Good luck, Theo!

I'm a little hung over from birthday dinner--4 course delicious Italian with wine pairing--but it was worth it. And I'm trying to learn more about wine so it was educational!

Yay birthday!

Consuela, waiting to see what happens is so HARD though! I'm bad at it myself.

Am waiting for bestie to pack so we can leave for the airport. Boo. Don't wanna go home. Or back to work. Thank goodness it's almost a long weekend though.

I've just been watching Doctor Who and the Ark in Space. It's one of my favourite Doctor Who adventures, though some parts hold up better than others. The old adventure DVDs are quite well kitted out for special features. My favourites on this one so far relate to the mid-70s BBC-quality special effects (and were they ever special). You can watch the entire show again with the old spaceship models replaced by 90s CGI. (I'm not 100% sure it's an improvement.) Even better are the outtakes.

Oh, and they just had an interview with the set designer. For The Talons of Weng Chiang (set in Victorian London, and on the subject of CGI the giant rat is a thing of beauty and a joy forever), they once ran into a problem shooting on location. They were filming in a suitable city square, but when they turned up they found someone had left their rather modern car parked in the street slap bang in the middle of the shot and gone on holiday for the week. The director told the set designer, "Well you'll just have to hide it then, won't you?"

The set designer pondered what might be expected on a Victorian street that was within the BBC budget. And thus it was that when shooting began, this couple's hatchback was buried under an enormous pile of manure.

And I'm trying to learn more about wine so it was educational!

Speaking of, I had a $200 bottle of wine the other night (courtesy of the rich friends), and you know what? It was fine! Not amazing. Confirmed my lack of interest in expensive wine, if nothing else...

Speaking of, I had a $200 bottle of wine the other night (courtesy of the rich friends), and you know what? It was fine! Not amazing. Confirmed my lack of interest in expensive wine, if nothing else...

That has been my experience, too. My palate can tell the difference between $15 champagne and Veuve Cliquot (whatever that goes for these days -- $70?), but that's about my limit. When I had Dom Perignon (a gift from someone, definitely not my purchase), I could tell it was really good, but not, like, $150 good.

t edit And there is quite good $15 champagne (properly called sparkling wine, I guess) out there. God knows it's what we're having at the wedding. We are not made of money. Because that would be weird. You could set us on fire. (Well, you could do that anyway -- please DON'T -- but someone made of money would burn more easily.)

(I blame the previous paragraph on migraine meds.)

I would generally rather have prosecco or cava than champagne anyway.

We drank a couple of bottles of $40-$50 Chardonnay at Ravinia last weekend (that I got for Xmas from a stakeholder) and it was sublime. I'm usually very eh on Chardonnay but I would drink the hell out of this stuff. I won't, of course, but man it was delicious.

Wine is like coffee to me. I can tell when it's really awful, but I can't discern the difference between OK and the allegedly wonderful high end stuff, so it makes no sense to spend much money. The best-tasting I've ever had is an Italian moscato that goes for about $14 a bottle.

In the commentary, Tom Baker just announced:

"Look at those four jaunty buttocks. Phwoar! There was nothing we couldn't have done in those days!"

I would generally rather have prosecco or cava than champagne anyway.

Oh man, a good brut champagne is my happy place. Veuve Cliquot yellow label, if any sugar daddies are lurking.