pebblerocker

I had a good Christmas, how about everyone else?

On Christmas Eve I played Castle Risk with the family. Much hilarity. I had Germany and made the first move of the game by invading Poland. "Get some new material," they says, "that's been done before." My sister was pleased to draw Great Britain (everyone wants that territory the same way we all want to be "the goodies"), but she had her opportunity to find out that the isles are vulnerable to invasion by sea as well as -- like Greece -- too fiddly to fit all your armies onto in the endgame. My small brother had Russia and won the game; we are discovering that Russia and France are the most easily defended territories and seem to have a definite advantage. A well-defended Moscow is tough to crack.

Christmas Day: we had a big water pistol battle. What a war-crazed violent family we are. Several presents from the boy and me gave joy to other people, and I was delighted with a funny-looking toy creature whom I will upload a photo of later on, and also with my brand-new laser mouse. Forward and back buttons, YES. So far I have not come across a single web page that requires the use of my tilt wheel.

Boxing Day: went for a bike ride, six of us pedalling along together. As most currently-experienced cyclist in the group I ended up at the back looking after the less confident and making sure nobody got lost, which meant that I missed out on seeing the spectacular crash when the leaders decided to fill in time waiting for us by playing silly buggers on the skateboard ramp.

Since then I have been engaged in extensive testing of the new mouse's gaming performance, drumming my arms off in Rock Band, and looking after tomatoes. I read recently that you can break off the tops of tomato plants so they don't get ridiculously huge and top-heavy. This may be the first year when my tomatoes don't end the season lying down.

There's been a bit of excitement among my gaming friends around the new game Torchlight. I've downloaded the playable demo and this game is fun. It's very similar in concept and mechanics to the original Diablo and in fact was made by many of the original Diablo/Diablo 2 team, including the guy who did the music :D
( Game trailer and more... )

After reading Pride & Prejudice I was in the mood to watch it on TV, so we had a look in the video shop to see if we could find it. I never can find anything I want to watch at a video shop, I like really good TV shows but they prefer to stock really crappy movies instead. We did find Pride & Prejudice there; it was the 2005 movie, not the 1995 BBC serial I was after, but we thought it might scratch the right itch anyway.

IT SUCKED. I was prepared to be open-minded and enjoy it even without the same delightfully slimy Mr Collins I'd been looking forward to, but it just sucked all over. "Isn't this supposed to be a story about the middle classes?" we asked each other. Everything was rough and muddy, nothing was at all elegant. (If you're going to do period drama you have to teach the actors at least some deportment -- Keira Knightley slouching through the opening scene with her neck sticking out was a real shocker, and it got worse from there.) It could actually have been pretty funny to watch: a re-interpretation of the story where we side with Mr Darcy and Caroline Bingley as they look down their noses at all these vulgar and unattractive people -- only we couldn't bring ourselves to sit through more than half an hour.

Thank goodness for the internet. I was able to get hold of the 1995 six-parter and we watched some tonight. Boys like Jane Austen too: mine enjoys Mr Bennet's scenes very much and is interested in the storyline, so I have someone to watch them with.

I'm just trying to write and stupid computer keeps underlining words which is really distracting, and I keep on telling it, I tell it over and over I'm not American, I've told it so enough times that when a friend tried to use my computer to register a new hotmail.com email address it refused point blank to give him anything but a hotmail.co.uk one no matter what we did to it, but it's STILL having conniptions about "fibre".

*pants with rage*

( Read more... )

The recurring dream theme of the moment: superheroes. Sometimes I dream about real superheroes like Wonder Woman and Green Arrow; sometimes my dreams make up their own superheroes. Last night there was a crimefighting duo whose superpowers were to turn into, respectively, a manta ray and a plesiosaur. If only my dream had had them going on an adventure together, rather than just matter-of-factly existing... I want to know what sort of crisis requires the assistance of Plesiosaur Boy!

Woo! I've returned to the first Guitar Hero game trying to make progress in my career and tonight (after half a dozen failed attempts) I finally managed to make it through Bark at the Moon on Medium difficulty! Yay me!

(Doing the game's hardest song on Medium may seem really easy to you, in which case I am still proud because it's at the limits of my current capability, or it may seem impossibly difficult, in which case I didn't intend to imply that I'm better than you but I'm still proud.)

Also today Les Paul died, the guitar guy. He was ninety-four. I shall play my genuine imitation Les Paul copy in his honour.

Dinner: haricot bean and chickpea loaf, brussels sprouts and parsnip chips, followed by apple crumble. Mmmmm, good for a cold night like this and very tasty... and the bean loaf makes good lunches the next day.

I like the season of parsnips and swedes. Lots of hot soups coming. Swedes are so yummy in soup, so yummy roasted, so yummy mashed. Parsnips are mainly yummy roasted, but I found out while boyfriend was making the chips that they also taste interesting raw if sliced thinly enough.

All my pattern pieces are cut out ready to sew. Cutting satin on the bias is like doing origami only it won't crease like paper and it tries to get away in every direction. I have to coax it very gently with much use of set squares and pins. Putting the skirt together is going to be a bit of a job so it's a good thing I'll be doing it under experienced supervision.

The satin I bought for the skirt was $2 per metre (thank you Geoff, and proprietors of other emporiums everywhere) and very nice except for being a sort of brownish colour which is very difficult to co-ordinate with anything; I got 5m to be on the safe side, since the skirt is going to be full and cut on the bias, but only needed 3. No idea what it's going to look like when it's finished since my dressmaker is spectacularly more talented at designing and sewing than at making concept sketches. The blouse, also bias-cut, is white and will look somthing like the right-hand one here or like this one, with the fluttery sleeves. And to avoid being too dull I'll have an orangey-red sash, which is the only bright colour I found that looks good with the brown.

Men have it easy. They can wear the same suit and be in fashion for at least the last century.

On my way home I saw a man riding down the road on a motorbike with an axe in his teeth. Is that the most awesome thing ever or really really terrifying?

I can think of half a dozen better ways of transporting an axe on a motorbike, but none quite so menacing.

I mourn the loss of biodiversity in my lawn. The front lawn used to be mainly red and white clover and a few daisies, but the kikuyu grass has moved in and taken over right up to the house and has smothered everything else. Organic gardening advice seems to be, often, just to learn to live with it and avoid worrying yourself into an early grave. Kikuyu does make a lawn that won't brown off in summer and it doesn't mind being walked or driven on, but it's not pleasant to sit or play on because it makes me itch. And gardening near kikuyu is difficult. Unless I can commit myself to cutting it back regularly without fail, any flower bushes, small shrubs or young trees I put in are just going to vanish.

There's kikuyu all up the driveway side of the house, and it's coming around the corner of the garage and trying to get into the compost bin. I've been outside ripping it up and my forearms are all red and itchy. It's extending tentacles into the back lawn and I'm trying to slow its progress because that part of the section is mainly yarrow. I love my sort ferny yarrow lawn and I don't want it to disappear.