Alien Spouse

Verdict.

"Sweeney Todd" rocked.

Afterwards The Doc said "All musicals should be like that".  There is no higher praise.

There Will Be Vengeance!

This evening we are going to see "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". 

I've been waiting to see this since it was announced that Tim Burton was making it, and I left the UK just before it opened there thinking I'd catch it here.  However it simply never made it to any of the cinemas in town and I was resigned to watching it via a NetFlix DVD on our tiny little TV.  Fortunately Randy mentioned it was being shown by the university's film society this weekend, and so finally I get to see it for the grand price of one whole American dollar.  I am so excited that I had to go and take a little nap this afternoon to calm down.

Doc C is actually looking forward to it as well.  Having seen the brilliant "Sunday in the Park With George" last year (that production with the same cast is transferring to Broadway soon, so we may see it again), he's decided that Sondheim could be one of the very few exceptions to his blanket ban on musicals as a form of entertainment.

I think it also helps that there will be plenty of gore and that essentially the action is going to be Johnny Depp, being insane, up against Alan Rickman, being evil.  Who will be the more over the top and pantomime villain-esque?

I cannot wait to find out.

Sweet Vinyl.

Sometimes I will feel a bit panicky at the thought of living in the town that irony forgot for the foreseeable future, but then I'll see something that I would never ever have seen anywhere else, because anywhere else someone achingly cool and dripping in the aforementioned irony would have bought it already.

For example I give you the best three records sleeves currently on display in the window of that junk shop down by the town hall, you know the one?

You probably can't read the track listing on that photo of the seminal "Skating Time" by Ken Griffen at the Wurlitzer Organ, so I zoomed in on it for your convenience and further enjoyment. 

You are entirely welcome.

I know a couple of the tunes, but what do you think "The Bumpity-Bump" sounds like?

That was pretty damn good, but then I saw these two hum dingers:

First of all we have "A String of Pearls: And Other Great Songs Made Famous By The Glenn Miller Orchestra" by Bobby Hackett, which is apparently "in a setting of wall to wall string and brass".  What I'd like to know is if I want to listen to great songs made famous by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, why would I not simply listen to the Glenn Miller Orchestra?  This seems redundant, Hackett, explain yourself further.

Then we have Children's Holiday by The McGuire Sisters.  I have never heard of the McGuire Sisters (Ah, Wikipedia to the rescue once again), but they look sort of scary and fabulous at the same time.  What with them being fifties fem-bots, with precisely matching outfits, hair-do's and facial expressions. 

However I really do appreciate them giving me the opportunity to use the CinemaScope button on Picnik.  I can only wistfully imagine if this had been a scene from an actual film, because I'm sure at this point there would have been a delightful song and dance number set in a park. 

With, perhaps, a comedy dog.

 

Relax or Bond? Decisions, Decisions...

Slightly, um, odd Google searches that end up at Alien Spouse are a constant source of amusement to me.  Today's favourite query is definitely:

"When walking with your spouse is this a relaxing time to spend time together, or is it a time to bond?"

For myself I'd say that I find relaxing with The Doc to be a fairly efficient way to bond, so I'd probably say going for a nice walk together covered both options.  Unless we're doing things all wrong, is bonding supposed to be really stressful?

Ah Google, sometimes I think you give me more questions than answers.

Ashes to Ashes (But no Gene Hunt in sight)

The Doc just ran into my office to tell me that our Monday night pub has burnt down.

Apparently there was a band playing last night, they had an electrical problem which set fire to the stage and then that fire spread to burn out the whole bar.

Gah.  That is terrible news, not least because it's the second of my favourite restaurants in town to close since I've arrived. 

I am running out of places to eat here!

My Learned Colleague Has Suggested That A Tambourine Could Be As Effective, But I Beg To Differ.

I have no idea why the Philosophy and Religion Department Office has two pairs of plastic maracas, and a copy of "New Essay Concerning the Origin of Ideas.  Volume 1" on the window sill.

Do you think the maracas are an integral part of the theory behind the essay? 

Because that would make it my kind of essay.

Data Entry for Obama.

