T'eyla Minh

Finally got the website to cooperate and the flowers are due to arrive on Saturday.  It's done.

Holy God.  It's done.  Methinks my icon should read "Kicking BeXy Arse" instead... :|

The message on the card reads, quite incoherently, as follows: ( Very short but cut anyway. )

It didn't give me much space.

So.  That's that.  Now there's just the rest of it to sort out.  bizarre_imagery, I need your lettery messagey thing by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest, because I need to get it all in the post on Friday morning...

Meep.

Someone remind me why I'm doing this again?

It's been a while since I had a really Bad Idea.  Time to rectify that situation.

Go here and vote, even if only on the first question/radio-button questions.  Many of my Bad Ideas are brainstormed through someone (usually sweeterthing :P), so I value everyone's opinions.

I am well aware, incidentally, that the 'stalker' option looks very tempting, and is most likely true. Please try to refrain from clicking on it if you can honestly help it. :P

Didn’t get around to posting this one last night as it was later than I thought.  Bloody Hagley Road traffic.  Anyway, some thoughts on ‘Scape and thereby definite spoilers, beneath the cut.

( Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars – some thoughts. Click me, Eni. Cliiiiick meeee! :P )

So, now for today.  There was some random excitement when a car driving a speed hit a parked car, lost control, and ended up on its roof right outside our building.  Everyone in our office congregated in Liz's room to be nosy, and one of the TMs called the police.  There was some miscommunication along the lines when people were trying to figure out what had happened.

"What's happened?  There's a car on the roof??"

"No, there's a car on it's roof..."

Two fire engines and two police cars turned up, and then a bunch of firemen proceeded to stare at it and mutter a bit about how to right it again.  They reminded me inexplicably of men doing roadworks, actually, in that it seemed to take 4 of them to do the work and one to think about it.  I was about to head out to lunch at the time, but that was put slightly on hold while we waited for the emergency services to turn up.  Crappy response time, guys.  Seriously. :P  After that we got bored as the car had stopped smoking and there were no casualties, so I headed out:

"Would anyone like anything that isn't a fireman?"

By the time I'd walked back the car was right side up again and most of the officials had gone.  Well, it was exciting for a few minutes.

I tell ya, it's all go in Ladywood. :D

And now, a mini-rant:  ( Something else that annoys me about the Phantom movie. )

Here endeth the rant.  Yeah, I'm whinging.  But... ugh, it's all I can do, and even if nobody else understands the importance of this movie, I do, and if I don't complain about it, nobody will.  Except lots of people are, so I'm not the only one whinging over nothing. :P

Wow, long post.  I shall go now.  I'll work on getting MHOTP! screencaps when people give me more to find.  Also, the MH interview I found last night keeps seeping into the periphery of my mind and making me snigger.  If I ever see Karl Beattie in the street, I shall slap him for emotional torment.

Right, well, in a moment I'm going to e-mail everybody instructions on how to get to my house (except for those who I'm collecting, which is all... one of you.  Err, unless anyone else wants to be collected.  It'd be doable, if complicated.) as well as what time to arrive and what to bring, etc.  Some of you I'm still not sure are coming or not, so I'll just send the details anyway.

On Saturday, we moved lots of furniture.  Then we went out in the rain to Maskerade to find me a wig - I can hire one for a very reasonable ten pounds - and I finally got some red eyeshadow and discovered that they sell black feather wings for £25.50, which is about the same as they were on Hot Topic's site.  But I'll check, because I think the Hot Topic ones were angel wings and not bat wings and probably marginally cheaper...  in any case, I may have to get some.  Wings!  We got back from Maskerade and moved some more furniture, so those of you (all... two of you) who have already seen my house will be slightly confused upon entering the living room...

