Slack? Me??

I know I know, but sometimes I just can't face having to TYPE things. We now have the full set of Series one Buffy figures. They're very silly. I had a mad urge to make a stop motion animation with them, getting Ollie and Helen to orchestrate it etc. but mercifully it passed. In the meantime, Ollie's camera started being WEIRD. It's a wonderful effect but not really useful for normal photographic purposes. So there goes my experimentation with HDR...

Oh well. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a touch controversial. I had read some VERY mixed reviews of the film, with a bias against it overall (especially as there is a gradual Tim Burton backlash due to him being a little formulaic/repetitive/always casting JD & HBC) and so was delighted when it turned out to be rather enjoyable. Sure, the characters a all thoroughly unlovable and the cast aren't exactly singers but the musical really could have been written for Tim Burton to film. Although HBC can't possibly compare to Angela Lansbury's original performance:

So now I can alternate between a jolly happy chubby feelgood musical about how if you just TRY HARD then you can make the world a better place, and a miserable, misanthropic, bleak and bloodthirsty musical which tells us that everyone is shit and we all deserve to die and BTW whatever you do you'll be betrayed and end up being the cause of your own downfall. Hurrah.

You know how Facebook is really evil........

It's almost as if the Gods of Facebook are trying to make the site into a security black hole.

Eye Eye, it's been a while

Time was, celebs were dropping dead of having too much fun left right and centre. It's not happened recently, at least not that I've noticed, so this is almost shocking/surprising. UPDATE: Perhaps this is part of a recent trend!

Happy Birthday!

..to those people who are reminded of the inevitable inching closer to the grave today. Especially those arriving at nx+8 and 4x+1.

OLD!OLD!

Polymer Slayer

On a recent trip to Forbidden Planet I encountered some amazingly tacky Buffy figures, reduced to £1.99 each. So I had to get one, or rather, three. This was the 'Season one' set which offered Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Darla and The Master. I got the girls. As a gift, of course!

They're really really hideous. And make the Battlestar Galactica models of Boomer and a Cylon seem teeny in comparison. Perhaps the Galactica humans are smaller than we are...

After much mockery of the plastics, Ben and Ollie nonetheless took much pleasure in playing with these tiny new friends, mixing their clothes and accessories around to much amusement. So I think I'll have to pick up the toy boys (ah ha) if they're still available. After all, the model of The Master came with a see-through skeletal version as well!

I do hope they get as far as Season five. I want a model Glory with a hundred different outfits and snivelling minions.

The last few times I've been to Ollie's house he's been flashing me. With Hiragana flashcards. As a result I appear to have now pretty much learned the script, although I still get a little confused when trying to write them down since some of them really are just nonsensical.

This does mean, however, that I'm about 20 months ahead of the game; when Stephen started his Japanese degree he knew none fo them and had to frantically learn them all really quickly. If I can keep this up I'll have Hiragana and Katakana well learned by then, along with a bunch of Kanji and perhaps (?) even some grammar and vocab!

On the down side, I left my charger at home and so I can't spend all day watching House and also will have no battery left by about 20:00, meaning that my planned trip to the gym would be a TORTUROUS TEDIUM and thus, cancelled.

I've always said that Stephen was a bit of a hothead...

lol.

In other news, Europe is gradually developing an anti-anti-piracy movement, beyond the Swedish Pirate Bay peeps. There are even politicians involved! There's a fabulous video at http://www.iwouldntsteal.net/ which is worth watching if you've ever had to sit through the irritating anti-piracy warnings on DVDs.

What happened to Mona's law?

