Really. I've had a college visit promotion this morning, a class this afternoon and all last night we watched Band of Brothers and played very important games on the XBox. Such as Kung Fu Kaos and Bubble Bobble. Plus I have to get the baby quilts finished and my wrist hurts if I do that for too long. Then I get people complaining that I'm not updating?* I'm busy y'all!
I finished reading the latest Meg Cabot Avalon High yesterday and it was a very good book indeed. Just like the other Meg teen romances with a slightly supernatural twist in that all the main characters were reincarnations of characters from Arthurian legend.
I am still roughly half way through Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I like it a lot, but it's a looooooooooong book.
Tonight we're brainstorming for Godlike, which I'm running since I know the system the best, although I am really unsure of my knowledge of what it was actually like in World War 2. Hence watching BoB last night. I figure I'll see what the players want out of the game first, right the story second and then do some hardcore research on the relevant stuff third. After that I should be ready to run the damn thing.
Point of Fashion: Batman
Current Obsession: uhm. Nothing. Too busy for an obsession.
*well, one person and it wasn't really a complaint, but more like a dreaded LJ 'nudge'. I obeyed anyway, which is why I shall never succeed in being a hermit ;p
Why I thought the movie Aeon Flux was really quite good:
Ok, so I went in expecting it to be crap. You know, Daredevil, Kingdom of Heaven, Underworldsort of stuff. It wasn't. I found that I really liked the opening sequence and the stuff that happened at the start of the movie and thinking 'when's it going to get bad?'
They managed to do what I was assuming they wouldn't be able to manage. They kept the feel of the MTV cartoon. Things would happen and I'd think 'yes. That's exactly right' and I found myself enjoying it the way I enjoyed it on MTV as a 16 year old. It was weird and sexy and crack-smoking.
Charlize Theron is very beautiful and although I do wish they'd made her hair a bit more crazy, she was a very good Aeon.
My biggest problem with the whole package was the characterisation of Trevor Goodchild. He was too good. My favourite thing about Trevor is that he's an unknown quantity. He loves Aeon but will do what's best for his people, or himself and you can never tell what that will be. I would have been able to handle the whole coup storyline if only he'd turn to Aeon right at the end and said "You're still a criminal. Run before they shoot you." You know, something to show that he was still her enemy because if you think about it the Monnikans are against the entire regime of Goodchilds not the minor-ish problem that was resolved.
That said the movie was full of coolness, the security system of grass, the Big Brother is watching pool, the fly in the eyelashes, the clothes Aeon wore, the kiss then sex then attempted murder between Aeon and Trevor...the cute little baby. There were multiple sequences when I was just thinking "What the Hell is going on?" and that's exactly what the movie should have been.
It was a bit too expositionary and it was a bit too nicey nicey but I loved it all the same.
Point of Fashion: pjs
Current Obsession: will the PS2 voucher come today?
That's the refrain from the Frou Frou cover of 'Holding Out for a Hero' which is on the Shrek 2 soundtrack and one of my favourite songs at the moment.
I am actually holding out for the weekend. And sock purchases. And my new playstation 2 which we hopefully (fingers crossed) got a voucher for in the mail today. I should be able to assuage my cravings somewhat by going to Giffy's tonight and playing her singstar.
Our car is finally ready. It's been in the garage since Wednesday getting its warrant. Lee and I both reverse into things with alarming regularity so I knew the bumper would need to be reapplied and the tail light fixed, so it's no surprise at all. But it is a pain.
As I blogged on my livejournal, we recieved the professional photos from our wedding last night and they are just stunning. I am holding out to get some prints of those, so one of my missions for tomorrow is getting my ink cartridges refilled* so I can go ahead and print pictures of myself looking similar to a movie star.
Morgue is a genius. If you didn't already know this, go here. He actually wrote it a while back but it's stuck with me as a truly enlightened piece of work, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius if you will.
Next week I'm going to write a bit about how much I hate the Disney Princess range. For now I'm just gonna say have a nice weekend.
