clo_again

Just went to check my email and was puzzled to see an "your Amazon order has dispatched!" title because I hadn't ordered or preordered anything due for dispatch. Except reading on revealed that it was for the Hunger Games sequel. Which wasn't listed for release until SEPTEMBER 7TH. My expected delivery date was September 14th.

Amazon I love you. So so so much. No doubt it'll arrive on Tuesday when I'm stuck working the coffee shop (whole 'nother whinefest there which you'll probably get tomorrow or Sunday) until 1pm but dude, still. I AM RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED.

This makes up a little for the fact that I have cramps and want a shower but I stopped to watch Paul McDermott on David & Kim (already <3'd his Converse on Twitter; however, I really have no love for your morning tv hosts Aussies. You need the BCC, stat. I mean... talking about her nits? Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwww. Thankfully Paul seemed equally weirded out by it, so it's not just my Britishness kicking in) and while I oogled Paul McDermott's Converse-wearing, my father stole the bathroom. Even though they have an ensuite. If they aren't going to use the damn thing then I may as well have had their room and then I wouldn't have to tiptoe up an extra flight of stairs to avoid waking them every night. Faaaaaaail!

Early book dispatches and Mr McDermott do make up for a lot though. <3


edt: This would've been so much easier than trying to make my own Cool Wall on my pinboard at uni. I would of course not use the preprinted magnets and instead would be printing out MYRIAD people, things and TV shows to fill it with. I kind of want to make a sticky Cool Wall LJ post now which I can update every so often. Hm. What would my standard of Cool be though? Considering I don't really buy in to Jeremy's former Kristen Scott Thomas reaction method.

Have you ever looked at a picture and gone "Okay, there is NO WAY they aren't (in this case, weren't) fucking?




You know, my private theory is that Paul had a massive crush on Tim which was sort-of-sometimes requited until one day Tim decided it had to stop and he went back to Australia and left DAAS in pieces.*

...IT MAKES ME WANT TO WRITE FIC.


*Obviously this is what is known as HYPOTHETICAL SLASHER CRAZY. I'm not actually advocating that this is what happened; only the boys know that and the times they've actually talked about it suggest they have three different opinions on the whole situation anyway, so maybe no one knows. In which case, this is my happy (um. I suppose that should be angsty) little world of slashdom. AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME OTHERWISE. MWHAHAHAHAHA.

...It's a good thing we don't rule the world. We'd totally rewrite all the history books to focus on the slash.

I've just waited all day for a shower because kindoftrouble's iPhone was getting delivered today and I knew the second I stepped in the shower, they'd be at the door trying to deliver it. I've been listening for the very-definitely-noticeable doorbell (it plays a loud tune. There are trumpets. The first time I heard it I thought it was an oddly modern fire alarm; it is not missable) all day and since they tried to deliver it yesterday around 3:15, from 3pm onwardsI specifically didn't leave the lounge. I'm sitting almost next to the doorbell speaker.

Nothing. At 4:02pm, I decide to run downstairs to see if they've tried to deliver it earlier and I missed it.

Apparently they called at 4pm. They'll try again tomorrow.

...

DEAR MCFAIL DELIVERY PEOPLE. PERHAPS TOMORROW YOU COULD TRY RINGING THE FREAKING DOORBELL? IT IS RIGHT. THERE.

No love (seriously; what the fuck? If I'd run down two minutes earlier I would've caught you putting the card through the door. Should I be psychic now?)

Seriously. TRY HARDER.

Clo

~

On the plus side I did finish The Demon's Lexicon today (I only bought it yesterday because I finished Knife, which was supposed to last me the entire trip, during my three hours in Lancaster) and enjoyed it muchly. Couple of times on the way through I went "...I'm not entirely sure what you did there" but the ending was sweet as. I'd much rather have a book with a few minor wobbles on the way through and a kick-ass ending than the other way around, because it's so much more satisfying. It was excellent. Go forth and buy!

Knife was pretty good too. The main guy-love-interest was called Paul and I was amused at the universe because I bought this book to read before my Paul McDermott obsession but didn't get around to picking it up until I needed a new book for the train ride. I think I can probably count on one hand the books I've read with a major character called Paul. (Though no, the Bible does not count. Probably. It might not actually make that much difference to the tally).