If anyone wants to give me a job that will fit around my studying and allow for full-time income I'd be pleased to know. No school today hurrah! Just lots of work. I was meant to meet Ollie at the Music Department but after hanging around for five minutes he called to say they were at the Library. Sigh. There was talk of pub. There was talk of takeaway and DVDs. I proposed doing something more... cheap and healthy? but since all the Helens were going to come, along with Camhoillillieoile SoggyCity, I was thoroughly overruled. So I went home, caught up on computeryness and was told to Be There At Eight. Time, of course, ran away. So I dashed up the road and just before arriving got a call to ask Was I coming and to say that they were about to order Chinese. Which is fair enough, but of all the possible takeaways Chinese is the most likely to be toxically glutenous; I think I managed not to be huffy about this choice of menu... Pasta is a safe bet. I try to make sure that there is pasta and soy sauce for ME in any place I may be cooking, so that was that. Ollie, Helen Sivey and Camhoileilieoile and I then spent most of the evening harassing the interweb on Aaron's laptop. Camhoilllioholie is really a nerdgirl at heart, for all of her obsession with yellow pencils. She knows 4chan and everything! For some reason I felt like a bit of an outsider. It's not like anyone was being unwelcoming, and I do hope it's not because everyone was about x years younger than me; perhaps it a part of my recent odd moods. Maybe I should get Medicated, that'd surely leave me devoid of any emotion :) So anyway I went to Stephen's briefly to deliver a folder, some salt and a pack of sponges. Then watched a little Green Wing while Joe entertained himself with Java and then helped Stephen hassle Joe into bed before walking home singing When David Heard. Now. Ugly Betty, High School Musical 2, Legally Blonde: The Musical or 30 Rock to send me to sleep? Hm.... Update: For as long as anyone alive can remember the has been an unofficial diagonal across the top section of Bruntsfield Links, leading from the junction of Warrender Park Road and Whitehouse Loan to the corner of Brunstfield Place and Bruntsfield Terrace. In 2006 there were gas works cutting across this area, followed by a very muddy autumn. As a result THIS PATH IS NO MORE. The rough route can be made out here; I've scribbled a line next to the remaining pathiness. This is, to those of us who grew up in the area, an astonishing example of how small things can have fairly major influences.

NSFW Day!

Well, at least I woke up before 9 today! This is just plain weird. And made me squirm slightly. I'll give you some space to scroll down because little old ladies in workplaces might be appalled. ... ... ...space... ... ... ...more space... ... ... ...how about a tasteless joke to pass the time?... ... ... ...What do spinach and anal sex have in common?... ... ... ...If you were forced to have it as a kid, you'll hate it as an adult... ... Here you go then!

So... sleepy...

I had a stupid day:

• Wake up c 1045.
• Dash to work.
• Check calendar. shit I've got a class at 1200.
• Dash to School, pausing to pick up some music from Ollie on the way.
• Get to class.
• Check timetable oops I should be here tomorrow. BYEEE.
• Wander around with Ollie until class at 1300.
• Go to class.
• Nobody about oops this class is tomorrow as well how stupid am I being?
• Go to library.
• Wander around music section. Absentmindedly text Ollie to tell him how stupid I am.
• Meet Ollie in library.
• Leave Ollie so I can go to class 1400.
• Hm. Nobody about I wonder why oh it's 1430-1645, not 1400-1600.
• Give up on ever having a brain.
• Go to work for a while.
• Choir! Envoi and En Une Seule Fleur are both quite challenging.
• Walk Ollie and Helen home, then walk back on my tod (avoiding site of recent local stabbing), chatting to Mother.

And now I'm near unconscious.

Watashi wa bit busy desu

School and work take their toll on my time. In brief, then... Ollie and I had a lovely meal on Sunday c/o John and Susan. Orange and ginger baked salmon, whole new potatoes and some flash-fried courgettes, sugarsnap peas and pak choi. Mmmmmmmm. Read the beginning of Jane Eyre. OUCH that's a mean story. Othello is really boring. Especially the Branagh/Fishborne version. Miss Jean Brodie is fun though. I spent a couple of hours yesterday forcing Stephen to make some simple sense of Japanese at me. Which left us both a bit frazzled, but I feel slightly more ready to learn some now. I've been answering the question how are you with snotty. Which is, I expect , due largely to the damp, cold weather getting in my face. I'm also suffering a teeny bit from soggy feet, as the shoes I wear most often have worn out just enough to let some damp in under extreme wet conditions. And the nice new shoes I bought really aren't WET shoes. Let's see if anything exciting happens tonight.

"Looks like a no-brainer"

Last night it became VERY icy while Ollie and I were at Helen Sivey's. Which was very pretty.

