T'eyla Minh

Somewhat overdue an update - this is what happens when I have work to do.

Firstly: in writing news, I've finished my latest Pirates story, "Oranges to Florida", inasmuch as it's done on paper but I have 6.5 hand-written pages still to type up. Once that's done I will give it another once-over before posting to FFN / plugging on Tumblr. I've been trying to keep the style consistent, but a recent bout of reinspiration has meant that the latter half of the story is more dialogue-heavy than the beginning (and indeed more than I envisaged when I started), as well as including more from Jack's POV in addition to Elizabeth's. (Also, thanks to starting to follow the Sparrabeth blog on Tumblr halfway through writing it, the ending went in a direction I hadn't quite intended because my head was full of meta and subtext and FEELS. I'm not complaining, though, because it ends with some bloody glorious angst. :D)

Paul and I have finally made some progress in moving around the upstairs rooms, although the plan did change a little bit. We're about halfway done now - the daybed and TV / video storage unit (ex-wardrobe) have switched rooms with the PC and cube unit (effectively making the larger spare bedroom the office rather than the box room). This has meant that Denise and I were able to commence our X-Files rewatch on Sunday as we have somewhere to actually watch the videos. :D

In the process of room rearranging I thankfully uncovered my Sims 3 disc so have installed that on the laptop. It now runs properly and has already eaten about 16 hours of my life; at some point soon I'm going to start creating my own (hopefully fandom) characters, and I'm already dreading the insanity that will inevitably ensue... I think I'll probably start with Jonathan Creek; if I'm successful in orchestrating a Sim!Harry, I will be sure to share the (doubtless terrifying) results. :D

After tweeting a random conversation about badgers at work this afternoon, it has also resulted in potentially re-starting the Grand Jonathan Creek Watchathon soon with cloudsinvenice. (Badgers = Jonathan Creek. So shall it be forever amen.)

The conversation in question went something like this:

Karen, who walks to work: I saw a badger walking to work this morning.
[Cue jokes about the badger going to the office.]
Me: Did it have a briefcase?
Maria: *has hysterics*

(We were all very tired and it was quiet in the office. :P)

As for the X-Files rewatch, on Sunday we managed to get through the first seven episodes ("Pilot", "Deep Throat", "Squeeze", "Conduit", "The Jersey Devil", "Shadows" and "Ghost in the Machine" - the fact that I still remember these without looking them up demonstrates how many times I've seen season 1). My intention this time around is to (a) finish all nine seasons, even though it's going to take a bit longer than last time, and (b) top up my original LJ episode reviews / recaps with different episodes. In all likelihood, however, I will just go on Tumblr and flail at the shippiness instead. :P

Rewatches with friends are fun. :D

( A few thoughts so far... )

Still not much to say about the actual episodes yet, as season 1 was a hodge-podge of "monster of the week" and early conspiracy stuff before the proper mythology set in, but I'll try and do an update every time we watch some episodes, at the very least. (I do, however, reserve the right to continually flail over "Post-Modern Prometheus". All my life.)

You may have noticed I am not football's biggest fan. I've watched the first two England matches under duress (I happened to be in the same room when they were on) and today several people at work set up a television in one of the meeting rooms in order to watch the 3.00pm match this afternoon. I understand the score was favourable, thus scuppering my hopes of us LOSING HORRIBLY.

Does that make me unpatriotic? No it bloody doesn't. I frelling hate football. Hate it. There are better ways to show your Englishness than shouting in a lairy fashion at some idiots kicking a ball around.

That being said, this letter in The Metro amused me this morning.



Because honestly, if we can't beat the USA at a game they can't even refer to properly, we are a lost cause. This is a country that takes games we play at school and makes them EASIER (American Football = Rugby with wussy armour; Baseball = Rounders with helpful catchy glove; Basketball = Netball where you can run with the ball. Miss Jackson would eat you alive for that. :P)

I shall now flee before my potentially very unpopular opinion loses me half of my f-list. Buhbye.

just go here.

I was only half-convinced they would actually make a real Compare the Meerkats site, but there it is. :P

Quite busy this weekend. I was out most of Saturday due to rehearsal and concert, and then Paul went to a house party after the concert and didn't return until 5.00am...

