So what have you eaten?

One of those lists that spread meme like through the "desperate for something to blog about" blogging community. It's a bit American in emphasis and I've had to look up some of the things 'cos I'd not heard of them before.

We've been busy, but nothing particularly note worthy, I've got a new camera, the weather has been shocking, finally had a viewing on my flat and possibly there will be an offer but probably not an acceptable one, still we can always let it out for the duration, people still need to live in places.

Anyways back to the meme - in bold is what I've eaten, in italics what I would never consider passing across my lips

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush Aubergine dip
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut Butter and Jelly (jam) sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses - very smelly french cheese probably wouldn't consider eating but you never know
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns - Dim Sum
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda - not yet but it sounds delish
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat - not yet but something else I want to try but goat is quite hard to get round these parts
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martin - haven't tried it but only because I never knew you could do such a thing
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse - not sure I think I may have done so in France one time
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa - need to try this
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

- I have also eaten jellyfish tenticles, kangaroo, mutton and green bagels for St Patricks Day

And the big shout going out is for Cosmic Varience where I saw this first

I Can Haz A Reading List

From Notes From Evil Bender (which has to be a one of the best blog names I've seen in a while), Welcome to the “106 Books of Pretension,” meme which is really “the top 106 books most often marked as ‘unread’ by LibraryThing’s users.” I wouldn't rate a lot of these books as being pretentious some of them are very good and not at all up themselves a few are probable shite - Altas Shrugged comes to mind for one. Anyway copying Evil Bender's style, books I’ve read are in italics and books I began but didn't finished are crossed out:

* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
* Anna Karenina
* Crime and Punishment
* Catch-22
* One Hundred Years of Solitude
* Wuthering Heights
* The Silmarillion
* Life of Pi : a novel
* The Name of the Rose
* Don Quixote I got it out of the school libary it was probably a bit too dense for me as a 13 yo
* Moby Dick
* Ulysses
* Madame Bovary found it dull
* The Odyssey
* Pride and Prejudice
* Jane Eyre
* The Tale of Two Cities
* The Brothers Karamazov
* Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
* War and Peace
* Vanity Fair
* The Time Traveler’s Wife
* The Iliad
* Emma
* The Blind Assassin I had to pack it away when I moved here.
* The Kite Runner
* Mrs. Dalloway
* Great Expectations
* American Gods
* A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
* Atlas Shrugged
* Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
* Memoirs of a Geisha
* Middlesex
* Quicksilver
* Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
* The Canterbury tales
* The Historian : a novel
* A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
* Love in the Time of Cholera
* Brave New world
* The Fountainhead
* Foucault’s Pendulum
* Middlemarch
* Frankenstein
* The Count of Monte Cristo
* Dracula
* A Clockwork Orange
*Anansi Boys not sure why I haven't finished this, I've rather enjoyed what I've read so far
* The Once and Future King
* The Grapes of Wrath
* The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
* 1984
* Angels & Demons
* The Inferno
* The Satanic Verses
* Sense and Sensibility
* The Picture of Dorian Gray
* Mansfield Park
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
* To the Lighthouse
* Tess of the D’Urbervilles
* Oliver Twist
* Gulliver’s Travels
* Les Misérables
* The Corrections
* The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
* Dune
* The Prince
* The Sound and the Fury
* Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
* The God of Small Things
* A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
* Cryptonomicon
* Neverwhere
* A Confederacy of Dunces
* A Short History of Nearly Everything
* Dubliners
* The Unbearable Lightness of Being
* Beloved
* Slaughterhouse-five
* The Scarlet Letter
* Eats, Shoots & Leaves
* The Mists of Avalon
* Oryx and Crake : a novel
* Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
* Cloud Atlas
* The Confusion
* Lolita
* Persuasion
* Northanger Abbey
*The Catcher in the Rye to my shame
* On the Road
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame
* Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values thought it was rubbish
* The Aeneid
* Watership Down
* Gravity’s Rainbow
* The Hobbit
* In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
* White Teeth
* Treasure Island
* David Copperfield
* The Three Musketeers

Eight Random Things in 2007

I was tagged by Stephanie to do the eight things about myself meme, Now I can't think of eight things about me that I haven't already covered in my "about me page" so I've decided to do "eight random things that happened in 07 that I want to write about"

Favourite album of the year - has to be the Foo Fighters one Echos Silence, Patience and Grace. Which rather surprises me as I never thought that I would be a fan, but on the other hand I like Dinosaur Jnr and Nirvana and a lot of noisy post punk so why shouldn't I be. This album though is just pop tastic with memorable, hummable tunes and you can't say that about a lot of albums.