The only thing now is that I need another book for the trip home. Damn. Suspect a trip to Forbidden Planet may be in order (isn't it always when I'm in London?) Except this time I am allowed to buy one book only. Take note.

Okay, well since, apparently, either delivery people fail at doorbells or I'm now experiencing doorbell-specific deafness, I'm going for a shower. And to think up a way to tell kindoftrouble that she has to wait for her shiny new iPhone. Uh. Hopefully she won't have her vengeance by letting Derren Brown use me as a mind control guinea pig tonight (hurrah! Derren Brown!)

~

Before I go, one more thing; Dear Wimbledon, when you're showing Andy Roddick's match DO NOT SHOW ME A CLOSE-UP OF AN ANKLE BEING WORKED ON WHEN I'VE BEEN TOO BUSYING BLOGGING TO KNOW THAT IT'S NOT ANDY. That was a horrible horrible moment until you panned back. Don't do it again, kthnx.

Clo

I love ( this picture ) It makes me want to write that Tim/Paul I've been mentally kicking around for a month.

I am in Dubai! After a long, long bumpy flight that I mostly tried to sleep through because turbulence? Least comforting thing ever. We got over it in time for a pretty pink and gold and blue sunrise but I'm hoping it's used up the turbulence quota for my next flight (half the length hurrah!).

I didn't cry in the airport. Well, I sniffled through customs and during takeoff because they turned the lights off and I felt a little less of a crazy person when no one could see me. I miss Australia and I only left like fifteen hours ago; for the last four weeks I've been all "home! home! yay!" and now I'm all "Australia..." *sadface* Most. Indecisive. Person. Ever. Had a lovely last day with chickybee32 and irradiatedsoup in Melbourne though. <3

I'm so glad I had the flights the other way around this time though, with 14hr first and 7 last, because I so don't think I could face fourteen hours on a plane right now. Seven's enough and I'm hoping I can sleep at least a few of those because I'm in that zone of overtired blankness which is oh-so-not fun and may lead to me walking the wrong way when I get back to Manchester. I hope my mother's there waiting and I'm not left to wander aimlessly. Ngh.

I am looking forward to my own shower though. And my room. And Casper. And Harry II with Photoshop. In like, nineish hours! It's awesome, except it would be more awesome if it was now and not all that time away.

Oh look, the Good News Week site won't load the episodes for me anymore. Kind of what I expected but it still sucks. :( I hope they upload the podcasts faster than they have been doing or I'll be constantly bugging mayakitten for my Paul McDermott fix.

Okay, they're boarding. See you in like nine hours.

Oh good grief self, ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE READING FLIST so that when something has obviously been hacked, you do not click the link.

Thankfully my brain did in fact engage about a milisecond after I opened the tab and I closed it before it even loaded but jesus, this is the second time. I need Norton AntiInternetStupidity installed in my brain.

By the way sarahtales appears to have been hacked. Don't click anything, just to be safe. Or you know, YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW THAT.

I'm amazed I can be even let out alone sometimes, I really am. McDoofus.

~

My Chinese food was excellent and also huge, so I'm thinking I'll take the leftovers with me for dinner tomorrow. More money to spend on souvenirs in Christchurch (except I really shouldn't. Eh)!

Good News Week is so good that I have four minutes of it left and I've stopped watching it to do other things so it doesn't have to be over. There should be another podcast uploaded by tomorrow, assuming there's an episode on tonight but I have no idea what kind of internet I'll have in Christchurch so I may have to wait. Somehow this translates to me withholding the last four minutes from myself.

...I don't know either.

My hostel is really cold. I do like it but there is no heating. I think tonight is a thermal-underwear to bed night, which I thought we'd moved past by now. So much so that I sent my thermal leggings home in the box I posted last week. Yeah, regretting that.

Tomorrow is my last day on Magic bus. That makes me kinda sad, because it has been an awesome way to get around New Zealand. I liked it so much that I went there, did that, BOUGHT THE T-SHIRT :D (in an ideal world that would have a picture of me wearing my Magic t-shirt which I amn, in fact, wearing now. I don't care enough to actually take the picture and upload it right now. It's not a perfect world.)

I've now put off exhausting my supply of Good News Week for as long as possible. Back to my last four minutes! (How can you tell I have good internet here? Because I'M SPAMMING YOUR FLIST WITH POSTS, mwahahahaha!

