The BB-8s

Until a couple of weeks or so ago, the only Star Wars material I had in my room was a Darth Vader figurine. For my birthday, my girlfriend's mother me a BB-8 plush toy (at the request of my girlfriend) whereas my girlfriend herself bought me a BB-8 cushion.

I like both items, of course! BB-8 is cool and, as a droid who looks like a beach ball, he is regarded as one of the cutest characters in all of Star Wars. You can't go wrong with BB-8! As the plush toy is small, he is next to my Vader on a shelf whereas the cushion is on my bed.

The joint birthday dinner

This evening, I'll be attending a joint birthday dinner. One of my Access friends had his birthday the other day and mine is also this month; while today is not either of our birthdays, we chose this evening to have the meal.

With us will be at least two other of our friends from Access; I don't know if anyone else is coming but as far as I'm aware, it will just be four Access people in attendance.

The 80th

My grandparents here in Nottingham are both turning 80 years old this year; my grandfather reached that milestone earlier in the year and my grandmother will do so later. Rather than hold two separate celebrations, my grandparents instead opted to hold a joint 80 birthday party today.

Besides my grandparents and me, others in attendance consisted of my Nottingham aunt and uncle, plus their children and the boyfriends of two of said children; my East of England aunt and uncle were there with their children and the girlfriend of one of them; finally, my Hong Kong uncle was also present. I arrived at 12:30pm before my Nottingham aunt and uncle returned me to Clifton in the evening.

As a present, I bought my grandparents some chocolate from Hotel Chocalat. I usually buy them some chocolate smiley faces but this time they had some chocolate hearts with a hummingbird and flower pattern on them, so I bought those instead, which they loved.

...and now for another!

I'm on my way to another birthday event...my own! My birthday isn't today but it's this month and today was the best day on which to hold a birthday meal. This event is an afternoon one and friends I met while at Central are who have been invited.

One birthday party to attend this month...

This evening, I am out attending a friend's birthday party. His birthday was at least a week ago but it was better timing for him to hold his party today. Essentially, it's just a meal at a Chinese restaurant, with a few of his friends and family.

The 55th

Today is President Barack Obama's 55th birthday; it is also his final birthday in the White House. It's a shame that he can't spend more birthdays there but he is term-limited and even if he could run again, a part of me thinks that he is tired of all constant conflicts with Congress and fed up with being blamed for everything that goes wrong without receiving credit for positive developments, and that he is looking forward to a well-earned break.

Happy birthday, President Obama! All being well, your 56th birthday will be a much quieter one for you!

Pimm's and lemonade

At the birthday event I attended a few nights ago, I drank this cocktail:

It was a Pimm's and lemonade, which also contained pieces of fruit, such as strawberries. The fruit and the sweetness of the drink almost rendered the cocktail a dessert in itself! Pimm's is a fruit cup, as well as regarded as a liqueur.

5.4

As it's Tuesday, I don't have college today; instead I...went for a walk! No shock there, given the continuation of the pleasant weather. I have a birthday party to attend shortly and so I thought a late-morning/early-afternoon walk would be beneficial. I was surprised to learn that I walked 5.4 miles in about an hour and a half; the only reason my walk was so short was because I was hungry and had to return home for something to eat.

2014 birthday celebration

My birthday took place this month. My parents and brother came over on the day while my Nottingham aunt, uncle and cousins arrived for dinner. We ate fish and chips and Chinese food for the main course, and for dessert we ate a cake, which my brother baked:

It was a chocolate and raisin cake, which was delicious. As for gifts, my family gave me some money, my own baking tray and measuring spoons. I enjoyed my birthday and I look forward to being able to make desserts with my new utensils!

Jimmy Carter's 90th birthday

Today is former President of the United States Jimmy Carter's 90th birthday. Of the current living former US presidents, Carter is by far my favorite; I deeply respect him.

Carter is frequently criticized and ridiculed for his service as president, as his record is viewed by some as poor on the economy and cowardly on foreign policy. While it's unfortunate that he wasn't able to achieve more while he held the office, I think that he has been highly productive and a positive influence since leaving it: his commitment to women's rights and to world peace are highly admirable and should be praised.

Carter has always struck me as a fundamentally good and honest human being. I was delighted to read today that he decided against bombing Iran as a response to the hostage crisis and to guarantee his re-election; such a war would have been catastrophic for both Iran and the United States. Carter also said that had he secured re-election, he would have continued to pursue peace in the Middle East.

I am amazed by how active Carter is, despite his advanced age. He is still involved with human rights and peace efforts, and has even engaged in recent volunteer work, such as when he went with his wife, Rosalynn, to Haiti in 2012 to help build houses for the inhabitants of that country, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2010.

Happy birthday, Jimmy Carter! May you have many more!

Relative celebration

I, along with my grandparents, spent the evening celebrating the birthday of one of my relatives; said relative reached a particular age milestone, so there was quite a bit of talk about "getting older". We all went to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner and then went back to my Nottingham aunt and uncle's house for cake. We all had a wonderful time.

Birthday 2013

My 23rd birthday took place this past month. It was quiet for the most part, given that it rained for a significant portion of the day; here are three pictures:

This is my cake, a homemade chocolate cake; my brother and I used our breadmaker to make the cake the day before my birthday. It looks delicious but in this state it wasn't yet ready to eat. The above picture was taken a few minutes before this happened:

The icing! The cake's icing was made from cream cheese mixed with powdered sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla and a bar of melted cooking chocolate. It is the best homemade icing that I've eaten to date. Honestly, it tasted amazing.

