Ho Ho Ho

I am back in London, my time at home was very relaxing and it’s a bit of a shame to be back in all the hustle and bustle, but while Christmas may be over for some, I had one gift awaiting me when I got back. And it is this:

Oh happy happy joy joy!!! The gift was the DS, I just got the game myself, and figured I’d better write this now or I would be lost to Brain Training forever. Isn’t it pretty? Now I need more games. What are good games? A game I used to love for my PC was Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. I like ones where you have to solve puzzles and stuff to move on (even if the main character for that was well annoying). Well, I say like. I get very frustrated when I can’t to it and had to download the cheats for that one when I got stuck. Will have a look online at what there is.

Moving on from DS talk, to my knitting. Here is a picture of my first attempt:

It’s a scarf. I would say ‘obviously’, but is it obvious? I don’t know. It’s not quite as pretty as the DS, and there are a couple of dropped stitches and threads I need to tidy, but I am enjoying doing it and I think I’m getting better. I’d like to be able to knit a jumper already but must have patience. Of course now my time is torn between the DS and this. My hands will be busy anyway.

Last night I watched While You Were Sleeping for about the 30th time, though I fell asleep before one of my favourite speeches:

Lucy: The truth was that I fell in love with you.
Ox: You fell in love with me?
Lucy: No, N-o, yes. All of you. I went from being all alone to being a fiancee, a daughter a granddaughter, a sister and a friend.

Luckily I woke up in time for my absolute favourite last line: “Peter once asked me when I fell in love with Jack. And I told him, “It was while you were sleeping.”

Aww. Now I’m afraid I’m going to go play my DS. It has been nice knowing you all.

Lost!

Argh! This trailer for Lost has left me more excited than for Christmas almost! I cannot wait for 31st January…oh bollocks I’ll be on a plane to New York. Hmm…what time do we land and will our hotel have the right channel so I can watch it when it is shown for once? These are the really important questions.

So yes, this is a proper trailer. But if you haven’t seen season 3 (and why not I ask you? So the first few eps were a bit shaky, it more than made up for it with the later ones. Go rent it now!) then don’t watch it cos it gives a hell of a lot away. And you should really watch 3 knowing as little as possible for the surprises.

Oh man…cannot wait.

A Fangirl Obsesses

There seems to be a thing about making top lists for things, especially when it comes to TV shows and films. Said lists define you and your tastes and make it easy for other people to pin you down, figure you out. I am hopeless when it comes to these lists. There are far too many fantastic shows and films over the last…oh, I don’t know, how long have they been in existence?, for me to begin to pick favourites. That’s why it’s nice when someone does it for me, and then I can simply go, ‘Yeah, that’s spot on,’ or, more usually ‘Are these people nuts, do they not have any taste whatsoever?’ and walk away before I say something mean and remind myself that differences make the world go round and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

So here’s a list of something very close to my heart. EW.Com’s top 25 of the last 25 years I’m all about the Sci-Fi. I’m such a fangirl. How can you not love it? When done well, Sci-Fi rocks my world. It takes everything that’s great about human nature and magnifies it, putting us in situations we can only dream of and seeing what we do while we’re there. It shows the best and the worst of us, the good guys are better in SF (and often a little morally grey themselves), the bad guys more evil. I’ll admit, there’s some shoddy stuff around, but the good, man, the good is just awesome.

So I’m loving that this list has some of my favourites on there and isn’t just a homage to Star Wars. (Hey, I love Star Wars as much as the rest, but let’s have some other stuff in there once a while, shall we?) It has films I adore – Aliens (seriously, if I have to make a list of top films, that film is on it. Bizarrely it’s a film that reminds me of my childhood and I can watch it over and over and it never gets old), Total Recall (the effects might look a little worse for wear these days but watching Arnie pull a huge beaming device out of his nose is always worth it), Galaxy Quest (if ever I need a chuckle, that’s one of the top films I go for, ‘Don’t open that, is there air, you don’t know!).

