Surprise Adventures in Aberdeen: Part 2
As a surprise, I was taken on a trip to Aberdeen two weekends ago. So much spending and eating dinner in random places then ensued that I had to split our adventures up into two parts. Part 1 is here.
Sunday: After heading out early to grab breakfast, Dave discovered Gregg's wasn't open - so I joined him and we headed out onto the streets in search of Books & Beans on Belmont Street, finding it reasonably quickly with our growing knowledge of Aberdeen geography.
Books & Beans was lovely. If you're in Aberdeen, and like books and/or good food, go there. Tasty breakfast food, freshly baked cakes and shelves of reasonably priced second-hand books. Dave had a chicken and bacon sandwich and a coke, while I took the more decadent route of pancakes with Herseys chocolate syrup and a smoothie. It was a strawberry smoothie with Cherry Sourz in it - something I didn't quite twig until after ordering it. So a breakfast boozy smoothie was odd, but nice nonetheless. I grabbed an Anne MacAffrey book while I was there, and we met up with last night's fashion show DJ, Debra, so she could collect some of her things from our hotel room.
Aberdeen has a lot of shops similar to Inverness (and almost identical shops to Edinburgh, but less of them). The Bon Accord centre is particularly eerie because as soon as you walk in it's almost a mirror image of Inverness' Eastgate Phase II.
One difference is that the Thorntons chocolate fountain still exists, where I tried a Thorntons chocolate shot (£2 each). You can't drink one of those without feeling ridiculous happy about it, but they also make you feeling a bit silly as you try to drink it all before it solidifies, and then leave you wondering if it would be acceptable to take the last bits out with your fingers.
Later, we headed to popular comic book, cult movie and generally geeky shop Forbidden Planet (similar to Invern
ess' Heroes For Sale, but it's part of a large chain) which had a nice 3-for-2 deal on. We ended up buying the first 3 volumes of Marvel Zombies for superhero comic fan Dave, the first 3 Scott Pilgrim books for my more indie tastes, and a brilliant Doctor Who poster showing the inner workings of a Dalek.
Returning back to the hotel room, we spent a few geeky hours reading through the comics, drinking tea and coffee and eating Milka chocolate. We also watched a movie about Genghis Khan, for no real reason, before dashing back to Forbidden Planet to get the next lot of our comics. Alas, it was closed.
That night we headed to Slains Castle for dinner, a horror-themed pub that's part of the Eerie Pub Co. chain, which make some of my favourites cocktails. I didn't get ID-ed at any point here! It was pretty amazing. We grabbed a pair of their 7 Deadly Sins cocktails, and the barman confused us both by putting whipped cream and toffee sauce on top of them - he was brilliant. Dave had Lust (Russian Standard Vodka, Malibu, cranberry juice and a lime) in a ridiculously girly, long-stemmed wide cocktail glass, and I had Sloth (Baileys, Kahlua, Russian Standard, and Disaronno with cream and milk).
For dinner I had a nice chicken tikka masala with white rice, and naan bread, Dave had hunter's chicken (chicken breast wrapped in bacon) and we both had garlic bread. It was all good, the garlic bread was burnt but still delicious and Dave was eager to tell the barman how much he enjoyed what he called "half a chicken on a plate".
After that, Dave had Envy (Creme de Menthe Green, Creme de Cacao white with cream and milk poured over ice) and I had some tea, and we headed out.
Down an alley next to Slains, we found a well hidden Baskin Robins! Unable to resist it's retro decor and promise of delicious ice cream, we got a sundae each coffee, rum & raisin and candy floss for Dave and caramel banana, cookie dough and candy floss for me, both with an unnecessary helping of hot fudge sauce. The server got confused half-way through over who's was whos, and was very glad when we both wanted the same sauce and no other toppings.
Monday: Most of the packing was done the night before, but we woke up early to finish off the last few items on our to-do list. For breakfast we called at the nearest Wetherspoons, the Archibald Simpson, which doesn't look much like a Wetherspoons from outside apart from having 'J.D. WETHERSPOONS' printed on barrels at the door. I got ID-ed, though it was far too early for drinking so we just had a full Scottish breakfast and coffee for Dave, and a bacon roll and tea for me. The bacon roll was a bit rubbish, with only one piece of burnt bacon, but the full breakfast was good. Isn't it odd how cafes and restaurants can always get perfect toast?
