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?

~

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.

~

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

~

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.


~

*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.

Good News Week? STOLEN FROM THE BRITISH. On about my eighth episode I finally caught the credit at the end for 'Developed by GNWTV from original BBC show 'Have I Got News For You'' or something along those lines.

VINDICATED. :DD I've been sitting here for days going "But they have these games on HIGNFY! Did we steal them from you?!! No!! I refuse to believe we cannot come up with our own comedy quiz games!"

And now I know. We pwn! Except, we'd like to steal Paul McDermott in return. He could come over to do a guest host spot which would be awesome (is HIGNFY even on this year? Seems like ages since I watched a quiz show that wasn't QI. Or you know, Good News Week).

I also quite like to steal the Buzzers of Death please (Buzzers of Death or Buzzers of Doom? Something like that). Especially if Jeremy Clarkson was guest hosting because his reaction would be excessively, outrageously priceless.

In less awesome news, my card did not arrive and even though I got Australia Post's number from the Post Office, my parents have lost the tracking number. If they even had a tracking number, they're not sure (they would've had one because it was International Signed for which gives you a tracking number). Am distinctly pissed at my parents right now because for all the times they've yelled at me for not "having any idea how the world really works!", they apparently can't manage a simple task that I've done a million times. Hopefully my stupid card will arrive tomorrow because using my credit card has already cost me around £12 in cash advance fees that I am seriously considering demanding back from Nationwide/Royal Mail/Australia Post for being wankers.

Actually I'd like something unspeakable to happen to whoever tried to steal my card details in the first place. I HOPE YOU GET EATEN BY BOX JELLYFISH. Bastards.

~

IN BETTER NEWS, I did send a few postcards today, a (big) box of souvenirs and stuff I want to keep but not carry around New Zealand to chickybee32 (B it has your name on because I thought you might need to ID yourself to pick it up. Feel free to open it but really it's just everything I've bought so far that I didn't want to carry pointlessly until June, so it's not that exciting. I've discovered my ridiculous love for keeping pointless leaflets and maps and tickets. Sigh for my hoarding nature).

scoobydumblonde, there's a postcard and a box heading for you separately. The box is not as exciting as it should've been because I ran out of time but it's for your birthday because I thought I'd have trouble sending it from NZ when I'm spending most of my time moving to a different town every two days. It's not wrapped inside so you can open it when you get it or save it until your birthday, whatever. :)

...I should actually do something now that isn't watching Good News Week. Actually! Could someone in the UK visit the Good News Week website and tell me if you can watch the videos from the UK? Just out of curiosity.

~

Back to my main theme of Things Wot I Found Out Today, just now watching Top Gear? I've realised that the TG3 remind me of John Cusack, Jack Black and The Other Guy from High Fidelity. Just a thought. Hm.

(Jeremy would be Jack Black's character. Totally. And considering Rob(John Cusack)'s temper, he'd definitely be Hamster.

I would totally watch High Fidelity with Hamster. Totally.)

I've finally got around to watching the odd episodes of Daas Kapital that're on Youtube and wow, they were on the special crack.

...If it was out on DVD I would actually be heading to the ABC shop in Brisbane on Wednesday to pick it up. Special. Crack. Seriously.

~

My stupid card had better show up tomorrow. For some reason I thought I wasn't heading back Brisbanewards until Wednesday but it's actually Tuesday. My 'rents sent it on the 16th, and it was supposed to take a week so it should've been here Thursday. Allowing maybe for time differences and the Royal Mail's version of "a week", it should still be here Monday at the latest. *touch wood* Okay so I've probably spend less money without it but I need it for New Zealand. It's getting ridiculous now.

Actually speaking of New Zealand, I need some NZ dollars before I fly. Hm. Soon as my damn card gets here I'll have to go looking for currency exchange. And make sure I have some Aussie dollars left for the airport shuttle when I get back.

Things to do... but right now I can't really do anything about them so I'm going back to Youtube and the special crack. I wish they'd release this show on DVD because the Wikipedia episode summary alone cracked me up; I'm sad there's a lot of special crack episodes I can't see.

Though I have accomplished one thing this morning, namely arranging to meet falln on Wednesday. I get to meet another Inmate! :DDD This is indeed awesome. Next up, the Americans... when I actually have money again at some point in the distant future. *wistful*

Back to the crack!

Okay, Amazon? My flist is going batshit. At first I thought it was a mistake, then I thought maybe it wasn't Amazon.co.uk, then as a last grasping of straws I thought maybe technical errors. Then seperis pointed out what happens when you search on Amazon.com for 'homosexuality'.

I- I have nothing to say. Except holy crap Amazon, way to go drive me back to play.com unless you sort this out. Or even just explain how you thought this would be a good idea and that no one would notice? Or just- explain something.