The concert went okay, I think. The audience turn out wasn't quite as bad as expected, and apart from the tenor soloist coming in early a couple of times (we had to rehearse that bit about four times and it still didn't work) it actually sounded okay. Have to do it all again in two weeks' time in Bristol, but at least now the rehearsals are going to be Messiah and Christmas-focussed, which is always a joy. Now if the German Market would just bugger off I might be able to enjoy Christmas for once. (I've booked off 3rd December as my now-traditional Shopping Day, and this year I'm going to take the shopping trolley with me...)

As for the rest of Saturday: I walked back to the city centre with Paul and one of his friends, Sonja, as they were going off to Mara's birthday party together, and we parted ways at Pij. I was utterly soaked by the time I got home. On getting back I put washing to dry upstairs (this was at about 10.30) and then slobbed about online for a bit without really achieving anything except a Deep and Meaningful email conversation with Eni. I went to bed around 2.00am after another episode of X-Files (now at the end of season 2), until I couldn't keep my eyes open. These days I'm not very good at sleeping alone (I don't count Lisa being in as being not alone), especially in a creaky old house with neighbours who don't seem to sleep, so it's best if I just tire myself out before I attempt to sleep.

Anyway, as a result, I woke up purely by chance at 5.00am needing to cough, only to have Paul go "Hello?" at me in the dark, which was vaguely terrifying...

The other bizarre thing was another bloke called Paul who rang up wanting to speak to Lisa and ended up with me answering the phone. This occurred at 12.30am (yes, that's after midnight) so I was probably not exactly completely awake, and as a result when he introduced himself I thought it was someone at Mara's party taking the piss, having stolen my Paul's phone. Other Paul attempted to prove he was who he said he was with some nonsensical (to me, anyway) anecdote, and then it transpired I was not Lisa. I had no idea if she was in, but nevertheless, even if she was, I imagine she would be in bed at 12.30am anyway. After that I shut the living room door so as not to hear the phone (meh...) and ended up making myself some pasta at around the same time because I was hungry. It was a bit of a strange night, all told.

On Sunday, of course, we slept in. Went out to Sainsbury's to get breakfast stuff and then watched telly for a bit until going over to Paul's mum's for the Firework Extravaganza which didn't happen last week. We arrived first and tried to get the bonfire started, which lasted for a while but burnt the wood a little too quickly and kept going out, unfortunately. Still got some interesting picture of it, nonetheless. Darren and Andrea and kids arrived at about 6.00pm and we set off a few fireworks, though it all ended a bit suddenly due to some Familial Angst on their side. In any case, Paul and I stayed and the remaining four of us set off what was left of the fireworks. This involved a lot of ducking and covering because the damn things kept dropping to earth practically on top of our heads: either the wooden stalks of the rockets or the orange plastic tops, which promptly hit the roof and shattered everywhere. Oh, and then there was the rocket which failed to take off, rose three inches in the air and then landed in the garden before exploding, which was... well, perhaps 'exciting' is the wrong word, but by that point everyone was a bit drunk and found it vaguely hilarious in an almost-losing-an-eye way...

We ended the night watching the start of I'm A Celebrity... before heading home and going straight to bed. I'll upload the photographs later, though most of them aren't very good. I think I need to go to a professional firework display one of these days to test out the firework function better, as my timing was basically crap. Pretty fire photos, though...

Thankfully, it's a quiet one next weekend, though it's going to get considerably busier as Christmas approaches. I'll just be glad when the second Beethoven concert is out of the way. I mean, it sounded frelling amazing, but my word, it's tiring to sing. We get to sit down for a bit after the "Credo" section, but that section is about 15 minutes long, mostly in the upper range of the voice and incredibly fast... absolutely mad. Beethoven was a sadist, clearly.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Adrian's amusing comment to inspire the tenors:

"When you're singing this, imagine Beethoven going ' I vill write zis part for ze tenors and keeeel zem!'..."

Dunno if it worked, but just about summed up the piece in general, really. :D

As ever, I didn't intend this to be so long... can't be bothered to cut, though, sorry. :P

ihasacortina may well be the greatest LJ community in the history of LJ communities.

That is all.

Edit: Although I am massively disappointed by the lack of Boosh!macros. :)

I got bored and followed a recent link on pandorasblog's journal relating to Anne Rice reviewing things on Amazon and imdb, and went off to have a look. Rice links her Amazon reviews from her website, assuming - naturally - that her avid fans will be interesting in reading absolutely everything she has to say...