After that we grabbed our suitcases and were off to Forbidden Planet to grab the last volumes of Scott Pilgrim!, a Scott Pilgrim Who's Who shirt for Dave and Marvel Zombies Volume 4, Dead Days and Marvel Zombies Return.
Returning to Union Square, it was time to check out Hobbycraft to get some things for Dave's craft-y mum and little brother. It's a huge shop of artsy goodness, and if I'd had more time I would have gladly spent hours pouring over their stationary, paper, brushes and inks. Fortunately for my bank balance we didn't, and it was off to grab the train. I got a Juicemaster smoothie along the way and it wasn't that good, very watery.
Taking trains anywhere outside of Inverness is a bit odd, because Inverness and Nairn don't use the ticket-accepting barrier system and you just get your ticket checked on-board. So I needed to remember to have my ticket ready, then feed it to the machines and cross my fingers they'd give it back.
Getting the 11.59 train, we were back in Nairn was around 14.00, trundling our suitcases across the work-in-progress streets. I saved the last few pages of Scott Pilgrim until I'd arrived home, rushed out for milk and made a cup of tea to enjoy with it, and we chilled out with our comic books until later that afternoon (you can read a gushing post about how much I love the Scott Pilgrim series here). Then Dave's cousin, 3-year-old Chloe arrived and Dave spent the evening playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with his little brother while Chloe, myself, Dave's sister Ashley and Dave's mum all headed out to the newly arrived showies.
All in all, a great - if expensive - weekend away. Aberdeen, you're pretty cool, I'll see you again some time.
I Love Scott Pilgrim
I admit it. I love Scott Pilgrim. He's cute, funny, and geeky - but he's got his heart set on pink-haired, rollerblading Amazon delivery-girl Ramona Flowers and even her seven evil ex-boyfriends aren't going to stop him getting his girl. So my chances are pretty slim, but at least I have an awesome comic to help the pain to fade.
Scott Pilgrim is the story of a 23-year-old guy trying to find a job and a girlfriend, and deal with all the challenges that involves - including realising your cute high school girlfriend might not be the best match but the new girl you've got your eye on is carrying a lot of baggage, and your ex-girlfriend might just be back in town and you're maybe-just-not-quite over her yet.
That, and there's video game references galore, a terrible rock band, battles with less terrible rock bands, ninjas, subspace, Canadian temperature changes and gay roommates to deal with along the way.
It's not perfect - the dialogue's a bit clunky to start out with and the style sometimes sways a bit too far towards the manga style instead of O'Malley's own style, subspace is only vaguely explained and certain plot points - particularly towards the end - are arguably not quite what we'd have hoped for.
It's a quirky, 'indie' sort of comic book with simple but simple but expressive style and characters are linked together in a way that gives them depth while keeping them interesting and relevant to the story.
Here's an animated short showing one of the scenes in the style of the comic:
The short was made to promote their newly released live action "Scott Pilgrim VS. the World Movie" movie, starring Michael Cera (who's a bit boring sometimes) and a bunch of other dolled-up teenagers looking troubled but beautiful... but it's true to the comic and I have no doubt it's going to be awesome purely because of that. The movie covers all 6 volumes of the comic.
Here's the trailer, but more importantly, the official site has previews for all of the comics.
Oh, and did I mention it's directed by the man behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz? Edgar Wright is awesome, guys. AWESOME. And us Brits love him.
It's just out in UK cinemas, and I'll be headed to see it this weekend!
To top it all of, there's an 8-bit style XBLA/PSN game based on the comic's style.
...And all my geeky boxes have been ticked.
Played the video game last night and it's lots of fun if you like side-scrollers, especially if you've got someone in the house to play Co-Op with. (The story's really vague if you haven't read the comic, but that doesn't affect gameplay.) I'm looking forward to unlocking the zombie survival mode!
Seriously, though - if you're into comics, support the creator and give them a read, and/or go see the movie as it's struggling in the US box office, and it's time for the Brits to show it some love.