And on Sunday, obviously, I was at my father's, though most of it was blocked out by my latest Alanis-Spiderman-Evanescence-Cerys playlist and the Drama and Action of Eastenders.  He's found a local amateur operatics group type thing, which meets every other Sunday, and asked me if I might be interested.  I declined, for several reasons:

1) I don't want to join something with him, because... I just don't.  It'd be more than a battle of wills.  I'd want to frelling hit him in rhythm to get him to sing in time.
2) The inevitable embarrassment/heartache/annoyance/general arghishness if one of us got in and the other didn't.  Especially so if it was me and not him.
3) I'm better than him.  Well, in any case, I'm younger than him and my voice is more trainable and slightly more versatile (and, y'know, higher; I have the Sarah Brightman syndrome of everything sounding higher than it really is), which would act in my favour
4) He's had more experience than me, which would act in his favour.
5) Last but not least, he's had 23 years to try and spend time with me (especially in this kind of capacity) and he decides to do so now?  Uh, no.  Sorry.  Not interested.  Maybe back when I actually liked spending time with him it would have been a possibility...

I do want to join something; once I've stopped gallivanting around the country and can actually commit to rehearsals I'll look further into it.  I don't think I ever told you this at the time, but just before I started uni last year, he was supposed to be directing a production of The Wizard of Oz and the last I heard until very recently, he was in the casting stages and looking for a Dorothy.  And I said in jest, "I'll do it!" - and got laughed off.  The most recent news is he's "lost interest" in it.

How can you lose interest in having that kind of power??  I mean, unless that's just me, but... *sigh* I'm beyond despairing.  Really.

So, yeah.  That's the latest aggravation.

I have nothing to do at work again, as I finished my horrendously huge pile of typing and distributions, so I think I'll spend tomorrow sneakily working on chapter five of Come Forward when nobody's looking, and find something that looks like Child Protection typing to do whenever someone comes up behind me.  I hate having my desk right by the filing cabinet, though I've got the instinctive minimising down to a fine art. :)

Right, email directions coming up, and then I'll book those bloody tickets...

I have entered new realms of ultimate geekdom.  Every time I go to Asda, I promise myself I won't buy either more clothes or more books.  So I come out of Asda with a(nother) new top and Derek Acorah's book.

Yes, you heard me.

The deciding factor in this was purely the fact that he mentions the Brannigans "Godfrey Parks" incident, and this amuses me for some reason.  Honest.

My God, I'm so glad I'm not going to my father's next Sunday.  Seriously.  Today was actually marginally bearable until the last half an hour or so...

Item the First
An advert for Most Haunted - Unseen came on during the break of Will & Grace, informing me that it was back on Tuesdays, which I already knew, but thanks to general withdrawal from Yvette and her Intrepid Investigators^TM, I started squealing.  And was then forced to explain what it was to my grandmother, but I'm getting my MH explanation down to a fine art, now:  "It's a real life documentary thing.  They go to haunted places in Britain to see if they really are haunted, and it's utterly awful but very addictive and I'm obsessed."    This was also semi-relevant because she was trying to get me to go with her to some random old building somewhere on Friday night (the day when I'm semi-conscious and about ready to crawl into bed at 3pm...) which I plainly refused to do because... ugh, I hate going ghost hunting in large groups of annoying people, and, just, I don't particularly want to.  So this led into a conversation about ghosts in general.  She doesn't believe in ghosts.  I do.  So she asked me to explain why I did, and what they were, so cue me pulling all my random Derek-inspired knowledge from the depths of my brain, embellishing a little, and trying to explain the concept...

Ye gods.  Never again.  I mean, how exactly would you define a ghost without having to explain lots of other complicated buzz-words (like 'residual' :D)?  It's not easy.  And anyway, my reasoning is that I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, but there has to be more to death than just death, and if not one of those two, we have to go somewhere.  I like to believe there's something after death, because otherwise... well, what's the point?  Nobody lives forever in their mortal state, right?  But what if you could come back on some other plain of reality and watch the time going past without you?

Sorry for the waxing poetic, there.  I didn't give her all of that, just the Heaven/Hell thing.  Personally, I find ghosts easier to believe in than the Christian ideals.

