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OK, this has been a massive weekend. Yesterday, Amanda and I went to the NSW Art Gallery to see "The First Emperor - China's Entombed Warriors". As you can probably guess, this is an exhibition including 10 of the terracotta warriors buried with China's first emperor in 210 BC.

We caught the ferry over, and after we went to see the exhibition, we went up to Paddington Markets to meet up with Amanda's cousin Katie, who has a stall there. We went a got some lunch, picked up the Christmas shopping that Amanda wanted to do, and headed back to Manly.

By the time we got back, it was 5pm, and at 7:30pm we had a 50th birthday party to go to for Jen. Amanda went home to drop off the bag and get changed and said she'd meet me back in Manly at 6pm. Well, with an hour to kill I thought it was a bit of a waste going home, so I went and met the rest of the crew that was going to the party as they were already at the pub.

5 minutes later, the pub was inundated with people dressed as Santa (or elves, etc). This is an annual event here in Manly. with up to about 200 people doing the tour of the pubs. They seem to have lots of fun every year.

Amanda arrived back just after 6, and 7 saw us in a cab heading for the party.

Mark and Jen also used the occasion to announce their engagement, so we really had a good night. At the end, Sandy, Greg, Amanda, and myself ended up back at Greg and Sandy's place and continued until about 4 in the morning, when we all crashed out.

After picking ourselves up in the morning (more like at 11am) Miss A and I made our way back to Manly and proceeded to met up with the rest of the crew who were also on the recovery trail from the previous night.

What a weekend.

Brian, Brett, Terry, and myself went to Angel Restaurant for dinner tonight. They do an eight course seafood degustation menu on a Thursday night, and Brian had been trying to get us to go for quite some time. I kept refusing because by Thursday night I am generally so tired from work, I didn't think I'd manage an eight course meal.

Anyway, we finally arranged it. We all ordered the degustation, which makes the kitchen happy. Matched wines were also ordered.

The food was good, if not spectacular. The first five dishes were pretty darn good, with the standout being the house cured ocean trout, which was just awesome. Unfortunately, the last three dishes let the whole thing down a bit. The Thai fish cakes for the 7th dish could have been from any suburban Thai restaurant, not part of a $105 dollar meal. Oh well.

Terry had us in stitches most of the night. This was the first time I'd met him, and he was great value. He's definitately welcome to dinner any time.

Just as we were finishing up, Gary rang up and said he'd just got into town, so we told him where we were, and he came around, gave us a lift back to Manly, and we had a couple of drinks at the Wharf Bar to finish up.

A good night.

Amanda and I went to the The Public Dining Room at Balmoral for lunch today. This place was previously called "Watermark", and had a very good reputation. We were not disappointed.

We got over there by cab, which was just as well as it would have been far too long in a bus.

I had beef carpaccio, globe artichoke, rocket, shaved pecorino pepato, with lemon dressing for a starter, and roast duck for a main. Amanda went with the sirloin. A nice bottle of a red that I can't remember accompanied.

When dessert time came around, I convinced Miss A that if she ordered dessert, I'd order the cheese plate. Heh.

Mini pavlova with passionfruit and white chocolate for her, and a beaut bit of Pyengana clothbound cheddar from Tasmania for me.

We finished off with a stroll down to the other end of the beach where we picked up a cab and headed back to Manly.

Work keeps giving me nice little bonuses to spend on restaurants. I keep working well, we keep eating for free :-)

Melbourne Cup day. Three winners and a place for the day, although I didn't do any good with the Cup, saw me well and truly ahead. Actually, one of the winners - Influential Miss - paid $29 for the win. That alone covered the cost of the day :-)

All the IT people at work went to the Sydney Olympic Archery Centre this afternoon for a BBQ and a bit of fun shooting off bows and arrows and a little friendly competition.

After the BBQ and a safety demo, we had a number of practice shots at targets 20 metres away. The last time I had a bow in my hands was over 25 years ago when as a couple of nutso teens me and a mate went out rabbit shooting at night with his compound bow! The bows we were using today where standard recurved bows which I initially found quite difficult to aim. After a number of shots it was coming back to me though.

We drew lots for team members, and I ended up with one of the desktop guys, and the new guy on the support desk. All three of us were consistently improving as the afternoon when on, and when it came to the scored team event, we took it out with ease. The support desk bloke pipped me by two points: 126 to 124. And then ended up winning the individual total. Bugger. I got beaten for second by one point too and ended up third.

