girlofprey

Every time I go to a linked tweet today, I get completely surprising trending hashtags on the right. First was people comparing Sex and the City to the Sopranos, after a journalist I read compared the two. Now it's Azaelia Banks. What's happened? What did she do? More drama with Grimes and Elon Musk (which was a surprising enough news story when I first read it). I'm scared to google things anymore.

The Achievement Hunter crew were heroically trying to continue with a livestream despite everything going on in their nation's capital, but they have now ended it so they can pay more attention to the news.

America is going fucking crazy right now. It's one of those situations where it's somehow not surprising at all, but also completely unbelievable.

The TV is up, and it was fairly painless, although it did take a whole day as I suspected it would. I have more cables than ever back there now. The big screen is beautiful, the colours look better (possibly the placebo effect), and the sound is better (this one's just objectively true). BUT. It's darker than the previous TV. To the point that it's genuinely hard to see at night in Valhalla or in dark/underground places. I hoped there was a setting on the TV I could change, but the brightness is automatically maxed, so. Dad and I think it's possibly because it's a QLED TV with advanced colour/HDR settings, so when they display black, they make it black. It doesn't make things unplayable, but it does make some sections harder. The price of progress I guess. But a bit of a shame that for £400 we didn't just get positive changes.

I'm busy putting off Valhalla at the moment though, because I'm at the end and characters are claiming doom is coming, so I'm a little reluctant to finish it. I just got through a really nice part and am sure they're going to destroy all my happiness now. So I'm trying to complete all the side activities before finishing the game, except that some of the side activities are just glitched and can't be completed. I spent a long time sailing around Norway looking for Big Mackerel, before going online and finding out a few other people also find that they're Just Not There. Which is extremely frustrating. And not particuarly motivating.

We had snow last week, in the middle of the night, which was mostly melted by the time I got up (mid-afternoon). Then yesterday I got up and everything was white again. I assumed it had fallen overnight again, but no, my parents said it started falling at quarter to midday and looked like that by ten to midday. After they'd already made plans to meet my ON, and sort of needed to go food shopping. Eventually we saw a news story on the BBC, posted at 1pm, about how there was a possiblity of snow until 6pm. Thanks, weather people.

We did have a nice little jaunt up the field with the dog though. We couldn't let him off the lead because there were other dogs around, but we saw a snowman, and our dog was afraid of it. Who knew?

There will not be a Slashies tonight, as there are so few entries it wouldn't really be a competition. However, here's a recap of my year:

I went to RHS Harlow Carr in January, and I really enjoyed it. I liked the winter-scented garden, I liked the pine forest section, I liked the colourful winter willow plants. It was a trip to get there, but I really liked it, and genuinely considered/am considering becoming a member of the RHS.

I don't think I got into perfume this year - I'm pretty sure that was from displays for last Christmas - but I really continued my interest in it. I discovered Penhaligons early on in the year, and Much Ado About the Duke, which if I ever get the nerve up to buy it, I think will be one of my favourite perfumes ever. And I discovered a bunch of places in Leeds where you can go test the perfumes they often sell online without samples - like Maison de Dior - and that was really helpful. Things got harder after it became more difficult to go out to shops to smell perfume, but I'm looking forward to taking advantage of the resources in years to come. And just this week, I found that a perfume I'd been interested in was on sale, and I could get it at a price I was comfortable paying for something I'd never smelt, so I count this as a success.

I reorganised at least part of my bedroom. I bought my beautiful chair, which I love, and got rid of my desk and learned to do without that extra surface space. I'm extremely happy I did that as well.

And bought the cool music centre, and got given all my dad's old vinyl records. I'm annoyed by the clicking of the CD player, but given the state of things I think I'm going to learn to live with it. And it doesn't make CDs unbearable.

I finished going through my CDs, for which ones I wanted to get rid of! Calloo callay. That was a job that was 'to do' for a few years now. I kept probably too many, but at least no longer have any CDs I've never listened to and am not sure I'm that interested in. Now I have either listened to them, or I am definitely interested in them despite never having listened to them. And I'm glad to have the job done with.

