Concerning Hobbits...

I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books one a day since the first one and now I've only got the fifth left to read tomorrow.  I wasn't overly impressed with the third book yesterday - I'd say it was the book I've least enjoyed all summer.  It had far too many random chapters that didn't need to be there.  So they don't like potatoes; get on with it.  Book four was better but in the end it seemed like it was just done for the sake of writing another book which, from the Forward, it seems to have been.  I laughed out loud a few times though and I can say I've read it now.  Besides, I'll have a slightly better idea of what is being referred to tomorrow if the last book references earlier books in the same manner the earlier books referenced even earlier books.  I must say I am looking forward to a more serious book after this series though because the randomness of it is trying to come across in my own writing.  And it seems like it might be succeeding. 

After tomorrow I'll have The Book Thief to keep me busy until Liz arrives on Friday morning.  Hopefully it will last that long but if I really enjoy it there's nothing to suggest I won't keep going to the end in one go.  Then I've got Lord of the Rings on the pile for after Liz's stay.  I highly doubt I'll be able to finish them in a day each, if at all.  It didn't go too well last time I tried - I barely made it past the prologue.

It's OK, because you're a hot b!tch.

Scott Pilgrim was fantastic.  Best film all summer.  I don't know what to do now.  Going back to the life I had before Scott Pilgrim seems so anticlimactic.

I was going to have an early night tonight after only getting 3 hours of sleep last night but I had a bottle of Blast to make sure I was awake enough in the cinema so that plan might not work as intended end of sentence full stop

We're saved!

I did finish The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in one day after all.

Last night I stayed up until 5am watching the ends of films on Sky Movies and talking to Chris (who was also watching them at the same time) about them.  First I watched the end of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was a bit pants.
Then we watched the end of Made of Honour just because.  It turned out to be the film the coffee-collar guy was from.  I'd mentioned coffee-collar guy to Liz the other day (about how rich he was from such a simple idea) but I couldn't remember what he was from.  This, it turns out. 
Next we watched Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! which was a perfect example of a film being so bad it's good - there were many laugh-out-loud-hysterically moments throughout; mostly at how terrible the acting was.  The characters delivered their lines with such unconvincing non-existent enthusiasm and the special effects looked like they'd been done in MS Paint.  I had a look online and found out it was released straight to VHS in 2008.  It was that bad.  There is a DVD though. 
Finally we saw the end of Revenge of the Nerd.  It was alright but it just couldn't live up to Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!.  Although, the nerd who dressed up (with a fancy dress mask and cape) like the main jock and then went and got down and dirty with the jock's girlfriend gets serious man points.  Serious win points too for the girlfriend being totally not-bothered-at-all when he crawled up to reveal his true identity.  She even dumped the jock to go out with the nerd.
Was that rape?  Because she wanted to have sex with him but only because she thought he was her boyfriend.  I think it probably is. 

Today I'm going to see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World with Mike.

My divinity is caught between the colours of a butterfly.

I went to the Bad Religion gig at Manchester Academy 2 on Tuesday night with Mike.  It was absolutely amazing.  I've never been to a gig before so it was automatically the best gig I've ever been too, but Mike also describes it in that way and he's been to loads.  I can't stress how good it was.  The setlist was fantastic - we couldn't have asked for anything to be different.  It would have been good if they'd played All There Is as it's definitely up there as one of my favourite songs, but I don't know what I'd have swapped for it.  It's probably for the best that it was left out though because I can't sing it at the best of times and if I'd tried belting that one out at the gig, my throat might have exploded.

When it was over and we were making our way back to the station I could barely hear anything and my voice had dropped about two octaves.  Throughout the course of today (yesterday) my hearing has returned and my voice has shifted up about one octave.

While I wasn't up for listening or speaking, and since it arrived the day before, I got on with reading Mass Effect: Retribution.  It was good, as these books usually are.  I was, however, slightly disappointed that some of the decisions you make in the games had been assumed to have been taken in a specific direction, rather than being left out of the book or made intentionally vague.  For example, at the end of the first game you choose who should become the Human Councillor - Anderson or Udina.  As only one of them becomes Councillor, but which one depends on your choice in the game, the second book didn't mention who had been selected.  In this book Udina was mentioned only once, but he was referred to as "Councillor Udina".  It wasn't even necessary - it would have made perfect sense to have just said "Udina".  As such the book didn't quite follow the story from my game in which Anderson was Councillor.  I also noticed a spelling error which had me cringing - one of the planets, Sidon, was referred to as "Sion".  The mistake was only made once though and I didn't notice any more apart from possibly a missed comma, but that might just have been me failing to read the sentence properly.  I still enjoyed the book. 

