The Wench of Procrastination

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:15:58 GMT

My book reading has been all over the shop, in both quantity and genre, since my last post. In the week ending October 25 I read seven books but in the week ending November 8 I read none. There've been huge chunks of sci-fi interspersed with crime fiction, graphic novels and YA supernatural nonsense. Plus, for the first time since being an undergrad, I've actually been on a big non-fiction kick. And whilst all of this has been going on, my to-be-read pile(s) has spiraled out of control.

244. Dark Water - Koji Suzuki
245. Cobweb - Neal Stephenson & Frederick George
246. Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
247. Amnesia Moon - Jonathan Lethem
248. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
249. John Constantine, Hellblazer: Chas, The Knowledge - Simon Oliver & Goran Sudzuka
250. Idlewild - Nick Sagan
251. John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Roots of Coincidence - Giuseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini
252. Auggie Wren's Christmas Story - Paul Aster
253. Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
254. A Matter of Death & Life - Andrey Kurkov
255. Evermore - Alyson Noel
256. Generation Kill - Evan Wright
257. One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer - Nathaniel Fick
258. Marvel True Believers Retro Collection: The Fantastic Four Pop-Up - Caroline Repchuck
259. The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq - Graham Dale with Neil Fetherstonhaugh
260. Sniper One - Sgt. Dan Mills

Dark Water - Koji Suzuki
I've been meaning to read something by Koji Suzuki for years. There was a lot of hype and I'd always heard good things, so I went into this book with a pretty positive mindset. And then it turned out to be really fucking boring. People thought that was scary? Seriously?

Cobweb - Neal Stephenson & Frederick George
Having previously read Cryptonomicon during the fun period of moving from York to Glasgow, I've been wanting to read something else by Stephenson. Of course, the problem is that it took me a solid week to read Cryptonomicon and quite often I really don't want to dedicate that much time to doing nothing but reading. So, yeah, I've wanted to read more but it seemed really daunting. Which is where this normal sized collaborative effort came in. And it was aces. (I'm an excellent reviewer, right?)

Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep & Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
I'm not sure how I've managed to avoid reading anything by Dick until now. I devoured sci-fi when I was younger and my shelves bow under the weight of gajillions of titles by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark. Philip K. Dick is right up there in the pantheon of sci-fi gods and yet I'd never read any of his stuff. So I thought it was about time I did something about that. And it turned out to be a bit of a waste of time because, generally, I found both of these books boring. I'm not a fan of his writing style and one of the things I hate in sci-fi is when authors explain, for example, robots in painstaking detail rather than just letting things unfold and subtly cluing you in.

Amnesia Moon - Jonathan Lethem
I'm pretty sure that even right at the end of the book I had absolutely no idea what the point was. It was an interesting enough ride though I'm not really one for worlds within worlds within worlds and OMG WHAT IS REAL?! shenanigans. My memory's a bit hazy but I think the ending was one of those BUT IS THIS REALLY THE TRUTH?! ones and I just wasn't particularly bothered.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
So, this book was really fecking long. And almost nothing happened for the entire first half. Quite a few people at work had read it and they all agreed that if I hadn't gotten into it by page fifty, I was unlikely to get into it at all. I hadn't gotten in to it by page fifty, but I think they were wrong. Once things started to pick up in the second half, I really wanted to follow through and see where everything was headed. I think I probably found it a bit tedious because I'm not a huge crime fiction reader. It was really well written and intriguing in bits but I'm not really in a rush to read the sequels. So, if you're a crime fiction fan, absolutely you should read it, otherwise... Well, you'll probably enjoy it, but it won't rock your world.

Idlewild - Nick Sagan
I've read some really positive reviews about this book and I think that that can always be a bit of a problem because you're constantly measuring your own experience against those reviews and it's very hard for a book to live up to expectations like this. This was good. Good solid, but not stolid, sci-fi just far enough in a a future just different enough to be intriguing. And Neil Gaiman liked it which is pretty much all that needs to be said. I enjoyed it, but like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was underwhelmed.

Evermore - Alyson Noel
You know how YA supernatural books follow the same basic plot: girl is social outcast because she has freaky powers she tries to hide from everyone; most attractive boy that ever walked the face of the planet moves to her town; she falls in love; there is a misunderstanding; despite being 500 years her senior, the boy eventually succumbs to the inevitable and falls in love back; there is a complication necessitating a sequel or seven. Yeah, this book follows that pretty faithfully but as the main character is a psychic who sees dead people, it made a nice change from the vampire stuff from everywhere. Of course, the cornerstone of these books is that the hottest boy that ever lived needs to be Damon Salvatore-level in order for the book to work. This guy wasn't. He was dull. And kept producing tulips from thin air. WTF? It also was bizarrely similar to Soulmate by L.J. Smith right down to the reincarnation of the girl in question and the stalkery Maya-type who goes mental when the hottest boy ever dumps her because he was just using her for sex and not love. Finally, it really doesn't need a sequel even though a few are on the way. Wow, I've talked about this book for way longer than I meant to.

