An Overdose of Real Life

If I seem to have been absent the last few days, you would be correct. I have barely spent any time in front of my comp lately, and any time I have spent seems to be hurried glances at this and that. I suppose it might actually BE a good thing my life is so darn busy. But that part of me that likes quiet is kinda relieved to have some time to breathe now.

I just saw off my friend and ex-roomate Jillian C from Nottingham, who came down on a 5 day visit. We went on a exhaustive tour of London, doing what we Londoners call "touristy stuff".


Tower of London. We didn't run into Liz and Ed through ;)


The hard part about taking this picture was that we were the ones taking it and we were in it too.


Breads and produce. The best part of this trip was that I found this little forge hidden away in an alley that sold real swords and armour. As in, old officer's cutlasses, epees and even a rapier that I coveted on sight. For £50, it does bear thinking about...


The ultimate 'touristy' thing to do: take a picture with a pair of constables. In my defence, I needed the uniforms as reference for Black Earth. The things I do for this comic.

We also went for a musical: Chicago, to be specific. Really really fun musical, although I still like Les Miserables better. But I loved how the orchestra is part of the act in this one, while in LeMis they were all hidden underneath the stage. Very fun, lots of cabaret-style dancing and very enthusiastic performances by the band. Another plus was that we managed to get £22 seats for £15. :) Can never complain about that one.

Also went to watch the third Harry Potter film. The script was still (regretfully) done by the same guy who did the last two, so you should know what kind of script to expect, but the new director... well, I was surprised at Alfonso Cuarón's directing skills, mainly because I never did watch A Little Princess and knew nothing about him beforehand.

But the directing... It was breathtakingly artistic. Beautiful would be one word to describe it. As it was, I spent the movie alternately cringing at the awful dialogue and marvelling at the wonderful directing. Oh, and the acting improved loads too.

The Prisoner of Azkaban was always my favourite book in the Harry Potter series, I'm glad the 3rd movie was a vast improvement over the rather poor first two, but I still wish they'd change that scriptwriter.

Oh well, at least it wasn't another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Not THAT'S a movie whose scriptwriter deserved to be shot. Repeatedly.

Busy working on the comic, you guys should be all right, I think. I have a buffer of 3 weeks so far. I'm currently taking part in the Historical Romance Crossover event. My partner is Aiere from Queen of Wands. Can you say wow?! I also have another little project that I'm going to hint at and not say much of until it's out, just because I'm evil and want to be maddeningly mysterious.

Other than that, I've been busy with helping my sister and preparing for hers and my own move out of this house. Speaking of which is a sore point with me... I'm rather mad at my housemates at the present. Mainly because I suspect I'm going to lose my deposit because of the state of their bathroom.

My landlord is a very very nice man, but I can tell that even he was a bit upset over the state it's in. And to be honest I can't blame him. All it needs is a zombie in the bathroom and it'd look like a scene straight out of Resident Evil. Yep. That how bad it is.

Here's a look for yourself. Now I hear that the bathroom from hell has scared away most of the prospective tenants for this house. Can't blame them either. It'd scare me away if I were them.

The worst part is that I already foresaw all this happening and was quite powerless to prevent it. The moment we finished our exams I had already repeatedly asked nicely, pleaded, begged and warned those two to clean that icking bathroom. To no avail. It's always excuses, excuses, more excuses that I get tired of hearing...

"But she's going to only mess it up again." or "she wants to clean it just before we move out (because the other she knows she's going to mess it up again)" and so on and so forth. In the end I'm just sick of being the one who has to be responsible while certain other people run around and have fun. I'm just sick of being the one who cleans up after everyone else.

In the end my efforts only resulted in them deciding to effing clean the F*cking bathroom 3 days before we leave... can you say too little too late? When my landlord came over today and told me about the trouble that bathroom caused, I have never been so ashamed as I did then when I stood in that mildew-covered bathroom and all the time he was still so polite and kind and considerate to people (who IMHO) didn't deserve it.

So why am I ranting this here? I don't know. I'm just frustrated, I guess. I knew this would happen, I told them it would happen but still nothing changes. It's like being Cassandra making prophecies that no one believes until it is too late.

Ah well, I guess I'm just going to have to be resigned with the fact I'm not getting my deposit back short of a miracle. But I do know the names of two people who are so going to get a ticking-off when I see them.

There's a time to be calm, a time to be nice, a time to be kind... and a time to a absolute bitch.