Now, bring me that horizon

So yesterday I had rescheduled the router delivery again, and it didn't turn up, again, and this morning I get to work and check the website and lo and behold it is on a van, right now, again.

However, I did get some things done yesterday - wrote a little bit of Nano (not enough but not none), washed ALL THE SOCKS (disclaimer: may not have actually been all the socks, as actually all the socks did not fit in the washing machine), and did all the work I had brought home to do. And then after that I finished the first chapter of the new Tales of Monkey Island adventure game, the one I got free on Talk Like A Pirate Day. It's pretty entertaining - VERY silly - and was quite a substantial amount of gameplay, so I may well buy the rest of the chapters at some point in the non-specific future. Score one for Telltale Games, well played sirs.

Anyway, this morning I rang the depot again and the whole thing started to feel oddly familiar, like if I just asked the right questions in the right order I would be able to get the result I wanted, pick up the weird key, use the cheese on the jail cell (don't ask) and then follow the sound of monkeys...

So I called up HDNL again. They told me they couldn't deliver to a different address, and if I rang Virgin maybe they could do it at that end, which I already know is not true. They told me I couldn't make a complaint to them, I would have to ring Virgin and lodge a complaint there. Finally they told me I couldn't pick it up at the depot unless I rang Virgin and if Virgin rang them they could arrange for that to be possible.

I spy a pattern! To cut a long and very boring story short, the nice man in India transferred me to the nice man in Wales who talked to some person at the HDNL HQ who said they had no idea what he was talking about but then I gave him the number I had and he talked to the nice girl in Romford who now says I can turn up with a couple of forms of ID tomorrow and get it from the depot. WIN!

So I examine Google Maps and TFL and I plan my route to Beyond Romford for tomorrow morning, and discover that the bus I need to get there is going to be on strike tomorrow. FAIL.

I am going anyway, and I will get a cab from Romford station, or an extra train and then a cab, or something, and I am not leaving the depot until I have used ID on HDNL LADY and have successfully gained BLOODY ROUTER even if I have to search through their package shelf myself, and then when I get it home it had better bloody work. And then I will write a letter of complaint and it will be epic.

And then maybe we will be able to see Waters of Mars before it disappears from iPlayer. Although a nice Nano person offered to lend me it on a USB stick if we still have web fail, so all is not lost.

Internets - did you go OMG WIN at the idea of Shatnerquake but balk at the idea of paying actual money for it?

Then you will be happy to hear that the writer has put it up for free download, today only. He also has a tip jar so if you read it and think 'I'm glad I didn't buy the book but that was totally worth five dollars' you can go forth and give him five dollars.

http://jeffburk.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/download-shatnerquake-for-free-today-only/

I was on the radio this morning. On the BBC London breakfast show. In Victoria Station. They asked on Twitter whether anyone did anything interesting with their commute, and I said well as it happens I'm writing a novel partly during my commute this month, and they said could I talk about it on the radio, and I said yeah OK.

So... that was weird. I wasn't all that nervous but now even though it's up on iPlayer I don't wanna listen to it. I don't mind other people, I will probably go and post it on the Nano forums seeing as I got a mention in. But I probably sound really stupid.

On the other hand, I wrote a really bad Jonas Brothers joke into my Nano while on the tube this morning. Wanna hear it? No? Tough.
Q: How many Jonas Brothers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Three. One to screw the old bulb out, one to screw the new bulb in, and one to tell the press they haven't been doing any screwing at all.
... so bad! But I don't care!

In other news, does anyone else think this looks really brilliant?
http://www.drsketchylondon.co.uk/index.html
It's figure-drawing with burlesque acts as models. It's a bit out of the way, nearest station's Kensal Green on the Bakerloo. But still - I'd love to go some time.

Also J's parents are taking us to see Varekai in January and today at Victoria Station I found a promotional Varekai Oyster Card holder. So that's kind of awesome.

HA. http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/102966-im-a-celebrityget-me-a-book-deal.html

Ooh. Ooh. Dudes. I get an author Christmas present from WP this year! Like, omg, etc. I think it's wine and/or chocolate so it's sort of a shame I know that but like omg etc.