After work today I went to the local Obama campaign office to help out for a couple of hours.  I had called ahead earlier, but the girl I spoke to wasn't there and clearly hadn't told anyone I was coming, so it took a few minutes for them to decide what to do with me.

Then they gave me a stack of forms and sat me down at a computer to do data entry.  I entered the details of about 50 people, and also put aside any forms where people had forgotten to write there birth date or had done something weird with the addresses.  Each problem form also had a little pink post it note attached explaining why I deemed it unacceptable.

My favourite mistake was when people managed to fill in their surnames twice in the name boxes, which made it look as though it was also their first name.  This is America so I would have accepted that as a possibility, if it wasn't for the fact that their signature clearly indicated a totally different name.  Two separate people managed to do that, which is a worry.

Then Doc C came to pick me up, which was good because out of nowhere I suddenly felt a bit queasy and light headed.  I knew data entry didn't agree with me.

I felt a lot better as soon as I got home.

The 17th of April. Make A Note.

There's this sort of club thing where the kids go to boogie on down, and where bands play gigs.   However you can't buy booze there (which is why I call it a club thing), the way it works is you bring your own six pack and they hold for you behind the bar.  In exchange you are given a ticket so you can reclaim your own beers through out the evening.  Weird, no?

I have no idea how they make any money at all, but I'd guess they must be subsidised to provide a much needed venue for the kids to let off steam. It's on campus, and I think that it is affiliated to the University and University Society's get first dibs on staging stuff there.

I walk passed this club thing every day, and I was particularly struck by the line-up for early April:

I love that a band called Urban Sophisticates is playing a gig here, but more importantly who calls themselves "Yo Mamma's Big Fat Booty Band"?  I mean, really?

Strangely I am tempted to see them, purely because when we were at University Ginger Jen once put together the best mix-tape ever for me, and it included a song which was just rappers insulting each other's mother in increasingly convoluted ways.  And it was one of those songs that you'd find yourself humming for days.

In return I made her a tape which included Adam Ant's B-side "Norman" which Ginger Jen asked me to remove because it creeped her out, and I remember being delighted to find a much more cheerful song (although I don't remember which song it was, I'd guess it was probably from Deee-light's album "World Clique" knowing me at that time) which was exactly the same length and thus fitted that spot on the tape perfectly.

Don't Make Me Get A Restraining Order.

Oh, 123-reg.co.uk. 

It's over ok? Please stop e-mailing me reminders that I need to update my domain registration with you.  That's just a little bit needy and pathetic.

I left you for another service provider months ago, and I explained at the time that it was you, not me.  This is just really proving my point that you never listened to me when we were together.

Honestly I'm so much happier with pairNIC, and I thinks it's best if we just both move on with our lives.

Best wishes,

Jennifer

(When I was telling the Doc about this post he thought I was describing an e-mail I'd sent to 123-reg, and he thought that was hilarious.  So then I copied this into an e-mail and sent it.)

Can You Trust YOUR Hairdryer?

I've been meaning to write about my hairdryer since I bought it back in October, but I kept forgetting to take a photo of it.  I think because my camera is digital (and therefore not water proof at all) and the hairdryer is mainly used in the bathroom when I've just had a shower, so the two never happened to be in the same vicinity at the same time.

Then I started reading the archives of Que Sera Sera, and found that Miss Sarah Brown had done the whole hairdryer in bathroom thing back in 2002.  So I thought maybe I'd skip it, then I thought well hang on a minute she doesn't have pictures, or an ion switch!

So here is my hairdryer.  Enjoy.

I particularly love the tag on the cord, because it's so hysterical, and because the cartoon hairdryer looks as though it's hovering menacingly over the water, ready to strike.

Hairdryers:  The Silent Killer.

Of course I appreciate what the little tag is trying to warn me against, but then in the UK we simply do not have electrical sockets in the bathroom.  Of course there are light bulbs and special tiny sockets for electric shavers, but proper full power electrical sockets?  No.  It's taken me a while to get used to drying my hair at the sink, and I do like it because it is convenient, but it still seems really odd.