Point of Fashion: secret Super Grover knickers
Current Obsession: ps2 socks
*is it a new euphemism for sex? Hey baby, come fill my ink cartridges.
Maybe not.
I want these things from sock-dreams:
Pirate Thigh Highs $13.00
PK Purple Knees Dark Red $6.00
DST Dreamy Striped Tubes Purples $12.00
AWC Chenille arm warmers pink $13.00
Petticoat pink
Super Ms Wool
I will do an order sooon. Once I've been paid again probably. I will order from sock dreams next Thursday, so that's one week. If you want in on the order please sort out what you want before then and get money to me. Bear in mind, my credit card is measly small so if you want to order LOTS maybe you should do it yourself?
Aaah the new things. How can I resist them?
Point of Fashion: warm in jeans and boots and hoodie
Current Obsession: socks and money
We watched Dick again last night. I actually haven't watched it in ages, so I'd forgotten some of the dialogue, which is nice. Katy came with her teeny tiny preemy baby and I was pretty entranced by the tinyness. So cute and sort of moving in slow motion. She made some interesting squawks too.
I am working hard on the quilts, although waking up this morning with a sore wrist reminds me to pace myself. The other thing I did last night was pin patches to all the holey bits in my flannelette quilt from two winters ago. It needed more patching than I thought it did, but that's ok. I have applied two cows, a carton of milk, a kitty and some old pyjamas to the afflicted areas and I'll sew 'em on in time.
Tonight we'll get to see the Official Wedding Photographs, which is very exciting. I'm meeting my parents for lunch so I'll see theirs too.
Hogwarts Hocus is eating my life. I will try not to let it, but it's very very addictive.
Point of Fashion: hoping the weather doesn't turn bad, as it's skirt and jandles.
Current Obsession: keeping happy
While on out honeymoon Lee and I saw two movies at the cinema.
Keeping Mum when you first hear about it or read a review appears to be a normal Working Title film about bumbling vicar Rowan Atkinson who is letting his family of Kristen Scott Thomas and two teenage kids fall apart because he's so wrapped up in his work. They hire Maggie Smith as a housekeeper and she sorts everything out. What you find out when you start watching this film is that it's actually a black comedy about Maggie Smith, paroled murderer and her new job under Kristen Scott Thomas, desperate housewife. This is a dark movie, y'all. I loved it. Lee found the first half a bit slow, but enjoyed the second half immensely.
Walk the Line, biopic of Johnny Cash. Well, you know how I feel about Johnny, so I was expecting to love the film and I did. Joaquin Phoenix really can do the voice and they didn't pretend he was a nice guy. Reese was very charming as usual and I dunno....I just really liked it.
I came out resigned to my fate of never being a rock star because my parents a.) never told me I'd amount to nothing
b.) didn't push me really hard to suceed
I'm convinced you need one or the other to become truly great. In the rock scene anyway. Possibly as an artist, too.
The car's in the garage getting a warrant. I hope it comes through alright.
Point of Fashion: normal stuff with new favourite breast cancer tee
Current Obsession: sleep
Here's what I ate while I was on holiday, more or less. Special highlights are given more explanation.
We stayed at Santorini whichis a holiday apartment complex up a level from the street. Underneath the apartments are four restaurants: Barchino, Buono Sera, Chiang Mai Thai and Bistro Cheers Japanese. Five if you count the cafe in the cycle shop, which I do not.
On our first night we had pizza from Buono Sera, the friendly Italian place. I had a corona with lime in it and we shared garlic bread and a really very good pizza with olives, meat, mushrooms, etc. Basically a supreme, but a proper Italian wood fired oven gourmet pizza. Lee didn't like it as much as I did, but then you know how I feel about pizza.
On the second night we tried out Barchino, which is a flash cafe open all day for breakfast, lunch and tea. The waiting staff were very friendly and we made friends with one in particular over the course of our stay because we really liked the food there. We shared a big seafood antipasto platter. I loved the breadsticks wrapped in smoked salmon, the calamari and the pickled fillets of fishy the most. It was all good, although I don't like mussels unless they're smoked and I can't stand oysers from the shell so I didn't eat those. The king prawns of course, were the best.