I discovered that Chester Zoo do 'one-on-one experiences' with the spotted hyenas they have there. I'm also very excited to do that when I next get the chance.

And then! It turned out that there were spotted hyenas at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, which is about half an hour's drive from me! And they had babies! Which are very rare for hyenas in captivity. I assume my love made it happen.

I got to see Blu Cantrell in concert. And Salt'n'Pepa, and Shaggy, and Nelly. It was a pretty cool night.

I started going on more walks with the dog and mum. The dog in general is getting more walks than he's ever gotten. He's started to look for if I have socks on whenever I come down the stairs, and when I do have them on he starts twirling around. We also learned that we can let him off the lead, sometimes, if there are no distractions around, and he will come back and let us put it back on him when we're done. And sometimes he even listens to us while he's off the lead. Our bonding is up about 500% from where it was last year.

Mum and I saw rabbits very regularly in a particular field near us, to the point that I started calling them Fiver and Hazel. I saw a skylark flying over the field once, singing. I've seen goldfinches and great tits in the wild, near us, which I previously only did on random trips through the countryside, and at bird sanctuaries. Once we saw the tail of a fox, plain as day, down one of the paths we used to walk down. I've seen sparrowhawks fluttering over the fields we walk past, a heron in a stream after the council cleared the brambles away from it, I'm pretty sure I saw a merlin resting on a pylon briefly, and last week I'm fairly certain we saw the sparrowhawk resting in a tree along our usual path, and then a buzzard flying overhead hunting pigeons. Our dog found a frog in a field, far away from any water hole I know about. We found a baby mouse on a path, and shielded it from the blazing summer sunshine that seemed to be blinding it, until it could get to the grass at the side of the path.

Here are the plants I've started loving over this year: tufted vetch, forget-me-nots, pink and white -striped field bindweed, field scabious, aster, toadflax, hawthorn in the winter and autumn. I learned that the garden flower I love that drapes over people's walls is wisteria. Add to poppies, and wild roses, and bluebells, and foxgloves, which I already loved. I saw a field full of I think lupins in the summer, and it was like looking into another world.

I love jewellery. Got into the wonderful world of just gemstone jewellery on Etsy. Bought some. Maybe too much. Re-confirmed my love of amazonite and garnet, and padparadscha sapphires. Discovered grandidierite, tanzanite, bumblebee jasper, poppy jasper, Montana sapphire, and apatite. Among many others.

Ghost of Tsushima came out. It was a pretty good video game. I shipped people in it. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla came out. It is a pretty good video game. I shipped people in it.

Sony gave me the kind of superlative media experiences I only really experience from them, in the form of the Playstation 5 Reveal Event in June, and the Playstation 5 Showcase in September. Both made me feel like I wanted to jump out of my chair, particularly the June one. To anyone who is not a huge Playsation fan, the constant symbols may look a bit culty, and it is, but if you're in the cult it's overwhelming.

The Playstation 5 released, despite fears production would be compromised. And it is great, despite people's fears that it wouldn't be. And I got one, which not everyone can say. I love my local games shop, very very much.

I restarted and finished Project Zero 5: Maiden of Black Water, a game I bought and first started 5 years ago. The only Project Zero game I've managed to actually play. It was good. I'm glad I finished it. The ending was beautiful, in that bittersweet way that Project Zero games have. There were pretty people in it, and I shipped people in it.

This has gone past midnight. Whoops.

We had Women's Month, in August. I didn't do everything I intended to do personally that month, but I was pretty proud of what I did do.

One thing I did do, personally, was rewatch the 2016 Ghostbusters film. I love that film. It was a great film. I love Kirsten Wiig.

Recent Youtube recommendations also led me to SNL's The Californians. I love Kirsten Wiig, and apparently also that man who plays Stuart.

And the woman who plays the maid.

I discovered how marvellous Paul McCartney is.

Georgia turned blue. Never forget.