After this we had a bit of fun popping balloons and some of us tried our hand at 40 and 60 metre targets. The afternoon was a lot of fun, and it makes me want to go and have another try, this time with a proper compound bow that's adjusted for my draw length. There's a range up the back of Dee Why...

I've recently been to the Le Kiosk restaurant in Manly for the first time in years. We had the restaurant basically to ourselves on a Wednesday night so the service was attentive. The food was also yum. I'd heard a few down comments about this Manly icon recently and found them pretty hard to believe. Fortunately, they turned out to be incorrect, and I'll be back to Le Kiosk again.

We had an "election party" last night at Steve and Nigel's place. Well, not really. It just happened to be election day, and three days after Steve's birthday. Any excuse, right?

Chicken wings, pork satay, snags, and plenty of beer. Add a pinch of political madness, and you certainly have the makings of a good night.

Manners are certainly on the decline. I work in a technology park up the road from a large shopping complex. Joining the two of them is a footpath wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and on either side is grass and mud after the recent spate of rain we've had here in Sydney. This footpath is busy, to say the least. People walk up and down this thing two abreast all the time and most of them do at least the minimum to allow you to walk the other way without forcing you into the mud. But not all.

Two blokes coming in the opposite direction paid me absolutely no mind until the one walking on the right (that is, the same side as I was on) actually collided with me. I deliberately let this happen to make the point. And what did he say? "Watch where you're going!" Heh. You're the one walking on the wrong side of the footpath, mate. You're also the one who was paying absolutely no attention to anyone around you, to the point of colliding with me. Certainly a candidate for some lessons in etiquette. When I told him he was in the wrong, he got most upset. The really interesting thing was how embarrassed this made his walking partner.

And another example: Can the bloke I'm riding down in the lift with who is loaded down with packages and myself actually get out of the lift when it arrives at the ground floor before a rude lady barges into the lift, keys her security card, and actually lets the doors start to close? I think not. Again, she paid no attention to us until she had satisfied her own requirements (get in lift, use security key, press floor button). What are people thinking?

Writing about your perception of bad manners in other people can certainly get you into trouble (or just labelled as an old fusspot). But I'm not going to ruin a pair of really good boots by stepping off into the mud because some self centred ass won't watch where he's going. And I'm sure the guy in the lift with the packages was just as much in a hurry to put them down as the rude lady was wanting to take the lift to the second floor.

I remember reading in one of Robert Heinlein's books that an armed society is a polite society. This makes some sort of logical sense when you think about it: be rude, and be dead. I'm sure this happened in frontier societies. Comparing California (where, according to a mate of mine in the panel beating business, 9 out of 10 cars that come into his shop have a handgun in the glove box) with Sydney, Sydney loses out on the politeness scale.

I was taught to say "Please", "Thank you", and "Excuse me" and I use them to this day. I'll say "Excuse me" if I have to walk in front of a person browsing in a book store. Not even the book store's staff bother to say that any more. These non-acknowledgements of people surely must make our society a poorer place.

Went and met Jemma this morning at Hoochie Mamma Cafe in Newtown. Interesting conversation ensued over a few eggs and coffee. I must say the Eggs Benedict was tasty, and the omlette on the other side of the table looked pretty darn good too.

Went to Whitewater this arvo, as I was not feeling the best and felt like a cheerup. Well, if you've read any of the preceeding entries, you know that good food will always make me feel better. I was actually heading for Garfish, but they we fully booked, so the other got the nod.

I must admit, one of the nice touches at this restaurant is the truffled butter they serve with the bread, Mmmmm, truffles. More bread would have been nice so I could eat all the butter :)

I ordered seared scallops with ocean trout brandade, crispy shallot, bacon and rosemary vingerette for a starter, and continued the ocean trout theme with pan roast ocean trout with cauliflower orzo, crisp whitebait and parsley salad. I must say, the cauliflower orzo was spectacular, and I'll certainly try to add this one to my recipe book. Perfect marriage with the fish.

Washing this down was a couple of glasses of Tinpot Hut SavBlanc, an exceptionally nice white.

To finish up, I had the tarwin blue cheese with a glass of westend ‘3 bridges’ botrytis semillon, another marriage made in heaven. I was even considering dessert, as the coffee brulee with campari and orange sounds just awesome, but I resisted.

I was feeling considerably better about life at 3pm :)