In the proud and noble tradition of Things [X] Is Not Allowed To Do At [Y]: http://community.livejournal.com/techsupport/2063144.html. I think I should write one of these for WP. I don't know if it'd make sense to anyone but me though.

Also, while I am being miserable, I should mention that I am really, really behind on Nanowrimo and have nobody to blame but myself, Ian McShane and the bastard who invented Freecell...

... and also? I have just discovered that Nick Griffin is standing for the BNP in Barking in the next General Election. Barking, for those playing along at home, is where I live now.

S'cuse me while I abandon the teddybears for a moment to go googling anti-fascist activity in Barking and Dagenham.

*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*

IMPORTANT: We still have no internet, and Jessie has left her phone at her parents, so she is totally incommunicado until she can get it back. If you need her you can ring or text me or send me an email which I'll get during work hours except on Wednesday.

( We still have no internet. Here be allcaps. )

I could just fucking strangle someone over this right now.

Another thing that makes me happy: I googled Leverage because I am easily distractable and OMG WHY IS IT NOT BACK YET and there is a Leverage convention being organised and it is called ConCon.

Epic win.

We still have no internet. I may have made it look like we did in my last post. I was actually sitting in the British Library at the time. Oops. Today I'm going to try to ring up Virgin and ask if they can at least tell me whether the box is in the post as I don't think it is their fault but I might as well try to make sure.

The War Requiem went really well. There were a few dodgy moments, as always (if only we could afford to have an extra rehersal with the orchestra, it would help so much), but it was great and I choked on a couple of bits ('Move him into the sun...' and the lacrimosa that goes with it). I think he funky lighting worked well, and after the end... well. We've had people applaud in the wrong place before, but they just... didn't, at the end of the War Requiem. Not in a bad way, just... the silence held on for what felt like a very very long time. The lights went down and came up again and there was just this... silence. It was kind of amazing.

Nano is going... not that well. Just in terms of word count, at the moment, although I'm coming up on the place where I have to decide, if only vaguely, what kind of order I want to do the rest of the plot in. I didn't have anything to do yesterday, but I couldn't quite face going out into the cold cold world even though I could've easily made it to the Sunday central London write-in. And then I was in the house and I faffed and did some washing up and watched Gormenghast all the way through because it was there, and then it was ten o clock. So I'm at not-quite-8000 words and today we are supposed to hit 15,000. I shall be going to ALL the write-ins, and right now I am about to adjourn to Starbucks to try and get a solid hour in.

! Sesame Street fact: Bert and Ernie are currently played by the same puppeteers who play Kermit and Miss Piggy. That just makes me really happy for some reason...

La la la links.
I'm not sure what this is because I wasn't paying attention while it loaded but it's some kind of Sherlock Holmes Movie internet game thing. http://www.221b.sh/
Weetabix. Apparently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrtQhkibZ8M&feature=player_embedded
Indiana Jones and the Song of Theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTrK4VQG93Y

In other news, someone is selling off the 5000 leftover Olympic Condoms from 2008, which are embellished with the motto of the Beijing Games - faster, higher, stronger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8345961.stm
I think my favourite thing about this is that there were 95,000 condoms not left over. I now choose to believe all the olympic athletes were at it like rabbits the whole time.

Jan Moir can fuck off. She can just FUCK RIGHT OFF.

That is all.

No link. I am doing my best to treat this as unimportant because otherwise my head asplode. Google will give you homophobia re: Steven Gately. I refuse to even link to the googledocs version. Lots and lots of no.

How easy is it to get a tabloid to print your totally fake celeb story? Very.


YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO:

karaokegal's Fourth Annual “Come As You’re Not” fanfic costume party.

Who is invited: YOU! If you're seeing this posted anywhere on your friends list, even if you've never heard of me, please come to the party anyway.

I’m inviting you all to write a fanfic as someone other than yourselves.
For a week, starting on October the 31st. The idea is to write fic in a totally different style/form/pairing/fandom than you ever normally would.


Sell the Vatican. End world hunger.

Proper Toy Story 3 trailer! With plot!

Kristin Schaal is a horse. (Just... go with me on this one.)

I'm about 1/10th of the way through Unseen Academicals and really properly starting to warm to it. Librarian POV is always, always awesome.

