Plagues and things

You know how you get absolutely hooked on things? And you love them so much that you want everyone you’ve ever met to get hooked on them too? But when you try and explain your deep and abiding love, they look at you and you can see the ellipses?

…

I’m having a moment like that with a game I downloaded called Plague, Inc. Here is the trailer. I’ll wait over there for the ellipses.

Look, it’s awesome okay? You develop your disease and you have to try and spread it against the cure. The cure is working against you the whole time, and you use DNA points to try and slow it down. And you know … uhm. Destroy humanity.

Which I guess is where the ellipses come in.

But. It’s awesome because it’s strategy. I’ve hooked one friend on it, who hates me on principal but everyone else gives me the …  …

I’m … not sure what my point was there. It got away on me just a little bit. Hrm.

Awkward.

Anyway. I’m off work this week. Which will be nice. It’s the school holidays so I’m going to hang out with Patrick and try and destroy the world er, play some games. It’ll be fun.

Er, I’m hoping to get some reading done as well. Maybe catch up on some IT, since I’ll be home during the day.

Possibly I’ll even go to a movie or something. I went to Looper last Thursday and it was awesome. Before that, the last movie I saw that I truly loved, was The Dark Knight Rises. Since then, it’s been a bit hit-and-miss, but Looper is fantastic. Seriously, so very, very good.

This week, if they start here on Thursday, I’m eying either Dredd or Pitch Perfect. I can’t go to both, so I’m going to have to toss a coin or something.

:D

Reading and things

I'm sure some people remember this from ... the start of last year. And possibly this: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-january-do-you-know-where-your.html (NB: he looks like this now >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>)

Anyway. I was possibly the slowest read-along-er ever but I finally finished Return of the King today, loaded up with a cold, and a four year old who was alternately excited about his new telescope and howling because he knocked his noggin on the coffee table.

In between the natural chaos that a four year old brings, I travelled to Mount Doom with Frodo and Sam, and to Gondor and to Rivendell and the Shire ...

There's something about LOTR that makes me ... nostalgic? every time I read it. Partly because I first read it at 14 and partly because the trilogy itself is nostalgic - so many references to the glory days of Middle Earth, which makes that teeny tiny space inside that you never, ever acknowledge ache just a little bit.

ROTK is my favourite of the series, with the last line from Sam "Well, I'm back," summing up so very very much. And. Just. Still love it.

I'm also reading The Emerald Atlas, Book 1 of The Books of Beginning. Should hopefully finish that this weekend too. I'm enjoying it - a lot - but the tagline "Be the first to read the book that will define a generation!" (it's a review copy I got through work) is a little bit ... ... desperate?

Everyone everywhere will be looking for the new Harry Potter now that all the books and all the movies are done, but ... don't do that. Let your book stand on its own and be its own awesome self. It's better that way. :-)

Didn't go to the movies this week; there wasn't really anything on I wanted to see; plus I have a cold. Well, mostly I have the blocked nose from hell which is making me tired and thirsty all the time.

So no vlog this week - the last thing people need is to watch me sniffing for 10 minutes. Maybe vlog next week ...

RIP VI and other stuff

That angel makes me think of Blink, my favourite Dr Who episode. *Shiver*.

RIP time again already! I haven't signed up (yet - lol) but I do love Carl's challenges: http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/r-eaders-i-mbibing-p-eril-vi#more-3880

(Aside: It's entirely possible I completed Once Upon a Time this year without noticing. Hrm.)

So I shall do what I always do. I will dither. I will make an unrealistic list of books and ... possibly do a vlog. Who knows?

Anyway. I read One Day by David Nicholls this week and I was .... ... underwhelmed. I mean, it was fine, the story was interesting but I found the characters really unengaging and a bit two-dimensional. Especially Dexter. I honestly kept waiting for him to stop acting like a dropkick and deal with his drinking and it sort of ... didn't happen. I'm genuinely puzzled by all the fuss over it, but maybe that's just me being picky.

For now I'm re-reading Return of the King, which is a very, very long hangover from the LOTR readalong of early last year. *ahem*. Aside from that, I don't know what's next, as ROTK is very much a pick-up/put-down book for me because I've read it so many times.

I did start reading A Study in Scarlet again, after many years. Anyone who knows me will know I've developed a slightly unhealthy obsession with the BBC's updated Sherlock, so I've decided to go back to the source material.

On Thursday I went to see Hanna, and it was amazing. I wasn't sure at all what to expect - it's about a 16 year old girl who's been raised in isolation by her father to be an assassin but it's fantastic. Saoirse Ronan is amazing and the soundtrack - by The Chemical Brothers - is fantastic. As soon as I'm financially stable (ie payday) I'm buying the soundtrack.

My plan for the rest of Sunday is to tuck up on the couch and read. Ah ... Sundays ...

A post about nothing

Have some penguins. I have no idea where that pictures is from, by the way. I just like it. :-)

I was mentally going over my week, but nothing outstanding or extraordinary happened. I went to work, I came home. Went to see Crazy Stupid Love on Thursday, which was a bit 'eh' for me. Too much Steve Carrell and not enough Emma Stone. Also Ryan Gosling is kind of funny-looking.

Other than that, it was business as usual. Except I seem to have caught Patrick's cold, which is fun times.