Generation Kill - Evan Wright
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer - Nathaniel Fick
The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq - Graham Dale with Neil Fetherstonhaugh
Sniper One - Sgt. Dan Mills
It's kind of difficult to talk about these books individually because they're all wrapped up in the same thing, so bear with me.
Generation Kill follows a team of recon marines as they took part in the initial invasion of Iraq and is written by a journalist with no military experience. One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer is written by one of the marines from Generation Kill and talks about his entire career with an emphasis on the time he spent in Iraq. The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq tells the story of a Dubliner who joined the American marine reserves and was sent to Iraq after the initial invasion, written by the Dubliner in question with the help of a journalist. Sniper One documents the time 1st Battalion, The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, a British unit, spent in Iraq also after the initial invasion, written by an Army sniper.
For all that they are all account of the latest war in Iraq they are startlingly different books in what they end up saying. Wright's book probably gives the clearest view of military policy during the time he chronicles. As a journalist he had access to officers right at the top of the command chain and so he's able to explain why certain orders were given even though they seemed patently ridiculous to the troops on the ground. Dale & Fetherstonhaugh's book, on the other hand, can't do this and so has a much narrower focus. Wright and Fick are both writing about the actual invasion whilst Dale & Fetherstonhaugh and Mills are writing about the occupation. Mills' book is the only one written from a non-American and non-Marine standpoint, whilst Fick's is the only one from an officer's. All four books have something to recommend them, but they're not all necessarily good books. Still with me?
Generation Kill is probably the best know given that HBO went on to make a mini-series based on it and it's really, really good. Wright captures the insanity of the invasion whilst giving you really clear pictures of the guys in the unit he travelled with. The fact that he can put the actions on the ground into a wider context means that you can see there actually was a plan for the invasion, it's just that it wasn't particularly good. And it's really funny in places. I laughed out loud more than once (although I had to look 'Encino Man' up because that movie was released under a different title here). Oddly though, given that he's writing about something he personally experienced, it's not a very personal book. We learn little about Wright and how he felt about what was happening. And although it's written in the present tense, it somehow lacks immediacy. Definitely recommended though.
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer is the better book in some ways. Fick writes from his own point of view from deciding to join the Marines to deciding to leave. Although he lacks the wider context that Wright could use, Fick's book manages to be more personal and, as a result, more touching. It's also definitely the most thoughtful of all four books and the only one that made me tear up a little. One of the things I struggle to understand the most when it comes to the armed forces, is that I don't understand what motivates people to join them and Fick goes some way towards explaining this. If you were going to read only one of these four, it should be this one.
The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq was... difficult in some ways. It's pretty engaging and doesn't pull any punches but, unfortunately, Graham Dale comes across as a bit of a prick. He's a real guy who went through an incredible experience so I don't like to be too harsh, but I just didn't like him as the book progressed. His writing style used too many Irish colloquialisms (the way I write and the way I talk are not exactly the same. My writing is more 'standard' than my speech and I more or less expect that from the books I read, if you follow what I'm trying to say) and he came across as pretty unsympathetic in places. Out of the four books, this one is the only one written by someone who joined the military in order to get 'revenge' for the September 11 attacks and that colours things in a way the authors probably don't realise. The other books are either written by or largely about career soldiers, not people who were motivated by blind revenge seeking. Still, it's interesting to know that you don't actually have to be American to join the Marines (although his nationality did bar him from applying to join Recon) and it wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't as good as the others.
Sniper One, as I said, is the only book I read in this binge from a British point of view, as well as being the only one not being written by or about Marines. As a result, the tone is hugely different from the others. While both Generation Kill and One Bullet Away have massive streaks of humour running through them, the whole tone of Sniper One is somehow jocular. There's an incredible amount of grim laughter produced in a way that only the Brits can manage. The focus of the story is a team of Snipers who were basically caught up in a fucking epic siege, a siege to rival anything I've read about in Ancient History. The whole thing is breathtakingly fucked up and the danger comes across much more clearly than in any of the other books. The differences between the British and American units is also readily apparent and hugely interesting and though there's no lack of piss taking amongst the men, the tone is different to that of, say, Generation Kill (it almost completely lacks racism and the author himself says that the only racist comments he ever heard were between two black people, but he contradicts himself by being quite comfortable calling Welsh soldiers 'Taff' and Irish soldiers 'Paddy' and, fine, this can be friendly, but it can also be pretty fucking racist). It was also quite eye-opening as to the make-up of the British military in that I had previously had no idea that so many people from Commmonwealth countries served in British units. An amazing read.

Related only in the sense that books are involved, apparently Borders is teetering on the edge of going into administration. And I know it's mean spirited of me, but I'm actually kind of glad about this. I hate Borders. The one in Glasgow is fucking massive but you can never find what you're looking for and it's not really good value for money. There's no such thing as the personal touch and trying to speak to a member of staff is nearly impossible. I won't miss it.

"I'm working on drawing a straight line / And I'll draw until I'll get one right"

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:19:51 GMT

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear that I have recovered from Saturday's awesome levels of drunkeness. After waking at 5.30am on Sunday, and spending four hours reading Sheppard/McKay fanfic, I ventured outside to buy the newspaper, apples and cherry coke. Alas, the entirety of Shawlands conspired to refuse me access to Cherry Coke and I ended up buying Pepsi and Limeade instead which, you know, just not the same. It then took me like seven fucking hours to read The Sunday Times but it was hard and broadsheets are so difficult to fold, especially when your coordination has been somewhat impaired, and they're so tall which makes it hard for me to read the text at the top of the page, and there was a DS9 marathon on Virgin 1 so whatever.