Her review of Interview with a Vampire (the film) is quite amusing. She gives everything she reviews five stars. There's also a 'review' which takes the form of berating people who have left negative reviews for one of her books (part of the Chronicles) because "you're not coming at it from the right angle" or some such.

Perhaps the most amusing to me was her review of the Phantom adaptation.

Five stars, Anne? Really?

This says to me several things:

1) She's never seen the musical.

2) She's either never read the book, or has only read Leroux.

3) She fails at Phantom.

Anyone who can give that movie five stars is wrong in the brain. :P

(I notice, however, that she hasn't reviewed the Queen of the Damned movie. Clearly wasn't pleased with that one, then.)

11.15am:
I think that may have just made my morning.

I just finished typing a tape from Vel. She finished the report but must've forgotten to stop recording, because it carried on for the remaining minute or so of the tape and revealed her battled with a flying insect. I heard "Get out of here!" and "The window's open!" quite distinctly. :)

I'm not entirely sure whether to be amused, or terrified that this is the single highlight of my day...

12.30pm:
The downside is, I just tried to open a file off the P drive - to help out a completely useless Social Worker who is always completely incapable of finding these things for herself - and it crashed my entire PC. Luckily, Word auto-recovered 90% of the document I'd been typing...

With Eni, of course.

Posting this here because I'm not entirely sure she got the link during the multiple bootings...

( The Adventures of Staple Man! )

It's safer not to ask, but suffice it to say it had something to do with Virtual Staplers.  The Internet is a scary place.

I did an entry this afternoon at work, because I was losing the will to live...

( This afternoon's entry )

So, yes, not that exciting, really.

It took me slightly longer to get home today than I would like.  I left work at 5.30 and got back at 6.45, due to train stupidity.  It was delayed by 10 minutes and subsequently rammed (mostly because it was only two carriages long - nice planning there, Centro) and then another one turned up 5 minutes or so later that was empty.  The bus wasn't too bad.  Also, the lights in the tunnel just before the station weren't working, so there was a big, spooky chasm to the right...

We're having enchiladas for dinner. :)

Going to Paul's tomorrow so will update on Thursday, assuming anything exciting happens, which it probably won't.  We're still working through Twin Peaks so should at least get up to episodes 2 and 3 tomorrow night.  It's not like there's anything on telly.

I don't remember when I last updated, but I think it was Monday.

I'll do the interests meme later. Have just about caught up on my f-list this morning (you spammers) but not in any in-depth fashion. Hugs, sympathy, congratulations, etc, etc, etc to everyone who wants them...

So, brief update.

Tuesday
Depite wanting a 'quiet night in', Paul dragged me to the Jug of Ale in Moseley for the pub quiz, because it turned out that Bertie Wooster (Inliner) and Luke (legs11) were both going and he'd never met the former and hadn't seen the latter in ages. As it turned out, Luke forgot and didn't turn up, but Bertie (real name: Ben) did and was a thoroughly pleasant chap.

We, "The Bertie Wooster Memorial Fund", came third.

Highlights from random conversations include:

Quizmeister: Name a food you can eat with your fingers. (It was the Family Fortunes round)
rubytitania: Crisps!
metalmikey666: Crisps aren't food!

rubytitania: I'd quite like to go to New Orleans...
teylaminh: Is that because of the vampire slash?
rubytitania: Natternatternattersomethingsomethingsometh- No, it's not because of the vampire slash! ...well, maybe a little bit...

It's not easy to retell that one... but it was funny at the time.

The evening was thoroughly pleasant, though, and involved the sweetest sherbert love heart ever. :) You'll have to catch me on messenger to find out why... :P

Wednesday
Eventless day at work other than the fact that the Department, once more, is falling apart and the CPAs are left to put it back together.

The evening was spent at Jimmy Spices for a leaving/birthday/general meal organised by Tina H. Starters were good; main courses less so... It all seemed a bit cliquey, but that could'vde been to do with the fact that the Small Heath crew sat at one end of the table and the Ladywood crew at the other end. Ah, well.

Other than that, things have been relatively normal.

Today I desperately need to tidy my room, as the general mess is not helped by the excess of random clothing piling up on the floor. Meh.