As often happens when I'm walking home I called my mother for a blether, but unfortunately Steve must have been online because the line was engaged. Aha! thought I, she's likely to be on Skype! Why not try to get her through that? A bit of internetting later I have Fring installed and prepare to Skype. Or course it doesn't work as hoped. She was very quiet, I was very loud and the call died after about 15 seconds. However, the Chat side of things (and this is for Skype, MSN, GChat, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ...) is very simple and works as you would hope. So I wandered home 'chatting' to her, pausing only to take the occasional photo of the ice (see above).

Today continued to be remarkably cold. I met up with Stephen and Ollie at Favorit, had some nachos and then went back to Stephen's to play with food. I had slipped into a weird, uncommunicative mood and wasn't feeling particularly FUN but there was a plan to have people round to watch Grindhouse later. So I played Overlord, Joe fell asleep and Stephen did some homework. Ollie came back from the library and then went to Tesco with Stephen to get supplies. I made preparations for cooking... Dinner consisted of: Home-made beefburgers (beef mince, onions, spices, stuffing mix, egg), mashed potato and some broccoli, sugarsnap peas and courgette fried together in a pot, all topped with a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce and soy sauce. Yum. But by the time I was halfway through making the food everyone had arrived and wanted films! So I ordered them to start it and settled down to sit quietly in the kitchen...... By the end of Death Proof lots of people had left and I gave in to peer pressure and joined the room for Planet Terror. Which is very silly. Odd things I have noticed recently:

1. Great bit number 90 up on the first floor above Ripping Records on North Bridge. The numerals are tatty and old so I must have been not noticing them for a looong time. 2. Middle Meadow Walk. The litter bins are ALL on the opposite side as the pedestrian lane. WHY??

"It's all forehead!"

Quoth Helen Sivey.

Made dinner for Ollie and Aaron. I think I may try to keep track of culinary, er, things here, so... I got some big German sausages and cooked then with lots of fried onion, salad, potato croquettes and some pasta sauce adapted to be a little bit more scrumptious than it was to start with. This was a special Chris Creation which should have been disgusting and may have been but I enjoyed it.

Then we went to see Helen Sivey and there was much hilarity. And the Macarena. Nuff said.

(Cough cough) Ohayō!

I'm so ridiculously hooked on Ugly Betty. I don't quite understand why, the first five episodes or so were kinda dull and slow but suddenly I can't stop! This may be Clever Writing at work. Yesterday I started to develop a tickle in the back of my throat. By the time we'd had our New Year Choir Meeting (don't even ask. Because I will not rehash that.) it was becoming a Tickly Cough. This morning I woke up and cried out in pain. Silently. Swollen oh YES and rather painful too. Since I had school this afternoon I called in sick to work for the morning, to allow me to shop for drugs. Cafe Nero - Latte mmmmmm Chemist. Glucose tablets and Pholcodeine Linctus YUM. Off to school. OOPS I mis-entered my timetable into Google Calendar and there's no Study Skills this week. So off to IALS to register for Japanese Beginners course and then to Black Medicine for a quick coffee before Maths! So far, I don't see what the fuss is about. Why do people dread STATISTICS so? Perhaps it's because they have to do it, whereas I'm keeping the basic Maths course on because I quite enjoy it... BTW, why do you think Barr make "Ginger Beer Flavoured Soft Drink" (I'm sure it used to be just Ginger Beer they made, but anyway...) and then add Saccharin and Aspartame? It's not like it's the Diet option or anything! I noticed this because I was thinking it tasted a bit odd. Turns out, IT DOES taste a bit odd! Aaaanyway. Went to work for about an hour, mostly to keep warm but it had the added bonus of getting sympathy because I was ill but at work. By the time I had my jacket off people were asking me questions about Word etc. as if I hadn't just arrived. People, eh? Then off to Japanese. Much could be said about learning Japanese in a beginners' class which needs to be suitable for all comers. The building used to have some exciting mural(s) over the stairs. I remember it vaguely from doing some Italian there when I was about 10, but there has been a lot of restructuring in the intervening years and I couldn't see ANY interesting wall decorations. sadface.

Ha!

Gym? Forget it! If I had strayed too far from the path I would surely have been lost in a wilderness of RAIN and WIND. I got as far as su before falling asleep at work. Braved the apocalyptic precipitation and went to Ollie's to hide. Of course, he wasn't there, he was having dinner made for him by D.

Nigella - I mean D, with profiteroles.

