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 With the Craptastic Procrasination
Added at 1:31pm and filed under Corporate Puppet, Not impressed, Offline, travel
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 cup of tea. Unfortunately. (Seriously. How hard is it to make it white but strong, Upper Crust?)
On the plus side, I finally – F I N A L L Y ! – finished off my MSc assignments, which – God and a pass-mark willing – means I’ve finished the first year of my part-time Masters. I tell you – this degree? I TOTALLY underestimated it. I underestimated how time-consuming it would be, but also how hard it would be. I know I’ve been out of formal education since my first Masters seven or eight years ago, but I just assumed that things were chiefly the same. I also figured that hey – this is my job. I’m told to think and write about this stuff for a living. Surely writing it up in assignment form’s no different? I WAS WRONG.
Firstly – the technology! I mean, don’t get me wrong – I love electronic submissions, and I love the convenience of accessing Uni mail and resources from home. But the restrictions on what to submit, how to submit – to not mention how not to submit – are a clusterfuck of contradictions and confusion. Plus self-plagarism? WHAT THE FUCK? That didn’t even EXIST five years ago! So if I write a groovy write-up of, say, arable farming on Austria, I’m not allowed to use the same text in a different (and hopefully pertinent) assignment? Why not? IT’S MY WORK. I own it. STOP MAKING ME WORK SO HARD, UNIVERSITY.
Anyway, as I said – they’re in. I ended up knocking out 8,500 words for two assignments over two days. These are not examples of my finest work and to be perfectly honest I’m a little embarrassed at the scale of my craptastic-ness, but at this juncture, I’m just glad to have given them in. I procrastinated SO badly that even with a month’s extension, I still left it to the last minute! How rubbish is that, eh?
Wait – whoops, I think that’s my train, which is clearly my cue to leave it there. So in the absence of anything else: what’s new with you?
Comments: (8)
The Day I Went Mobile. Hopefully.
Added at 1:28pm and filed under Offline, Site Stuff, bff
I hope you’re reading this. If you’re not, it means I’ve ballsed up and something’s wrong with the settings of WordPress and the email posting feature thingy of WordPress doesn’t works. And by doesn’t works, I mean that it probably does but I fucked something up. How very unlike me, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Edit: well, FUCK IT. It didn’t work. Hhaarumph. Although there is a chance that TWO of these will show up if the other post’s delayed or something in which case … just be kind and pretend not to notice, okay?
Obviously, I’ve had a blog for seven years now (longer, if you count the frighteningly inane mutterings in my LJ – which I don’t, for the record) but this is the first time I’ve bothered with this particular feature. I’m trying to keep up momentum with this whole blogging malarky. It’ll probably fizzle away – much like my other most recents resurgences – but whilst I have a mind to update, it’s frustrating as hell when I logistically can’t. And while yes, I can post via the app on my iPhone, it’s a little much to sit there and play with my phone for an hour in the middle of my working day. Whilst sitting right next to my boss. In an open-plan office. Even by my questionable standards, that’s a tad unprofessional.
Trying to lift us out of the depressing note I left for your reading pleasure yesterday, shall we talk about something a little less existential? Something colourful and exciting and weird – maybe even a little outside the box? Like Lady Gaga, for example?
See what I did there? What a seamless link! Fucking hell I am AWESOME.
So, yeah. Gaga. As I think I mentioned, going to see her live was not my idea. D hearts her – hearts the music and the style and the whole WTFness about her – and whilst I don’t turn the radio off when she appears or anything (I am a closet POP Princess, after all), I can’t say that seeing her play live ever crossed my consciousness before. But I’m glad that I went; as I’m sure you can appreciate, the show was every bit as spectacular as you’d expect – amazing sets, crazy costumes and full-on awesome dance routines. Her voice was stunning. Perfect. Plus she said motherfucker, like, A LOT. What’s not to love?
Actually, I’ll tell you what’s not to love: SEWERAGE. Throughout the evening, every ten minutes or so, a hideous stench of fish – rotting, maggot-infested three-month-old fish – came wafting across the arena. Sometimes it was the delightful smell of shit, but for the most part it was dirty aquarium goodness so bad at times places that I had to pinch my nose to keep my dinner down. NOT COOL, O2. NOT COOL AT ALL.
I can only assume that it was a malfunction with the toilets/sewerage and not a deliberate scent piped in by Gaga … but who knows for sure?
Anyway, next up in my Summer of Music – which is what I’ve dubbed June 2010, considering I have four live shows lined up – will be Crowded House, whom we’re seeing perform on Friday. Saturday will be Stereophonics, which is fucking awesome as I haven’t seen them for a couple of years, and then I finish the month up with another visit to see Paul McCartney. YAY! It’s so typical that I’ve – quite literally – waited a lifetime to see Macca play live and I score two concerts within a six month period, but I don’t care. The show I saw at Christmas was beyond amazing and as it’s my birthday mid-month, I didn’t even have to justify the cost to myself this time. I repeat: yay!
Comments: (5)
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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