And TV shows – Quantum Leap, a show I can still repeat the opening words to ‘Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and vanished.’ Brilliant! Lost, Battlestar Galactica (at number two no less, and I think it’s deserved. Season 2 of that show was truly kick ass), and of course, the one that is so very close to my heart, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, apparently there is a little less love for TNG than there used to be, which I just don’t get. It gave us the Borg! It gave us Picard, and an android who showed more humanity than many humans. Show it some love people.

I could go on and on about these films and these shows, and I probably will at some time (especially when/if (sob!) BSG finally comes back on air, but I’ll stop before this becomes pages and pages of ramble, and say go read the list. Does it do the genre justice?

Heroes & Villains

The second season of Heroes has come to an abrupt end, or is on ‘hiatus’, depending on the writer’s strike and how you choose to look at it.

Heroes got off to a shaky start with its new season, and creator Tim Kring does a better job of summing up its problems here although I will still give it a go.

Major spoilers for the end of season 2 here.

Chuck vs Chuck

Seeing as the writer’s strike is still on in the US and my TV show episodes are dwindling to nothing, I decided to try a new show that came out this season and already has at least ten episodes for me to watch. That show is Chuck. Now, I already watch a show with a character called Chuck, and I love it to bits. I’m trying not to play favourites and all, but Chuck (the series) just didn’t do all that much for me. In terms of battles, there seems to be one clear winner right now.

Addiction

I am a TV addict. I know there are people who may say ‘And?’ because they have long thought so, but I don’t think it became truly official until just recently, when I started writing the dates of the next episodes of my shows in my diary. Yep, there they are, all marked out. Or should I say, there they were. For now my carefully researched dates are off. And why? Because of the writers’ strike. Prison Break is on hiatus until January, with only five episodes left, Grey’s Anatomy has three left. Heroes just the two. My favourite Pushing Daisies just three. If this strike isn’t sorted soon, I will be TV show-less. It’s like the opposite feeling of counting down to Christmas as a child. Every new week that passes means one less episode for Carrie.

Cautionary Tales

Well finally, Heroes gets back on top form. Just when I was about to give up on it entirely it comes out swinging. It rocked my socks. I’m loving the non-black and white-ness of everybody. It’s like they can switch sides in a moment. You’ve got Mohinder dealing death for what he deems is the ‘good’ side, Parkman pushing the limits of his ability, and of his subjects, to get to the truth, and that new mistress of evil, Elle. Is that a twinkle of doubt in her eye? Methinks so.

Small spoilers for season 2 after the cut

Ice Ice Baby

I didn’t go to the cinema on Friday night as I had felt very ill all day, sort of headachey and faint and weak, kind of like I do in the aftermath of a migraine, only I hadn’t had a migraine. So I went home to bed instead. Humph. I have been feeling a lot better and like I am (touch wood) now over my stupid cold. Thank God. That has to be the longest cold I have ever had. Although I do still have lovely growths on my tonsils that are annoying but not causing me pain. I’m hoping they will go away soon too.

Today I went ice skating at the O2. It’s an Ice Disco. Oooh. I got all kitted up with my gloves and scarf and extra thick socks. (Though it was really hot and I ended up stripping off all the extra layers anyway.) And you know what? I didn’t fall down once! Not once! (I might have considered it had any of the Ice Marshalls been cute, but sadly no.) I mean, I had a couple of close calls, mostly because kids would veer in front of me with no warning and I’d have to change course. I did still end up being in pain though. It is most likely because I never wear heels and so my feet are very flat and not at all used to having to be forced into an arch for extended periods of time. Oh. My. God. It was so bloody painful. It was like having continuous cramp in my arches. I had to keep stopping because I just could not go on (so dramatic). Sigh. But it was grand and I didn’t spend all my time clutching the side with all my might. I went in the middle. Yay me.

There was also the usual kid (rather rotund) who decided he MUST skate in the middle, even though he could barely stand. So he fell so much that the Ice Marshall was basically following him around and the last time I saw him he was being led off the ice in tears.

