girlofprey

I have:

• Booked a hotel room and a day off work for the trip to the Shire Horse Show. Well, technically my mum found the room, but only after I called up some B&Bs and got directed to the nearby Premier Inn, and then the Premier Inn website told me they were both fully booked on the night I wanted it. Somehow mum, on a tablet downstairs, found a room that they weren't advertising to me. I'm a little worried we're going to get there and find out we booked a room for March 2021, but I've checked the booking a lot and it all looks right. So we're going to the Shire Horse Show! Hopefully it will be Good. I'm going to miss the fillies and mares, because they're on Sunday. But hopefully it will still be Good.



• Chosen a TV. After a week or two of always wondering at work if when I got home I'd find my dad had messed with the broken TV in my room, and my gaming set-up, he finally did it on Saturday. When I'd been into town for literally an hour - I told him I was going, and I told him I wouldn't be long - I got home to find he'd removed the TV and unplugged basically every wire he could think of and dragged the rest of them up from the dusty back of my drawers. He seemed to think this was my fault for having a rat's nest of wires, and not his for waiting (not very long) for the person who understand all the wires and how to keep them sorted and where they should go. Anyway, I sorted them all out, after that. I had no choice. He did not offer to help or learn about any of the wires. Then he told me once again about the TV he'd picked out for me. It was 32-inch, instead of the 22-inch I'd had before. And it was full HD, because I shouldn't get 'HD ready', the screen was bad and it's just a con. And it was a Smart TV, which means something I don't care about I'm sure. And it was £200, and he would just go get it, go get it whenever I wanted to stop wasting time. I have found a 22-inch screen that is full HD in Argos, that has all the connections I want (the one useful thing about him unplugging all my wires, although I still think I could have learned it if he'd unplugged them while I was there, is that I learned you can have a small-ish TV with two HDMI ports), and it is only £140. I told him to butt out more or less, and he lamented his life of no-one ever listening to him and not being appreciated. I'm planning to just go get that TV on Friday.



• Watched some Coronation Street. Another storyline about Carla suffering miserably, yay! Another potentially psychotic love interest for Eileen, yay!

Our dog is going to get clipped tomorrow, after about four months of not having been done. I suppose it was winter and a thick coat might have been nice for him, but I didn't understand how he could see most of the time. We always laugh at him when he comes back from the clippers, because he goes from looking like a cotton wool ball to a long black stick. I can't imagine what it'll be like tomorrow. Amazing I'm sure.

I've been looking at what films are coming out this year. There's more or less nothing I want to see. Nothing that looks fun. What is happening to media? I don't care about Marvel films or Disney live-action remakes, and that's leaving me with very little. I'm looking forward to Godzilla King of the Monsters because it has Mothra in it, and this looks like it might be good, and I'm looking forward to Spider-Man: Far From Home just for the sheer possibility of more Michael Keaton. Other than that there is nothing.

I did find this lovely story about a woman and a dog today though (tw for mentions of sexual harassment). Enjoy it.

So, everything I was worried about with the story of Red Dead 2 seems to be coming true. Also I might have been spoiled yesterday. And maybe last week too. It's hard to tell when they didn't say 'this is what will definitely happen' or 'this is what happens at the end', and it isn't just something that happens along the way - kind of. But I'm starting to put together a picture that might make sense. And kind of makes me wonder what the point of doing all the stuff I'm doing now really is.

( I don't know, semi-spoilers? It's so hard to talk about when I don't want to spoiler anyone but also maybe no-one knows what I'm talking about anyway )

Mostly I just want to look for fic with the characters, and read fic with the characters. But I'm not prepared to completely spoiler myself just yet, which would clearly happen since people aren't shy about spoilers with this game apparently. And I don't know if it's the kind of game people will really fic about. And I don't know if the fic will be that good. I think they'd mostly write the main character unconvincingly as an Omega. But who knows? Maybe the fic will be great. And exist. And I will still like this game enough by the time I'm finished with it to read it.

They aren't writing Ryan/Ali fic for Coronation Street either. And Sally isn't top dog in prison yet. And as far as I understand, she hasn't slapped both Gina and Tim and told them to get out of her house yet either.

