clo_again

So I have Feelings about tonight's Merlin but they mostly take the form of incoherent squeaking sounds of mingled distress and joy, which is rather hard to type up (I liked it. I think. I'm not sure 'like' is the word for "Bradley James' sad!acting is making me want to leave the room so I don't have to watch the heartbreak anymore". It was certainly good, though I think it deserved to be a double parter really).

So instead of my Conflicted Feelings, have two most excellent Merlin-related things to watch!

First, Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Eoin Macken (WHO HAS CUT OFF HIS GWAINE HAIR, WHAT. THIS BRINGS MY DISAPPROVAL) were on the RTE Late Late Show yesterday (that's a link because I'm too tired to work out how to embed that vid. I hope it's watchable everywhere. They show up at about 1:11 in; the vid just let me to skip to that point wihout buffering which was...nice). Colin has an adorable cold-voice and Katie is stunning (I love her top so much) while talking about her massive crush on Han Solo, and they jointly mock Eoin for his modelling and ask THE MOST HILARIOUS QUESTION ABOUT ACTION LOL WHAT (I'm watching it as I type this, with pauses to flail madly at the air in joy that the internet exists to bring me these things. Stick around after the Merlin bit too because Tim Minchin sings a special RTE song! \o/ Clearly a GENIUS put together the line-up for this show.)

Eoin also (guiltily) lets slip that he and Rupert (Sir Leon) get to have a proper fight at some point which I can't quite form words of coherence over; I adore Leon and he still slightly gets lumped with the 'expendable' knights despite being there the longest and he needs more action. Especially with other pretty knights. ESPECIALLY. I can't wait for this episode (oh Merlin, why are Saturdays so far apart?)

Second thing to watch is the Gay Times shoot/interview with Rupert (Leon), Tom (Percival) and Eoin, which cuts between them prancing about being shirtless and giggly and exceedingly pretty and the three of them answering questions together in a hilarious bantering testosterone-filled way, with much mockage and Rupert trying to be sensible and Eoin not trying to be sensible at all and just, awesome. Also, I actually have the embed code for it yay!



(I have a shameful confession: after watching this interview, I walked into WH Smith's the next day with every intention of buying the Gay Times magazine. I made it as far as the magazine section, as the right shelf, and I was eyeing the cover admiringly - it dawned on me it was on the top shelf with the porn and I honestly could not bring myself to reach up there and take it to the till. I AM SO ASHAMED OF MY LACK OF COURAGE. AND CARING WHAT IMPRESSION I MAKE ON A CASHIER WHO WON'T EVEN REMEMBER ME. Fail, self. I've had knowing looks from male cashiers while buying chocolate and ibruprofen, which was actually a dumb move since he obviously suspected I was PMSing and should've been wary of being punched in the nose. I went to see the first Pokemon movie when I was in high school and we got laughed at by the ticket guy! Nothing should be embarrassing after that. But apparently, this is. Sigh.

I'm meeting jesse_kips for what should, it has just occurred to me, be a special joint-birthday dinner in a week so I may drag her along for moral support if the magazine is still there. Dammit, I will own my own shirtless!Knights of Camelot.)

~

And so this isn't just another yet-more-Merlin rambling in an LJ post-post, ( have some pictures from a walk over the fell today (I had a lot of fun finding interesting mushrooms, most of which I'm sure are massively poisonous but pretty! )

In conclusion: I am very tired now and wishing it wasn't already Sunday. Work is somewhat stressful right now (you have no idea. No, really) and I could do with a three day weekend. Someone, please sort that for me, thanks.

Alternatively, change the two numbers I got on the lottery ticket I hopefully bought today into seven and let me never have to get up to work a Monday morning ever again. This would also be lovely.

It's slightly breezy here in Cumbria right now. As in, the trees are only bending almost to the ground and not actually touching, and we're still considering heading out to go shoe shopping. Hah Katia! Takes more than that to intimidate almost-local Cumbrians!

(Er, don't take that as a challenge. As ( this precision drawn met office graphic ) shows, Cumbria is 99% out of the amber alert area (and considering north west England starts from the top of Cumbria southwards, including the entire NW in the QUITE LIKELY TO DIE category instead of SLIGHTLY LESS POTENTIAL FOR DEATH yellow area seems harsh, but waving a red flag at winds left over from a hurricane is probably a bad life plan).