Yesterday I read, replied to and posted something like a hundred fanmails. Maybe even 150. Today V isn't here to do the signatures but I can read and sort. Best name of the day so far: Crimson Starks. (Although it's still early. Yesterday it was Sawyer Sendelbach. Neither of them have anything on Tuesday's winner, Logan Strain.)

Waitrose's apple and blackcurrent crumble cake is REALLY NICE.

So it was my birthday on Saturday!

I had a nice weekend. I got books (Unseen Academicals! Dark Entries! The first volume of Girl Genius in really-exists-format!) and a plug for the kitchen sink, and stroopwafels! We made a chocolatey mess (there is both cake and melted chocolate in there somewhere. And possibly also the lost city of Atlantis. We watched Masterchef and Merlin. We went out and had a nice meal and saw Up, which was so lovely, and omg heartbreaking (I pretty much cried throughout, but in the good way) - and in 3D. It wasn't horribly painful, but also not quite brilliant enough to be worth bothering with when there's a choice, I feel. Apart from occasional wow-moments it probably didn't add that much to - SQUIRREL.

(That's an Up joke. But it's in the trailer so... yeah.)

Anyway, I also spent a nice amount of time in bed, and this morning some men came and replaced our faulty fuse-tripping slightly Rusty old hob with for a bright shiny white new one called a Moffat. This is truefax.

Sooo. Yes. Two Bocelli tales to tell today... one I forgot about from Thursday, and one from yesterday.


1. On Thursday, we saw Brian May! He was at the concert, for some reason, and hanging out backstage in the interval. He had a little dressing room to retire to, and a bodyguard who we exchanged a couple of happy words with (He said 'You'll understand if I don't hold the door for all of you,' after holding it for Brian and Friends, and we said yes we did understand because there was a billion of us.) One of the CEFC tenors asked Brian May if he'd like to join the choir. Brian May said no, we probably didn't want to hear his singing. He was very tall and had lots of hair and my actual first thought was, that's a tall many-black-haired man, but he's got a bodyguard so he can't be Gareth. And then it was Brian May. So that was weird and awesome.

2. Here is what happened on Sunday.

On Sunday, Jessie and I trekked over to Muswell Hill (about 2 hours on the bus and tube because the Overground isn't on Sundays), and got on a coach to Birmingham (about 2.5 hours, we made very good time). We found that there was tea and biscuits and there was sugar for the tea, which was better than in the O2! We all made satisfied noises. Then rehearsed (maybe another 2.5 hours?), during which we, the choir, did almost nothing. We practiced a few of the songs, obviously ones where something had gone wrong in the concert - but not, hilariously, the one where we actually missed the entry altogether. That's right - we were going to go on without having rehearsed it AT ALL. Instead we sat very patiently and J and I played increasingly silly games of I Spy. We spied, in no particular order, buttons, bums, speakers, David, footprints (and shoeprints, and later bootprints) on the floor, boredom, unicorns, and boredom.

Then we were released to find dinner. There was very little dinner to be had. But more than in the O2, where there were about 20 restaurants and no chance for us to get in them whatsoever. We were clever and walked further than other people (not for miles or anything) and found a half-empty Nandos where Jessie had an acceptable veggie burger and Imo and I had a reeeeeeally nice chicken. Mmm, chicken.

This little escapade would probably not get a mention if it wasn't for the fact that a) we really didn't have much time and could easily have not made it back on time, b) some of the choir who didn't wander far enough didn't get as much to eat, or possibly anything at all, and c) when we arrived back we just had time to get changed before we were told the concert was cancelled.

... yes. We went to Birmingham. We rehearsed a bit. We ate nice chicken. We came home again. That was what we did on Sunday.

Bocelli came down with a throat infection 20 minutes before we were due to go on stage. He was sounding a bit subdued during the rehearsal and he didn't do nearly as much as he had in the rehearsal on Thursday - but he was there. We think they must have been discussing up to the very last minute. They've picked a date in November to reschedule the concert - but I'll believe it when I see it. Plus it's three days before our own promotion, which is the Benjamin Britten War Requiem, which is both important and hard. And I mean, that's about twelve thousand people had to pack up and go home again...

