Cook shop!!

I finally finally made it to the cook shop *does little dance* it's so cool! I was so impressed. I may have to go back there and buy more stuff at a later date - woop! I got me a loaf tin and a pie dish and! what must be the most awesome piece of bakeware ever - an expandable cookie sheet! It's in two parts that can be slid apart or together to make a different length sheet. I have a real big oven at work so I can stretch it out and probably will have a smaller one at uni so I can have a shorter tray. I'm so chuffed with it it's untrue!

I went to a photography shop today. There's another photography meet-up next sunday (ugh) with the theme being "vintage black and white". Naturally, in this digital day and age, that could pose quite a problem for afilm photographer like me. Not many places sell black and white film these days let alone develop it. But! Foto Klein to the (slightly expensive) rescue! Not only do they have a huge stock of black and white film *but* they develop it, in three days! There was a little shop in Cambridge, near the station that did black and white development in three hours but not many people used their services so they had bugger all else to do. Great shop; I hope it's still there. But as regards the rest of the world I don't really have high hopes for speedy black and white film development so three days is awesome!

I just watched Panic Room. A very very good movie I felt, I got really tense during it I must say. It really draws you into the action. It was also very well filmed. There were lots of "going through the floorboards" type moments which were well handled. Yeah, really good film.

That's all I can think of to say now. I'm sleeeeeeeeeeeepy!

Night night xx

Riding Whales?

This should be another quick one really. Posting late again, you'd think I'd learn!

Computer update: it's HERE! And built! And works! And has Vista on it... Hmmm less good ;) But it's all put together, OS installed and I have my new mouse and keyboard but I can't get the screen I want till next week :( Still! Yippee! Hehehehe. I bring it home tomorrow probably. We put it together at work and now that everything is installed the only thing I need to change is the monitor and I can do that here. Though I really need to tidy my desk!!

Right, the reason I'm posting so late is 'cos I was watching a movie. The Whale Rider to be specific. Quite a sweet movie, kinda predictable but it was more moving than I thought it was going to be, less cheesy, I felt. Which was nice :) Um yeah, it's not a funfun movie though but it's not a deep thought one either. It's nice but I can't think of a way to define a decent viewing time. You know, you have pick-me-up movies and he-just-dumped-me ones and one where you're laughing all the time so you're in the mood for a funny one, or you want action or romance. And clearly it's not any of those. But it's a nice movie if you can't think of something else to watch, or you're not in the mood for any other genre. And of course when you want to watch it too! Don't get me wrong, it's just kinda - unclassifiable!

Night night! I'll do reviews over the weekend methinks. Friday tomorrow!!

Book butchering

I think I'm mentally worn out by my philosophical musings of yesterday hehe. I did actually feel rough this morning, though I sincerely doubt it's related, and so stayed off work again. I emailed my boss too to explain, gently I hope, and politely the beef I had with him because tomorrow is my last day for two weeks and we're having a work party so I figured there might not be much time. He does still want to talk to me about it but I think he understands how upset I was with him so that's good. Also it means that I didn't rant at him and so probably won't tomorrow either! So we'll see how that goes.

48 hours till I'm home! And I haven't packed :S I'm *so* bad at packing it's untrue. But I did get off my arse and do another load of laundry so at least when I *do* pack (two hours before I leave) I'll have lots of clean clothes! I'm glad that I bought most Christmas presents online and sent them home or guaranteed I would have left them here. I should make sure I pack the other stockings and my writing pad, maybe I'll go do that as soon as I'm done writing! It'd be awful to not have those with me!

I was talking with some friends, discussing the New Moon movie. It will be the sequel to Twilight. I haven't seen it yet and apparently to people who haven't read the books it's godawful, to discerning fans it's not up to scratch and to screaming fangirls it OMG has Rob Pattinson OMG he's so drool worthy me, bite me Edward, I love you so much Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Or something. Considering myself a discerning fan of the books, as in they're great to read but don't really expect depth and do expect some mormon undertones. Some of which aren't bad in some ways but some could, and have been, misinterpreted.

I have one specific response to a scene from the movie that has caused a lot of outcry it seems. Apparently just after Bella is almost attacked (and rescued by said vampire hunk Edward) her dad gives her a bottle of pepper spray and she rolls her eyes as if to say "I have a hunky hardcore man, what do I need to be able to defend myself for?" I would not be at all surprised if that's what happened and how it looked. Unfortunately in the book, in the scene where she's about to be attacked she's actually running through the limited self-defence she *does* know and lamenting the fact that her pepper spray is in a bag at home. So I think the movie scene was a nod to that but managed to mess it up and completely switch the meaning around.

Movie adaptations these days are so hit and miss. Especially Twilight I think, I think there was definitely a "jump on the money-making bandwagon" edge to the producers when they bought the rights. I'm sure it was a similar plan with Harry Potter but luckily they got directors and/or screenwriters that wanted to keep true to the books. I'm not dissing Catherine Hardwicke but it seems to me that what little depth there was to the books was wiped out. This left behind a controlling boyfriend and ummm that's it?

Oh! That was another scene that someone mentioned, the fact that he disconnects her battery or something. Now her father did that in one of the books to stop her from sneaking out and yes, Edward did it once too. Edward did it in the second book but I believe the scene was brought forward, as were the werewolves. (Which is downright stupid as far as I'm concerned) And so Edward disconnected her battery so that she wouldn't go see her friend, a very young werewolf who he believes would have issues with his temper and could become a werewolf any second and severely injure her. Also, surprisingly?, vampires and werewolves don't get on in the books. So he was trying to stop her from going to the enemy camp where she could get hurt. I don't know how much of this carried over to the movie, not enough obviously. Sure it was a bit controlling of him, but in that annoying "best interests at heart" way. Rather than wanker-tastic.

Anyway for the next movie they have hire Chris Weitz. Who quite frankly I will diss. He is the guy who made Golden Compass. As far as a movie story goes it's fine as an adaption goes it's an abomination. They screwed up the Harry Potter movies in little ways, cut out bits that fans think should be left in but we could still go see them for the fun of a dramatisation of our beloved books. But they butchered Northern Lights. The books are beautiful, beautifully meaningful and beautifully written. They deserve to become Penguin Classics much more than Dracula which is kinda boring if I'm honest. They're so deep, fantastic, a wonderful concept and amazingly researched. Amazing. And the movie was a travesty. All of that depth was sucked out till it really was just a kid's story. Not a story that can be enjoyed on so many levels. Plus they screwed up the ending. They ended it with Lyra and Roger flying off into the sky instead of going to see her father and accidentally allowing Roger to be killed for her father's own ends and her following him into the new world (literally). So thus far we have an alive Roger. Will they hide his death - one quick flashback so we don't scare the kiddies - will they start the movie with it? Or will they just get rid of it? Keep him alive and safe? I hope against hope that it's not the latter, otherwise why would they go to the world of the dead? How would they meet the dead people and set them free and if they don't go to the world of the dead then maybe the movies will have a happy ending. Which kinda defies the point... it still makes me cry, the ending does.

So goodness knows what will happen when they let him loose on New Moon. I suppose it could go two ways. Either he can butcher New Moon like Northern Lights. Or, because New Moon is so much *less* deep, will it be less butcherable? Who knows, but we've come up with a fun drinking game to get us through it if it's awful. So that's good. Every cloud...

Another big unexpected talk. Sorry if there were any spoilers in there but Northern Lights came out years ago and I fully believe you should have read them by now. Everyone should, in the world! Only I think they'll probably be on a fair few banned lists *sigh*

Seven sleeps till Christmas!! Hehehehehe

Aliens, pirates.. and... stuff

Sorry, it's quite late so this will be a distracted/potentially incoherent post.