Outside my window, the other side of the estuary has disappeared into the grey mist and the tide's right up to the prom, with the wind stirring up white-caps that look tiny from up here. I'm wondering if it's worth stopping for a photo op before heading onto shops or if I'd be blown off the prom and into the sea. Hhmm.






~

In wider news of my life, I'm getting closer to actually starting this new job that the HR guy's been delaying for weeks through sheer incompetence. I was heading into Lancaster on Friday to catch Fright Night again and the woman I'll be working for called me for a meeting, so I dropped in. She seems nice, and the job is all organising and hunting out files and appointments and absolutely minimal interaction with actual people, which is my sort of job. It's supposed to run for at least four months and probably longer so once I get started and settle in, that's the rest of this year sorted at least; I'm not sure about next year but I'm thinking maybe I should save seriously to do a Masters after all. I could go to Lancaster fom home but I've always wanted to do a Masters in Cardiff and oh, I don't know. I need to save the money first. I'm going back tomorrow again to meet the girl who's going to teach me how to do the job, so one thing at a time.


Re. Fright Night, I went to the cinema after the meeting expecting to find it showing at 1:15pm, only to find they'd changed the times the day before and now it's only showing at 22:00 (my last train back home leaves like 11ish, so anything after 9pm is useless to me).

I was surprised because it's only been out for a week. Sure, the cinema I saw it in wasn't anything like full but it wasn't just me in there either and it was the middle of the day on a Tuesday when the kids were back in school so it wasn't a terrible headcount. I'm pretty disappointed if it's not doing well enough to keep on at sensible times for more than a week but then, Lancaster's Vue has a habit of showing things very, very briefly (they have like seven screens split over two floors, so I have no clue why they do it). I'm waiting for the time changes this Thursday and hoping they show it at least once more that I can get to; otherwise Kendal arts centre cinema is showing the 3D version in a couple of weeks, so I'll try to get there. I really did want to see it again, argh.

I also checked out the posters in HMV in search of the Tennant-as-Peter Vincent one. They had a whole bunch of naked girls, a good choice of Captain Jacks, some funny cartoons and a couple of Harry Potters. Nothing else. -_- I have no idea where else I might pick up the Tennant poster, sigh. Even the internet is proving unhelpful.

I'm trying hard to be cheerful this week. Sometimes I'm getting there; sometimes I feel like hitting things with a stick. Think I'm getting to the part of being unemployed where it's not really fun anymore and the parents are getting the point where they really start nagging, and I've had a busy few weeks so I'm tired and oh, I don't know. The relentlessly depressing news this week isn't helping either. I wish someone in the know, somewhere, would let me get a sneak peak at my Life Plan so I know what to do next.

But! Until that happens, I'm mostly sleeping more than I need to and trying to catch up on some of my reading; since I'm currently trying to read The Iron King by Julie Kagawa, those two things are overlapping a bit. I'm trying to enjoy it but the main character keeps doing incredibly dumb things like chasing will'o the wisps in the middle of the night and I'm left going "YOU STUPID WOMAN HAVE YOU NEVER READ ANYTHING EVER?" Things like saying "thank you" to a faery being incredibly ill-advised are treated like revelations which er, no. There's a thousand YA books set in and around the supernatural/Faery out there right now; unless this is the very first one you read (unlikely, considering book 2 in the trilogy is marketed with a massive sticker on the front saying 'THE NEXT TWILIGHT!') none of it is surprising.

I'm wondering if I should bother finishing it, considering that I have no intention of picking up the next two books in the trilogy, and also I picked up The Lies of Locke Lamora secondhand yesterday, which is a book I've been desperate to read for ages (Robin Hood-esque hero who steals from the rich and uh, keeps it? Perhaps in a roguish and occasionally noble way? Yes please!) But I really don't like not-finishing books. Hhm. Maybe I'll make a hot chocolate and motor on through in hope that it gets better.

