Feast of Fools

*ex-haustipation* Katy's four-day slumber party thingy kicked ass. Here is brief summary because I'm too tired for lucid prose.

Drove to Oxf. Drove to Katyness. Went to funky Thai restaurant and ate nice food (Daniel got a free glass with his dessert. This made him very happy ^_^). Next morning got up bright and early, drove a million billion miles through swamp, flood and fire to the chirpy corporate land that is Alton Towers, where I went on one small rollercoaster and then sunburned my nose squinting up at Oblivion to try to see when certain crazy persons were going to plunge down into the depths. Hex kicked ass for being actually clever, despite the ultimo-cheese 'eerie' crap. Nothing would ever get me on Ripsaw. Duel amused me very very much. In summary, why can't you get those Pizza Hut mini-pizza things anywhere else?

Back to Katy's where we all collapsed with exhaustion. Next day went for picnic in Sherwood Forest and a trip to the Major Oak, scene of most of my childhood daydreams (ie most of my life from the age of about 6-14) ^_________^ Beforehand we stocked up on weaponry at el Classy Souvenir Shoppe, which means I have a most excellent wooden bow and arrows which my entire family have been playing with ever since I got home. I got points for sticking a sucker-tipped arrow to the French windows from the other end of the lounge, but Dad won hands down for hitting both the BBC News 24 presenters in the head.

Aaaand then we went back to Katy's and watched Pitch Black, and I hope that Lizzu at least now appreciates the glorious cheese that it is, and the coolness that is Riddick. And everyone else was at least courteous enough not to spoil my fun. ^_^

Today: drove back to Oxf to drop Ivan and Jane off, and helped out with Jane's half of their move into the new house - which, I can exclusively report, is v pretty, v v tasteful and one of those places where you're slightly scared of breathing in case your evil contaminated breath leaves a smudge on the immaculateness. I give it a week. :p

Then it rained on me in traffic jams all the way home, but I ate travel sweets which went some small way towards compensating.

And now I have done entirely too much driving in four days and have to go and be unconscious for a while.

Posted by Jongleur at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am ashamed of how happy the new Busted song from the Thunderbirds movie makes me. *jives* And the video with Scott Tracy buzzing the London Eye. And Parker with his little heads-up display. I don't even like Thunderbirds *that* much... ^______^;;

Posted by Jongleur at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So. Katy finished her Finals and rampaged through Oxford with a sparkly bat tiara and a plastic cutlass. Cocktails were drunk, junk food was eaten and Pirates of the Caribbean was watched in a state of inebriation. ^_^

Zonked happily at imouto-chan's, which due to stifling summer heat was actually comfortably warm :p (all should be amused by her attempts to keep the room cool by transforming it into the Batcave. ^_____^) Spent a lovely morning wandering around Oxf with her, interrupted only by a pesky tute during which I went and bought shoes, and then reluctantly headed home via London and the Tube in summer, boo hiss.

Amusing discovery of the day: the stealth haberdashery shop opposite Argos has a door behind the till, and if you go through it you find yourself in OUSU. That was extremely surreal. I suspect it of being a secret entrance for the elite OUSU ninja brigade a la the Man from UNCLE. 'Excuse me? I'll have a metre of this ribbon, and *cough* I need to go through the back.'

Aaand that's me done, so here is an ego-stroking Blog Thing. (...fitness???)

extra note: if anyone else is planning on putting one of these on their blog don't forget to add a </div> to the end of the auto-generated code. It misses it out and the resulting code soup ate my layout.

Posted by Jongleur at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

D'you ever have those days where you just wish someone would come up to you and say something foully sexist or racist or something, so you could punch them with a clean conscience? >.<

I switched on my car this morning and it made a sound like a Porsche. Unfortunately, since I wasn't dreaming and have a Ford Ka, this effectively means that the exhaust has fallen off.

Results of this: I had to walk to the surgery and back in the muggy heat to do their filing, which wasted a significant proportion of my day. Then I had to pack up all the stuff that got paid for while I was in Oxf really fucking quickly. Then I went to catch the bus to Hoddesdon to post them in aforesaid muggy heat, but because our local bus company is el privatised crap-heap, the first bus never came and the second one deposited me at post office ten minutes before closing time, where the lovely post office people (understandably) gave me and my carrier bag full of complicated international parcels the evils. And then I walked all the way home (have I mentioned the muggy heat?) because I couldn't face waiting for *another* bus. Oh, and speaking of buses, since all this took up the whole of today's business hours at the average garage, I get to take the @%$(*&%$ing bus to Oxf tomorrow, which entails leaving at godknowso'clock in the morning.

In other news, it is now quarter past eight and my day's actual constructive work equals zero. I'm really tired because I've walked about five miles in 28 degree heat and unsuitable shoes. And I'm wearing a stupid white blouse because all my other surgery-suitable clothes are in the wash and I feel like I look like I work in a chemist's. Oh, and incidentally, this morning when I woke up and staggered out of my room in semiconscious fashion the burglar alarm went off in my ear, because I've been away from home so much recently that my father had forgotten I was there. *snickers* I'm still laughing about that one.

