talula

Boop

I went to the physio this morning and she made me feel good. I mean *really good* meaning pain free. Then I came to stoopid work and I had to do stoopid things and now I have pain again. The dumbest thing is that the pain isn't bad enough to make me feel like I should stay home. It just makes me want to a lot more. I can still do useful worky things, just not all the useful worky things.

Dumb pain.

Yesterday Giffy, Svend, Strongbad and me went up the Kapiti coast and did stuff. We went to Lindale and much alcohol was purchased. I bought Bee-nut butter which is honey and peanut butter spread and yummy. Plus they had the lip balm I like and am running out of so I got that too. Candies as well. I like the candy.

We briefly saw my parents, showed them physically that I am still alive. Giffy took more lavender from them. The cat did very silly things and made me laugh. Then we went to Matt and Debbie's place for lots of cake and Buffy gaming. It was very funny and cool. I can't remember any of the funny quotes now, but I will put them on the wiki later.

Then I came home to yummy chicken laksa made by SuperLee and we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in order to stave off my need to see the next film.

Must. See. Next. Harry Potter film.

Am still happy about Day After Tomorrow it was great if you don't question anything. I liked the guy who believed Jake Gyllenhaal and stayed at the library and didn't burn the Guttenberg bible.

Eep!

I got mega spam comments in the night. 61 spam comments on my blog for nasty pron sites. This makes me a sad panda.

Well, I've blacklisted the sites and deleted the offending comments. I hope that'll stop it happening again....I hope.

Saw The Day After Tomorrow last night. It was cool. Big fairly dumb fun. Very much in the spirit of Independence Day. I really enjoyed all the big weather effects shots and I loved seeing LA get wasted by twisters. Jake Gylenhaal is pretty cute too, so I was well entertained. Don't go to it expecting an interesting story or character development. It's just people trying to cope with Extreme Weather. Very well done.

Had dinner at the Bristol afterwards which was also very nice. Good filling food for cheap. Yum.

Pink dinosaur

Thanks to Chelle for this laugh...(and the tvnz website)

Scientists using a camera to monitor a remote New Zealand volcano over the internet have struck an odd problem - a pink dinosaur.

They are not planning on removing it, counting on the sulphur and high acid environment to deal with the creature.

You can see the dino for yourself if you look at the White Island Crater cam.

Badness.

What I really ought to do is close my trademe account. Then I will never again be tempted to buy my little ponies. They're just so cute!!...and really it's all Giffy's fault for telling me about the $5 Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack that Chang_for_sale has. (It's a fundraising thing from the edge. Pretty cool. I bid on a bunch of his stuff.)

Heee I just looked at the women's tops in the hopes of picking up a plain t shirt for cheap and someone's selling off their godawful 80's tees! Including a grey and white striped t shirt that says "hasta la vista baby" in big blocks of colour. Wow. I wish I had another 80s party to go to.

Today the physio told me that I can't sit on the floor, I can't sit on the couch with my feet up and I can't sit up in bed and read. This makes me sad. She also said I had to sit very upright when I see The Day After Tomorrow tomorrow and I should wear a big coat and wad it up at my lower back for support. I think I do this anyway when I go to the movies, but never mind. I am most sad about not sitting with my feet up since that's my most comfy way to sit. On top of all that I have excercises to do on the weekend.

I am reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice which is a very good book about a retired Sherlock Holmes taking on a teenage girl apprentice. It is a bookcrossing book and I intend to pass it on to Giffy, as I think she'd like it. Yay for bookcrossing. I am getting towards the end of it so I should be able to give it to her on Sunday when we have Buffy game.

Which reminds me I must email my parents. Friday theme later.

Frightening noises from my vertebrae

I went to my doctor after getting so sore at work I had to go home. She said here's some anti-inflammatories and get thee to a physio!

So, today I had my first ever physiotherapy. It was neat. My favourite bit was when she was massaging my neck, then I liked when she spread goo on my spine and ultra-sonicked my vertebrae. It was cool. She gave me some excercises to do: pull your chin back so that your whole head moves back over your neck. It makes my neck make alarming noises like maybe my bones were all out of whack before I did it. I'm supposed to do it ten times each hour. It makes me feel good.