On Friday we checked out the Thai place and were quite disappointed. Lee's pad thai was made with a lot of tomato and didn't taste right at all. My food was about 15 minutes later to the table than his, which was annoying and although the beef was good, it was spicier than advertised. We didn't go back there.
Nick's seafood cafe was always busy. We walked past it in the evenings after dinner on our way to the beach a couple of times and although the smell was somewhat off putting (think fish'n'chip shop) and the sign rather inelegantly advertised the "great barramundi burger", but after seeing be so full so often we decided to give them a try.
Oh. My. God. Instead of deep fried you could ask for grilled fish with a variety of sauces. I chose a garlic butter grilled barramundi fillet and it was completely divine. Just so fresh and delicious. We went back there twice over the course of our stay, although the second time they messed up out order and the fried fish they gave me upset my tummy.
Barchino did wonderful breakfasts, and once we ran out of cereal we ate there pretty frequently. I especially liked the thick raisin toast with maple butter, pancakes with pistachios, carmelized bananas and butterscotch sauce and best of all, they had a juicer so you could order all sorts of smoothies and juice mixes. My favourite was a Great Barrier Reef with watermelon, apple, pineapple and fresh mint. *bliss*
At Sea World we weren't impressed with the range of fried takeaways that seemed the same at every different 'cafe' so we tried out the $18 all you can eat buffet at the Paradise Room. It was the right choice. The day we went to Sea World it was swelteringly hot and the sun was quite relentless so the air conditioning was much blessed by the both of us. The buffet was good. A giant plate of King Prawns started it off and there was a huge variety of hot food, salads, cold meats, asian goodies like fried rice and bits of fish and a huge table of little desserty treats. We sat inside for about an hour gorging on the grub and watched the waterski show right in the lagoon in front of us.
I also liked a little chocolate shop in Pacific Fair called Chocolicious which had lovely lemon truffles, Red Rooster in the airport just before we came home and another chicken place in Pacific Fair called Otropo. Or something like that.
Hopefully you're hungry now.
Point of Fashion: tokidoki bunny tshirt
Current Obsession: getting printed photos from my wedding
I really hate the word wife. Chelle's right, fiance is such a better word. Husband is not so bad, but over the course of the honeymoon I'm getting used to both.
I made some entries over at livejournal, two while I was away and one having just got back. I'm not gonna recount the whole honeymoon because uhm. Gross? So here's the potted highlights as they come to me in my slightly startled and out-there frame of mind.
We went to two theme parks: Movie World and Sea World. I much preferred Sea World although I did get to be a ginormous fangirl at Movie World and got pictures of myself with Batgirl and Robin, outside the Daily Planet, opening the door of the Gotham Cuty Hall building and sitting on the fountain like I own the movie lot. Lee got a very sunburned neck.
Sea World is an amazing place where you can see Polar Bears (omgwtf!), giant sharks, many rays, lots of rather large dolphins, a dugong (I kept singing 'dugong, duuuuugoooonnnnnnng!' but was disappointed with the relatively small size of it) some scruffy penguins, pelicans and lots of fish. They had a dophin show with lots of high jumping and dolphin surfing and suchlike and a waterski show which was pretty impressive, if inherently lame. I got some neat pictures of polar bears and sharks. Too many of sharks. I love them but I don't think anyone else will be terribly interested.
Shopping was awesome. I am in love with the following shops: Valley girl (thanks Chelle!), Sex Kitten (everything in that shop was made for me, I swear it) and Dotti. If someone could organise them all to open in Wellington I'd be much obliged. Valley Girl is opening in Queen's Gate so fingers crossed it has the same stuff. I also discovered a wonderful little brand called tokidoki which is all gothic anime cool, so I suspect a few of my readers will also appreciate :) I bought a tshirt with the bunny on it and a collection of badges. Soo cool.
I'm on the phone to my Mum so I'll finish up, more later.
