I want to hug today's Penny Arcade strip until the razor sharp edge of it's humor cut my arms.
Seriously, it is a thing of beauty. A thing all we drudges in the retail world can appreciate at this time of year.
And that thing about going to check out the back is so true. When somebody asks me to check 'out the back for something', I usually utilise the time to get a cup of water and laugh maniacally.

I was in the city today, running around like an idiot trying to help my sister get together all the certified copies and applications that she needed for her nursing board registration. Apparently, everything that went wrong was my fault and a lot of things did go wrong from suddenly needing a photograph for the application to her leaving the actual signed application forms at home. Her organisational skills make me look competent in comparison.
Then, in the midst of all this headless-chickening we get pretty aggressively approached by an Oxfam volunteer at a crossing (and I have to ask, do those strong arm tactics actually ever work? Twice today I had volunteers up in my face, and it does nothing by make me want to let out an intimidating 'woop-woooop' and scuttle back to my lair).
Anyway, this Oxfam dude looks at me after I've blown him off and started to cross the road and calls,
"Are you Emma's partner?"
"No!" I yell back, as I crab-crawl away in panic and refuse to come back to the crossing for the rest of the day lest he head lock me until I both donate to his charity and admit that I am this person he has mistaken me for. He gave me this look as I took off though, which seemed to suggest he thought I was lying.
On the other side of the road my sister leans across and says, "Something you want to tell the family?"
"I... don't think so."

Just a weird... weird day. Why you gotta be so weird city?

So, I'm sitting in the lounge-room, watching the last episode of Moonlight with my mum. There may have been some brief discussion about the fact that Beth/Mick are the cutest thing ever, when my Mum looks across at me and, out of the blue, declares, "Mick and the Doctor!"
"Wha?"
She seems to take a few minutes to think this one over, "Actually, forget that, Mick, Doctor and Jack. Now they are three guys who should be doing it."
"Look, I don't really want to discuss this"
"Mick could be feeding, Jack could be doing and the Doctor could just be... the Doctor"
"SO NOT DISCUSSING THIS WITH YOU RIGHT NOW. PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE WITH MY THOUGHTS FOR A MINUTE"
She says nothing more on the topic, until, an hour later, when we're watching Eleventh Hour.
"Actually, I think I'm going to add Rufus Sewell to the group"
"You know what, I thinking I'm going to go watch TV somewhere very far away, maybe on another planet!"

I just picked up Issue #414 of the Doctor Who mag. This was a foolish, foolish move on my behalf.
Why? You might ask. It's a fair question, allow me to explain.
When I was seven years old I started reading Goosebumps books. Then, I discovered Goosebumps merchandise, in particular the collectable Goosebumps Horror Cards.
My mother likes collecting things, and she thought it was a good rewards system for me growing up. If I'd behaved myself during the week I would get one or two packets of Goosebumps cards on the weekend. I still remember coming home some days, being handed the sealed foil card packets and ripping them open to see which cards I could add to my collection this week.
There are heightened emotions when collecting. Each new card is a treasure that you've discovered, unearthed and each double hits you in the gut as if it is a failure of epic proportion.
I got all the Goosebumps cards in the end, and my mum took my on a bus into the city and we found one of those creepy 90's collectables stores (like the ones you see on TV - Androids Basement anyone?) that sold card binders since there wasn't an officially licensed Goosebumps one, and I went painstakingly home and carefully ordered the cards in the sleeves.
Over the years I would collect the first five sets of Tazo's to completion, the first three sets of Pokemon cards, the Harry Potter Bertie Bot cards, and have at least 3 isolated attempts at collecting and playing Magic Cards. I would also start on the Wizards of the Coast Harry Potter TCG and a slue of other products, all of which I didn't complete because the sets came out to quickly and I never had enough money to get them.
Then, in my first year of Uni, I went with some friends into a local Geek Game Store and discovered the Star Wars Rebel Storm Miniatures. I was instantly hooked. I brought a box. And then another. Every pay day I would run into the store and buy three boxes. This culminated in the awful day that the Clerk told me the collection had been discontinued.
In a last ditch attempt to 'collect them all' I brought nine boxes, almost $200 dollars worth, decimating my pay and the puny savings I had at the time. It was a crazed moment. A moment of shame that was only heightened by my inability to obtain the whole set.
Since that day, four years ago, I've been clean of the dubious 'assorted packet' collecting that has so gripped me, at least for the most part.
Once or twice I've almost slipped off the wagon. A friend game me a starter set of the new Pokemon cards two years ago, and if my friendship group hadn't exploded several weeks later, I probably would have started collecting again; so I guess something good came from that distraction.
The same friend also gave us a box of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess cards. My best friend and I divided the box between the two of us and managed to get almost a full set. The only reason we got these cards was because they had been discontinued around the world the month before and I had no way of getting any more them - so once again fate saved me from falling off the wagon.
Of course, I've still been collecting things, my obsession with my Doctor Who DVD set should testify to that, but these are things I can get, not lucky draw items.

