The Day After my Birthday
Added at 2:07pm and filed under Offline, awesome, bff, family, gaming
My birthday rocked. :)
Despite S’s poorly eyes (he suffers severely with hayfever, and on Thursday and Friday he could barely open his eyes – no exaggeration – so swollen were they) and a clusterfuck of a hangover courtesy of D and a drunken night in the garden the night before, it was an almost flawless day. I was awoken by my boys with breakfast in bed and a pile of gifts, which included a gorgeous new watch, DVDs, CDs and a heap of lovely new books. My sister-in-law got me things to spoil me – a CD, chocolate, wine, some flowers – and my in-laws more Lost boxsets so that I can re-watch rather than endure the shitorific World Cup. My parents are helping me fund a new iPhone (scheduled for release on 24th June), as is one brother. My other brother’s bought me Naughty Bear, which should hit my doormat next week. Sharon and R. also sent me some wonderful gifts, too, which utterly made my day. Yay!
I worked from home in the morning because of Sam being off school, but I took a half day and spent the afternoon lounging around, watching The Inbetweeners and reading for a bit. M cooked dinner (although he always does that) and he and S bought me a cake and enthusiastically, tunelessly, sang happy birthday. In the evening I met with eight friends and we went out locally to celebrate, which meant copious food and wine and no watered down beer or expensive taxi rides home. After that, four of us went back to my friend’s house and we rocked plastic guitars and mics until 2am. Awesome.
It was a low-key day which made it practically perfect. My friends were astonishingly kind and I went home with bags of cards and gifts, humbled by their generosity. I ate too much Italian food, but drank very little Italian wine due, in part, to the colossal hangover that still draped me. We took lots of stupid photos and they put three candles in my ice-cream and they also sang happy birthday. See? Perfect. :)
Oh – and also? That press pass for Gamescom that I was worrying about? It went AWOL in the post, but my replacement arrived in my birthday mail on Friday. Woot!
Oh – and another also? Our new car came in on Thursday! :) It’s lovely and fancy, albeit cripplingly slow for someone who’s gone from a 1.9 turbo diesel engine to a 1.2 petrol thingy with all the ooompfh of an aging lawnmower. Still, I’m sure the problem’s me and not the car and even if it is the car, who gives a shit – I get a new one again in nine months time and even I have the patience for this. In the meantime, I’m driving a shiny new car with 6 miles on the clock and more gizmos than I can shake a stick at. Whatever that means.
Anyway, yesterday we had a quiet one. I was still reeling from three consecutive nights of restricted sleep, so after going to see Iron Man 2 (yes, we’re late but yes, Robert Downey Jnr – who’s appeal I never understood prior to Iron Man – is so far past hot in that movie it’s insane), I crawled upstairs and passed out for four (FOUR!) hours. When I awoke at 9pm, I read some more until finally retiring for the night at 1am.
I finished the book this morning. It was Twilight, my gift from R. I’d stuck it onto my Wishlist because … well, because I’d been wondering what all the fuss was about, to be honest. I’d not read any of the books before, nor seen the movies, but I’d seen enough people squee over it so I figured it was worth a little of my time. And it was. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite as groundshakingly awesome as I think I’d been expecting, but I did enjoy it, even if I thought that Edward was a complete bellcrease for 90% of the book. The brooding male lead? I have NEVER understood the appeal. Honestly. The angry eyes, the snarled mouth, the shouts the mixed messages … blah-blah-blah. I just don’t get the bad boy thing. And whilst that’s all explained very satisfactorily in the book it’s like … Bella. Seriously. Get some self-respect. Why get turned on by such an asshole? Surely you’re worth more than that? Surely the first time he treated you like something he wiped off his dick was the last time you’d give him the time of day? Surely by then you should’ve told him to fuck off and stick his brooding intensity up his arse?
And it’s not just Meyer – it seems there’s a complete dearth of genuinely lovely guys in a whole ton of female contemporary fiction of late. The last half dozen or so books I’ve read have just featured bastards, mean and moody and monobrowed ones. Ugh. Why?!
Anyway. Yeah. My birthday – the whole weekend – has just been lovely. And now I’m going to finish it in style but shoving a family-sized bag of Maltesers in my mouth and play me a bit of Left for Dead 2.
Comments: (5)
The Day I Couldn’t Think of a Witty Title
Added at 4:24pm and filed under Geek Speak, bff, gaming, travel
I have no topic to write about.
That was my plan. To write frequently. With topics. Only it’s almost the end of the day already and a topic still eludes me so instead I’m going to sit here and talk shite to you. Deal? It had better be, dude – THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION HERE.
