winterbadger | (no subject)

So, last night's dinner was at Big Bowl, which I selected more or less randomly. I had their vegetarian potstickers and the Panang curry chicken. The dumplings were good; the curry was amazingly tasty (almost Melissa-good! :-), but much hotter than I normally get. It was also a hearty serving, so the half-hour walk after dinner didn't just burn off the extra time I had on my hands; it was useful for settling my meal.

I had not walked much around Reston Town Center before. It seemed deserted, almost like a movie set. (Perhaps for an urban version of The Truman Show?) It is a pre-fab place, essentially an upscale, modern New Town. But I have to admit it meshes a lot more with what I feel is "appropriate" living for a developed country (high-density, walkable, integrated, though without as much shared recreation area as I think it should have)/ I guess one reason I like the nearby Lake Anne Plaza more is just its more contemporary, eclectic architecture. Dated and perhaps a bit hideous to some eyes, it doesn't seem as soullessly generic to me as RTC. But RTC isn't hideous either, just a bit bland.

Of course, like many liberal do-gooders :-) my own ideal is something a great deal less high-density and efficient than the sort of compact community that Reston's clusters represent. But I've never claimed to be consistent. *guilty shrug*

And the film I saw was (at last, before it disappeared for good) The King's Speech. It was just as marevlous as I had expected it to be. Really, Firth and Rush are wonderful actors, and HBC continues to be one of my serious crushes. :-)