And that brings me to today, and that stupid magazine with its awesome Doctor Who cards.
I MUST have them. I shall have them. I got the Fourth Doctor in one of the packets, and now I must find the other nine to go with him.
Pray for me!

Yes. I finally beat the House of The Dead 3. Eat hot lead sloth-monster.
fools_game and solongdearie were playing last night and they gave me a great idea, instead of leaving the awful, awful zombie sloth until the end, when you have no credits left, why not try taking it out when you still have six credits in the pot. And it worked. So, thanks guys!

 Why? Why would I leave two essays until six hours before one is due? (And twelve hours after the last one was due?)
WHY am I still sitting here at 4 am in the morning, pulling an all nighter, like the teenager I have not been for several years?
Why have I still not learned better than leaving things until the eleventh hour (or indeed, well after the eleventh hour)?

Why won't stupid, stupid essays write themselves while I'm in the other screen writing this post?

Apparently Rusty and Liz were on breakfast TV this morning talking about this weeks SJA episodes because of the super special guest this weekend. They kindly posted them up here to watch, the second one also includes the latest trailer for waters of Mars and the general word 'November' as it's release date.

( Squee behind the cut )
Oh man, I cannot wait for this weekends episodes.
I'll be over here shipping it, hard, for the next eighteen or so hours.



In other news, Dear BBC, please release more of Classic!Who Season 11 on DVD, the fact that The Time Warrior is currently the only one out, while being understandable, remains a travesty. Mainly because I want to watch Invasion of the Dinosaurs on DVD.

For those who know these things, does Peladon only appear in two serials (The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon), because I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing one.

Me: I brought a sticker book!
Dad: You spent real money on that, why?
Me: Because, it's the Children of Time Book. Look, two Doctors.
Dad: Why would anybody want two Doctors?
Me: Because it's... *mumbles something incoherent and quickly walks off*

Gah! I was this close to making a Tencest reference around my Dad.
He is strong in the way of the geek, but that... that is something you just do not do. Thank god my brain started screaming ABORT! ABORT!
Trying to explain the concept of Tencest to my father would... not have been fun.

 I just read a scholarly article that referenced Wikipedia and then proceeded to defend in the foot notes using Wiki as a source of information. That's pretty darn awesome I must say.

 *squee*

I don't hesitate to say that this is now my number one favourite episode of all time.
Well written, funny. And, at the end, moving (it's nice to see Sophie's arc moving forward this season).
I mean, seriously, fantastic episode.

And so close to resolution there in that last scene. SO CLOSE!

 Met Mum is the city today after classes to catch a movie. Saw 'Inglorious Basterds' which wasn't a bad film and actually inspired some interesting conversation in the car (and my mothers sudden realisation that she's more Austrian than she'd ever noticed since she counts with her thumb... seriously... watch the movie, you'll get the reference then).
While waiting for the movie, we popped into Borders for a cold drink and I sat finishing off a sketch that I'd started at school.
Mum looks over at the page.

"So, thats the Doctor?"
"Yea---- wait, how can you even guess that"
"Because I know you"
"Fair enough"

Keep on sketching.

"But which girl is he with? I'll have to wait until you colour the hair to know for sure"
"Ummm... it's blonde. I'm drawing Rose. The Doctor and Rose."

Several long seconds as she looks at me.

"Why must you break my heart?"
"What!?"
"Rose and the Doctor? It should be Donna."
"You know what, it's okay, this doesn't count, this is Handy and Rose, so, really, not doing anything wrong at all"
"That's okay then!"

Goes back to her drink.

Okay... how many people out there have actually disappointed their parents because they don't 'ship' the right way? We second generation geeks have got it hard, seriously!

 So, the number 7 is officially my favorite number to write. I do one of those nice little cross-bars and everything.
The numeral '8' is my most hated. Nothing I do makes them look right. They're so bad, everybody at work was teasing me about it the other day. When I rule the world, I shall eliminate the need of such a symbol and life will be grand.
What about you lot? How do you feel about numbers?

 Is it just me or is the future of the 'honey-coloured'* person something that just makes you feel all warm and fuzzie inside? I don't care what term you throw around, 'honey-coloured', or coffee-coloured or any other such euphemism. The idea that one day all people will be above caring about skin tone and race and culture and just love for love's sake is one of the few hopes I still hold for this world.
In away, I support the idea of a 'honey-coloured' future for the same reason that I support Ursula LeGuin's main character in 'The Lathe of Heaven', who, when asked to obliterate racism while dreaming, turned everybody's skin grey.

I've spent the afternoon reading about my countries apparently deeply ingrained hate for Asian countries. A hate I don't think I've ever felt, but then I'm a child in the 90's when the push to 'asianize' in an economic and 'accepting' cultural sense (but only so far as commerce would allow, apparently) really started.

