Do you still think that way about me now?

I'm heading home for Christmas this Wednesday, so I won't be on the net every day this week. I will try, however, to get on for Christmas Day, so I can send you all big Christmas-sy wishes and schtuff :)

I'm looking forward to Christmas, being at home, taking it easy. I just hope my bedroom is finished otherwise I'll have nowhere to sleep! (We're getting all the bedrooms refitted; so far it's just my parents' and my bedroom that they're working on.) I can't take things too easy though, because I need to get Leon some written stuff on vision before I meet him on January 31st.

Mum and Dad have booked the Gran Canaria trip for the last week in January. It'll be the girls, Philip and me at home. Mum is still petrified at the whole idea. None of us are able to convince her that this is a great opportunity, an experience she's never been able to have before. *shakes head* Dad, however, seems to be looking forward to it. I got them both a couple of guide books and an AA map to the island for Christmas. I think part of Mum's fear is that she doesn't know what they can do or where they go, and my parents are not the kind that can sit around a swimming pool or beach all day. Maybe if she was able to read up a bit, she'd be reassured. (Of course, the other parts to Mum's fear are getting a deep vein thrombosis on the plane, and the fact she'll be in a hot, foreign country, with a different time zone and a different language. There's not much I can do about that unless I develop spectacular earth-moving powers.)

I hope Philip will get home from Dublin early tomorrow. I want to see Blade Trinity with him, so we can be Blade fans together.

I'm having dinner tonight with LJ and Ruth. I wonder how out of it they'll be. (Both work retail, and have been on late opening for Christmas.)

I'm sleepy because I stayed up last night to watch Commando and laugh at the eighties excess of it all. Big dumb movie.

Hello, flickerydoo :)

Last night I dreamed that I went to a pantomime and Johnny Depp was playing Cinderella and he looked most delicious in a dress. I whined in the dream that he's not supposed to look good in a dress, cos now he has me all confuuuuuuuuuuuuussssssed.

o.O'

Also too many alarms and bells and whistles (ok, no whistles, but there were alarms and bells) going off this morning. Before 9 o'clock!! *whacks them*

Going to see AvP tonight with Philip. He's been wanting to see this movie since they started showing the trailers back in July.

Note to self: when going to the cinema because you wish to escape from the pressure of your life, do not choose a movie that will wrongfoot you with its laughable bad acting only to twist suddenly into a disturbing bad-guy-wins ending which will leave you nauseous until the following morning.

Should have asked to see The Terminal.

nefermoon, don't know if you've seen this, but I saw it on another person's LJ and thought of you: http://perso.club-internet.fr/willow/Greedo_Comic/Greedo_Comic_Intro.htm

thetruenoir, my server is being a bitchtard and won't let me on Quizilla, so I copied this URL for you: http://quizilla.com/users/Frank15/quizzes/Which%20Winx%20Club%20Character%20Are%20You?

Yes, lilblueunicorn, that is the same quiz as you took.

( Also stolen from Sparky, and yes, I am procrastinating )

I watched Kill Bill Vol 1 last night on video, and now I can't get that "Bang Bang" song out of my head. It's not conducive to a light-hearted and carefree attitude.

(Never mind the fact that I'm going to see one of the people from my differentiation panel this afternoon; or that when my supervisor sent me his notes on differentiation, he appended the hollow-sounding words, "You're getting on well"; or that I spent yesterday rushing around the libraries like a mad thing until 7-ish, then came back to an empty house cos Philip had gone off to a mate's birthday in Banbridge, and when I wanted to order a Domino's, our one and only menu was lost so I had to leave the house again to go somewhere else. No, the sole reason for my state of melancholy is #Bang bang/He shot me down/Bang bang/I hit the ground/Bang bang/That awful sound/Bang bang/My baby shot me down#.)

It makes me think of my favourite James Bond song, "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". It was supposed to be in "Thunderball" but only the instrumental was used, in the scene where he's dancing with the evil bitch in the blue dress, surrounded by guys who are going to shoot him at the first chance. I've only ever heard it on one Bond compilation, which belonged to a friend of mine, but I can't find it anywhere. The title is a Japanese nickname for Bond translated into English, or something.

I think I will have to disappear from LJ for a while. I have so much reading I want to do. I've decided that undergraduate degrees are too short, too rushed. They should be at least five years, to let you really get into your subject and be thorough about it. And there should be more classes: more seminars, tutorials, lectures etc. One lecture and one tutorial a week just isn't enough. I don't care about whatever else it is tutors are supposed to do! Aren't they supposed to be there for us, to teach us?

This is all too late for me, of course. Meh.

I don't know if I will disappear immediately, but yeah it will be soon. I'll see you guys on the flipside. Don't go doing anything important, like inventing time travel or ending the world or anything!