So I sat and distracted Helen for a while, dropped popcorn into Aaron's port (well, MY port which he's been sipping away at) and eventually He Returned about 2315. About time for me to leave, really! Today saw the return to Learning. Two and a half hours every Wednesday for 16 weeks studying Literature. This could be my nightmare.

Today's goals are:

1. Learn Hiragana. Or at least a lot of it. 2. GO TO THE GYM. It's a miserable evening so exuhcise (with some House to keep me sane) and a brief trip to Ollie for final gifting should be eminently feasible. We shall see...

Oh god it never ends

Today the last of the internet X-mas gifts arrived. About time. Classes start back on Wednesday. Then Thursday. And the beginner's Japanese course I'm supposed to be doing starts Thursday later, which fits in nicely. Now I just need to get enrolled and afford it. I managed to source three of the five texts for English Lit on Amazon for under twelve quid, which is nice. Othello, Miss Jean Brodie and a whole bunch of W H Auden will be winging their ways to me imminently. Now I just need Jane Eyre and Streetcar. Oh, and also find any and all film/TV adaptations of aforementioned Classics. Especially the Simpsons episode :) The new Goldfrapp album, Seventh Tree, seems to be a bit of a return to Felt Mountain form. I'm glad. Supernature was fun, but my favourite is still their debut.

Tragically...

This is what Edinburgh snow is more often like these days. The inevitable result of heavy rain becoming, at some point during the night, a half-hearted snowfall: miserable slush.

It's depressing.

Strange lights

While making a cup of coffee I noticed a mysterious flashing outside. So I went to investigate. Five soggy minutes later I am none the wiser. Somewhere in a garden across the block was a source of light, bright enough to light up the whole of the building. It flashed erratically for a while, then flickered with such regularity that it became almost constant and eventually died. I couldn't get a good enough vantage point to see what it was but it was definitely outside and there was no sound other than the rain. It's just one of Those Mysteries.

Of pigs and thongs

I can't help but recommend everyone to read this perfect summary of the current internet music situation. And anyone who knows children should probably have access to this wonderful book. I am impressed by Teller Speaks. Clearly he should spend more time communicating with words. Today featured the gift of a fabulous very long scarf and the gift of some posh bubbly. I am greatly pleased by the scarf and its malleability; the bubbly may pose some problems as I'm not generally a fan (many brands of champers taste like nothing more than over-fizzed cat wee, I find) so I think cocktails may be in order, just to be safe. After all, I appreciate the gift and want to enjoy it too! There was also the excitement of getting some David Bowie LPs to play on an antiquated hi-fi and a pair of comedy Christmas pants - well, a thong - modelled by someone of the wrong gender:

There may be a giant chocolate Santa stuffed in there somewhere, but it's really best NOT to ask. Ben gave me a Christmas Hamper a few days ago. This contained, rather than the traditional hamper fare, a range of Gluten-Free Things: Jaffa Cakes, pasta, pizza bases, stuffing mix, mock-oatcakes, chocolate cake... YUM! I proceeded to make full use of the pizza bases today. Sauce mix comprised: Tomato Puree; Tomato Sauce; Lemon Juice; Finely Chopped Olives; Finely Chopped Jalapeños; Black Pepper; Garlic Granules; Paprika; Bisto Best Roast Onion Gravy Granules; Soy Sauce; Water. I also made some toast-pizza things for the glutenophiles, but they didn't get a scrumptious topping of cheap tinned tuna. In other news, black is the new black,the world's still going to hell in a handbasket (which makes no sense but sounds frightful!), I suspect vinegar may be to blame for my occasional skin oversensitivity (not necessarily gluten-vinegar, either) and taking cold clothes out of a cold tumble drier is just as bad as taking warm clothes out of a warm tumble drier is good.

Jumping for Minbar

Once upon a time I was involved in Parkour. Please don't laugh. This video seems just a little too deliberate. The dirt cheap Babylon 5 series 1 set I ordered around christmas arrived yesterday. I had forgotten both how good and bad it is. I can't wait to get to the exciting plot developments! I've been trying to figure out how to reliably transfer data between Finale and Sibelius. And short of buying the Doliet softwares to export/import the MusicXML formats I think I may stick with using .mid and doing a lot of tidying up. Which is a terrible pity. Rather reminiscent of when Jenny sent round a document from Works and nobody could read it until I found a Microsoft plugin for Word to allow it to read Works files. How backwards is that? The same software company and the two word processing packages are incompatible!