Aliens then. I went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still today as I mentioned yesterday. It was quite good, not as good as I thought it would be based on my friends hype about it. But quite good. He said Keanu Reeves was born for the role and I guess he was, in a stark emotionless alien kinda way. I'm not trying to be harsh but I'm sure you know what I mean. He played it very well though and some of the ideas were kinda awesome. But the ending was kind of a let-down...

/*Spoilers*/
Basically the aliens come to earth to save it from us. And so Keanu Reeves starts the process which will eliminate human beings. He changes his mind 'cos he sees us being able to love and stuff and so they leave. There's a bit with John Cleese where they talk about how it is only on the brink of destruction that a species can finally try to evolve. Cleese says: this *is* our brink, don't take it away from us. So Keanu Reeves later decides that they won't take it away. But it just seemed to me that surely they should *tell* the humans why they'd been allowed to live.

It just seems to me that humans considered the possibility that they might be on the brink of destruction because they thought aliens were attacking. They didn't realise, nor were they told, that they were destroying themselves and the planet. So they certainly wouldn't understand why they were being left alive, it seems to me that a cliché "We are watching, fix your planet or next time we come we *will* destroy you" would make a lot more sense in the situation. Instead the sphere that Keanu Reeves arrived on (and misc other ones) just upped and left. Some of the defence people guessed what might happen but they didn't know for sure.

*AND* The Earth didn't really stand still.

A mini ben & jerry's ice cream tub gave me a paper cut and now I have a pirate plaster/band-aid.

Ummm... my mic works again :D So podcasting some point in the vague future - as usual ;)
9 sleeps till Christmas!!!!

The great outdoors...

OK, false adverstising, this isn't about the outdoors at all, well not from a nature perspective anyway. No, this is to pay homage to the fact that *I* am going out this week... THREE times. That's right ladies and gentlemen the recluse is leaving the belfry... or whatever. I say "out" I'm going to the movies tomorrow, going to hang out with Ewout and his friend at his friend's house and eat pizza and play XBox games and then also go to the work party. But seeing as, though it's a party, it's being held at the office so I'm not really going out to at all I'm not sure if it counts. Anyways, I will count it just... because. And actually I'm going out/partying four times this week 'cos my mum is having a party too. Hooray for interaction of an unforced nature! Also at my mum's party I get to see a uni friend of mine who is actually working in Cambridge and my boyfriend will be coming too!

Back to the stockings, breaking news that it is, I have just bent the seams slightly and now it fits huzzah! I'm almost done - squee! That's a noise of happiness by the way.

So I'm going to see The Day The Earth Stood Still tomorrow - look here for my non-technical, was-it-good-fun? review tomorrow night :D

Night night xx

10 sleeps till Christmas!!!

I made a new anti-recluse tag for all the posts detailing the fact that I went outside ;) I'm not actually *that* bad but it seemed like a lark!

Mmmmmmm Saturday

Well as per usual Saturday was my doing nothing day. If you're a regular here you'll realise that last Saturday was a freak occurrence in that I went out, I went shopping, I went clothes shopping and I had fun. OK you might not completely know my issues with clothes shopping or at least I've probably mentioned that I dislike clothes shops. But today I'm back on form with the whole getting out of bed at one thing!

It's interesting actually. I have epilepsy due to over-tiredness as I mentioned on Wednesday I think. And yet, unfortunately, I do not sleep well. Seriously, I don't. I rarely sleep through the night (again I think I mentioned this way back when) and I used to never be able to sleep late. Ever. It used to be that I couldn't sleep past ten even on a Saturday/Sunday. When I was uni in the first year this didn't really change, even with the later nights I kept I woke up at the same time and got *more* tired. The second year I was able to sleep later but now being in Holland, I can sleep till three! Which probably isn't healthy but it's such a novelty hehehe. I wonder why though. The depressed person in me says it's because then I spend less time in Holland if I'm asleep and it's a defence mechanism but I'm almost entirely sure that's not the answer!

Speaking of lack of sleep though, it's happened a lot this week. Whoops. I keep staying up late for no particular reason, except today when I watched a movie. It's almost like the end of term actually when all your good habits - going to lectures on time, doing school work - just kinda fall apart in the whole happiness of Christmas coming up. Maybe that's just me though!

So, Saturday movie review time. I just watched Premonition. It was one of those DVDs that I bought when I was compulsory shopping for other things - or just forcing myself out of the flat - and so I went to the movie store and bought three for 25 euros or something. So far I haven't done too badly - My Sassy Girl was another of these and as I've said, it's awesome! So Premonition could have gone either way given the situation I bought it in; not knowing what the hell it was about 'cos the blurb was in Dutch. But my luck held. It was a very interesting movie, very nicely done I felt, even if it was about a woman who thought her husband was dead... But yes, I thought it was great actually. Sandra Bullock played it very well, really portraying what the situation would be like - she does crazy/disbelieving/paranoid and scared brilliantly. I would like to point out at this juncture, if I haven't before, that I am crap at deciding which movies were good or bad. Well, I know a truly awful movie when I see it and I know a fabulous movie too. But unless it bummed out big time mostly I think most movies are OK to great. So if you ever disagree with a review feel free to say so as I probably have poor taste and you'll be more likely to tell me a movie was crap than that it was unseen excellence!

I started making the lining for my grandmother's stocking today. I had bought some more golden coloured material that wasn't actually lining material a couple of weeks ago and it's somewhat fray-crazy. It's one of those ones where the edges just start falling apart but so far it's staying together so let's all hope that continues. Otherwise it'll have to be gone over with a real sewing machine which will just take all my pride out of it. Yes, the stitching's not great and yes, they're slightly wonky but I made them all by hand and damnit I'm proud of myself - yay me! Or something.

Anyways it's five to one (see??) so I'm off to bed!

12 sleeps till Christmas!

The Covenant or Why I'm annoyed at Blogger

I wrote a nice long post yesterday and I'm so sure it was posted - apparently not. I'm more than a little miffed, if only because now I have a black mark on my record for posting everyday - at least the other times: no internet, were valid reasons and now! *sigh*

So I did just watch the Covenant, it wasn't at all scary but it wasn't supposed to be. It was an interesting story but not as well explained as it could have been. They mentioned 'Darklings' a couple of times but there's no real explanation of what one is except that people who use magic can make them out of dead people. And that's all deduced. They seemed like a really cool idea for giving the good guys the idea that something odd was going on but there wasn't enough depth which kinda wasted it. There's some internal battles between the four members of the good gang, just your average jealous/over emotional/sparring type stuff but again it could have been explained better or just not been there. On the whole though it was interesting. Although I'm biased, any movie about paganism that isn't slanderous or crap I'm sure to like. And not only was it about paganism, it was also about Salem paganism. I love Salem, the witchcraft stuff always intrigued me, even before I became a pagan and it was there that I bought the book that put me on this path. I have a soft spot for Salem. So yeah, Salem and Massachusetts witchcraft is right up my street, as it were.

I want to go back there, I haven't been for, oh, only four years which given that I live in England isn't really that long a time. But I want to go back with money and possibly by myself or rather not with my mum's friend and her kids, lovely as they are. But then if I go with money I'd be tempted to buy far too many things! Bumper stickers for my non-existent car, cool throws for my non-existent sofa etc. etc. Money slips through my fingers like you wouldn't believe.