Tomorrow (today) I'm going to start reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  I'm not so determined to get it finished the same day I start it, as I have been with Mass Effect 2 & 3 and The Hunger Games.  At the same time I'm not going to stop reading just so I don't finish it in one go.  I'd like to make these last five books last until Liz gets here though because if I don't I'm going to run out of things to do. 

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!"

I finished Mass Effect 2 today.  The final mission is epic but the game still feels like a massive side quest on the whole.  Now I'm just waiting for the new book to arrive so I can get back to reading to pass the time rather than starting at screens all day long. 

So little has happened since my last blog that I almost started describing the two dreams I had last night.  Fortunately I can't remember them in enough detail to bother. 

Mum made cake.  It's pretty good. 

I've just remembered the Dave Gorman podcast.  Hallelujah for something else to do! 

The Earth Explodes!

On Sunday I read all of The Hunger Games in one go, only having a short break to eat my tea.  On Monday I read all of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in one go.  They were so good!  I was entirely engrossed in the story the whole time I was reading, totally oblivious to everything going on in the real world.  So much so that I shed a tear once per book.  Once when Rue died and once when everyone in District 11 whistled her tune.  I can't wait to read the final book in the trilogy. 

I've still got the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series to read but I've decided to have a break from reading after spending a few days reading one book per day.  Instead, I've been playing Mass Effect 2 so I can get it finished before I read the third book.  It came out the other day and I've ordered it from Amazon so it should be here soon. 

I had a random urge to make a video today, just so I had something new to do.  It didn't really have any purpose - it was never going to go on Youtube - and it was just me rambling at the camera for a few minutes.  It was more so I could have a mess around with editing a video.  Complete failure.  The audio refused to be synchronised with the video so I abandoned the project about five minutes after starting it.  I did a few Google searches to try and find a quick fix but when nothing came up in the top three search results I started doing something else. 

Spilled Milk.

I spent all day reading Mass Effect: Ascension.  It was absolutely fantastic.  The first Mass Effect book, Revelations, was good, but it had to introduce all the characters and the whole of Citadel space, as well as the relationships and histories between and of the different species.  The plot was interesting and gave a welcome insight into the histories of the almost main character, Captain Anderson, and the main villain, Saren.  It did, however, feel like all the action took place in the first and last two chapters, while everything in between was just the characters finding out what had happened immediately before the events of the first chapter.

In contrast, Mass Effect: Ascension was able to get right into the action, and stay there, having had Revelations and the first game already set the scene in sharp detail.  It didn't need a lengthy explanation of what a 'biotic' was.  It didn't need to tell us about the Quarians and the Migrant Fleet.  Instead it could go straight to using them in the story, making it much faster paced.  The only bit I didn't like quite as much was the gruesomely grotesque depth in which the victim of Pel's torture was described.  The character who was tortured had only briefly been mentioned but I cringed as I read about his wounds.  Not that I'd change any of it, I just felt it was a bit intense compared to the rest of the book's descriptions of violence. 

I've still got eight books waiting to be read.  I think I'll have a break from epic science-fiction and read The Hunger Games next.  I'll try and start the first book tomorrow.  Maybe I'll go on my bike, too, if the weather isn't too bad. 

I'm finally finishing this blog about three hours after I started it because I couldn't concentrate on what I was writing when my mum had the TV on.  She wouldn't even turn it down during the adverts.  All she had to say was, "No one cares about your blog."  Odd, then, that she is so vehemently opposed to me writing anything about her.  Request denied.

"What's that in your hair?"

It was my ear.  Well done grandad.  He also made sure the bananas were somewhere they wouldn't get paint on them because no one wants to eat...the skin?  Baffling elder folk logic. 

I painted the back room of my grandad's house today and now I am very tired.  I had to get up at about 7:30 and then I was working for ages.  After a while all the colours looked the same and I didn't know where I was up to.  The ceiling was the hardest thing to paint because of its anti-paint texture.  My mum's going to help tomorrow so that can be one of her jobs. 

Last night I made a note to mention how expensive LEGO is these days but I'm too tired to go into detail so

LEGO is very expensive.

