I had my third driving lesson the other day, my first in over a year. Not that I told my new instructor. She thinks I've had a lot more experience than I have.
She also thinks I have ADHD, owing to the fact I drive at near enough the limit and can't find my reference points because I'm never sat still. I won't deny that I'm hyper, but I'm paying full attention. It just doesn't look it.
If I wasn't paying attention, I wouldn't have been amazing, which I was. That means I get to drive around a different housing estate next week, which should be fun.
No, my instructor's impressed. Evidently terrified, but impressed nonetheless.
Oh, and I killed my first vertebrate. Don't worry, darlings, it was only a pigeon. I accelerated into it. Beautiful, feathers everywhere. It's amazing the mess you can make at 20mph.
I had a bit of a pointless day after that. I fell asleep and woke up to make a risotto, then went to sleep again. This means that I don't have any films or books to review. I could review the music I've been listening to?
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Well, it's beautiful, if a little over-popular. There's a reason for it though. I doubt I'll ever get over it. 5 stars.
Beethoven's 5th, first movement. Again, very popular, but also very good. 5 stars.
Beethoven's 6th, fifth movement. Must have been a bit of a let-down after the 5th, to be honest. 3 stars.
Holst's The Planets, Mars, The Bringer of War. Oh! That start! So good. So very good. You know how I know you'll believe me it's good? It featured in Sherlock, the last episode, where Sherlock and John fight the Golem in the darkened lecture theatre. So dramatic! Ah. 5 stars.
If you think I'm being generous, don't worry. All that is going to stop. Holst's The Planets, Venus, the Bringer of Peace. Boring! Talk about a comedown. It makes me all shivery to think about how awful it is. It's so twinkly and pathetic. Two stars.
Holst's The Planets, Mercury, the Winged Messenger. It works. It's not amazing, but it works; the rising and falling scales are exactly what one would imagine from the flight of Mercury. And what it has in technical qualities, it doesn't exactly lack in art. Four stars.
There; I've tried to review orchestral music, which I'm only listening to so I don't suck at the music rounds on University Challenge. The only times I have ever got points on those is when Moonlight Sonata came up and another time when there were a whole set of questions on David Bowie songs. I did alright in the picture rounds today (watching a repeat I hadn't seen before). There was a set of questions on pictures of Moses (15 points) and another set on poker hands (the full 25).
Don't try telling me I'm a geek. It's not strictly true. I do know things, however, and I want to know more. I want people to know that I know more than most people. I will never apologise, though it pleases me to think I might need to. Mostly because I won't.
Thursday 26 August 2010
Monday 23 August 2010
And now, a rant
NO!
I'm not even anywhere near done on the ranting front, let me warn you.
Right now, I am sitting all sleepy-eyed in my pyjamas when I should actually have been asleep, having done what I needed to do an hour and a half ago. But I'm not. In fact, I just had more hassle than I needed.
This was my plan: today, I would wake up at 0650 in order to buy tickets to Chelsea-Blackpool the second they came out, thus ensuring two seats in Matthew Harding Upper, the best stand by far. It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately not one that came into fruition as my mobile ran out of battery and my alarm failed to go off.
It would have been a brilliant alarm as well. Linkin Park's 'Given Up' (which is a song that will give a half-awake person a coronary if they don't turn it off in time) with the text "GET UP. NOW."
As it was, I had a dream about holding a housewarming party with somebody who I'd never met, but I was going to be living with. We had races to open the door to the guests, and it was a bit petty, but then he bought me a scotch egg from the inexplicably noisy canteen next door and I woke up happy.
I wasn't happy about two seconds later when I realised I'd woken up naturally rather than being dragged back into the land of the living. As quick as I could, I typed my ticket request.
At that moment, I felt I was probably entitled to shout "bugger", because the tickets had gone. So had the tickets in Shed Upper and Matthew Harding Lower (East). My dream of watching a decent match in a decent stand was fading.
By the way, if you don't understand football, like a lot of people, you'll have to understand that every match is a pretty big deal. Matches are like plays, there's drama and excitement, and the best soundtrack you could have hoped for. It releases a beautiful chemical enjoyment, and I never got that from basketball or ice hockey, nor cricket.
I did however, find tickets in Matthew Harding Lower (West). This was accompanied by a countdown clock to tell me how long it was before these tickets were given to someone else. 5 minutes and counting. Well, of course, I nearly died, because though it's a reasonable length of time, there's nothing like a ticking red clock to make you nervous. Thankfully I had my debit card in hand, typed in my details and hit Enter.
No. I'd forgotten to tick the box for Terms & Conditions (which, incidentally, I didn't read, no, because I only had 4 minutes 48, 47, 46...) so I had to go back and do that.
No. I hadn't put in an expiry date the second time around. So I did that, made sure none of the other boxes had randomly emptied themselves (which, curiously, they hadn't).
No. Card not accepted. Well, that was it. I tried again, but the same result.
I knocked on my parents' bedroom door and asked for a credit card. My mother told me somewhere the card wasn't, so I ran around the house looking for where it was.
Anyway, I got the card, and started typing in the number. To my surprise, the number on my dad's card was exactly the same as the card number I had already typed into the box. How could this be?
I'll tell you how. In my half-awake stupor, I had seen that, when I started typing my card number into the box, it Autocompleted for me. I thought: how kind. Rather than check that the number was mine, which it wasn't, I simply carried on.
