Strange things I feel guilty about

I just put my organic vegetable box delivery on hold until I get back from the US. This is not the thing I feel guilty about. The thing I feel guilty about is asking the nice man not to send any more carrots. I shouldn't be picking and choosing - I should be making something with everything. But I'm so sick of carrots.

And damsons.

But I've kept the damsons. I will eat the damsons. In penance.

Corporate woes

Yesterday, in a meeting with a particularly frustrating person, I broke my pen in annoyance (it's a branded pen, and has this little lip that used to be good for flicking back and forth).


My boss just reported that another colleague of ours had a meeting with same frustrating person this morning and broke her branded pen, in exactly the same place.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Here's a question - is there a name or subgenre for slacker type movies? You know the kind - they narrate everything, they state the obvious with undercurrents of irony, they have great soundtracks and characters wearing hoodies and tshirts with movie slogans or 80s video game characters on them. I'm just going to call them Slacker Flicks, and as Slacker Flicks go, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is mind-blowingly awesome.

Based on graphic novel by the same name, the general gist is that Scott Pilgrim - unemployed, plays in a band, kind of an arsehole when it comes to girls - meets a girl at a party and must have her. But as soon as he begins to make a move, the League of Evil Exes, an organisation made of all her previous boyfriends and a girlfriend, challenge him to duels and feats of strength.

It's excellent, really excellent. The dialogue is funny and intelligent, the plot moves quickly without losing you or suffering from endless amounts of exposition. The League of Evil Exes is brilliantly crafted.

The beauty of this movie, and probably why I enjoyed it so much, is that it's structured like a classic platform video game. Scott has to move through all the levels until he final meets the Big Baddie, who he must defeat. This opens it up for tons of little visual gags - all the bad guys turn into a shower of Super Mario coins when Scott dispatches them, the little 1up button appears when he collects enough coins.

Between that, the funny dialogue, the soundtrack and the wonderful characters, I can't stress enough how awesome this movie is.

But seriously, is there a name for this genre? There really should be.

Roadtrip!

When The Mother, The Sister and I all get together, insane laughter usually follows. When we play boardgames with my dad, he spends most of his time telling us to stop laughing, then gets fed up and leaves the game. So we're containing our glee in a car and driving up to Aberdeen for my cousin's wedding and none of the male members of our family (all three of them) are invited. It's going to be the Ride of Valkyries.

Now we are 29

I've been 29 for three days. I always expect to feel different, to feel a year older, but really all that happens is that I imagine the day I was born, and I wonder about what it was like being born, and then I get back to normal.

And this year, everything is hopeful. Can't get much better than that.

Visualisation is the key

I wonder if the reason calendars and dates confuse me is because of the way I see dates in my head. I see the year in one big, long 3D box, with marks for the months, weeks and days on it. The date I need or I'm thinking of rises up so I can see it.

Just lately though, my mind is treating September differently - right after August the box does a sharp left-hand bend, and then I can't see the rest of the year. I guess I'll find out when it turns September.

New York, New York

Today I bought my ticket for New York - this time next month I'll be there!

I can't wait!

Salt and Moon

I saw both these movies over the weekend, Salt at the cinema and Moon on DVD.

The both have something in common - they both reveal all the information up front, with a final twist to produce tension.

In Salt, it kind of works. The premise is that Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent, is accused of being a member of a Russian sleeper cell. Almost immediately we know that this is in fact true. But will she fulfil her mission? Is our understanding of her mission accurate? It's very interesting to watch the plot unfold, although it is fairly predictable - we're waiting to be tricked. But the writing is sufficient, and Angelina Jolie is gorgeous, so it works.

As for Moon... I'm fairly disappointed in Moon. The trailer made it look like a paranoid, claustrophobic masterpiece, but really it was meh. We know everything almost immediately, but there's no tension at all. Even the addition of a countdown doesn't make you care about the characters and what happens to them. There's no atmosphere at all (ha, lunar joke). It's simply a case of the story not living up to it's potential. Oh well.

