Rings-mania

Dec 19, 2003 by Lyanna

I bought myself an early Christmas present last night : LOTRII

Whoohoo! I haven’t watched the DVD yet, I am waiting for The Man, IJdo and Vincent to come over this weekend. We’re going to do our own little marathon on saturday night and sunday night with both extended DVD’s and then we’ll be heading off to the cinema to watch LOTRIII

Last night I burned a CD with the scores of LOTRI, LOTRII, Pirates of the Carribean, Braveheart and Gladiator to take with me tonight, when I go visit Lannie in Hoorn. Plenty of time to listen to it on the way over there. I’m looking forward to the party. Pity The Man can’t be there: he has to work tomorrow in Groningen and will be travelling over there tonight to stay in a hotel. *shrugs*
As long as he’s there tomorrow night!

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Kick the habit

Dec 13, 2003 by Lyanna

Last night I went over to my parents to celebrate my mom’s birthday (wednesday actually was her birthday). It was all rather ok, specially since The Man came over too after I hadn’t seen him the entire week. Good good good! I’d bought my mom one of the Swarovski crystals she collects: a chameleon with a big chrystal that kept changing color if you looked at it from a different angle. She liked it lots.

The rest of the evening was relatively quiet: mostly filled with aunts and uncles chatting away and ignoring us. Hell, we were the only ones there under 40 I think. But things were pretty ok, we had fun with eachother anyway. I hadn’t eaten yet though, so halfway I got up and announced I was going to get some fries and such for dinner. My dad out of the blue asked me to go get him a pack of cigarettes while I was on my way. And without thinking I flatly told him no.

Hmm. Big mistake. I was looked at pretty indignantly by most of the family members, one of them went so far as to exclaim: “Oh, Lyanna!” in a very irritated voice. I just boiled inside and wanted to scream at all of them. My dad suffers from heart arythmia. The whole family has a history of hartfailure, dammit. My dad’s specialist has pleaded with him several times to give up smoking. My mom wants him to quit, I want him to quit. But he doesn’t. Well, that’s all fine and good but don’t expect me to go nurture your habit. I didn’t want to get him a pack of those cancersticks, I really didn’t. I told the family that he knows very well that I want him to quit. And one of my aunts sneered at me: “Oh, he’ll quit eventually, you know that!” Not spoken, but suggested were the words: when he’s dead alright. I just wanted to cry right there and then.

To cut a long story short, by their stance they made it impossible for me not to get him the pack of cigarettes. They made me feel as if I were the bad daughter. I hated it. The entire evening was spoilt for me and although I later got a chance to explain myself to my mom AND my dad, I still ended up to get him the pack of Camel. We left not long after, to meet some friends at a pub in Delft.

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Favorite song of the year

Dec 12, 2003 by Lyanna

A while ago, Lannie asked me what my Song of the Year was. On the 19th of december, we are having a party at her house, a kind of “end of the year” party and usually all the people who come over pick their favorite song of the year and that will be played. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a song from this year by the way. Just something that touched you.

I am having a hard time to decide.

I am teetering on the following choices:

Coldplay – Clocks. Simply because the song rocks.
Hello – Evanescence. It meant a lot to me during NaNo
My Immortal – Evanescence. Same reason as above.
Feel – Robbie Williams….

And just now it hit me.

Requiem for a Dream (Overture) by Clint Mansell/Kronos’ Quartet

Maybe that’s the one. First of all because the movie was spine chilling and so is the score….and also because it was reused in the teaser for LOTR II The Two Towers. It is a musical score that has appealed to me throughout the year. I remember sitting at the pool in Rhodos, and the bartender had for once stepped off the Greek music and played his own favorites. I couldn’t believe my ears when Requiem for a Dream came on. He and I started chatting away on this kind of music and he gave me some good tips where to find similar stuff. He even played the score for a second time for me.

Another one suddenly comes to mind: The Wheat (Gladiator Soundtrack) or Sorrow, from the same soundtrack.

Oh, this is going to be such a difficult choice.

