Today I am feeling tired, shivery, and sore. My stomach and my back stil hurt a little, and I generally feel like having a duvet day. I've also just remembered that I have work singing at lunchtime today, not Friday as it usually is, which means I have to miss out on going to the pub with the group to meet our Senior PTL's new baby, Max. Boo!

Singing will be good, it always is, but on a Thursday I'm not expecting a great turnout. I've had a couple of appologies already from people who can't make it, and I expect there are more who don't think to send an email. On the plus side, we're expecting some new male recruits, rugby players, two of whom are Welsh! I'm expecting booming baritone voices. :)

Another good thing was that yesterday my Cycle To Work voucher finally turned up, so today I get to collect my new bike! I might even cycle in tomorrow, provided I'm not still feeling like I am this morning.

Yesterday Tom and I went to see Up, which was magnificent and I cried buckets! Since Tom's boss lives near to the cinema we went to see him afterwards for a cup of tea and fish and chips, which was tasty but of course probably the prelude to last night's episode. Gastric karma.

Drove to Southampton after work last night to see Monsters Vs Aliens in 3D. It was brilliant! I know it's had kind of mixed reviews but I thought it was fab - really, really funny and the 3D was a nice addition. The tickets were only £2 extra for the 3D version and since we get BOGOF with Orange Wednesdays we both got to see it for under £10, which I don't think was too bad. We also had a cheap but tasty meal out at ASK Pizza and I was bad and had a tub of Ben & Jerry's in the cinema. Not a bad evening. :) The only downside was that by the time I got home I'd had my contact lenses in for 14 hours and they were really uncomfortable.

We'e also had some development on the house front. Our completion date is now agreed by both parties, so all being well we should be moving in just over a week! But an issue has cropped up with some lost building reg certificates. We're 99% sure the work done is all legit and safe and everything, but the sellers can't find the certificates to say so. It was work done back in 1987 and the local council was having trouble tracking record of it (though my dad's on their back about that). It may be we'll have to put off the completion date until they can either find the certificates or arranges for retrospective consent, which would be costly but their own damn fault!

It feels like we're so tantalisingly close and yet still so far with this house buy...

I have just come back from seeing Watchmen and OH MY GOD! I loved it! I'd heard good things and bad things, but it was brilliant! Intense and graphic and wonderful and dark and funny and lovely. The music was great, the casting was great, it was very true to the comic (which I read a good few years back to be honest), and I am now just a little bit in love with Night Owl, even with his bad 80s hair and huge geek glasses. :)

And I really want a pair of kinky Silk Spectre boots now.

For some reason in town today thre was a TARDIS, a Darlek, Darth Vader, some Storm Troopers and two bounty hunters. They were camped outside the library and were waving at people. The Darlek actually moved, which had small children scarec and intreagued! I was thinking about going home to grab my camera but decided to continue charity shopping instead.

Didn't have any trouble last night. In fact, we got a lot more Trick or Treaters than I was expecting. Last year we had I think one, so despite me dressing up in silly gothic stuff I didn't really get to scare anyone. This year we had 12-15 kids come round, all small and cute, all costumed, mostly supervised. Very well behaved, and a few were in awesome costumes (one had a Cyberman head with voice distortion - cool!).

W&S came round and between us we ate up all of our feezer chicken, a bag of stir fry veg, and all of our noodles. We've still got rather a lot of frozen fish to eat, though, so I'll be getting my omega 3 this week. We headed off to see Stardust, stopping at Tesco to buy some sneaky cakes so we didn't cave in and buy cinema icecream (they had caught some kids who egged the shop and were holding them hostage! It was funny. One had a stupid long rats tail, so for that alone he deserved to be arrested). Stardust was AMAZING! I don't know what the reviews were thinking - I loved it! It was fun, sweet, exciting, funny, beautiful and had some damn cool people in it; most of the cast of Green Wing, and Ricky Jervais ( minor spoiler ).

Got some more packing done. I'm becoming aware that we own too many books and DVDs. Ho hum.

Normally I love Halloween, but this year I'm not really feeling like it. I guess with the new job and move imminent I don't feel like putting on a costume (gasp!) and watching silly movies all evening like I normally do, waiting for all the kids to pass us by because our front door is hidden.

Actually, round here that's probably a blessing. Last year I think we had one kid knock on our door, and that was some small cute boy with his mum waiting at the drive. But there are plenty of older kids who buy a cheap Scream mask and just throw eggs and flour everywhere. Maybe Salisbury will bring a better behaved youth community. :)

Tonight we're heading to the cinema to see Stardust with W&S. I'm looking forward to it, but not expecting anything spectacular as most of the reviews so far have been luke-warm. Still, the book was marvelous and I AM looking forward to reading that again. Also looking forward to seeing The Golden Compass - that can't be too long, surely? I'm so out of touch with cinema at the moment.

Also need to get going eating all the freezer and fridge supplies. I seem to have gathered a ton of frozen fish, so people are coming over for a mass fish'n'chips event before the cinema tonight.

jam_warrior managed to spang his back last night by trying to pick up a box overstuffed with books. My fault apparently, despite telling him not to pick it up and push it instead. He's okay now though. I need him to be able to carry heavy boxes!

