Category: General

I thought the Alaskans in the audience might get a kick out of this (taken from the met office website):

… so I’ve got back, and I’m just starting to ponder a quick wander to the shops; get myself some milk and see if the post office is open; I’ve got some glitch with my PC which is irritating me…

…and I’m writing an e-mail, a longish one to James.

And my mum rings. The plumbing in the bathroom at home has started to leak; if I’m lucky (which I should be) it’ll be simply a loose joint on a pipe I can just do up. If I’m unlucky it’ll be a failed yorkshire (or worse, proper sleeved) joint, which will need a blowtorch, the water off and drained, and solder and me to reprise skills not used since I was about 14.

Still, it’s 100 miles of driving on salty grotty motorways I could do without.

…and then, just to round it off, my PC fails with a Kernel fault of some description. An importal BSOD. Some piece of hardware in this machine is crashing it. And so I can’t even leave the fucking thing on while I’m away, and I’ve no idea which thing it is, but I’m suspecting that DVD-Writer that’s never worked properly since it arrived.

*sigh*

Lunch, pack car, go. I like the ominous grey rain clouds which have decided to surface over Bristol now. That is a nice touch.

So, just to confuse people I refer to my mum’s house as home and also Bristol as home. So, I nipped down to my mum’s yesterday, just for a quick visit; did xmasy things, sorted a few things for her. The drive back was manky, so much salt on the roads… Rebecca’s actually go salt on her *roof*.

And I’ve come back, and for some reason Azureus is maxing out my processor (well, Java, I think) periodically. And I mean 100% processor usage full on take no prisoners maxed out. It’s a bit frustrating.

Anyway, I got some nice shiny presents; some makeup (! Still, I’m single now… so I guess I need to get on down to those clubs, or something… ), a couple of books and some biscuits. I’ve also now got an *entire* Xmas cake to eat; so anyone want a slice? I also took down the harder Xmas decorations for her; did some car stuff (the car door had jammed, just needed lubrication), faffy stuff, y’know?

And now I’m home and the house is chaos; I can’t even see my desk (again), I’ve got a good idea where I want to go with my dissertation though, which is good news. I’ve got to tidy up though. And nip out now and get some milk… I think. I wonder if the postpoffice is open, I know it’s a bank holiday but I’ve got a letter to go… Meh.

Annnyway. Yes. I should get on, really.

Cut for miserable whinging on Boxing Day. (more…)

So, Xmas number 1 is over. Blinking tiredly I stumble into Xmas 2; well, I will do when I get to my mums.

Although my main present from my mum was ‘feeding a family for a month’, which I’ve already opened, so :-)

Anyway; yesterday, my cold subsided to almost sub-unwell levels, and after bouncing around like a maniac for a few hours, I Lauren woke up and we headed round to Nikki and Kate’s; stopping briefly to torment wake up John; and carrying with us the bounty of 1000 cookies.

So, we helped cook – but Nikki and Kate had already done pretty much everything (I made some yorkshire puds, and gravy (but I made that later :-) ). Nikki preparing what would turn out to be a huuuuge spread; and we sat, chatted, drank coffee, ate cookies, and watched Lauren bounce as she wanted to open her prezzies.

John appeared, looking rather less tormented than he had when I woke him up at 10, and we got down to the important business of opening presents… An Xmas Stocking (filled with junkfood, well, candy…and an apple*) and an Xmas bag (filled with sweeties, a USB ice-lamp and lots of other funky things) later each, and we got onto the individual prezzies :-)

People seemed to like what I’d got, which is good, because that’s the best bit; and I’m dead pleased with the stuff I got given… (Megatokyo vols 2 & 3, a Vincent HRD Black Shadow Advertisement… (which I maintain it was unfair to make me guess as it’s not *exactly* on my wants list, just related to something on my wants list :-P ), Megatokyo stickers and a Morris Minor book) I also got a cool “No, this is not my boyfriend’s computer” sticker which is frustratingly *just* too large to fit on my monitor surround! Gah!

Then we got into the big business of the day; eating. A huge and delicious spread was put out; with the world’s biggest turkey being carved until Kate got fed up with carving; and a pile of veg, gravy, cranberry jelly, yorkshires filling the table. We ate. And ate. And ate. And then we had a break, relaxing a while and washing up, before making a start on the desert; a declicious (and breaking Nikki’s trend appropriately cooked) Christmas Pudding. Mmmmm. Nummy.

And then we retired to play Civilisation, the board game. This was not entirely a success. Last played by Lauren 6 months ago, and at some point before that by Nikki and Kate; the first round was taken up by trying to remember or fathom the rules and game progress… and the second round with doing things wrong, and when it came to the third round we realised that it’d all gone a bit pear shaped and perhaps we should wait until we had someone who knew how to play it there; so that we didn’t have to spend the entire time reading the rules…

…so we switched over to munchkin; which proved to be an excellent decision; Lauren’s new munchin-foo providing a source of great entertainment. This gave way to The Simpsons Xmas Special followed by the utterly fantastic Dr Who Christmas Invasion. The new Doctor has aquitted himself marvelously; drawing enough from Christopher Eccleston’s style, and bringing just the right amount of new-and-very-different-ness to the role. The beautifully placed references throughout the episode also…just… I’m in raptures. It’s so good.

