Finally, after what seems like a week full of exhaustion, bad dreams, and friend-related turmoil, I had a good day today. In fact, it was an absolutely fantastic day which I feel proud to have lived. It is made even better by the fact that I only have to work two days this week, and that as soon as Friday rolls around I will be headed out into the Smoky Mountains to go CAMPING! =D Yes, I'm going to disappear into the foliage with my tent, notebook, and trusted family members for the entirety of Memorial Day weekend. I'm very excited. We visited the campsite a couple weeks ago and it's so gorgeous. And so quiet. I'm going to love it, I just know it. Plus I get to wear my new huge shiny knife that I bought at Smoky Mountain Knife Works. =D I have dubbed him Mr. Pointy and he will be going with me everywhere to protect me against BEARS. (Since I am in Tennessee this word is, of course, pronounced "bars" for full comedic effect.) And VOLS. (*sigh* that comment will probably get me hate mail...) Naturally of course I will blog about everything when I get back. ^_^

In the meantime, I think I'm going to take my friend's advice and spend tomorrow curled up in bed watching movies. ♥ Or reading a book, whichever.

Also, I am finally caught up on the new season of Doctor Who, (I'm watching it on Sci-Fi, just so everyone knows, so technically I'm still behind compared to all of you lucky dogs living in the UK. if you use that fact to gloat, I will tell you to shut up.) and SQUEE. I mean, seriously. U.N.I.T. SONTARANS. (oh, I had such a fangirl moment with all the old skool camera angles and the helmets and everything. hell, I'm giggling again just thinking about it.) Donna not being a whiny bitch. David Tennant's crazy hair. SQUEE. And, of course, that special moment in the first episode which I won't mention since 'tis spoilery in the extreme. I'm also really enjoying the fact that the Doctor's companion this season isn't totally in luuuurve with him. It's a lot more casual, and more like the old days. The humor is good too. Oh yes, I am a very happy Who girl tonight. Again, SQUEE!!!!! Haha!!

Since Sci-Fi FINALLY got off their asses last week and showed The Family of Blood, I can share some thoughts on it now that the weekend's over and I'm done being distracted by Neverwinter Nights.

( Cut for spoilers, if there's anyone out there left to spoil anymore... )

I'll shut up now. =D

Sci-Fi channel has, for some reason I am totally unaware of, decided they will not be showing Doctor Who tonight. Instead, we will be getting hours and hours of old Stargate SG-1 episodes and, of course, our weekly dose of Painkiller Jane. (Which was bad enough before they put Kristanna Loken in it. Now it's 100% unwatchable.)

Normally, this would piss me off. The fact that they're doing this RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A TWO PARTER THAT HAD A CLIFFHANGER ENDING makes me want to scream, shout, and throw things. Preferably at the HAMSTER BRAINED IDIOTS who thought that would be a good idea.

Now, see, if they'd done this because there was a brand new show on, or somebody hugely important died, or something special like that, I would downgrade from pissed to simply irritated. But there is no reason for this. Oh no. They are showing Stargate repeats. Nothing is being missed. And you know, with behavior like this, it's no wonder people resort to pirated episodes. The stuff takes almost a year to find it's way to our shores from the UK, then it gets edited and chopped up just so they can shove more obnoxious commercials into it, and then they have the gall to charge us $60 for a thirteen episode DVD box set. I'm sorry, but even as much as I love Doctor Who, (and you KNOW I love it) a DVD set with only 13 episodes on it is NOT worth that much money. The Firefly box set was only $30 for approximately the same amount of stuff, and as a poor American I can tell you that $60 buys a lot of clothes and essentials that I'm not willing to sacrifice just so I can see my Doctor Who without commercials. $30, on the other hand... I know Doctor Who has higher production values these days, but I'm sure the BBC is making plenty of money off all their DW merchandise. They can afford to take the hit, especially when doing so would encourage us loyal viewers to go out and buy more Doctor Who. $30 I can mange. $60 is far too much.

And as if all that wasn't bad enough, there's no Psych on tonight, either.

It's days like this that make me loathe American television.

To show that YES, I do have follow through, and because I love you so dearly, my F-list, here are some recent pictures of herb/vegetable/fruit garden. :) Also, I just finished watching the Doctor Who episode 42 and have attached some thoughts. (Being made to wait to see these because I'm American is torture, as is all the squiffy editing Sci-Fi does to get in more commercial time)

( The garden of everything... )

That's all, folks.

I turned 19 years last Thursday on August 2nd, and now I'm finally officially back from my celebrations! Actually I was back yesterday, but I was so busy playing Baldur's Gate, writing, and recording Episode 2 of the Dead Robots' Society podcast that I didn't have time to make a post here about it. :)

Thursday was the big day, of course, and mom took the day off work so we'd have the whole day together. :) As a family we all went out for breakfast at the Waffle House, something I haven't done since I was very, very young. They had a couple of new people on the line so it was pretty chaotic and it was probably a good twenty minutes before we got our food, but it was still kind of fun. Unfortunately when we got home we found out that our dog, Bruno, had chosen this day to get in touch with his inner escape artist, so some of the morning's festivities were colored by having a hot, tired, filthy dog burrowing under our fence whenever we all left the house. But we managed.