Surprise Adventures in Aberdeen: Part 1
It's Dave and I's 3-year anniversary today. I'm very proud that we've lasted this long, especially as a young couple, and I'm love how we've matured without forgetting how to have fun and enjoy ourselves. I'm more than certain that he's too good for me, but I am very glad to have him. AND THAT IS AWESOME.
I hope you guys are having a fantastic day and that work, if you are there, is not too terrible. Here's the first part of our Aberdeen adventures - Part 1 will go up on Friday.
Hello internet friends, I am back from a SURPRISE ADVENTURE. It was surprising.
Thursday Night: I come home from work and there are PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE! FLOWERS ON THE TABLE! NO DIRTY DISHES AROUND THE SINK! The coffee machine was on! A mug was awaiting my tea! I was bemused, and wandered through to the living room to find fiance Dave not at work as expected, but hiding in the living room with his family. Then we all had a curry and watched Dave play Call of Duty: MW2 with his little brother.
Friday: I'm on holiday! No work! But I also had to wake up early so I was quite (very) grumpy. I had to go try and sort out Dave's mum's slow running PC, so I spent the morning sitting with breakfast trying to get things ready, needing to burn software to disks which meant plugging the CD burning back in and UGH. I just wanted WAFFLES and tea and also a lie-in please.
All the while Dave is getting on at me to put make-up on and I'm busy plotting out the best methods to sort out the PC while he goes out learning to drive. Time is running out and I'm grumping around the house before getting pulled out into the car. Dave stops by the train station to practice his parking and pick up some tickets for his little sister.
BUT WAIT SUDDENLY THERE IS A SUITCASE IN THE BOOT OF THE CAR AND IT IS OUR SUITCASE WHAT IS GOING ON WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT ABERDEEN WHY AM I NOT STILL ASLEEP
Then I was on a train to Aberdeen, still going "WHAT IS GOING ON I AM NOT PREPARED OH GOD MY HANDBAG I HAVE LEFT MY HANDBAG BEHIND ARE WE REALLY GOING TO ABERDEEN?" which, throughout the train journey, gradually became "I HAVE NO MAKE-UP ON AND EVERYTHING I NEED IS IN NAIRN". Though Dave did bring my phone, DS and iPod so I wasn't too angry. I have my priorities - if my glorious gadgets had been missing all Hell might have broken loose.
In Aberdeen I slowly discovered just how much was missing (outfits! shoes! eyeliner! handbaaag!) and was a huge girl until Dave took me out and got me a handbag and some make-up basics. He's lovely. And I'm such a female sometimes, argh. We grabbed a Poundland pot noodles for lunch, stopping at Poundstretchers for cutlery because Poundland don't sell anything even slightly pointy to under-21s.
Then we met up with some mates in Pizza Hut, nommed some pizza and I had one of their awesome berry smoothies. We also did a lot of wandering around Aberdeen.
It's bigger than I expected! There are a lot of crossings, some huge and cool-looking boats, and a huge range of shops - most of the shops you'd find in bigger cities like Edinburgh were here, though it didn't quite match up to the 'burgh itself. It was much better than Inverness though, with all of its shops and more, which is all we really need.
Union Square shopping centre is great, with a good mix of shops. There are at least five different shopping centres around Aberdeen, which seems like a lot but didn't feel like to many by the end.
To get around Aberdeen we relied mostly upon Google Maps on my HTC Desire phone, coupled with Dave's uncanny sense of direction.
Saturday: During out stay, we used to the Aberdeen City Center Premier Inn. It was a pretty good stay - the bed's were almost too short for Dave, the rooms were basic but generally good. The paint was flaking off our bath, but the shower had the pressure yanked right up which made it FANTASTIC first thing in the morning. The location was very central, no more than 10 minutes from anywhere.
For breakfast, we went to Greggs - a good quality, fairly priced chain of bakeries that we became fans of in Edinburgh. Rumor has it that one of these is going to be arriving in Inverness high street soon. We picked up a meal deal each (baguette/crisps/fizzy drink) and a sticky toffee muffin, and it was all good fresh food as usual. While we sat eating it on a bench just off the high street, Dave made a fatal and touristy mistake...
He gave a piece of his sandwich to a pigeon.