You will also be relieved to hear that I think my alcohol tolerance is returning to levels closer to normality. I had about a pint and a half of Heineken in the flat whilst watching the Wales v. Argentina match (mostly dull but jesus, those tries!), then I had about three pints of Heineken whilst watching the Scotland v. Australia match (!!!!!!!! Unexpected Scottish genius for the win!) in the pub, and then a pint of Staropramen and at least three bottles of Peroni at the engagement party. Which is somewhat respectable and I am not disappointed in my shocking lack of tolerance like last time.

In less fabulous news, my time off is over and I'm back at work. How dull.

"I remember it well, the first time that I saw your head around the door"

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:12:16 GMT

Drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk!

Only in Scotland would I ask for a cheeseburger and end up with a battered burger with the top of a bun, but not the bottom. Deep fried burger is odd and the whole thing is crazy. Crazy drunk!

EDIT: ALSO, THE RUGBY!

"How's my hair? I have to look good today. If today is gonna be my last."

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:25:33 GMT

I've just been ambushed by a very enthusiastic man from Scottish Hydro who counted out the many ways in which I was fool to get my gas and electric from a French company who are a) French and b) based in England and c) EVIL. Which, yes, fair enough, but he woke me up and then scared the bejesus out of me with his aforementioned enthusiasm and was a wee bit disapproving of the fact that I need to pass changes in my utilities companies through both my flatmate and my letting agency (although, when I rang my letting agency they said it was nothing to do with them, which is not what it says in the contract they make us resign every six months but whatever). I'm not even awake enough to process any of this properly but at one point I swear this guy sounded like he was giving me a sales pitch direct from QVC. Very charming man though, god bless him.

In other news, the whole fucking world's gone mental over Thierry Henry's hand ball and it's BIZARRE. Like, I knew Ireland was going to go mental because OMGWTF?! But it was on all of the main news reports here yesterday and people are ANGRY. Mainly because Thierry Henry is like the last bastion of football having any claim to be the gentleman's game, but STILL. I don't think his hand ball was premeditated but it was still cheating and they SHOULD have a replay. They won't because football is all about the cheating and the lack of video refereeing, but DUDE, WE SHOULD GET TO GO TO THE WORLD CUP FOR FUCK'S SAKE. FUCK YOU FRANCE!

"Like all creatures great and small, I took a fall and found out I could bleed"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:52:54 GMT

Between my excellent housewife-like exploits of the past few days, I've been reading Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick. Both books have hammered home how little I actually know about Afghanistan and Iraq. I consider myself to be fairly well up on things. I read the newspaper. I watch the news. I discuss political situations with people. But, seriously, I have giant glaring holes in my knowledge. Reading Fick's book especially made me realise that I didn't actually remember the chain of events that happened after the September 11th attacks in America. I don't remember the retaliatory events in Afghanistan directly afterwards. I just remember the move into Iraq and the massive protests here and Hans Blix completely failing to find weapons of mass destruction. The whole bit between September 11th and the invasion of Iraq is oddly blank in my memory.

In a way, I'd like to blame this on the fact that I was on a dig in Hungary on September 11, 2001. I had spent my day excavating a Neolithic shell midden in the blazing sun on the edge of the great Hungarian plain. Back at the hunting lodge we were staying at, we were all looking forward to showers and cold beer only to be told by the people who'd stayed behind for finds processing that someone had flown a plane into the twin towers. Which we thought was a joke. I remember genuinely not believing what they were saying until I followed them into the common room and saw the images on the TV. It was like a demented sci-fi movie. Now, the problem was we were in the middle of nowhere in Hungary and the only news we could get was German and I was the only person with any German at all and school-level German doesn't really cover death and destruction. So, I'd like to say that it was this remoteness from my usual surroundings that led to my absolute lack of memory of what happened afterwards. For me, what happened afterwards is that we all eventually dragged ourselves away from the TV, had showers and went about our business as usual the next day. A week or two later flying back to the UK was extremely complicated and involved armed soldiers which was in direct contrast to our flight into Hungary which had involved a member of our party making it through passport control with an out of date passport. Then, protests and Iraq. Nothing in between.

What I worry about is that I don't remember the bit in between because it didn't seem important and so it floated right out of my brain just as soon as it entered. I had some personal stuff going on around that time but you would I think I would have retained some information relating to America and various coalition forces bombing the shit out of Afghanistan. Of course, all of this has helped clear up the burning question of why, exactly, British forces were first sent to Afghanistan, which is something I've never really been sure of despite the huge coverage that war is getting at the moment.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:47:23 GMT

I've successfully caught up on both Livejournal and Facebook. Now, you may think this is no big deal but I feel like I've achieved quite a lot. Go me! I freaking hate the way Facebook works but it is the easiest place to stay in touch with the people that I know, so I continue to use it (incredibly) grudgingly.

I plan to spend the rest of the day baking (I bought a delicious looking cookbook in a sale the other day) which requires leaving the flat to acquire ingredients but it will be worth it, people!

(I'm kind of obsessed with this song at the moment and I can't figure out who it reminds me of. Pearl Jam? Nirvana? I DON'T KNOW!)