This is it. I'm about to crash out for the night and then we're getting up super early to go away.
Unless I get very bored while we're away and track down some net access, there won't be any updates until 20th Feb or so.
Laters y'all.
The wedding is over. I can't believe the wedding is over. All the organisation, all the stress, hassles, everything.
Quick highlights because I don't want to blog it all:
A very flattering make-up artist ("Your skin is fantastic, you eyes are stunning, you look good in pink, you are beautiful").
Photographs in the botanic gardens with parasols in the hot hot sun.
Of all the girls in the bridal party I was ready first. I was also the only one without a form of complicated underwear. Coincidence?
Being photographed from every angle by many different cameras, like I'm Nicole Kidman or something.
The ceremony, and trying not to cry so I can say my words. And the ring that Lee had bought on the sly, sweetheart.
Everyone hugging me and saying flattering things about the ceremony.
Everyone telling me how beautiful I looked/the dress looked/the tiara looked, etc.
My dad's speech, which I didn't cry during although it was a very near thing, in which he said how proud he is and was mildly embarrassing.
Lee's dad's speech in which he humiliated me and Lee. (Lee more).
My sister's speech in which I very nearly cried at the end.
Lee's speech during which I totally broke down. (I hope no one got photos of me weeping and pinching my arm to stop myself!)
It was really special that my brother, his wife and daughter could be there, as well as Lee's sister, husband and daughter. The little toddlers apparently weren't impressed with each other but they charmed the entire female side of the bridal party completely!
Seeing all our guests looking so fantastic and having fun! As expected it was hard trying to see everyone and people did get neglected but well, there were something like 90 people there.
I'm really looking forward to reading the guest book and seeing the photos the professional photographer took. Hopefully he'll be at the BBQ this morning with a DVD for us (fingers crossed).
I woke up at 5am all hyped and dozed for a couple of hours. At 7 I got up and looked through the photos Svend, Matt and Debs had taken. Some of them require explanations. On the whole a wonderful crop of pictures with some really very charming shots, It made me happy to see the whole timeline of the day again.
Point of Fashion: Fin pants, stylishly messy hair
Current Obsession: when will people blog about my wedding????
* Charge camera batteries
* Clean up a little (washing in machine)
* New hayfever meds
* Deliver dress, parasols, guest book and insects on sticks to Parents in Law. (scheduled for late afternoon)
* Sort out the vans
* Music list
* Meet Morgue at midday
* Return library books
I also started packing for the holiday (easy since a lot of what I wanted had just been through the wash), bought myself a soothing face masque and special foot treatment moisturiser, maybe got a little too much sun and remembered to charge Lee's nomad which we're using for music.
Still to do: drop keys of van to Will, have dinner.
I am feeling remarkably relaxed, I think due to the fact I can soon pass the buck on basically everything because I'll be the bride. Tomorrow I just have to look pretty, talk to people and be bubbly and happy. I can totally do that.
Point of Fashion: new blue trapeze breast cancer t
Current Obsession: when is dinner?
Make up trial was good. The girl is very friendly and I felt quite relaxed. I'm not good with eye stuff, maybe because my eyebrows were still a little inflamed.
Town was crazy with sevens costumed groups.
I had a mango smoothie and a chocolate caramel slice for lunch.
I bought two pairs of fancy jandles from Number 1 shoe warehouse because my regular sandles are giving me pinky toe blisters. One pair is chinese brocade silver with pink dragonflies, one pair is bright aqua blue suede with beaded straps. Together they cost $22.
I skim read the new Empire magazine.
Manicures are really nice. I especially like the wrap-the-hands-in-warm-towel followed by moisturising massage portion.
Bought myself the Karen Walker breast cancer t from Glassons in blue. (It's the one with two girls on a trapeze). My sister has the same one in pink.
Conference with bridesmaids. Good stuff.
Had a lovely relaxed dinner with Chelle and Jase of gourmet pizza from Leos. We all lost to the pizzas.
