For the first night in weeks and weeks, my computer wasn’t downloading anything last night, so I thought I’d give it’s little processors a break, and shut it down. I keep forgetting how LOUD my computer is until I actually shut it off for a spell. As it turns out, even in an unconsious state, I still noticed how quiet it was – I dreamt that I was staying in a little country B&B, and actually thought to myself as I was going to bed at the B&B “oh, it’s so QUIET here in the country!”

So much for white noise!

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Could they GET anymore schmultzy?!

Having said that, this latest effort starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore is actually rather sweet. It tells the story of 80s pop star Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant), who was part of the hit group “POP!”.

Fast forward 23 years, and he’s a washed out has-been, eking out an existence performing on the fairground and amusement park circuit (“Knott’s Berry Farm cancelled? When were you going to tell me this?”), living off the 80s nostalgia. Suddenly a Shakira-stlye pop superstar, Cora (played by Haley Bennett) offers him a chance to record a duet with her, so long as he provides the song, written specially for the occasion, in just 3 days. Problem here is that though Alex is a talented musician, writes great melodies and plays any instrument he needs to, his lyric writing skills are actually a bit pants.

Then in walks Sophie (Barrymore) to fill in for the lady who normally waters his plants in his tiny Manhattan apartment. Turns out that she’s got a bit of an untapped talent for lyrics, and thus is born the next AshmanMenken/Gilbert-Sullivan/Rice-Lloyd-Webber team.

All the singing is done by the cast members (ie Grant, Barrymore and Bennett), and the song written for the duet is actually a bit addictive.

Grant’s 80s style gyrations are absolute gold, and though he’s getting old, he’s aging well, I have to say. He’s no longer the annoyingly foppish floppy leading man-type – now he’s the slightly older, but still quite adorable leading many-type.

The script was (for me, at least) laugh-a-minute – though the only boy who accompanied us to the theatre apparently didn’t laugh once. I think this movie can possibly be used to define the ChickFlick genre. The only thing that annoyed me about the whole thing was Grant’s dialogue, which at times completely mimicked the same old “charmingly-sarcastic” thing that he’s done in practically EVERY other movie – except perhaps American Dreamz, a very underappreciated look at the American Idol type show, where Grant plays a jaded, Simon Cowell type with scathing aplomb… I loved that movie! I wish someone would write more varied dialogue for him, for once.

But it had all the right ingredients – talent to be nurtured, music, only real adversity being the attempt to find inspiration (there was one pseudo-villain who was more there as an idea than a villain), celebrities, a rather touching and inspired public declaration of love a-la-Notting-Hill, and it was a joy to hear Grant singing with Barrymore. And no, just this once I don’t care about the autotuning!

On the Romantic-Comedy-a-scale, I’d give it a solid 4 stars – a feel-good ChickFlick which will make the romantics out there leave with a smile on their faces, and a song on their lips.

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What a hassle, getting this little piece of machinery!

So last Friday, I was scoping the internet for my boss, trying to find a store with Wiis in stock so that she could get one and I wouldn’t have to give up mine. Lo and Behold, I found a small allocation at Amazon, with guaranteed delivery next day by 1pm! We did the dance of joy at our desks, she ploughed in and ordered one (actually, she was doing very important work, so I laughed and told her to give me her card, and I ordered it for her).

I thought to myself, with that deal, I’d have to get myself one too from Amazon, and cancel my order with Gamestation, who had vaguely muttered something about delivery “some time next week”.

Humph. “None of that, thankyou, when Amazon can get it to my by tomorrow,” I thought with a raised eyebrow.

Out comes the bank card, and soon enough, I’m on the list to receive a Wii from Amazon the very next day. I send a curt email to GameStation, telling them to give the Wii to someone else, cause they were taking too long.

Saturday morning. Dawns bright and sunny, what a marvellous day. Even marvellouser cause my Wii is arriving! I’m scared to leave the flat for fear I miss the delivery. My boss texts me to say that La Wii est Arrivee Chez Elle! I imagine all the fun they’re having over on the other side of town, but wait patiently, secure in the fact that delivery is guaranteed by 1pm.