Item the Second
Dentistry, of all things.  Here's the thing: I haven't been for a dental checkup since before I started University.  My reason - lack of knowledge of where the dentists were in Derby, for one.  But more than that, I absolutely hate and detest going to the dentist, and always have.  When I was seven or so and my first baby tooth fell out, I was taken to the dentist that worked next door to my grandmother, Paul.  He poked and prodded the offending tooth, and I cried, which annoyed him, so he yanked the damn thing out of there, which made me cry even more, and since then I was handed over to Miss Porter, a much friendlier dentist.  To this day, I still can't stand Paul-the-dentists, despite the reasonably good job he did of capping the tooth I cracked in first year.  Despite having the lovely Miss Porter-the-dentist for most of my going-to-the-dentist-regularly life, I hate going to the dentist.  I hate getting my teeth scraped the most; fillings, etc, I don't mind as much, but it's the teeth-scraping I hate.  It always feels like my teeth are going to break.

I'm also convinced I should've been given braces years ago, and wasn't, though I doubt they would've made any difference because a) I do have a slightly cleft palate (apparently), which forces my front teeth forwards, and b) I still suck my thumb to this day and the braces would only have gotten in the way and made me upset.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is, I've not been to see a dentist in so long that I'm a little scared to go to one now, not least because I don't think I can face the inevitable head-shaking and questioning, and because of teeth-scraping, etc.  I would be perfectly happy to get my teeth checked out - I need the capped one levelling so it matches its neighbour, for a start - if they would put me under anaesthetic, which they won't, because I'm asthmatic.  Hence the still putting it off.

So, what does this have to do with today?  I don't entirely know how we got onto it in the first place, but the short version is that she kept on pestering me about it (and we've had this conversation before) and saying how I should look after my teeth, and that she'd make me an appointment with Miss Porter again, because I liked Miss Porter, didn't I, and if I told them I was scared, they'd be nice to me, and when are you going to sort it out, oh, I'll get you an appointment, and WILL YOU JUST LEAVE IT ALONE, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

*breathes*

And still it continued, until I couldn't stand it any more, turned the television off and made a point of banging things around to indicate it was damn well time for me to go home now, and ignoring her.  "Oh, I've annoyed you now, haven't I?"  Yes, why do you think I'm ignoring you.  "Haven't I?  Harry Potter?"  (And that's another thing - please realise, I do not like being called that, I do not resemble him just because I wear glasses, I am not male and to inadvertently suggest so is very annoying, and this will not change the more you call me it.  I am not going to come around.  I am merely going to get more annoyed.) To which I said, "Just shut up," and started packing things up even louder.

She brings out the absolute brattiest worst in me, and I just can't help it, and I hate it.  In my father's defence, he did back me up afterwards.  The car journey back was spent in silence, more or less, with her sulking because I wasn't talking to her, and me slowing fuming in the front seat.  God knows, I try to reason with her, to have adult conversations, but when I do, she makes some inane comment about how "clever" I am, or how "beautiful" I am, and how nobody else compares, and I just give up, because it's like talking to a brick wall.  I have a low self-image; constant praising of me does not help in the slightest.

And to top that off, I had to explain the "Betty Crocker at Betty Ford" line from The Stepford Wives to my father in the car.  Give me strength, or a pop culture dictionary...

I reiterate: I'm so glad I'm not going to my father's next Sunday.  Seriously.

I wandered downstairs at 12.30 (gah, sleeping late again; here the cycle begins...) to find my mother off work because of her cough and watching a film, which now I must see the beginning of, if only to see the ending in context...

Guarding Tess, it's called.  I saw the last hour, maybe less, but it was really quite good.  The basic plot is that a secret service agent, Doug someone (Nicholas Cage) is assigned with his team to protect the president's widow, Tess someone (Shirley Maclaine) - I'm horrible with surnames...  Anyway, at first they just don't get on - she doesn't want the protection, she's stubborn, and he's at his wit's end.  At the point I started watching, she went for a joy ride with her chauffeur, Earl.  Turns out she also has an inoperable brain tumour.  She's being protected solely because she's a public treasure, apparently.  She gets kidnapped by Earl's sister and brother-in-law, and Doug figures out Earl's involved and gets her location out of him, thus getting there in time with the FBI, etc. and saving her life.