Chadwick Boseman died, and that was really sad, but I found myself incredibly touched by the story of his last few years. As someone with OCD and hypochondria, and a distinct fear of dying of cancer, I honestly couldn't imagine anything but despair, and the last few years of your life ruined if you got a cancer diagnosis. But Chadwick Boseman just kept on working, and didn't tell anyone, and did beautiful, light-hearted human work. I'm not a fan of the Marvel films, but Black Panther was one of the ones I did enjoy and would call a good film, and a lot of it's because of T'Challa and his story. The idea that you could just carry on, and do good work, and develop friendships and be good friends with people even while dying - never seemed that real to me before Chadwick Boseman died. And now it does.

I got into wrestling early into the year. I sort of fell out of it after they started putting on shows without crowds - maybe because there were no crowds, or maybe just naturally - but I really did enjoy it and intend to get back into it at some point. That was a nice new thing.

I think I also started watching Kritter Klub this year, a channel about animals and animal rescues in South Korea. Some of their videos are a hard watch - I don't think they have animal cruelty laws for strays in South Korea - but some of them are so lovely, and it's become a go-to channel for me throughout the year. I learned about wonderful, terrible cross-breeds of dogs, like maltese and husky, and retriever and whatever that small dog is (turn on CCs for the full stories). Nature is magical. I also started watching The Dodo regularly. Some of their videos are a bit twee, but some are also really lovely. I recommend Possum surprise in a cupboard.

I don't really believe in being like "fuck 2020, and good riddance!", because I feel like for the past few years everyone's been like "thank god that year's over, bring on the next one!". And now this. We really don't know what's coming in 2021. But here is hoping for more good things.

I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas, which I knew I wanted since last January - a new TV to go with my exciting new PS5. Originally I wanted a 4K one, but I found out that even though you can get one for a few hundred pounds, you can't get one that's less than 40 inches. And since the TV needs to go on a wall in my bedroom at the end of my bed, that really wasn't super convenient. So instead I have a 37-inch one which doesn't do 4K, but does do HDR which I'm told is better. It was still more than I expected my parents to spend on me, and very generous.

But now we have to install it, which means drilling holes in the wall above my video game consoles, which means I have to move them out of the way to keep them safe. Which means having to try to keep hold of all the wires after they're unplugged, so they don't slip down behind the drawers they're on, and trying to remember where they all plug in again afterwards. I'm feeling a little nervous about it, but it does just need doing. Also the TV supposedly fits to the wall like a picture frame - you can set it up to display a pretty image when you're not watching it, as a feature - which means I really don't know where the HDMI cables for game consoles fit in anymore. Hopefully I will find out. Or the whole thing will have gone to waste.

Mum's 2nd present still isn't here - I got an email that I saw on Christmas day, saying the gift was late and they were sorry, and that they now expected it to arrive on January 1st. Which I don't believe. And even when it gets here I have to quarantine it, so it will be well into the new year when she finally gets it, and I don't know if it'll live up to the wait. But she seemed to like her other gift at least. As for the kids, I haven't spoken to them - we didn't hear from them throughout Christmas morning, and then I came down in the evening and mum said she'd spoken to my MN and YN. I was a bit annoyed she didn't call me down for it, but apparently she just didn't think with my YN, and my MN said not to bother me. Hopefully they liked their gifts. And we haven't heard from my ON at all since mum and I saw him on Christmas Eve for a walk, probably because my dad somehow managed to get him a PS5 (which my ON will partly be paying for, out of money he saved up), so I guess he's busy. But a thank you for the PS5 would be nice. Kids, eh?

New Year's is round the corner, and I don't know what that's going to look like when we'll still very much be dealing with things from this year. But maybe things will be a bit brighter.

( Assassin's Creed Valhalla )

Merry Christmas, everyone :)

It's December already and I can't post in daylight, so here's my post now.

