Iesus Non Amat Me

It's my birthday and I came downstairs this morning to find this:



Presents from my lovely mother (who does not make me solve puzzles before I can open them cos she's much nicer than I am!) I managed to restrain myself long enough to drink my coffee before ripping them open to find...

( Goodies )

I decided against going anywhere to celebrate cos I couldn't think of anything that sounded fun to do with all the restrictions currently in place. Instead I stayed at home and rewatched season one of Downton Abbey while building the Lego NES. I could possibly have done it all in one day, but I stopped after five episodes and have so far made the console, controller, cartridge and part of the TV:

( Lego So Far )

I have the week off work, so that's plenty of time to finish both the rewatch and the set. I'm thinking that I'll probably continue the rewatch into season two as well. And possibly season three. But definitely no further than that!

And finally, bask in the glory of my traditional epic poem of birthday brilliance:

36 has divisors galore
But I am 36 no more
Now for a year after I make this rhyme
My age will be a number that's prime

I saw Hamilton again a couple of weeks ago. I'd say that it wasn't quite as good as the first time I saw it, but still brilliant. Aaron Burr and Angelica Schuyler in particular were excellent. And the advantage of seeing it for a second time is that I already knew the story and the songs, so I was able to enjoy a lot of the little nuances and finishing touches more.

I also watched the Downton Abbey Movie the other day. It was completely predictable and totally free of jeopardy or peril, which is exactly what you want from that kind of film. I know some filmmakers think that all movies need dramatic tension and plot twists and unpredictable endings, but sometimes you don't want any of that. You just want to see the characters you know and love doing their thing and being happy. (Although I do find it funny that Mary's forgettable husband didn't appear until the very end and wasn't missed at all.)

It was Pancake Day on Tuesday but I was a bit busy, so I decided to make them on Wednesday instead. Because why not eat pancakes on a day meant for fasting? It's fine, I'm not religious anyway. I just like pancakes. And they were good pancakes.

The heating at work is still broken and it's still so cold. There's even an area where it actually feels like something is blowing out cold air, which is just what you want in February!

And, finally, I may be nearly ready to post my Ships of the 2010s list. It took a lot longer than I anticipated, partly because I ship way too many pairings, partly because finding screencaps is a lot harder than it used to be, but mostly because I'm terrible at making things look good plus I'm having a really hard time putting my thoughts into words and so it's all a bit rubbish. I just hope the final product will be ok.

This has been a good weekend. I downloaded a Bluetooth tracker app and used it to find my FitBit yesterday and felt very accomplished for doing so!

Also yesterday I went up to Surbiton to watch fireworks with Paul. It was a small local display, rather than the fancy ones at Battersea we went to before, but it had the advantage of being within walking distance of his flat and that's a definite plus! And it was still very pretty. We were also able to see quite a few other displays around the area, which was fun.

Today we got our first Starbucks red cup drinks of the year and walked by the river to Kingston. We had a look at the Christmassy stuff in John Lewis and I resisted the temptation to spend lots of money. A drink in the Surbiton Flyer topped off our time together before I got the train home.

I'm going to leave Topic 5 of the November meme till tomorrow when I have more time to write a proper entry cos this is really just a flying visit so I can post something today.

I also may be talking about Downton Abbey tomorrow cos tonight is the LAST EPISODE EVER. Except for the Christmas special, but whatever. Apparently things are going down and getting wrapped up tonight. Maybe Mary will marry one of her cardboard suitors who are all so boring I still can't tell them apart or remember their names. Maybe Mrs Hughes will stab Mr Carson (and no one would blame her if she did.) Maybe Thomas will get his happy ending (which is something I never thought I'd be hoping for, back when this show started, but now I really want.) And maybe Edith will also marry her suitor who is also so boring I can't even remember where he came from (I know he helped her get the magazine out that one time but how did they meet before that? Who is he?) So many questions. So many possibilities. They just better not kill off Violet cos she's too awesome to die. And, actually, if death tried to take her she'd probably just send him packing with a withering put-down and a baleful look. Violet Crawley is most likely immortal.

So, rachg82 has suggested that I talk about TV, a subject which is very close to my heart, so I'm going to give it a go:

Annoyingly I have fallen behind in a lot of my TV watching. The new series of Bones hasn't started here yet and doesn't look like it's going to any time soon. I might try and find it online and catch up with the new episodes over the weekend.

I'm also about a season behind with NCIS, although I'm going to have to skip ahead and watch the upcoming episode with Alex Kingston in because it has Alex Kingston in and I will need to see it in order to properly flail with everyone on Tumblr.

I'm still not entirely happy with Merlin. But despite all my talk of giving up on it I'm still hopeful that it may pull it all back and wow me with a brilliant resolution to this storyline that makes up for all the crap it's putting me through now.

No new Doctor Who until Christmas. I absolutely loved the minisode and trailer that were shown on Children in Need last week. I'm so excited to see Jenna as the new companion and to find out how Clara and Oswin are going to be explained. I'm still hoping that they're the same character, but I also don't want Oswin's death to be Clara's end. So who knows what I want.

I've downloaded three episodes of American Horror Story: Asylum but haven't actually watched them yet. They're on the Sky box so I have to watch them in the living room and it's really not the kind of show I want to be watching when other people are around. Which is pretty much all the time. I shall have to work something out.

Recently we've been watching Elementary. It's good. I like it. Very different to Sherlock and, to be honest, other than the fact that the main character is named Sherlock Holmes it doesn't really seem related to the Sherlock Holmes stories at all. It's just another American drama series. Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

Downton Abbey finished a couple of weeks ago. I miss it already. I'm also worried that after that lovely, non-heartbreaking end to series three, which left everyone relatively happy and settled, the Christmas special is going to be full of misery and death. I don't trust that Julian Fellowes.

Right, well, I think that's everything for now. TV is fun.