Then I caught a train to work and was thrown all around and quite possibly undid all the good physio stuff.

I did my last Myth and Legend class visit today. Here's a kid gem for you, difference between myth and legend: Myth is Greek and Roman, Legend is something else.

plinth the sleem

That is what Lee woke me up at 4am to tell me. Plinth the sleem. There was a whole lot more too, words that almost make sense but actually don't. This last one sounded so funny that I laughed and that woke him up and he laughed too.

The insurance company won't give us a rental car. They also logged the call worng on Saturday by misspelling Lee's last name, so it had to be re-logged yesterday.

I really hate waiting for buses. I don't mind actually catching them, it's the waiting that I hate. You've got this uncertainty. Maybe you've missed the bus. Maybe it's not coming. Maybe it got cancelled and you didn't know.

Maybe I should try catching the train instead.

Tried to watch Confessions of a Dangerous Mind last night. It's too long and not good enough. The main problem being that you don't like the main character. In Catch Me if you Can you were kind of rooting for Leo. In this one I just didn't care about him at all. I wanted him to marry Drew Barrymore but he was too scared of commitment. I wanted him to stop whining but he wouldn't. I even wanted him to look less dopey. He didn't do that either. Plus there's the whole 'is this true or not?' thing. But I am inclined to believe that he's schizophrenic like the Beautiful Mind guy.

So, in conclusion, it was too long so we didn't see how it ends.

Possilibile

Thanks to everyone who has said nice things in the wake of my nasty car accident. I've had phone calls from family too, which makes me feel loved.

Still haven't heard about the insurance. Lee's going to chase them up today and beg for a rental car (thanks for the suggestion Damon!). My shoulder is nearly all better since I stayed home from work yesterday and slept all morning and watched DVDs all afternoon.

Not sure about Italian for Beginners. It was all the rage of the film festival last year, and I would probably have quite liked it if I'd seen it then. As it was it was really really depressing. Don't get me wrong, it has a happy ending and all but the first half is really upsetting and awful. Plus shot poorly on DV...I guess it must have had bugger all budget but I still can't forgive the scene where the lighting was so poor one of the main characters looked like hair with a black void instead of a face. Not sure I'd recommend it as the people who love it seem to only remember the happy ending.

I also watched Annie: "The sun'll come out tomorrow! So you gotta hang on til tomorrow! Come what may!"

Dead Poet's Society: "Carpe Diem!" "Oh Captain my Captain!"

and Crazy/Beautiful: "That's Ok just desert your best friend as she's baring her soul..."

Then we watched Two Towers again and I knew most of the words: "They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!" "Gandalf? Yes, that's what they used to call me...Gandalf the Grey...." "It's ours it is, and we wants it!"

I slept all night too and I dreamed I was taking French lessons. I blame the combination of school movies and learning a language movies I watched.

Big News: Bus to work

My Saturday was pretty good. I had sleeping in. I bought two new pairs of pants for $15 at Jeans West dressmart. I got KFC for lunch. I went to the costume shop with Svend and helped to get him a great Fruits-teenager outfit for the Japanese party.

Saw my friends in the afternoon, had Hell pizza for tea. There was a problem with the Hell pizza though in that instead of Satay sauce they had clearly used peanut butter. It was still edible but it just tasted like peanut butter on toast, not the chicken satay pizza that I had hoped for.

Evie came over before the party and I got into my Hikaru costume and we left got Giffy's house. Then we were in a car accident. It was pretty scary. We were stopped at a red light, it turned green. Lee hill started (he was driving obviously) and moved across the intersection and then we were hit from the side by a car travelling at speed through a red light. We were really lucky actually because no-one got hurt and they hit the left front wheel not the passenger door where I was.

We slow motioned across the intersection, the driver of the other car right next to my window. Came to rest at an angle up against the corner. This was at Vivian St and Victoria St for those Wellingtonians interested. I couldn't get out easily since the other car was nuzzled up to ours. So I stayed in the car a good long time. I called the police on my cell phone and the lady asked me lots of questions including where I live. Which seemed vaguely strange at the time, I remember being kind of distracted as other people tried to talk to me. I was feeling pretty shaken and I'd hit my leg on the door. I changed into the emergency pants and top I had packed. (Thank Goddess I packed emergency pants!)