It's December already. That's fine, but I keep forgetting/trying not to think about the fact all Christmas shopping has to be done online this year, and all deliveries are delayed and messed up because of the pandemic, so I really need to get on with my online Christmas shopping and I haven't. To be fair, I also want to buy things for me to enjoy for Christmas, and things I need, and it adds up to an amount of money I'm nervous about spending when I don't have a job and um...jobs may not be forthcoming in the near future of the economy. But I did end up with about £2,500 after my last two paycheques and redundancy payments, as well as savings in an ISA, so I know that as long as I don't buy everyone Cartier diamonds for Christmas I will probably be fine. And should just buy things so that they arrive, and in good time to quarantine them. I have already ordered a winter coat, winter boots, presents for the cat and dog and part of my parents' presents. Just need to do the rest.

It is weird knowing we almost certainly won't see the kids this Christmas. Last year was weird, but my dad and I did drive down to see my MN (mum was working), and my YN and ON lived close enough to visit (along with my sister) on Boxing Day. This year, with the restrictions and mum and dad's vulnerable age group, none of that will be happening. In a way, given all the drama, that is quite freeing, but also a bit...empty. But we will call them at least. And I am going to get and send stuff over for them. It's just going to be weird.

( Assassin's Creed Valhalla, spoilers to the middle of the story I think )

I have also been enjoying the current series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, which is mostly just a set of people who are nice really getting on and enjoying each other. But then the British public soured that by getting rid of almost all the women, and keeping almost all the men. I love Giovanna and hope she wins, but it's a bit sad that she's going to have to have a man in the room to pump the water for her whenever she takes a shower now. And then Shane Ritchie will probably win or something.

I give you the gift of animal bloopers from American news. Having pets is wild. My favourite is 1:22 because I'm a child. And then after everything, 13:30.

Hello. I have the PS5 and everything else is boring. I'm playing Assassin's Creed: Valhalla right now, and I'm enjoying it, but I don't know what I'm going to do when Cyberpunk 2077 comes out.

( Valhalla mild spoilers )

Playstation 5 all set up, PS3 and 4 relegated to a bed in a spare bedroom, wiped down the games and installed Valhalla. I decided to do it without setting up my internet first, because a lot of people these days on game podcasts like to claim there's no such thing as installing games from a disc anymore, a disc is just an activation device to download it from the internet. And one of my nephews wants a PS5, and is saving up money for it, but the place he's currently in doesn't give him individual internet, so I wanted to see if it was true, and so there was no point in him getting a console. I loaded up the Valhalla disc with no wired connection and no password for our wireless hub, and it copied it from a disc and let me start playing it. So I have no idea what those people - video game sort-of experts - are talking about.

Then, afterwards, I set up the internet and tried to log into my Playstation account. But it has two-step verification, so after logging in they send a code to your phone and you have to wait and input that. I waited about 15 minutes for my code, turned it off and on again and tried again, and got nothing. Then when I finally gave up in frustration and turned it off, I got about five texts with verification codes at once. So that was annoying. But hopefully a problem that will be easily sorted out tomorrow.

Instead I watched the documentary Colette, about a 90 year-old member of the French resistance and a young Holocaust researcher who visit the concentration camp where Colette's brother died during the war. I highly recommend it.

Went to go clear space for my PS5, forgot one of the things I was supposed to do before unplugging the PS4, perhaps forever, was to upload all my saved games from there onto the cloud, so I can start everything where I left off on PS5. 61 minutes left till that completes. Back to the Sims 4.

I have my PS5. I've wiped it down. I've got some games too, but I can deal with them later. I've not installed it yet. The size of the box suggests to me that I really won't be able to keep all the consoles I currently have in the console spot on there, so I'll have to decide what to do about them. But I have to set it up first. Yay.