Do you remember Run Off? (Posts here and here.) My brother and I played a game of it; it had been months since we'd last played it and I wanted to have a go for my birthday. My brother won; his states are yellow and mine are purple. To say that this sort of electoral alignment is unlikely in an actual American election is an understatement! Coincidentally, the result here (272-266, my brother's victory) is the same as the one for the game mentioned in the second linked post at the start of this paragraph.

It was hardly an exciting birthday but I was happy with it. I don't have any complaints.

Note: the above image is not originally mine, but rather, is a modified version of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2012.svg. Licensing is listed on that page.

The helicopter baby

Remember a post of mine from several months ago where I wrote about a train baby? Well, here's a similar story...the Royal Navy rescue helicopter baby:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-24362419

I love reading about the birth of a baby; it makes a pleasant change from the endless supply of bad news.

As a side note, I briefly misread the article as "Isle of Sicily" rather than "Isles of Scilly". Sicily is an island and a major region of Italy, whereas the Isles of Scilly are an archipelago off the coast of Cornwall (Cornwall is a county in South West England). Before I read the title again, I wondered why there was a Royal Navy rescue helicopter in Italy delivering babies!

"In My Pocket" - Mandy Moore

I recently listened to one of my Mandy Moore albums, Mandy Moore, her third studio release, as a part of a "re-discovering" of her music; before last night, it had been years since I last listened any of her albums. "In My Pocket" is both the first single and first track from Mandy Moore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkKOybWbUNM

My first Mandy Moore album was her debut, So Real, which I received for Christmas 2005; I got Mandy Moore for my seventeenth birthday. Mandy Moore and "In My Pocket" came out in 2001. I enjoy both her studio music and what she has done in films.

The train baby

A light post for tonight; I spotted this article about a baby girl who was born on a train:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-21708466

I agree with the part of the article where a Twitter user said that the baby should be entitled to free rail travel!

Birthday dinner 2012

My 22nd birthday took place this month. The main difference between this birthday and the ones before it was having the chance to cook part of the dinner myself. I chose pancakes:

This is the pancake I made for myself; it's my best-cooked pancake to date, even though it wasn't intentional to make the pancake for me the finest of the night!

The finished dish consisted of a pancake topped with ground beef and shredded cheddar cheese, with beans (black-eyed and kidney) mixed into the meat. It's a fairly simple meal: just mix your favourite pancake recipe with your favourite spaghetti sauce recipe and it's done! I wanted to prepare the meat but Mum and Dad did it for me anyway; if I have this meal next year I'll be doing it myself!

Bedroom tidying

For the first time in ages, I tidied my room. No, I do not keep my room a mess unless badgered constantly about it; rather, some boxes that have been in my room since we moved to Northamptonshire were finally emptied and placed in the garage. As I am the brother with a bigger room, I ended up with mine being partially used as storage; but with these boxes now out of my bedroom, I was given the space I needed to sort it out.

I was pleased about this, especially considering I needed places better than the floor to put my recent gifts from my birthday and Christmas. I did have clothing to put in my wardrobe, items on the boxes to find homes for, and (this is where I was lazy, I cannot blame boxes being stored in my room for this) empty chocolate boxes to throw away. With some help from my brother, it took us about an hour to get the task complete.

Now that I have tidied my room, I can finally appreciate a nice, clear floor...until it is messed up again! (Just kidding.)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve! I am amazed at how fast this month appears to have gone by...it feels like just yesterday we were celebrating my 21st birthday, and we are now only a few hours away from celebrating Christmas! It will be a quiet night before Christmas, but I will be up until midnight (ha, ha...I have not had to worry about going to bed early on Christmas Eve for years now). In case I am not online tomorrow, I would like to wish every a very Merry Christmas!

Oh, and as promised, here is a picture of the chocolate cheesecake we made yesterday; the cakes made from the remaining batter are still setting. I would love to list the recipe, but it needs refining first (otherwise it makes too much):

The birthday dinner

On the night of my actual birthday, I had pizza for dinner...three, in fact; and as per usual, they were all homemade. I took pictures:

This pizza was a Hawaiian pizza, except that it had olives and mushrooms in addition to just ham and pineapple. It was the largest of the three.

These two were primarily cheese and broccoli pizzas, with some olives, onions, and mushrooms. I chose having cheese and broccoli pizzas for my birthday dinner because of a lyric in the Bad Lip Reading song "Morning Dew"; therefore, this is the first meal I have eaten that was inspired by a lyric (albeit one from a parody song).

I think I had a great dinner for my 21st birthday...an improvement upon the burgers, fries, and eggs/beans that I chose for my dinner the preceding few birthdays. There was even plenty of pizza left over for some lunches!

Cakes and gifts

Three images from my birthday celebration; here are the two cakes:

The chocolate cake is on the left, and the strawberry-flavoured one on the right. Despite the amount of each cake that was eaten that day, there is still enough left of them for a couple more desserts.

 Thanks for the gifts everyone, although it was mainly my brother and myself that made the cakes!

The boxes of the digital photo frame, the pen with my name engraved on it, the Lindt chocolates, and the Thorntons chocolates. I received a box of Ferrero Rochers last year...and I am grateful to get two boxes of fine chocolates for this birthday!

This is the pen with my name engraved on it. This is not a very good picture, and my name cannot be seen, but at least it shows what the pen looks like.

Thanks for the gifts everyone, although it was my brother and myself who made the cakes!