A photo session, District 9 and Ravenor

[lathany]

Valentine Day came, so we did our usual thing of nice wine and food. bateleur had bought salmon and cream cheese starters and made yummy pasties for the main course. However, the best part of the meal was the dessert he constructed - a little like tiramisu with a base of raisins and bananas cooked in alcohol and a top layer of mascarpone flavoured with spice. It was awesome.

The other main event of last weekend was the photo session at Ryan's school. His school photographs showed up a while back and were rather good (as opposed to Bea's school's more standard - dull - offering. So when the photographer offered family photo sessions this seemed a good opportunity to finally get some decent family photos done. I liked what came out when I saw it on screen, and we expect to get them in a few weeks time. There's three photos of the family (we'll keep one and grandparent the other two), a shot of bateleur and me and both separate and a joint picture of the duo. Most of it was in the studio (school hall!) but some were outside shots.

On a more predictable note, I've also continued to rewatch Heroes - both Once Upon A Time in Texas and Brother's Keeper were still awesome - probably the best of season 4. However, Strange Attractors was still dire and even as a devout Heroes fan I had trouble sitting it through on a rewatch. I haven't fully gone through the deleted scenes from that trio of episodes, but might say more when I do. Also I think both the good episodes include audio commentary which I plan on listening to.

• District 9 - We saw this last night and I knew little about it beforehand. It starts off like a documentary and is gory and disturbing. Having read about it afterwards, I can see why the Nigerians were mightily p*ssed about the way they were portrayed. But an excellent film - good to see one set in South Africa - but not an easy watch.
• Ravenor (Warhammer 40K fiction) - I read this trilogy (with two short stories) and felt it was good, but not as good as Eisenhorn. However, and for the benefit of quisalan, he's a much less smug and irritating protagonist.
• Recettear - I'm well into the eternity mode, but it's still moderately entertaining. The new heroes are interesting and I like upping the number of items and redecorating my store (the equivalent of "raising sheep", I'm sure).

Next week I have a day off work to go to Kew and it should generally be quiet because we're duo-less. Well, apart from the two roleplaying sessions of course (a one-off from bateleur this weekend and a Meteor next).

Comments

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

What are the 40k books like in general? I've just been assuming they're pretty poor, but you seem to keep reading them, so maybe not?

[lathany.livejournal.com]

They're OK to good - a fairly easy but absorbing read and consequently good for the train (I read children's books for the same reason). I started on them for the background/atmosphere (I'm planning on running some 40K) and then got hooked. I've stuck to one author to date - Dan Abnett - who does a good fast plot with interesting characters. His women can be a touch 2D but otherwise he manages a fair scope of people.

Eisenhorn and his later Gaunt's Ghosts are the better stuff - although Eisenhorn as a character irritated quisalan to the point that she didn't finish the trilogy.