Finally my hairdryer has an ion switch on the top.  I didn't go looking for that especially, but apparently all the best American hairdryers have them now. Sometimes I switch it on, but I can't say I've really noticed that much difference, but I do like to imagine it's the sort of thing Colonel Wilma Deering would use.

"Oh Buck! Don't touch my hair, I've only just ionised it!  That's how I get such tremendous volume when my hair is down despite having worn a helmet all day at work as an elite starship pilot."

Post Horror Movie Pillow Talk

Another thing that Doc did the night that he dreamt of bibliographies was something that I think of as a classic Doc C moment. 

To set this up I should explain that I used to love watching horror films, but I have learnt that watching them with the Doc is problematic because nothing supernatural scares him at all.  The Doc will just think it's silly, and then can't understand why I'm so jumpy afterwards.  He's asked me several times why an atheist gets so very freaked out by ghost stories, to which I have no answer deemed reasonable.

We had watched "White Noise Two: The Light" for two main reasons, firstly I'd heard it wasn't quite as silly as the original (which was the first film I reviewed on Alien Spouse, aaah!) and secondly Nathan Fillion is on screen for approximately ninety two minutes of the ninety nine minute running time.  And we love Captain Mal in this house, so that's recommendation enough for us.

This particular film really wasn't that scary, in fact upon reflection it seemed really short and far too simple.  I get the very distinct impression that a lot of stuff was cut out, and the story became a lot more linear and a lot less interesting.  Afterwards we watched some of the special features (unfortunately Doc wouldn't go for the deleted scenes), but there was a little mini-documentary on the filming, and one of the locations was an old insane asylum which had the reputation of being haunted.  So Nathan Fillion was walking around hamming it with a goth-lite member of the crew and it was all quite funny.

Then we went to bed and the Doc turned off the light, snuggled up to me and said:

"So you know that haunted insane asylum..."

I'm going to have to stop you right there Sweetheart, because I know what's going to happen next.  I'm going to be left lying awake thinking far too much about haunted insane asylums for hours whilst you drift off into a peaceful sleep and, funnily enough, that doesn't really work for me.

The Incredible Stack O' Games

Recently our friend Jack sold his Playstation and gave us the games that he no longer needed.  Our game stack therefore doubled at a single stroke.

There's a whole new world of time wasting possibilities right there.

I am currently playing "Jak and Daxter", the disk for which has no box so it's sharing the Kinetic box.  I am quite enjoying that, but I'm finding my main problem is that I keep getting lost and forgetting how the different places relate to each other geographically.  So it's very life-like in that respect.

Based on the blurb on the boxes of the other games they seem very shouty and/or violent, with the exception of the sports games which seem really sporty, and so I'm sure Doc C will have a whale of a time.  Jack also assures me that I should enjoy the funfair game.  Apparently in that one you can build your own roller-coasters, and I do love a good roller-coaster, so I'll probably try that next.

Despite having this wide range of virtual amusement to choose from I do still want to buy "Batman Lego" as soon as it comes out in October, and fortunately Doc C is equally excited by the idea of "Indiana Jones Lego" which is released next month, so I think there is some room for negotiation on the matter.

I Dream Of Genii

You know in movies when a character is asleep, and when something wakes them up they always say a single word that reveals a lot about them?  For example in a romantic comedy the hero would say the heroine's name and that's the point where he suddenly realises that he's really arguing with her all the time because he loooooves her so very much.  Alternatively in an action film it could be the big tough thug waking up and saying "Bunnies!".  Etc, etc, you know exactly the type of thing I mean I'm sure.

I never believed that actually happened in real life, I thought it was merely a cinematic convention however last night I couldn't sleep.  Whilst I was tossing and turning trying to get comfortable, I accidentally woke up the Doc, who was sleeping like a log.  A log that snores (I snore too, by the way.  Allegedly quite loudly, although I can't verify that for myself).

Anyway, The Doc actually said, and I quote:

"Zzzz......zz..z...zz...snort...what?........bibliography....hm?...what?"

Bibliography.  He later confirmed that he had been dreaming about writing an academic paper.

I do not care who you are, I can quite confidently state that my husband is a bigger nerd than yours.

