girlofprey

I just wrote out my appeal form. They give you the tiniest space to write your reasons why you don't agree with their decision. Which is largely how I felt about the assessment form - although apparently I was some good at filling that in this time. Maybe I just feel like I have A LOT OF REASONS to give them. But I think I got at least some relevant points through, and it's completed now at least. Now I just need to send it out so it will get to Barnsley before Monday. Sigh.

I also caught up with Dallas yesterday, and then watched the final episode. ( Dallas )

The new series apparently begins in America in January. So obviously I either need to get downloading, or really enjoy these few months of being all caught up before I lose them again.

We also had the American election this week. I am happy and genuinely a little bit amazed that Obama won. As well as all the 'shenanigans' I'd been hearing about, things sort of came to a head on Tuesday night when I started seeing posts on Tumblr about how people were taking pictures of their pro-Obama ballots and posting them online because they were so excited, but that they shouldn't do that, because they could be arrested and have their votes annulled. I was ready to give up, get ready for Romney to win, and be all "2012, End Of Days". But then Obama won. And apparently it wasn't even close. So hurrah.

I also finished Portal, and bought Portal 2. I liked the song at the end. A LOT. And while I was looking for Portal 2 (in vain) in my home town, I found out that the little games shop I used to see when I was a teenager was still open, and both stocking and selling Bioshock action figures! It was a good day all around.

And we had my YN over at my house today. He is sweet, and can pull himself up on furniture, and make lots of noises now. And point. At one point he looked up at one of our houseplants, pointed at it and went "Aaah!", and then went back to playing with his cars. He plays with cars by pushing them along and going "aaaaaaah" or "grrrrrrrrr". He is lovely. I also learned that my mum thinks he's "weird". Which, in fairness, is something I would expect a sitcom granny to say about their baby grandchild, so at least we're living up to the stereotype, thanks mum.

And I saw a bit of Emmerdale today with Declan in it, and it gave me Declan/Nathan feelings. Sigh.

And I had a dentist appointment today, which went quite well, with quite a lovely new lady dentist. It was her first day apparently. She didn't make any mistakes which could only be covered up by saying "It's my first day!". Yay. And we had Bonfire Night, which means we're now in the period of time I officially recognise as Pre-Christmas. Argh. And...something. I'm on my period, and I'm really tired. Oh, and I attempted to buy trousers from H&M, and I found out that of all the weird sizing issues there are from shop to shop, H&M might just take the cake for 'obviously a lot smaller than the number would imply'. And yet I also tried a jumper from there, and the Large was too big for me so I had to get a Medium. Weird.

I cancelled that thing tomorrow, in the end. I was already feeling pretty tired just from stressing out yesterday, and then it turned out that mum hadn't managed to find any ankle wellies, just some fashion wellies that were wider at the top but still too tight. So I cancelled it. Given that I have a workshop, an appointment with my employment coach, and I have to start getting ready for the holiday, the next week or so is already starting to feel like an uphill obstacle course, and I might start tripping over any moment. So I think it's probably the right decision.

Some good things:

• My mum and I finally took the dog to the vets last week after me nagging mum for a couple of weeks. He's old and has had some problems getting up in the last few months, and mum seemed to think they'd just say it was time to have him put to sleep. But instead they gave him anti-inflammatory medication, and he's getting up and moving around a lot better :D



• John Ross from Dallas is super pretty.



• Lottie from Bad Machinery is amazing.



• I went to Connotations, the last one ever, and it was totally brilliant. We finally learned about Asylum films. Thank you moonlettuce and temaris.

A bad thing:

• Apparently while I was away my sister, her partner and the kids came down to my parents' house for Sunday dinner. Which is a bit weird and alarming. But maybe it won't become too regular a thing. Hopefully.

Also, partially inspired by my stress out yesterday, I present to you one of my favourite angry songs. It's not entirely about calling women whores or homophobia (but still a bit!), but mostly about running people over with your car:

Move Bitch - Ludacris

Earlier this week, I managed to have a Teen Wolf dream. Which is quite impressive, because I haven't seen any of Teen Wolf. I think it's because people post about Derek/Stiles in the 'Red Riding Hood' and 'Little Red Riding Hood' tags on Tumblr a lot. See, I even know names. Aside from that though it probably wasn't very accurate. The next night I had a George Gently dream, which was much better, but didn't turn out so well for John, although he's probably used to that by now. And the night after that I think it was Poltergeist: The Legacy, which actually managed to be quite creepy. So. It's been an exciting week for fannish dreams. Even of things I'm not fannish about.