Disappointing TV series of the year - the latest Mighty Boosh intermittently funny but ultimately lazy, lacking in imagination, plots or decent songs. if they do a fourth series they fewer people in it, no inviting the whole of Hoxton, a plot to hang the joke on and ditch old characters, no Cockney Hitchers or bloody Tony Harrison, funny once, possibly funny twice really annoying after that.

Event of the year - Getting married natch, it was lovely and we are so lucky in our family and friends.

Film of the year - we don't go to that many films, Si and I have differing tastes and at teh end of a long day/week there is fairly little that really tempts me so it's not a huge field to choose from so I'm going for Hot Fuzz - v funny, if a little bit daft.

Christmas decoration of the year - courtesy of Homebase - what were they thinking?



Beach of the year - Fuerteventura - golden sand, warm sea, turquoise seas the stuff of dreams and holiday programmes and apart from the promenading naturists the views were fantastic wherever you looked.



My new favourite website - Can I has cheezeburger


moar funny pictures

cats, bad grammar, and captions - genius!

And finally new taste sensation of the year, it's a has to be home made curries from first principles I have lost my fear of mixing spices together and we have been really enjoying the recipes on Route 79

I'm not going to spread on this meme but if you want to have a go please feel free to .

One Book and A Person Meme

I got pinged for a meme by Gordon so being a good girl I dun it.

1. One book that changed your life.
I don't think that any book I've read has changed me. The strong influences in my life have been friends and family. I can't even say "The Highway Code" because although I have a driving license I don't own a car and I don't drive. I suppose "The Female Eunuch" was an eye opener when I read it aged 16

2. One book that you’ve read more than once.
Ahh, this is the question that is supposed to illicit a deep and meaningful answer. Unfortunately that won't work with me because unless the book is absolute shite the chances are I'll read it a few times. However to play along one book that I've read over and over and enjoyed greatly is "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It's not great literature, yes it is a children's book but it's well written, humourous and not without humanity.

3. One book that you’d want on a desert island.
The "How To Get Off A Desert Island" book

4. One book that made you laugh.
Ooh there are many, for instance, I mentioned "Cold Comfort Farm" just the other day, I've enjoyed Terry Pratchett's Discworld series over the years but today Matthew I'm gonna choose Asterix The Gaul. It's the bad puns you know.

5. One book that made you cry.

Seeing as my emotions can be trifled with by Lassie movie this isn't a great measure of what is truly moving. I can't remember the last thing I cried at but I do remember that I cried when Gabriel Oak put down the sheep dog that had, in juvenile enthusiasm, driven all his sheep over a cliff. I effing hate Far From The Madding Crowd I had to do it as my "book" for my English Literature O level.

6. One book that you wish you had written.
For the money any of the Harry Potter ones would do, for quality Persuasion.

7. One book you wish had never been written.
Oooh there are so many but Bridget Jones' Diary comes to mind for two reasons, firstly I loathed it, I didn't manage to finish the book it was that bad and two for becoming a lazy and inaccurate shorthand for all single women above the age of 21 it seems. And because I'm feeling generous Lord Of The Rings - for being shite.

8. One book that you are reading at the moment.
I've got several on the go at the mo including the Private Eye Annual for 2003 and an Autobiography of Peter Ustinov which I picked up for 50p in the registry's ongoing second hand book sale.

9. One book that you’ve been meaning to read.
I've got several in my bookcases that I've been meaning to read and haven't got round to doing so yet. I take "the classics" with me when going on holiday because I normally get a chance to actually get properly stuck into the book. Currently I've got "The Mill On The Floss" and "The Leopard" that need to be read.

10. Five others that you'd like to do this.
Not five others because they probably won't complete it, just one and she'll probably ignore it too - Becky.

What would be cool...

Would be if you could play 6 degrees of seperation on last.fm with the "neighbours" list.

I don't think it would be possible to do by hand but it must be possible to do by machine?

Any ideas anyone.?

