stitch witchery

The dongle is starting to really annoy me, consuming bandwidth in inexplicably large bursts. Which means I'm not using it as much I would like, because I'm paranoid about it running out and I'm opposed to spending more when I'm not doing enough to warrant the bandwidth. Grr, I need my own broadband :(

Had a fantabulous start to 2011 staying at explodedpen's last weekend. Much tea was consumed, various films were watched and we watched the first two episodes of the new series of Primeval. It's not bad, quite enjoyable actually, and it's been spawning quite a lot of bunnies :D I'm slowly warming to the new characters, and having more fun working out dynamic shifts than I thought I would.

"No expeditions, no search parties, no rescue."

It's been trying for slightly darker, and it seems to be hit and miss so far, but definite potential. Much like the first 3 seasons, so at least it's being generally consistent? I may have to wait for the DVDs and copious rewatches before I attempt anything ambitious story-wise.

First week back at work this year, and it's not been nearly as busy as we would have liked. Hopefully it'll pick up, and it's just people being hungover and slow.

I've been watching Dollhouse. Got the s2 DVDs for Christmas, and it's much better than the first season. I'm maybe 7 episodes in and it's already started to get properly dark and amoral. And there are just some utterly fantastic character moments to lighten the tone every now and again. Just waiting on the Sanctuary and Spooks DVDs to arrive and that'll be my evenings well taken care of for the next few weeks.

Back at home, where it is still freezing cold no thanks to the boiler being certifiably dead. But I'm refusing to let it get me down (too much).

So I've been looking for things that make me happy instead.

( Wherein I ramble. )

Finally... any more takers for Christmas cards? I'm planning to get them sent out by the end of the week, to meet the deadline for North America airmail.

So. Winter has properly hit my little corner of the world, with some relatively heavy snowfall over the last couple of days. And I still have no heating or hot water at home - the plumber came out yesterday - right in the middle of a power cut in my flat. Not Impressed. He was due to come out again today, but the crappy weather has meant he can't make it out to where I live.

I stayed last night at my grandparents' - best idea I've had in a long time. Central heating! Gotta love it. And it looks like I'll be staying here for a few days, or at least until the plumber can get out again to take a look at my boiler.

I took this last night from my grandparents' front door, and this was their back garden this morning. The snow's started to melt, but not by much, and I have zero intention of going home to a freezing cold flat when there's a spare room here I can be taking over!

The Mother's pretty much snowed in out at the Village, so at least I don't have to worry about getting into work for the next couple of days. Just have to sit back, get some writing done and try not to go stir crazy while there's still snow outside!

It's snowing outside.

SNOWING.

In NOVEMBER.

And of course, my boiler's broken, so no heating for me.

*huddles under blankets and shakes fist at the heavens*

So I have this weird tendency to dream cinematography, including this one time I was being interviewed about a best selling series of detective novels (that is totally going to be my fallback if this curtain making thing doesn't work out), and that one time I dreamed an entire episode of Doctor Who, complete with funky effects and musical score. I've learned my lesson about translating such experiences into fanfiction, since even the seemingly best stuff is still too bizarre for the light of day.

Then, a couple of weeks ago... ish... I dreamed an entire movie. One of the things I remember most clearly was that the two leads were played by Paul Blackthorne and Sarah Michelle Gellar (yeah, idk either), and there was this entire storyline revolving around genetic discrimination, cat burglars who can also fly and a standoff against the government/military/Big Bad on top of the Eiffel Tower, or something that looked a hell of a lot like it. I've got some vague, half remembered notes around here somewhere. It was kind of cool, and the ending was a bit schmaltzy in places, but not completely happy, which I appreciated. I do love a good dystopia :D

And then there was last night. As a result of sleeping badly on my mum's sofa bed, I have this half complete idea for something called "The Lonely Gods", in which a team of Earth astronauts on a long term deep space mission accidentally resurrect a long dead alien species and become responsible for helping them re-establish themselves on their planet, which has since become overrun by another (non human) sentient species.

Add this to the idea explodedpen accidentally spawned about a woman who transforms herself into a superhero after she realises that her brother/cousin/best male friend is setting himself up to become a supervillain with designs on world domination, and... yeah.

