Friday, December 21, 2007

Pre Xmas

Again, I'm going to have to update this more often but I always forget, and to be honest my life is pretty boring. Thank god I've now finished my Xmas shopping and I'm sooooo glad, this year it has been horrid, and today didn't help. Standing in a queue in HMV to find then the tills go down and they are only excepting cash payments, so i had to leave the queue go to the cash machine then re-join the queue again, which was the full length of the store. To put it lightly I wasn't amused.

But the upside to all this I've got my Wii for Christmas, I managed to leg it to HMV on Tuesday, thanks to my boss letting me leave work for 20 mins in the middle of the day to rush to the other side of town. I'd previously rung the store and they had 4 left well, i was the last person that day to get one. Lucky me, but i think various store are slowly getting more stock in now. It's sitting nicely wrapped under my tree. I will let you know what i think of it after Xmas.

I had my works Xmas do on Monday night we went to Cafe Rouge again this year, and just like last I had the same menu choices and it was well worth the £20 for 3 courses. Totally enjoyed it. This year I was in charge of co-ordinating Secret Santa at work, the budget was £3 and the theme was silly and the item had to beginning with the letter S. I think it went ok, there were a few moans about the letter choice but everyone managed to get a gift starting with S, mine was a Kids Fake Ferrari F1 car. Yes I know this doesn't technically begin with S but it does state on the box Supercar so that counts, well according to the person who bought it anyway. So good times had by all.

I'll sign off now, hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Long time coming

Well, I'm not doing really well at keeping this blog up to date am I? It's now November and the last post was in September a whole 2 months have passed. But the annoying thing is they have been really uninteresting months. I've just been doing nothing but being really busy.

I celebrated my 27th birthday which was really nice, my BF and I went to TGI Friday's, the meal was nice but overpriced it's a good job i had vouchers. I had some nice presents for my b'day, a lovely ipod nano video, various craft items and money which is always a winner.

October went by in a blur, again really busy but nothing really to pin point what has happened. But I know it involved playing lots of Sims 2 and learning InDesign CS2, I know the basics but wanted to brush up on the other things that I thought I knew how to do but don't.

Last weekend we had friends over, which was really great. Whats nicer than just relaxing and catching up with friends. This weekend will be slightly more hectic as we are both in London, my BF is down there for an award presentation on his works website and I'm down to shop and eat Krispy Kreme donuts oh and for my BF to purchase the new iphone.

Well in 47 days it will be Christmas, I'm quite looking forward to it this year as my BF's Nephew will be nearly 4 and he understands more about Christmas now and it should be a good day with him opening his pressies and creating havoc around the place, and also the fact that my BF is buying me a Wii and I'm sooooo looking forward to one.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Actioned Packed Weekend

The weekend of the 17th Aug was hectic but great, the weather held out but the traffic didn't. We set off on the Friday morning on our journey to Kent to the annual Bad Taste Bear outing. We had a reasonable journey down but hit traffic on the M25, going at 50mph on a motorway isn't great and I think at one point my BF put the hand brake on because we weren't even moving. But we arrived safely, and with only about half an hour added on to our journey time.

Our first stop off was Bluewater shopping centre, the reason for this is that like any other gal i like shopping and more importantly I like Krispy Kreme donuts. I first discovered KK at Harrods in London and fell in love with the little dough circles, they are the best donuts in the whole world, but the only problem is that up north were I live we haven't had the luxury get so I took this opportunity of going to Bluewater to sample some more of these wondrous delights, well 12 donuts later and I'm stuffed. I just want to make it clear I didn't eat them all, I did have some help.

Now Bluewater isn't a bad shopping centre but I feel that I had worked myself up for it to be twice the size of our Local shopping mall, Meadowhall but I was surprised that I think it might be just a little bigger. There are more expensive shops at BW and the most important one the Lego shop, where i nearly lost my BF, it was like a little child in a sweet shop, bless...

So we checked in our hotel that night and had a well deserved rest from all the shopping and donuts.
The next day was the trip to the event, which was at Groombridge place gardens in Kent, and also in the middle of nowhere, thank god for SatNav.

The event was really good, we got our bears and goodie bag, and then joined the queue for the shop, another 14 or so bears later we joined the queue for the tombola, at £5 per go we limited ourselves to 4 goes but the prizes were rare bears, so later in the day we had another few goes. Things were starting to run out, the shop was fast running out of stock and so was the tombola, it was apparent that one collector had spent £400 on the tombola, now in my book this isn't fair, the organisers really should have done something about this or limited the amount of goes you were able to have. Oh well we were glad with our wins and thankful we went to the shop first. We had a look around the gardens then went back to the hotel.

On the way home the next day we stopped off in Slough to visit friends, so all in all a very good but tiring and expensive weekend.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

And the rain came

Sorry for not posting for about 2 months but I've been rather busy and it's been until recently that I've had time to get back to normal and finally update my blog. Well from the title of this post i refer to the recent spell of rain, we were affected by the floods in South Yorkshire and had to spend an evening in the town hall in Sheffield and a few nights in the city centre Travel Inn. But despite it all we are now back to normal and the insurance company have been great and paid out. We were quite fortunate compared to the people in Doncaster and down south they have had it really bad and are still in temporary accommodation.