I've been tagged by Jo, so here goes:

Three names I go by:

1. Jane
2. Bridget
3. Goth

Three screen names I have had:

1. Janegoth
2. Jane
3. Edie Minogue

Three physical things I like about myself:

1. My hair
2. My eyebrows
3. My hands

These are silly it doesn't tell you much about me apart from where my vanities might lie

Three physical things I don't like about myself:

1. My weight
2. my feet
3. being shortsighted.

Also I can normally think of one or two things then start to run out I'm not that fussed about my physical appearance.

Three parts of my heritage:

1. Irish
2. Welsh
3. English

Three things that scare me:

1. Spiders
2. Feet
3. loud bangs

Three of my everyday essentials:

1. housekeys
2. mobile
3. money

Three of my favourite musical artists:

1. White Stripes
2. The Pixies
3. Jesus And Mary Chain

Three of my favourite songs:

1. Venus In Furs - Velvet Underground
2. A Forest - The Cure
3. Temple of Love - The Sisters Of Mercy (Original Version not the one with Ofra Haza wailing in the background like a air raid siren on heat)

Three things I want in a relationship:

1. Love
2. Fun
3. All of the bed

And the duvet too. There are loads of things I want in a relationship but I'm not going to share the really meaningful ones with yous am I?

Three LIES:

1. I like pedicures
2. I own a car
3. I am exceptionally tidy

Three TRUTHS:

1. I lived in the USA
2. I took the controls of an aircraft while flying through the Alps
3. I can't stand Lord Of The Rings

re number two, see number 2 of "I want to do before I die".

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me:

1. Erm apart from the obvious?
2. ooh ok - strength
3. nice hands - long fingers

Oh this is so reductionist, men are not lumps of meat to be oggled at. How can they be reduced down to three things and physical ones as well, this is vaguely sexist?

Three of my favourite hobbies:

1. sleeping
2. drinking
3. eating

Like I'm going to tell you what my hobbies are for you all to laugh at me? But I do enjoy all of the above .

Three things I want to do really badly now:

1. nothing really
2. that I'm willing to share with you
3. but a cup of coffee would be nice


Three careers I've considered:

1. Army Officer
2. Civil Engineer
3. Worker in a sweetie factory

Was a combination of the two wanted to join REME and build bridges in Germany. Decided that physics was more interesting than civil engineering. I was 4 when I wanted to do number 3

Three places I want to go on holiday:

1. Japan
2. Rome
3. Paris

Not been to any of them really really want to go to Japan.

Three kid's names I like:

1. Edith
2. Thomas
3. Ermintrude

I'm lying about one of these, can you guess which one boys and girls?

Three things I want to do before I die:

1. Go to Japan
2. Learn to fly
3. Own a Car

love flying wanna do it.

Three ways that I am stereotypically a boy:

1. I like beer
2. I drink pints
3. I score highly for spacial awareness

This is sexist

Three ways that I am stereotypically a girl:

1. I have very long hair
2. I have very small hands
3. I have small feet.

as is this. Any way at my age I think woman or man would be a more appropriate world. Also been highly interesting reading some of the answers to those two questions on other blogs.
Personally I say reject the stereotype.

Three celebrity crushes

1. Becky EnVérité - well at least she told me she was a celebrity!
2. er
3. thats it

Three people you want to see carry on this meme

1. Charlotte
2. Urban Chick
3. Michelle

Bandwagon Blogging.

Never let it be said that I can't recognise a bandwagon to jump on and a bit of easy blogging when it occurs. I've been feeling so uninspired about what to write today so it was with great relief I saw that Bex had thought up a meme type thing.

first 5 random articles on Wikipedia you can be bothered to write something about.

1. 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari 2600) according to Wikipedia article this was 4 by 4 grids stacked 4 high version of the game we call naughts and crosses, never played it we didn't have an Atari.

2. Greyhound I occasionally go to the dogs with my colleagues from work it's a fun evening out if you can take the bad beer and food.

3. Castellón de la Plana apparently the capital city of the provence of Castellón in Spain. I've only ever been to Spain once for a long weekend, it was nice but very tiring.

4. Cytopathy - 'Cytopathy is the disease or disorder of a cell, or of the structures contained within a cell. Cytopathy comes from the Greek word "kytos" meaning "a hollow cell," and the Greek word "pathos" meaning "suffering." The two words combined thus mean "suffering (of) a hollow cell."' I never knew that.

5. List of state leaders in 1070 - Does what it says on the tin.