"More, more, more thieves jump on your wagon / I’m on autopilot, fuel is gone"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:31:54 GMT

After informing my mother that I got scandalously drunk, on her birthday, on a disputed, yet emphatically small, number of pints (either four or five, depending on whether you go by what I remember or what I told my flatmate, in a conversation I completely don't remember happening, when I got home, and if it was five it means I skipped out just as it was my round *cough*) and completely didn't remember the birthday phonecall I'd made to her (actually, I remember making the call, I just don't remember what I actually talked to her about) she tutted disapprovingly and told me that I was going to have to get in training for my trip home because getting drunk on four pints was just not going to be tolerated.

At moments like these, I often wonder if there's anyone else in the world who has conversations like these with their mother, because I've never met anyone who has.

The point, though, is that she's right. So right, it pains me to admit it. I've been getting drunk well easily lately and if I go home from Christmas and get drunk on four pints I will be the subject of much ridicule from everyone. Including myself, quite frankly. I've always had a wildly varying tolerance for alcohol and I spent most of my drinking time in Galway honestly thinking that I only ever managed to drink about four pints on a night out before I had to stop. On a memorable field trip in Mayo, I proclaimed something along these lines at seven in the morning as we were finally turfed out of the pub, and was looked at in much confusion by Eoghan who broke the news to me that I'd had at least thirteen pints, which, given how long we'd been drinking, made much more sense. So, yes, I've had times where I've drank thirteen pints and still been able to walk, but I've also had times where I've had, like, three and thought 'jesus fuck, I'm completely fucked'. I think part of my drunken charm has always been that I get kind of drunk kind of fast but that I maintain that level of drunkeness over the course of many drinks before moving to the sloppy drunk part, if you know what I mean. BUT ANWAY, the current situation is not good enough and must be improved upon. Yes.

"I took a fall and found out I could bleed / Well these days I'm afraid of everything"

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:04:53 GMT

It's been a week of sports (mostly mediocre, sometimes frustrating as fuck), drinking (to an excess that produced hangovers of sadness), working, being told that foreigners should go home but that I'm not foreign enough to count, excessive fan-fiction reading, marches through Glasgow city with fascists clashing with anti-fascists and the police looking somewhat confused. And occassionally, I have slept. So, yeah, that's what I've been up to. I'm going to attempt to actually make posts about, you know, stuff, rather than these lame 'so I've been doing things but nothing in particular' ones but who knows how that'll go.

Today, I'm going to do a bit of cleaning, go to the bottle bank and respond to all the comments I owe people. FUN!

EDIT: *FLAIL*

"Special Ed got head from a girl in special ed / Ya know the pretty ones in that dumb class"

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:30:30 GMT

THERE IS RUGBY TODAY. This is good. As you may have inferred from the use of capital letters. I am going to drink beer. Maybe in a pub. I don't know. But there will be beer and rugby and it will be good and I will forget about the fact that my week off is over tomorrow because I will be drinking and watching TV. Yes.

This morning, I caught up on Generation Kill and I just love it. At first, I wasn't too sure about it because it's so different from anything else on TV but after five or six episodes I've made my mind up (because, as the man said, it's pretty fucking ninja). It's just so beautifully shot, the dialogue is fucking awesome and the characters and their interactions are so close to perfectly done. Plus, jesus fuck they're so hot. If these guys really had been the ones that invaded Iraq, Iraq would have just rolled over in deference to their hotness. Seriously. (I may have spent a huge chunk of yesterday downloading fanmixes and reading Brad/Nate fic (which I totally didn't mean to, but they were so good and so hot and it totally overrode the whole 'this a programme that doesn't actually need homoerotic subtext to be awesome' considerations) but that is neither here nor there.)

A meme, from stillxmyxheart, because why not?

Current Books: A Matter of Death and Life - Andrey Kurkov
Current Playlist: Generation Kill fanmixes (rock! hip hop! electronica!)
Current Guilty Pleasure: Staying in bed until lunchtime
Current Colour: Um, white? Because there's still paint all over my glasses from the hallway excitement
Current Drink: BEER!!
Current Food: Pizza
Current Favourite Show: Generation Kill
Current Wishlist: Generation Kill - Evan Wright (there's a pattern here which is undeniable)
Current Needs: Shower
Current Triumphs: I PAINTED THE HALL, CLEANED UP AND PUT THE FURNITURE BACK, MOTHERFUCKER
Current Bane of My Existence: Work
Current Celebrity Crush: Alexander Skarsgård
Current Indulgence: I am eating too much, as always
Current Blessing: You know, that whole making enough money to roughly support myself and lead a decent life
Current Slang: I really just want to say 'that was pretty fucking ninja' in every possible situation
Current Outfit: Pyjama bottoms, fuzzy socks and a NIN t-shirt
Current Excitement: BEER AND RUGBY!
Current Mood: Happy and whatnot

"It's only just a crush, it'll go away / It's just like all the others it'll go away"

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:11:12 GMT

After the horrifying nature of ending up paint-splattered and bitter yesterday, today took a turn for the better when natural light rapidly made it apparent that a third coat of evil white paint would not be necessary. Thank fuck for that. I have a problem with heights (I mean, I'm not terrified, and I have deliberately jumped off a bridge before, but I've also fallen out of an attic and I don't like being on uncertain ground at any height above about six feet) and sadly for me, my flat has stupid high ceilings that I can in no way reach which resulted in me clinging precariously to the top rung of a ladder that always seemed in danger of tipping over. It upset me. So no third coat meant no ladder clinging which, in turn, meant good times.