God, I've forgotten how sad literature history makes me. In one class I'm being exposed to the ideas of 21st Century american writing and all the racism and social anxieties that those works betray. And in the other, I'm having to deal with the ideas of 'the yellow peril' and 'white Australia' and 'the anxious white nation'. Anxieties that hit much closer to home, partially because the adults around me (who grew up in the 60's and 70's) often betray many of the prejudices being exposed in the things I'm reading. It makes me uncomfortable in a way I'm not used to because I'm usually able to shrug it off and just go 'silly Americans'.

(From 'Is Australia An Asian Country?', FitzGerald, S. 1997 pp. 71)

Dear Teaspoon,

Seriously, how long does it take to validate a fic chapter? I mean, really, 15 hours and counting? You're really going to do this to me?
Damnit dude, I needs me a fic hit. Like twelve hours ago.

- Nat

Also, the spacebar on my itsy bitsy laptop only works about 20% of the time which is frustrating. As are my abnormally large fingers, or so it would seem.

 So, I fell just a 'little' behind in reading my friends page this last week. And I've been playing catch up. And I've just discovered that you can only go 920 entries back on your friends list. Hmmm... well I suppose you do learn something new everyday.

So, despite myself, I'm starting to get a little bit excited about Sims 3. Yeah, I know, I am a sad, sad person.
Anyway, looking at the EA development teams youtube page I found this. And since it combines two awesome things, I thought I'd share.
This one is especially for Emma, since it regards her recent decent into Trekdom (of which I am so proud).

 It's 4.30 in the morning. I'm catching up on a weeks worth of LJ posts that I haven't seen. I am the only person awake.
I hear a scraping noise in the kitchen and go to check it out. The cat is playing with the kickboard under the dish drawers.
I come back to my room. A few minutes later, our piped vacuum system roars into life because the cat seems to have figured out how to turn it on. Needless to say, I leaped out of my chair in fright, because when you're in the middle of some serious Who-Fic, the last thing you need is the sound of sucking air suddenly springing to life.
I ran out to turn it off and the cat stalked off, shooting me a dark look as he went.
I fear his growing knowledge.
Today it may simply be that he has learned to operate our vacuum cleaner, but tomorrow, he takes over the world.

So, I have now watched PotD. I enjoyed it. Like RTD said in all his interviews, it was a romp. It had a lot of funny one-liners which had me laughing and Malcome and Christina were pretty cool characters.

My issue becomes that these special didn't feel particularly 'special'. It's my own fault I suppose. I keep going into them (by them I mean christmas and easter specials) expecting something huge, some brilliant writing or some gravitas or just something to resonate in me as a fan. Even just one moment that is deep and moving and clever. And I feel like we haven't seen any of that yet and maybe we won't, maybe I'm stupid to be expecting more from these episodes. Mentally I'm watching them as 'specials' not just as normal 'episodes' and that's probably unfair of me.
Also the Doctor still appears to be on Time Lord Vallium because he is having hella weird personality swings and I mean hella weird even by Ten's standards. Or it could just be me, like I said, the general tone of the specials hasn't sat well with me because of the 6months of post JE depression I was left in (big mistake not propelling the series on at the end of JE as the first 3 seasons did, that's all I'm saying!)
But as a simple romp, it was fun episode. Not the most memorable, but Tennant's hair looked fantastic, which must have been very difficult in the sand and wind.

HOWEVER, I've been working on a Doctor Who fancomic in my spare time and I'm kind of pissed off because one of my Monsters look very similar to the sting-ray monsters and RTD has detroyed it for me, since mine are MUCH COOLER but now the design will have to be changed :(.
Damn it Davies, what have I said about reading my diary?

Also, most exciting part of the episode for me was the trailer for 'Waters of Mars' and the fact that the BLUE SUIT has made it's return. I was getting worried that we wouldn't see it again before the end of David's run.




Also, had to go back 380 posts to catch up. My F'List was very busy the last few days. There were times where I didn't think I'd be able to dig all the way back through the massive torrent of posts that I'd missed.
Although, there were plenty of 10.5/Rose fics to make me happy in there. This is good and pleases the Nat. 
Now the gingerbread people in my fridge can be eaten, but only once I have stolen a camera to put up a picture of them frolicking for Ray.

Dear internets,

Thanks to the dweebs who live downstairs we have currently run out of broadband and our internet is being shaped. While this would not usually interfer with our regular broadcast, it has prevented me procuring a copy of the most recent episode of a certain british science fiction show.
There seems to be spoilers for this show at every corner of my flist. So, in the hope of not having it entierly ruinated for me, I will not be back until wednesday after I have seen the episode. This coincides nicely with my work schedual since I have closed two night's running and will probably be closing for the next two.

So, enjoy the next two Nat-less days and may you all breath a sigh of relief that my inane ramblings shall not grace your browsers for a little while.

There'd better be plenty of 10.5/Rose fic when I return. Until then, I will be making those 10.5/Rose gingerbread people in my fridge frolic. The ginger bread people I didn't spend five hours on friday lovingly hand crafting with fools_gameand moirasaoirseNo matter what lies Emma is spreading in her journal.




...God I can't wait until I get to see PoTD