Back to school

Tonight marks the end of my mid year holidays, so tomorrow I have to head off back to university. My timetable this semester is a little wonky - tomorrow for example my first class is from 10-12 then my next one starts at 4 - and big breaks like that seem to be about the average for me this time. I plan to start bringing in some back-catalog movies from work in to uni with me and watch them while sitting around if I can't find anyone else with the same break times as me, so I guess that means I'll finally have an opportunity to watch all those old ones I've been meaning to see. But still, I did manage to get Fridays off after battling through some heavy-duty university bureaucracy, and this time my classes appear to be ones that I'll actually like, rather than ones I'm being forced to do by my degree.

So... what else happened recently? Fairly generic holidays really. Went out with friends, stayed in with other friends, worked with... people, and so on. Found out that my currently-doing-her-big-OE cousin wasn't the only New Zealander to be caught in the London bombings, despite her pretty much exactly fitting the profile that they released (before they released the right name). That led to a worrying few moments, but seeing as I only heard the profile after the missing girls parents had flown out (and I knew for damn sure that my aunt and uncle hadn't just flown to England in a hurry) the worrying didn't last too long. As it turns out, my cousin was in Spain all along, despite having planned to be in London around now. It also turns out that the New Zealander who really was missing is dead unfortunately.

On a lighter note, I appear to have been tagged for a new meme which is going around like a bad case of the flu. So, without further ado:


The Game of Five.
~ People can only play when tagged. Because otherwise the LJ police will arrest you
~ You can make up new questions, delete questions, add questions, or keep the same, whatever.
~ The people you tag must add one more than what you have
~ Rule number 4 is: There are no rules!
~ Rule number 5 is: Oh wait... my mistake, there are. Ignore rule 4.

I was Tagged by: ashenpaw

Five Different Places You'd Like To Visit:
~ Ireland. I've already got an Irish passport, so I'm halfway there already.
~ Germany. I'll be damned if I'm going to waste two years of learning the language.
~ America... again. Possibly less theme parks this time. Wait, what am I saying?
~ England. Just because.
~ The South Island of New Zealand. Some day I really should see it...

Five Amazing Things:
~ Captain Amazing
~ Amazing Grace
~ Amazing Science, according to one TV show.
~ Amazing Space (http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/)
~ Google, for putting that last page at the top of a search for 'amazing'

Five Things You Miss About Your Childhood:
~ Not having to be told by an LJ meme that your childhood is officially over (What if a 7 year old does this thing?)
~ People not asking about what your childhood was about (Oh wait... the asked what you wanted to be when you grew up. That was much worse)
~ Being allowed to be indecisive. Probably. Not that I'm indecisive now. Wait, am I?
~ Looking up to everyone, and not noticing when others looked down on me. Mind you, any short blind person could achieve the same effect.
~ Having a day when you found a two dollar coin and lost a tooth being the highlight of your month.

Five Letters:
~ The letter from university telling me that I've been accepted to my 'No-work-on-Fridays' class
~ The letter which tells me how much that class costs. I liked the first one better.
~ The letter which informs me that I may already have have won.
~ The letter which tells me that I most definitely have not already paid.
~ And sometimes 'Y'

Five Movies You Like:
~ Eulogy - The best movie I've seen recently to feature the exploding corpse of Rip Torn, followed by the line: "So, after it stopped raining Grandpa..."
~ I [heart/love] Huckabees - I think I liked this movie. I'm not entirely sure. It was either very smart, or a very special kind of stupid.
~ Aladdin - First movie I ever owned, brought by my brother as a Christmas present for my whole family.
~ The Lion King - My brother striking again next year. This was when we began to suspect that it was less him being thoughtful and more him getting around buying each of us an individual present.
~ Shaun of the Dead - It's a romantic comedy, with zombies. How can that not be awesome?

Five Books You Like:
~ A Walk in the Woods - from which I get about half of my knowledge of the U.S.
~ Neither Here Nor There - Same as above, but for Europe.
~ Are You Dave Gorman? - a book about two guys who make a bet that one of them can't find 54 people (one for every card in the pack, plus jokers) with the exact same name as him... and actually carry it out.
~ The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett + fantastic full page illustrations = mindblowing.
~ The Truth - One of the only books I've ever read that made it seem like a full-blown movie was playing in my head.

Five Things You Are:
~ Filling out this meme
~ Being deliberately obtuse
~ Overly fond of fancy words
~ Trying to make each of these responses longer than the last
~ Failing.


Five TV Shows you Utterly Despise:
~ Yes, yes, reality shows. But particularly Big Brother
~ and American/Australian/Whatever Idol, because they have an annoying habit of taking up daily prime-time slots.
~ Shortland Street (Read: Bad local soap. Well... I suppose it's not that bad, I just don't like prime-time soaps)
~ Any show containing the Olsen Twins. 'Nuff said.
~ Barney too.