Which I celebrated by going shopping and spending £22 on fucking light bulbs. I don't even want to talk about the scowl I gifted the woman behind the till with when she announced the total. I also bought a Cadet McCoy action figure from TK Maxx though, so all was not lost.

And, after a nap, I caught up on the last three episodes of Supernatural and episode five of Stargate: Universe.

I've been putting off watching Supernatural because I just don't give a fuck about the angels versus demons battle thingamabob, and Jared Padalecki's absolutely awful turn as Lucifer in the future episode was kind of the last straw for my patience. So the episodes have been collecting dust on my hard drive. I think part of the problem is that I've been taking Supernatural too seriously and forgetting that one of the reasons it made me laugh in the first place was because bits of it were so very, very bad. I've been trying to keep that in mind and stop expecting it to have stellar writing and characterisation, and it really does make watching it easier. Of course, the fact that those three episodes were largely mytharc free helped.

Plus there was the OMG SO FUNNY BUT SO AWFUL IRISH! AHAHAHAHAHA! What the fuck was that?! Bobby mangling my native tongue made me laugh long and loud even while I was still boggling at Patrick's accent which seemed to be Dublin mixed with Newry via London. The whole thing was just awesome in a point and mock type of way. Oh, Supernatural, so unintentionally hilarious sometimes =D

And then there's Stargate: Universe. Look, I gave it five episodes before I made my mind up but I can't do it any more. It's just so... blah. There are a lot of things I don't like about it (Rush, Young, Chloe, Telford, drunken Irish priest flashbacks, gratuitous sex, awful dialogue ("I just want you to know that I've never felt this close to anyone" etc.), body swapping (this makes me, and has always made me, incredibly uncomfortable), those camera thingies, the fact that it's just trying too hard to be cool and edgy) but its main sin in my eyes is that it's BORING, BORING, BORING. God. Don't get me wrong, it had potential and I didn't automatically hate it just because they'd cancelled Stargate: Atlantis in order to make it.

I mean, in a lot of ways, it's the programme that Atlantis should have been - that whole stranded with no way back thing was never played on enough in Atlantis which really should have been a much darker programme. I gave it a chance, a fair hearing. And it disappointed the fuck out of me. Hello, where is the trademark Stargate humour? It is possible to be dark and occasionally funny, just like real life is sometimes dark and occasionally funny. And really, Robert Carlyle, what is going on with your accent?

EDIT: I've just been skimming Joe Mallozzi's blog (yeah, I don't know why either) and came across the following gem: "Of course, both shows had their fair share of danger and drama and unexpected tragedies but, when all was said and done, the good guys were good and prevailed in the end while the bad guys were bad (although occasionally conflicted) and invariably wound up on the receiving end of a mothership explosion. Our heroes rarely, if ever, screwed up and, even if they did, their actions never resulted in any long-term consequences." ... And whose fault is that exactly? Really, now *insert excessive eye-rolling here*

All of these catch-up shenanigans have made me miss True Blood and Generation Kill, damnit.

Oh, and veraxia, I finally posted your parcel yesterday =)

EDIT: I just opened the fridge and immediately asked myself why the milk was sporting a Scottish flag only to almost simultaneously realise that I. Live. In. Scotland. Duh, Lorraine.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:12:13 GMT

I've just finished watching Slings & Arrows and god, how amazing is that programme? I love, love, love it! It's so funny and so bleak. So crazy and so touching. And Paul Gross literally could not be any more endearingly wonderful. Especially with that hair. I don't understand why this didn't make it to some prime time slot on this side of the pond because it's exactly the kind of thing that someone like the BBC should be showing. SO GOOD.

Bed time now, but Happy Hallowe'en to anyone still up and about to enjoy it.

"Brewing up inside and his eyes are wild and he can't go on / He's brewing up a storm"

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:54:45 GMT

I may come back and talk more about this, I may not, but basically, dude I'm drunk (on 3 pints! So cheap! Mostly because it's been 3+ weeks since I've had a pint but whatever, it is all good)! YAY! And I worked like 13 days in a row and now I'm off for just over a week and that's good and so is alcohol and yay for stuff - woo!

"Think of death as a medium-sized yellow robot / That should help"

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:43:57 GMT

Work today was work-like. I read a book and tried not to scowl at the public. Same old stuff, really. Then I came home, ate, and watched a bunch of TV.

FlashForward is still dull, ridiculous and needlessly melodramatic. And Dominic Monaghan fecking still hasn't made a proper appearance. Balancing all of that out, Joseph Fiennes is still super hot.

Defying Gravity is a programme I've seen mentions of here and there. The vague opinion I'd picked up on seemed to be that it was somewhat overrated, so that added to the ASTRONAUTS! part made me curious to see it. I was actually going to download it but, happily, BBC showed the first two episodes last week and I caught up with them on iPlayer today. And it was shit. Complete and utter shit. Jesus. (I miss The Cape. Now that was a proper astronaut goodness.)