Speaking of money and ways to get it... I emailed one of my lecturers at uni a month or so ago, maybe longer, to ask if they had any jobs going - for my internship. They said no at the time but apparently he mentioned it to a company manager who was at their annual 'let's give the kids proper interview practice' outward bound weekend. The guy got back to them wanting to know if I still wanted a job so my supervisor called me up at work yesterday to see how I was doing. It sounds great but at first I wasn't sure, no reason why I wasn't sure but anyway. Now the more I think about it the more I want to go, I realised the only thing that I really care about in this country is my project and now that I've got it to a finish as it were - there's expansion and improvements that can happen but it's reached its first goal - I don't mind leaving it behind. We've got the lovely new intern who could theoretically pick up the ropes. I just feel bad 'cos Peter (my job supervisor) is my dad's friend and that by leaving I'll be failing him, and my dad to a certain extent. The other thing is that I'm not as unhappy as I was then, I've, I dunno, become used to the situation. I still don't much like it here and when you realise that aside from your project the things you're going to miss are the stationery shop, the fabric shop and the movie store perhaps you should start worrying. But does being able to tolerate the hole in which you live enough justification not to leave? I don't think so, and even if my flat is worse, even if my job is worse I'll still be closer to home, closer to my friends and closer to my boyfriend. I doubt the place I'd live would be worse - this place is a hole. And it's not so much my job that I hate, it's some of the people, so I guess the people could be as bad/worse but I have to believe they won't be. I used to be in two minds about leaving; I knew I couldn't leave to go back to uni, that'd be quitting but I wasn't sure what moving to another job might mean, on that side of things. I think I've said this before but I'm a quitter by nature and so I wanted to stick this out to prove to myself that I could. That's one of the reasons I didn't want to go back to uni - that and I had *no* idea what to do for my dissertation (I definitely need another eight months to figure that out) but moving on to another job? Is that quitting? I'm not sure. I'm sticking out the industrial year but I haven't put up with the job. But then when the job starts to make you feel like shit, is it worth sticking to? are you still a coward and a wimp if you run away? Tough questions.

Well in the light of those decisions plus the fact that I spent two hours distracting my brother trying to persuade him not to leave home on of which I also spent on the phone to my mother talking to her about my brother's issues. I didn't tell all of them, I'm not a taddle-tale, but when it comes to desperate situations I told them enough of what he was feeling. To be honest he's brought most of this upon himself and my parents couldn't *be* more supportive. More than that he knows he's brought it on himself. Which is why he wants to leave of course: it's not getting better and he's only hurting them by staying. It's only a couple of steps away from "maybe if I left completely, forever, they'd be happier" and other morbid thoughts, but luckily he's too lazy to jump off a bridge and I don't think he's nearly that depressed so we should be good. But I'm a fairly empathetic person I like to think, and I've been told, and Josh and I get on well, he always listens to me. Most of what I say goes in one ear and out the other, but he does listen. And I can get away with saying things simply because I'm not a parent - some things are just harder to take from parents, including piano lessons. But because I'm on the same level as him, family tree wise, we've a different bond and I get frustrated in a different way which means I can have some distance from the situation which improves perspective. So I can talk to my mum and be completely sympathetic all the while gaining clues as to what to tell my brother how he can improve the situation. He's completely unmotivated - about everything. And I think that's what's currently getting to my parents most. He's not working hard enough at school which is always irritating but he can't get off his arse to look for a saturday job either, it's almost like he's zombified from what I can tell. It's gotten to the point that if he even offered to do the washing up or feed the cats my mum would be overjoyed. I only learnt this last night and duly passed on the message in such a way that he wouldn't know I'd talked to her about him! I then talked to my dad on skype today, about unimportant things mostly and then I said I had to go and he said OK and then said "I'm sorry about the stress from Josh last night" and I said it was OK, he's my brother bla bla bla. But then he has a despairing moment, they're really at a loss with him. And I don't mind in the slightest, anything I can say or do to help, I will, but it just seemed amusing that this despair and need to talk about it came straight after he apologised about the stress I just endured from Josh! Parents eh? Who'd have 'em? I can't wait till I'm back for Christmas, I'm going to drag Josh round town and get him to apply to some jobs (I'll feed him Starbucks hot chocolate to make up for the dragging) and I'll talk to him and hope that some of it stays in his brain! And maybe things will get a tiny bit better.

I just realised I meant to start that paragraph with "In the light of those decisions and all the family stress, I gave up my chocolate veto and had ice cream at dinner" but instead I did my rambling thing. So yes, ice cream for tea, that doesn't mean the chocolate veto is off, oh no, back on again from, well, now. But as long as lapses are lapses and don't become the norm, then you know you're in control.

I got a card from my grandma today, she said she'd love to have a stocking, that it'd be good fun. Which is great only now I've realised that the colours of my current stocking are perfect for her but the pattern on the material for Josh's is also perfect for her. So I'm thinking that I will go to the fabric shop, buy that combined colour/pattern fabric (which they had when I was there) and probably buy myself so different fabric - 'cos I can't possibly have the same colour as my grandma. Josh and she will have different style stockings so it doesn't matter that the pattern is the same (hopefully).

So I'm going to make up Josh's stocking tomorrow and DO SOME WRITING! Oh and buy a book on PHP so that I'm vaguely knowledge 'ere I have an interview with that guy from the company.

Good night.

My Sassy Girl

So it would appear that all I'm really doing these days is watching movies and reviewing them - which is cool. I do need to get writing again though, I'm kind of in a rut. There's not a day goes by really that I don't think about my story but plenty of days go by without me writing it - which is not cool. I shall endeavour to write some this weekend, be it scenelets, storyboards, character padding-out or full blown chapters - this weekend I will write. And finish my brother's stocking ;)

Back to the movie then. 'My Sassy Girl' is a remake of a Japanese movie with probably the same name but in Japanese. I read a lot of reviews about it and most people bitched that it wasn't as good as the original and the Americans are always re-making stuff and doing it badly. Well whatever, I haven't seen the Japanese version and I probably won't. You know why? Because this movie was great. I loved it and I don't need to see a better version 'cos I'm quite happy with this one. It's about a boy who saves a girl from (possibly) getting killed on the subway - she was leaning over the railings - she turns out to be drunk and so he carries her and puts her on a bench. He decides he can't leave her there and carries her back to his place - still passed out. She turns out to be a drunken, semi-crazy, slightly violent, impulsive(in good & bad ways), demanding, funny, charming, laughing woman and he falls head over heels for her and in her own special way she shows us that she might feel the same about him, but we're not 100% sure. Difficulties ensue and are overcome. A very sweet funny movie but if you've seen the original don't tell me off for settling with the American remake - I don't care :P I thought it was excellent. Do rent it or buy, it's lovely.

I'm working up my courage to watch the Covenant, it sounds pretty awesome but then I properly looked at the back of the box and there's a scary-faced guy. I don't normally get scared by movies, it takes a lot to scare me. But I do get freaked out/grossed out and shocked quite easily. The scariest film I've ever seen was the Blair Witch Project. I hasten to add that I was 11 or so, it was freaky because you never knew what was happening and because it was so real, so 'potentially' real I guess you'd say. Saw I (that's as far as I got) horrified me but didn't scare me. I haven't seen the Scream movies. Oh! 13 Ghosts, that scared me a bit and Long Time Dead - but in a shivers up your spine kinda way and not much more. The Bone Collector - when I first watched that I did get scared actually, we were at a friend's house and we slept with skewers next to our sleeping bags. OK so that's the other movie that really got to me but I've seen it more recently and it's not as bad as I remembered. But this movie could scare me, or I'll just worry about it and be totally let down - that's a likely possibility too. Watch this space, I may watch it this weekend when I can stay up and have nightmares and not be late for work ;)

I did the testing of my program today - yay! There weren't any actual bugs which was nice. Stuff that needed to be changed, although only 'cos I'd forgotten to change the test lol. I also found a brand new status for UPS orders which had me stumped for a while before I realised I wasn't read the error output right lol! Fixed that. So yay - production tomorrow or next week perhaps. Fun fun fun.

It's cake day tomorrow and I have *no* idea what I'm going to make. I'm not sure if we're still on the break from chocolate or not so I'm not going to make a chocolate one just in case. Hopefully my student loan will come through soon and I can buy more recipe books :D There's a Classic 1000 Cakes and Bakes book (part of the series) which looks amazing and is first on my list.

