Here we go again, for the first time.

Well, Iron Chef Birthday Cookoff ’07 is upon us, and chefs are pacing impatiently in their stables, keen to kick off. It’s Friday night, and prep begins when work ends tomorrow.

The list of dishes just keeps on getting longer, to the extent that I’ve had to retype the thing three times, and it doesn’t look like letting up any time soon. Every time I think I’m done adding to it, I look at my ingredients list and realise that, with the addition of just one more thing, I can have a whole other dish.

I mean, waste not, want not, right?

The list at this stage is as follows:

Starters:

Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls

Three Cheese Risotto Balls

Spinach and Chorizo

Spanish Omelette

Gingery Chicken Wontons

Hot and Sour Soup

Salsa

Mains:

Overnight Lamb

Salt-Crusted Whole Fish

Roasted King Chicken

Hot and Sour Cambodian Beef Salad

Spicy Meatballs Buff Loves

Gnocchi

Nonna Chicken

Pesto Pasta

Sides:

Damper Loaf with pilaf

Assorted salads

Dippy carrots and bread and doritos

Desserts:

Chocolate Mousse

As you can plainly see, it’s getting out of control already. The guest list includes Lou and perhaps Scott now, so that’s what, Kim, Adam, Aims, Ben, Buff, Des, Wen, Mum, Lou and Scott, and if Ev turns up, that makes eleven. Which is good, because we’re not planning to make tasting sizes of any of this stuff.

Bye!

OK, so you’ve probably never heard of Justin Gimblestob.  If you’re Aims, you probably have him confused with that other American journeyman we watched play at the open one of those really hot days two years ago (that was Phil Goldstein).

But he’s good mates with Andy Roddick; he’s the one who had a bet with A-Rod about how many times he could dive for the ball in a match a few months ago.  He comes off as a good guy all the time, and he named this year’s US as his last tournament before retiring.  Of course, he drew Roddick for his first match.

It was a match everyone knew he couldn’t win, so he’s gone out on a first-round loss, which is a shame,  but it’s also kind of awesome that he could finish against Roddick.  They always seem to have fun – I’ve rarely seen better-natured tennis matches in the multi-millionaire era.

Last night’s was no different – between serves a bunch of military guys in the audience got up to leave.  Which, rude, but Gimblestob refused to serve, claiming later that it would have been disrespectful.  The umpire wanted to ping him, but Roddick granted him the first serve.  Which is Rafter-y and also speaks to their friendship (and the fact that the match never hung in the balance).

They did their post-match conference together, telling jokes and having fun, and though they’re at the opposite ends of the spectrum talent-wise, they both came across as genuinely nice guys.

So, bye, Gimblestob!  Your name’s a bitch to type, but that dive you deliberately and melodramatically took at the French cracked my shit up.  Awesome.

Och, Die Hard

You wee scamp!  Check you out, just like old times, getting down with Cap’n Clenchy and The Mac Boy (Mac Boy Pro: in your latest movie at a bargain price!).

Aw, man, that was fun (see also: “let’s do that again!”).  Come on!  The guy in the turbine?  The helicopter and the flipping car?  Kevin SMITH?!?  And all that stuff with the truck and the fighter jet, and then he looks, and he laughs (as he does all the time, actually; anyone else think BW is having the time of his life?), and he pulls out and cocks his gun, all “Ok, that’s. fucking. enough.”

Wen:  No!  YES!  HA!  This is awesome! (loud chuckles that would have seen me kicked out of a cinema).

I’m happy with the representation of the chick, too – yeah, she was there, needing resucing, and all, but she was still tough as nails – and she’s totally been watching her dad’s films.  Hee.  Headbutt, gun, cue Olyphant rolling his eyes so hard his head moves, all, “Are you all RIGHT over there?”  World’s most put-upon baddie.

Hilarious.  Love.  Can’t believe it’s taken me so long to watch it.

Amazon is eeeeevil (2)

AHA!  After much filtering and clicking and undertaking of the Herculean task of trawling 26,000 dvds to seperate the wheat from the chaff, I’ve found that there actually is some alphabetisation to be found.  You just have to filter by three different things before it’s even an option.  Interestingly, S is by far the winner, with 1091 titles to A’s 815 (and the nearest rival).  S is often defeated by B at my place in both cds and dvds, with M running a close third.

Yep, this is what I think about.

And so, my wish list.  Some of it is rounding out already begun collections, and some of it is just embarrassing.  Which just makes it funny.

Amazon is eeeeevil (1)

They have over 26,000 titles on dvd – and that’s just the tv series they offer.  So I’m playing.  I’m going through them, making a list.  But they don’t have an alphabetical option, so I have to go by release date.  It makes it hard.  I’ll alphabetise when I’m bored making the list, but thought I should tell you: stay tuned for Wen’s Ultimate Christmas List.  grin.