A bunch of people offered to be witnesses to the whole thing, said it wasn't our fault. A group of girls waited for the police to turn up so the one who had seen could give a statement, which was really awesome.

I took photos of the cars before they got towed. One from straight on showing the damage to the other car (front bumper hanging on a thread, lights smashed up and bonnet slightly crumpled) then another one from the side showing the damge to our car which was worse than I had thought before I saw it. (The car didn't look damaged at all from where I was sitting inside!) In actuality there was quite a deep hole by the front left wheel. Left headlights were destroyed.

The police were very nice and offered us a ride home. We went to Lee's parent's place to call the insurance company after Lee had given his statement to the police. No one mentioned the giant bunny that fled the scene.

After a hot drink and a sit down by the heater, Jason came and picked me up and delivered me to the party. Lee stayed and watched rugby. I was out of my costume by this point with no desire to put it back on, which is pretty sad. Regs gave me a tshirt from Japan though so I put that on and Evie's kitty ear hat and then I was kind of in theme.

We don't know what's going to happen to the car, but it's bus to work for me tomorrow anyway. The guy who towed it thought it quite likely that it'd be written off. It depends on how much damage was done to the engine I guess. My shoulder hurts where the seatbelt caught me. My neck is stiff and hurts when I turn my head 90 degrees. Otherwise fine.

I feel much worse than that. I feel as if my life has been disrupted in a major way. It hasn't of course, we just don't have a car. It's the shock I guess. I feel like I am still in shock from the accident. Evie and I talked about it quite a lot at the party and that helped. I guess she was feeling the same way. Lee is mostly just blaming the other driver.

I feel pretty shattered actually. I am going to take today very slowly.

Weather pixies are cute!

Weather pixie relocated to sidebar so I can see her all the time and she can drink as much as she likes.

Heh.

Oooh baby that's what I like

Our computer at home is now fixed. Yay for Lee!

I have a new favourite website. Thanks to a random Kate for putting me onto Occupation: Girl with her fantastically funny Troy and Van Hellsing in 15 minuteses. Read 'em and laugh. From there I've found a couple of other cool places to go, so I'm happy. (Including Eric who retells urban legends and gives them fresh endings.)

I quit changeling yesterday, which I feel both guilty for and glad I did. Paradoxical emotional states suit me best. (What?) I am very sorry if I have made my group unhappy by doing this but I don't think I was giving my all to the game. I'd rather just hang out and chat and that's not a good roleplaying frame of mind.
Anyway, it means more time with Lee and more time to do my crafts so that's OK.

I have a party tomorrow night and a tupperware party on Sunday but nothing else planned for the weekend apart from sleeping in. That is how I like it.

I am spinning between books at the moment. I have Jennifer Government out from the library after reading lots of good things on Chinashop and from Zephfi. I haven't started reading it yet though. I started a teen novel called the Opposite of Chocolate last night but I'm not far enough in yet to tell what it's like.

I might do heaps of reading on the weekend. Or I might just stock up on my sunlight exposure hours to get me through the week. I'm concerned about being inside during all this sunny weather. I need that Vitamin D thing.

stop

I want to stop doing anything.

I don't want to work anymore ("This is a song we have heard from you more than once." Guess the movie quote!)

I don't want to go out when I'm expected to.

I don't want to get up in the morning.

I don't want to be home when people come over.

I want to stop doing stuff and sit at home and collect myself together and figure out what I do in fact want to do.

I applied for a job the other week that I really wanted. I started imagining how cool it would be if I got it, and how much fun it would be. Plus better pay and less hours.

I haven't heard back from it, and it's very cold in the mornings and I want to sleep and sleep and sleep.

I feel like I hardly see Lee. He plays sport on the nights I don't have roleplaying. It doesn't work well at all. Then our weekends get filled up with junk (which is fun junk that I enjoy but I'd also like nothing days.)