Like a scene out of Hitchcock's the "Birds", about twenty pigeons swooped down in search of this source of nourishment. We were left stranded in a sea of feathers, guarding out meal deals and stamping uselessly at the wide-eyed, cooing beasts.
The annoying thing about being somewhere on holiday and staying in a hotel is that you can't cook anything, and there's nothing to do in the hotel room apart from watch TV - so the day gets broken down into going out for food, and shopping, with the odd night out. So if the hotel fees and transport isn't enough, there's not really much to do except... keep spending. Arranging activities like walks or museums can kill time for cheap or for free, but for young holiday-makers that doesn't always suit.
We stopped by a few stops and got some gifts, as well as raspberry marshmallow fluff from T.K.Maxx! It's a American spread made of marshmallows, basically. Sort of like a gooey jam or a sweeter Nutella. It's very sweet, so I can't really imagine starting the day with it, but it's still fantastic. Marshmallow toast! I need to try the Fluffernutter some time, though I can't imagine it working with unsweetened peanut butter, which is more common in Europe.
After ripping up and blistering my feet wearing new shoes around the town (a stupid idea), I hobbled to watch a charity fashion show for the Samaritans, wearing a mini-skirt and feeling awkward about it. It was at TigerTiger, which has nothing to do with tigers but is in fact a nice looking club with awesome furniture. I ordered drinks, getting ID'd as always, and as they didn't have Kopparberg I ended up buying an Appletiser because Dave thought there was alcohol in it. Turns out it's just fizzy apple juice. Putting pear Bulmers into it didn't really help the situation much, but we tried.
The fashion show itself was good fun, lots of fashionably dressed guys and girls striding up and down the cat-walk. The DJ's picks were right up our alley as well including a fantastic mix of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman" (see the vid below). And I won a prize in the raffle! Afterwards we went out to city centre club Espionage, which wasn't any fun but that was mostly because we're both pub people rather than club people.
This was the only day I managed to complete the monkey challenge, a challenge to go an entire today without seeing moneys, hearing money noises, or in some way, shape or form being reminded of monkeys. Working as a tech monkey, it's a bit of a tricky challenge and a text on Friday and being pelted with monkeys on Monday didn't help. But on Saturday, I succeeded! I will probably never succeed again. (OH WAIT! I did it this Saturday as well. I'm getting good!)
Next in Part 2: Comic book geekery, more smoothies, pubs and Scott Pilgrim! Click here to read Part 2!
Introducing Tea & Coffee
It's Monday. Mondays suck. To get through Monday, I recommend lots of Tea or Coffee, as your tastes may lie. In fact, why not have both? My treat.
You could have Tea & Coffee in bed...
...Or in a hammock...
...Tea with your breakfast...
...Or without even leaving your bed...
...Just make sure you don't get Tea & Coffee all over your jacket on your chair.
(Click the images to view them at a larger and fluffier size.)
Youtube Time
Hello internet friends,
I was taken for a surprise holiday to Aberdeen this weekend. In them middle of writing up a post about our adventures, but it's taking it's time so until then, have some of the random internet amusements that have been keeping me occupied.
Better Book Titles improve on popular novels by making their contents a lot more obvious. Jane Austen's Fight Club is exactly what it says on the tin.
The new Old Spice ads, the fastest growing online viral video campaign we've seen yet. Receiving 23 million views after 36 hours, the star went on to record personal video replies to over 136 questions and comments over 3 days, with the questions picked out from those asked by fans on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other sites.
Then there's the Double Rainbow guy, who's gets very excited about the weather. Then it was turned into a song by the group behind Autotune the News.
That's all for tonight. Feel free to share your own internet amusements in the comments.
Self-Aggrandizement
Busy, busy week. Wouldn't mind a longer weekend to make up for it. How about a 5 day weekend? No? 3 day? I'll just be over here living in hope.
The other half's been doing important work things, and once that was all clear I've been burning up my weekend writing and spending time with mates. But mostly the former, because I'm a hermit.
Some good articles going about - a post on the Hell of spending 10 years trying to finish a novel, and a good post on the need for change to get guys reading YA fiction. Any male readers want to comment on if they read teen fiction, and if female main characters put them off? I know a few who will happily read them, which is good to see. And girls, do you like stories with male main characters?
