I'm not feeling much like Christmas. It may be because it's still a bit early (although less than a month away) or it may be that I'm just doing too much other stuff.
Anyhoo, Pirate Wench (who I read on lj) posted this rather amusing new version of an old Christmas song which I think needs to be spread around. Especially the stabbing a circus clown line, it makes you feel just that much more Christmassy.
"The Short But Incredibly Happy Life of Riley" sounds good already doesn't it? By Colin Thompson (one of my absolute favourites) and Amy Lissiat, whom I haven't met before this is a story about how Riley the rat is happy and people aren't.
It's gorgeous and I'm going to steal a bit from it so you'll see:
"..and one of the silly things about life is that people, who spend so much time not eating what they really want, in places where they don't want to be, with people they don't like, usually live for quite a long time. Whereas Riley, who spends all the time eating his favourite food in his favourite place with his favourite friends, only lives for a very short time..(cut here)...the answer is very simple really - you just have to be happy with a lot less."
Essentially it's a commenary on the Western ideals of more, now, faster, better, more expensive and how it won't necessarily make you happier. There's a great bit about falling in love too.
The pictures are sketchy but not as sketchy as Frog Belly Rat-Bone and Riley the rat is a pleasing shade of purple.
*contented sigh*
Point of Fashion: L337 Librarian, although according to crazy old man I look like a school teacher because of my glasses
Current Obsession: must remember to email my SDC entry when I get home.
I wish I owned a house by a sandy seaside
I wish I were a successful, published author
I wish I owned a high-end digital video camera
I wish I was independently wealthy
I wish my seaside house had a fireplace
I wish I could fly
I wish I had a kitten
I wish I had a whole room just for my craft stuff, and the room would be light with big windows
I wish I could have my friends over for sophisticated dinners at which we did not talk about farts
I wish my friends could all be happy
I wish....
Air New Zealand have a policy. Men can't sit next to unaccompanied children. I can understand why they did it, but it's sad that it has to be that way.
ETA: I got this link off Zeb and there's some interesting discussion over that way.
Point of Fashion: how cold am I going to get?
Current Obsession: patchworkinvitationsroleplaying
I Know, Right? Quotes:
Amythest, some what exasperated “Does *everyone* want to try my lip gloss?”
About their English teacher: “Mr Henderson is a cop.”
Kelly “That mint lip gloss is really good!”
Amy “Thanks, it’s…Prada?”
Kelly: “I’ll recommend a moisturiser to you because you’ll look like a wrinkled prune in two years!”
Arizona-Rose, stirring...“I’ve never borrowed a sci-fi book off my best friend’s boyfriend….”
“He’s into sport and he reads! That’s an interesting combination…”
“Yeah so if he injures himself, he’ll still get into college”
“Yeah, or if he injures himself he’ll know why!”
To the Japanese girl: “I didn’t know you knew any Japanese!”
Jocks: “Toga Party!”
Sakura: “Is it Ok if I go and hang out with him, I mean the mall’s done.”
Kelly: “sure, we’re only choosing dresses for the BALL.”
Amy: “My mum threatened to cut up my credit card”
Val: “awww…that’s pretty harsh. I mean your only credit card.”
Amy: “I have three.”
...not sure how much sense that makes to people who weren't there, but I did add a little explanationary stuff.
This week should see me receiving a lot of trademe purchased fabrics, it's very exciting. One extremely onto it seller has already sent me the stuff, which is lovely!
After finishing the top of the girl baby quilt yesterday I started work on the boy baby quilt, which will be a squarey I Spy quilt. It won't be quite as long as the girl one which ended up kind of freakishly long, and will be just as bright and colourful. I made the first two squares a bit big so they're being put aside for an I Spy quilt for someone else.
I am looking forward to receiving the fabrics so I can wash them, iron them and immediately cut them into squares for the quilt. I'm especially looking forward to the planes and helicopters print I paid for this morning!
Lee dropped me at work today since my glasses are unwearable. The sweetie is taking them into an optometrist today for fixing. He was also planning a trip to Kapiti to assemble his Grandparent's computer, seeing the travel agent to book our honeymoon, consulting his father about bills and finally picking me up from work at 6. I suspect he's getting everything he can out of the way today so that he can blob out for the rest of the week!