:D)

My hostel here in Dunedin does not have crap wireless internet. It, in fact, does not have wireless internet at all. When I asked at reception I was directed "go out, down to the lights, turn right and the common room is twenty metres/minutes on your left". I didn't catch whether she said metres or minutes and, on reaching what I assumed to be the correct set of lights (I arrived here at 1pm this afternoon; at 1:10pm I got on a minibus to do a wildlife tour and only just arrived back), I couldn't see anything that looked promising to my right. I could however, see a McDonalds to my left. In Sydney definitely, the McDonalds had free wireless and I thought in other places too.

So I'm in McDonalds. Wireless yes, free not so much. Still cheaper than my Queenstown hostel though, I think. I rather suspect I'll be back here tomorrow morning for a coffee and then again in the evening because I have nothing to do tomorrow and I was kind of hoping to spend it hanging around the internet and the rest of it in a cafe somewhere as the weather is appalling. I was going to head to the cinema across from my hostel tonight to see Star Trek again but now I'm thinking I should head back and watch Skellig, which I downloaded at Easter and still haven't watched, and save the cinema to kill some time tomorrow. Dunedin so far is prettyish but just driving around here in the bus has left me with the distinct impression that I'll get lost if I just wander. Also doesn't help that my hostel doesn't have maps. Why my hostels seem to be degrading in helpfulness and facilities the further south I get, I don't know (Dunedin has like 120,000 residents so it's not like I'm in a backwater) but there you go. I'm staying in the YHA in Lake Tekapo on Monday though and they've yet to let me down on internet so hopefully I'll be able to download Good News Week then. And then I'm back in Oz, and then Alice Springs and you know, I just might be able to watch one damn episode on an actual television before I go home. BUT PROBABLY NOT. Not with the way my GNW luck is going. I'm just glad they have the podcasts up for free at all though, since the website doesn't seem to load the episodes properly outside of Oz. *mourns*

I watched my last unwatched episode last night though and I'm so, so glad I saved it until last because it was the one where Amanda Palmer (I was like HAI NEIL GAIMAN'S FRIEND YOU ARE AWESOME :DDD) did a table dance on Paul's desk and he couldn't speak for a minute or so after. I now heart on Amanda Palmer so much. Remind me to look for Who Killed Amanda Palmer while I am in Melbourne because it looks like Amazon doesn't stock it personally so I may as well try to pick up a copy firsthand. They advertised it on GNW so I'm thinking it's probably around.

Money? MONEY I HEAR YOU SAY?! Yeah. I had McDonalds for dinner tonight. I can afford a damn CD after that. (But only one. >_< Yeah.)


~

My other thing while I have internet, since that seems to be becoming a problem down here in the unpopulated wilds of 120,000-people-cities, is irradiatedsoup, I'm still good to be coming to yours on May 28th right? I promise to not talk about Paul McDermott too much and flail over everything and you can taunt me with your BSG knowledge beyond the end of season two. And also, do you have a printer I can steal borrow to print out my flight confirmation for Alice Springs? If not I can do it at the YHA in Tekapo I think.

I'm just waiting for George singing chocolate pudding to finish downloading before I can head back to chill with coffee and downloaded TV for the rest of the night. I am definitely ready to go home now, or at least back to Australia where I will have TV and fun people to talk to and buying milk for coffee will not be an epic adventure every two days when I move somewhere new. How people live in hostels for a year is beyond me. Even though this one actually seems nice (muuuuch better than the Queenstown one, even though you still have to go outside to get to the showers) despite the lack of internet and staff who seem to have better things to be doing than giving directions.

I do miss my Sydney hostel where staff were nice, I liked my room and my view and the showers and the lounge and the wireless. Or maybe I just miss Sydney, where I was learning my way around and was happy to be there and it was beginning to feel a little bit like home after seven days. I do miss Sydney. I want to save money for other trips, like America and Canada and Peru but I rather think I may be heading back to Sydney sooner rather than later. What's the point of travelling if not to find the places you like and go back to them?

C'mon George. I want to get out of McDonalds and away from the irritating over-junk-fed kids now.

I DID NOT FALL OFF. Even when my horse (who, for hill2k and dukedee, was called The Fonz) decided there were gremlins living in the hill and tried to dump me and take off.