Personally, I tend to prefer male main characters - when writing my own work, and reading others. I'm perfectly fine reading a female main character as well, though some female narrators tend to talk in irritating high school slang which stops me reading a book very quickly (House of Night, I'm looking at you).
<3
I also put a day's work into updating the store! It now looks about 3 times as snazzy, at least, and I've been tweaking a lot to make it more user friendly. If you find any issues, feel free to let me know! Right now my only qualm is that I can't figure out how to change the favicon. Curse you, favicon. I will find you, and I will change you.
Shiny new features on the site: you can change the colours up in the bottom-right corner, ask a question about the product or view related products. I like to turn it green!
Anyway, it's not just a new look, but new products as well! We've now got a super-awesome-value 'Dragon Tamers' bundle, with posters, bookmarks and the books themselves all for only £10. This one is aimed at new readers, and people buying gifts for their children or friends who want to give the series a go.
I've also the lovely gold-tassel bookmarks.
To top it all off, some of our most popular stuff is now on sale. Normal bookmarks are just £1, the gold bookmarks are £3, and posters are £1. Compared to what these were selling for before hand, it's a fiiiiine deal.
Anyway, I'm off to do things that don't involve self-promotion - like housework and sleep.
Websites and Wild Parties
Just back from another driving lesson - just little trips with family, I don't have the money for proper lessons just now and I'm still lacking far too much of the basics to bother anyway.
Again, nobody died! Not even the rabbits that plague that bit of road. I managed to go right round an area of road, corners and all, and to swing round a lorry. Most importantly, I figured out how to break! Most important thing I didn't know: Taking your foot off the accelerator a bit when coming off the clutch stops it speeding out so much and makes it a lot easier for my nervy self. As for things I'm still really bad at, I drive too close to the centre of the road and I haven't quite fixed my habit of trying to break with my left foot. It's all just a matter of practicing until I get comfortable with these big metal death machines.
Still, it's progress! I am excited, even if driving still seem's too expensive to be within reach.
A few links of a writer-y interest today: a query from the Batman was sent to agent Janet Reid. Janet Fitch gave a few good tips of writing - they're fantastic, but a bit too technical to worry about when doing the first draft so I think I'll be printing out a copy for using when I'm at the 2nd draft. Finally, a page that tells you what famous author you write like. There's been some controversy over it's preference for white male authors, and going by various reports it seems to be based on keywords instead of a genuine formula. I gave it a few chapters from my WIP and got: Chapters 1 + 2 are William Gibson, 3 + 4 Dan Brown, 5 Douglas Adams, 6 Stephen King.
In non-writing news, the first trailer arrived for a movie about Facebook, "The Social Network", with one of the founders played by Justin Timberlake. The trailer soundtrack is a creepy choir cover of Radiohead's "Creep". Everytime I mention this I have to explain that I'm not joking. The founders themselves have responded to state the obvious - that it's heaviliy dramaticized and there wasn't really that much sex involved in building a website.
It actually looks like a decent movie, though. I think I caught a glimpse of them sitting on Facebook while some wild party rages on around them, so rock on boys. Tell it like it is!
Now I'm countting down for the announcement of "Don't Be Evil", chronicling the decent of a start-up search engine as it goes from letting us all find what we need to know on the internet to sending out spy cars to stealing personal info through wifi. I'm waiting, Hollywood.
Speaking of the writing side, this week I've been hopping between scenes a bit. Aaaand I cut out my entire first chapter to speed up the pace, which I really shouldn't be doing in a first draft. But I shouldn't be doing any editing in the first draft. Still, I'm really liking the results and looking ofrward to finishing the full draft so I can start slimming it down and giving it a sharper form.
Oh, and I watched 'Shutter Island'. Really wasn't impressed by the first wee while - a retro-cheesy style going on and really irritatingly over-saturated colours. It turns out it was irritating mer on purpose and had a few tricks up its sleeve. It's a great movie, and it's extremely difficult to peg exactly how it's going to end - definately worth a watch. It also has a few nods towards 50s-60s mental illness treatments, which are always fascinating because they're so inhuman - those are 'The Bell Jar' and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' years when they thought depression could be cured by shoving an ice-pick through your eye-socket and wiggling it around until y0u either died or lost most of your mental functions. You don't really have to add anything to make a horror movie out of that.
