Birthday Survived

I did manage to get a date for my birthday, but she phoned to say she didn't want to after all :( still ...

so I spent a long weekend just me and a big stack of DVDs.

The surprise of the bunch was "Dog Soldiers". It was odd ... from the cover it looks like another "sexy women become maneating werewolves once a month and nobody notices the difference"  gut it is actually much more studied than it looks. Its your basix "gulf war syndrome is actually the early stages of lycanthropy" stuff. There were a couple of vietnam vets as aging werewolf hunters and a couple of wolf factions. Lots of teasing early on. The screenplay was quite bright, trying for tarantino-esque wierd philosophy,  and the camera-work excellent.... it needed a more experienced cast. The direction was relentlessly single-paced, so the same atmosphere prevailed for combat scenes as for weekend sports: it's all part of what marines do. This should have given the story a scence of inevitability but the pace was a tad too slow for that and it tended to drag. Dog Soldiers was better than I expected but worse than it should have been given the material.

I tried the Red Crab (restaurant) in Oneroa: turned out to be excellent. Prices are normal, but the servings are large and everything is well made. Though the dining area looks formal, this is Waiheke: I got seated in tee-shirt and jeans, no footwear, no problems.

I had the ginger duck, tender and light: just what I was looking for. I took my Mum and she had the snapper - which turned out to be one of the larger snappers: easily enough for two or three people with appitites. That was listed as mildly spicey but it was enough to water my eyes so be warned to expect Tai judgement on these things.

Meantime, I have been reassembling my Cosmic Encounters game, and working on expanding the Oolite re2dux collection.

I emerge at last, blinking, into the sunlight ... whats left of it. Its a bit like hibernating and waking up in a post apocalyptic wonderlant.