It's even an avoidable mistake! I know my debit card number BY HEART. The thing is though, who thought it was a good idea to Autocomplete debit card details? That's just asking for trouble.
I typed in my actual card details and completed the transaction. I don't want to look at the state of my bank account just yet. I'm going to be keeping my accounts, though, because I have a pretty tight budget for the next year. Well, it looks alright, but I'm sure it'll be tight. I'm looking forward to it, though, trying to be responsible.
Speaking of responsible, I have a driving lesson today. I don't want to go.
I just have the one review for you today, and it's a book: Arthur Conan Doyle's 'A Study In Scarlet'. Well, I thought it was brilliant, and unexpectedly funny in places. Well, I think it was funny. It made me laugh anyway. Sherlock Holmes is undoubtedly one of the most interesting characters ever written, and Watson is so frequently poorly represented in films and television serials. Adaptations often have him appearing as a kind of butler, which he really wasn't.
The deductive process is remarkable. The second part of the book takes you through what Holmes had worked out in the first. A lot of people criticise the book for the fact that Holmes is absent for about half the book, but it doesn't matter in my eyes. You just get a chance to figure out what Holmes already has from much better evidence.
And it's amazing, because it's still believable, it's still achievable. It has dated a little, though, and Holmes is altogether too bright for me. I don't expect people warmed to dark characters like they do now. Four stars.
I'm not even anywhere near done on the ranting front, let me warn you.
Right now, I am sitting all sleepy-eyed in my pyjamas when I should actually have been asleep, having done what I needed to do an hour and a half ago. But I'm not. In fact, I just had more hassle than I needed.
This was my plan: today, I would wake up at 0650 in order to buy tickets to Chelsea-Blackpool the second they came out, thus ensuring two seats in Matthew Harding Upper, the best stand by far. It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately not one that came into fruition as my mobile ran out of battery and my alarm failed to go off.
It would have been a brilliant alarm as well. Linkin Park's 'Given Up' (which is a song that will give a half-awake person a coronary if they don't turn it off in time) with the text "GET UP. NOW."
As it was, I had a dream about holding a housewarming party with somebody who I'd never met, but I was going to be living with. We had races to open the door to the guests, and it was a bit petty, but then he bought me a scotch egg from the inexplicably noisy canteen next door and I woke up happy.
I wasn't happy about two seconds later when I realised I'd woken up naturally rather than being dragged back into the land of the living. As quick as I could, I typed my ticket request.
At that moment, I felt I was probably entitled to shout "bugger", because the tickets had gone. So had the tickets in Shed Upper and Matthew Harding Lower (East). My dream of watching a decent match in a decent stand was fading.
By the way, if you don't understand football, like a lot of people, you'll have to understand that every match is a pretty big deal. Matches are like plays, there's drama and excitement, and the best soundtrack you could have hoped for. It releases a beautiful chemical enjoyment, and I never got that from basketball or ice hockey, nor cricket.
I did however, find tickets in Matthew Harding Lower (West). This was accompanied by a countdown clock to tell me how long it was before these tickets were given to someone else. 5 minutes and counting. Well, of course, I nearly died, because though it's a reasonable length of time, there's nothing like a ticking red clock to make you nervous. Thankfully I had my debit card in hand, typed in my details and hit Enter.
No. I'd forgotten to tick the box for Terms & Conditions (which, incidentally, I didn't read, no, because I only had 4 minutes 48, 47, 46...) so I had to go back and do that.
No. I hadn't put in an expiry date the second time around. So I did that, made sure none of the other boxes had randomly emptied themselves (which, curiously, they hadn't).
No. Card not accepted. Well, that was it. I tried again, but the same result.
I knocked on my parents' bedroom door and asked for a credit card. My mother told me somewhere the card wasn't, so I ran around the house looking for where it was.
Anyway, I got the card, and started typing in the number. To my surprise, the number on my dad's card was exactly the same as the card number I had already typed into the box. How could this be?
I'll tell you how. In my half-awake stupor, I had seen that, when I started typing my card number into the box, it Autocompleted for me. I thought: how kind. Rather than check that the number was mine, which it wasn't, I simply carried on.
It's even an avoidable mistake! I know my debit card number BY HEART. The thing is though, who thought it was a good idea to Autocomplete debit card details? That's just asking for trouble.
I typed in my actual card details and completed the transaction. I don't want to look at the state of my bank account just yet. I'm going to be keeping my accounts, though, because I have a pretty tight budget for the next year. Well, it looks alright, but I'm sure it'll be tight. I'm looking forward to it, though, trying to be responsible.
Speaking of responsible, I have a driving lesson today. I don't want to go.
I just have the one review for you today, and it's a book: Arthur Conan Doyle's 'A Study In Scarlet'. Well, I thought it was brilliant, and unexpectedly funny in places. Well, I think it was funny. It made me laugh anyway. Sherlock Holmes is undoubtedly one of the most interesting characters ever written, and Watson is so frequently poorly represented in films and television serials. Adaptations often have him appearing as a kind of butler, which he really wasn't.
The deductive process is remarkable. The second part of the book takes you through what Holmes had worked out in the first. A lot of people criticise the book for the fact that Holmes is absent for about half the book, but it doesn't matter in my eyes. You just get a chance to figure out what Holmes already has from much better evidence.
And it's amazing, because it's still believable, it's still achievable. It has dated a little, though, and Holmes is altogether too bright for me. I don't expect people warmed to dark characters like they do now. Four stars.
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