My fingers are cold. I am sleepy. I want out.

Belacqua.

I have read the first three of five Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. They are very entertaining if short books about some kids who discover that faeries are real and nasty. I like the books a lot, I wish they were longer and more in depth. I suspect all five could have been published as one book. Humph.

Nobilis last night was very fun. By turns beautiful and grotesque. Highlights include being lent wings to get home, letting the wings do the work and finding they liked to go *very fast*. That and being told that I was doing a great portrayal of denial. Well, Cole found out last night that she is the power of Loss/Hope, so it's a bit hard to deny now.

Looking forward to next session.

I want to see Troy again. I want more of the luscious eye-candy. Also, it was a bit like being on holiday to watch because of the lovely weather and landscape. Nice.

Earth Shattering news of Great Importance.

I really like my new Tupperware drink bottle. It's neat.

It's a good shape to hold, it fits lots of water in it and the sipper operates on a valve. This means no annoying bit to pull out each time you drink. No pulling with your teeth. It's nifty. I love it to bits.

Now, back to your scheduled program.

Stats are up

I love to get my stats on a Monday, I feel quite sad if the freeware doesn't pick up talula to analyze.

I love stats because watching the numbers grow is just like playing rockstargame again. I loved to play rockstargame. Then it went pay-for-play and I was very sad. My band was alternative rock legend Lenore Goldfish. It was a three piece band with a female lead singer. They released such wonderful songs as Bucket and Briar Rose. Their first album was called Sunshine Outside.

Anyhoo, your band had a popularity rating and touring around doing gigs raised your popularity. The better practised your band was the more people went to your concerts. You could charge more for tickets as you got more popular.

Lenore Goldfish were just breaking into the international market when it went pay for play.

Getting my stats each week is like finding out my band's popularity rating. I like to see the numbers go up. My favourite stats are: Repeat visitors (92 last week)
Total hits (2699 last week) and most popular search term. You may remember that one from the weeks it was Maisy Mouse. She's still in the top three, but lately the most popular is Fruits Basket Quiz.

some other fun search terms that people found me with:

dark faeries
my little pony avatars
wendy's secret kiss
things that didn't exist 10 years ago (I kinda want to blog about that one now)
jojoba pronounciation
Mary-Kate and Ashley updates on sickness
creme caramel
dad hat azumanga daioh picture.

great fun.

Poot.

On Saturday after we saw Troy we came home and Lee tried to turn on the computer and it just *wouldn't*. He tried fiddling with it on Sunday morning and the old power supply went Bang.

No computer at home for me.

Troy was alright. I put it on a level with the Last Samurai for goodness as an epic. Obviously Troy is better because Orlando Bloom isjust so pretty. I suspect I enjoyed it a little more than those members of the audience who have studied the Iliad. There was moaning at certain bits and audible laughter at the end when it said "Inspired by the Iliad by Homer".

Still, it was fun and it looked lovely and Brad Pitt was wonderful, and Eric Bana was really good and Orlando Bloom, as I have mentioned, is very pretty. They do this eye liner thing to him that really suits. The girls were alright.

I really liked all the costuming in it and am inspired to have a Trojan party. We could turn the heaters up in our apartment and all the guys can wear hipster wrap skirts and crop tops and the girls will wear lovely Grecian flowy dresses. Maybe this'd only work if Orlando and Brad came...

We watched Election when we got home. Man, that was a weird movie. It was trying to hard to be a black comedy and it didn't really make sense much of the time. I didn't like it very much, but I did watch it all the way through, just to see what would happen next. Not recommended as I'll never want to watch it again. Plus Reese Witherspoon's voice is super-annoying in this movie. (More than normal.)

If you can't say anything nice

you shouldn't say nasty things to people. You shouldn't email rude things, or make disparaging comments or anything. No yelling either. Yelling is the worst.

People do though, obviously.

I wonder if it'd be better to live in Japan, where everyone is very polite.*

* Or so anime has led me to believe.

Apocalypso or old dreams part 3

A few years back I dreamed the end of the world. It was one of those end-of-the-worlds where everyone knew it was happening and at what time.