In the real life real world, I was walking home from the takeaway at about half past nine tonight, and I'm pretty sure I saw a guy tip some wire fencing over that was on the pavement, so that it covered the pavement and part of the road. I heard a crash of metal and looked up to see the wire fencing tipped over, and the guy flipping off something or someone at the side of the pavement, and he certainly didn't seem surprised by the fact the fencing had tipped over. He also didn't say anything to me or react in any way as he passed me, although he must have seen me see him walk away from the fencing. I was going to call the non-emergency police, because the fencing was properly in the road, cars were having to swerve around it, but before I'd turned off the street I saw a different guy behind me picking it all back up. So that was interesting. It comes after an incident in our town centre a few weeks ago where a street was cordoned off one Sunday with police officers and an ambulance - which turned out to be someone shoplifting bottles from a nearby supermarket, getting chased by the police, and tripping over and falling onto the bottles. And then an incident this morning where another road was cordoned off with police and ambulances, which apparently was for someone who got hit by a taxi while crossing the road. Our town is starting to feel a little bit more dangerous at the moment.

A lot of things about Coronation Street repulse me at the moment, but some things are quite good. For example, they could just move all of it inside a women's prison for now. Where Sally tries to get to the top through ruthless ambition, but also holds yoga classes. And I'm quite enjoying the dynamic between Ali and Ryan. There was no scene with either of them in the episode I watched tonight, despite quite a dramatic ending on Monday night. Hmph.

Today I had a long conversation with my boss about what happened yesterday and the way I've been feeling lately, and I cried a bit/lot, but overall he was really good about it, and he's agreed to take over some of the more shitty car park duties/stuff we have to put up with, and he's going to see if he can organise for me to have some time off work soon, even if it's unpaid leave. Hurrah!

On Emmerdale right now, they have a very solid murderboy. I feel a bit guilty about how much I like him.

E3 began today. Only EA's conference, but still. They're usually the boring one, because all they show is sports games and shooters. I was genuinely excited, because I thought they might show some new The Sims stuff - even though there's a new pack out in two weeks that they just announced, so it wasn't likely. They didn't, but even so I thought it was a solid okay, which bodes well for the rest of the show. Tomorrow is Microsoft, where they will probably announce some non-Xbox games, and Bethesda. So true E3 will be happening. The Bethesda showing will be on at 2am and is apparently a 2-hour conference this year. I am excite.

OTHER THINGS I MUSTN'T FORGET:

• It's Father's Day on 19th June.


• It's my mother's birthday a week later on 26th June.


• They're both impossible to buy for, so that will probably go well.

Also, The Pretenders are playing in Leeds in August. I love the Pretenders. And Culture Club is playing in Leeds in November. I love Culture Club. Also there are two operas on this autumn with Opera North that I've been wanting to see for a long time. And apparently Rich Hall is just doing a constant tour around England at the moment. I have no-one to go to things with, but I might go to these things anyway. Also the open-air concert they have in my home town regularly is happening again in a few weeks. Another thing to go to.

A few weeks ago I went on a little shopping spree in Marks and Spencer's, and I bought a miniature rose bush in a pot. It's lovely, but now I basically have an extra thing to look after that I don't really know how to look after. I have to keep it well-watered without drowning it, and in a well-lit place that's out of direct sunlight. The soil looks incredibly dry every time I look at it, and I can't tell if I'm just worrying too much or the heat that's happening at the moment is drying it out a lot. Be safe, rose.

I don't necessarily agree with reducing the sentence for rape, or certain rapes, but everything Germaine Greer says still feels like she's incredibly concerned for the plight of women, and wants to make things genuinely, measurably better for women, and I still love her, no matter how messy or unpalatable the things she says are.

Coronation Street: about fucking time, basically. My favourite part was when David didn't even get to Not Tell Sarah about what happened to him. Just Gail got to Not Tell her. On the other hand, Emmerdale is being amazing. Emma Atkins forever.

( Far Cry 5 - Spoilers )

Coronation Street

I think the thing I find most implausible about the whole David storyline is that he would ever have any interest in boxing at all.

The World

Another reason why 'witch hunt' is a completely inappropriate term is that witches don't exist, rapists do.

That's a thing I see literally no-one else saying.