Five Favorite Musical People/Groups You Enjoy:
~ Gomez
~ The Eels
~ The Blue Man Group (Y'know, those guys from those Intel ads? They make music too)
~ Bloodhound Gang
~ Presidents of the United States of America

Five Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
~ Live
~ Take whoever is killing me out too (which might be hard if they're, say... heart disease)
~ Come up with something really witty for my tombstone
~ Write a will that includes both riddles and a treasure hunt. Work for your inheritance, damnit!
~ Say the words, "Hey, what does this thing do? Oh shi-"

Five Jobs You'd Like to Have:
~ Food tester for a much-loved ruler
~ Stand-up comedian
~ Sit-down comedian (Same as above, but it's easier)
~ Video game tester... but without all the work that goes with it. If people could just pay me to play the finished products then not do anything about them, that'd be grand.
~ Money collector

Five Things in Your Wallet:
~ Student ID
~ The mysterious $2 coin that I swapped out of the till at work about a year and a half ago and have refused to part with since because it's so fantastically smooth.
~ A wad of coupons that were a gift from a friend
~ Train card
~ A $50 bill. Woo!

Five Most Recent CDs You Bought/Acquired: (Uh... I don't get new CD's much at all, but okay...)
~ The Killers
~ Soul Jacker - by the Eels
~ Split the Difference - by Gomez
~ You've Come a Long Way Baby - by Fatboy Slim
~ The Presidents of the United States of America

Name Five Of Your Minor Heroes:
~ The writer Bill Bryson, for coining the above term for me, and providing me with an ample list of historical candidates, sadly none of whom I can remember right now.
~ Ben Elton, for successfully being pretty much everything I'd like to be.
~ Rowan Atkinson, for Blackadder.
~ Terry Pratchett, for the books.
~ Reverend Spooner, for saying things like "You have hissed all my mystery lectures, and tasted the whole worm!"

Name Five Songs You've Had Stuck in Your Head Lately:
~ White Trash - Steriogram (Because I actually like it)
~ Kiss the Rain - Billie Myers (After discovering this song was on the soundtrack at work)
~ Kiss me Where it Smells Funny - Bloodhound Gang (Just a little different from the above)
~ Fat Cop - Regurgitator
~ King Kong - Voom

Name Five Things You're Looking forward to in the next Month:
~ The mid-semester break (Already, and I haven't even started uni again yet)
~ Watching the August new release movies I want to see for free
~ That feeling you get just AFTER you hand in a really annoying assignment
~ Meeting up with my university buddies some more
~ Uh... something unexpected?

Five Things You'd Rather Be Doing than LJ-ing:
~ Trying to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
~ Succeeding in taking over the world!
~ Slowly losing control of my grand world empire.
~ Plotting my inevitably rise from the ashes
~ Eating a donut.

Five things that are GREAT about America:
~ Well... it's pretty great in terms of sheer size.
~ It produces the vast majority of the movies that keep me employed.
~ It produces a lot of humour, whether intentional or not.
~ Admittedly, they did get a lot of fundamental things right.
~ No matter how bizarrely it starts acting, it's a long way away.

Five things that are GREAT about your Home Country:
~ The wonderful surroundings (everyone says that first, damnit.)
~ We're so small, just being a NZ'er goes a long way to making me unique.
~ We're pretty insignificant when it comes to warfare/terrorism... unless someone wants to invade Antartica.
~ The fact that I can leave my back door unlocked, and I live in the biggest NZ city.
~ People here actually are pretty good.

Name Five Pets You've Had
~ Pog (the dog)
~ Koosh (the cat)
~ Jompy (evil cat)
~ Mugly (stupid cat)
~ Sylevester (can you guess someone else named this cat before I could?)

Five completely innocent words:
~ Innocent
~ Blameless
~ Pure
~ Naive
~ Unsullied

Five pick-up lines you'd love to use just to see the reactions:
~ "Hey, does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"
~ "Wow! You seem just as ugly as I am desperate. We're a perfect match!"
~ "Baby, if I was ever going to be a stalker, I'd start with you."
~ "Do you like how I look, or do I need to buy you another tequila?"
~ "Are you two girls friends? You know what they say: two's company, three's a party... IN MY PANTS!"

Five foods you like:
~ Chocolate
~ Potatoes
~ Spaghetti
~ Meat (pretty much any, just not sausages)
~ Vegemite on toast

I tag:
dasboese
hypoman007
macktruck84
mrboo88
turnsky
... but somehow I very much doubt they'll all do it.


Finally, this entry marks the arrival of phantom_dream onto my friends list. This is the first time I've ever made an addition through a referral, and as it is I don't actually know enough about her to perform my usual introductory flattery. I suppose it doesn't matter. But... can she swim backwards?