On a book-tangent, I found an absolutely brilliant secondhand bookshop in Morecambe today! It was a maze of ceiling-high shelves all packed with books, with bits of ceiling falling onto the floor in places and wooden ramps up and down levels and an owner with a Border Terrier that he was getting to do trcks for treats. It was amazing, like something someone would make up in a slightly eccentric novel and not like a real place at all, only it was. And the science fiction section had so many books (I picked up Dune, which I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read). Morecambe itself wasn't really anything to write home about but I'd go back for this bookshop. I wish it was in Lancaster where I go all the time, though I suspect then I'd soon be needing more bookcases. Which I don't have room for. Woe.

...That turned into rather longer of book-related thoughts than I expected. Related: would you say that reading all seven of the Harry Potter books makes you a "real fan"? I rather thought it just made me an average person, but yesterday the-post-boy-from-the-hospital-job seemed surprised that I'd read them all. I mean, it's Harry Potter; it's not as if I said I'd read all of Dickens or anything (which I haven't. The dude was paid by the word and it shows).

I guess I was just surprised he thought it surprising; maybe it's just from being in and around fandom so long but I was sort of assuming that it was more weird not to have read them.

Speaking of the post boy, he dragged me a 'small walk' around Rydal Water (a 'small' lake near Grasmere) yesterday evening. Over two hours later, I was limping back to the car thinking wistfully of the bottle of water I hadn't bothered to pack. Never be friends with anyone who runs half-marathons as a holiday; you'll either become super!fit very quickly, or die halfway up a mountain somewhere.

( That said, it was very pretty )

I mentioned that I'd like to see Wastwater at some point and he jumped on the idea of making it a daytrip. I'm packing water next time. And suncream, and food, and blister plasters, and maybe several careful hints about how, you know, I'm all for hiking in moderate doses but I have no intention of making it a lifestyle.

~

Concluding notes: scoobydumblonde, I have a post started with the answers to your meme questions but I keep getting stuck on the first one. I'm working on it.

jesse_kips, I bought tinned pineapple today ready for a second (and hopefully more successful) attempt at pineapple cupcakes. :DDDD Did you want me to have them nom-ready when you arrive or should we take time out from the Psych marathon to make them?

Everyone else...keep smiling. Hopefully next week will be better.

Me: What're you watching?
Mum: Law and Order.
Me: Oh, is Jamie Bamber still in it?!
Mum: Which one's he?
Me: Er. The pretty one?
Mum: *thinks* Oh, yes he is!

That's either a compliment to Jamie Bamber or an insult to the rest of the cast.

~

I've really struggled to love the world today. My bad mood hung around through coffee, and reading the excellent Full Moon City, and rearranging my room to make it beautifully tidy and actually liveable. On the plus side, hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow in a better mood and my room will already be beautiful and liveable and I'll know where everything I own actually is.

(Except not that last one, because my storage method is 'cram everything into a box!', so finding anything in my room is a Russian Roulette of boxes. Or maybe more like a babushka doll, with ever decreasing boxes and never anything useful inside. It looks pretty; I have many pretty boxes. It's just not very practical.)

~

This icon has utterly no relevance to this post, especially not the sentiment but it was new and pretty and has Philipp Petzschner getting glomptackled by Jürgen Melzer when they won Wimbledon last year. Here is the most delightful video of it. If they won Wimbledon every day, every day would indeed be a good day.

To acknowledge the sudden flood of activity on my flist this morning, thought I'd join in the yay-LJ-used-to-be-this-busy-for-me joy with the fact that I saw David Tennant/Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing last night and they were brilliant and funny and fabulous, and this morning I feel like I have a sad Tennant hangover with the sheer mournfulness of the knowledge that I won't get to see it again. If I could request a Groundhog Day scenario to happen over about three hours of last night, that'd be perfect thanks.