We spent a lot of time yesterday morning looking at airfares and accommodation deals online and the difference we're paying to go through the travel agent is pretty minimal. I'm pleased because it means we can use it for a wedding register and people can pay whatever they like towards our honeymoon. Huzzah!
The tupperware-ing on Saturday was fun and produced the best chocolates ever omg! I am totally craving them so I'll have to make some of my own. If only I'd bought the mini muffin flexi form, I could make them so easily! Delish chocolate orange almondy goodness...*sigh*
Murder Mystery evening on Friday was good fun, although I'd like to go again with a different group. Our table was pretty fun but I'm not fond of the random drunkenness of strangers. If it was people I knew that'd be different. (heh.)
What else? This week is looking as busy as last week, which is tempting me to flake out on the Bookcrossers meet-up tonight. I'd like to go but I'm worrying about parking and I don't want to go out in the cold and what would I do about dinner? It'd be alright if Lee was playing squash because he could drop me off and pick me up on the way back but he's decided to have a rest tonight so it's all hard. Moan, whine, complain.
Right. I'm off to eat something.
well, it was going to be a lazy Sunday. It turned into a not-productive but exhausting christmas shopping expedition.
Present shopping is hard because of the uncertainty, which is why I prefer to ask people for suggestions of things they'd actually like. Lee's family don't do this though, there's a whole expectation of fantastic presents with no input from the recipient.
So. We wandered around town for a while and came back with not much. I kept seeing things I want, which is usually how it happens.
Oh, one very annoying thing: one of the lenses popped out of my glasses frames and I can't find the screw to keep it in. Bah. I can drive with the lens in one side because the remaining one is on my right and that's the dominant eye, but it isn't really safe or good.
After not-present shopping we went food shopping and then I did some cleaning and Lee did some cleaning and since then I've updated my CV and finished the top of the quilt for Katy's girl baby. Wheeee! I even had enough batting left over from my flannel quilts to be the middle part...I just need some fabric for backing. We have a spare single size sheet I could cut up but it's sometimes nice to give to people sleeping on the couch...
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was very very good and I have something of a crush on Cedric which is lucky because not only was Oliver Wood excluded *again* but there was NO QUIDDITCH! I'll complain about this more over the course of the year but it remains my biggest complaint about the otherwise wonderful movie.
Pizza at Calzone again was fantastic. Must go back. Eat more pizza.
Point of Fashion: Raro tshirt and lower back pain
Current Obsession: patchwork and Cedric
I got chatted up this morning by the nearly-2 year old that P looks after. How does a boy that young impress a girl? Well.
He spoke in a monotone, a bit lower than his normal voice and reeled off the following words: "digger tractor concorde jump-jet shark".
See? That's all his favourite things! What girl's heart didn't just melt?
actually there may have been two sharks at the end there, when I think about it. I know he was trying to chat me up because P said he'd tried it on a little girl at the swimming pool earlier. She apparently wasn't very impressed with the technical stuff.
Awesome.
The game last night went really well. The players all got totally into character and I managed to pull off some great moments with NPCs mucking them up and giving them moral dilemmas.
I think the weakest link in the whole thing was me! I've spent so much time working on the mechanics of the game that I've neglected the story. This is very ironic because in a lot of ways it's the most important thing to me as a roleplayer. Story and character development. I need to work out a plot arc, possibly based on the nemesis character invented by the girls last night. (I'm gonna go ahead and call the whole group girls because they all played girls so well!)
So. A bit of thinking needed and then it'll all be shiny. I took Matt's advice of drawing up a timeline as we played complete with problems and named NPCs and I'll pad that out a little more to make a better story. More obvious moral choices make for more conflicts I suspect.
I was very impressed with the performance of the two neophytes. V jumped straight in boots and all with a fantastic turn as the Torn Bystander and Rachel shone as the Banker, using the underhanded tactics one would expect. I am in awe of people who can actually talk in character in the first hour of their first roleplaying game!
They also both made some very funny jokes and some very awesome character problem moments really pop so I am pleased.
I have some quotes but I left them all in a word doc on the laptop so I didn't have to remember them. I'll get them up tomorrow, promise.
Rachel did a good run down in the comments for Giffy here.
Point of Fashion: winter fleece lined skirt
Current Obsession: Weekend weekend weekend weekend
I am Freezing today. I am so Cold I capitalize.