We were surprisingly unfazed by the whole thing - although J says in her 20 years of performing she's never had a gig cancelled that late in the day. It was just - it seemed to fit perfectly with the music issues, the lack of food, and the three hour bus journey (it was definitely three hours on the way back).

If I had the looks for it and lived in America, I would totally do America's Next Top Model. It honestly just looks like between one and thirteen weeks of incredible fun, to me. Driving around in limos, having wacky-awesome makeovers (I would totally not cry if they chopped my hair off), playing dress-up for the cameras and competing for snazzy prizes! What's not to love? But they probably wouldn't have me because even if I had the looks for it I highly doubt it would be MY DREAM OMG I HAVE TO BE A MODEL I HAVE TO, so I would be rejected on the grounds of not wanting it enough.

Same kind of applies to the Maria/Nancy/Joseph BBC ones, if I had the talent. It just looks like fun. Although I would have to be paid quite a lot to go anywhere near X Factor or BGT - even if I had the talent to get in. Funny, that.


In totally unrelated linkage, this is gorgeous. It's a collection of portraits of authors and characters, by various artists.
http://digitalmedusa.com/sgettis/word/
A really nice mixture. I am having the Douglas Adams one as the desktop picture of my new laptop.

Ooh er yeah I bought a laptop. It was pretty cheapish for a new one and, although I am aware it's completely absurd, I think there is genuinely something to my being more productive when not sitting at my PC. It's very silly and I ought not to let the habit dictate to me rather than the other way round. But still. Also it's PRETTY. I mean, it's just a laptop, it's got a screen and a keyboard and a shiny lid. But to me it is PRETTY. I have named her The Lady Grace after Airheart's airship (which is in turn after my favourite WP series).

I'm reading two books at the moment. One is in the bathroom being read in five minute bursts, and the other is sort of for work - we're having an away day with the adult team and all trying to read a few books in different genres beforehand.

Both of these books concern Jane Austen. Neither of them is actually by Jane Austen.

Book one is, of course, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is predictably awesome, and very well suited for reading on the loo - especially for people who are not natural Jane Austen fans. Small doses. It's very nicely done - the references to zombies feel really natural and obvious and being a fearsome Shao-lin trained warrior monk frankly suits Elizabeth Bennet so well I can hardly imagine what it'd be like if she wasn't one. In fact, the whole thing is making me wish I had a copy of P+P to hand so I could check exactly what it really says when P+P+Z starts talking about zombies...

The other one is The Jane Austen Book Club. And I'm frankly shocked by how much I'm enjoying it. I picked it up off the 'women's literature' pile (different from the 'chick lit' pile) and opened it up, expecting to hate all the characters and be horribly bored apart from when I was tearing my hair out.

But no. It's really entertaining. It's beautifully observed. It's wry and funny and moving. It's about six friends who get together to discuss Jane Austen. That's pretty much it. It's just... each chapter is about one book and one character, with flashbacks and bits and pieces and quotes from the books and scenes where they're discussing it, and it's just... really great. I don't like all the character completely - but I don't hate any of them, even though I expected to.

The only really weird thing about it is the POV. The pronouns the narrator uses are 'us' and 'we'. Never 'I', because there is no 'I' - it's like the book is being narrated by the entire group, or rather, whichever ones of the group are observing whatever's being written about right then. It'll say things like 'we all thought Bernadette had a very good point', which is kind of odd when it's just said something that must have included Bernadette in the 'we'.

I've never read any Jane Austen. None. I've seen the TV version of Pride and Prejudice (two if you count Lost in Austen), the films of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, and erm, Clueless. I feel like I'm getting the weirdest crash course ever...

Buzzing around our window yesterday morning - the single biggest fucking bee I've ever seen. Seriously it is enormous. I keep trying to think of things it's the same size as, and failing. But it's about as long as a standard USB stick. It's like two normal sized bumblebees stuck together. Possibly in the name of SCIENCE.

... and I rescued it! I ROCK.

( Cut for linkage, thoughts, and that really random one-very-obvious-gag comic I drew a while ago. )

For anyone who is on the internet right now and cares - Amanda Palmer is doing a live webcast - they're doing some kind of auction thingy and promoting the Who Killed AP DVD. She is showing it off. Neil Gaiman is there. He told her not to break the internet. :D

http://partyontheinternet.com/

This week's Zero Punctuation is GENIUS. Yachtzee reviews Wolfenstein through the medium of limericks.