Afterwards we went to Frankie & Benny’s for something to eat and I stuffed my face on Brownies and ice-cream. Yummy. And now I am at home and quite tired so I am going to watch The Long Way Down (Mmmm Ewan) and have a cup of tea and pretend I don’t have to get up and go to work in the morning.

Bonfire Night

Well I had a lovely evening. I actually did something for Bonfire Night, check me out. Instead of sitting in my flat moaning about the bangs (well, I did do that later too), I went outside! Me, Jayne and Ruby went to Annalise’s where there was good food and fireworks. Annalise had made meat pie (and bloody good it was too, I was impressed) and Parkin (my grandmother’s recipe, did me proud) and Bonfire Toffee which was delicious. Plus, it was cold enough to wear my new uber long scarf and gloves (not long but a bit itchy), so yay. On the way over there we all got steadily more and more Northern, me especially so, as usual. And loud! Man sometimes I just can’t keep me gob shut (see, that’s Northern speak right there).

I have to say I am not the greatest fan of fireworks. It’s another thing I have grown afraid of as I got older, which again makes no sense to me. I just don’t really trust them. They could go off in any direction (and have, at one time, I had a brush with a firework a few years ago. Seeing one fly at your face and miss you by inches tends to make you a bit wary), I’m even a bit scared of Sparklers. Sparklers for goodness sake! Three year olds have them. It may be all those warning adverts we had to endure as kids. Or I am just a big baby. I also think the tent fire debacle of V98 has left me permanently scarred. And I really don’t like fireworks that bang, like bombs going off. I can’t watch them cos they make me flinch so I miss it. Not fun. One made me jump so much I wrenched my back. Still got a bit of a twinge. Yes, I am in fact 100 years old. But it was a good laugh and I’m very glad I went.

The moaning about bangers started when I got home and kids were letting them off on the common right outside our house. So loud I had to turn the telly up. I had taped Dawson’s Creek because it has finally got to the good bit with Pacey and Joey getting together. I was never a huge fan of Dawson’s Creek. I didn’t really watch it when it first started because everyone was annoying, and I only got into it for Joshua Jackson and the P/J storyline (which I had wanted since the episode in the first season where he kissed her after they hunted for snails). I’m not even that fond of Joey and her whiny voice and her constantly playing the dead mom card, but she made Pacey happy so whatever. I have been tempted in the past to get the boxsets, but really I would just skip through all the Big Head Dawson/Jen/Jack/Seriously annoying Andie trauma to the good stuff. So I won’t. Plus Five plays it on a constant loop.

Anyway, the kids left the common before it ended so I could go to sleep without worrying that a firework was going to crash through my window and set me on fire. Could happen.

Shameless Plug

I am back at work today. The thought of all those emails piling up in my inbox was making me sweat more than my cold and I felt guilt ridden even though I am, in fact, poorly. I feel like a skiver. Of course I’ve come in and there isn’t actually anything in urgent need of attention so I could technically have slept some more. Oh well. I do feel a bit better, although I had a slight panic last night when I thought I’d developed a rash and even went so far as to roll a tumbler over it just in case. Turns out it wasn’t Meningitis. Or a rash for that matter. I must have been sat funny. I am such a hypochondriac.

Anyway, I can get through one day can’t I? I can make it to 5 pm I’m sure.

On to the plug:

Marcia has created an excellent website/pop culture blog concerned with all things tv related. It’s full of news and brilliant commentary and I can’t remotely do it justice so why don’t you pop on over to Pop Vultures and have a look yourself?

Continuing with things internet related, as of yesterday I am addicted to Stumble Upon, a website that lets you click through different pages by adding a button to your internet tool bar. Click, and you’re onto someone’s blog. Click and it’s news. Click and a crafts page. I get lots of those. My favourite stumble from yesterday was this bizarre thing. You click the horses and they sing. Or they do if you have Flash installed which I don’t seem to have so it’s not quite as fun at work.

Right, onto some work. Maybe.