clo_again

Things I've just discovered that make me happy; I'm planning to go see Up when I head to Lancaster for my birthday next week and on checking the film times just now, apparently they're showing it in 3D as well as 2D. Hurrah! The tickets are more expensive than for 2D but they're Super Saver Tickets because it's on a weekday before 5pm so it actually works out the same price as a normal ticket.

Birthday happys. Awesome. :D jesse_kips you're welcome to come with if you want. If not I shall be cheesecaking and coffeeing and shopping for some time before! ^_^ I could see you in Starbucks say... half one?

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So yeah, I haven't posted for a bit. S'up with that? Nothing really, except my general apathy toward life in general right now. I'm not doing anything which is really ridiculous when you consider that I only worked two hours today and only four yesterday and four Monday. It's just that working across the middle of the day seems to eat time to do anything and I come home only to bum around because I'm tired from work. I'm actually annoying myself immensely but don't know what to do about it.

Signed up for NaNo again and I'm officially in training, by writing a hundred more words a day to hopefully get myself in the habit. On Monday my word target was 200 words and I hit 350+. Yesterday target 300 and I hit 330. Today is 400 and I've been sitting around for seven hours now without so much as typing a word. I even opened the damn fic I'm working on earlier only to close it and have a nap instead. I can't be doing this when my word count needs to be 1600+ a day instead of 400. I'm going to have to start as soon as I get home from work, not right before I go to sleep. Argh. But, I guess, I knew I'd be like this which is why I'm trying to get in the habit. I'm off to watch In Treatment with my laptop now and hopefully I'll hit 400 words before I have to drag myself off to bed because I have two days of getting up early and three hours to work Saturday. I couldn't say no to working Saturday because I'd already asked for my birthday off. Meh. -_- Working six days in a row sucks, even when when it's just for a few hours some days. I really don't think this ridiculous job is helping the apathy at all, but I suspect it'll be great for NaNo (if I actually use the spare time) to be only working a few hours a day Monday-Wednesday.

Plus with all the extra hours I'm thinking I may as well stick it until Christmas because it's enough money to pay back my 'rents and considering basically everything tripwise is paid for now (London, hotel for Cardiff, train tickets except the ones from London-Cardiff because it worked out much cheaper to have an extra night in London around the Cardiff weekend. Dear British Rail, you are stupid) I might even have money left over for Christmas presents. :D Which is good!

Less good is my inability to accomplish even the simplest thing, like fill in application forms. I really need to take NaNo seriously this year. Some sort of daily goal would be awesome right now.

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I never talked about how much fun I had in Edinburgh, partly because I started a post and got too lazy to finish halfway through so in my mind I did talk about it, only I never posted, and partly because I had such an awful cold that week and I came home and sleep-walked through the next few days because walking all over Edinburgh is exhausting when you're only breathing at half-capacity.

But I did have fun! Once I got there that is; I got to the train station early on the Saturday morning only to discover my train to Lancaster where I'd connect up to Edinburgh was cancelled, possibly ( due to the appalling amount of fog ) although I still can't see why fog would affect the trains enough to be cancelled. The parental drove me the forty minutes to Lancaster though and, thanks to having a half-hour wait between connections, I even had time to go get a Starbucks before my train. Did occur to me that that was the second thing to go wrong (first was my hotel being overbooked) and I spent the rest of the weekend in fear of the Third Thing (because these things happen in threes right?) but it was all fine. My hotel fears were baseless; the hotel I'd been moved to was very nice and I had an exec room which was decorated much nicer than the eye-scouring blue the website showed the basic rooms in. It was the wrong end of Prince's Street for everything I wanted (and Prince's Street is an epically long goddamn street) but I found the venue just fine and I found Grassmarket which was as full of cool shops as I remember it (the really cool sci-fi/fantasy bookshop had a plushy Cthulhu. I did not buy it but I really really wanted to).

I'd forgotten how staggeringly pretty Edinburgh is. All I could think walking around is that if they chose to film a fantasy film there and claim it was any sort of fantasy city? No CGI required. It's all turrets and arched windows and elaborate carvings, especially around the Royal Mile. I wish I'd had a day to just chill and wander a bit slower but it was still fun. I do like Edinburgh. Don't know if I've spent enough time there to officially love it but it's certainly right up there with Cardiff and Sydney on the 'cities I like to spend time bumming around just for the sake of being there' short-list.

I also managed one other thing I wanted to do while I was there, which was to go check out the ( Scott Monument ) in Prince's Street Gardens just because DAAS* did one of their Big Gig shows from there and I wanted to get a picture of it today. It was only later that I realised they might've done their show from the other side but from what I can remember (I haven't got around to checking on the DVD) it was definitely the side away from the road. It was a bit odd seeing something DAAS-related in such a decidedly UK setting. It kind of made me miss Australia more.

And then I got a bit more of Australia-in-the-UK with, of course, the entire reason I went; Tim Minchin who was brilliant. I had ( a spectacular view ) if you can tell from my appalling phone camera pictures, slightly to the side but almost as close as the front row and no one in front of me because I was in the front row of the balcony. The amazing seat totally made up for the ridiculous sore throat I had from walking around all day with a cold, because I didn't have to cheer too loud to make up for being right at the back. ^_^ He really is fantastic live. Canvas Bags got such an epic cheer so clearly the whole place was mostly full of previous Minchin-ers and although he didn't encore with Not Perfect, he did White Wine in the Sun which is enough to make me think I'll be buying the whole show off iTunes when I've got a bit more money. I'm jealous of mayakitten for getting to see him now, because I'd love to go again. *wistful* If I'd been in London this weekend I would've gone to the ones he's doing at Hammersmith (though I'm not totally missing those because uh, I was regretting not buying a signed DVD so kindoftrouble offered to try to get me one from Hammersmith, even though she isn't going to the show. So I'm kind of there in spirit! :D And also owe my soul to kindoftrouble. Again. I could do with several hundred souls by now).

But on his next tour, I am so there. And so dragging along everyone else in sight because as fun as he was when I was by myself, it'd be even better with a bunch of people.

So kinda sad that's over but still to come this year: Roger Federer, Andy Roddick (as confirmed this week, yay!) and John Barrowman² so I haven't exactly got a boring lead-up to Xmas. :DDDD

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It's actually gone 11pm now and I still haven't written anything or moved off my bed. Right. Yes. In Treatment (which is already losing my interest on the third week but I like the girl on Wednesdays so I'm quite happy for tonight) and writing and I really need to start DVDing some of the Top Gear off the Sky box. After all, we should be getting a new series soon. I need the space. :D

You've been reading This Is Clo's Life. Hopefully I won't leave it over a week between posts next time so the next post won't need to be so epically long and rambling.


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*Speaking of DAAS, I know why I'm not getting GNW uploads to Mininova; the person was using Demonoid to get them and it's down. I'm hoping when Demonoid goes back up, I'll be able to catch up. Really really hoping. I'm missing my weekly dose of McDermott something terrible. :( Damn you Demonoid.

Hm. I want to see Wil Anderson in Edinburgh. I need to know if he has any earlier shows going. In years past, I would've trawled the programme exhaustively, squinting at tiny print and crossing my fingers that I wouldn't miss what I was looking for, or that something would go on not programmised and I'd miss it.

These days I just go on Twitter and ask him direct. How times change. If he answers, of course, but hey there's only so much social change we can take at once.