Very late blogging - but I don't care! =D

It's been a loooong time since I last posted it. There are various reasons but I cba to list them because they're not very interesting!

News news news then...

I've officially registered to live at a house with three of my friends when I get back to Aberystwyth, I'm so chuffed! I can't wait! We have it from the sixth of June so theoretically I can move in whenever! Or carry the odd thing over and stay there for a few days. It's going to be so cool! *runs round in circle* yippee!

I ordered parts today for the computer I've been thinking about buying for goodness knows how long! I'm not entirely sure when they're coming but fairly soon and then I'm going to put it together in the office. It has light up fans and things lol. I firmly believe that the first self-built computer anyone ever builds needs to have lights! Just because it's so fabulously cliché hehe. Anyway yeah so I've got the computer on order and I have to order the outside bits now. I can order a mouse but not a keyboard from amazon, well, to be delivered to the Netherlands. Very frustrating. And I'm trying desperately to get hold of a screen. PC Pro reviewed one that looks awesome - can I find it in the shops here? No. The ones I can find - do they have a review? No. *sigh* but it's going to be sexy and be a 22" TFT when I find it - woop woop!

Yay for being a geek ^^

I finished "One with the Night" which Marilyn Brant over at Brant Flakes sent me as part of our Christmas book exchange. It was good fun, some interesting additions to vampire lore which would make vampires even cooler! There was quite a bit of "I like him but look he doesn't like me" and "I like her but she shouldn't like me I'm evil" going on which got a little frustrating by the time you're five sixths of the way through and it's like GET TOGETHER ALREADY! Hehehe but then it felt a little unfinished because they were on a "What shall we do now?" precipice and the response was "Whatever you want *gazes into the future* we have all the time in the world" which is nice but I'm obsessed with resolved endings.

I think I would have screamed if JK Rowling hadn't put that epilogue in! It wasn't such an issue in Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn because they'd talked repeatedly about a future so even they had the same precipice (almost exactly those words actually) you did vaguely know what was going to happen. Not like with HP when you weren't even sure he was going to live!

You all know how my book is going to end now. With a nice happily ever after resolved ending. I mean I'm sure there'll be twists and turns and "who will survive?" questions etc. But at least one of the characters has to survive... or they all have to die I guess, that'd be a pretty resolved ending!

Rant time briefly: oh my god! New msn is so... ugh!! It's just... weird! *And* I had to reinstall msg plus! Which was easy but frustrating *sigh*

Loving: Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux. Amazing album. I've been listening to it since Saturday!

Night night xx

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

Ranting!

Whoops! I completely forgot to post last night *sigh* I even had stuff to say!

So, yes, yesterday I stayed at home again because I couldn't sleep all of the night before due to self-induced ridiculous paranoia so I slept all day instead. When I got up there was a decidedly snotty email from my supervisor telling me that even though I said "I'm too tired to function" I should still come into the office, if I'm tired then come in late and leave late instead.

So I'm going to have words with him on Friday/Monday.

I have epilepsy you see, due to stress and over-tiredness. Now that's normally my throw-away line, I tell people I have epilepsy and they say "oh, with the bright lights and stuff?" and I say "No, due to stress and over-tiredness". So I've gotten pretty casual about saying it over the years but you'd have thought that even a little bit of the concept "over-tiredness" would manage to filter through his mind such that when I say I'm tired that means tired *in a bad way*. I'm sure even you, casual reader, who have no experience or aquaintance with my condition can probably guess that it's not good when I say I'm tired? Perhaps not, let me continue therefore: the kind of tired that people have in the evenings, when they start thinking about going to bed - I have, every minute of every day and will have for the rest of my life no doubt. I'm sure you're keeping up with me here, "too tired to function" means (due to my condition) "I will not be well if I try to function" see now I thought that the connection would logically follow but it would appear not. Even a man who was on msn to my dad while I was having a fit on the phone to my dad has managed not to comprehend what this means. Admittedly I didn't tell my dad that I felt ill/tired enough to have a fit because he needed me to be awake, so maybe he didn't connect the dots then. But still "over-tiredness leads to fits" surely means that when I say "I'm too tired" one can assume that if I try to exert myself I could have a fit!?

So I'm going to have a little chat with him, no interruptions, and really tell him what this means. Because how *dare* he tell me that if I don't need to see a GP I'm not sick? I *am* sick, when I applied to university epilepsy constituted "A disability you cannot see" so what gives him the right make me feel like shit by denying what's wrong with me?

Wanker.

Other than that not much has happened. Went back to work today, continued doing research because we *still* have fuck all to do.

*sigh*

15 sleeps till Christmas!!

Snow, burns and reputations

Snow because... I was discussing skiing with some people on a forum and then had "Let it snow" in my head all day. And it's going to snow again on Thursday - yay!

I burnt myself on my oven today... twice... again. Admittedly only one of them hurts but it hurts quite a bit. I have one of those ovens in a box like a microwave. Which is the daftest thing. I would rather have a smaller room than that oven. Because, from what I gather, Rotterdam is big on apartment living. But often the kitchens I've seen have been small, no more than "galley kitchens". A colleague of mine doesn't even have an oven. What he cooks chips in I don't know... ;) But, thinking about this more as I go along, I guess it must be a product of their culture in some ways. In britain the hearth was very much a focal point of the home and food is a big thing in Britain so kitchens have stayed fairly big. But in Holland maybe they don't have the same kind of history that attaches them to their kitchen so much. It's a shame. I love cooking and I love my familys' big kitchens with a dining table in so we all hang out and talk and stuff. And it's something I definitely want to have in my house, a really big kitchen where there can be food making and eating and entertaining and kids can do their home work. Really keep the kitchen as the centre of my home.