Grumpy Kitchen Troll

There are always days when socialising is not on the menu. A Twelfth Night party, featuring a lot of people in a lot of very different interpretations of crowns, would usually be my idea of a Great Time. But not tonight. Here's a nice chair in the kitchen. Here's me upon the chair. Here's everyone else in the other room. Except when they come in looking like a Roman Emperor:

There's some mulled cider. In Gloria by Abbie Betinis, which we sang at Christmas, there's a line "Cider burns your tongue," which we altered to whisky, for local relevance. Cider. Burns your tongue? How odd! Apparently not - here we have hot cider with oranges, cloves and cinnamon in. Smells very mulled. Pity i don't like spices...

I think I've got the Januaries

You know that post-new year ennui? The sudden comedown from a shopping and eating bonanza? The feeling that everything ahead is DULL and DEPRESSING? That's the Januaries. And I've got it hard. On the bright side, the Wall-E trailer looks just as cute as it should be. I'm far more excited by this than the anticipation of Cars or Ratatouille.

I hate banks.

They destroy my sense of inner balance.

Days like this make blogging seem worthwhile

Wake up. Snow. Work. Ollie was meeting Stephen for Coffee. I had to see if Fat Face could help with the missing button on my lovely new jacket, and find out if Ben was indeed going to be available for some sort of excitement this evening. Stephen suggested we all go to see St. Trinian's. On meeting Ben I passed on the St. Trinian's proposal and he was positive, as was Robert; Ben was to finish work around 19:00. Then came the inevitable debate about which cinema to go to. Cineworld is on the right side of town for four of us BUT it's wet and slushy and requires lots of walking. Film at 21:15. Vue at Omni is similarly close to Ben and Robert although it's quite far from the rest of us BUT it is within very easy reach of buses which would actually mean less walking in the sog. Film at 21:00. Vue at Ocean Terminal is far from everyone BUT the bus thing again AND it has lots of nice shops. Also, Stephen has never been there! Film at 20:15. In the end, Ollie, Joe, Stephen and Robert all dropped out of the Film plan, leaving me with time to kill before Ben was to finish work after which we would go to Ocean Terminal (there's a GAP scarf I've been trying to get hold of). Coffee. Fat Face (no more jackets. Refund on return or if I get it fixed they'll pay. Too much hassle.) Visit Graeme (discuss Battlestar Galactica. Woo-hoo!). Back for Ben. So we wander round some shops.

Ocean Terminal has some very interesting and LARGE decorations up. I'm glad I got to see them, they're not the usual Edinburgh Festive fare. We dashed into Starbucks as they were closing and suddenly there was a queue of people behind us and some very cross-looking staff.

...and off to Enchanted. Yes, we decided it was more guaranteeably fun than a remake. The film was a good bit of Disney cheese. Especially the chipmunk trying to do charades. And the impromptu musical number in Central Park. On leaving we decide to get on the waiting 22 bus rather than hanging around in the cold until the 11 arrived - which would have meant me not having to change at Princes St. Ben got on the bus and I nipped over to the bin to drop the leftover cinema juice in the bin, only to find when I turned around that the doors had closed and the bus was leaving - Ben stood in the middle of the floor looking scared and very very alone. The next stop was far away; Ben called me and said EEK and byeeee. So I waited for the next 22. And got on it. SMS from Ben saying he feels like he's been somewhat kidnapped and did I feel like being his Prince Charming. Hardly. People on the bus indulging in what was hopefully hyperbolic boasting about a super-powerful green laser one of them was going to buy. Oops! There's my stop just passed - better press the bell and get off at the next one which has suddenly passed the next one's miles away! I get off behind Cineworld, in what seemed a blunder sent from the Fates. Wander up to the main road and get on a 1. A few minutes later I decide to pre-empt myself and ding the dinger so that I don't end up back in Leith. Oops! There's actually a stop right here, which wasn;t quite where I wanted to get off and now the driver is glaring at me for pressing the bell so late. And then a meander over to Lothian Road where I get the 11 I originally decided not to wait for, and get home. And there's still thick snow in the front garden, which is nice after the city centre was mostly just wet now.

