Thursday 24 November 2011

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save.


There are a few parts to this blog:
1. General update
2. Minecraft talk leading to scaryness
3. Nail varnish

I thought I would give you this knowledge in case you come across a block of text that you find boring. Everything kind of gets mixed together but that is the best way to split up my writing.


So I'm half way through my third week at work and I'm rather enjoying it. I am knackered every day after just two hours (although the two mile bike ride (one way) can't help towards that either, my poor thighs!) and my back has already started hurting (joy, oh joy, hello slow muscle crawl, hope I didn't miss you at all ¬¬) but we have good laughs.

I went on my first training session yesterday and it was just like being back at school for two hours (everything seems to be twos!) right down to me not knowing any answers... except I did get one but man I felt horribly stupid again. It's that engaging brain to do things... it just doesn't work on demand. I know I'm not that stupid I just can't seem to do very well in those scenarios. Except it was fine and I'll get paid for turning up and it was compulsory so it wasn't bad.
As a slight aside it was about diversity and equality and was actually rather interesting on what you can get called up on, or call people up on. But then got me wondering about identity and ended with some vodka apple to make shush :P

So work is going pretty well. In between work and other such things I am copying up the Iolanthe score for this year's Buxton. This would be fine, if it wasn't so damned long and such a complete arse(!) of a score. There are inconsistencies throughout and there are some pages that haven't been printed properly so you kind of have to make educated guesses on what notes you are meant to put. It's donkey work. It's not really very interesting but you can slave away and it's done without thinking too much. I was attempting to do the whole score in 2 weeks but that would have destroyed me so now I'm just working at it as much as I can.

In between doing that I have rediscovered my love for Minecraft. For such a cheap game (it was £7 for me almost a year ago but it'll be about that now or mebs up to £10) it's quite amazing and you don't have to pay for upgrades (of which there have been numerous). You essentially pay once for an account and you can play for as long as it is running. I love exploring, I love collecting and crafting. Making houses and enjoying the, however "pixellated" it is, the scenary. Notch has been playing with the light settings and wow I was rather impressed actually. I will tell you what I don't like though.

That. I don't like them at all. He is called an Enderman. It's from the Nether, which I haven't yet explored at all so I don't know anything about it. He can pick up blocks and move them (currently he is holding a dirt block). This is fine in itself, although it changes the scenery, so long as you don't make your safe house out of a "moveable" block because then he might let other, more hostile, mobs in, such as zombies and creepers. That is fine. Enderman, move what you like. If you make eye contact he will stare you down. I have only had one experience of this and it was from a safe place where I could hit him repeatedly until he stopped. He will approach you and stare at you. If you break eye contact he will kill you.
Now that's not a very nice way to play that game. He also has either a higher attack than you, a higher health bar than you or both because unless you can kill him before you break eye contact you will, at least nearly always, die (apparently, according to the wikia). Even that isn't too bad. Ok, try not to make eye contact with them, just don't look directly at them, that's plausible.

HE FECKING TELEPORTS.

This I cannot cope with. Unless the level is more than 3 blocks higher than the level he is currently on he can teleport onto it (I'm not sure how far lengthwise though... I saw one teleporting around from a nice high vantage point and it looked like about 30 blocks). I had one of them teleport next to me. What the actual hell? I practically died on the spot (it also didn't help that he was followed in very quick succession by a creeper... or more to the point I was followed). What if they teleport into your viewpoint and you realise too late because you were already turning? Why does it need to do something quite so damned creepy?!


Ok I have a major issue with teleporting things or more accurately, things that move without moving or without you being able to see them move. I was never the wolf in "What's The Time Mr. Wolf", except by force, because it creeped me out. Remember these guys?:

Yup Dr. Who's Weeping Angels. I found that hard to watch because of the "teleportation". I know, it's not quite the same but essentially it had the same idea. It moved without you seeing that it moved. It bothers me a lot. Although, yes they were creepy regardless. I think they were the scariest thing on that show yet (although I haven't watched half of Tennant or any of Smith so there may have been creepier but imo they are the ones that take that crown). (Another aside I just got distracted with a video of 500 miles (The Proclaimers) with the crew and some of the cast of Dr Who dancing along to it. It's quite cute, if only for wor David's grin all the way through).