The world was going to end at 4 in the morning. I spent my last day with my family then I went to Wellington Girls' College where my friends were having a big party. It must have been an alumni thing because there were heaps of people there, like new year's eve in Civic Square or something.

There was a huge brightly lit clock hanging off Tower block and everyone was facing it and dancing and hugging and crying and laughing. I looked up at one point and saw the moon. It was hanging very low, close in the sky and it was tarnished gold coloured with a big crack down it. That was the only part of the dream that scared me. Seeing that crack in the moon was freaky.

As it got closer to 4am I left and went on a boat with my parents. We sailed over a hill and onto the harbour. The harbour was flat and calm and Eastbourne has disappeared. We sailed off into the nothingness of the flat calm sea.

old dreams part 2.

I few years ago, I had this dream. Matt reminded me of it after yesterday's entry.

I dreamed that I was a superhero. I was also Tony Slattery from Whose Line is it Anyway? which I was watching compulsively at the time on TV4's Brit comedy Wednesday.

So, I was Tony Superhero. I was at my old primary school and an evil Giant Chocolate Paddle Pop tried to take over the world. It's power was to touch things and turn them into icecream. It hopped around upright on it's stick and had no eyes or voice or anything. It just exuded evil.

Awesome bad guy huh?

Since I was Tony Slattery I didn't actually have any powers, and I was scared of the Giant Paddle Pop, and I ran away from it. I hid in the girl's toilets since no-one would look for me there. Eventually I figured out that everyone was counting on me and that I should fight the paddle pop. I think I sprayed it with water, but not before it had turned a bunch of stuff into icecream, and made a heap of people evil.

Jenni dreams of ants

This morning my dreaming was a superhero story.

There was a super villain who controlled ants. This man had infiltrated my house. (Nothing like my house in real life. More like a Wadestown cottage with lovely trees and afternoon sun.)
He had infiltrated my house and the house of my sidekick (a guy older than me. No-one I know in real life. Useful, smart and practical. Not to say none of the older guys I know aren't any or all of those things, but I did make this guy up.) So he had infiltrared our houses and let in heaps of ants. His plan was to lie in wait for when we got home and set the ants on us.

Somehow we had learned of his plan. We felt very superior for knowing that he was doing it, and that he didn't know what we knew. So, we picked up a fire extinguisher that shot kerosine instead of flame retardant (or maybe my sidekick made that...) and then we surprised him by spraying it all over his ants and then lighting it with a handy match as I said something witty and superherotastic.

Of course, this would have not only burned the ants, but also the villain and our houses, which makes it not that good a plan, but I did wake up before I saw it all the way through, so my brain must have worked that out so it didn't have to come up with a fireproof house explanation.

The ants were amber golden coloured and pretty icky really.

I wonder who my sidekick really is. Did any guys out there who I have never met have a dream remarkably similar to mine last night? That'd be cool. Sudden idea for a comic: a superhero in dreamscape, but a regular person during the day.

Eh, it's probably been done.

Sorry for the excessive comma use in this entry. I just wanted to.

dumb things

I hit myself in the eye with the corner of a tissue.

It really hurt.

Lee and I watched High Society last night. It is wonderful. Funny and cool, fast paced and spunky. I love Grace Kelly. I love the songs. I especially love the scenes where Grace acts all bizarre to scare off the lower class magazine people. I was roaring.

I made dinner last night including some garlic bread, that on reflection didn't need 4 cloves of garlic.

New chips

My previously favourite potato chips (Health Plus sour cream and chives) have been replaced by another from the same family.

Health plus rosemary and garlic are awesome.

coolest people ever.

Thanks to Evie for showing me the coolest people ever. I want to meet them. I want to be chased by the shark, and participate in nopants.

The moebius they did was also awesome. Imagine being in an actual time loop. So cool.

Whinge. Monday whinge.

I am in danger of becoming repetitive, but here it is anyway. I want my weekend to be longer!

Two days is not enough time. I want twice as much. I'll take Monday and Tuesday as my extra two days thank you very much.

This weekend I visited my parents with Giffy, had Buffy game with Svend and others and then watched a v cool movie. It was cool. Sunday Zephfi came over and we watched Fruits Basket while other people saw Van Hellsing.

