girlofprey

Christmas whale.

It doesn't feel very Christmas-y though. I don't know if it's the mild weather or the fact I'm working, so that takes up most of my time, but it's true. Or maybe it's that people are still reeling in shock from all the politics stuff, so no-one's really in the spirit. Watching Sky News all day really doesn't make me feel too Christmas-y. But anyway, it's true. I can sing Christmas carols to my heart's abandon, even though I don't feel like it, and yesterday I tried to think of even one and could only come up with 'Greensleeves'. Anyway. I'm going to have to do some Christmas shopping soon too, although I don't know when. I have an idea for something to get my mother, and I have the money for it this year too - but it does mean I'll probably need to get my dad something of a similar value, and I don't know what that is. Plus the kids. It's my YN's birthday in less than two weeks. Although I do have a present from last year that I never used hidden away in a drawer. Maybe that will have to do.

After all my worrying about how much time I have these days (despite my claims to the contrary), they're asking me to work extra hours next week, because the morning receptionist is on holiday. I awkwardly explained to my boss that I have OCD and find changes to my routine hard, so I couldn't say I was raring to do it, but I would. He was very nice about it, and said maybe I wouldn't find it as bad as I thought it would be, so we could take about covering in future after that. The thing is it's not the work, it's the amount of time outside of work I'm going to have. They want me to go in for 11 - and really, I think he was hoping for 10 - which means I won't have to get up any earlier, but I won't have time to have a shower on a morning like I usually do, and I won't be able to stay up a little late, because if I sleep in it will really fuck me. So I'll have less time of an evening. But maybe it's only my expectation of what I'm going to get done in a day that really upsets me, and if I let go of that it will be okay, or better at least. And it is only for a week. But the morning receptionist is pregnant, and so she's going to be off for months shortly, and I really don't think I can do that, no matter how well next week goes. I came to this job very much as a part-time job. But like I say, they've been very nice and flexible so far, so we'll see.

Things I have been doing: playing Final Fantasy XV. It's a game that's taken 10 years to come out, so it felt very special to pick it up on day one. And the game had a little leaflet in the front, which was a print-out of a thank you note signed by everyone on the team that made it. Which was lovely. I wanted to get my own opinion of it, rather than just having to listen to all the reviews and whether it was a 'real' Final Fantasy game or not. And I really like it. It's very atmospheric, and everything sort of feels like it goes together, which is hard thing to explain but really makes a game feel special for me. When the story and the characters and the mechanics all seem to work together, and nothing's jarring or feels too 'video-gamey', like it's just a set of mechanics. I really like the combat too, which is cool, because a few of the demos felt very janky. I haven't really touched the story yet, but I'm really enjoying it so far. And really, having everything work together is a real achievement for a game that was in development for so long. Well done to them.

Also, I have been reading the original Superman comic strips. They are amazing. Superman does not give a fuck. The first strip involves him going to see a governor in the middle of the night, who has a SOLID STEEL bedroom door. And the butler's like "haha, just try to get through that", and Superman's like "haha, I will" and rips it apart. Then the butler tries to SHOOT SUPERMAN. Like a fool. But Superman just laughs it off. And then saves a woman who was about to be wrongly executed for something she didn't do. It's great. Of interest to me: Jonathan and Martha Kent were not in the story from the beginning. Superman was raised in an orphanage, where they were like "golly!" about his super-strength, but decided not to say anything about it. But Lois Lane was there from strip one. And she is amazing. An example of their dialogue:

Clark: "Why is it you always avoid me at the office?"
Lois: "Please Clark! I've been scribbling 'sob stories' all day long. Don't ask me to dish out another."

Interestingly, I guess because of the time, Clark Kent is the star reporter at the Daily Star, and Lois is a 'sob sister', which basically means an agony aunt/writer of the sentimental pieces. She's pretty mad about it though. Perry White won't put her on a story about a dam bursting, so she tricks Clark and goes anyway. But then she nearly drowns in the flood and Superman has to save her, so it's not like it's super feminist. But still, she's great. And Clark is all about her. Which is quite lovely.

I get paid today, so I can continue to buy computer parts and actually try and get the thing built. Woo hoo. Also the tax credits place have written back to me, and now they want to pay me £380 a month instead of £390. Which is fine. Still seems bizarre to me, and I suspect it won't last past April, when the new tax year starts, and all my 'freshly working, was recently on ESA' stuff won't really apply. But I've queried it, and they've said it's all fine, so it's very welcome. Given that I'll probably be fine on my wage, I can just put it into my savings account. And then, if they decide they DID make a mistake, it will all just be there anyway to give back to them, and I will be mad, but it will be doable.

Meanwhile the company my company's working for is losing money every year, apparently, so I don't know how safe my job is, and my sister's partner's firm went bust, and I thought he'd been taken on by the firm that took over from them, but apparently everyone except him and his friend got picked back up, so he isn't working. And Christmas is coming, and my sister just got a £150 fine for not showing up to an anger management course they said she had to go on after assaulting a woman last year. So it's all a bit up in the air. But we're out of the depths or recession, say the Conservatives! So hooray. My sister and her family are moving into the new house this weekend apparently. They can't afford to pay my parent's rent yet, obviously, but they will at least be in there. So that's something, I guess.

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.