It's PS5 week, and I'm - less excited? I don't know. Still happy it's happening, but also remembering that I'll have to go through some 'decontamination' of the thing when I get it back from the shop, and also clearing out (and cleaning) some of the drawers-top where I keep all my consoles - since the PS5 is apparently massive, and also has a tiny disc drive, so - I was planning to keep my PS4 for PS4 games, but I just don't know that I can tetris it. So also considering all the work that will go into it. Having to hook up my PSVR to a new device, having to remember what my PSN username and password are. Also I'm mostly looking forward to it to play games on, obviously, and Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed, so the only one left I was really excited for is Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, which is made by Ubisoft, who...have been very disappointing lately.

And specifically, with Valhalla...they apparently went through a long period of the 'culture' or management of the company not wanting any lead female characters (and commiting sexual harassment!). So they announced - before this came out - that you would always have a choice, a wonderful choice, about whether you wanted to play as a good man or a scum woman. Brilliant. No limitations to storytelling or character definition there. But the thing is, people still noticed they were mostly putting the male 'choice' on the box art of the games, and in all the marketing, and most of the merchandise. But they've come up with a solution to that! In the new game, you can choose to be a man or a woman, if you're boring, or you can let the magic force in the game decide for you, and switch between a man and woman throughout the game. Apparently - spoilers - this means barely switching at all, and sheds a lot of light on the story and mystery in the game, and the magic...but mostly it just feels like a way for Ubisoft to pretend they don't hate women, but still put the male character in all the adverts, because they are both canon! And I don't feel like I have the energy for their bullshit. So that has tempered my excitement for the game a bit. I will probably just play as the female character. Fuck them. Mostly I am interested in the horses. And to see if my home town is in the game. It's in the area - but did it exist yet? Mysteries.

(Spoiler: I have just googled it, it didn't. Maybe there will be a hill).

And now Dominic Cummings is going, what a nice week it's been.

Half past 12 in the morning, and I'm trying to get anything on Youtube to load so I can watch the videos I usually do before I go to bed. On the one hand, everything but Youtube is loading fine, so I feel like maybe it's Youtube - experiencing a lot of traffic on this Playstation 5-eve. On the other hand, my game of the Sims (heavily reliant on the internet) froze and crashed twice tonight, so maybe it's not? Either way, I have the whirling circles of death.

I have everything to say and nothing to say. The American election happened, and it happened slowly, and mostly I just didn't understand enough about it to be relieved by anything that happened, but now I am somewhat relieved. To be honest though, I got quite a lot of relief on the morning after the election when it wasn't just a wild landslide for Trump. But it's a little sad that it was still as close as it was.

Like I say, the PS5 is out tomorrow - in America, and a few other countries, so that's probably when I'll have to swear off the internet until it comes out in this country, next Thursday. So far I am on track to pick it up, in a click-and-collect, one-in-one-out fashion, with help from one of my parents and their car. I don't know what the queueing situation will be like, but I assume my little local shop won't have hundreds of units, so not too bad. Then will come the wiping down, once we get it home. I'm not looking forward to that.

I have been getting texts from B&Q about an order I made, except I never made an order, and don't have much to do with B&Q. I tried to call them yesterday, and spent 24 minutes listening to their extremely annoying hold music with adverts embedded, and then my phone handset died. So I gave up. I checked my bank balance and no payments have gone out to B&Q, so I think it's just a mistaken phone number rather than fraud, but I still feel like I want to tell them about it, but they don't make it easy. I should just send them an email,. but who knows when those get read during a lockdown. Heck off B&Q. Your customers don't know when their orders will be delivered. Unless you are also sending emails as well as texts.

Update: I just caught a walking stick, I did not lose my mind.

I think I'm about to lose my mind trying to catch a walking stick in Animal Crossing.

Happy news for me - my games shop have been in contact and said they will be opening as a 'Click and Collect' point on November 19th, and as I've pre-ordered the PS5 already I can just come and pick it up, and any games I requested, that day. Apparently any shop can open as a Click and Collect point, but then my dad said something about how he'd seen Click and Collect wasn't allowed, but so far as far as I know my games shop is all good, for that one specific day.

I can't even bear to watch the election, especially knowing we probably won't know anything for sure even by the end of the day, or perhaps the week. So I'm barely paying attention to it.

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