( Some joyful rambling that may contain mild spoilers (nothing really production-related huge, mostly just YAY TENNANT/TATE and a few spoilers if you haven't read the play (heathens! READ THE PLAY! ;) No really, it's funny I swear. Anyway: )) )

~

In other news of my life, I'm currently (obviously) in London. On Thursday I was in Cumbria and on Tuesday I was in Edinburgh. This coming Tuesday I will be in Cardiff and on Wednesday, back in London. It's reached the point where I'm confused when I wake up in the mornings. It's nice to have Wimbledon and Cardiff and more Wimbledon to look forward to, especially knowing that after this week I go back to work for a week and then I'm back to being poor and unemployed which sucks but at least this week is Epic. And I have certainly enough to catch up writing-wise and books-and-DVDs-I've-bought-wise (Psych season five arrived before I left Cumbria WITH NO CUSTOMS CHARGES \o/) that July and August should still be made of fun and hopefully sooner rather than later I'll decide what I actually want to do with my life and someone will give me a job doing it.

Hah.


In conclusion, go and read this delightful Erik/Charles fic that rionaleonhart linked to the other day. It's done so well and is kind of heartbreaking and also kind of wonderful and made me smile. Mmmmm.

~

( Here be spoilers for Primeval ep 5.1 )

~


In real life news: today in work I was typing comments on a colonoscopy referral while two different people talked at me and I was so distracted that I instead of "changed by Dr Davies" I typed "changed by Doctor Who".

Thankfully I reread it immediately and went "...Wait. I see what I did there!" and changed it before I saved the thing, though I'm sure it would've been amusing for the next person to look that patient up. When I confessed to the nurse who was talking to me she laughed and laughed, and then went away to tell Dr Davies.

He has yet to tell me his opinion on being confused with a Timelord but I'm pretty sure he'd find it hilarious (and then reflect mournfully that even if he was a really cool Timelord, they'd just get him to do time science as an unpaid extra).

~

There has been no news on the job front. It makes me sad, so much so that I ordered Ice Road Truckers season four today to keep myself from thinking about it. It's comforting to look at my potential future jobs and know that, no matter what, they most likely won't involve jacknifing on an ice road over a snowy cliff. So you know, it's not so bad.

~

They haven't taken any money off me for Olympics tickets yet. I am so far undecided about how this makes me feel (paying for Olympics tickets means spending money I'd really like to spend on a new iPod or a Kindle, or just putting into my moving-out-of-my-parents' fund. But, Olympics. So I don't know).

I bet they take the money out tomorrow now that I've said this. Damn them.

~

This makes two not-meme-related updates in under a week. If I keep this up, you might be able to say that I'm actually keeping an LJ again. Shock.

It's called "When I want to say something that I cannot condense into 140 characters for one Tweet, I must put it in an LJ post or not bother to say it."

This may lead to a lot of random posts. Sorry.

~
So anyway, I've been playing a lot of Chess Titans in the last few days. I took my laptop to work with me on Friday* because even though I had to be at work, not many other people did and I suspected I wouldn't have much work to actually do; as it turned out I had even less work than that. I mostly spent seven hours watching Psych eps and when I finished them, playing laptop chess and sucking at it spectacularly (I tried to play Lemmings but there is nothing less compatible than playing Lemmings and pretending you're actually doing work). I've been trying to get better at it over the last few days because I was never brilliant at chess but I could at least win a game occasionally; in three days, my best result against the computer has been a draw. The computer is nasty; it always sees what move you're setting up and it never makes errors and it is always, always five or six moves ahead (oh and it can't hear you when you call it a bastard. Which I do. Frequently. I'm not a great loser).

And, after three days of on-and-off-solid chess, I was taking a brief chess-break just now to skim tumblr and went "Ooooo, a link to where that awesome picture is from!" And I moved the mouse and hovered...

...and went "Wait, is this really what I want to spend my next move on? It could be the wrong link! Think about this more carefully dammit-!"

And then I remembered that on the internet, you don't only get one click and then have to wait for someone else to pick a link to load. Clicking a dumb link doesn't mean you lose your Queen or screw up your carefully-plotted battle plan or involve any other repercussions than perhaps a few seconds waste of your time.

It genuinely took me a second of panicked thought to recall that the internet does not work on the rules of chess.

You know, maybe it's time I switched to Mahjong.


~


* yes, I worked Friday. There were no buses running thanks to the bank holiday and I had to get a lift with the Post Boy at the hospital, who has to be at work for about 6:45am and we live about thirty minutes fast driving from where I work, so I had to get up at 5am. Dear William and Kate, next time get married on a Saturday.