Things I am fannish about at the moment mostly include Bioshock. I LOVE BIOSHOCK. I knew some spoilers, because I read about the storyline a bit ago, before I thought I'd ever play it. Possibly before I got a Playstation. Or just because it's quite hard to work out what the game's about from the title 'Bioshock'. But I have sort of got past the spoilers I knew about - the ones I remember anyway - and now there's all a bunch of new stuff I didn't know about. And it's quite wicked. I think I might need a slight break from it though. It's a great game, but there's so much to do - killing enemies, stealth, hacking things, buying supplies and ammo, getting new powers - it makes my head spin a bit. Mostly what I want to do though is finish the game and go looking for fic. But I can't, because there's a second game after it, and I obviously haven't finished that yet, and I don't want to be spoilered. Even though I also spoilered myself for that. But I don't remember most of those. And I don't want to be re-spoilered. Spoiler avoidance is hard, you guys. Like how I can't go looking for people who love Dallas, because they'll probably be Americans who already know how it ends. If indeed they exist.

Speaking of which, ( Dallas! )

Also, I have been rewatching some early Red Dwarf. Lister is SO BEAUTIFUL. And his accent is SO BEAUTIFUL, in a way it sort of isn't nowadays in Coronation Street, weirdly. And the episode with the Cat Priest was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. On the whole, it is Quite Good.

I made it through my ESA assessment, anyway.

It was kind of gruelling as usual, but the woman doing the assessment was sort of nice, and mum was with me. I think it went okay, but it's a funny thing to think about really. Because if I was fine, I obviously wouldn't need an assessment, and if I seem fine they might decide I don't need benefits anymore. So, y'know. But there's not really much point worrying about that till I get the decision, I guess. It was weird though, because I asked the woman doing it about the review, and how I wasn't expecting to have to do an assessment until October, and she didn't know anything about a review and said this was nothing to do with that. So...I don't know what that was. Whether it was the review and she just didn't know about it, or whether it was just a sort of getting all the details/getting everything on file thing now that I'm actually on ESA. I don't know. I don't even know if the questionnaire I did a few weeks ago was for the review or for this assessment. But at the very least, if I DO have a review in October, I hope they won't ask to see me again, since I've already done a review recently. Fingers crossed.

In other news, I accidentally got into Dallas. New Dallas. I'M SORRY IF ANYONE IS UPSET OR THOUGHT I WAS BETTER THAN THAT. I'm not. There's a young guy who is handsome and has an evil father and is evil and maybe a bit insecure. GROUNDBREAKING FOR ME, I KNOW. But anyway. I'm planning to watch it on Channel 4, which will apparently take me 10 weeks. Hurrah. On the other hand, I looked up John Ross' early life from original Dallas last night. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. It's like a whole soap child biography, but I don't have to wait years for it to play out. Amazing.

Also I played through all of the Bertrand parts of Infamous 2. It's kind of terrible that I love him so much. But. His scenes with Cole are pretty much the best part of the game. Also he's pretty much the only character who gets to be a character all the way through the game, and not just be part of Cole's choices. Also he's a baddie who's actually bad, which is something this game doesn't always manage (wankily), and which I do appreciate. Also he has some of the best boots I've ever seen. Also I wish there was a fandom because I get the feeling I could shipwar with the Cole/Zeke fans. They would win on the relationship front, which is FINE. But I would win on the CHARACTERISATION OVER THE COURSE OF THE GAME THAT MAKES ANY SENSE front. And I think that's the front that would win.

And I started Bioshock. Which is about as brilliant as everyone says, and all the awards it got suggests. Which is nice because most of the games I've started lately have been huge disappointments. Yay. Also I bought Overlord, basically because I miss Dungeon Keeper. I MISS DUNGEON KEEPER SO MUCH.

And also, I thought I'd share some more vids from EvilVillainsStudio that I've liked. Mostly I think I like them because of the songs, but the editing and editing together of clips is really good as well. It's interesting, because some of the(made-up) pairings click with me more than others, and I can't tell if it's because of the editing (different sections seems to be made by different people), and because of the actual pairings/characters. It's fun either way though.

There is footage from new Who and Once Upon A Time in these videos. I can only apologise.

( A bunch of songvids/songs )