TV

Fluxx

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april27Sunday I did indeed do very little. One of the things I did was watch medieval castle documentaries with Monkey 🙂

Tuesday I ordered a game, called Fluxx. I’d seen it on TableTop before (they played Star Fluxx) and it seemed like fun then, but I forgot about it. Recenty, though, the iPad version was temporarily free so I grabbed it. Playing it I realised what fun it would be to play in real life so I ordered it, along with the newest Science of Discworld book. I didn’t look at the delivery date very closely so I was kinda surprised when they got here on Wednesday.

Unfortunately the Science of Discworld is in trade paperback format so doesn’t match at all with literally every other Discworld book I have. It apparently isn’t out in mass market yet, but I am strongly contemplating replacing it when it does. This just annoys the crap out of me and I can’t even place it on the Discworld shelf because it doesn’t fit.

april30Fluxx was as I expected it, and that night, Nienke and I played it, while watching the relevant TableTop episode.

Also yesterday was a quick trip to the city for a blood/vitals check up to see if hormone levels are all good and such. As usual I was done within ten minutes with the actual consult, and then another ten for the blood draw (including waiting).

Today was the first time I worked from home since transferring to Webcare. It was fun to be able to put Netflix on in the background and just go.

I also started watching 7th Heaven again this week. I used to watch that in my teens when the EO and such were showing it on TV. But they never got past the early 5th season. So at some point I acquired the rest and then it sat waiting for me to actually watch. Occasionally the mood strikes me and then I usually have a couple days where I watch a bunch of episodes. In this way I made it from starting back at epsiode one all the way to season 10. I still have a season and a half to go, so that’s my goal for the coming few weeks, to finish it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend

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Glorious weekend! Today I do very little except watch some movies or TV, read some, maybe play some games.

Yesterday was King’s Day so I took a stroll over the customary flea market. My first in this town. It was much bigger than I was used to in my previous town, so many kids trying to hawk their wares. I scored some nice bargains. Found a really good condition Settlers of Catan for €7,50 and a Charmed season 7 DVD box for €10 and a Lego game and book about cats to cut up (pretty pictures) for two or so euros together.

In the afternoon I went to the Parents as my aunt and cousin were visiting and I don’t get to see them often. It was nice catching up 🙂

I spent the evening on the sofa cutting up the book and watching Tabletop on the new TV. I’d set it up the night before and, as it’s a smart TV, it can do all kinds of nifty internet things like YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. So I connected all my accounts and even made it so that I can look for a YT video on my iPad and then play it on the TV 😀

Also on Friday, Mom and I went to the birthday of my second-cousin. I don’t always get to go as they are kids, still, and celebrate on the day itself, in daytime. Which is often when I work. But this week I’d switched my free afternoons enabling me to go. I’d made pretty envelopes before we went to put the gift money in. Not just one for the current celebrant, but also for the two we missed earlier this year. The birthday was much fun.

Passion

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So… Tuesday my new manager, who I’ve had all of two weeks at the most, announced they’re stepping down. No word yet on successor, but that might take a while. Interesting to see what happens with a power vacuum like that.

Yesterday I went to the movies with Gert. We watched Divergent first. He hadn’t seen it yet, and I didn’t mind watching it again. After we had a little break and then went in to see Yves Saint Laurent. That was a very good film. Insofar I’m familiar with the fifties and sixties it seemed to me a fairly realistic film that gave a good picture of who YSL was and how he was shaped by his life and experiences.

We had dinner at Pappa Joe’s and then went for ice cream at Toscana, they have the best selection of flavours ever.

Tonight, The Passion was in Groningen.  A huge musical show and parade to play out the passion of Christ. Various singers played the key biblical figures singing contemporary songs to symbolise the emotions and events of each sequence. Meanwhile a huge group of people carry and follow this huge shining cross to the center of the celebrations. This is the third time or so they did this, and since I’m not a Christian, Easter has little meaning to me in this sense. Since, however, it was Groningen, I did watch it on TV. I tweeted some comments during (and really, they had the stupidest hashtag: tp14…) but in short: the guy playing Jesus had the right vibe going, especially beard-wise. The guy playing Judas is a musical star here and it showed. His voice was by far the best for an event like this and he had this brooding vampire vibe going which worked well.

Capture

Lord Erik and the Spartans in the Midwest

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march20-1Movie day with Gert yesterday. I had the whole day off, so I went to the city early in the morning to meet up with him. Did some shopping first at Xenos where I bought me two awesome tea boxes.

Afterwards we went to see 300: Rise of an Empire. It is exactly what you expect of it: lots of slaughter, lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of slow motion bits to emphasise the killing and blood, very little plot. There’s nothing in this movie that sticks with you, the characters are one dimensional made of cardboard, not even a flicker of personality to make you care even in the slightest if they might die or not.

The second movie of the day was August: Osage County. Now this is a movie I really loved. It’s a family drama themed movie where, after their father disappears and then dies, the three children come home to their family home in the midwest. This leads to secrets being unearthed, arguing and awkward moments.

march20-2Today I had a late shift so I went to the store in the morning. After getting to the register with my basket I realised I forgot my wallet at home :S Fortunately I could place my basket near the register while I biked back home to get it. So my quick shopping trip took a bit longer than expected 😀

Afterward I cleaned the litter boxes and put the dishes in the dishwasher to make room on the counter for me to cook. Then, on to work I went. Work itself was uneventful, but late in the afternoon one of my coworkers approached me with a picture. “Look!” he said. And when I did I spied a picture of him on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones! As it turned out, HBO NL was visiting us again with the Throne (I think this was the third time total since I’ve worked there). The previous times I missed the opportunity.