*Sigh* I think my housemate has people round, there goes my early night.

Love, actually

It's such a good movie, I know it's kind of a Christmas movie but it's great! Less than a month till Christmas anyway :D I better start buying presents! And finish making those stockings hehehe. I think I will take some photos when I'm done and link to them on here, proof that I finished a project! A project that involved sewing no less.

Love Actually has a great soundtrack as well, I think. Great fun! Heh, my thinking's all disjointed today.

Work was not particularly interesting but I haven't anything else to talk about at the moment. We deployed my project, it was piss-easy. I thought it was going to be complex and special but no, just a command line version of "go". Major let-down there, let me tell you. Still, it's done and we can do testing on the morrow - hooray! Talked to Evout more, I remain firm in my thoughts that he's a sweetie. Matthias is starting to irritate me though but again it goes back to the standards thing in some ways. Some people work and teach differently. He seems to be very much a "I won't give you much of a hint, work it out" kind of person and I just can't learn like that. But then he'll do simple things like move one of my files around, not tell me he's done it then spout command line commands at me so that *I* have to update the ruddy thing then tells me he was suprised I didn't know the command he told me. I am a Windows person, always have been and probably always will be. I never used SVN till I freakin' got here, never deployed anything, never updated anything on the command line why the hell should I know the commands for doing things to svn on the command line!?

And that's just not how I'd teach someone. *Or* How I'd get them to update something. I'd tell them what I'd done, why I'd done it and tell them what they needed to do to make it work. Argh! He's so frustrating.

I won't have these problems when I set up my cafe hehehe. It started out as such a foolish idea, the "what I'd do if I won a million (or more) pounds" way to while away Databases lectures. It's going to be excellent. I'm going to make lots of cakes - making cakes at work is just practice ;) and do drinks like in Starbucks, all interesting kinds of tea and coffee. But also the regular stuff, I know a fair few people who've complained 'cos you can't get "tea" in Starbucks. I will fix that! Ooooh I don't think I mentioned last time the extension that this cafe might undergo. The ultimate plan, sort of, is to have a cafe which is attached to a jazz bar - ideally a subterranean jazz bar, 'cos it sounds cool. But yes, then I'd own the cafe and the jazz bar. I have a cousin who's a pianist and singer so I could probably rope her in a couple of times, a guy at uni is also a pianist and has almost exactly the same dream, he was talking about it over our end of year dinner and I told him it was exactly what I wanted to do too! Fun stuff. I have another cousin who loves the idea of having a cafe/restaurant but also wants to travel to actually find the people to buy food from or the people that the food comes from, he wants to do that and have a place to send stuff back to. So I selflessly suggested that I could run the cafe in his absence ;) I have *another* friend who's not sure anymore he's in the right business (a guy on my course) and is falling more and more in love with photography so maybe we'll send him off with my cousin and we can put their pictures up all over the cafe. I'd love to do it, I really would.

Oh! I had an idea earlier: IMDB should set up an IBDB - Internet Book DataBase. Unless there's one already? Maybe, I cba to check right now. But it'd be a great idea. It could work almost exactly the same as the IMDB but with authors and books etc. and then any books that were turned into movies they could link to the IMDB and vice versa. I think it's a great idea, but then people who have ideas often think that. Who knows? Maybe I'll email them... lol.

Back to book for in the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. Not the best it's true, there's a fanfic that had a much more interesting ending tbh. But it's her series she *has* to finish it the way that feels right to her. Nothing can or should change that. I do remember that someone got the book early and posted "spoilers" and we thought they were completely ridiculous, 'she'd never do that' we thought to ourselves. I was at work, reading the book online. I would normally object to doing this - reading a typed up version of the book, next to stealing - but my copy was paid for and in the post so it wasn't really like she lost out! And I swear I went into shock when I read the first bit of possible spoilers because that meant all the others were true too. It was an awful moment! But hey, the book's finished the way she felt it should be finished and that's all there is to it really.

Night.

Pirates and their standards

Ahhh and the marathon is over. Does it actually count as a marathon if it's done in three stages? Probably not but seeing as it's the best I can do on week days it'll have to do. I do so love Jack. And the bit with his father! Inspired.

It has come to my attention recently that people treat me differently than I would like to think I treat them (I noticed a while ago but more so recently) it's the little things... like the fact that I bought a frying pan 2 1/2 months ago and it was pilfered by the people in the other house (because they thought it belonged to the owner of these two houses) and there's a girl in this house who know the girl who "borrowed" it. And I've asked this girl a couple of times if she could get her friend to give it backk but they still haven't. So I'm despairing slightly, I don't like to ask again because she might feel I'm nagging and then I'd feel bad but it's been two months now and I'm fucking annoyed. And I just wouldn't do that, if it were my friend I'd nag them till they gave it back and if I had borrowed it, well I wouldn't have without asking first, but if I had and I then hadn't given it back immediately as soon as my friend asked me I'd like to think that I'd give it back. I'm an incredibly forgetful person but two months - when it's for someone else - is a very long time.

And it makes you wonder; is it fair to judge other people by our own standards? I mean, there aren't a set bunch of standards - apart from the ten commandments and variations thereof and of course laws. But the standards which you base all of your own actions on and which others base *their* actions on, they're very fluid so is it fair? But if you don't base them on any standards then anyone can get away with anything in theory. So what do you do? This wouldn't be a problem if you were a wanker and had low standards because anyone who did what you would do or better would be a "great" person but if, like me apparently, you had fairly high standards, how is it fair to judge someone? Should there be a cut off point? Take this frying pan thing - is 4 weeks long enough to give them the benefit of the doubt or should it be more? or less? To be honest I think that two months is probably long enough and seeing as I'm hoping to move out (though I haven't organised haggling with my colleague) I don't think I can feel too bad about having a minor go at my housemate to give me the bloody thing back, am I right? Give it back or give me the ten euros it cost, I don't bloody care. If I'd thought it was a lost hope I would have given up by now and bought a new one but because I have misplaced hope in people I really do think they'll give it back - so I haven't gotten round to it *sigh*

Maybe I'm more tolerant of things than I should be so people just take advantage. Or maybe the girl who borrowed it is also forgetful. Or maybe she's selfish. Or maybe a combination of all three


I got some work done today - yippee! Though not as much as I'd hoped because disaster struck! Well not really. We have an internal online phone/address book type thing and it was my job when I started to make it better. And it was working on the database/server it was on but it seems that an unfinished (perhaps) version was deployed onto the main server and now it's all broken and stuff. Next to everything that I added in - functionality wise - doesn't work but all of the technical bits that ought to be used are still there. A 'tag' form for example. You're supposed to check a bunch of boxes for the people you want to tag and the boxes are there and the form is there but trying to use them doesn't work. It's very bizarre. And worse than that, I can't get at the relevant files for some unknown reason! Very frustrating. But I got to chat to my supervisor about various future-and-stuff things and also - though he might resent me for it - got Evout the intern some work to do. He's an intern like and probably older than me so I don't feel I can tell him what to do because we're equals but also I don't really know what I'm supposed to do and there's not much in that for him to share with me so I thought I'd tell our joint supervisor to help him out. I hope it worked and that he doesn't hate me, he seems to be doing OK. I like him, he seems like a sweetie :)

Oh! I don't think I mentioned this yesterday - I found out I have to do a voiceover for a screencast demo of some product functionality. I'm going to giggle so much, or put on an over dramatised voice, it's going to be silly. Oh dear.

With any luck this will actually post - it's telling me the autosave failed and there's an error so I'm going to copy this before I post and see what happens!

Whoops, forgot the title... oh well.