We went to see Hot Fuzz last night - free tickets courtesy of Will and Shilpa who had to sit through 15 minutes of something with no sound. It is well and truely awesome - every bit as good as Shaun of the Dead. Go see it, now! Go see it and laugh hysterically and bathe in the godlike glory of Simon Pegg.

I haven't been to the cinema for ages, and it was really good to get out again. I love going to the cinema, and really should make the effort to go at least once a fortnight, if not more often. Films are good!

I've been far too busy of late. I want to do more to my costume, but things keep happening. I'd like to work on it this weekend but I'll be spending tonight and tomorrow in Stroud and Sunday and Monday in London, so no chance for sewing there. Minami is stalking quietly closer, and I really have to get this thing sorted soon. Worst comes to worst I can always wear my crappy Link costume (or not go in cosplay, I guess...).

Reading the paper this morning there was a lady with a two year old girl called Azrael. Seriously. She named her baby girl after the angel of death. Huh.

Yesterday jam_warrior and I took a trip to Cribbs Causeway for a few reasons; there are located there three Nintendo download stations and we intended to get ourselves some Animal Crossing goodies that are being given away at the moment. We also intended to do a bit of shopping - I hoped that Toys R Us might have unicycles for sale (sadly not), and Jam needed some shoes. We also intended to see Pirates of the Carribean while we were there.

It was a long and hot bus journey. It takes about 25 minutes by car, but of course buses take long, winding and busy routes and it took us about an hour to get there. Cribbs is a big place and involves a lot of wlaking round if you're doing some serious shopping. There aren't that many shops, but they are very spread out by vast areas of car park. Something along the lines of 10,000 parking spaces in the whole place.

We wandered round the Mall for a bit, window-shopping and enjoying the air con, then headed off to find the download points. The three were in Toys R Us, Curreys and Comet. Toys R Us first, and it's not giving off a signal. The staff don't really care. Then Curreys, where the box was actualy unplugged, but failed to work even with the power on. At least the staff there tried. Comet was the worst - a supervisor there spouted a load of techno babble at us about wireless connectivity and servers and such, which was a load of wank seeing as the download stations are nothing more than a box giving off a signal at local level - they're not connected to the internet at all. Downloads are done via infrared. He was clearly trying to placate us when really he didn't know what was going on at all!

So back to Toys R Us, where a more useful member of staff told us it was broken, but that the shop wasn't allowed to put a sign up saying so. He said he sees people come in with their DSs open wander around looking confused the go away, and he's frustrated that he's not allowed to tell them about the broken station! But at least he was honest, which other shops certainly failed to do.

We tried both Curreys and Comet again but to no avail. It would appear to be a fault with the download box rather than the store, so we'll be sending a rather annoyed letter to Nintendo UK soon. The main purpose of our coming to Cribbs was to get nice Animal Crossing freebees!

Still, Pirates was good. Excellent, in fact. We still paid over £6 a ticket when it would have costs us £2 each at our local cinema on Orange Wednesday, but hey, at least was saw it.

( Some icky womanly stuff )

Eurovision tomorrow! I'm having a party which should be good, though I expect fairly sedate depending on how many people decide to turn up. Too many people make poor exucses. How can cricket be more important that Terry Wogan? Humph.

Been seeing films lately; The Amityville Horror and ROTS, both of which were good. Don't feel like doing a review so that's all you'll get. I'm too damn lazy at the moment. I think I should LJ more often, and babble randomly about life and stuff. I'm not undating enough, so when I do I feel I have to record events and I don't have time or energy to talk about general stuff in my life. Not that's it's that interesting at the moment... Just work really, and waiting for replys on PhDs that are now taking long enought for me to think I've not been successful. Blech.

jam_warrior's playing Majora's Mask again, and the music is making me want to play Zeldary goodness. Trying to resist, though, because I'm already halfway through Final Fantasy 1 and a number of other games. Before I start anything new I really have to play Monkey Island 4 to completion! Must must must.

Saturday we car-booted, and due to geting there insanely early (6.40am) we had a good spot, rather than being turned away like last time. The weather was grey and cold, but at least it was dry and still plenty of customers. We didn't sell as much as we hoped but enough to make us £30. I spent my earnings on a duffle coat and T shirt with the communist logo. :)
Rest of the junk, including a large and scary costume fox head, went to the Tenovus charity shop so will make some good money, plus good karma for me.

Sunday was lovely and sunny, so we walked round the hills. I'm not unfit, but for some reason walking up steep hills really takes it out of me. Jam strides up leaving me puffing and panting and having to rest every few steps. It really pulls on the backs of my legs! Today I have been paying the price for all the good exercise, and my thighs have been aching like buggery. I feel like an old lady, having to hold the banister when I walk down stairs and holding my back when I bend over! Bah.

We have tickets to Star Wars on Thursday! I want to dress up but I think I'd be the only one. Plus I don't have time to go searching for brown linin to make a jedi cloak from. A plastic lightsaber from Tesco will have to suffice.

Oh, and new cute avatar. I am a sucker for foxes, but you knew that already. ^^