Tonight is the second playtest of my kapcon game and I'm feeling quite nervous actually. Having two Roleplaying neophytes is exciting because they won't have any preconcieved notions of gameplay or any 'baggage' to unlearn, but at the same time I'm worried that they won't like it and will never roleplay again and it'll be All My Fault(tm).
A casual comment of Rachel's about running out of the room in tears has me worried, since I've been in situations where that's happened and it isn't nice for anyone. Pretty sure she was joking, but then again my game isn't about girls being nice to each other, quite the opposite...so I don't know. I'm worrying about this because I'm bored, essentially. I won't worry at all when I run it at Kapcon because the convention atmosphere is so casual. You know when you go to it that some games will be good and some not so great and that's all fine.
Anyway, I bought a supermarket cake with pink icing on it, so if anyone does get upset we can smother the bad feelings with comfort food and that will still be *completely* in the essence of the game.
What else?
I'm reading Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, which is one of the ones recommended to me by the library grrls for strong female leads. I like it, but I don't *love* it. It's very cleverly written with a strong theme of things not being done because it isn't proper and the main Princess doing whatever she wants regardless.
Vertigo last night was good. I found I hadn't remembered as much of it as I thought and was pleased to find as I watched that I had completely forgotten the ending! I like Kim Novak, but Grace is still the one for me. Also love Tippi Hedren more than Kim when I think about it.
Nothing much to say. I'm really liking the way the quilt looks, last night I put in a dragon and a castle. I don't know if it looks too busy though, I think maybe I need to break the strips up with some plain fabric in between. I have left it out on the floor so the people coming over tonight can give their opinions.
I actually really like the way busy quilts look, but as ever I am aware that other people's opinions may vary from my own. I asked Lee but he's really the wrong person for that sort of thing.
Point of Fashion: L33t librarian
Current Obsession: why do IIIIII always have to do eeeeeeverything?
The scrapbooking madness of last week has given way to a mania for patchwork. I have been making a quilt for Katy's girl baby and it's so cute!
I went to spotlight yesterday for some more fabrics as I wanted to make an "I Spy" quilt, which is when you have big patches of printed fabrics with stuff on them so that you can then play "I Spy" with the child. I went through my fabric stash on the weekend and realised I had a few good prints, but a definite tendency to butterflies and not enough to make an interesting quilt. Yesterday I purchased fabric featuring kites, tractors (love that one), fairytale characters, fairies hiding in flowers, dragons and a kind of Harry Potter-esque rip off print with images of unicorns, dragons, ships, castles and wizards.
ahem. I may have also purchased giraffes on green and a selection of desserts of trademe. Fabric is cheap over trademe!
So, I'm limiting myself to one butterfly fabric per quilt and making a tending-towards-pastels for the girl baby and a tending-towards-brights for the boy baby and hoping I'm not starting some kind of gender programming too early. The girl one will have a bit more pink on but both will have fairies, unicorns, tractors and butterflies...so I'm not going to Hell right?
I'm gonna try and finish the girl one tonight. It's a strip quilt which means long strips running the length of the quilt make up the pattern. I might do proper blocks for the boy one so they're a bit different.
Point of Fashion: dressing warm, but with the option of cooling down later
Current Obsession: Quilts quilts quilts.
A very amusing write up of a Barbie set that's being sold: here
hee hee.
Also I felt an Earthquake this morning which isn't listed on geonet so must have been the gale force wind gusting at the same time a train went past. Stoopid sunshine woke me up too early, although I had a lovely sleep in yesterday morning so I won't complain too much.
I feel dizzy. I don't think I've got the flu going round, as I haven't got a sore throat or running nose. What I do have is bad tummy *again* and a sort of constant dizziness. Last night my neck and base of the skull hurt like billy-o but so far I'm ok for that today. I just have the constant dizzy.
I came home early from work yesterday and just got straight into bed. The relief I felt when my head hit the pillow was astounding. Lee came home early with a headache but he says he feels mostly alright today and went to work.
I actually wonder if it's all just physical backlash from the stress I was feeling earlier in the week?
Anyway, we finished watching the first season of Scrubs and then we watched the new Lost. Mmmmm new Lost. I finished my Jackie Wilson book and am now deeply engrossed in the sequel to Bloody Jack. Both books are very well written but quite hard going.