"Now they're playing poker, this time it's the angel, who said "I'll see your heart..."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:52:31 GMT

Last night, like a good, conscientious girl, I changed the time on my phone to take account of the time change and set my alarm. I, I thought rather smugly at the time, was not going to be one of those people who flailed around on Sunday morning, early for work because I had thought ahead and taken things into account. Only my phone took things into account too and, at some unknown time through the night (3am? I thought the time change happened at 2am, but 3am probably makes more sense because of licensing laws and whatnot.), pushed the time back another hour, with the result that I was late for work.

Plus, when I woke up, my right eye had tried to glue itself shut throughout the night and continued the attempt throughout the day. Which was not fun. But, on the upside, I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so that was nice.

ALSO, I HAVE NOW WATCHED THE WIL WHEATON EPISODE OF THE BIG BANG THEORY AND IT IS AWESOME SQUARED! HOW IS WIL WHEATON SO COOL?!?

And, last but not least, I'm enjoying Grey's Anatomy so far this season, especially because MITCH FUCKING PILEGGI keeps showing up!!!

"I know what'd take for me to be free / To always be silenced every time she spills tears"

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:06:58 GMT

I've just read a discussion in comments to a fic where people are maintaining that "if you think [insert topic here], you've got another think coming" is both correct and widely-used. In Britain. (And America.)

Seriously? I don't even know where this has come from because it clearly makes no sense. I have never, ever heard anyone threaten someone with the words "you've got another think coming!". I mean, that doesn't make any sort of grammatical sense, never mind the fact that it sounds ridiculous.

Anyway, moving on. I've been sick in this really annoying, low-grade way for a week or so. Sick enough to be annoyed but not sick enough for it to actually matter. Only, I think I'm graduating into actually properly sick and balls to that, people, balls to that.

This is an incoherent post because I'm tired and still boggled by the "another think coming" thing. I AM SO INTERESTING!

"You've gone too far this time, you have neither reason nor rhyme with which to take this soul"

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:57:00 GMT

After a lot of dithering, my flights home for Christmas have been booked (courtesy of the parents because fuck knows I can't afford flights over Christmas) and I have successfully avoided flying with Ryanair after their horrendous decision to charge me £70 excess last Christmas and then have the gall to refuse payment in Euros. For some reason, this visit is turning out to be inexcusably complicated and the original plan was to fly into Belfast, spend a night or two there, get the bus to Donegal and spend a night or two there seeing family before getting the bus to Letterkenny and spending a night with my brother and then heading down to Sligo. Now, I'm flying into Donegal, doing the family thing, then going to my brother and then to Belfast, before going to Sligo. Which has me travelling in the wrong fucking direction for the vast majority of my travel time. And it's fuck hard to get from Belfast to anywhere that's not Dublin (not to mention getting from Donegal to Belfast), so I may have to go to Sligo via Dublin which is really out of the way. AND, I'm going to have to keep swapping fecking currencies as I jaunt back and forth across the border. But these are things that I can worry about later.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

"Has this world got you thinking that it ain't nothing but a jailor's cage?"

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:09:04 GMT

I kind of forgot that I was in the middle of a trouble check over at TFL... So my update has come a few days late, but it's done so I feel like I've achieved something. And to further this paltry sense of achievement, let's talk about the books I've read recently (I'm still mostly waaaay behind on TV).

230. Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
231. Big in Japan: A Ghost Story - M. Thomas Gammaring
232. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Devil in the Sky - Greg Cox & John Gregory Betancourt
233. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Laertian Gamble - Robert Sheckley
234. Stories We Could Tell - Tony Parsons
235. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Objective: Bajor - John Peel
236. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Heart of the Warrior - John Gregory Betancourt
237. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Wrath of the Prophets - Peter David, Michael Jan Friendman & Robert Greenberger
238. The Host - Stephenie Meyer
239. Broken Angels - Richard Morgan
240. The Snow - Adam Roberts
241. Berlin Blues - Sven Regener
242. Budapest - Chico Buarque
243. The Final Solution - Michael Chabon

Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
I cannot recommend this book enough. It was absolutely freaking awesome. I've been struggling to find a decent science-fiction book for longer than I care to admit and this (unexpectedly) filled the bill in a huge way. It's set 500 years into the future but humans are similar enough to us to identify with, whilst being different enough to be intriguing (their consciousnesses can be, and are, transferred into other bodies - yay!). The uses of technology were imaginative and wonderful and the whole thing was shot through with a noir-ish tone whilst being surprisingly violent and utterly absorbing. If you like sci-fi, you should look this book up IMMEDIATELY.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Many and Various
Man, the quality of DS9 books varies. Some of the ones I've read over the past month or so have been enjoyable but largely forgettable and then you have ones like The Laertian Gamble which makes you want to scratch out your own eyes. It was so, so, so bad. The characterisation sucked - Bashir was wet in the early seasons, but he wasn't that rubbish. The plot was both ridiculous and completely unbelievable - Sisko wouldn't stand back and let someone gamble away bits of the station, seriously now. Ugh.

The Host - Stephenie Meyer
So, I feel like this book tricked me into anxiously reading until the end. It emotionally manipulated me with it's short, snappy, present-tense sentences full of action words and made me desperately want to know what was going to happen next, damnit. But, fuck, it was shit. I felt like it came from the Dan Brown school of writing where we're told that a character is scared but we never feel it. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE CREEPY-ASS ENDING! OMFG!

