girlofprey

Mostly what I am doing outside of staring frustratedly at my bedroom layout is playing RDR2 again, and riding all the horses. I had a lot of problems with RDR2 - it was not my game of the year - but it does have a beautiful world, and beautiful horses, so if you just want to ride around and ignore the story, it's very chill. Mostly I wish there was an option for Arthur to kidnap Kieran and go start their own stable somewhere, with ALL THE STABLE SLOTS SOMEONE COULD WANT. But there isn't. Alas.

Also I have been watching this talkative husky. A+

It's payday. What to do next. First off I have a trip to Harrogate planned, to see a Hokusai original. We'll see how I do with that.

I just tried Borderlands 2 VR, because I love Borderlands, and it made me feel sick, but it was still pretty good.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has gotten me into orchids and horses. Which is interesting. I don't really have the time to invest in either at the moment, though. In Red Dead Redemption 2 itself, I'm still mostly avoiding the story, because a) it's a downer at the moment, and b) I find it quite boring. I still love the characters and the voice-acting and the dialogue, but I know that every mission will be Talk to the Person, Ride to the Place, Maybe You Won't Have To Shoot A Bunch of People, But Surprise No You Do, Use Your 'Slow Time To Shoot' Power a Lot, Try To Get Headshots and Do It Quickly Because the 'Mission Score' Likes it When You Do That, The Main Character Gets Angry They Had To Shoot A Bunch of People, End Scene, Probably While The Main Character Looks Moodily Off Into the Distance Wondering What Has Happened To His Gang These Days. And that's basically it. I'm doing a lot of side-missions and challenges, but now even those have started asking you to do stuff that I'm pretty sure you can only do in a part of the map that's currently not accessible - so I will have to progress with the story in order to get to that area to do those, and see the outcome of the side missions. So I guess I will move forward with the story! If I must.

( Massive spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Redemption 1, what the hell )

The children are here and we have all survived, but my dad is working in the morning and I have to go to work by 11 as well, and I don't know what time my sister's getting back and picking up her kids, so I feel quite sorry for my mother.

ETA: Also we went to my aunt's the other day to drop off her birthday card, and she lives with her daughter who has a rottweiler, and we met the rottweiler and it was big and lovely, and now I want a rottweiler or a mastiff so badly it hurts.

This is a sketch that has genuinely stuck with me ever since I first saw it:



Definitely made it, Kelly.

And this is a song that makes me feel insane, it's so good:



I'm really looking forward to my holiday tomorrow, and the house and internet all to myself. Except that I've just remembered it's also going to be filled with a lot of dog-walking and picking up dog poo. But I'll survive. The new dog is fine by the way. His name is Frank. I don't love him as much as I think I would a dog of my own, and he's a bit needy and it turns out he'll poo all over the kitchen at night if he doesn't get taken out enough times during the day - I'm going to make an effort to do that over the next week. But he's very sweet, and he's settled in pretty well with us.

Oh my God, I have a cold, and it's the most irritating thing in the world!!!

I was briefly overwhelmed today with the desire to get a dog. I was watching some videos on Youtube about Rottweilers, and my aunt got a couple last year that were lovely (though sadly died recently), and afaik they're quite lovely and calm and protective if you train them right. And suddenly a rottweiler puppy was all I wanted in the world. But I brought up the subject with my mum by saying "dad would never let me get another dog, would he?" and she replied, immediately, "no". And it's apparently a terrible idea anyway to get a Rottweiler if one person in the house (or two) are just going to resent it, and I always said I'd never get another dog while I was in this house just because of the way mum and dad treat them, and at the moment I'm having trouble just getting them to let the cat in. So. That's an idea to put on a shelf for another day, a couple of years down the line maybe.

Sundays are always so fucking weird. Like, after you've had Sunday lunch what do you do???

I've just realised I'm not going to be able to watch Coronation Street Live while it is live on Wednesday, because I'll be at kickboxing. Everyone else will see the mistakes before I do. Of course the biggest mistake is how they're writing David at the moment, so.

This is probably the funniest thing I've seen all week (for some background, this is the original trailer for the game, and gives a better idea of what it's about):



I was at jekesta's last week playing with her puppy Rita, and yesterday I ended up chasing around a dog that had got out from it's owner's garden, and I think that was one too many dog adventures because last night I dreamed about finding another dog that had gotten away from it's owner, and I really wanted to keep it but I knew mum and dad wouldn't let me have it in the house, and also - as sometimes happens - I knew I was dreaming and the dog wasn't real. She was golden brown and sort of short and stocky - I don't know about dog breeds and also she was imaginary - and called Aeren. Also the owner either didn't care or was a cult leader, so she was better off with me. But it turned out she wasn't real. So there we go.