I'll tell you someone else who creeps me out:
Most of the film (bar one second where it shows rope being pulled out of someone's mouth) I can watch fine. It's not really scary. Samara crawling out of the tv? Fine. Samara suddenly appearing in front of people, after crawling out of the tv, without needing to move? Hell no. Only part I can't watch. Point is, if I can't see it move, it's terrifying.


But enough of horribly creepy things. I should probably go to bed soon. Tomorrow is Friday (yay) which means that I get two days off (yay) before going back to work again on Monday (boo) but it does mean that I get to buy more pokemon cards (yay - it happens every Monday atm to make them better) and also I only have 3 weeks until we break up (yay) which is kinda rubbish because I haven't started Christmas shopping and it's not that long now (boo). I also get to paint my nails tomorrow (yay) because it isn't allowed at work (boo) but it shall be sparkly because I am all about the glitter atm (yay).

Just to share these are the ones I have right now:

Ok maybe I should make my own swatches at some point. Maybe I'll do one over the weekend (it'll be Snow Globe fo' sho' because it's my newest one and I need to try it out).

L-R T-B:
China Glaze: Snow Globe. White holographic sparkles of varying size. As of yet unknown quality.
China Glaze: Fairy Dust (bought to replace my old Miners Photo Finish that is very gloopy, but still works). Holographic glitter. Very nice to apply (probs because it's C.Glaze) and very good coverage.

Rimmel: Disco Ball. Surprisingly it looked exactly the same as one in the Miss Sporty range but I know Rimmel make up (even if Miss Sporty was £1 cheaper). Blue/silver sparkles of varying size. Nice but you need 2-3 coats to get good coverage at all.
Stargazer: 146. I dislike that stargazer have no names. The names are my favourite part :( Red, blue, green and silver glitters (slightly bigger than Fairy Dust). Nice to apply, quick to dry.

Barry M: Red Glitter. I agree with someone else, uninspired name much? It's got great coverage though and is my only non-silver/white based glitter. It's great over a crimson at Christmas.
17: Glitter Top Coat. Kinda uninspired by this one. Similar colour to Snow Globe but glitter instead of sparkles. It does not have great coverage (or it didn't on my toe nail, but they are tiny and it was far away from my face) but it's a nice colour (white holo, thus the purchase of Snow Globe although they might be nice combined).


I would like some different coloured glitters/sparkles/flakes. Actually I don't own any flakes yet but I have seen some and they are nommy. In winter I get all glittery and sparkly and in summer I like matt colours (which reminds me I should pick up a mattifying top coat at some point) in bright neons. I love wearing nail varnish. Love love love! I need to wear it more. I would like to be able to afford more China Glaze, O.P.I and Nails Inc. but they go past my usual budget of £5 max. I need to learn that it's ok to spend more now that I'm not reliant on pocket money :P It's difficult though and I do want ever so many things. And I still have no more room than last time we spoke.

Oh the difficulties in life! Maximum difficulty! D:


Anyway, lemons and fruit salads for all xxxxxxxxxxx


p.s. I'll let you know how my nail varnish turns out, if I remember.
p.p.s. For those who don't know my hair is now fuchsia, I'm still yet to get a good photo though :/
p.p.p.s. I realise I never tell you where my title is from. I would say "is that ok?" but I don't really mind if it isn't. I presume it doesn't really bother you or you google it if it does because really google is fountain of knowledge.
p.p.p.p.s. I know that fountain of knowledge is often a wiki name but really isn't it more a lake of wisdom? Actually I quite like these metaphors :D
p.p.p.p.p.s  Start now not tomorrow. :)
p.p.p.p.p.p.s. None of the images are my own. They were on googles.

