It's four o'clock in the morning, and it's starting to get light.

[venta]

Phew. Busy day.

Today, Samantha and I went shopping. I can safely report that, as mum and I had suspected after a quick trip round the January sales in Darlington, the clothes are all nasty and not worth the money. Neither of us even found anything we wanted to try on :( I found a nice dress and some trousers in Monsoon, but at £100 and £65 respectively, they could keep them. And Jigsaw loses points all round for not even deigning to have a sale. Instead, I spent all my money in the CD fair... first Saturday of the month, and all. Ouch. More than a Full Ber Wick for me, which should keep me entertained for the next little while at work.

We came home, rescued Andy from the carnage he'd reduced the house to in our absence, and watched the bonus extra footage DVD thing that comes with Pirates of the Carribean. Which manages to make the filming look like it was a lot of fun - hitting people with swords and screaming has got to be enjoyable, though I'm unsure whether doing the same, identical, bunch of hitting and screaming would be the same after three days worth of it. Still, if it wasn't fun, they fake it well.

wimble's party tonight, and a bunch of us went bowling. I've not been bowling much since I was a teenager - when I was at least competent. The past couple of times I've been, I have, frankly, bowled like your grandma on a bad day. Managed to acquit myself plausibly this evening in the first game (scoring 104), but then it all went a bit downhill. A fun evening out, though, and nice to get a chance to chat to people between times. And for anyone else who hasn't noticed: Oxford has a bowling alley now. Out by the Kassam stadium. It's nice and new and shiny, but a little inept - an annoucnement did concede that the DJ had managed to set the fire alarm off with the smoke machine.

Then we all cleared off back to Wimble's, where enormous amounts of alcohol had been prepared for us. Good company, and a nice evening - and I've managed to find enough people who think the stuffed camel is a good idea that, damnit, if one can buy a camel in the UK, the thing will happen. Wimble and his WLAN failed to turn up a supplier - as did my mother who, despite being a cookery columnist and a farming editor, could only provide us with an alpaca or llama dealer off-hand at 1:30 in the morning. (I'd apologise for ringing her so late, only I'd rung her earlier, and she called me back when she and my dad got in.... shocking :).

In other news, davefish gave me a Christmas present of a rather wonderful book on heraldry. At a quick flick through, the book contained Big Words I didn't know (anyone else know what armigerous means? We had to unearth Wimble's OED to find out... it means entitled to bear heraldic arms) but otherwise looks great. He also brought me a rare thing - a photo of me that doesn't suck. It's a picture he took a while ago, of me slumped, looking exceedingly bored (I probably wasn't), in an armchair at his house. I'm unsure what to do with an enlarged photo of me, but it's nice to have a copy.

Most importantly, zandev has coined a new phrase: Reg Rock. This was after narenek was
describing Porcupine Tree as "prog rock, but they've progged", to justify why he likes their later albums while others may like their earlier stuff (any opinions, failmaster?) And Zandev suggested that it's about time there was a Regressive Rock movement, and we decided on The Darkness as its pioneers. I'm deeply taken by this idea, and will attempt to promulgate it.

Comments

[neilh.livejournal.com]

Theres a llama farm in Kent, they grow Wallabys too, but I'm fairly sure they don't do camels.

[mr-flay.livejournal.com]

Reg Rock sounds like it should be Status Quo numbers churned out by East End pub bands...

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

As someone who hits people with swords and screams for a hobby, I can confirm that it is indeed fun.

[failmaster.livejournal.com]

(any opinions, failmaster?)

Nope. Just generally, not about this in particular. =)

Actually I haven't heard much of their very recent stuff, but yes, the difference between Lightbulb Sun and The Sky Moves Sideways is as great as that between TSMS and On the Sunday of Life, so there's definite progression going on there.

If you like prog I can highly recommend anything by The Gathering from How to Measure a Planet onwards. Only buy their earlier stuff if you think 'Doom Metal' with female vocals sounds like a really good idea. (which I do. :)

Porcupine Tree

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

They seem to have progressed in a pop-wards direction. I'm not sure this is good, merely surprising, given their roots.

I'm not sure they're entirely out of the progrock waters yet, though.

[chrisvenus]

an annoucnement did concede that the DJ had managed to set the fire alarm off with the smoke machine

Did you notice as we were leaving all the people crowded outside the cinema? I suspect this was due to them having to be evacuated due to the firealarms going off in another part of the building... How pissed off would you be if that was you? Sack the DJ I reckon. :)

[(Anonymous)]

...and sable and azure and gules and bend and achievement (with a whole new meaning), and couchant and passant and proper. Heraldry is far too much fun to be limited to the armigerous.