This time around, I dropped everything and almost ran for it. I got lucky as the dude manning it was about to start cleaning up the shoot but he agreed to take my picture. So I grabbed the sword that was also present and sat on the Throne. For a prop used solely for this kind of photo shoot it’s remarkably solid and lifelike 😀 I was giddy with excitement, but managed to pull a serious face for the photo. The dude shot, the dude printed and I left with my shiny, shiny photo. After I left, a couple of my teammates showed up and also got lucky, but then he really left.

And of course I have to show you the picture 😀

Behold! Lord Erik of Westeros!

march20

The Week in Review: 2012-09

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I’m grateful for the many supportive comments last week’s blog got, both here and on Facebook. I’m also grateful that the scratches Milo gave me were not that deep and are healing nicely (even though the itching is driving me nuts).

I’m happy my ukelele books arrived. I’ve decided to approach this learning how to play thing fairly seriously so I’m assigning myself two or three pages of the book per week so I have enough time to practice before I move on. This will hopefully prevent me from rushing through it and not really retaining any of the stuff I read or play. I’m also happy with the end-of-year review I got at work.

I’m slightly annoyed that it’s hiatus season for many of my favourite US TV shows (especially Glee), although it does give me a chance to catch up on others I’ve missed. (This is what you get when I have no proper things to be negative about 😀 )

I learned notes on the c and e string of the ukelele this week. Expect many ukelele related learnables in the coming weeks 😀

 

I’ve decided to add a fifth point to this thing to turn it into a bit more of a full fledged blog post since I don’t always blog in between, and as the (internet) saying goes: “Five things make a post.”

 

I discovered Postcrossing and DrawSomething. I knew Postcrossing, I looked into it a couple years ago, and was intrigued but then I forgot about it. This week I saw it come up in my news feed on Facebook and remembered again. So I decided to sign up for it, and I’ve requested my first five addresses. I’ll be getting cards and stamps this week so I can send then to Russia, Taiwan, Belarus, Germany and the US. I’m excited already about the cards I’ll be getting back.

DrawSomething is a game I downloaded on my iPhone tonight and even though I’ve played it for like ten minutes, I love it. I believe it can also be played on Facebook. The point of the game is to draw one of three words you’ve been given and then your opponent has to guess what it is you drew. After that, the roles reverse and you guess the opponents drawing.

The Week in Review: 2012-07

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I’m grateful for the 24Kitchen channel. I get so much inspiration from it, not just in recipes or more general foods or flavours that I wanna try, but also the places the chefs are or go to, the colours, the kitchens… I also learn a lot from it, both about cooking, and about the various cultures that the foods come from. It’s an awesome channel to just leave on as background.

I’m happy because I had roast chicken bits for dinner. I love chicken, and I love it even more when roasted, but as I mentioned last week, I’m not a very patient person in certain things. Cooking is one of those things. When I’m cooking, and especially meat, I want it to be done NOW! So I never really make roasted stuff because I don’t want to wait for it to cook gently, I tend to turn up the heat and burn parts of the meat. So, whenever Nienke announces she’s making roast chicken and would I like to join her? Hell to the yes!

I can’t really remember negative emotion this week. The patience that was troubling me last week is making way for a shaky sort of excitement. So I will just use this episode of NCIS that I was sort of watching as my annoyance. It doesn’t usually happen, but I switched channels. Hostage situations do this to me sometimes, I tend to be of the ‘just shoot the guy and get it over with’  kinda method. Especially when the bad guy is getting on my nerves…

I learned I some basic chess this week from Gert. We played two games and I even managed to beat him the second time around because he wasn’t paying (enough) attention allowing me to take his queen very early in the game and getting a head start this way.

 

Assuming TV follows reality…

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…the American school system is really weird.

I just watched Glee 3.12 The Spanish teacher, and in it, Mr. Schuester gets scolded by Principal Figgins for not being a good enough Spanish teacher.  So Will decides to go to night school to improve his Spanish, and once there, he can barely follow the native Spanish speaker teaching the class. How then is it at all possible that the school even hired him? How the hell can you justify hiring someone who barely speaks a language to teach that same language.

Now, I live in a country where you don’t get to teach high school unless you have, at the very least, a Bachelor’s degree in whatever subject it is you’re teaching. You don’t get into a teaching position just because it’s the only one available. And you sure as hell don’t get to switch from the one subject you’re not qualified to teach to another one that you’re also not qualified to teach.

I can overlook a lot of stupid things Glee does, but this… And the worst part is, I’m not even sure if this is purely a TV high school thing or actually happens in real life on the other side of the ocean. However, considering the amount of flak the school system is getting over there, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this actually happens.

 

The Week in Review: 2012-05

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I’m grateful  for Dean and Sam and Castiel, they make me laugh and I enjoy their adventures in Supernatural very, very, very much. Especially Cas, he’s free to drop by here at anytime 😀

I’m sad we finished another season of Supernatural this week.

I’m happy there’s another (almost) two seasons to go before we’re caught up. Season 6 here we come!

I learned it’s very easy to loose track of time when you’re watching convention/interview video’s of the Supernatural boys together. LOL!

 

… I’m only slightly obsessed…

The Week in Review: 2012-04

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I’m grateful for dreams, especially if they’re realistic too (albeit on a longer time frame than I would want).

I’m happy with some of the newer TV shows I ‘discovered’ this week. Been having them in the wait list for a while but got around to properly watching it this week. Once Upon a Time is very good, Grimm is pretty good, The Secret Circle is so-so, and Switched at Birth is awesome!

I’m annoyed at the winter that decided to show up after all.

I learned it takes way too long for a shared bank account to become operational.