Today I am going to take it easy. I'll sit at the computer and play The Movies which Lee got for me. It's a kind of sims game where you run a movie studio and have to produce movies. Empire said I'd love it and I'm inclined to agree although I'll update when I've actually played some. I shall stay at the computer until I get too dizzy to sit up. Then I'm going to back to bed and waiting for Dr Phil.
Oooh I should finish my Kapcon game while I'm at it.
Point of Fashion: comfy white nighty
Current Obsession: dizz
I'm feeling better today. It tok me ages to get to sleep last night but when I did it was good. I feel more upbeat today and that's sayings something.
Good turnout to watch Frenzy last night. I found the opening scenes and the first murder pretty horrific, but once I realised they weren't going to show any more of the rapes and murders I relaxed some. It's a pretty good movie, got the classic Hitch stuff: innocent man in bad situation, useless women, strange circumstances...I liked it, but I don't think I'll be watching it again any time soon.
I'm enjoying the new Jackie Wilson book, I'm half way through now. I have a real desire at the moment to re-read things.
I showed my three favourite Wellington 48 hour movies to the Hitch crowd last night: Besy Lee, Rangimoana's Magical Mystery and Au Revoir Mon Amie. These films are still funny.
I started planning next year's competition while I was falling asleep last night. I also wondered if maybe my Kapcon game is somehow too good to put into the Scenario Design Contest and I should try to publish it instead. I have no idea how I'd go about publishing it, blame Steve for putting the idea into my head.
Point of Fashion: Gabriel
Current Obsession: can't get into livejournal
Ok, so I do have a couple of things to be happy about. One of them is the newly acquired DVD collection of the 48 hour film competition entries from all over NZ. It has all the finalists from the four centres and a "Best of the Rest" collection which includes the wonderful pretentious art film about a dead tiger that I love so much.
Another bad thing: I backed into someone at the supermarket carpark. I made a wee scratch in his BMW's paint and our bumper is now hanging off in a very appealing and somewhat threadlike manner. He seemed content to take pity on me, lecturing me about watching out for other cars in the carpark (and presumably not randomly reversing) and didn't take my name or anything so I figure I got off lightly there. I can't believe how much I suck though.
Tea is good. Cups of tea make me less freaked. I started reading the new and very Young Adult Jacqueline Wilson book today and I wish I could just spend the rest of the day curled up reading and drinking tea.
Bah.
I feel terrible today. I'm not sick just worn out. My shoulders are huge clusters of knots (Lee tried to get rid of them this morning but I think they're back now.)
I'm dehydrated and sleepy and highly strung. I feel like I could cry at any time...I wish I had a month of holidays.
I'm going to go ahead and say that when you're already feeling stressed, playing a highly stressful Star Wars game in which you spend a lot of the time chanting inside your head "we're all gonna die" isn't going to relax you any. In fact kinda the opposite. I really enjoyed the game on some levels: it was really spooky and grand scale and there was banter and manipulation and I used my Jedi powers for evil instead of good but you know...stressful. When I spend the evening stressed out instead of relazing like normal I apparently feel differently in the morning. I feel like Death warmed up.
I want to go home and sleep for a week. Of course, I can't. So instead I'm going to have my break and eat a peanut butter kitkat.
Point of Fashion: you expect fashion now?
Current obsession: breathing deeply, releasing tension.
Hating Alison Ashley is really pretty good. Another Girl World film with bite and a bit of gritty realism. The main character had flights of fancy very similar to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. But as Giffy pointed out, it's actually about learning what your flaws are and becoming a better person, not convincing everyone around you that your fantastic even though you're a compulsive liar.
Giffy's felt hat is completely adorable. I have serious hat envy.
I worked a leetle more on my Kapcon game, and I'm about ready to
a.) send a copy to Matt for proofreading
and b.) run another playtest. If you are interested in participating please comment below and suggest a good time of the week for you. Monday nights, Thursdays nights and Saturday afternoons are good for me.
Point of Fashion: Rarotonga tshirt
Current Obsession: not freaking out. I feel quite anxious and spent last night all curled in a tight stress ball and gritting my teeth and hurting my shoulder.
Idea stolen from suraya, although the questions are mine.
1. Oooooooooh last entry was number 666. Does that freak you out?
2. Do you like reading about children's books?
3. What was the last book you read?
4. Are you writing a book at the moment?
5. What do you really need when you're cooking?
6. How many times this year have you been to the movies (ballpark figure)?
7. Geek or nerd?
That'll do I think.