After a short rest at the house, we struck out again and went to Triad Comics, which is quite possibly my favorite place in the entire universe. =D By extraordinary luck, they were having a wonderful half-off sale on all their $1.00 comics, so mom, dad, and I all camped out for quite awhile at their gigantic clearance table, sorting through stack after stack of comic books. Dad went on a Superman binge, mostly in the .25 boxes underneath the table where he likes to "hunt", and mom found herself a LOT of wonderful Batman comics up above on the 1.00 side of things. She even managed to halfway complete a series she'd started the last time we were there. As for me, I got many excellent things, ranging from Sailormoon to Fathom to Supergirl to Ghost in the Shell to X-men to the beginning of Witchblade: Shades of Gray, and the pride and joy of my comic collection thus far: First Born #1. (For the uninitiated, go here) Calling the art of this series "gorgeous" doesn't even begin to cover it, and I am thrilled to have a true first edition in my possession. =D

After comics we went to McKay (Knoxville's only dimensionally transcendental book store!) real quick so I could pick up a few more Agatha Christie novels, mostly because they're showing Miss Marple on PBS again and I'm thrilled about it. Unfortunately I couldn't find "Bertram's Hotel" like I wanted, which sucks, because even though I know how it ends now (after nearly two years of wondering thanks to an incomplete audiobook! *shakes fist*) I know they sometimes fudge the plots a bit (*coughSLEEPINGMURDERcough*) for the TV series and I'd like the original version. But OMG, Peter Davison sighting for the WIN!!! =D He was the crooked lawyer if any other classic Who fans were watching. He's always so hard to recognize, but there's no disguising that voice. Ha! Spending countless hours into those Big Finish audios does some good after all. He looks good for his age. And Tom Baker was on last week for "Towards Zero". That was awesome. Thought dad was going to faint. Of course they killed Baker's character like ten minutes in, but it was still nice. Now I want them to bring on Sylvester McCoy. Please excuse me while I attempt to build a mind control device to this end. =D

And, of course, there was Thai food. Yummy Thai food. And a new Fresh Market in Farragut that is HUGE, closer to the house than the one on nasty cluttered Kingston Pike, and they have CASABA MELONS. I have been looking for those since we left Columbia, Missouri. That's like six years of searching, people. Six years. Finally found them. HUZZAH! =D And they have many other wonderful things as well, such as sun dried tomato stuffed olives and Bistro Chips. Yummiest chips. EVER. And if you get bored looking for food you can snicker at all the old, fat, rich snooty people walking around, 'cause that's primarily what Farragut is made up of. Haha. I may be poor, but at least I walk straight and have a good rack sense of self, y'know? =D

Oh, and did I mention that I only spent about $28.00 on all the comics and books? Yeah. XD Triad rocks. The Daily Show rocks too, 'cause Jon had Matt Damon on as a guest for my "birthday show". Woohoo! No stuffy authors or politicians for me! Nope, I get Matt Damon. =D Hurray.

Friday, mom and I went clothes shopping. She gave me $100 as a birthday present and I decided to spend it on an entirely new wardrobe, which is something I've needed badly for about three years. We went to Wal-Mart, which was having a massive back to school sale, not to mention it was a tax free weekend, so no sales tax on anything. =D Did my birthday have good timing this year or what?! Anyway. I bought LOADS of stuff. Snarky shirts, three pairs of jeans that fit me wonderfully and to top it off, a black bra that does NOT make me want to set it on fire. (In fact it's quite possibly the most comfortable bra I've ever encountered) Right now I'm wearing my favorite outfit that I assembled: Black jeans that fit me like they were tailor made for my body and this shirt, which I bought with dad in mind. XD

Saturday I furthered my make over by getting my hair cut for the first time in months. Decided to keep it long-ish, but get lots of lovely layers. It looks wonderful, and Cindy had bunches of helpful styling tips. I've decided to start styling my hair more instead of just letting it air dry and hoping for the best. I might *gasp* actually spend time in the bathroom messing with my hair! What a shock! Maybe I'm a girl after all...mom got her hair done in the same style as mine, only longer, and I must say it looks lovely on her. Most of that nasty blonde stuff she had left over from her color days is gone now and she looks very nice. Layers are my new favorite thing ever. They just give your hair so much "oomph" without too much work or maintenance. It rocks. Next time mom gets a little extra money she and I are going shopping again for some different hair brushes and maybe even a curling iron. =D And maybe even PRODUCT. Liek OMG. Girl mode activate.