Now I really must get back to watching Victor/Victoria. It's therapy for my weird day.

But since we've no place to go...

LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW

Come on in, the water's lovely

The water is also frozen into huge, fluffy plaques which, due to their large surface area, fall more slowly than their mundane cousins. That is to say, IT'S SNOWING.

Beware of Live Traffic and of sales

A day of repeatedly bumping into Stephen and Joe, even when we were meant to not be in the same place. I think they're stalking me or something.

I don't know what LIVE TRAFFIC is. Is it unusual? Does Edinburgh have a problem with DEAD TRAFFIC usually? or UNDEAD TRAFFIC perhaps? H&M provided some cheap pants. Pants, incidentally, I use to mean underwear rather than trousers. Because us Scots are funny that way. Or rather, because other people are weird and can't use one word to mean only one thing. I discovered a few years ago that Ollie an His Kin(d) use pants to mean either underwear or trousers, which is just TOO CONFUSING. If only it had stopped at pants. Schuh had some nice CAT shoes which, since shoes were my goal of the day, I purchased. TICK! Fat Face is where it all went wrong. I was in there about ten days ago and saw a lovely grey winter jacket for £STUPID. I pawed at it and then left; my current winter coat has been with me since C&A were not yet closed (never mind demolished, rebuilt and opened as H&M/Maxx) and it really needed replacing but not that much. I'm a skinflint! Oh, but today they had removed £50 from the total of £STUPID and so I was dilemma-ed. And there was a really nice top that hung on me like a baggy top rather than a top which is hanging because it's large, reduced to £8.00! Alas, this t-shirt should not have been reduced. They offered to give it to me for half price, £13.75, but it seemed less of a bargain. The problem was that, as it wasn't on the Reduced list and the tag had fallen off then they couldn't charge me what it was labelled. Even when I grabbed another one with the same price. Eventually we found another in the same size and raised an eyebrow before they gave in. Hurrah! Why is it that the jacket is size L and, other than the sleeves being a touch short for my Mr Tickle arms, it fits perfectly BUT the t-shirt from the same shop which fits similarly is an XXL? Who knows?

We then had coffee with the boys and Stephen's family. Lewis appears to be inexorably drawn to me, presumably because I loathe attention-seeking children and attempt to injure them whenever possible. N.B. Blogger does not allow an ampersand in the tags. WHY?

Paper Power and the anticipation of a slow day

I finally got around to watching the Read or Die OVA this morning. It's quite simple but surprisingly enjoyable. I think I'll have to hunt down the series now. Ollie has become obsessed with Carnivàle, and is now much further through it than I am. This is probably because I never get through programmes I have to actually watch, rather than having on in the background. And so I never manage to see anything with subtitles, or shows which are heavy on visuals and low on dialogue. Today I'm going to look for a new pair of shoes. I fully expect this will lead to Ollie finding hundreds of bargains in the sales and me buying nothing more than lots of coffee throughout the day. Watch this space for tales of sales woe.

Happy New oh why bother?

Oh what a lot of fireworks we had. All across Edinburgh there were bang, big bangs and VERY BIG BANGS. I swear it was actually the apocalypse. There was wine, there was beer and there was a lot of odd foodstuffs that I threw together to pass the time. Eventually there was Trivial Pursuits, of a sort, and then there was collapsing on the floor and falling asleep about 6am. Ollie had passed out, slightly snotty and feeling sorry for himself, about 1am having watched some Star Trek: TNG. Stephen flagged somewhere around 3am. It was left to Joe and myself to be reckless late-night mumblers. I don't know, the youth of today grumble grumble... After a rude awakening between 10.30 and 11.30 this morning, courtesy of a well-rested and mischievous Ollie I eventually stole the Xbox 360 controller from a slightly-the-worse-for-wear Joe and settled down to play Overlord for most of the day. Ahhh. Start the new year as you mean to go on. Late nights, long lies and endless gaming. I am a student, after all! There is now an odd stew in front of me which is lovely, even though I had to leave the potatoes in the pot because we didn't think to parboil them. Sigh. At least we've got Weeds to watch now. I think I may try to indulge in traditional January 2nd activities tomorrow. Nobody would let me watch Hairspray today :(