Today was the second installment of my Pirates marathon. You know how sometimes you feel in the mood to watch something but you can't put your finger on it but none of your other movies fit? I kinda had that, I love the Pirates movies, but I just wasn't in the right mood but then I watched them - and it's great :D I think this one was the silliest somehow, what with giant cages, rolling mill wheel fights, Norrington covered in mud, stupidly dramatic lines - "Sorry, Mr. Turner... but he's RIGHT! Arrrr!" (Again from Norrington). Yes, silliness abounds in this one but it's still pretty good, the movie can carry it but it's *soooooo* obvious that this is a two parter. And I mean that's OK but you know that all of the climaxes in this one are not equal to whatever the biggy is in the next one! But that's OK 'cos I get to watch it tomorrow - woop woop!

My flatmate is being wretched again. Apparently it's too noisy, I have turned down my music for him already but for whatever reason the movie/speaker sound doesn't sync up very well so I have to have it quite loud to hear most of the speaking and then fifteen minutes before the end he comes and tells me if I could turn it down (I didn't realise it was only fifteen minutes otherwise I would have told him to sod off) and he does it in this just urgh patient patronising way you know the "I'm sorry, I'm sorry to be asking this again" while in his heart he's going "But if you bloody kept it down I wouldn't have to ask you over and over again, I'm not sorry you wench" *sigh* There's a great episode in FRIENDS where Ross movies in with Joey and Chandler and he does a similar thing. I have all the discs but I'm not going to check and it's not on youtube either...

I was looking for the episode on surfthechannel when "Antivirus 2009" started trying to download itself! It minimised my browser and gave me a pop-up to which I said "cancel" then tried to go back to the right page and it did it again! So I closed the tab mwahahahaha. Um so yeah, can't find the episode there either - sorry! But that was odd.

Um um um, it's a monday and I posted yesterday so there's not much that happened today of interest. I managed to get bugger all done at work today (not entirely true) because some of the things that my supervisor told me to do I didn't know how to do and he managed to never respond when I asked him if I should do (relevant) things that I knew how to do. *sigh* plus the fact that I have a, no doubt bored and confused, intern that's supposed to be working with me and he's got fuck all to do either. Well he has school stuff he can do but project-wise? Nada. It's like I told him: slacking while you're supposed to be working is... not OK per se but y'know, slacking because actually you have nothing to do is surprisingly frustrating. I think I said that last week... wow, I don't think I've done any real work at *all* over the last couple of weeks... I hope they don't notice, I feel bad now. Meh, I'm sure I'll survive, I'm actually keen to be working right now, I love my project, I'm so proud of it - if it were anthropomorphised it'd be a well trained puppy - because I do often want to pat it on the head when it does things right. I know it's because I programmed them properly but still, well done program :)

Sleep time...

Pirates and Dragons and Vampires - oh my!

It *actually* snowed today, the whole afternoon - it was excellent! I love the snow, only now I'm pining for mountains and skis, not good when you're trapped in damp holland I can tell you. *sigh* I don't know when I'll next be able to go skiing to be honest and I miss it so. Not for a couple of years I don't doubt. Maybe I'll start saving now and then I'll have a big savings fund and I can go for a couple of weeks - that'd be lovely :D Sadly it's raining now which will take away all the snow. There go my hopes of it snowing so much that I won't be able to walk to work - not that that would ever happen! A girl can dream...

I started my Pirates marathon today. I'm not someone who can stay up late so due to lazing around most of the morning and early afternoon I only got around to watching one movie so I'll spread them out like I did with LotR - yippee! And Johnny Depp is just as luscious. I can't wait till I can afford a really big screen (I only have a laptop these days) and then I can watch it and see him better :D A lot of people didn't like the second one and certainly not the third. They didn't get the third one which confused me, I thought it was completely comprehensible. And the beginning! So dramatic. Loved it.

It turns out that the guy I had thought I was making dinner with only thought he was giving me cheese. Which is weird because the way he talked yesterday about "it could be a yes but it might turn to a no later" doesn't really sound like not being able to put cheese in someone's fridge. But whatever, strange boy. He did give me cheese and I did get to make cauliflower cheese. It's pretty good with Grana Padano, like it was with Parmigiano, but somehow it's just not perfect. I think it's the lack of Cheddar. I'm a bizarre cheddar fan, I don't like it in sandwiches unless I'm really in the mood for it - give me brie anyday - but I love it in things or on things. Mashed potato, lasagne, pasta, cauliflower cheese - wherever you can use cheese I'd use cheddar. It's the most delicious thing. There's an excellent brand called Colliers, a welsh cheddar, and it's fantastic. A proper gritty cheddar, the cheaper the cheddar the milder and the softer it gets till it's like Gouda (ugh) and if you go past that stage then it's practically blasphemy to cheddar *and* to cheese. I may have been a poor student but I never scrimped on cheddar :D I made mash yesterday (I may have said) and this time it was with Parmigiano but it's just not the same, of course it needed a little bit of mustard in it to make it perfect but it was as good as you can get here.

I talk about food too much methinks. Just think how bad it'll be when I'm back in civilised England with real supermarkets. I'm going to hug the first one I go to I swear. And possibly the first Starbucks though it's less easy to hug a Starbucks!

In my final year at uni I'm hoping to live with some good friends of mine and then hopefully I'll cook more - more and better food. It's so easy to not buy proper food when you only feed yourself. And by improper food I mean fresh pasta and pasta sauces, chicken nuggets only appear when I'm really down. I do eat too much garlic bread though, I'm going to try to cut down. I don't believe in diets, I think they're stupid but I feel a bit too chubby and so, because I eat more chocolate/ice cream/garlic bread than I should, I intend to reduce my intake thereof. I tried that in the second month I was here - the first month was appalling - but it didn't work out from halfway through the third month I think. I got down again and the chocolate and chicken nuggets started making appearances. But now I'm riding a high, well, a higher low and I'm going to seize the day. I have had my first chocolate free week since I got here, I'm very proud. And seeing as I'm banning myself from eating chocolate during the week there's little cause for transgression next week. Though I may have to make up for yesterday's low fat strawberry cheesecake fiasco!

I'm sitting here and the third book in the Twilight series is by my elbow, I'm so gutted I can't go see the movie - I promised my friend that I would wait to see it till I came back from Holland for Christmas only now I'm regretting it somewhat 'cos I am *desperate* to see it. But, I will keep my promise, of course if she gets dragged into seeing it I won't begrudge her even for a second and I will promptly catch the first showing I can and hunker down for two hours of bliss. I didn't think much of Rob Pattinson as Cedric Diggory, he wasn't particularly interesting, let alone particularly hot but he is (to quote a Rachel Giese article I found somewhere online) "scruffilicious" as Edward in Twilight. Of course being in love with the character he plays might have something to do with it... I definitely want to steal the cardboard cut outs from the movie theatre now!

A lot of people have bitched about the books, about the mediocrity of Meyer's writing and I must say it's not the best, it's definitely not up there with the classics but then, I've read Dracula and Frankenstein and they were dull! In fact I'm not sure I've gotten round to finishing Frankenstein... They're excellent stories but appalling books, it's no wonder they've been turned into movies again and again. But Meyer's books, thought not phenomenally written, are also excellent stories with the addition of being readable and re-readable. This is the fourth time I've read them since I bought the first one in June. And aside from one terrible sentence in the first book about tidepools: "The bouquets of brilliant anemones undulated ceaselessly in the invisible current" - those words blatantly came from the thesaurus function in Word. No self-respecting 17 year old would use those altogether in one sentence. But they're pretty evocative, they're descriptive enough to set the scene but you're able to add in your own flourishes. There are some occasions where, I can't remember exactly, certain things don't match up, job scheduling and time sounding like it's going fast but actually only a week's gone by, but they seem to be traps that most writers fall into.

