alexist

Went into town yesterday to investigate the sales and see about a belated birthday present. Didn't find anything.

Our bath's not draining properly again (this would explain yesterday's mess). So no shower for me till I get some Mr Muscle. I know the problem is accumulated hair in the drain so I'm not ringing a plumber :-P (We don't have a good trap, and I have long, curly hair. Recipe for disaster.)

Someone on another site was discussing ratemyteachers.com so I went and looked up my old high school.

Of the approximately 22 teachers I had (*), a grand total of 6 are still there: 2 science, 2 social studies, 1 English, and 1 music. I knew quite a few had retired by Carly's senior year, but even so. I only graduated in 1994!

(I can't remember exactly who I had for PE--multiple teachers had it. I was a very, very bad student. Passing PE mainly involved showing up, remembering your kit, and making some token effort at participation, and I managed not to do that two quarters. If I hadn't done make-up classes I would've failed more.)

PS, cjbroz, the class of '95 reunion is apparently 26 November (I just checked the alumni site...) Maybe Garrett has more info. I don't think I'll be home for Thanksgiving but if I were I'd be tempted to sneak in ;) (I was supposed to be class of '95, I skipped 11th grade.)

Today I bought some chocolates from La Maison du Chocolat. But not that many, they're £80/kg which makes them officially the most expensive chocolates I've ever bought.

I sort of had to, after getting the book. *coughs* I could do some of the desserts, but I'm no chocolatier. Anyway, since I don't do birthday drinks, I do birthday chocolates. And I have a motto: life's too short to eat bad chocolate.

I've had a few and they're seriously nice--you can taste the difference even compared to the Valrhona chocolates they do in places like Fortnum & Mason and Harrods (which are very good quality, and which are my usual recommendations for nice chocolates; this will now come as my "very special occasion chocolate" recommendation). They're not as daring as the Artisan du Chocolat ones (they do the tobacco chocolates for the Fat Duck and have some rather odd combinations); they tend more towards new interpretations of traditional flavors.

Ironically, I bought the Economist Intelligent Life supplement this week and they did a truffle taste test. These came in second (only just behind the #1 finisher, Santorini).