Sunday 13 November 2011

Take heart, fair days with shine; take any heart, take mine.

I think it's cloudy outside, possibly even very overcast but the netting at my window makes everything look foggy regardless of the weather. Oh it is actually foggy, fog ^2.

I've felt surprisingly busy this past week even though not much has changed aside from 3 hours of my day are take up with my "catering assistant" job (and travel time). I cycle. It's 2 miles from my house to the school (give or take) and it's downhill. The way back is uphill :(. Over the last week I've done between 25-30 miles on my bike. 
But that's really not that much time but it's surprising how much quicker the days pass me by. I've barely had any time, or so it feels, to do NaNo (and I'm so behind on that I don't see myself ever catching up unless I write 14k today or can manage to write 3k a day from now on). It doesn't help that I'm also copying up almost the entire orchestral score for the Buxton performance this summer (getting an early start on it so it's less of a rush later) and I'm still copying up the second act for Pirates so I can learn it (I learn best by listening to my part over and over again and practising A LOT).

I've done a lot of copying of music into Sibelius over the years and sometimes I really wish I could have something like that as a job. I'm pretty quick at it now. It's tedious though and does mean that for extended periods of time I'm sat in this computer chair concentrating quite hard. I'm not really sure why I offer this service for people but I like to be useful.


I haven't been taking any photos or arting at all, my mind is kind of overwhelmed to even consider that kind of thing, Which is a shame really because I do enjoy arty things. I'll get worse again if I don't keep it up but brain deaaaath~.

I've ordered some new converse that hopefully I'll get over the next week (and hopefully they'll be a size 5 and not 5.5) and I'll show those off to you on here. I also have a set day of the week that I'm going to allow myself to buy pokemon cards because I buy way too many of those really. It's Monday, in case you were wondering, because it gives me something to look forward to after the weekend.

Christmas is coming up fast and I still have Elendil's birthday before that to buy a present for. Where has the year gone? I might go back to gaming for a bit. Playing Warrior's Orochi 2. It's essentially Dynasty Warriors with demons and samurai as well as the standard DW characters. Hack and slash, hack and slaaaash~ Mash X to win. :3


Lemons xxxxxxxxx

Sunday 6 November 2011

I will still remember when you've long forgotten me

So what's been happening?

Quite a bit actually. I've turned 23 and really aside from how ill I am (and still am and will be throughout all events that happen in this post, obviously, unless I refer to times where I am not 23 in which case I'm probably not ill) things are going pretty well. I start my job tomorrow and whilst it really isn't a big thing really it's pretty awesome for me. I'm a little worried that I'll mess up or they'll tell me I have to go home because I'm ill but hopefully it'll go well and they'll like me and all that. I'm expecting them all to be older than me because I don't remember a single young dinner lady but I'm cool with that :) I just hope they like me and don't think I'm silly.

My birthday weekend was pretty awesome. I got a wonderful stash of things from lovely people and I also just generally had a wonderful time. I danced my way into my birthday at Legends and that was pretty fun, even if we were all really tired by that point. I'd say it was pretty ultra cool which is a nice combo of things really :D

The following week passed mostly with event, well I can't remember doing anything except for writing for nano that I should really catch up with because I'm well behind on that, until Thursday night/Friday morning. At 1.15 am Blue and I caught a bus to London to start our 1.5 days of adventure. I will tell you now, if you can afford to and if it works with time scales of what you need to do in London, avoid using the nightbus on the way down! I think between us we got about four hours sleep and that really isn't useful when you have a whole day of doing things. But we got there and at 7.30am we staggered into a Pret to get tea (for Blue) and eatings (mostly for me) for try and feel less like hell.
Here is another warning for anyone considering this type of thing: nothing in London seems to open until after about 10am. Genuinely the only things open were cafes, tescos, newsagents and that's about it. It was quite difficult killing time until things opened but they did eventually and things were a lot easier energywise because we were doing things and it was a good distraction from sleep deprivation. Also by this point my voice was already squeaky when I got at all emotional about anything which was quite hilarious (re: probably annoying for anyone not me).