J.K. Rowling I think was very good at that, it's almost as though she had a week by week planner just for each of her books, which wouldn't surprise me, she's a very efficient writer, she knows everything about her characters, and that's the way it should be. I spent *hours* reading up on mammals and reptiles and dinosaurs and breeding habits so that I could know exactly how my dragons function, there's not magic in my story's world so I needed to know those things. They're the things that won't turn up in the book, who needs to know them? But I will know them and that makes me happy. One day when I'm rich and famous and go to fantasy book conferences (which is never going to happen if I don't get my arse in gear) maybe some geeky kids will come up and ask "But how do your dragons stay in the air?" And I will be able to tell them, that's all I need. I live in fear of a Galaxy Quest situation (well not really as I don't have spaceships), but believing your story is just a story and only knowing that much detail doesn't mean someone else will treat it the same way. Take Stephenie Meyer for example, her biological explanations didn't quite add up and the thing is, if she'd either said nothing or researched it more there wouldn't be an issue, but because she said "Oh yeah, well it would work like this" she essentially contradicted herself and confused the rest of us - not good. And then I do think she said "It's just a story" and it's like yeah, sure it's just a story, but that doesn't give you the right to talk bollocks. That was one of the things that drove me to researching my dragons (though I would have done anyway probably) - because I needed to know and I needed it to be logical and semi-sane and above all, theoretically possible. But maybe that's just me. Seriously though, rent Galaxy Quest - excellent movie.

Night all.

Coyotes and snow

It snowed today! At least... I think it did. I was outside when it was hailing and I heard it rain but when I went out later there was snow on all the cars. But that could still be the leftover hail... Never mind - I love snow! Love love love. And we're due real snow tomorrow, yippee!

I went shopping today, I bought some fabric from the fabric shop and am now the proud owner (maker) of half a christmas stocking - woop! That is, it's a whole stocking but I have to line it yet so it's only half done. It's so pretty, hand stitched and everything, only took me four hours... When it's all done maybe I'll take a picture. I'm very proud of my sewing on this occasion because I don't sew much, at all, except for making a pair of wings once... It was for an art project - he's very handsome no? Well it's only a back, based on my handsome little brother. Whose photoshopped, tattoed, back is in the art section too.

I just watched Coyote Ugly today, I've seen it before a looooooooong time ago, which is probably why I don't remember the huge sex scene in the middle! What is with that!? Still, it was good fun as I remember :) It had lots of trailers - including Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm going to have a pirates marathon tomorrow methinks. How yummy is Johnny Depp? *melts* I remember when I went to see the first Pirates movie, at the cinema, I was fifteen and I was sitting there with my dad and my brother looking up at Johnny Depp thinking "This guy must be as old as my dad. Plus he's got dreadlocks and is dirty and stuff. Why do I think he'd goddamn gorgeous, this isn't right, it's too weird. But look how pretty..." Lol. He's five years younger than my dad so I guess that makes it OK right? I have lots and lots of DVDs a fair few of which have Johnny Depp in them. My DVD collection, when organised, is sorted by genre where each genre sort of flows into the next. There's a Johnny Depp section. Finding Neverland and Chocolat on one end, Pirates in the middle merging into Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, then just Tim Burton and out the other side into animation. But yes, an actual Johnny Depp section. I'm debating whether or not to get a calendar but I think that would be too weird. Give me faeries and kittens instead :D

I bought yet more movies today. I'm very very bad, I buy too many movies. The selection today just proves how odd my housemates last year thought I was. I had moved all my DVDs in and was going to get more stuff and they sneaked a look at my movies to guage what kind of person I was and they were thoroughly bewildered - I had chick flicks next to action movies (this was before they were sorted). They decided I was cool :D So today I bought Coyote Ugly, Love Actually and The Covenant. It looked interesting and by that I mean I looked at the picture and saw it was made by the people who made Underworld - my third and fourth favourite films. I would have read the back but it's all in Dutch but I looked it up on IMDB, sounds pretty fun :) So yes, a rom com, a fantasy scary dramatic type and Coyote Ugly which I can't really define!

Nothing much else interesting happened. I got stood up for a stay at home dinner making with my house mate. How sad can you get? I asked him this morning if he wanted to make cauliflower cheese with me later (he has the hugest block of Grana Padano to use up) and he said "maybe" that he'd like to say yes but it might change to a no. I thought, fair enough, he'll come tell me later. It's half past eight when I finally give up. *sigh* So I made up for it with B&J low-fat Strawberry Cheesecake 'cos I couldn't see their regular Peace of Cake one. It's nasty. Well, it's made with oatmeal cookies which aren't offensive in themselves it just means you have chewy flakey bits and it doesn't soften properly either. Not good. Which surprised me, I didn't think they could make bad ice cream, they have flavours I don't approve of but this was icky. Their low-fat chocolate fudge brownie on the other hand may actually be better than the regular version. I shall have a taste test and post the results ;)

That's all really, I have stocking lining and creation lined up for tomorrow as well as the Pirates marathon - woop! Hehehehe, I just decided to create a Johnny Depp label - for the hell of it.

Moooooovies

So today was a fairly nice day, I managed to not get up till half twelve which is weird for me, no matter how tired I am I normally can't sleep past ten. Naturally I managed to still feel tired when I woke up - don't you hate that? So I didn't manage to do anything constructive till three when I went food shopping. Yay for me... Or something.

Than I came back and my boyfriend was online, yippee! So we talked lots and then I watched Ella Enchanted and ate ice cream. All in all, very good. I do love that movie, it's so wonderful and simple. I like the Princess Diaries movies too :) I haven't read the books though which are completely different I believe. Michael continues in the story rather than being forgotten like in the movies. But still, good, easy fun.

Amazon sent me an email today, they often do, but this one I paid attention to, ummm for no particular reason lol. It was just an advert one about Christmas ideas for movies or something, it seemed worth looking at even if only briefly. There were some good movies on there, lots of rom-coms. I feel the need to stock up on those. I think one of the problems with people my age is that we hear about all of the real classics: Pretty Woman, When Harry met Sally, While You were Sleeping etc. but I don't really know anyone who's watched them, anyone my age anyways. So I think I shall ask for lots of them for christmas i.e. put them onmy amazon wishlist. Because quite frankly, you can never have too many chick flicks. Even if they are simple and trashy, doesn't matter!

But I was shocked, for all their three or four pages of Christmas kids movies they didn't have "Santa Clause: the movie" which is not one of those crappy ones with Tim Allen in. No, the best Santa movie of all time, the one with Dudley Moore from 1985. It's the best one and next to nobody has seen it. And the santa is a proper santa. My favourite Christmas movie ever, better even than the Muppet's Christmas Carol but it's a close run thing ;) My kids will be watching that movie every Christmas, for as long as they're in my house! Once they exist of course. And then, when they leave but come back for Christmas they will still have to watch it! I say "have to" I will probably be watching it so if they're in the house no doubt they will watch it. I won't force them of course. But yes it's the best and I really don't know anyone who's seen it. It has Dudley Moore as an elf and John Lithgow as a heartless, money-loving, toy making crazy man. What more could you want? There's also flying reindeer, spoilt children making friends with poor children, lack of belief and a bemused Santa. If that doesn't make it a fab Christmas movie I don't know what will!

Night all.

Nerves...