Before it was a preview for something I’ve been looking forward to since I read about it the day before yesterday ;-)

The same team as produced Hustle and Spooks have come up with Life on Mars which looks to be another entertainingly quirky and strange BBC TV series (you know, the Internet really is changing, I never expected to see ‘Find out more on wikipedia’ as a link from the middle of a BBC website). Anyway, so I’m looking forward to watching that.

Then I rang ‘merkia and chatted to mom, Kara, Kaisa and Trey… The connection was pretty terrible and kept dropping out entirely so eventually I decided it was better to save it for when I could actually *hear* them.

I then settled down and chatted whilst Nikki, Kate and Lauren thrashed each other at racing games :-)

And then we headed home. We’ve still got ‘l337’ scrabble to play, as well as Mau (‘cos I want to play that), spoons (but I think we’ll play on the floor, not on the table I spent half my summer revarnishing) and most importantly Things (caution: irritating flash site).

I’ve also got to think of what to get Trey for Xmas. For the most part I have loose ideas about what to get people (as in kinds of things) thought about way before I get them – and lists of things they like in my head so that when I go shopping I can spot things. I suddenly remembered that I’d seen something for John a while ago, so I know what to get him as a late Xmas present (if they’ve still got it) but Trey’s is harder; harder because we’re recently-ex’d, so a lot of the things that pop into my head are not appropriate; really; or maybe they are, but yeah, mmm, probably best not. And also hard because most of my ideas were centred around getting her stuff for the Hamster I was going to get her. But with her going back to America plans and my emmigrating to Canada plans (which will almost certainly take longer, but is a direction I’m currently planning in) it wouldn’t really be fair on the Hamster (because it’d have to spend, probably at least 1/6th of it’s life in Quarantine). So… Yes.

So now I’m a bit stumped, and I need to go and spend some time looking around shops and things, and see if there’s something there which… well… inspires me.

But anyway, now I’m going to get some breakfast and prepare to head off to my mums…

* also 2 clemantines.

Gack! Lauren’s not up yet!

I want to go and be Xmassy…

I’m seriously starting to consider the possibility of taking the mulled wine spice (found it), the wine (found that too), the prezzies, the games, the playing cards and the huge pile of food and stuffing it into bags and rucksacks and walking round there. But I’m not sure if they’re up yet.

They said ‘come round at 10, or earlier if you want to help’. I’m trying to decide if 25 minutes to walk round there, which takes it to just past nine is ridiculously early or not.

Meh!

*bounces excitedly*

Merry Christmas / Seasons Greetings / Happy Whatever You Fancy :-)

It’s Christmas, I’m awake, and obviously so are half the children in the universe… little lights glimmering out from some of the houses..

…I shall have a shower, have some breakfast, attempt (again) to find the mulled wine spice and the manky old red wine (which may, in fact, be undrinkable; but never mind) and head round to see my friends! Yay!

So, I spent the day cooking. I have produced:

– Hershey’s Cookies
– Chocolate & Minstrel cookies
– American M&M Cookies (which we’ve realised taste a lot like proper smarties (as opposed to stupid US smarties which are blatantly poor quality refresher clones))
– Urr… um… there was another one. Oh, Milkyway Stars Cookies.

Also:

– Rum and Raisin Mince Pies with biscuit pastry
– Hazelnut and Raisin Mince Pies with shortcrust pastry

I am now very tired. I might watch the Corporation and kill time until it’s time to ring/VOIM Rachel…

So this morning, I woke up at 5:30 which seems to have become the norm, annoyingly, and thought hell, I may as well get up and head to Toys ‘R’ Us, and see if they’ve got MadGab.

So I checked, and they opened at 8, so I mooched through my breakfast (the water tastes funny here today) and I flew out the door at 7:50, hopped in Rebecca and shot over to Cribbs. I had the odd experience of leading the pack on the way to the shops; a large line of cars appearing behind me as I hurtled toward the store.

I got there at 5 to 8, hung around, and the store opened…

…and I looked round…

…and there were no copies.

So I tried Argos. Nope, so I came home. I’m not *entirely* convinced it’s been released here. Not *entirely*. No. In fact, I’m fairly certain now that I’ve looked on line that it isn’t. I should’ve bought it while I was in Alaska.

So… having decided that I’m going to have to order it online… it’s sold out. Soldy soldy out. All sold out. Gah! So, um, anyone in the states fancy buying me it and I’ll send you back the money? Or send you something from the UK? Pllleeeeeaaasssseeee?

If there was any doubt in my mind that I was (am) unwell, it was squashed this morning. It’s not a cold, I don’t think. But I think my run-down-strung-out-stressed-depressed body has given in to some kind of virus. I feel like complete and total crap.

My head hurts, I’m sinusy, I feel sick (I did feel hungry, then I ate something…). I’m going to go and lie on the cofa, watch dvds and snuggle into a duvet once i’ve loaded the printer up with shiny new print cartridges (50 fucking quid!)

On the plus side, I’ve had the best news ever from the tax people: ‘we looked at your last tax return and have decided to stop sending you tax returns’ :-)

Wooot!

Blurgh.