(...er, maybe I didn't think that sentiment through.)

I have two fics I should be working on, six train tickets to price/buy, two lots of cupcakes to bake, a proper LJ post to make, S1 of Fringe to finally start watching, two betas and a crit comment to do, 1000 words of original writing to get done and posted before tonight and I really need to spend some quality time on the WiiFit today. Oh and I'm watching a S3 Primeval marathon that made me want to reread Connor/Becker fic, so I've had this open in a tab for about an hour.

But instead I'm reading this. Because it's rather spectacularly awesome.

eta: Try here for a much more convenient link to the whole thing. I love kinkmemes a lot but god the whole comment-structure thing is annoying.

eta: Should've said, these memes stolen from kindoftrouble and others!


a. Type your answer to each of the questions into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image*.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.



1. What is your first name? Helen 2. What is your favorite food? Chinese 3. What high school did you go to? The Maelor School, Penley 4. What is your favorite colour? Purple 5. Who is your celebrity crush? Roger Federer 6. Favorite drink? Coffee 7. Your favorite place? Cardiff 8. Favorite dessert? Cupcakes 9. What you want to be when you grow up? Satisfied 10. Where do you want to be right now? Here. 11. Favorite word? serendipity 12. What do you love most in life? Books 13. Who do you love most in life? My friends (and my cat) 14. One word to describe you Hopeful 15. Your greatest dream To be a writer 16. Your favorite childhood story Peter Pan


~

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

( Titles are usually the last thing I give fics so most of these are basically descriptive/random/inexplicable but not that interesting )


~


Life continues to be fine. I continue to spend too much money that I should be saving, fail at writing motivation (and indeed motivation for anything), watch too much TV and go to Pets At Home once a week to spend fifteen minutes talking to the rats and thinking wistfully what I'd name them if I knew I'd be in any place to look after them forhowevermanyyears. Sigh. I did almost adopt a dwarf hamster named Milo today but I have no idea where my hamster cage is.

(I may yet look for it and go back. He was adorable and his last owner didn't want him. Sadface for tiny unwanted hamsters.)

...That's pretty much it. I'm not so much with the interesting right now. Oh jesse_kips! I'm planning to head to Manchester in the evening of Tuesday March 1st to see Jasper Fforde talk in Waterstone's (assuming I can still get a ticket! I need to call them). Don't know if you could make it but Jasper's awesome (I can't remember if I recced you his books? You totally should read them; it's like crime and literature and humour and you will love them) and worth going to see if you can make it. I'll be getting in about 5:30pm anyway, so let me know if it's doable for a meet-up. :D

...Yeah, that's pretty much it. As you were, y'all.

Slightly-less-hasty-than-intended bodge job of a new LJ layout, because it was really time to take the Christmas/New Year one down. Wish I had time for an icon overhaul but then I'd be going into work in PJs with unwashed hair and considering it's not my last week anymore (contract extension 'til March 31st ftw!), I should probably make an effort to appear at least vaguely presentable.

Also, hello LiveJournal. I am not ded. At some point I will finish memes and maybe post fic extracts and flail over the amazinghood of Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic apparently deciding they no longer want to hide their deep and touchy-feely love for each other. However, now I have to go and get ready for the amazing job that lets me go in half days twice a week and still pays me the same. Which I have until the end of March. Win.

(Of course, that's assuming I can get to work with the killer fog that's been outside all morning. If this was an episode of Doctor Who, I'd have been eaten by the fog monsters hours ago.*




* As much as I like to think I'd be the plucky local girl who works out how to defeat the fog monsters with a handheld fan and some de-mister, I rather suspect I'd be the foolish local girl who disappears and the Doctor gets indigantly rageful about, before forgetting about the instant he spots something shiny.


edit: I've just remembered that last night, I dreamed that I bought a Kindle. Er. Wishful thinking there subconscious?

(I also dreamed that I found a hidden library beneath a folding piece of floor in a house we were renting; it was like a whole secret apartment full of books I wanted to read and squishy seats and with the door bricked up. I think perhaps it was my subconscious crossing the line of wishful thinking, into full on delusions.

It was a really beautiful library.)