So today I had to do a presentation about my project at work. It was terrifying. It wasn't helped by the fact that though I had prepared slides I'd tried to write myself notes and hadn't had any time to practice them :S Then my supervisor was being kind of a wanker and didn't show me how to set up anything - I'd never done it before. And OK so technically that wasn't wankerish it was just the way he was doing it. I got it mostly set up but it was weirdly zoomed in so when he came down he told everyone that they were an hour early (it was supposed to be at 5 not 4) and that I need to do something to the secondary display (wtf!?) and then he left again! And the thing is I had sent round an email on, oh, Tuesday maybe saying that it was at four because although one person had told me I should do it at five, like other presentations, all the ones I'd been to had been at four. And it's like - you could have told me then that I was wrong! Humph. So he's not off the hook about that but I did find out that he'd had a "difference of opinion" with one of our colleagues and I think he had been upset all day. Unfortunately this guy lives outside Nice so it's one of those situations where even if you wouldn't shout at each other you still can't vent your anger as much as if they were there. So he was more than a little stressed. And once the presentation started he was smiling and happy so it's all good really. It went well, so I'm told, I thought I spoke too fast and it was over quicker even than I had imagined. But there were good questions at the end, some leading to thoughts on the software product as a whole and not just my little bit so that was cool.

I made the chocolate meringue cake again 'cos it is *divine* and I might be making flapjacks soon, next week possibly. Though the idea makes me nervous, they can go wrong so easily I guess. My mum always made sticky yet really crunchy ones and the first one was yummy and after that it was a bit like hard work. She's stopped baking at all really now, it's so sad. My parents may be divorced but my dad still maintains she makes the best cherry cake :D Well, made, I guess that would have to be! Maybe if we have a christmas party I'll ask her to bake something, maybe I'll bake something too! Yay for cakes :D

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm not much else to say, I just watched Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights. I love that movie, I love the cuban/latin music. And Diego Luna?? Yum! If you watch it for the first time, or after a while, the first time you see him it's like "So? He's not that special" and then, for me at least, I think the first time you seem him dancing, or maybe later, it's just a droolfest. I wish I could dance like that, and with him. Though I'd settle for my boyfriend of course ;)

I just remembered, I sent an email round work this week asking for some days off over christmas and no-one's said "No! You must say here!" so hopefully I'll get two weeks off. I can't wait to go home! I love Christmas so much lol. And, if I get my act together, I'll have made new stockings for me and my brother, woop woop. I shall go buy some fabric tomorrow! Yippee! Hehehe.

What?? No title?

Um, yes, no appropriate title because I appear to have gotten drunk on orange juice and I'm not sure how...

Anyways: news, I didn't update on saturday/sunday/monday because the internet was down. I still haven't done much writing so it's not like I had much to talk about. Now the internet is back but the gas stove appears to be not working - cake for dinner it is. That's right, there's still cake left from Friday, well no, I just ate the last piece but w/e.

Umm in other stuff I went to a fabric shop in Rotterdam on Saturday and have finally found heaven in brocade form. I used to work in the haberdashery section of a department store and before that in a costume shop that sold fabric so even the thought of a fabric shop tempted me. And this one was a beast! It was five times the size of those two combined and on three floors! *drools* It was so pretty. I got the pattern I wanted - I want to make Christmas stockings for my brother and I because we don't have proper ones at my dad's for various reasons. So if I get my act together and makes these we'll have amazing ones :D

I also went to see Quantum of Solace on Saturday. It may have knocked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire off the top spot for records on opening day in the UK but I bet the kids didn't feel as disappointed as I did after. It didn't seem very coherent, rather like me in these blogs, there was no resolution of any of the storylines from the previous movie just the beginning of new ones. Because it seems that unlike the original series which were a collection of stories about a character these are a series that actually links together. So my advice, watch it sure, but rent it three days before the next one comes out. You should watch it for sure but don't pay money to go see it at the cinema unless it's just as cheap I guess. Overall, I'm sad :( But I finished watching LotR this Sunday which is always fun :) I'm glad I did, it always feels like it's going to be so hard to really watch them but then I'm always glad when I do, hurrah!

Nothing much has been happening at work, I've been doing testing, drawing diagrams, re-writing my article and rejoicing in the fact that the callous traitorous git that works in my office a) isn't here this week and b) got told off last week for being too harsh in general and especially to me. Apparently he and my other supervisor gave *very* different accounts of what passed on Thursday - hmmmm.

Uhhhh I think that's all my news, no real story update *sigh* I need to be kicked in the bum about this! Night...

Cakes, cakes, cakes... and Lord of the Rings!

That's right. Today I made a chocolate butter cake and though it was very nice it was very heavy. I won't serve it again for a party of less than sixteen people! If you do have a party for sixteen or more people however and you want to fill them up - this is the cake for you! A couple of comments though. Buy a bigger mixing bowl. No, really, buy one. Especially if you're mixing by hand, in which case ensure you have industrial electric hand mixers. The amount of batter is extreme, I had a fairly good sized bowl (I thought) and when I was done doing all the additions it was barely a centimetre from the top. So unless you have one of those ubiquitous ceramic mixing bowls, buy a bigger one. I don't even know if it'd fit in one of those nice Kenwood mixers! But it *is* very tasty. At one point, I think when you've added the milk it gets a weird texture, like you get the first time you try to make icing and it all separates out? But then you add more flour and it's fine and dandy. Tasting the mixture just before it went in the oven it did taste a bit floury but it turned out OK :) Ummmm, really wait till the cake is completely cold to put the icing on, I was too hasty and bits of cake and icing were going everywhere! Not the prettiest cake I've ever made I can tell you. Which reminds me of my promise: to actually put links to the cakes I've made so far. So here they are

• Delia's Lemon Meringue Pie
• Carrot Cake
• Irish Cream Chocolate Cheesecake
• Chocolate Meringue Cake
• Chocolate Brownie Cake

Comments then. Delia's Lemon Meringue Pie was tasty but she said you could eat it warm and I found it was far too soupy so I'd definitely let it set next time. The carrot cake, for me, wasn't quite interesting and flavoursome enough but everyone else loved it so who am I to complain? The Irish Cream Chocolate Cheesecake was, um, divine. It was so delicious. I did up the amount of alcohol which meant that you could taste it (rather than it being a hint) but it still managed to be slightly subtle and a balancing not dominating flavour. The meringue cake was excellent, I've made Nigella's lemon version which was yummy so I wasn't surprised when this turned out great, voted best so far I think. The brownie cake was very tasty too though I might double the amount so that people can have taller but slimmer pieces - it was essentially a round brownie, which is no bad thing but I think it would be better that way. There was also a Kahlua and Oreo Cheesecake which was also delicious but they've taken it off the website, I think I have the printout somewhere so if I find it I will definitely be writing that one up!

On a non-food subject. I'm watching Lord of the Rings again. I love these movies but I only have the extended editions so I don't watch them very often, you have to be in the right mood I think, be able to put up with Frodo's wimpiness. I'm still in love with Legolas even though he's poncy - I don't care! But it seemed to me while watching them that, as I mentioned yesterday about real-life in stories, some of the things that happen just *wouldn't* happen, even in a fairy tale dwarf mine. There wouldn't be a three foot wide bridge crossing a huge chasm with no railings - dwarves aren't that surefooted. The cave troll will not automatically be able to single out the most important member of a quest. It wouldn't happen. I think that's one of the reasons I like the Tamora Pierce books. Yes the heroines often end up being the ones fighting the danger but that's because they're the only ones there, only ones good enough or the only ones stupid enough to face it head on! And there sure aren't any stupidly narrow bridges and the only time one of them got singled out was when the beast was magicked to do so. That's my two cents anyway and if I *ever* get farther on my book any quests that occur will not involve such foolish things! On the upside I did mostly finish writing the heroine's last first kiss. It has rain and romance and humour - what more could you want? It is going to be marginally cliché but I had a hugely romantic first first kiss so why shouldn't she? Well it was a romantic situation anyway, we were both 13 and so he had a wet hoover thang going on. But apart from that...

Night night.

