The weekend
Once again, (for those of you interested) here’s the highlights package of my activities these last few days.
The weekend started around an hour earlier than usual when I headed off to meet Paul at the travel agent. We’d been oohing and aahing about an overseas trip for a while now, and with Paul heading off to Europe for work in mid September it seemed like the logical point to attach a vacation. The plan: a 4 day guided Contiki tour (to Ancient historic sights like the Athens Acropolis, Corinth, Mycenae, Olympia and Delphi), followed by 3-4 days lying on a beach in Mykonos.
It’s something of a compromise: the first part provides me with some much needed “adventure” and lets me put the knowledge I gained from all those University Classics electives to good use ;) And the second part of the trip is for some R&R, especially since I’m sure Paul will be incredibly stressed after 10 days of work-related problem solving.
Now to ask for 5-6 days leave… Tum-ti-tum.
Anyway, back to the weekend, we ended up re-watching The Simpsons Movie on Friday night with a friend who hadn’t seen it. The amusing one-liners stick in your mind a lot better the second time around. My personal favourite… which I think I’ll add to my Facebook quotes:
Lisa Simpson: But I'm so angry.
Marge Simpson: You're a woman. You can hold on to it forever.
On Saturday Paul was off doing tech support. So I went to watch Hairspray with my mother. As usual you can expect my longer review soon, but the summary – if you loved Grease then chances are you’ll love Hairspray. It’s one of those happy, colourful musicals where no one is ever really under threat. And there is a massive novelty value in seeing John Travolta – the cocky heartthrob 25 years back now playing the timid, overweight mother to the film’s heroine. Oh, and Michelle Pfeiffer is great as the film’s villain – a fading beauty and all-round blonde bitch, viciously opposed to racial integration at the TV station she manages.
Oh, and in the evening, I finally forced myself to watch the legendary awful Dungeons & Dragons movie. And man, of man, it was terrible in all departments. Overacting from Jeremy Irons and bad acting from Thora Birch, and others. No character development. And the whole thing seemed to have been made with the production budget of an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. And as for the storyline, any one of the +/- 5 games of D&D I’ve played topped this drivel. I mean, for God’s sake, there’s a mage who runs around the whole film NOT doing magic. And in the end, the heroes kill themselves! Please, oh please, don't let the WarCraft film succumb to the same pitfalls!
As for Sunday, well, it was pretty quiet, with just a family lunch.
On the World of WarCraft front, I rather over-played myself this weekend. Currently, my eyes are very sore, bloodshot and strained. As usual, I played mostly with my main character, a Level 21 Orc hunter. However, I also started 2 secondary characters, an Undead warlock (Euridycce) and a Human mage (Marzipann) – both of whom are sitting in the Level 4-6 region. These are my “group” characters to run around chiefly with other players, and you’ll find them on the Burning Steppes and Sylvanas servers respectively, if you ever want to hook up for some fantasy carnage over weekends.
The weekend started around an hour earlier than usual when I headed off to meet Paul at the travel agent. We’d been oohing and aahing about an overseas trip for a while now, and with Paul heading off to Europe for work in mid September it seemed like the logical point to attach a vacation. The plan: a 4 day guided Contiki tour (to Ancient historic sights like the Athens Acropolis, Corinth, Mycenae, Olympia and Delphi), followed by 3-4 days lying on a beach in Mykonos.
It’s something of a compromise: the first part provides me with some much needed “adventure” and lets me put the knowledge I gained from all those University Classics electives to good use ;) And the second part of the trip is for some R&R, especially since I’m sure Paul will be incredibly stressed after 10 days of work-related problem solving.
Now to ask for 5-6 days leave… Tum-ti-tum.
Anyway, back to the weekend, we ended up re-watching The Simpsons Movie on Friday night with a friend who hadn’t seen it. The amusing one-liners stick in your mind a lot better the second time around. My personal favourite… which I think I’ll add to my Facebook quotes:
Lisa Simpson: But I'm so angry.
Marge Simpson: You're a woman. You can hold on to it forever.
On Saturday Paul was off doing tech support. So I went to watch Hairspray with my mother. As usual you can expect my longer review soon, but the summary – if you loved Grease then chances are you’ll love Hairspray. It’s one of those happy, colourful musicals where no one is ever really under threat. And there is a massive novelty value in seeing John Travolta – the cocky heartthrob 25 years back now playing the timid, overweight mother to the film’s heroine. Oh, and Michelle Pfeiffer is great as the film’s villain – a fading beauty and all-round blonde bitch, viciously opposed to racial integration at the TV station she manages.
Oh, and in the evening, I finally forced myself to watch the legendary awful Dungeons & Dragons movie. And man, of man, it was terrible in all departments. Overacting from Jeremy Irons and bad acting from Thora Birch, and others. No character development. And the whole thing seemed to have been made with the production budget of an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. And as for the storyline, any one of the +/- 5 games of D&D I’ve played topped this drivel. I mean, for God’s sake, there’s a mage who runs around the whole film NOT doing magic. And in the end, the heroes kill themselves! Please, oh please, don't let the WarCraft film succumb to the same pitfalls!
As for Sunday, well, it was pretty quiet, with just a family lunch.
On the World of WarCraft front, I rather over-played myself this weekend. Currently, my eyes are very sore, bloodshot and strained. As usual, I played mostly with my main character, a Level 21 Orc hunter. However, I also started 2 secondary characters, an Undead warlock (Euridycce) and a Human mage (Marzipann) – both of whom are sitting in the Level 4-6 region. These are my “group” characters to run around chiefly with other players, and you’ll find them on the Burning Steppes and Sylvanas servers respectively, if you ever want to hook up for some fantasy carnage over weekends.
Comments
Oooh you probably know this but the scarecrow is going to be in the second movie as well. FYI.
I'm kind of torn at the moment between going back and skimming my old university Classics notes, or heading over there with some vague memories but otherwise a clear mind.
However, I'm sure I'll have some questions about day-to-day touristy stuff in Greece before then... e.g. how best to get around, places to see or avoid, that kind of thing.
Anyways, just let me know what you want to know. Might be easier by email or on MySpace or AOL IM or whatever. My email is waspjerky(at)yahoo(dot)com. Of course, with half the country on fire at the moment, you may be lucky just getting there. :(