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Stupid Spam

Dec 12, 2003 by Lyanna

Note to spammers: leaving stupid remarks randomly on my blog and then adding hyperlinks to sites selling penis enlargement pills (as if) will be categorically banned from this site. My MT luckily lists the last comments left on my site in the user control panel so I simply check those every morning and once in a while something annoying as that turns up. I think I have banned between 5 and 10 ip adresses already. I guess it’s what happens when you do your best to remove all decypherable email adresses from your site: they simply find other ways to harass you. I hate it even more than spam mail. I mean, spam in your inbox is just for your eye to see and to dispose of. But these comments on my blog with these stupid html links are for the world to see goddammit. I am not asking to be spammed with sexually orientated junk. Just stay the fuck off my blog! I wonder whether there are ways to just block these guys forever. Maybe I should just add a registration to my site…to ensure that comments are left only by those who registered. But that is something I am very reluctant to do. I mean, it’s another threshold for people to leave comments. I actually don’t want that.

:::

Okay, I’m done with the morning rant. Now unto something nicer. When I drove here this morning the sunrise was ab-so-lu-te-ly gorgeous. Pastel yellows and pinks and peach and azure and aqua…wow. It was an almost unearthly glow. Too bad that now the sun has come up entirely the sky gets overcast again. Too bad also that the charger to my digicam still lingers around in Utrecht. Nope people, no live footage of that gorgeous sunrise from me today *pouts*.

:::

Last day of the week today. Yet another one that is undoubtedly going to be very busy. The extra wall is being put in as we speak, and the noise is awful. Sawing and drilling and hammering….ugh. Normally I am not so sensitive to high or loud sounds, but today for some reason I am. I am still quite tired and I have a slight headache. Must be the reason. I just fled the room until they were at least done sawing. It made my hair stand on end, really!

:::

Before I forget I just want to plug a site I found through Starlit Dream’s log: Self Taught Girl. Go read her. She’s good.

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Daily musings

Dec 11, 2003 by Lyanna

Today was a hellishly busy day. That’s good I suppose. It started off with me walking right into a fight with our Facility Management. I am coordinating the move of about fifty people in our department (due to the reorganisation a lot of people from other floors are moving into our floor and everything has to be reorganised, from furniture to pc’s to whole rooms). Anyway, since I am currently also filling in for the Head Helpdesk who has gone on a three week holiday, and the Helpdesk needs to be redone by putting in an extra wall and all, I am sitting at the right place to oversee things.

Yesterday was my day off, and when I got here this morning, I noticed a lot of tools laying on the floor in the hallway, and before I knew it, a teammember from Facility Management walked in with someone else and acted as if he was ready to put in the extra wall. Which is something we hadn’t counted on at all, since the actual move is only at december 20th. He wanted to shut two of my teammembers behind that wall. Hey! Hello? This is not what we had talked about! Things got a little agitated and he stalked off pissed.

Well, that set the pace for today. It is almost 5 o’clock right now and I think this is the first moment I can sit at my desk in relative peace.

:::

I contemplated driving out to Utrecht this evening but decided against it. I am too tired, and it would mean an awfully early schedule tomorrow morning. Let alone the gas costs. *narf*. I hate confining my life due to costs. I think I am going to write up all the Christmas Cards I bought yesterday. I have quite a lot to write, several go abroad to the members of the Green Ajah and of course I musn’t forget Taylie, who’s not only an Ajah member but a friend as well, and Nat and Denis are on my list as well. I like writing Christmas cards. Funny how some people hate it. I don’t. I always take care to select nice cards and I always make sure I put a little personal note on ‘em. I rarely send cards to people, but for Christmas I am making an exception.

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This saturday I am going to set up the Christmas tree. Hope The Man will be there to help me. I am looking forward to it. I have a fake one (yeah yeah, call me a barbaric, but I hate the trail of pineneedles a real one leaves in my house and in my car, and everywhere, let alone the sticky stem and the prickly stuff….try hauling a big tree into your house by yourself and you know what I mean). So now I have one which is broken down into different sections which are very easy to compile. And for the smell I am going to get real branches to hang up in the house and on my door. I want Christmas to be here now. I have a little over a week off from the day before Christmas to the first of januari on in. Can’t wait!

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