Plus then I'll have an eight hob four door beast of an oven and won't burn myself all over my hands while trying to take cauliflower cheese out of the fricking thing.

Reputations then. I was telling my friend how I thought that everyone should live in Holland for a couple of months, proper living there - not in hotels. Because then all the people who loved it could stay and it would give everyone else an appreciation of how wonderful Britain is. He said it's probably a "Grass is always greener" situation and he might be right to a certain extent. I still think this is more than that though. Well, maybe I'm loving Britain a *little* bit more than is justifiable and perhaps I'm propping it up on a pedestal. Regardless. Holland is not for me.

So my friend says that England sucks (he's welsh) and I asked him why he thought that it was just England that sucked and he said the Wales rocks and it was England that was letting the side down. He said it had a bad reputation. For a whole bunch of things. Which I thought was unfair. OK so it has a bad rep for the big things like "being America's lap dog" - which was Britain not England FYI Mr. Welshie - but there are lots of good things about England (and Britain) and those are the things that I think sit in other people's subconcious.

The cities, the beauty (which he also contested), tea, scones, marmalade, rowing, hills, Cricket (even when we suck) Harry Potter! But these are things, I think, that are conjured to mind when people mention England. They might be wrong - not everywhere is beautiful, not all the cities are cool - but they are there.

Let's do some other countries shall we?

France:
Bad Reputation: poncy snobby elitists
Actual subconcious things that spring to mind: cheese, wine, healthy, Paris, mediterranean summers.

America:
Bad Reputation: George Bush (it's going to take a while to get that stain out I'm afraid)
Subconcious things: Liberty, space, diversity, snow (just me), Starbucks

Not to mention all the other things that an individual might think of :-

People: Stephen Hawking, The Beatles, Voltaire, Daguerre, Nicholas Flamel, Martin Luther King, George Washington
Places: London but also Southwold or Great Yarmouth, Paris, Carcassonne, Toulouse, Washington, Salem, Forks WA (Read Twilight ;) )
Things: Wellingtons, stamps, pasteurisation, the metric system, the light bulb and sticky tape apparently - Go Team USA!
Food: fish and chips, sandwiches, cheese, raw steak, chocolate chip cookies

So you see - despite some major bad reputations - it really is the little things that matter.

Good 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!

Eleventh Day Blues

Not a great day today. I'd been feeling a bit rough most of the day and then I go for a code review (of my project code) and I feel worse and worse and I tell them I feel a bit iffy but I think it will go away so I don't ask to stop, but it gets worse and then one of the guys reviewing gets all sarcastic at me. And so then I'm sitting on the floor feeling like I'm going to have a fit (I'm epileptic) and also panicking because I think I'm going to have a fit and he has the audacity to still be a wanker even after I've told him I feel like I'm going to have a fit *and* I'm having a panic attack. Then he storms out! And tells my co-worker something along the lines of "Kate didn't look very happy" and didn't even ask me how I was when I made it back to the office. Now, though I *am* a needy person, I don't think it's unfair of me to expect someone to say "Are you ok?" when he's seen me in that state? Maybe I'm too quick to judge, just because I'm not a heartless git doesn't mean everyone else isn't, right? And to think yesterday I was planning on retracting any rude statements I'd made because I do dislike putting bad vibes out into the world, karma and all that jazz. But I'm sorry it just bugs me and seeing as I only write in my diary once a year or so, you guys are going to have to put up with the rants! I just don't understand how someone can be so completely fucking unfeeling. Whatever. Rant partially over.

Apart from that not much else happened today. I continued planning the heroine's first kiss with her hero (not one *the* heroes) which is fun 'cos you get to plan all romantic type stuff :D I decided against it being her first and only love, life doesn't happen like that, I mean life doesn't much happen like it does in the book, mythical creatures and stuff, but some things ought to correspond to "real life" having said that - she's still going to get a whopper of a romantic kiss 'cos hey, it's a story and I can do what I like :P Funfunfun.

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

Seventh Day Rant

So I'm reading Paperback Writer's blog (it's very good) and she's talking about first lines, which is helpful to say the least. And someone commented with a link to The Top 10 Most Outrageous First Lines and the quotes were good fun I thought. Lots of comments including lots about the 1984 first line: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." And the first four comments about this line were fairly good, I felt, asking why it was outrageous as technically you could have 1300 hours and someone replied well yes but clocks don't "strike thirteen" etc. etc. But after that the people talking about the line got more and more rude, insulting and ignorant. It seems to me that if someone has either a) already resolved the issue or b) already laid into someone about it (I don't condone this) then there is absolutely no need to continue shouting at them. Another thing, I don't know about you guys but I always make sure I read other people's comments before adding my own, just in case I repeat something someone else has said. So the amount of people who commented with the opening line from "The Stranger" got to me because, you know, it's already been quoted and if it is absolutely your favourite line then say so rather than just repeat.

Still no writing has been done, I'm very glad now that I'm not doing NaNo, I'd already be trailing miserably behind! I think I may have a last minute cram before I go to bed. My mother came to visit and I had asked my stepmother to give her some of my books - I have about 12 with me, most of which I've read twice already *sigh* And OK my bookshelf is just shy of two metres wide and OK it's three books deep, but she's read the books so she knows what they look like and I told her exactly where they are. Oh well, now I'm *completely* out of books, trip to the bookstore methinks, so I should do some writing instead perhaps. That would be a good use of my time!