Broken Angels - Richard Morgan
This is the sequel to Altered Carbon and although it wasn't as good, it was still really enjoyable. It had lots of really bizarre parallels with Stargate which kept throwing me out of it a bit.

The Snow - Adam Roberts
I found reading this book to be extremely frustrating. On the one hand, it was an excellent premise: it starts to snow and it doesn't stop. What caused it and what are we going to do when 99.99% of the population have died? It had all this potential to be dark survival story but instead it largely sucked. The main narrator was boring and not particularly well drawn and the premise was, in my opinion, thrown away in favour of talking about all the ways governments can be lying hypocrites (which, yes, would have been an excellent part of the story had it been a dark survival story, but was just dull when it was the moral of the tale).

Man, I can't review books for shit. Oh, well.

"And I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky / With my sister standing by"

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:58:37 GMT

Since the expenses scandal is the scandal that refuses to fucking die, I have some thoughts to share. Be thankful you're getting these via the internet because when I run through them in real life, my voice escalates and I gesticulate a lot.

The politicians have been instructed to pay money back. In some cases a lot, in others not so much and then there are honest souls who don't have to pay anything back. Unquestionably, the whole designating your primary residence hoo-hah was completely immoral and they should pay the money back. The problem is that it wasn't actually illegal. Making the rule changes retrospective on the other hand... that strikes me as ever so slightly actionable. Don't get me wrong, I think they're absolute bastards. We're talking about a group of people making a good wage and getting all sorts of perks and yet they continued to wring every penny they could out of the system. That sucks. But it wasn't illegal. This is important to remember.

That said, a lot of the focus has been on the money people have been ordered to pay back for gardening expenses. GARDENING EXPENSES. John Snow pointed out that the amount of money MPs are now allowed to claim for gardening would result in them paying their gardeners less than minimum wage. Which they're not allowed to do. He brought it up several times. Which, fair point, EXCEPT FOR WHERE I SHOULDN'T BE PAYING FOR AN MP'S GARDENING EXPENSES AT ALL! OH MY FUCKING GOD! A garden is a fucking luxury and keeping it in 'good order' is your own fucking responsibility. STOP TAKING MY MONEY TO DO IT.

Politics, man, it enrages me.

(Unrelatedly, I just watched Pan's Labyrinth. Why didn't anyone tell me how depressing the end of that film is?)

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:55:15 GMT

I slept for twelve hours last night, which I'm quite impressed with. It does mean that I managed to sleep through FlashForward but never mind (I'm really only watching at this point for Joseph Fiennes and John Cho).

The woman who is publicising her book on Today FM is so boring. So, so boring. I want some music to wake me up and give me the energy to actually leave the flat for work, radio!

As you can see, I have nothing worthwhile to blog about. OH WELL!

"This is all I ever thought I'd never feel / When I dream about you, feels like it's for real"

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:39:34 GMT

So, I'm not entirely sure why I haven't been posting lately. I think I've fallen into a vicious cycle of working and then when I'm not working, bitching about how I have to go to work in a mere matter of hours. And I've more or less fallen out of the habit of yammering away on LJ. Which is stupid. Because I like LJ and I've had so many things that I should have been rambling about.

Like the near incoherent levels of rage I've sustained over the past few weeks in relation to politics. The party conferences have had me yelling at my television (DAMN YOU, QUESTION TIME!), calling entire groups of people cunts (seriously, could the Conservatives be a bigger shower of cunts if they tried? UNLIKELY!) and crumpling the defenceless Guardian when the rage causes hand spasms.

The anger has reached such epic levels at times that I have actually gotten angry at the fucking sports section of The Guardian. The SPORTS section... (But seriously, the British and Irish Lions is NOT the same thing as a rugby team GB and fuck you for saying so, British rugby union.)

Absolute confusion as to why Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Price. Did he bring peace to the Middle East when I was mired in one of my fits of self-indulgence?

There's also been all the television watching (Stargate: Universe - this is seriously what the cancelled SGA for? Wow. The deep urge to indulge in physical violence when confronted with the new adaptation of Emma (it's a good adaptation, I just fucking hate Emma). The vast inappropriateness of outing someone on The X-Factor (and wtf? He's totally likable you jackasses) and the piss-poor apology that was made after the fact.)

Then there's the recent reading in which I have inadvertently stumbled across the best science-fiction book EVAR. And, it turns out, it was written by a Glaswegian. Aces.

My continuing poverty and the bludgeoning myself over the head with the fact that it's no one's fault but my own that my loan repayments are sneaking closer and closer to £400 every month. (Well, I can also blame the fucking Euro and the motherfucking UK for their continued EuroScepticism (SO MUCH RAGE) and refusal to join the Euro for reasons which THEY CANNOT ARTICULATE.)

The dawning realisation that I undervalue myself, my skills and my experiences and fuck if that isn't a depressing thing to slowly worm its way into your consciousness.

