice the mince ourselves). The only other thing in the mince aside from the seasoning and onion was a few drops of ra-yu (Japanese chilli oil).

At the same time as frying the mince, we boiled some Japanese rice.

Once both the rice and beef are ready, it's time to plate it up, start with a bed of lettuce, then add the rice, then squirt mayonnaise across the whole thing. Add the taco beef on top of the rice and top with grated cheese and salsa.

There you have it, Taco Rice, quick and easy to make and very tasty.

South Park Season 3

With no new Lost, the end of The Shield and having watched all the Scrubs available, I've been catching up on South Park, going back to the start and watching them in sequence.

I've just finished Season 3, which is probably the best I've watched so far, the 17 episodes contain some classics such as Chinpokomon where the kids become obsessed with the latest craze in toys "Gotta buy them all"; Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost mystery sees a cameo appearance from Korn in a Scooby Doo influenced episode and Starvin' Marvin in Space sees the foursome travel to an alien planet where the sentient life forms that inhabit it have only one word for all people, places and things - Marklar.

All in all, South Park Season 3 is pretty stupid and has some weird stuff, but it is still relatively sane compared to the later seasons.

Overall - 4/5

Chilli Poppers v0.1

While shopping in Sainsbury's we noticed that they had some rather large Green Chillis in their chilli section, these seemed a good size to attempt to make Chilli Poppers.

Not actually knowing what was in them, we decided to go for a stuffing of Mozzarella and plum tomatoes and grill them in the oven rather than coating them and frying them. So the chillis had their tops chopped off, we scooped out the seeds and insides and stuffed them with strips of Mozzarella and the plum tomatoes. We then pinned the tops back on with skewers and grilled them in the oven until both sides looked cooked.

The results were edible, but a little disappointing. The Mozzarella didn't have a strong enough flavour to compete with the chilli and the chillis had a slightly bitter taste to them. Next time, we're going to use a stronger cheese, perhaps cream cheese. We might even try to coat them and fry them rather than grilling them.

Hui - Chinese Takeaway

There have to be at least a hundred Chinese takeaways in Edinburgh, if not more and there seems to be a menu for a new one through my door every month. Trying to remember which ones are good and which ones aren't so good can be a bit of a challenge, so I thought I might as well document it here.

I had never heard of Hui (123A Corstorphine Road) before until they delivered their menu and since we were going to get a Chinese anyway, we decided to go for something new. So we ordered pretty much our standard Chinese takeaway order to put them to the test.

So, Kung Po King Prawn with Boiled rice and Spring Rolls and Chicken and Sweetcorn soup to start. The food arrived pretty fast (we weren't timing, but it seemed fast). At just over £10 it seemed reasonably priced too. No freebies, but since we had only made a small order, that is to be expected.

The spring rolls were the 4 thin kind rather than the two fat kind which is always a plus in my book, they were cripsy and very tasty. The chicken and sweetcorn soup was very hot and also pretty tasty without being too gloopy. There was quite a lot of chicken to be found in it.

On to the main course, the prawns were battered which is also a favourite of mine and while there was very little vegetables in the sauce, it was very tasty and there were cashew nuts aplenty. I did spot a couple of pieces of water chestnut, but aside from that and some chillies there were no other vegetables. The sauce was a good consistency, more of the spicy sweet and sour style, but nice and sweet and reasonably hot.

The rest of the menu looked pretty standard, although there did seem to be some exotic seafood options (squid, scallop and more).

Overall, Hui was a pretty decent meal, not quite as good as our regular, the Magic Kitchen (which also has the benefit of sharing its name with an Andy Lau movie!) but nice for a change and definitely one I'd order from again.

Overall: 4/5

Hui : 123A Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh : 0131 346 2888

Dan Antopolski

What with it being the Edinburgh Festival and all, we decided to take up a recommendation from a friend and go to see stand up comedian Dan Antopolski at the "Pleasance Dome" aka Potterrow.

His brand of geeky-humour, mixed with some more offensive stuff made for an act which was pretty funny although falling short of hilarious. His comedy rap segments are reminiscent of a one man GLC and you can't beat a bit of humour related to some kind of obscure chart.

Overall, if I had to give his show a rating it would be 7/10, pretty funny but not unmissable.

The Thick of It

I hadn't heard of this BBC comedy until I saw In the Loop in the cinema. In the Loop is pretty much The Thick of It: The Film.

I picked up the first series on DVD, typically for British comedies, it only runs to 6 episodes. The series follows Hugh Abbot, a minister at the department of Social Affairs. He is bewildered and out of his depth, trying to do the best job he can in his position. The series follows him and his aides as he deals with one PR disaster after another, constantly having run-ins with Malcom Tucker, the angry, swearing, Scot whose job it is to ensure that members of the cabinet don't gather bad press coverage.

Overall, I didn't find it quite as funny as In the Loop, but it was still hilarious in places. The documentary style camera work is a little off-putting, but does add to the effect.

All in all, a series worth watching if you haven't seen it already.

August 8th

It's August 8th, which means you have 2 hours and 10 minutes (In the UK at least) to listen to this NOFX track. If only there was a track from a different band for every day of the year!

Ju-Ichi, William Street, Edinburgh

Ju-Ichi, William Street Edinburgh, is one of the newest Japanese restaurants in a town which has now got a good few. Not having been yet, Rosie and I met some friends to sample their menu.

Hidden downstairs in a basement off William Street, Ju-Ichi is well decorated and looks clean and modern. Tuesday evenings obviously aren't where it's at in Edinburgh's West End as our group of 4 were the only customers we saw the whole night.

The menu has a reasonable range of sushi and other japanese items, helpfully arranged into hot and cold. We started off with Tuna and Tamago Nigiri, Mixed Sashimi, Mixed Tempura, Gyoza, Futomaki roll and Katsu roll.

The rolls were quite good as were the fried things, you can never go wrong with Gyoza and Tempura. The mixed Sashimi was only Tuna and Salmon (I found out later that they were out of Mullet and Mackerel), both were reasonable. I felt that the Nigiri had a little too much rice. After finishing off these dishes, we got a few more items, more Tempura, Chicken Katsu and Mixed Seafood Yakitori.

The Katsu was nice, but the sauce served with it had a strange taste, it was peanut based and possibly contained some sort of alcohol. The Mixed Seafood Yakitori consisted of grilled Salmon, Tuna and Prawn and was nice, coming with a sweet Yakitori sauce.

Overall, Ju-Ichi was alright, but not amazing, there are definitely better Japanese restaurants in Edinburgh. I found the menu to be a little on the boring side, most of the fish choices being Salmon or Tuna. The restaurant also lacks authenticity, which wouldn't be a problem if the food was outstanding, but when combined with the middle of the road food it doesn't feel like a "real" Japanese restaurant.

All in all, passable and nice for a change of scenery, but there are better Japanese restaurants in Edinburgh which feel more authentic.