I used to want to see Van Hellsing but the more I found out about it the less I wanted to. For one Hugh Jackman doesn't do anything for me. Plus he looks silly with long flowing hair. Then Kate Beckinsdale is in it and she was in Underworld. Seriously. Then it got terrible terrible reviews and I came to thinking "Hey, it's $14 to see a movie now. $14 is actually quite a bit of money to throw away on something I don't want to see. I will keep my $14."

So Fruits Basket is great even the third time you watch it. Then after a game of Beanie with certain people who are very good at Beanie, Lee and I watched, uhm. Fruits Basket. But it was from later in the series, you know.

I also got some scrapbooking done and some quilting. Good Jenni.

Childish behaviour.

I was a rich Wadestown kid. Every day after school Mum would stop off at the dairy and buy me a 50c mixture. I remember the pastel coloured coin lollies. They were great. Pink elephants, white chocolate skulls with gooey raspberry centres. Why can't you get those anymore?

Saturday mornings the whole family would go into town. I would whine and grizzle if I didn't get a new toy, because I *always* got a new toy. My Little Ponies, playmobil, sylvanian families. Sylvanian families were great. Mum and my sister were both too old to properly play with them but they loved the dinky wee furniture so they'd buy it for me quite often.

I used to get a sesame bagel from the Dixon St deli for lunch. It was best when they were still warm. Sometimes Dad would go into the office on Saturday mornings and I'd get dumped with him so my Mum and sister could go shopping for clothes without me whining around the place.

Mum always wanted me to wear pretty dresses. I would unintentionally tease her by falling in love with dresses in shops and then hating them when I got them home. Dresses were awful uncomfortable things and I had a forceful/whiney enough personality that I was not forced to wear them. I preferred shorts and tshirts or tracksuits.

In 1989 my Dad's company lost a lot of money in the stock market crash. They were an investment company and they got sued for recklessness. The courts took about 8 years to get to the case and in the meantime my Dad declared himself Bankrupt. I was too young to really understand what was going on. Suddenly we had to move to a different house, but I got lots of free paper and staplers and pens from Dad's old office. My brother got an old typewriter.

My friends continued to get new things, but I didn't. No-one really explained why until quite recently. I knew that things weren't the same money-wise, but I didn't see why that should stop me having what I wanted.

I remember really wanting a new denim jacket but Dad saying we couldn't afford it. I must had really gone on about it because Mum bought it for me on the sly. She said I mustn't wear it too much at first so that Dad didn't notice and get angry. As a result I hardly wore it at all. Another frustration for my Mum. I did love the jacket mind, I was just scared to wear it.

This all makes me sad, I could have acted differently and made it easier for my Mum and Dad.

I really wish they still made those candy coins and skulls with raspberry goo. They were fantastic.

Dreaming

I dreamt about airports again. I think I didn't spend enough time in Auckland and I want to go back.

I especially want to go to the Graphic Novel cafe and buy anime and manga and mechandise relating to anime and manga. I want to see the lovely people I met at Armageddon.

Alas, no money. Also, Auckland is just too far away to drive to.

I am making myself a cute little scrapbook. I am using some of my favourite photos in it, but I an't find a good image to be used for the cover. The front cover has a little square window and you put a photo behind it. I can't choose. I am drawn back to the photo of me on graduation day with my pink furry hood up over my head. I love that photo. I'll need to get a reprint of it I think, since I keep using it other places and giving it away.

Nyaru nyaru nyaru.

Five go out and save the world using mystical powers

I had an epiphany this morning: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the Planeteers are the same kids. 5 kids, 2 girls and 3 boys. One girl is blonde, the other asian. One of the guys is black. (There's a disparity here...maybe they dumped the annoying 'heart' kid Ma-Tee and replaced him with a white guy?)

So, they have the ability to morph into bizarre robots when attacked by aliens. They can use dinosaur zords when it's something otherworldly and unnatural. Then if it's an Earth-based threat they can use their elemental powers and summon Captain Planet. They must be an awesome crack team of evil-punishing power.

