Well, lots and not much.
Went to the Spring Memorabilia at the NEC a couple of weeks ago. Spring is traditionally 'Memorabilia Lite', both in terms of vendors and guests (the biggest name I recognised was John Saxon - undoubtedly a star, just not recently), but this one was actually reasonably impressive.
My companion and I still scooted round it in under two hours (we spent more time
travelling to and fro than we did at the show), but we certainly didn't skip on the merchandise. Personally, I walked out with Human Alliance Barriade and Mudflap, Scout class Evac, Alternity Cliff(jumper), a couple of new
Genki Gear & Retro GT t-shirts, and a couple of gifts for upcoming birthdays. Weirdly, it felt like a lot more... and by the time I got home, my haul seemed somewhat smaller than I'd imagined.
The route home included a detour to visit a friend of my companion, meeting two of her daughters and a pair of bonkers dogs: one small and hyperactive, the other a large Doberman/Rottweiler crossbreed that -
against all the odds - took an instant like to me. Before we went on for lunch, she seemed to have adopted the role of my protector. I don't normally get on with dogs, and they usually don't like me. This one in particular is known for not making friends easily with strangers... Just goes to show, I really
am a bitch magnet.
Lunch was in a nice little pub restaurant - normally I loathe those, but this place (can't remember the name, but one of the daughters was going to be working there in the evening) was all kinds of wonderful. The menu was a far cry from the sort of 'gastropub' slop typically served in London. Portions were generous, and the food was of a quite incredible quality.
The journey home was punctuated by a quick visit to a local farm shop, at which I picked up a couple of venison steaks for my folks.
Work-wise, not much more is known, other than that this 'proposal' is almost definitely a done deal, however much they want to assure us otherwise for the time being. We have what is essentially a closing date for our Production department and, thankfully, it's a long way off.
Even so, morale at work is at an all-time low, and most of us are having a hard time giving a damn. Broadly speaking, the Salespeople are quite supportive of us... but in that
vague way they have of
any kind of behaviour towards Production. They don't understand what we
do, so they don't really understand what they're going to
lose, or why they're not doing themselves any favours by
continuing to work like morons. Still, there are
clients who will no longer do business with the company if the London Production department is closed.
Out in the
real world, I now have a Nintendo Wii, having been
waxing lyrical about a YouTube Let's Play of
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, it was bought for me as an
exceptionally early birthday present. I immediately bought
Silent Hill and, over the last few weeks, have increased my collection quite considerably - highlights include
Ghostbusters,
Muramasa: The Demon Blade,
Sam & Max Season 1,
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption,
Tatsunoko vs Capcom (come on, a
mental Capcom beat-'em-up?
I had to!),
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,
Bully and
The House of the Dead: Overkill. While certainly not the
most powerful next-gen machine (is it me, or is that an
utterly redundant term these days, when the 'next generation' lasts an average of a year?), it's
easily the most fun... and the motion-sensitive controllers, while taking a lot of getting used to, are fairly intuitive and easy to use. Quite amusing that Sony are now coming out with a motion-sensitive controller.
We have a new Doctor Who... the youngest actor ever to play the role and, on the strength of the first three episodes,
he's already far better than David Tennant. So far, in fact, the only disappointment has been Episode 3 - the Mark Gatiss-penned
Daleks-in-World-War-Two story, and that was only disappointing because it was about an hour
too short. It was a
massive story, with huge potential... 45 minutes was just
not enough to tell the story without far too much compression, to the point where plot points seemed to fall into place far too quickly and easily.
No struggle, no story.
The thing that I see even more clearly in retrospect is that David Tennant was Russell T.'s
wet dream of a Doctor, and that impaired the stories. Far too much time was devoted to pointing out that The Doctor is
wonderful, and everyone
(who was an extension of Russell T. in the story) loves him - and
not just in the platonic sense.
The thing that amuses me is that the Daleks have now had a long-overdue overhaul... and now The Doctor's companion isn't a
munchkin (sorry, Billie!) they're actually
tall and imposing, rather than short and bulky. Not sure I like the colourschemes...
Dayglo Daleks, almost... The Smarties/M&Ms of Intergalactic conquest... but I look forward to seeing what these new, genetically pure Daleks are capable of.
I'm sure there was
lots more I wanted to write about, but I've taken so long over it all, most of it has slipped out of my memory... Oh well, can't have been that important...