Moan, moan whine.
Right so. Friday night had a bad start when I came home to find the Body Corporate fees in my building are going up %30. This is not a small amount of increase and there is no viable reason for it. Lee was not very happy and I was not very happy but we managed to get out of the house to see TP.
It was very cold on the waterfront so Chelle, Jase, Rachel, Lee and I took off to Maverick's pizza in Berhamport for some amazingly good Italian Meatball pizza and two other flavours which weren't quite as good. Soooo going back there.
Saturday we bought Lee lots and lots of clothes but nothing suitable for the wedding. We did get lovely shiny silver paper for the wedding invites though, so that's something.
Yesterday I got my time alone and wafted around scrapbooking, jeans quilting, laundering, napping, reading. It was great. I started work on a Christmas present which I hope Giffy will like. I was going to do a lj entry which was totaly food porn but the camera's batteries died and I couldn't get the photo. Then I ate the strawberry tartes aux fruites so I couldn't do it later on. Well, you'll just have to wait til next time I have one.
Lee and I went to Elizabethtown last night. It was actually really creepy. I maintain with judicious editing and a bit of a rewrite it'd be a fine movie but as it stands it's overlong, too bizarre to be acceptable in the setting and Kirsten Dunst's character comes off as a scary stalker.
Man, though Orlando is Just. So. Good. Looking! So I enjoyed it more than Lee did because I could just kinda go "awwwww" and forget that the story made little sense and the mother was tapdancing at her husband's funeral and doing standup comedy???? WTF? Y'see? It was creepy.
Then we came home and finished off the third disc of first season Scrubs. That was much funnier.
Point of Fashion: I hate Mondays which coincide with periods.
Current Obsession: my torso.
I just read a lovely new picture book...It's called Once Upon an Ordinary School Day by Colin McNaughton and it isnpired me to make a list of my favourite uplifting picture books.
Once Upon an Ordinary School Day is about an ordinary boy who goes to shcool. The first few pages are all drawn in plain greys and blacks and whites and the text is peppered with the word 'ordinary'. In class there is a new teacher who plays the class music and inspires their creativity. The pictures become colourful and the text disappears as we see the boy get lost in a world of storytelling. Gorgeous!
The story of Frog Belly Rat Bone by Timothy Ering is another greys to colours story, this one with an environmental theme and very strange art. It's about a boy who finds a box of treasure in his rubbish dump world. He is disappointed to find the treasure is nothing but specks, but he follows the written instructions and plants them anyway. He makes a rubbish creature called Frog Belly Rat Bone to protect the growing specks from a rabbit and a rat who want to steal them but everyone ends up being friends in a huge garden.
Ish by Peter Reynolds is about a boy (I sense a theme...) who draws pictures. He draws everything he can see. Then one day his older brother makes fun of the pictures for not looking enough like the real things. He screws up his pictures and throws them away and hates himself until he realises his little sister is taking the thrown away pictures. She has been sticking them up on the wall in her room because she loves them, when asked why she likes the pictures even though they don't look enough like the real things she says they look "ish". The flowers are flowers-ish, the vase is vase-ish. Then the boy is free again to draw whatever he likes and be appreciated for it.
Emily and the Dragon by Lyn Lee is about a girl who loves to dance. Her brother likes to fight dragons, when she says she'd like a turn he says "Everybody knows girls don't fight dragons!" Emily replies with a succint "I don't know that" and goes ahead into the dark forest to find the dragon. Along the way she makes friends with a witch, teaches a knight to knit and eventually finds a dragon. She's all set to fight him when the dragon says "Actually I'd rather dance". Quite a lovely non-violent story with a classic last page. (The brother looking up in terror, shadowed by the dragon who is asking him to dance.)
Might add some more later. We'll see.
Felling silly and flighty today, I blame the wind and the dreams I had last night.
Had an extra visitor to storytime: Pregnant with Twins Dora! She said the babies especially liked the playing with musical instruments we did and were kicking along with the beat! It's nice to have this extra time to see people. It'll be quite strange after P isn't looking after the boy anymore and stops coming.
New Lost was all weepy. Stoopid Lost. I was very cranky yesterday...but it did help me write up the Mean Girls game some more. It's coming along quite well I think.