I wonder if they're the famous five on their days off? It could work if the fifth kid (Ma-Tee) is actually a shape-shifter. That would explain why he's a white kid some of the time. Of course, there wasn't ever a black kid in the famous five.

Ma-Tee was always the weakest link. I remember this one episode when that evil air polluting lady caught all of the planeteers except him. Then she was all like "What are you going to do about it? Nothing! Ha!" and then he cried. Man, what a crappy superhero.

He's much better if he can shapeshift and call up a dinosaur zord.

hmm.

I just tried to find a new blog. (I don't know why I need to read more blogs. I have a whole bunch but I wants more, precious.)

What I did was, I followed links through a friend's blog and found a friend of a friend whom I have never met. Ok, great. Except for this blog made no sense at all. Like you were only getting a tiny part of a story and all the names, events and motivations were outside the journal. I think maybe to read this blog you have to know the person and know what is going on in the actual real life. Unsatisfying for me, the stranger.

So experiment is a failure. Will go back to random blog trawling.

Any recommendations gratefully recieved.

He always likes being the bearer of bad news.

It was raining when I drove to work today. Now, an hour and a half later it's sunny. It will be dark when I leave for home. I must get out at lunchtime and enjoy the weather, whatever it might be then.

I watched Igby Goes Down last night, which is pretty good. It is terribly cool. It knows it's terribly cool but despite this I still found it pretty enjoyable. I was even rooting for Igby despite the presence of Ryan Phillipe as one of the people he was trying to escape.
I was not shocked by any of the drug taking or sex. I guess because everything I had read about the movie mentioned the drugs and sex and none of it was groundbreaking or all that shocking. It was pretty much par for the course an inevitability.

The movie was funny. It kind of reminded me of a less kooky, less nasty, less boring Royal Tenenbaums. Kind of. Ryan Phillipe is lovely to look at and he does the rich boy bastard act very well. Clare Danes was rather good in it too, which was something of a surprise. I like her and all, but I never think of her as a good actor.

Also Lee and I are getting through Fruits Basket very fast. It is a good thing. Lee is laughing at the jokes. As soon as I can bear to be parted from my DVDs I will begin to lend out Fruits Basket.

To everyone I know.

I must spread the joy.

I must also make cute hats.

Cryptozoology

I found this neat Bestiary online. It told me that the Each Uisage is a variation of a kelpie. There was a freaky story about it in a book Lee gave me to read: the Ill Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. I didn't like the book very much, but the folktales are cool.

The Each Uisage is now one of my favourite kinds of mythic animals. Right up there with Griffens, Kraken, Chupacabra and of course faeries.

Each Uisages are very dangerous. They appear to men as very beautiful and docile horses. The man gets on and then the Each Uisage takes the rider down into a lake and devours him. They eat everything but the liver.

They appear to maidens as gorgeous young men and the only way you can recognise it's an Each Uisage is the pond weed in his hair. Same deal with the devouring in the lake and everything but the liver.

Chupacabras are goat eating vampire beasties. They're cool.

The mythic bestiary also has an awesome links page. Lots of reading for me.

Dark Faeries

The Folk Keeper is a wonderfully dark and slightly spooky book about European faeries. It's by Franny Billingsley and is in the Young Adult collection at the library. I am nearly all the way through it. The main character has such useful powers, like being able to tell the time to the minute and having hair frow two inches a night.

I saw Kill Bill Vol 2 yesterday and I loved that. I'm not sure if I want to watch them back to back. It might be a bit too much hack and slash chop-socky gorey action for me. But in two parts I can handle it quite well thank you. There is a scene in the second one that I found very hard to deal with. I won't mention what it is here because it's quite a spoiler, but I was basically breathing deeply and saying to myself "It's not real, it's not real it's not real. It's not happening to me." Of course, this scene is the one that QT felt needed to be long and drawn out so you really *felt* it.

I found the rest of the movie to be funny and enjoyable and touching.

On Saturday I spent lots of money on Tupperware, but still not as much as Svend, so it's OK. Then a bunch of people came over for games. Doraemon killed Tweety in the library with a letter opener and then I won Trivial Pursuit. Hooray!