Sunday was spent watching movies and playing hours and hours of Baldur's Gate 2. =D Oh, and yelling at PBS for showing A Scandal in Bohemia instead of Miss Marple: Ordeal by Innocence. Not that seeing Jeremy Brett (♥!) back on PBS for the first time in years isn't wonderful and all, but we were all expecting Miss Marple and we were all pretty disappointed. Maybe next week. :)

Monday, as you know from the beginning of this monster entry, was spent doing some more normal things...but I have to say, after the past five days I feel like a totally new person. Amazing how much your outlook on the world improves when you've finally got some nice clothes that fit, a new hairstyle and some shiny comics sitting on your bedside table. (Did I mention that between the two of them, my parents bought a stack of comics they could barely carry for only $33? Yeah. Triad ROCKS.) So far, being 19 is pretty sweet. Now all I need is for a handsome alien to come pick me up because I've finally reached the average age most young girls are abducted by handsome aliens in time traveling phone booths. =D

Happy birthday to me!

Just saw this, courtesy of who_daily.

Please excuse me while I go throttle something. Preferably one of the IDIOTS who decided to make Doctor Who a CARD BATTLE GAME.

Words to not express my irritation and borderline rage at this concept. In the back of my head there was always a little voice talking about making some kind of Doctor Who video game, but I never thought anyone would actually be DUMB enough to do it! I guess the money's too good not to, though. Gah. I love the new series, really I do, and I don't mind in the least that it's mainstream now, but please, have a little respect people. This is Doctor Who we're talking about. This is not Yu Gi Oh, or Pokemon, or some other lame Anime that lends itself well to being made into a card game for hyperactive preteens to obsess over. THIS IS DOCTOR WHO. If you have to commit the atrocity of making game for it in the first place then just...just...show some creativity, for goodness sake! Gah!

On the bright side, I didn't realize GameSpot had a UK branch. That's pretty cool. I'll have to keep my eye on it.

Idiots! *dark muttering*

I want this so bad, I could explode.

This is also kickass.

Sorry for being absent for so long. I realized a few days ago that I've spent almost a year editing String Shift and I'm still not finished, and I'm pretty depressed about that. To cope, I've been drowning my sorrows in Baldur's Gate, for about four days straight if my Inbox is to be believed. Sigh. And tomorrow, I am 19.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget about this. =D

Doctor Who started tonight on Sci-Fi.

It's official. I'm not going to get ANY sleep tonight. *jitters excitedly*

...is that you can listen to any kind of music while you do it.

No, seriously, you can. Try it. Loudly blaring J-pop? No problem. Beethoven? Easy. ELO? Bring it on! Soft, muted jazz? Go for it. Enya's incomprehensible warblings? Cool beans. Weird electronica that may or may not have bits of it that sound like a horse neighing? Do your worst!

Now, see, fantasy is not such a forgiving genre. Oh no. If you're really focused or have a really great cup of tea, you might be able to fudge a little bit with the J-pop, unless you're the kind of person that hears J-pop and immediately exits the room, (I, on the other hand, am drawn to it like a moth to a flame, don't ask me why I don't know) but beyond that your choices are limited. You're basically stuck with instrumental stuff all the way, otherwise your concentration is blown. Electronica is especially bad, because it'll blow you out of the water faster than dynamite strapped to a trebuchet.

Yet one more reason why Amanda loves sci-fi! Don't worry, she loves fantasy too. But not as much. Because she has not had such oneness with her music library in a very, very long time.

Something else I learned to day? Romance novels make me sad. They make me sad because they are full of silly things like characters looking in mirrors so the author can describe them, as well as phrases like "raven haired beauty" and "glistening orbs of green/blue/gray/whatever color the char's eyes are". I suddenly realized this afternoon that this is where bad writing comes from. Somehow, in someway, even if you have NEVER READ A ROMANCE NOVEL IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE, these silly things that romance authors do seep into your consciousness and take over your writing. If I had a dime for every time one of my pack mates in the WRPC had used a foolish description like "emerald orblets" or had stuck their face in front of a shiny lake to describe their wolf's features, I'd be able to fire Bill Gates. I want a romance novel that is not silly in this way. Romance is such a wonderful, intricate, complicated thing that I think fluffing it up with orbs and raven hair and really wordy sentences that don't go anywhere does it a grievous disservice.

Obviously I will have to write an amazingly good romance novel in the future to fix this problem. =D

Leah, you often ask why otherwise talented and skilled fanfic writers do stupid things? This is why. It is romance novel syndrome. Somehow they got these rules downloaded into their brains, probably without even realizing it, and now they do silly things like writing "the gray orbed drummer casually observed the glistening flesh of the agile young fan jigging in the mosh pit down below, his mind casting back over the years of his youth when it would have been him jumping up and down in the crowd..." Or something like that. (Also, you have no idea how hard I had to work not to put "nubile flesh" in there somewhere. Obviously I have had too much caffeine today.) I don't know. I don't read fanfiction anymore and am pretty cool with that.

THIS HAS BEEN ANOTHER INSTALLMENT OF "WHAT AMANDA LEARNED TODAY!" THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY! Please tip The Doctor on your way out.

A really great Doctor Who episode just happened and I can't watch it!

*cries*