New Merlin soon! I still haven't seen the promo. It's not like there is any way I won't be watching it.

Also, there is new America's Next Top Model starting this week. I have been thoroughly corrupted - I should hate it, but I don't, and I really don't know why, apart from obviously having a massive crush on Tyra Banks (and also both Mr and Miss J). And in sort of related news, the list of things that might get me to actually watch any of American Idol is very short. So well played, America. Well played.

LJ, make my meaningless decisions for me.

Poll #1450220
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

What shall I watch tonight after this week's Leverage?

Dear internets,

Good critical books and/or online sources about superheroes and the history thereof - do we know any? I'm going to dive into Wikipedia's reference links and also pop in to a proper bookshop on my way home and see if I can find anything awesome, but I thought I'd throw the question out there anyway.

My totally ideal things would be like, From Prometheus To Mr Incredible In Ten Thousand Easy Steps... or And Then Superman Said What? A Short History Of Trends And Themes In Superhero Stories, including What The Fuck Went On In The Silver Golden Infinite World Crisis Age Crack Period.

Interesting stuff on what has and hasn't been done with non-white, non-straight supers = extra credit.

Trailers!

The Wolfman.
Pretty awesome looking, but hard to tell if it'll be good and scary or just full of silliness. Very nice use of playing with the Universal logo. Plus, Hugo Weaving, who I wasn't expecting. Wooooo yay for Inspector Elrond-Smith-Mitzi.

I'm going to link to the Avatar teaser trailer but I haven't actually seen it. I figure it'll spoil me for this evening. cottonwoolfairy and I are going to see some a free screening of some footage. I've never done anything like this before - bits of a film, presumably all not in the right order, possibly spoilery or possibly just lots of pretty footage of aliens in the jungle. Who knows? Quite exciting though.

Also, not a trailer, but Eddie Izzard is running the length of the UK for sport relief. He is doing a marathon a day, six days a week. The man is MAD. And AWESOME. http://eddieizrunning.com/

I'm on holiday! So far I have achieved:

1 Prom. Technically that was yesterday but still. It was an achievement. Te Deum is a big fuck-off sing. I think it's the first time CEFC's been conducted by a female conductor. It's definitely the first prom I've ever done with a female conductor. She was really awesome. Very clear beats, very nice, wearing a really cool dress-coat-thing and generally very cool. We are also awesome but a) we are one of three choirs and b) you may have to take my word for it because we were a long, long way away from the front of the stage. WOO VERTIGO.

Actually, I think my favourite bit was the first two chords. The orchestra plays a chord, which is loud. There is a bar's rest, during which you can practically hear the organist cracking his knuckles and thinking pshht, you think that's loud? And then he plays a chord of his own, and it is LOUD. And that is my favourite part of the whole piece.

1 lie-in

2 viewings of The Goonies (one with director and cast commentary)

1 page of really random 2 page comic strip - in pen! So even though it is horrible there is nothing I can do about it now (because my computer image editing skils SUCK). I will pen-ify the second page and scan it in and then it will rot away in a subfolder somewhere forever, as it should, because it's terrible. But still.

1 new webcomic addiction (Celadore! Although now I need to stay away from Zuda comics, it's a minefield of addictive awesomeness and really slow-loading explorer-crash-risk pages...)

2 cups of coffee

2 successful avoidances of joining in with wank on the internet. (Sidenote: I spent a good couple of hours last week reading the Fandom Wank Wiki and enjoyed it immensely. SEND HELP.)

0 reading of Shatter samples even though I checked my work email out of interest and I think they're all/nearly all in now. I do not have to look. I am on holiday. Yes.

0 words of anything. In fact, I think -1 because I opened Impossible and deleted a word. Bah.


I am about to achieve groceries, and then this evening I will try to achieve food that is not Matzos. (In other news: MATZOS. They are not food in any traditional nutrient-based sense of the word, but I have so missed them. Apparently they don't grow in Barking. This would make more sense to me if it wasn't for the fact that I never had any trouble getting hold of them in Carlisle.)