Trailers: Scott Pilgrim vs The World (ooooooh) and The Girl Who Played With Fire (aaaaaaaah).

How I discovered I buy too many scratchcards

The checkout lady at the Tesco round the corner from my house brought me a scratchcard without me even having to ask for it. Uh oh.

But it's not like I have a problem or anything. I only buy them every so often. I don't need them or anything. I can give them up any time I want. Really.

Wet experiments

Yesterday, as I drove home in a downpour, two little girls were playing outside with their umbrellas, dipping them into a massive puddle of water. Why? To see how much water they could hold, I imagine.

I would have done the same thing. I still have to resist the urge to play outside when it rains.

Less stuff doesn't necessarily make you a better person

I'm not loving this article, mainly because a few of the people who live these minimalist, digital vagabond lives handily crash on people's sofas. How is that removing the burden of everyday things? It feels to me like this is just another way of abdicating responsibility and making yourself a burden on others.

I can appreciate the appeal of decluttering, and getting rid of "stuff". I've done it - but I still have a lot of things that other people might consign to the "stuff" pile, but which mean something to me, and acquiring more of those things (DVDs and books particularly) makes me happy.

I don't know. "Digital vagabonds" make me pissy because they seem pretentious.

Heebie jeebies

Doesn't matter that I know the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense, and that I've seen it at least ten times, it still freaks me out. I plan to hide under the duvet for the rest of the evening.

So many people

Today was filled with friends. I've spoken to them, emailed them, texted them and messaged them. I have so many friends. When did that happen? I'm so glad it did.

Why words matter

Continuously preparing for the worst

Things are going pretty well at the moment: contract at a job I love has been extended, allowing me to earn enough money to keep me very comfortable; The Cocks have moved out, making The House a much less fraught place; I'm planning my yearned for trip to New York; a sushi restaurant has opened up right here in The Hellmouth; and I have more books than I could ever possibly read.

So on balance, things are really looking up. But instead of revelling in the joy of relative contentment, I'm fretting about how I don't make enough of my time, that I'm not visiting stately manors and museums every weekend, and whether I'm really working hard enough to deserve my job (I'm not).

So I'm back to creating my lists of goals and penances, my schedules, my notes to myself - all the paraphenalia that accompanies me when things go pear-shaped in a vain attempt to prevent things from going more pear-shaped. They're all still here. Just in case.

Ode to a loser

I think I may have found the gateway to a new past time that could cement my reputation as a geek and anorak: a website that allows you to listen to air traffic controllers from around the world, live!

How cool is that? I sat at work this morning and edited a study unit on Wales and Welsh culture, and listened to air traffic control at OR Tambo Airport.

Well, it made me happy.

My two selves

I'm watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and hemming some trousers.

More crying

The Sister was here over the weekend, and because we're suckers for punishment we watched Sunshine Cleaning and Up. They were both fantastic, but oh, the wailing, the moaning, the sobbing. I think The Sister used an entire packet of tissues. I was hard core and used my sleeve.

Signs that I'm turning into a sap

I sobbed through the last 15 minutes or so of Toy Story 3. Proper, gulping sobs. Just thinking about the final scene brings a lump to my throat. What a sap.

It's never what you think it's going to be

Just after I got my car I was trundling down the motorway to London when a truck threw up a little piece of gravel and chipped my windscreen. I've been quietly fretting about that windscreen, and sure enough, when I took my car for it's MOT a few weeks ago, the mechanic said that it would fail if I didn't have it checked out. Thankfully I have windscreen insurance (I didn't with my previous car, and it got its back window smashed up by some ASBO louts). So it was free to have the chip fixed, but the technician said it was hit or miss. It was just on the verge of being too big for the MOT to ignore. So I sent it for its MOT this morning, fretting about this chip, not wanting to fork out the £50 excess it will take to replace it.

And of course the car failed. The potholes created by the foul weather we had this year have done their work well, and I need to replace both shock absorbers (£150 worth of work), and I need to replace my one tyre (I don't know how much that will be, I can't bring myself to call and find out).

And the windscreen? Wasn't even mentioned.

Typical.