Plan for today

My reply notifications seem to be working again but if you'd like me to read any comments you wrote last night, please let me know.

- Do the dishes so I can cook tonight and a bit of tidying
- Edit Manchester photos
- Cook dinner
- Go to bed early because the upcoming week at work is going to be hell (LM on holiday and we're to the neck in deadlines)

DVD watching

Quick rundown of films recently:
Hellboy - As someone who doesn't know the comics, I quite enjoyed it in a switch-off-brain-enjoy-the-ride kind of way. I like that despite all the prosthetics, you could still tell it's Ron Perlman, who rocks.
I, Robot - Hm, OK. Too clean, too shiny, nice effects but a bit blargh and just far too shallow considering the material it's based on
Intacto -  a Spanish film recommended by (and borrowed from) akonken about lucky people (and who can either control their luck in certain ways or steal other people's luck). Really not bad at all.
Chronicles of Riddick - Vin Diesel doesn't do anything for me and neither did the plot. Pitch Black was mean and nasty, this was bleh. It looked like it was made by the people who made the Dune TV films with a slightly higher budget. A few good moments but nothing gripping.
Battle Royale 2 - Also no comparison to the first. The violence seemed to be there completely for the violence' sake without that gut-wrenching atmosphere of the first film. If there was supposed to be some kind of message, it didn't come across.

Mmmm, curry

I just made a lovely Red Thai duck curry. OK, I didn't make it from scratch and used a store-bought curry paste but added enough other stuff to make it my own. On my quest to find something to cook I found "stir-fry duck strips" at Tesco and remembering the curry I had in London, I thought I'd try.
I marinated the duck strips in dark soy sauce, sesame oil and white pepper an hour earlier, stir-fried the meat in the wok, added finely chopped garlic, ginger and spring onions as well as a large handful of sliced chestnut mushrooms, added the curry paste, fried the whole lot for a bit and finally filled up with coconut milk, added a few kaffir lime leaves and let the wok simmer away for 15 minutes while cooking the rice. About five minutes before the end, I added two handfuls of stir-fry veg from the Tesco bargain bin and some fresh coriander.
Rice in bowl, curry on top, meal ready. Because of the slow cooking, the duck meat was lovely and tender. Yum.