I finished a book this week, which I always celebrate as a major achievement - lol. Anyway, I read The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino - a thriller set in Japan. It was an interesting read, but I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending - whether I liked it or not.

So now I'm in that strange gray area, where I don't know what I want to read next ...

Finished a couple of books last week - A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin and Finder's Shore by Anna Mackenzie.

LOVED A Game of Thrones. Seriously good stuff, honestly.

I liked Finder's Shore - third book in the Sea-wreck Stranger trilogy but I always wanted those books to be a little bit longer. They're all about 220 pages each and I think the worldbuilding and backstories would have benefited from being a little bit longer.  Also all of the conflicts were resolved super-quick which made for slightly unsatisfying reading.

I enjoyed the series, I just wanted a bit more depth.

A Game of Thrones on the other hand, is nothing BUT depth and I love it. I'm not ready to take on A Clash of Kings yet - I still feel a little bit like I need to lie down in a dark room bathing my temples with lavendar - lol. There's just so much in the book - a workmate of mine called it a soap opera and it sort of is, but you know, with swords. And incest. And dragons. Which make everything better.

I met Nicky aka @stormfilled yesterday - she's touring New Zealand and having a great time. We went to Zookeepers - a local restaurant for hot chocolate and ended up there for dinner as well because we were talking so long - lol. Twas a great night.

We were going to go for coffee and bookshopping this morning, but Nicky's laundry queue at her motel had other ideas. So this afternoon we went to the local museum and art gallery, to see the tuataras, which I've blogged about before: http://daysmeanmore.blogspot.com/2010/11/november-catch-up.html (well, sort of). And oh ... it's been less than a year since we visited the museum - I thought it had been two! Time flies :-)

They were out in force today, because it was sunny, and it's always awesome, seeing dinosaurs in action. Well, sort of action. We roamed the museum, which has definitely undergone an upgrade since I was last there, and had coffee. Twas a good afternoon, and it was awesome meeting someone from my twitter feed in real life. :-)

Dad's chair

The chair in the photo belonged to my Dad. It was his office chair years ago when he worked for the Railways. I think he brought it home with him when he retired.

Mum kept it after she moved to her flat, and we used to prop Patrick in there to feed him when we'd visit Mum at lunchtime. It doesn't look it from that photo but it's actually pretty good for feeding a baby. (Not a newborn, obviously, but a baby able to sit propped up).

Hilites used to sleep on that chair, and as you can see, it's been well appropriated by our other cats (Piper and Misty in this photo). We ended up with the chair because no one else seemed to want it and I have memories tied to it. And, okay, it's kind of ugly but I couldn't stand the thought of it going into the garage sale.

So here it is - the Chair. With bonus extra cats.

Things and life

That's my mother, to your left. Just after she graduated from nursing school, I believe. She was rather pretty in her heyday, don't you think?

And a couple of other pix - me with Mum a few years ago, and Mum with Patrick last year, reading to him. :-)

She died on July 4. I don't want to talk too much about that here, really, but it's a sad, strange and surreal thing, losing your mother.

Especially since she was always such a vivid and energetic woman, right up until she had heart-valve replacement surgery last year. The surgery seemed to steal something vital from her that just never came back.


I have been reading, I just haven't been blogging. I'm not sure whether that's really going to change in the near future or not. I'm perfectly okay with not reviewing what I'm reading at the moment. I love being a books blogger, even though I'm really only ever on the fringes of the community, but right now ... right now it's not on my list of Things That Matter, if that makes sense.

My hours at work changed, and I'm working days five days a week as opposed to two days/five nights that I was doing.

Work has changed in more than one way, but it's a little convoluted to explain. After two weeks of it, though, I'm settling in okay. I just have to get used getting up earlier in the morning - lol.

I had a peek back on my blog, and I haven't posted a review since May. H'm. I need to think on this a bit. I want to keep the blog going, but the question now is how?

*adopts thinky pose*

Life, and things

So it's back to work on Monday. It's been kind of strange being off like this.

I was meant to take leave, starting week after next, but instead I took this week and last week as annual leave, because I have a lot that I still need to use up.

It hasn't felt like a 'holiday' as such, because mostly it's been about recovery. Not that I feel as though I've had a lot to recover from as such _ the wonders of laprascopic surgery, I guess _ but I have been getting randomly tired in the middle of the day sometimes, which is frustrating.

The rest of me feels fine, and I have many, many painkillers left over. I tend to bounce back pretty fast, so the tiredness thing (apparently a lingering after-effect of anasthetic) is kind of frustrating. But if that's the worst I have to deal with? I'll take it.

I still can't pick Patrick up _ I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting for two weeks post-surgery and he's nearly four, so not exactly a lightweight. He's rolled with the whole thing pretty well, though, and we've both been home because kindy has been closed for the school holidays.

So we're both back into it on Monday - lol.

Reading-wise ... after my book-fest in the hospital, I've finished two books since I've been home _ Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I've reviewed here, and City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare _ which is a work review book, so I need to do that review before I do this review. (That sounds strange. If they're review books from work I write two reviews _ a slightly more ... formal? one for work, and my usual fangirly/flaily/incoherent one for here).

I'm trying to get back into what I would call a 'normal' routine. Part of that is going back to work, and trying to beat down my lazy gene - lol. We'll see how that goes ...