So, yeah, you know... stuff!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:02:51 GMT

Okay, so Ireland has ratified the Lisbon Treaty. Which, generally, I am in favour though I have a few doubts. The main one being that Tony fucking Blair is apparently poised to be the first president. Fuck off Blair. Fuck right off. And, really, I liked the rotating membership we had before. It was... egalitarian. And then there's the whole thing that the government were going to keep making us vote until they got the answer they wanted (man, did my mother bitch about that on the phone to me the other day). But, all doubts aside, when the Czech president said "Because after today's Irish referendum there will never be another referendum in Europe" he was wrong. Wrong. Because that was one of the things that Ireland insisted be clarified before the second referendum took place. Oh, and David Cameron? You can fuck off too. Ireland was smart enough to ask for the ability to hold referendums for certain issues when it joined the EU and the UK wasn't, so get over it. And stop fucking me off by constantly being on my TV being smug and fucking vague.

Oh, politics, you're so much fun!

EDIT: Saying that "adult smokers should be able to see what they buy" is a really weak argument for getting rid of the ban on cigarette displays in shops. Come on now, you go 'hello, shopkeeper. Can I please see a pack of *insert name here*' and they hand it to you, you look at it and then you decide whether or not to buy. The annoying thing about the changes in licensing laws, the smoking ban, the smoking advertising ban etc. is that we have to suffer through them in Ireland and then, a few years later, Scotland or the wider UK gets in on the act and I have to sit through all the shit these issues churn up all over again. It's really very annoying.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:36:21 GMT

I didn't sleep well last night and we're doing some bullshit art team building thing at work today so I really can't be fucked to go to work...

In other news, Ireland is voting on the Lisbon Treaty again today so good luck with that people in Ireland. I wish I was allowed a postal vote =(

Man, bollocks to today.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:55:33 GMT

I meant to do this yesterday, but

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, violentviolette!!

"You were not the first to arrive / And will not be the last to survive"

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:45:11 GMT

It's general catch-up time since I haven't made a proper post since that time I got totally drunk and partied like it was 1999.

Two Thursdays Ago: Upon this day I drank a lot, went to a couple of pubs I'd never been to before, got mistaken for someone's girlfriend, went to a nightclub and danced like a lunatic (mostly to music that I would not classify as 'good').

Two Fridays Ago: I had to go to work with three hours of sleep after the exciting trip to a nightclub and arrived still drunk. Which was awesome. The hangover kicked in around midday and I suffered from a gigglefit so epic that I actually cried with laughter and hurt the muscles around my ribs. It was amazing.

Two Saturdays Ago: Got yelled at by a woman who didn't 'appreciate my tone' and was accused of single-handedly ruining Doors Open weekend for her.

Two Sundays Ago: Went to the pub after work to watch Cork v. Kerry, tragically by myself. I drank my weight in Bulmers/Magners for the first time in forever and ended up sitting crosslegged on the bar and being fed snacks by the bar staff. Was disappointed by Cork's fourteen wides but, oh well, they live to fight another day.

Two Mondays Ago: Dude! My flatmate and I went to see Dave Gorman. Dave Gorman! Overall, he was hugely funny but some bits were a bit blah. It seemed like he was trying out a different type of standup than he usually does and some of it worked while some of it didn't. BUT IT'S DAVE GORMAN! He was playing in the Glasgow Pavillion and since we bought tickets at the last possible second, we sat up on the balcony. Which, you know, is completely normal. Except for the fact that The Pavillion has the most terrifying balcony ever. When I bought the tickets, the guy asked if anyone in my party had a problem with heights which should have been a give away but I didn't think anything of it. Then we got there and holy shit. The balcony seating is almost completely vertical. Even whilst sat in your seat you got the feeling that you were going to tip over and die at any second. On the upside, the sold icecream during the interval and I like icecream.

Last Wednesday: I got my haircut, finally using a voucher that my Mother bought me back in August. I hate making small talk with hairdressers. I'm so very bad at it. But, now I have hair that doesn't completely suck, so yay.

Last Friday: It was a public holiday, so I got triple time at work. Fuck yeah!

Last Sunday: The first of four consecutive days off for me. A very exciting prospect since I almost never get more than one day off at a time thanks to the overtime I do (I did 70+ in two weeks this months, 90+ overall for the month). The flatmate and I headed into town for the Merchant City Festival, browsed the various markets and listened to a bizarre T-Rex cover band. I also decided that the best way to settle and unsettled stomach was to have a pint. The flatmate and I had a conversation in which she complained about family members adding her on Facebook and I crowed that none of mine were on it, because they used Bebo instead. Got home to discover my Mum had joined and had her, an aunt, an uncle and two cousins all add me in quick succession. Karma's a bitch.

Yesterday: Also a public holiday, so even though I was off, I got paid. Awesome. I spent the day sleeping, watching SGA and reading.

Today: Still off so still with the sleeping lots. My Mum sent me £30 which I plan to go out and buy food with since I have completely overspent this month (as in, I don't actually have enough to pay my rent - oops). I'm making this exciting post of excitingness, thinking about showering and maybe working on a layout later. It truly is exciting to be me!

And that's my catch-up post. I'll be making a TV one at some point because so much TV lately. (Also, this mood theme picture is my favourite one ever.)

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:56:57 GMT

Oh, bullshit, Supernatural 5.03. Fucking bullshit.

(I have plans to get all caught up and comment and make posts and everything but I couldn't contain the level of annoyance I'm left with after watching that episode. I yelled at my computer screen I was so highly fucking unimpressed. WOMEN DO NOT EXIST MERELY TO MOTIVATE THE ACTIONS OF MEN. And also other annoying things.)