[EDIT: The meeting went OK. I feel a bit clearer on what these people want from me. Now I've got to get a hold of Leon and see what we're going to do about it. #Bang bang#]

Finally got to see it last night. Thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it!!! Big, dumb fun all round! Magically appearing loincloths! Mr Hyde inexplicably in Paris rather than London! Coach roofs catching fire for no good reason whatsoever! WOOHOO! The only two things that really annoyed me were: (1) the brides; couldn't one have been blonde and then I wouldn't have been so confused about which ones were supposed to be dead or in a particular place? and (2) Frankenstein's creature; OK, first he wants to live, then he wants to die, then he wants to live again, then he hopes VH gets viciously hunted down for being a werewolf because VH appears willing to hand him over so Drac can kill him and unleash millions of bat-gremlin-vampire-babies on the world, then he's willing to die and unleash those same millions of bat-gremlin-vampire-babies on the world so that VH can run off and find a cure for his hairy ass? Ever heard of character consistency?!? But leaving that aside, YAY FOR VAN HELSING!!! And yay for Carl getting laid! Nice to see a movie not going down the obvious path of hero-gets-laid-before-whupping-ass.

Leaonia is no longer sure about whether she can afford the rent for 2-bed places in Belfast. If she decides in the negative, it'll actually be something of a relief. I have an application in for Queen's accommodation, and I know that all I have to do is tell them that the private accommodation fell through.

How can life be so busy and yet supremely uneventful?

Saw Dawn of the Dead. Guns! Gunsgunsgunsgunsguns! Damn, I love guns! It's the way they make people look when they're holding them, especially when firing them. Arms out, legs braced, eyes focused. That, and the noise >:)

( Spoilers )

And yay for making people sit through the credits! I always try to sit for as long as I can through credits. Hey, I feel I owe it to all those people who made the movie! Besides, I like reading the soundtrack listings, which are always right at the end. But there comes a stage where I'm thinking, "OK, better get up before the staff start trying to poke me out with their brooms."

One question does bug me though: once the whole population's infected, what do zombies eat? :/ I mean, clearly they're interested only in uninfected, living human flesh, soo... do they eventually deteriorate, and decompose completely while they're walking around? Or is it an immortal deal, and they just starve but never die? Are they even aware of being hungry? Or does the sensation of hunger only strike when there's legitimate prey about? I'm thinking about this too hard, aren't I?

Now I just want to see Shaun of the Dead sooooo much more :)

Why do they call it a "concession area"? The food there's more expensive than outside the cinema; where's the consession? I miss the Dublin Road cinema being UGC. The Movie House intro-pieces are too neon and flashy, and have crappy synthesiser music. And I miss the Pearl and Dean intro music. Bappah-bappah bappah-bappah bap-bap-bah!

*

James is gone. I miss him. I didn't think I would, because it wasn't like he was in the house much. Maybe it's just that now it's a house full of girls. Or maybe it's because I'm now living with people who I don't know. OK, so I've been living with Joanna and Pamela for two years now, but I still consider them as Ann's friends rather than mine. And Dee is a completely unknown quantity. And a creepily silent, unknown quantity, at that.

Dammit, Philip's gonna be playing Max Payne 2, and I won't be there to watch and laugh with him over the incredibly bad writing they have for the graphic novel bits.

Editing my userinfo, I discovered that I have TWELVE interests completely unique to me!!! See? I KNEW I was an original! :P

Anyway, Oscars. Yes, Rhonda stayed up to watch them live, from 12.50 to about 5 am GMT. (I lay down and shut my eyes during what, in America, were the ad breaks, and what, on the BBC, was Jonathon "I can't pwonounce my R's" Ross talking with Alistair McGowan, Ronni Anconi and Rob Brydon.) Yay, LotR got Best Film!!!! And there I was being cynical.

However, while I believe that it deserved Best Film, I don't think it deserved everything it got. For instance, in my opinion, Best Song should have gone to "Scarlet Tide" or "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow." And there should be a prize for Best Performance of an Oscar-nominated Song at the Award Ceremony, cos that would have gone to "Belleville Rendez-vous." Feather boas! Chorus singers! Funky dancing! Frenchmen playing the bicycle! That's what we want from our Oscars! (BTW, Americans: what's with renaming that movie "The Triplets of Belleville"? What was wrong with "Belleville Rendez-vous"?)

Funniest bits: Billy Crystal's film montage and song medley at the beginning, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson's two-hander (both pre- and during the show), Robin Williams, the "what they're really thinking" bit ("Pusshy Galore... I jusht got it! That'sh VULGER!"), and Adrian Brody and his breath-freshener.

Person I wanted to slap the most: Charlize Theron. Shut up. Just... shut up.

And: was Bill Murray really upset about the Best Actor Oscar? I didn't think he looked it, but everyone was talking about how mad he was.

On a completely different note, happy St David's Day!