I have pretty much finished Cleolinda's Movies in 15 Minutes book, although I haven't read Braveheart. I've actually never seen Braveheart so I'm not that interested in it! It's very funny although I thought Jurassic Park was a bit lacking...Titanic was hilarious, as was well, everything else in the book!
This weekend is shaping up quite quiet which suits me just fine. I'm even going to have some time to myself on Sunday. I seem to have arranged my life so that I get very little time alone and I find myself missing it a little. I plan to be both lazy and productive. I thrive on paradoxes.
Point of Fashion: refined
Current Obsession: sleep
Right, so now I have the Clone High theme song on my MP3 player. It comes up first (hee hee).
Yesterday Lee picked up my wedding ring, it's a curved ring to fit with my engagement ring and it has a koru carved into it. It's really beautiful and I love it. Lee got his contract for the new job on the same trip, so he felt quite life-changey and grown up I think.
For my reference more than anything else: countdown to the wedding
What else? The Birds was a big drawcard and it was great to see Sok again, even if she didn't stay for the movie. It's still a pretty creepy movie, although Steve sitting next to me anticipating violent actions and action-movie explosions made it a bit more funny than normal. I have trouble remembering to breathe during the long drawn out suspense shots.
I'm off to post my first trademe sold items: the two double rainbow unicorn ponies.
Point of Fashion: red and white basketball boots
Current Obsession: spending money
Last night I opened the package that was delivered to Lee's work. Books.
I spent the entire time Lee was out playing squash reading Cleolinda's movies in 15 minutes book. (Except that for the 20 minutes I spent talking to my Mum.)
Then when Lee got home we watched the last three episodes of Clone High evah. (sobs) and a coupla eps of Justice League Unlimited.
Today the sun is out and the wind is mild and it's completely lovely and I'm at work. (sobs). I wish I had a million days of annual leave.
Lee got a new job. He asked for more money when they offered and they said yes so he resigned his current position yesterday. He's going to need new clothes...
We have decided on the Gold Coast for our honeymoon. Yays! Lee said we can go to WB movie world for sure and I think that when he hears that Sea World has polar bears we can go there too. Plus Wet and Wild Waterworld has hydroslides. Who doesn't love hydroslides? (me.) Ok, there are too many theme parks.
Point of Fashion: Pretty Princess of Pirates
Current Obsession: sun outside
Got Lee to agree to having one song in the wedding ceremony. Not sure whether to use it in the space while we sign the register or as a recessional. I think I favour the latter as not sure how easy it'll be to get music outside the castle if the day is sunny.
I made myself a long to-do list at lunchtime. It's mostly wedding things but also some things I have to get sorted out before Christmas.
The craft fair Giffy took me to at Thistle Hall on Saturday was very nice, low key but lots of fabulous stuff on sale. We signed up to have a stall on December 17th, so I'll put the word out again closer to the time. I must make patchwork jeans cushions before then so I have something to sell!
I can't think of any small and marketable things I can do with scrapbooking, so I think I'll just stick to the cushions. Maybe take my quilt along too to advertise. I must also have a lot of cash money that day as there was lots I wanted to buy...
Watched Notting Hill last night and the guy who tries to steal a book from Hugh Grant's book store at the start is Dylan Moran! Silly Bernard, trying to steal a travel book. He gets some good jokes for the amount of time he has on screen.
I finished Anansi Boys and I liked it very much. I miss it, I wish I was still reading it. Lee is reading it now, and finding the depressing stuff (of which there is a little) a bit hard going. I hope he perseveres because it's very funny and I think he'll like it.
I am now reading a Lloyd Alexander book about Vesper Holly called the Illyrian Adventure it's a kind of action adventure story featuring a girl Indiana Jones type character set in 1874. There is no downtime in the story at all, but it's quite enjoyable. I had it recommended to me by the librarygrrls lj community when I was asking for strong female leads.
Point of Fashion: Sleepy Monday
Current Obsession: getting things crossed off the to-do list
I like the way the giant fireworks go "Blam!" and "Boom!" and the sound ricochets off the buildings and the Hutt and we heard the big ones about five times all up.
Extra excitement: seeing an actual fire on Mt Vic. I sort of looked over as we watched all of Roseneath and Mt Vic setting off fireworks and I saw this orangey glow. "What's that orangey glow?" I asked and we soon figured it for an out of control bonfire. I tried calling the fire department to alert them and 111 was engaged. Kind of alarming, although unsurprising really as it was about 8.55pm Guy Fawkes Night.