Vintage Dessert Plates (It's a Technical Term)

Today when the Doc went to the post office there was a large parcel addressed to me, and inside was a set of four vintage plates and cups that I bought from Etsy (specifically I bought them from this particularly lovely seller) on Thursday.

They had been very well packed, and arrived in perfect condition.  The pattern looks like it was painted on yesterday.

Even better the melmac cups (even though they don't actually belong to the plates, which I knew, and are just slightly too big for the saucer part) are a perfect Tiffany Blue.

Jason, you have to come and visit to claim your birthday present, otherwise Doc C is threatening to keep them.

"Hi Mum! Quick Question..."

Now I am fully trained to access the computer system at work, but I still can't get into it.

I was assigned a password last week, but apparently I have to re-set that password before I can actually log in.  When I went to do that today I was asked the security question of which town I was born in.  There is nothing that makes you look more stupid then having to admit to the IT department that you got that question wrong, twice, and the system has now locked you out for three hours. 

sigh. 

When I say I got the town I was born in wrong I mean that obviously I know full well where I was born, but now I'm not at all sure where the system thinks I was born.

I understand now why everyone rolls their eyes when you mention this thing to them.

Dogs. Are. Disgusting.

We played with cats and walked dogs again this afternoon.

As ever it was all very pleasant, but I sort of wish Roxie had resisted the urge to roll on top of that dead mouse. 

We didn't really fancy fussing her after that.

Paper Graff On Wooden Door.

At some point this drawing of a truck was glued onto the door of a dry cleaners I walk past on my way to work.  I never saw the complete image, just this torn version.

It seems like a kid's drawing of a truck to me, because of the slightly weird perspective, and the way the wheel has more detail to it.

I have no idea why it would have been stuck on the door.

Kinetic Week Twelve: Complete

This week my overall score was an A+, which breaks down as follows:

1. A - This work out got off to a bad start with two of my least favourite and lowest scoring Combat games, but I worked really hard and beat my personal bests on both of them.  After that I had one Cardio and two Mind/Body, which seemed a lot easier.  I finished off with some arm toning, I'm pleased to say the tricep push-ups are no longer hurting, so that definitely progress.
2. A+ - Two Combat games and one Mind/Body.  I skipped toning because I think I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday, so I think I should rest that before attempting crunches and planks.
3. A + - W00T!  2 Cardio, 2 Combat and One Mind/Body.  I beat two personal bests, and repeated one of the combat games to get a higher score.  My back is still twingey so I skipped toning again.
4. A+ - Yay!  Two Cardio and One Mind/Body.  No toning. Nothing notable really, except for the burning of calories.
5. A+ - Yay, Yay, Yay!  Two Combats, Two Cardios and a Mind/Body plus Abs Toning.  I broke a personal best, and got over 9000 for the other games as well.  Grrrr!

And the measurements for this week are:

• Bust - 39.75 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)
• Bicep - 12 Inches (No change from last week)
• Waist - 36.00 Inches (No change from last week)
• Hips - 42.75 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)
• Thigh - 23.25 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)

So if we compare that to the first lot of vital statistics (I started measuring in Week Four, so this isn't from the very beginning unfortunately):

• Bust - 41.5 Inches down to 39.75 = Total loss of 1.75 Inches
• Bicep - 13 Inches down to 12 Inches = Total loss of 1 Inch
• Waist - 38 Inches down to 36 Inches = Total loss of 2 Inches
• Hips - 45 Inches down to 42.75 Inches = Total loss of 2.25 Inches
• Thigh - 25 Inches down to 23.25 = Total loss of 1.75 Inches

I also weighed myself to see how much actual weight I've dropped.  It turns out to be just under six pounds, which isn't a huge amount, but I'm still really pleased to have a tangible loss to be able to report.

I had discussed with Doc C what I would do when I'd completed this programme, and I was considering taking a week off just so I could see how much difference not doing Kinetic would make.  As it turned out though when Anna said "You don't have to stop here.  Do you want me to set up a new programme for you?" I thought about it for a moment, and then drifted my hand over the yes control.

So on Monday I shall start another twelve week programme.