I'm going to have a shower now to get all this paint off my arms and out of my hair.  Then I might go to bed so I'm ready for another early start tomorrow. 

"Walk on the sea"

We went for another bike ride today.  This time my mum came too.  There were two puppies in the beer garden licking a tiny patch of ground and eating the stones as if the last ever banoffee pie had been dropped there.  Very odd. 

When I got home I finished Mass Effect again after getting the achievement for using the team mate Kaidan for 75% of the game.  Now I only have to play it through once more and I'll finally have all the achievements possible (without downloading extra content).  I'll never have to play Mass Effect 1 again.  I definitely won't be playing it again this summer once I have all the achievements. 

My dad is watching Ice Station Zebra.  It is such a long film.  It's very slow paced too.  I've given up paying attention to it now. 

This afternoon I found the old notepad in which I used to write lyrics to finished songs I'd written or helped to write.  I can't remember how to play half of them now.  Shame really, I vaguely remember them being half decent. 

This is NOT the time for maths homework.

I started my What To Do list in the nice notepad.  Only thought of three things to do today though; couldn't think of much else I needed to get done on a rainy Saturday. 
I went for a bike ride with my dad to The Masons again when the weather seemed to be improving.  For the ride home he challenged me to a race but to give him a chance I had to go on the road while he cut across the field.  I accepted the challenge thinking that the road went in roughly the right direction and that, despite the huge hill to slow me down, I'd always be getting nearer to the finishing line.  Not the case at all.  The first half mile of road is all up a steep hill that has cyclists travelling at most as fast as someone on a relaxing jog, but probably closer to the speed of someone walking.  The road also forces you to travel further and further away from my house until you get to the top of the hill (where I threw up from exhaustion), at which point you finally turn towards the wrong side of Garswood (but at least it's towards somewhere in Garswood).  Meanwhile, my dad would have been heading practically directly towards home on a field that is either flat or downhill with the odd slight incline here and there. 
Obviously I lost the race.  He probably got back in the time it took me to get to the top of the hill and then recover from spewing my guts out.
Next time he can go on the road and I'll cut across the field. 

Earlier, when I was playing on the XBOX my mum kept complaining about how "loud" it was.  It wasn't loud at all.  It was on 25/100 and she has it on 30/100 at the absolute minimum when she watches TV. 
Now, as I'm writing this and listening to Shinedown through my headphones, I can still hear her on the phone to my aunt.  She refuses to keep her voice down.  Grr. 

Last night I went through all of Liz's Bookshelf blogs and labelled each one with the rating she gave them out of 5.  Now it's easy to see which books are good, at least in her opinion, and which ones aren't so fantastic.  I was considering labelling them with both the rating given and also that rating rounded to the nearest integer.  I only thought of doing that half way through though and I couldn't be bothered reopening thirty or so posts to change them again for so little gain.  Maybe later. 

I'm going to go and watch a steam train pass through Garswood station now. 

"There was a ghost!...It ran right through here and slimed me."

I haven't done much today.  I was going to try and get at least the first 10 chapters Mass Effect Ascension read but since it is set after the first game I decided to play through that before I get on with reading.
Whilst I was busy taking advantage of the good nature of the doctor who gives me too much money for weapons and upgrades, my dad came into the living room and rudely demanded he be allowed to watch the cricket immediately.  When he didn't get his way he had a little tantrum and turned off the electricity for every downstairs room in the house.  Obviously the XBOX went off.  Everything soon came back on when he realised that the fridge and freezer wouldn't work without power.  Fortunately for me my exploiting had meant I'd been triggering autosaves every 30 seconds or so.  All I lost was the few minutes it took me to turn the XBOX back on and reload.  Dad has been sulking since.

After two days of not getting much done I have started to consider making a short list each night before I go to bed of what I want to get done the next day.  I got the idea from Alex Day and it doesn't seem to have done him any harm.  I have a really nice notepad that I could use for it too.  However, now I'm torn between giving it a trial run with scrap paper in case I can't keep it up for more than a few days; that way I don't spoil the first few pages of the nice notepad with a failed project.  On the other hand, I might be more inclined to make a habit out of it if I do use the nice notepad; if I do start on the first few pages then I can't give up or else I will have ruined it.  Since I don't know where the notepad was packed for the trip home from Lancaster I think whether I start in it or on scrap paper simply depends on which I find first.