It's a comedy, done well, amusing but not overly so.  It's easy and fun to watch, but honestly, given the way they developed the relationship between Doug and Tess (intentionally, I might add, despite my initially seeking it out in subtext because of my inherent Norma/Joe-esque radar in these situations) it's quite a... dangerous subject matter to explore in a low-budget light comedy..  Older woman/younger man is never really explored without there being Ulterior Motives (even in Sunset the implications are less than innocent; I just... chose to ignore them. :P) so it was quite refreshing in itself, just watching these two grow fond of each other...  It was done so nicely, too.  Just slipped in there when nobody expected it, nothing explicitly said, nothing admitted, nothing happening, just... there.  Lovely.  I can see quite a few people who weren't expecting it just going "But he... and she... and they... oh. Okay."

So... I need to watch it again.  And I'm utterly ashamed to admit that not five minutes later, I wanted to write fic for it.  I need help.

I also watched the first night of I'm Famous and Frightened on Living, and I think I can safely say my IQ has dropped about ten points in the process.  I knew it wasn't going to be anywhere near as good as Most Haunted, but wow, I didn't think it would be that bad.  I mean, really.  It's utterly horrendous.  Keith Chegwin, you may have been doing live television for over thirty years (wow, really?) but that doesn't mean you're any good at it.  And no, I'm not just saying this because I'm biased as a MH fangirl.  It really, really was appalling.

And I'm listening to the two hour IF&F Extra in the background, and I feel my brain trickling out of my ears.  For the love of God, make them stop...

Having wound down from the MH caption insanity (and my inspiration on that's completely dried up, so no more captioning from me for a while...) rumours are rife that series five will be the last one, which makes me sad.  They can't end the series!  They're not allowed to!  They have fangirls to please, dammit!  But, on the plus side, one of the upcoming investigations is in Swindon, which is where Vicky lives, and if I can find out exactly when they're visiting, I think I may be due a stalkage...

I have made pandorasblog's CD and it'll be in the post tomorrow.  I hope she enjoys it. :)

My mother has become an Anne Summers party host to get spare cash.  Which should hopefully equate eventually to free, or at least discounted, cosetry.  Hurrah.  The lady who came to enrol her is completely nuts. :)

None of the pubs I've applied to have gotten back to me, the bastards.  So tomorrow I'll have to do another search at the Job Centre.  Just... ugh, I fucking hate job hunting.  The only jobs I've ever successfully managed to get weren't based on application forms, but on actually talking to a real person who can see you and interact with you, rather than trying to guess your personality from some basic answers.  One thing's for damn sure; I am not, repeat not working at McDonald's again.  It's the most soul-destroying experience I've ever been through, and I'm never doing it ever again.  Ever.  I'd rather vacuum bloody office blocks.

*sigh*  I want some money, please.

( Some ramblings about writing. This'll get long, and I'll complain a lot about nothing in particular. I suggest you ignore it. )

I would like a new brain now.  I'll swap you for one that doesn't think so much.  Just for a week, I want to live like someone who doesn't give a shit about anything and is quite happy being a pointless blot on the landscape, rather than living like someone who cares about far too much and is still a blot on the landscape.  Or maybe just being without brain would be nice.  I'll sell it.

For sale to good home: one brain + thoughts.  Twenty-two years on the clock; well-used but slightly mangled.  Would suit anorexic goth chick, but owner will sell to best offer.

Any takers?

Gah.  I'm really sorry...

( MH is love! )

I'm really, really sorry.  You can all thump me now.

I present: my first mini-movie icon...



Derek/Yvette, incidentally.  I don't know where exactly they are, but it was early series one when Yvette was a big wuss.

Gah.  Stop shipping for real people, dammit.  Stop it.  Just stop.