Weird.

Out at the Mother's for the evening. She is in good spirits, and surrounded by partially made and almost complete bears.

Had a go on the industrial sewing machine earlier, and it went quite well. Managed to attach heading tape to fabric almost in straight lines, and I've had a bit of a play with various thicknesses and fabrics. And I've been told I've got a nice early start tomorrow to get a double-width interlined curtain put together. I'd been planning to spend the day putting miniature curtains together on my own to see how I'd get on, but hey ho ;)

...And now I've got to sort out my gran's laptop. This should be interesting.

So... how did it get to be Sunday already? I'm sat out in the computer room at my grandparents', listening to Daddy Dearest complain about computer issues (and duly shoot down the solution I came up with, which is neither here nor there), and... wasn't it Monday, like, yesterday? Tuesday at a stretch, but... yikes.

I vaguely remember tacking bear limbs and picking wadding off my clothes. There might have been a book, and a car park in Hailsham. And Ninja Storm and Legend of Zelda, because guilty pleasures are there for a reason AWESOME. And... Sunday roast at the Grandparents', which is going to be yummy :D

I watched Strictly Come Dancing last night. OMFG ANN WIDDECOMBE! is all I have to say to that. And then there was Merlin, which I hate to say was... kind of boring. ( Possible spoilers. ) But that's just my opinion :/

And I most certainly did not spend half an hour last night on Zelda trying to track down one single chicken for the purposes of obtaining a life boost. Because that would just be lame and, well - it's a pixellated chicken for crying out loud!

Tea and tellyboxing now. Need to play catch up!

Finally fixed the netbook/Firefox/Hotmail problem that's been bugging me for a few months now - whenever I've tried to get into ny of my hotmail accounts on the netbook while using the dongle Firefox has never let me at the messages, and I've had to use Internet Explorer (erk!) instead.

Turned out there was a Firefox update somehow screwing with Hotmail. Had to uninstall Firefox, and then deliberately reinstall a slightly older version and turn off the 'search for updates' feature.

Bit of an ordeal, but at least now I can read my e-mails in Firefox again \o/

On a more nostalgic note, I've started rereading the Everworld series now I finally have all the books :D Working on the basis of one book a night before bed I'll be finished by the end of the month, and I'd forgotten just how delicious the premise of the series is :D And how short Ms. Applegate's chapters can be sometimes, but it's a teen/young adult marketed series, so meh.

Still got a bookmark in The Engines of God, really should get back to that soon as well!

So I've been struggling for a few days now as to what to get my dad for his birthday next week. Being a grumpy person who doesn't work or do much of anything except go fishing, he is not the easiest person to buy for. He finally deigned to prod me in the direction of some fishing tackle online last week... and my sister promptly stole the right to give that to him as she doesn't want to have to think about what to get him.

So I ended up whining at the Mother this morning that most things people usually buy for their dads' birthdays just don't apply in my case. She promptly suggested something based on hot chocolate, which she knows he likes, and something to keep it in for when he goes early morning or late night fishing.

I ended up buying a Thermos and two jars of slightly different flavoured hot chocolate. He'd better like at least one of the flavours!

In other news... actually there isn't much in the way of other news at the moment. I'm writing in fits and starts, but when I do knuckle down I'm getting decent amounts done, which I'm quite pleased with. I've got my desktop PC almost constantly re-ripping and encoding various TV series for vidding purposes, as re-encoding everything without the audio makes using Pinnacle a heck of a lot easier. And I am all for easier at the moment!

I've also impressed myself in that I've so far managed to avoid signing up for three Christmas-themed ficathons and exchanges. I've got enough WIPs and bunnies on my plate at the moment, plus the promise of the inevitable pre-Christmas MANIC RUSH ZOMG EVERYONE REDECORATES FOR THEIR SODDING IN-LAWS WHYYYYYYY? at work. Last year I only got Christmas Eve off because I was a walking mess of streaming cold and snot. This year looks to be much the same, though hopefully without the infectious diseases floating around.

Customers have already started asking whether their curtains are going to be ready in time for Christmas. At least they're not entirely delusional anymore!

There's something that's just occurred to me about a certain character arc for series 3.

( Spoilers, noes! )