Honestly, I relied on Amazon to be the sensible one in the batshit crazy that can be LJ and the rest of the interwebs but apparently not.

In better news, my parents have my new card (hurrah!) which means once they send me the details I can book all my New Zealand hostels and my Uluru trip and it'll be sorted (double hurrah!). I was starting to twitch.

It also means I can buy DVDs online again but Amazon has apparently stuck their collective head up their ass, thereby saving me from my own temptation. Except play.com has all the Viva La Bam DVDs for the same price. Although Fobidden Planet is now out of stock of the Jareth figures again. -_- Dear card stealers, I hate you. I hope you drown in the Bog of Eternal Stench. Bah.

(Okay so I didn't really need two Jareth figures, except... I did. *woe*)

edit: Now this is an interesting theory. Hm. I think I'll wait and see how it pans out but it would certainly explain some of the more bizarre aspects of this whole thing.

I'm thirty minutes into Sweeney Todd and oh my god, I wish I hadn't waited this long to watch it. It's so freaking good.

How much do I want the soundtrack right now. So much. Tell me someone has it because otherwise I'll have to wait until I have the money, which is going to be... a while. (Amazon have the complete Buffy for £64. I pined, I wailed, I closed Firefox. Should've spent less money last year).

And Johnny Depp is still criminally gorgeous, even made up to look like he has more than one foot in the grave. I can't decide if they should clone him so we can all have one, or lock him up so we don't see the pretty we'll never have. Or alternatively, for his own safety because seriously how does that man walk down the street without being pouncetackled by every woman (and man) within a mile radius? You just would. The restraining order? Totally worth it because how often do you see Johnny Depp walking down the street?

Mmmm. Pouncetackle.

...ANTHONY FREAKING HEAD. WILL YOU STOP LOOMING UP WTHOUT WARNING IN THINGS BECAUSE I LOSE AT LEAST HALF A SECOND OF FLAIL-TIME TO SHOCK.

I have bus tickets to buy, lovely LJ comments to answer and chickybee32's present (which seemed like a good idea at the time and probably would've been had I started it a month ago) to work on but I think I'll enjoy Johnny Depp completely losing all his marbles in marvellous song a little longer.

(I have no icon appropriate for Sweeney Todd. This is the closest I could get. That's a little sad.)

I HAVE DERREN BROWN TICKETS (well, not in my hand but I have the confirmation email). Sitting in the dress circle (nearer the back than the front; not only will I be broker than broke by then but this is Derren Brown. The further you are away from anything he can throw at you the better - and now having said that, I'll no doubt get a face full of cuddly monkey or whatever he choses this time. Maybe I should practise ducking) for the Tuesday after we go to Wimbledon. I ACTUALLY HAVE TICKETS TO A DERREN BROWN SHOW; DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT'S BEEN?

I'm glad there's such shiny (and paid for already) things to look forward to after Australia. I expect after a week back at home in rainy Cumbria with no money I'll need cheering up. Wimbledon and Derren Brown are kind of more than cheering up; they're more something you plan your year around. Yay!

On another money-related note (don't all my posts have this these days?) I realised yesterday that I'm worrying so much about my money for Australia that I'm not worrying about the flights, about getting lost, about not having any plans for NZ, anything. So that's one good thing. I mistyped a number when trying to estimate my daily budget yesterday though and got £5420. *wistful* Yeah, maybe if I married Roger Federer.

BWAHAHAHAHAH. CRYPTIC EVIL LAUGHTER FTW.

On another note entirely, somehow my panicking over money hasn't stopped dukedee's suggestion of buying a little laptop to take with me from worming its way into my mind, to the point when I saw this in the Currys in Kendal today and five minutes later I was on the phone to my brother asking if he could get me one with his staff discount. Because the stuff I've sold on Amazon will pay for it and I'm still selling stuff and I should just about have the money for food and hostels and everything in Australia even with it. And I'd save money on Internet cafes, right?

Yeah. Still, £200 is better than I'd thought for a mini-laptop which is why I dismissed it originally and it would make life so much easier. So. Yeah.

I'm glad I sold my last (most expensive) GameBoy game through Amazon today and just now a book I thought might not shift because I'd listed it at too high a price. I've still got a bunch of stuff listed and I'm sitting on a few things I'd rather not sell but can when I get back if I've overspent. All will be fine. I should stop freaking.

And book hostels and sort dates and... yes. I bought my hand-luggage-everyday-backpack today though and it was less-than-half-price. This is good. Someone handing me an extra £500 at this point would be even nicer. *wistful* I wish I'd saved more last summer.

Tomorrow I need to try and sort the bus travel, which I feel may be more expensive than I was hoping. Funsies. >_