Let’s see. I’ve spent three days feverishly stalking my brother. It appears that a load of press passes for Gamescom have been issued, and whilst some of my super-fab and awesome team at GGS.com have got theirs … well, I haven’t. :/ (And In case you’re wondering how the bollocks these two seemingly disparate topics come together, it’s ’cause the press address for all things GGS.com is my Dad’s business address – and my brother works there. Make sense?) I’m hoping it’s a postal delay, or that they just send them out in blocks, because I just cannot fathom how my (admittedly awesome) writers got a pass and I haven’t. I really don’t hope that, after filling in the form in pigeon-German, I fucked something up on the form. Because that would be so typical of me it would be hilarious.
Or horrifying. One or the other.
Anyway, I dropped the organisers a line via Twitter and they said they’d get back to me. I hope that’s not a fob off.
Talking of whom – my GGS.com team? They’re so awesome. And I’m so lucky. Much like SHHF, I’ve managed to surround myself with some of the most awesome people, and I’m as much looking forward to three summer nights in Germany with Steve and Sarah as I would be looking forward to a long weekend with RL friends. Yay!
Well. Only if my pass turns up, obviously. Sob.
In other news, I unretired (yes, I think I made that word up) myself from Facebook1. I deactivated my account in January because … well, there’s a party line about why I quit but the actual truth runs deeper than that, a whole mess of crap and (my) hurt feelings. I’m feeling better now; not quite whole again, but okay, and the funeral this week was a violent reminder of how short life is, how dependent some of us are on it for communication, and how I needed to open up again, stop hiding from people on the off-chance I might get hurt. I feel like a twat writing that – a stupid, insipid, ball-less fool – but it’s true nonetheless. Pathetic, no?
And whilst it’s nice to be back, to see updates and photos and the like, this morning I woke up to updates about promotions in Mafia Wars and carrot watering on Farmville. It’s hard to choke back to desire to hit ‘deactivate’ again …
1 PLEASE don’t ask me to friend you on Facebook. I have exceptionally few online people on my FB profile and that’s because what you get here? On this blog? This is me. Pure, unadulterated, untainted, uncensored, warts-and-all me. Please let me keep this part of me – and you guys – separate from my friends and family and the people I’m expected to work with. They don’t know that I’m writing a book, or that my shiny hard facade is actually made out of crepe paper – and I’d really like to keep it that way. You can talk my BALLS off here – you can comment on anything at anytime and I’ll be glad to friend you. :) So please don’t take offense if I don’t add you back on FB, okay?
Comments: (5)
The Day with Girl Gamers Suck
Added at 12:37pm and filed under Geek Speak, awesome, gaming
Introducing my latest project – girlgamerssuck.com.
You know me. I like games. I often don’t have time to play as much as I would like – and when I do play, I’m often kinda crap – but I’ve grown up with gaming and I love it. It’s part of my childhood, part of my life and undeniably part of who I am.
I have loved the last six months I’ve been writing for AeroPause. Having skirted the world of online game geekery for a number of years – SHH.com aside, obviously – its been wonderful to fully immerse myself without the guilt or hang-ups. The guys I ‘work’ with are all kinds of awesome, and I hope to be there for many years to come. And it’s spurred me to run with an idea I’ve had for as long as I’ve been online – a gaming site for women.
Yes, there are loads already (although – in my defense – there wasn’t ONE when I first thought of the idea!). But they’re generally all pretty . . . meh. See, I don’t do pink. I don’t care about girl power. I also don’t care about pony games or dream weddings and I don’t play MMORPGs, either. So I’ve ended up creating what I hope is a gaming site for people who genuinely don’t give a shit about gender. People who wouldn’t mind exploring some of the psychology around gaming, as well as keep abreast with selected news and reviews.
It took forever to think of a name. I originally didn’t really want to focus on the ‘girl’ or female aspects but to be honest, it’s impossible for me to drive the message that girls can game without that focus – which is where my idea comes from. I didn’t want to rip off any other girl gamer sites with a similar name, but I realised that I also didn’t want to drop the female aspect – which is why I seemed to keep coming back to the sarcastically titled girlgamerssuck.com.
So please – come visit me! Comment and contribute. Is there anything you’d like to see on there – anything I’m missing? What do you like? Dislike? It’s been forever since I launched a new project from scratch so please tell me your thoughts and help me get this thing off the ground!
Comments: (6)
The Day with the Crap Day (6)
Let’s see … Son is a thug. Husband is a fucking prick. Boss is … well, a boss. Today has not been a good day.
The Day After my Birthday (5)
My birthday rocked. :) Despite S’s poorly eyes (he suffers severely with hayfever, and on Thursday and Friday he could barely open his eyes – no exaggeration – so swollen were they) and a clusterfuck of a hangover courtesy of D and a drunken night in the garden the night before, it was an almost [...]
The Day With the Craptastic Procrasination (8)
I’ve been rushed off my arse lately. June’s always one of those months when I’m all over the place, attending meetings and conferences across the UK, and this one’s been no exception. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks zig-zagging my way across the country and I’ve become oh-so-familiar with the failings of a takeaway [...]
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