We started in Liberty (a rather expensive department store but with a very wonderful Christmas shop and purple bags and loyalty cards :D) which was nice although we didn't look at everything there because it's mostly out of our price ranges. We could afford candy and christmas decorations of which we purchased a couple of the latter. We then wandered around and I bought a Tokidoki Unicorno in Stellina (see below, it's 2.5" tall) from a cute shop with lots of similar items (most of which looked Japanese).
There were brand shops that normally you would only find in shops that sold multi brands. Like a converse shop. We looked around (I was on a hunt for silver cons but there were none in there) and it was quite awesome. We headed up to Hamleys because really if you are in that area you just do. So many cuddly toys :D it was tempting to take home a new panda but none were as awesome as the one I already have. There was a full sized Darth Vader lego man which was really awesome and some fake powder snow that is rather magical even if the woman showing it off was inane. We were in a toy shop, I forgave her :P

We then went and checked into our hostel. I will point out now that the rooms were £9.99 each per night and I believe that it was actually a very good deal. We were given a sheet and a pillow case and a keycard. We traipsed up and found our room (104) and one of the beds was already occupied by a small lump of a sleeping person (that we later found out was not some tween like you expect but a 40 year old very beardy man who looked kinda pervy and kinda homeless in his vegetative beard state). another bed was occupied by a French couple who stopped their just gone noon activities when we entered which was nice at least (they had made a curtain and everything so that was nice). The other 18 beds were empty of people although a few had bedding and items around. It was very hostel and very cheap but that's fine because all we wanted was a bed. I actually reckon that we'd stay there again when we next go down.

After bedding and sorting out what to take with us, what to leave and what to put into a safety deposit box we ventured to Camden because that was our secondary aim of the trip. We spent all the afternoon there just wandering and living in Cyberdog. I only bought a wristband and some shoelaces but the atmosphere is wonderful down there. I feel like I need to spend a couple of days just in that area to see everything.

After getting back to the hostel with the intent of having a little lie down we discover that the doors have already opened to the gig (open at 6pm? Seriously? That's really early comparatively to any others I've been to) we hop back onto the Tube (that we've been on and off all day :D) and down to the Hammersmithteeshs (£25 each but it was London and it was a pretty big group) and drinks (pint of fresh orange juice £2.10 which I thought was quite cheap surprisingly) we went to see what the craic was. We missed the first support act (ME) so I can't comment on that but we did enter at the start of The Pretty Reckless set. They were ok but having not known their music I wasn't too fussed by them.

Evanescence was maximum awesome to the point that I need to see them again. That doesn't often happen. Normally it's a case of "well I've seen you once but I don't need to see you again unless the tickets were free or really cheap". I would pay full price to see Ev again. We were in the seated area and whilst that isn't my first choice for a rock gig it was really good for after a day all round London with no proper rest since Wednesday night. The other good side of seats is that when they finished the encore you were part of the standing ovation the upper half of the hall gave.
I couldn't sing (although I did in My Immortal, the last song, because everyone was singing and it was required), couldn't cheer but damn I had the time of my life mouthing the words to most of the songs. I had goosebumps. I almost had tears. I had silent squees. I rocked out in my seat. I threw horns of varying sizes and hand hearts.

The bus back was at 9.30 the next day and it wasn't half as bad as the trip down so really we had a fantastic time and it was awesome. All of that is mostly for me to remember all this :D

I can't wait for my next adventure. I've started writing a list of daisies in my mind of things to do :D


Lemons, Buttercup xxxxxxx