Elections and Bonfires and Bond

So woop woop for Barack Obama! I lied in my blog, accidentally, I stayed up - till three in the morning, ugh, boy was I ruing it today! But it was good fun, watching all the online stuff, watching the count go up - I can't believe Missouri (?) and N.C. still haven't called, it must be real close, or they're all so tired and they know the race is won so they're catnapping, I wouldn't blame them! As I said I'm tired and that's just from watching, it must have been a long day for everyone - kudos for surviving!

So. Bonfires. I just read this article by the bbc which was interesting in a vague sort of way. I'm sorry to be harsh but he's been judged and nothing anyone says is going to change that. I can understand changing the verdict for a man who was wrongly executed these days. The family will need some kind of peace and rest, having fought for that person, striving to prove their innocence. But it seems to me it's too late for Mr. Garnet. And at the end of the day, whether he was executed or released he would have gone to the pearly gates and been judged there anyways. That most certainly doesn't mean I condone bad behaviour on any level, I just mean that he's already gone through them or not, let him be, it doesn't make a difference any more. There's no real impact. Now if someone told us, and could prove, that Jesus or Buddha was involved THEN that might be worth listening to... Know what I'm saying?

But anyways, some of the comments bothered me, about how it was a barbarous tradition and we should be celebrating the Celtic New Year now that we're all tolerant and stuff. And the thing is, we may be tolerant and stuff but that doesn't mean we're going to start celebrating other people's festivals. The people that call Hallowe'en the Celtic New Year are the people who only have their facts half right. Those couple of days are celebrated the world over as a festival to celebrate those who have passed on, it has long been recognised as a time when "the veil between the worlds is thin" it really is a day of ghoulies and ghosties *and* it's New Year, but a Pagan one not necessarily a Celtic one. And we'll certainly never have people celebrating pagan festivals (knowingly anyway) if they don't accept where they (the celebrants) come from. It's a pet peeve of mine. I don't mind Christianity per se, I think it's made the world what it is today, which is not a wholly bad one to be honest. OK, ok, there was a lot of killing and shit like that but hell every religion does that, it's not really personal. And I don't even mind (anymore) that they stole other people's religious festivals and made them their own, again the Romans did that, it's a cunning tactic. No, what bothers me is that they don't believe it, they don't even know and they certainly don't accept that that's what happened. They (mostly) really truly believe that Jesus died on Easter Friday and was born 25th December. And it's just not true, we don't really know when he was born but it's a nice coincidence that lots of Sun Gods were born around then. And if he died on Easter Friday then why does it move every year? I told my step-mother this, last year I think, that Easter is celebrated on the first sunday after the first full moon after the equinox and she actually said: "but that's so pagan" And it's like "uhhhh yeah" Easter is a Pagan fertility festival dedicated to, celtic-wise, Eostre (or some variation) that's where the name comes from, that's where the womanly hormone oestrogen comes from, deal with it. And I think if we're going to live in a truly tolerant world people should be able to tolerate the history of their own religions because that might just make them more accepting of others. There are lots of pagan evangelicals out there who'd like to blame all Christians, or Catholics mostly, for the inquisition or the witch hunts and it's just not fair, the people these days didn't do it and there's only a select few who want to burn and torture people but mostly they're good, honest people, striving to look after themselves and each other and I sure ain't going to argue with that.

Back to Bonfire Night, Bonfire Night is a celebration, a celebration of triumph over "terrorism" which is a somewhat overused phrase these days but what the heck. Now it's a symbolic effigy, a symbol of that triumph, which is no bad thing. Now we have a truly english festival (pagan and celtic ones aside) that everyone in the country *does* celebrate, even if it's unknowingly ironically, it's a chance to get together and it's not way overcommericalised so it's nice - pretty lights, big fire - it's all good.

But hey, tell me what you think.

On a much lighter note, I'm going to see the new Bond movie this Saturday - woop woop! It's supposed to be good but not as good as the first Daniel Craig one so it's a must-see but not a must-see-again-in-less-than-3-weeks, or so my boyfriend tells me. So I did just have a date with Daniel Craig as Bond the first time round, to remember it and all that jazz and the Bond movies really are good. Pierce Brosnan I always thought would be "my Bond" you know, the one you always think of, partly 'cos he was the only Bond there was when I was growing up but now I've seen them all and it can't be denied that Sean Connery is legendary! But Daniel Craig is none too shabby and I'm glad that they're not going over old ground and just covering up what was there before: the SC years, the PB, the Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore etc. They may have been more frivolous but I'm glad they're not being swept under the rug. I tell you something else though, even though I'm not into the big built men like DC seems to be and he's only really handsome in the rugged way he's just so... phwoar! I think that's the only way to describe it. There are a lot of hot actors in the world today and a lot of them are irrepressibly sexy and they just make you swoon or give you a bad case of the "yummy yummy give me NOW"s but there were a couple of scenes where it was just like, I dunno, *drool* or something lol. And speaking as a pretty boy lover, that's saying something! Is that just me?

Anyway long, long, loooooooooong post. Night night

Cloud nine?

I'm getting better at this title malarkey...

Ummm, so what happened today? Nothing much really, did a lot of studying of Wikipedia pages, I think I've done most of the reforms on my project but I just wasn't feeling alive enough to call for a review so I read Wikipedia almost all day - on the important stuff of course, not just trawling through it for amusing reads ;) I've also spent most of the afternoon and evening periodically checking the BBC live updater thing that updates every few minutes or so with a new comment or tweet or email or blog post from randomers or actual bits of news from correspondants. Apparently we're looking at a 2am (GMT) wind down which is three o'clock for me which I just can't face unfortunately, I'd love to stay up and pay attention but I'm too old now lol! OK so not old but you don't need to know my issues to know that I can't stay up till 3 on a work morning! Anyway so tomorrow we'll wake up... actually around afternoon teatime most of the votes will be counted and stuff and we'll know who's probably president. And the face of America will change and the world will change.

It has to be said that, though GWB was a pillock and did some terrible terrible things while in office, he sure made America even more important, though that might also be because I was twelve when he was first elected and didn't really get politics! But still I mean, the changing of hands of the british government didn't make nearly as many ripples even in our country let alone the world and we're still one of the big guys right? I guess that's 'cos we all knew Brown was going to take over for like a year in advance so when it actually happened no-one really noticed.

The other thing is that Americans are so patriotic - it's amazing. The way things are run is somewhat simpler: do you want this man as president? yes/no How about this other man yes/no? Etc. whereas in England you vote for your local candidate and based on how many of each party get in the leader of that party is the new prime minister, or some such. Whereas you know exactly who you're voting for and the candidates really come round, they interact with everyone and you get to take a nice long look at them and their position and decide. But people in Britain are much more lazy I guess and we just don't care really. And I've certainly never seen much hype about it, you get flyers and that's kind of it, but again that might be 'cos I've only been able to vote for two years and I've been in Wales most of the time so I didn't know what was going on either there *or* at home! But I'm real impressed by the Americans and at how they've turned out to show their support and I'm sure they know that they're not only changing America but they're changing the world. I just hope it goes the right way!

In other news... I watched Catch Me If You Can just now, good fun. Christopher Walken scares me though, I'm not sure why, he just does. Maybe because I've only mostly seen him in movies where he's the bad guy: Mike from Stepford Wives (robot), Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow and a bond villain. But he freaks me out! I've just noticed that they're thinking of making an Italian Job II this being the sequel to the 2003 one - L.A. Heist, not the '60s one. It's going to be called the Brazilian Job. Is it just me or is that an awful *awful* name. It sounds like the waxing job of essentially the same name. Now I'm sure it will be good fun, I thought the L.A. Heist was fun tbh and I'm glad it wasn't a remake of the original but Brazilian Job, really!? Terrible.

As usual I've managed to talk for ages about nothing. Still no book work though I did start dreaming about their first kiss, then it turned into a dream about mice in the office. And then the vermin guys came to work today - talk about prophetic!