Have rewarded self with a Moro Gold (my favourite NZ chocolate bar; I'm planning on sending a biiiiiiig box full of all this stuff home next week) and now I'm going to reward myself with a hot shower and then maybe an episode of GNW before I actually do some washing.

Also, I bought thermals today. Feel ridiculous because it's really insanely warm here in Nelson but everyone makes the rest of the south island sound like the Artic. All I can say after buying bloody thermals is IT BETTER BE.

I hope my internet in Greymouth tomorrow is better, hopefully the same one the YHA hostels were using which I have an account with, so I can download this week's GNW. No more of this by-megabyte crap which means I can't even watch stuff on Youtube. -_- Fail!

Now, shower. Mmmmmm. Yes.


edit: Also I just checked out my bank account which, thanks to the funsies with my card and my parents paying my credit card off until I get back and empty my savings to pay them back, is tricky. But adding and subtracting everything up means I've worked out that not only am I, technically, already in my overdraft but I really should stamp down on how much money I'm taking out.

All of which has left me looking at the flights to Alice Springs I paid for a few days ago, going "..." because the whole Ayer's Rock trip is costing me upward of £340 and... and really? The closer I get to it, the more I'm getting less and less enthusiastic. It's a big rock. I really don't know if I care that much. Not to mention having to get more flights with all the ensuing hassle and... I could've just hung around in Melbourne for an extra five days. But no. I'm only going because everyone was telling me "you cannot go to Australia and not see Ayer's Rock'! So I was all "Okay!" and booked stuff.

...Bleh. Maybe I've just hit that point where I've seen the amazing scenery, I've stayed in the different hostels, I've been doing stuff you have to do pretty much every day for the last seven weeks, and I've done about as much of it as I can without my brain taking a holiday. It's not even the money, because I'm totally working on a policy of "If I want to do it and can only do it while I'm here, stop worrying about the freaking money. That's why you have an overdraft."

I wish I hadn't already booked my stupid flights. I don't think I could get a refund now which pretty much means I'm going. Sigh. I suppose once I've done it, it just means I won't have to do it next time.

Which YES I KNOW is totally the wrong attitude and yes, how often am I going to be in Australia yadda yadda... heard it. Got over it. A girl in Wellington told me everyone hits this point of backpacking overload and you do get over it and all is shiny again but I'm thinking maybe when I've hit the point of hating people in my dorm room simply for being in the room with me, and for little things like opening a pack of biscuits and rustling the plastic, there's a reason for that. When I look at Ayer's Rock and go *handwave* whatfuckingever, that maybe I should just quit before I reach the point of sitting in a corner and refusing to move because I hate everything.

Suspect I am a two-months-a-time backpacker. Six months would, I think, be a bad idea. Possibly involving a hostile takeover of the nearest Starbucks around the third month and refusing to come out until I run out of espresso brownies.

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 love this DAAS cover, to the point where I've had it on repeat on my iPod for the last two days. It also makes me laugh because no one who's mockingly played Judas Iscariot in a "Jesus Christ Superstar In Four and a Half Minutes" skit (which I can't find a copy of worth watching on Youtube. Scandalous!) should be able to sing like an angel, but there you go. I so, so, so have to buy the DAAS DVD before I head back to England because it's (ridiculously!) not available through Amazon and I'll pine for them. They toured Britain you know; why the hell can we not get the DVD? If I could find somewhere to watch Good News Week too, that'd be good.

In fact:

Dear Australia,

I would like to take Paul McDermott back to Britain with me in June and keep him indefinitely. Hope you don't mind! I'll trade you any British comedian (except Stephen Fry and Alan Davies because then we would have no QI).

Love,

Clo


I was going to post about today and how we saw hundreds of giant bats* and got soaking wet and locked in Sydney Botanical Gardens. Except I started this at 10pm and it's now gone 2am because I just sat around talking for four hours with Coby (the guy I went bat-watching with), a Canadian girl and a Dutch guy about random crap. I love youth hostels, I really do (it's like freshers week at uni constantly) but now I have to go back to my room and my three roommates all go to bed ridiculously early by my standards, so they will all be asleep. I'm just going to have to sneak in and try to tiptoe up the ladder to my bed. I'm sure there was an excellent reason I chose a top bunk but dammit, it makes it a lot harder to be quiet at 2am.


*I am not even exaggerating. Hundreds. Giant bats. Best thing ever.