The dog thing yesterday was basically that I was walking into town, hoping to go to the cinema, and this dog just came pelting down our road towards me, obviously not with anyone. Our road is a big main road, that leads down to the A1, so it's no place for a dog to be on its own, and it was only a little terrier. And I could see it had a dog collar on with a tag, so it was obviously someone's pet. So I ended up trying to call it over to see if I could get its address or a phone number, and then calling the dog warden. And then the owner turned up, asking if I'd seen a dog, and he managed to get it back on a leash. It turned out he only lived a few doors down the road, and the dog had escaped a couple of times before, because there was a bitch in heat somewhere in the neighbourhood and he hadn't had his (male) dog fixed because "he didn't believe in it". This dog apparently just kept finding escape routes out of their garden because it was so desperate to get to this bitch, and when it escaped he just gave it half an hour before even looking for it, so it would be tired and less likely to run off again when he found it. Frankly I think he deserved his dog running off a little bit, but he did seem to take pause when I said I'd seen it running across the main road and, at one point, directly down the middle of another one. Still, at least I know where he lives now in case I see it running free again.

I was going to take at some point about how Assassin's Creed: Black Flag simultaneously amuses and irritates me, but at the moment irritation is winning out, and I don't have the energy. Coronation Street on Friday, on the other hand, had a scene of someone fancying David, David kicking in a door, and David then rescuing a child. It did very well.

So. My interview is tomorrow. My mum came down on Friday, and I currently am in possession of a new, grey interview suit, mostly bought at Marks and Spencers. In fact I think completely bought from Marks and Spencers. I have washed my white/cream bra to go under my white shirt, although I haven't hung it up to dry yet (I'll do it very soon, honest). I have two problems, one is that my smart work boots that I took to be reheeled yesterday seem to have either been worn down or given a smaller heel that I remember them having, but I've tried them on and I can walk in them, and they don't look particularly weird or anything. So that's alright. The other is that I'm meant to have printed off a health questionnaire they sent with my notification about the interview, and to have it filled it in and with me at the interview tomorrow. However, I don't currently have a printer, and the print shop I normally use was, when I went down to it on Saturday, both closed and appeared to have turned into a photocopier sales and servicing shop. I'm going to have a look for any other print shops in Nottingham, and if there aren't any I guess I'll just have to look through it, jot down any answers I need, and explain everything tomorrow at the interview and ask if I can get one and fill it in before I go. Hopefully they won't think that's weird.

Other than that, I have the rest of the night to read interview tips and techniques, have a shower, read back through my personal statement on the application probably, and get a decent night's sleep. The only thing worrying me now, aside from the whole Job Interview thing, is that I just realised I'll probably have to put down about the counselling I'm having at the moment. Hopefully that won't sway things, or not too much. Anyway, fingers crossed, mostly. My mother got upset on Friday because she realised I'd bought an interview shirt that was white, and an interview bag that was sort of off-white. I'm not convinced that that's the kind of thing that will swing it, but in any case, as I say, fingers crossed.

Anyway. OTHER AUS TONY AND MARIA COULD STAR IN: a historical sort of AU where Tony is a warrior/knight from Scotland after the English sort of take over it, and he mostly hates the English, but comes to England looking for work or something anyway, and ends up meeting the young noblewoman or queen Maria, and starts working for her, and they FALL IN LOVE.

Or, an AU where they're professional dancers, and he is the very driven and technically accurate sort of dancer, and she is doing it mostly for the love of dancing, but isn't particularly successful. Tony loses his partner at about the same time Maria's partner and perhaps boyfriend leaves her, and maybe Tony sees her training or something, and they become dance partners. Maria is not quite as driven as Tony, and her confidence has taken a bit of a knock after her partner/boyfriend left her, and Tony starts getting frustrated. Eventually he just asks her, "Maria - what's your favourite dance?". And she's like, honestly? The jive. And he is not particuarly impressed because he's more on the ballroom side of things, but he asks to see her jive anyway. AND SHE IS GREAT AT THE JIVE. And properly loves it more than she thinks she can't do it. And he's like, "Well - okay". And then they start putting together a jive routine, and Tony's not quite as good at it as Maria, but he pushes himself because he's that kind of dude, and eventually he learns to loosen up a little bit and they start to do a really great jive. And they still do the jive routine, but from there he moves her on to doing the quickstep and getting really good at it, and then into getting better at other ballroom dances. And they also start to branch out into other Latin dances, and going into competitions and things, and also start to fall in love, and eventually they do a rumba to Chasing Pavements by Adele, which the people on Strictly REFUSE TO DO, and they realise they properly are in love and get together, and WIN THE COMPETITION. And stuff.

I fell so in love with the first idea I got to thinking that given that Maria in Coronation Street grew up helping to run her parents' kennels and loves dogs, and that this was probably one of the few hobbies that could be carried over into a historical AU, I actually spent some of last night researching dog breeds, particularly the ones from England and Scotland. I didn't realise how recently Golden Retrievers and Labradors had started existing as a breed. Although I kind of got the feeling that they were sort of "modern". Anyway, I slightly fell in love with English Mastiff, and the Scottish Deerhound. But I've clearly also given the dancing AU a bit of thought.

I know I'm banging on about Maria and Tony quite a bit. But I do really love them.

Anyway. I also saw the second episode of Misfits last week. ( Misfits, up to 1.02 )