*sighs* Sadly, everyone I usually whinge at is also having a bad day for perfectly legitimate reasons, so for reasons of guilt I have to inflict my crabbiness on the Internet instead. By the time you've read this I shall be perfectly happy again, I don't allow my moods to last very long. The Management would like to apologise for the inconvenience and will return you to normal programming shortly. ^_^

Posted by Jongleur at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Heeheeheehee I love Australian/New Zealand people.

It's the way she says "I'm just glad no one was sitting on the couch because they would have got absolutely crowned." Well, yes. IT WAS DOING 300 MILES PER HOUR.

Posted by Jongleur at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

......somehow I've had a really tiring week without actually having done very much. O.o And I shall arrive home this evening to find a billion gazillion commissions tapping their feet and giving me the eye. *argh*

This week's highlights:

'Boku Ichigomori! Look on my works ye mighty and DESPAIR!' - Jane

(that may actually be the most obscure in-joke ever. Ichigomori is Strawbatty who is a cute little character in a children's anime who says 'Boku Ichigomori' which means 'I am Strawbatty' all the time. If you need help with the Ozymandias reference then tough.)

Also great: Katy's conception of my exit from Oxford. I was not gently birthed into the big wide world by my benevolent alma mater, oh no. Instead, I burst from its stomach like the babies in Alien and then ate its face. ^__________^

Posted by Jongleur at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

(to be said in Eddie Izzard-like fashion)

I'm in Oxf until next Sunday while Katy kicks the crap out of her Finals, so communication/bloggage/email/brain activity may or may not be scarce until then. Sorry to anyone I'm being antisocial at. ^_^;;;

Posted by Jongleur at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My seemingly neverending search for 'jewels' to use for Robin pendants is finally at an end!!!!!

This probably shouldn't make me as happy as it does.

Blobs of Glee

In honour thereof, here is the winning Eurovision song for download, because not enough people appreciate it *nods solemnly* And Ruslana kicks ass and swears like a trooper and it is not her fault someone took a photo of her onstage with no pants on.

Posted by Jongleur at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Saw the new Harry Potter today. ^_^

So: (as spoiler-free as possible)

Infinitely darker and more gothic than the first two, this is the first one that's felt like an actual story as opposed to magical-CG eye candy to me. The direction's in a whole different league. I totally agree with Lizzu about that - the more obtrusive artifice of the directing was lovely. I especially like Cuaron's obsession with going through things with the camera - windows, clocks, eyes, you name it, we get to go through it, and sometimes they ripple as we do or CG things splat on the camera lens. Makes you feel like it's a tactile experience, which is really weird in a visual-sensory thing like a film.

Daniel Radcliffe's acting is waaaaaay improved, which is great, but unfortunately it only shows up the fact that Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are as wooden as lollipop sticks - I swear they're actually getting worse. Tom Felton's accent appears to have randomly shifted from Malfoy-posh to Essex-mockney between the last two films (WHY?). I adored the Whomping Willow (who didn't? :D). And if anyone can tell me why the Hogwarts bell sound is Big Ben, lemme know. Every time it sounded I expected the six o'clock news. ^_^;;

But the important issue, of course: Lupin and Sirius. I thought Sirius was OK - he was probably a lot more like the Sirius in Rowling's head than the one in mine. I loved the little touches with him (if you look carefully you'll notice that he has the wizardly-script equivalent of LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles :D), but I felt he was a bit lacking in terms of the charisma-field he's supposed to exude. But then it's probably unfair to judge from this film, because Gary Oldman got about ten seconds screen time and in nine of them he was shrieking exposition as fast as he could and at the top of his voice.

But Lupin. Ahhhhh, Lupin. ^_________________^ I loved him. He's a million miles from fandom Lupin (that's a GOOD thing in my book, don't even get me started on their wet sissy childish *American* Lupin), he's a fair old way from the Lupin in my head, but I thought he was one of the best-played and most rounded character portrayals I've ever seen. It's so rare to see any character in any film who you honestly believe could be a real person. I could've watched him all day. His onscreen relationship with Harry was sweet to the point of rendering Sirius' pseudo-paternal role irrelevant, and I loved the gramophone and his scratchy jazz soundtrack. Would've liked to see more Lupin-interaction with anyone else, especially Sirius.

And they truncated the plot a good old bit, as you might expect. Was mostly pretty well done I thought, though there were some glaring omissions (like Lizzu says, I was also wondering when they were going to explain the whole Marauders thing, but then they just didn't. O.o) A bit of the modern touches, such as Lupin's werewolfness being very obviously equated with AIDS or similar, but I didn't mind that. And a near-total cute-ectomy compared to the first two films, which I definitely preferred, although a *little* more comic relief might have been nice. And when I say comic relief, I mean relief that's comic, not Draco-attempts-to-be-mean-gets-his-and-runs-off-crying-again, which kept happening in little twenty-second bursts. >.< I remember people saying about Y Tu Mama Tambien that Cuaron can't do humour to save his life, and now I believe it.

But on the whole I liked it, yes I did. Now they just have to keep it up in the next one, rescue Draco from the Pit of Character Hell and bring back Lucius Malfoy, and I shall be a happy bunny. ^_^

Posted by Jongleur at 02:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)