girlofprey

Things I didn't know before now:

• So You Think You Can Dance? has been axed, and The Voice, which is on at the moment, has taken it's spot. So much for finding out when it starts again this year.



• I never really thought Duncan Bannatyne was a nice guy, but trying to find out when Dragon's Den is on again this year led me to find out that he's kind of racist (he said fellow Dragon James Caan had an 'unfair advantage' because being born in Pakistan meant he had a tax break, which is apparently part of the reason why James Caan left the show), and a little bit misogynistic - he criticised a woman who tricked a fellow contestant out of his share of their gameshow winnings (which was part of the gameshow), and apparently said "she took the money because she is a woman". Which is lovely. It's always nice when people turn out to be jerks, isn't it?

Anyway. Other than that I have mostly been a) playing computer games, and b) not watching things on TV. I missed Monday's Coronation Street because there was some sort of football game on, and haven't caught up, which is making it a little awkward to watch the new episodes. Should do that over the weekend I guess. Also, I mostly haven't been watching snooker, even though I do quite love it. I am happy for Ali Carter and Matthew Stevens. Also I have seen Matthew Stevens for the first time, except for vaguely in icons. He looks almost exactly like I thought he would, and I can't tell whether that's because I'm very good at picking out which icons are him and what his face would look like bigger, or because I'm psychic. Either way, hurrah.

Saints Row 2 is going well. I kind of wish you could just stay a scuzzy low-life criminal forever. But then you don't get the respect you deserve. So you have to be a psycho instead. And [spoilers]. Sob. Also I am really enjoying Shadows Of The Damned, but I'm finding it slightly frustrating as well. It's probably the first game I've ever played that is SO combat heavy, and not open world with it. Even in The Darkness, you got to run around doing side-quests, and in Wet, you got the occasional break to just sort of do a puzzle to work out how to get from one area to the next. In Shadows Of The Damned you literally have to do a lot of often pretty difficult combat challenges just to get from one area to the next, and to progress at all. Which can be a little annoying. But it's also the point of the game. And I am enjoying it. So yeah.

Also I went to see Lockout, that film I've been banging on about. I LOVE PETER STORMARE. And Guy Pearce was kind of amazing. I really did enjoy it, it felt quite old-fashioned and sort of B-movie-ish. Which didn't always work, but mostly it was pretty fun. But they did do one thing I didn't like, which I can't even really complain about, because if you watch the film at all it will probably be a spoiler. It was unexpected (for me)! But not that great really. But yeah. Mostly, I liked it.

Oh, also I think I may be a bit in love with Tom from The Apprentice. Everything makes him sad. And none of his team leaders are really good enough for him. I am not expecting this feeling to last, and am mostly expecting him to go next week probably. Although perhaps he will continue to be underappreciated and then exonerated for many more weeks to come. Who knows.

Also Death Valley is on the UK MTV channels (every night at 11pm, weirdly), and I really feel like I should give it a watch, to show there is an audience here and encourage a Region 2 DVD release. Watching recordings off Sky count as ratings, right? But it's sort of hard enough to watch things I've recorded off Sky most of the time anyway. Never mind something I've already seen, and can sort of see again whenever I like. Sigh.

Also it seems like I am, on the other hand, quite enjoying children's programming at the moment. I've been watching Deadly 60 for a while - it is nice, and Steve Backshall is quite nice and enthusiastic - but recently, I've been catching Lockie Leonard after it on CBBC. Which I'm quite enjoying. It's weirdly quite funny and grown-up (some of the time) for a children's programme, although that might say more about my assumptions than it does about the show really. Also, I quite fancy the dad in it. There, I admitted it. I still haven't caught up with Horrible Histories this series though. Missed the beginning while I was at Eastercon, and never watched the shows I recorded of it. Shame.

We went to Cannon Hall Farm on Saturday. It was only a slight debacle - my mum was working until 2 o'clock, and the night before I asked mum if she'd told dad what was happening, and she said yes, and that morning I asked dad if he knew where we were going, and he said yes. But mum didn't know dad was expecting her to call when she got out of work, rather than just turning up at 2.15 like she'd told him. And then when we picked her up, dad didn't know we were going all the way to Barnsley, he thought we were just going to a local farm shop, and he didn't know exactly where it was and he didn't have his sat nav. I ended up looking up the webpage on my mum's slightly old-fashioned phone, and we ended up driving up and down looking for it for about half an hour, on the right main road but on the wrong side of Barnsley. But anyway. We got there in the end. At about 10 to 4 when my mum hadn't had any lunch and they were claiming the cafe would stop serving food at 4 o'clock. But everything was fine. And I had some quite nice onion rings.

And when we got into the farm there were plenty of animals and baby animals about. Baby goats, a few baby donkeys, piglets, one single calf, and lambs, lambs everywhere. Right up to proper newborns that had apparently only been born the night before. The goats were probably the best value for money - they all kept fighting each other, even the ones that looked heavily pregnant, and they had just two kids running around, harassing the adults, sneaking under fences and leaping up in the air. The lambs did plenty of springing up and down though. And in one building there was this one single little chick running around on it's own. Apparently it's brothers and sisters hadn't hatched yet, and it didn't need it's parents around, so it was just there on it's own in a pen. I hope it has some company by now. Or soon. Also we were promised baby llamas, but we didn't see any. Only adults, hanging out with goats and looking like they might spit at any moment.

Also I have started playing Infamous 2. I had sort of forgotten how much fun it is playing Infamous. I have some issues with the story, but the gameplay, kdjfslk. It's basically just flipping around and having superpowers. Playing as a guy who can be either good or evil, so they have him just be sort of flippant and annoyed as a baseline. Annoyed but basically good superheroes are one of my favourite things. Also, I think the games are really good because you always play in a city, and they REALLY go to the trouble of making their cities beautiful. I mean, it's not like it's all their own idea. The first game is set in "Empire City", which BEARS NO RELATION TO NEW YORK, and the second game is set in "New Marais", which BEARS NO RELATION TO NEW ORLEANS. But also the graphics are beautiful, and all the building sort of look like they're part of the same neighbourhood but are all different, and they have billboards and ads around, and little details like plants climbing up walls and grills on the windows and stuff. It's lovely. I really love the Infamous games.

I'm also waiting for a game to download, which is why I'm writing a slightly rambly post. Black March is also over, and I went a whole month without buying any entertainment products, which is quite a long time for me, woo hoo! I've also gotten interested in Prison Break, after finding out that Peter Stormare is in it, but the boxsets are weirdly still expensive. It's also Eastercon on Thursday, and I need to pack at some point, yay. My game has also finished downloading.