I've managed to develop a throat-destroying cough in the space of starting and finishing this post, ow. Time for some Covonia, and possibly sleep. Na-night!
Today, I Didn’t Kill Anyone
Tried out driving a car for the first time today. As I expected, it was TERRIFYING.
On the bright side - I didn't crash, and nobody died!
As expected, I am terrible with gears and too nervous to do things like reversing or moving in anything that isn't a straight line. I also learned that the accelerator is way more sensitive than I expected, and getting your feet on the pedals correctly is weirdly complicated. Managed to stall once or twice, and got the 'kangaroo petrol' shuddering effect when I panicked and took my feet off everything at once, slammed the brake an awful lot because I haven't yet figured out that 'going into neutral and stopping' business.
Having decided that curbs are full of dynamite and will kill me if I get too close, I resolutely refused to go near them and ended my lesson pulled into a lay-by refusing to try to turn. Then other half Dave took to the wheel and soundly showed me up with going round in circles, turning, and even reversing! Changing gears! Feh. Men.
Got a bunch of stock back today as well, some a little worse for wear (and therefore unsaleable) which I'm not pleased about, but there's still a lot of things I'm excited about. Mostly, gold tasseled bookmarks! I love bookmarks. And these ones have tassels! And gold bits! Even gold foil embossing! They should go up in the shop soon after I change a few things around.
Right now, though, I'm off to finish a mug of tea and split my time between editing 'Saint' and working on an SVQ I'm doing with work. Hope all of you guys are doing good. <3
I am an OGRE
You could go to Vue Cinema and spend £8 a person to see the latest Shrek film, Shrek: Forever After.
Or you can take a trip out to Nairn.
The BBC has highlighted Firhall, a settlement on the edge of Nairn where only people over 45 are allowed to live. A village where children are forbidden by contract, the media has delighted in showing them as 'child-hating ogres'.
We all know they're just a retirement village trying to keep things quiet, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to watch everyone get up-in-arms about the rule.
You're also not allowed ducks, rabbits, pigeons or bees. Presumably because rabbits are really noisy. You can have a dog though, if you like.
It's an interesting way to bring attention to the area. I'm a bit tempted to go there and wander the streets to see if Mike Myers pops out of a door.
In other news, I have an official author page on Facebook now. You can like me, if you like?
What I’ve Been Up To
Time for another one of those posts where I go over everything that's been sucking up my time.
I haven't had much time to listen to music because I've managed to lose my beloved headphones (Sennheiser CX-300s) and I'm far too stubborn to buy new ones. I'll find them! Somewhere. Been going over some "Rise Against" tracks though, I'd forgotten that I liked them.
As for movies, I watched Breakfast At Tiffany's. It's a simple enough story, but it's an endearing 60s movies. True to the novella with a few exceptions, most noticeably the end. However, it feels over-hyped, and in this day and age the 'yellowface' make-up used to make the Caucasian actor playing Mr. Yunioshi look Japanese is irritating at best.
Also, this month I managed to not only play a video game, but complete it! I usually get frustrated or distracted before the end of anything. That game was Portal, which I already knew and loved but hadn't actually gotten round to finishing yet. I did, using the free copy from Steam's giveaway a month or so ago. It was brilliant! There's also a lot of suspense in it which had me on edge towards the end because I'm a scaredy cat.
As for books, I'm just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. 
It's very slow to start, but after the first 100 pages or so it gets interesting. But very... well, explicit is the only word. There were a few scenes with the female main character Salander that made me uncomfortable. Violence towards woman is a huge theme, so be warned. There's also a lot of paragraphs spent on the protagonist getting with every woman he meets, but that's just a bit boring.
Aside from that though, it was a decent read. A few nice twists to the story, and while I wasn't much bothered about all the information on industrial reporting some of the sections describing Sweden's legal guardianship system were food for thought. I won't be rushing out to buy the other books in the trilogy. 2/5 - an okay book, but there's a lot of little nickpicks about characterization and plot that don't feel quite satisfying. Not to mention the need for a bit tighter editing, especially at the beginning. Not my kind of book, really.