Coronation Street

I think Sinead should date outside the street. Is mostly what I think. I also love Carla, and I loved the Carla-Daniel team up when I thought it was going to be about them hating Tracy, but if they're going to get together it's a bit **yawn**

Anyway. I have mostly been replaying Borderlands 2 lately. Sarah McCakesy emailed me over the New Year to say she'd played Tales From The Borderlands, which is a game I never quite got around to, and it reminded me of my love of Handsome Jack, so I decided to go back and have another run-through. It's such a good game. There's such a sense of - space. And it's so beautiful, especially in the remastered version. Sometimes I just stop and take screenshots, it's so pretty.

It's funny how quickly the year goes, when you think about it a certain way. January and February are kind of the dead months, at the beginning of the year, but I spent all of last week thinking forward to a week when I wouldn't have three train strikes to deal with, and that's this week, which starts on 15th January, which is practically halfway through the month. Then it's only 2 weeks to February, and Valentine's Day is when I start to consider it the time when interesting things start to happen again in the year, and that's only two weeks in. And February's a short month, so only two weeks after that we're into March, and that's basically the start of spring. And only 27 days from my birthday, and Far Cry 5 being released. Having said that, I'm mostly counting my year in terms of video game release dates, as usual, and ????? Playstation announced last year that a bunch of their new exclusive games were coming 'in the first half of 2018', and we still don't have release dates for them. E3, when everyone makes their big announcements, is in June, which is basically when the first half of the year is up, so WHEN WILL YOU ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE DATES, PLAYSTATION? WHEN? Are they going to start doing Playstation Directs? Are they just going to casually announce it in a blog post? Are they just going to release the games with no announcements, like Beyonce and Lemonade? What is their plan? What is happening? Not that release dates mean very much these days, with all the delays that keep happening. But still. WHEN?

Yesterday I had a Jobseeker's appointment at 10am. I woke up at 9:23. Thankfully, it's only about a 20 minute walk from my house into town, so I jumped up, brushed my teeth, my hair, put on some clothes and whizzed out of the house. I made it to the Jobcentre for 10, then sat around waiting for my appointment. After fifteen minutes I was still waiting, and no-one looked like they were late with their appointments or in a rush or coming to see me any time soon. You're supposed to tell someone if you're waiting 15 minutes or more, so I double-checked my appointment time. And the appointment was actually for today. So I went home, and had some breakfast.

The reason I was probably so tired was because I decided to finally give myself a breast exam, which I haven't done in a few months. I never like to do them, because I get so wound up it ends up taking me a couple of hours, and I get so worried about checking everything that feels like a lump I usually end up hurting myself. I sort of need to get on it though, because I'm on the pill now, and the hormones will probably end up changing them a bit anyway, plus it slightly increases my chance of getting breast cancer. So I did one, rather than continuing to worry about the fact I hadn't done one in a while. It took me three and a half hours, and I hurt myself so much I was still getting really sharp pains the following morning. I get the feeling my technique is not the best.

Anyway. Overall, it has led to me feeling tired, still, today, and I had to get up for my actual Jobseeker's appointment this morning (which went fine). So now I don't know if I'm too tired for kickboxing tonight. I really ought to go, because I haven't been in over a month now, and I am planning to switch over to the Wakefield branch, so I need to at least call and tell my instructors about it. But I am tired, and it's sparring tonight, which is really high energy and involves keeping up with other people, and sometimes when I go and I am tired I start feeling really light-headed and like I'm about to pass out. Ugh. Maybe I will just call them. I'm definitely switching over though - I gave my notice in at the Hospice on Saturday. I'm going to miss it, but I just think I get more out of kickboxing (when I go regularly), so...life moves on. My boss woman is coming in to see me on Saturday if she can, since she's away during my last weekend. So yeah. It's a shame, but I think it's for the best.

Other adventures I have had this week: my mum was working on Monday, so I decided to go out and get Chinese takeaway for dinner. I forgot that our Chinese takeaway isn't open on Mondays, so I had to walk in the complete opposite direction to get pizza. On the plus side: pizza. On the minus side: ughhhhladkjaslkd.

Emmerdale is the worst at the moment. I can't believe Robron.