Got very sleepy last night and was able to drop off even with the noise of crowds leaving the sevens (who gave that guy a whistle? Why won't they take it off him?) and the Pauline Gillespie/Grant Kireama rules of the stadium announcement on loop. Woke up again at 4am and didn't manage proper sleep again til 6ish. Got a couple of good hours then woke to find Lee staring at me. Most unnerving. he was just checking to see if I was awake, nothing deep or spooky about it.
Now I am upright, with my hair washed for the last time before the wedding and a number of little things to get done today.
I cannot sleep in.
I rather prefer this to the not being able to sleep possibility and it means I'm excited rather than nervous now. I haven't had an axiety dream since Monday so that's good too.
* go out and but gel superglue and cardboard for poster, "buy" some Australian money
* glue butterflies and dragonflies to wire
* glue seating arrangement to poster - gave it to the caterer to do.
* stick pretty paper into guest book
* lunch with parents
* visit castle
* do washing
* tidy up some
well, I tidied up a teeny bit. Yesterday I also helped out MC gangsta with what he has to say and do, was mucho soothed by the caterer and even managed to get to the beach for a soothing half hour. Of course Oriental Bay was packed but y'know.
I also took stuff to Hannah's to look after until Sunday (shoes, brooch, tiara, necklace, flowers, bridesmaid dresses x 2) and photographed all my accessories so I can scrapbook later.* The guest book is looking quite sweet.
Today I'm roaming town and getting my makeup trial.
My belly is doing its usual pre-event stressfest. Not nice.
I'm gonna try and go back to bed. I think I've spewed everything in my head out into the blog now. Maybe I can sleep...
*It is tempting to post pictures of my shoes, tiara etc so I can torment the girly readers with a kind of bridal porn. Tempted.
I'm putting off going out.
Today:
I had my eyebrows threaded last night and it really really hurt. It was likes a sort of torture. On the upside they look really good. The leg waxing was fine but I've found lots of hairs on my legs this morning that got missed. That's because to get all the hairs you really have to go once and then again a couple of weeks later to get all the different growth cycles. It's annoying, but not very obvious so I don't think I'll bother to go back or anything.
Ok. I'm gonna go do that stuff.
Point of Fashion: girly pirate mini skirt
Current Obsession: procrastination
Glassons have put out the new range of Breast Cancer Tees.
Lookit the pretties. I want four of them. Trapeze girls, charm necklace, Love and the corset one. (Of course.)
I didn't get one last year because of the saving money thing, but after the wedding? Yeah I'm totally buying one. Maybe two. I wonder if Glassons is open on Monday (Waitangi Day) cause I could get one while I'm in town at Lee's parent's place. Hmmmmm...
Point of Fashion: Lookit me lookit me!
Current Obsession: Consumer Whore. And how!
The other day a helpful helpful random person gave me a URL after reading my vitriolic ranting about long socks (and how I can't get no socks long enough for my needs, yo.)
Now I am in love with roughly half the stock of sock dreams. I am so going online as soon as I get my credit card paid off after the holiday and just buying up socks, arm warmers and adorable little sock garters and so on. Then I'm going on Amazon.co.uk for 1,000 Fingers of Dr T and a matching set of the Bloody Jack books. (That's assuming I don't find them in the super giant death malls at Gold Coast.)
Ooooh I just had shopper's excitement tingles at the thought of the super giant death malls. I am so looking forward to going away now.
Argh! Petticoats!.
You see Rachel, why I didn't want you to tell me the URL of that awesome sock site you saw all that time ago? It's torture!!!
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty chillaxed today. A number of factors: beer in the evening, company of friends, dinner cooked for me, favour boxes off my hands, sleep deprivation, belly.
The tension knot is being banished from my body in a not pleasant, but better than the knot kind of way. I blame the staying up til 1.30am talking. It's all good though, I'm feeling chill.
Today's my last day at work, then it's off to Giffy's for chicken and then we're leg waxing and eyebrow shaping. When I get home Lee will be there. Sweet.
It's a bit cold today. My knees are chilly.