We watched it before, during and after the big display and I think it had been going for over an hour when it was finally extinguished. Apparentlt Emba could see the flames from her place in Mt Vic...scary!
After seeing lit fireworks thrown off the top of my building and placed in the middle of the road in addition to the fire: I now support the banning of fireworks. I love fireworks, but I don't think just anyone over 14 should be able to buy them. You should have to apply for some kind of permit and state how you're going to use them and where. I don't think that's unreasonable.
It'd cut down on the fire service's grief, especially if only certain areas were allowed to have fireworks set off in them. You know, places where there isn't a lot of bush and scrub and there is easy access to water. Easily accessable from the road and away from residential property.
Can't find anything on stuff.co.nz about the fire. Maybe it'll turn up later in the day. Maybeon the news tonight?
The ballet was wonderful. My sister was quite worried because it was a new version of the classic Nutcracker and she's very much of the "if it's not broke don't fix it" frame of mind. At least when it comes to ballet.
However we were both pleasantly surprised and the show was funny, beautiful and wonderful. The new story goes thusly: Clara, Fritz and their parents are celebrating Christmas when Fritz clocks Clara one on the head with her new nutcracker doll. She is whisked to hospital and has to stay over night. There are lots of interesting characters at the hospital; nurses, silly doctors, other sick girls, Matron of Doom, etc. After the medicine dosing from Matron of Doom Clara goes to sleep and has a series of bizarre dreams.
Highlights include: the dance of the sugarplum fairy danced not by the fairy but by three men with broken legs on crutches. This was freaking hilarious. I laughed til I cried and it was over way too soon.
The love story between a doctor and a nurse.
The dance in the softly falling snow, whatever they used for snow just fell so beautifully and it framed every movement the dancers made.
Fritz's Russian dance...amazing acrobatics!
On the other hand, a grumpy old lady shushed my sister and me, and we had hardly been talking at all. We were whispering and hadn't even been doing it long! I figure the waltz of the flowers must have been her favourite music otherwise it didn't make much sense. I also like that music. Must get hold of a copy.
I also bought two DVDs. Notting Hill was $20 and Wimbledon was $25. Now I own *all* the Richard Curtis films!!! Bwah-Hah-Haaaaaa!
Point of Fashion: pink tourist "Melbourne" tshirt from my Mum
Current Obsession: pain in my shoulder
I'm not blogging today. I have nothing to say.
I'm going to the ballet tonight, so I'll have something to say about that tomorrow.
I'm liking Anansi Boys but I haven't finished it yet, so there's not much to say there either except that it's funny.
Point of Fashion: Favourite retro tshirt
Current Obsession: Wake Me Up when September Ends
Current Music: Clone High
Mood: strange
This freaks the hell out of me.
Neo-Nazi blonde children singers.
I hate to see racist children, it's just pure ignorance. I followed the link through to their official site and that's pretty scary too.
On a lighter note but no less freaky: their names are "Lamb" and "Lynx". Not even Bratz twins have names so corny!
Last night, since the rpg group was sans hix, we sat and chatted for a while and then I coerced them into play testing my as yet unwritten Mean Girls game.
It was great. We went through character creation and I explained how I thought it would work and how the diary chair should function. As we played I made notes on how conflicts worked out and after a school day's worth of play in which my character (originally a target) usurped the banker's place in the clique we had a break down of what worked, talked through some goals and nutted out some special powers.
The only bad thing about that is I feel like I don't completely own the game. It was a collaborative effort with my group sorting out how the mechanics should work. Of course the premise is still mine and the basic stuff but still. I guess I'll write it up and put a dedication to them when it's published! (kidding I am about the publishing).
I got some good quotes, like:
"There are no Goths under the sea"
but most of them I suspect will only work in context.
Current Music: wake me up when September ends ~ Greenday
Current Obsession:clone high
Tummy feeling tense: Bad dream has stuck with me from this morning. Not good to wake up and feel differently about one of your friends!
Concern about: Lee sprained something in his back at squash last night and actually took pain meds this morning. Must be a bit serious. He also has a jhob interview today.
Worry for: Hix, who is apparently fine *now* but in hospital briefly yesterday. Are you eating ok man?
Yearning: for chocolately goodness. Thankfully it's my lunchtime now and I'm going to the supermarket.