10.30am: DING DONG! I rush to the door, and am greeted by a Royal Mail Post-lady, toting my extra Wiimote, and my game of Zelda. No Wii. This is no great surprise to me, cause I knew that the Wii was coming via Parcelforce, a courier company.

12.30pm. Still no Wii. I do some freelance database work, ears out on stalks for the doorbell.

1pm. Deadline. No Wii to be siin. “perhaps they’re just running a little late,” I think.

3.30pm. Waaay past due. No sign of Wii. Finally I go to the tracker page on Amazon, and what I see there, I can’t believe my eyes.

The final line of the parcel tracker reads:

Feb 03, 2007 09:20:00 AM BEDFORD BEDS GB Delivery attempted – recipient not home

*double take*

I’m SORRY?! Recipient not HOME!!?!??!?!??!!

At that point I’m glad my flatmate wasn’t home, cause my snarls would have been enough to scare her off. There wasn’t even a card under the door, or the door downstairs.

I called the depot, only to speak to a lonely security guard – everyone else had knocked off for the weekend.

*snarl*

So. Fast forward to this morning. I called the depot at 7.15am or so, and after trying fruitlessly to convince them to deliver the package to my work, resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to take a day of annual leave to sit at home and wait for the Wii.

I gave the lady at the other end PRECISE instructions to give to the driver, and then sat in wait. And it was lucky that I was keeping a keen ear out, cause around 3pm I heard slamming downstairs, and I ran to the window and saw the delivery van. I thought I’d run down, to make SURE this time that it was delivered, but as I was ploughing out though the stairwell door, what do I see but the DELIVERY VAN, PULLING AWAY!!

I LITERALLY run down the street after it, yelling “OOOIIII!!”, and whistling with my ear piercing finger-thumb whistle. The van jerks to a halt, and like a whipped dog, backs up into the parking space it had just vacated.

I scowl at the drongo in the drivers seat, who slinks round to the back and hands me my package. No apology. Not a single word, to be honest. He just sucks on his sweetie, and hands me the clipboard to sign my name.

Ooooooohhhh, but I was livid! LIVID I tell you.

But my anger was short lived, as I took my new baby out of its cradle. I coo-ed softly as I removed its plastic swaddling, plugged in its peripherals, and prepared it for game-play.

I had fully intended to make a video out of it, I was all psyched for it on Saturday, but I dunno, being cheated out of a delivery not once, but almost TWICE, kinda took the wind out of my sails.

But oh, what an afternoon we’ve had, me and my Wii. We played golf together. We went bowling, played baseball, went for more than a few rounds in the boxing ring. We slayed monsters as Link on Zelda, learnt how to fish, and loped around as a wolf for a time.

And I can attest to the fact that the Wii is indeed an effective exercise tool. The boxing? Wow! My arms and shoulders are killing me as only they can after a ession of BodyCombat. I’m seriously considering giving up my gym membership in favour of the Wii.

What do y’all think?

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Inspired by my new friend Jess-The-Yarnmonster (not Ubiquitous Jess, my best friend since early highschool – Jess-The-Yarnmonster was introduced virtually by my brother), I decided to go and learn how to knit these gorgeous multi-coloured pieces of knitted art that she has been showing off on her blog. Go check it out, there are some mind boggling bits of knitting there! I went to a few websites and couldn’t make heads not tails of the patterns. So I decided to fall back on the video reference library – YouTube. I didn’t immediatly find anything about colorwork knitting, because I got distracted (as one usually does on YouTube) by a how-to vid about continental vs English knitting techniques:

I was blown away. I had no idea that there were different methods of knitting within Europe. I knew that there was a mysterious, much faster way of doing it, originating perhaps from Turkey (correct me if I’m wrong, Jess!), which involves just one needle, (or something, I’m not entirely sure) (have I been using too many parentheses recently?) but I had no idea that there was a double needle version which could make life SO much easier!

So I’ve been sitting here watching Smallville, occasionally pausing it and flipping back to the YouTube vid for reference, muddling my way slowly but surely through learning to knit Continental style.

My tension is all over the place, but I intend to get this scarf finished for my housemate within a couple of weeks. Christmas is coming late this year. Or early. Or something.

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