I can't believe that in June/July we were having great downpours and then for example today and the past week it's been in the 70's F. It seems to have all come at once. Hopefully it will still be nice on the 17Th as this is the weekend we are going to Kent to the annual Bad Taste Bear summer outing, this year it is at Groombridge place gardens, it looks like a action packed weekend.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Film Reviews May

Spider-man 3
The highly anticipated third chapter of the popular Spider-Man series sees Peter and Mary Jane finally together, but three new enemies, the Sandman, Venom and Spidey's old enemy, the New Goblin, his best friend, Harry Osborn, threatens the lives of people close to Peter

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco
I was quite disappointed with this film, I wasn’t really holding out much hope as I didn’t really warm to the second spidy film. There were too many bad guys trying to get in on the lime light, and the scene with Peter struting down the street was a little cheesy. I think the Spiderman films are going from bad to worse and with another 3 in the pipeline, I think they are going to spoil it.

My Rating:


Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann must sail off the edge of the map, navigate treachery and betrayal, and make their final alliances for one last decisive battle. Beckett, now with control of Jones' heart, forms a dark alliance with him in order to rule the seas and wipe out the last of the Pirates. Now, Jack, Barbossa, Will, Elizabeth, Tia Delma, and crew must call the Pirate Lords from the four corners of the globe, The Pirate Lords want to release the goddess Calypso, Davey Jones's damned lover, from the trap they sent her to out of fear, the Pirate Lords must combine the 9 pieces that bound her to undo it and release her. With this, all pirates will stand together and will make their final stand for freedom.

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knighley, Geoffrey Rush
With this film I saw the trailer and thought oh my god it looks sooooo good, then when I got into the cinema and the film started I thought this is a bit drawn out. Although the plot is ok and follows on from the first two films, I didn't think it got anywhere, where was all the squashbuckling. Plus we get the open end of a possible sequel. I thought the graphics were really good and any film with Johnny and Orlando tickes the boxes in my book, but it will never be as good as the first film. All in all I think this has fallen into the trap of death of the 2nd sequel.

My Rating:


Electricity Update + Reviews

Well, it wasn't a faulty RCD trip it was the waterheater the element had gone in the thermastat which was causing it to trip. So the electrician turned off the side of the boiler that were tripping and everything is fine now, we still have hot water and heating, just need the builder to get a new element.

I have been to see 2 other films that I still need to write my reviews on plus within this month i've been to 3 music concerts so I will write a review on those soon.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Electricity Blues

The reason for me not keeping upto date with my blog, is the unfortunate events that have affected us at the moment. It all started about a month ago when we started to experience problems with our electricity, the switches for the sockets kept on tripping. We thought it was the new power supply that my partner had bought for his new computer, we thought it might be too powerful, so we took it back to Bolton at Scan computers as the power issue effected the motherboard, but Scan didn't find a problem, we came back home and everything worked ok. But it was still tripping when we boiled the kettle, we then went out to buy a new kettle, but that didn't work either still tripping. It was then time to speak to an elecrician he came over and checked all the sockets and moved the kitching socets on to the main board not the RCD side, which worked.

A week later it starts tripping again and this time it was tripping when only the phone was plugged in and at times when nothing was plugged in or switched on. so again another phone call and visit from the sparky, fortunatly he sent someone else who knew what he was doing, so the problem was the RCD trip it was tripping at 12mA rather than 30. So the sparky is coming back on Monday to fit the new RCD trip, thankfully he gave us power over the weekend so my partner didn't miss Eurovision.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Film Review Pt2

Music & Lyrics

A washed up singer (Grant) is given a couple days to compose a chart-topping hit for an aspiring teen sensation. Though he's never written lyrics in his life, he sparks with an offbeat younger woman (Barrymore) with a flair for words.
Starring: Hugh Grant & Drew Barrymore
I absolutely loved this film, Hugh and Drew play the perfect characters and the film is so easy to watch and really funny. Hugh Grant took singing and piano lessons to play the 80's pop character, and this really shows. His singing isn't great but seeing him dance is hilarious. The story is focused around a 80's pop star who was once part of the duo whose singing partner has gone onto better things loosely based on the story of Wham. Drew's character is a scatty plant waterer, who has a talent for writing lyrics. From then on in, it's the usual boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl stuff it up, then boy public declares his feelings to get girl back and boy and girl live happily ever after.

My rating:

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Film Review

Aside from my daily life ramblings I've decided to use my blog as a film and music review space, depending on what I'm listening too at the time and what films I've recently been to see at the cinema, I will share my findings with you all.

Just to provide a little background, both me and my partner and most of my immediate friends have monthly cinema passes for our local cinema which is Cineworld. These passes are £10.99 a month and you can go and see as many films as you like whenever you like, which at £5.50 for a adult ticket each time, you only have to go twice a month and you are quids in, specially if there are lots of films that you wanna see out. What I like about it though is that you can easily go and see that film that you would like to see, but wouldn't paid full price to see it, or you can just go and see anything and it doesn't really matter if it wasn't as good as you expected you haven't really lost out. If you are a avid film goer like we are, I fully recommend getting one.

Ok, background over. What I'm going to do is a round up of the month and what films I've seen and what music I'm listening too.

So I'll back track to the beginning of the year, please bear in mind I've not been an active cinema goer as much as I'd like this year.

Films Seen:

The Fountain
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
Starring: Hugh Jackman & Rachel Weisz
This film has to be the weirdest film I've seen for a long time. For the first 30 mins I didn't know what the hell what happening, and I was really struggling to follow the plot of the three different stories that were being portrayed. It's one of those films that show you the ending at the beginning then the story unfolds and you end up thinking at the end, "oh yeah I understand now" but even at the end of the film I was really confused and it was a very mixed up mess in my head.
Hugh Jackman plays the centre character in all three of the stories which focuses around his Ill wife and the search for everlasting love and immortality. In one of the stories Hugh has completely shaved off his hair and looks very odd, but still attractive. Overall a decent and very intelligent film.

My rating:

Because I said so

A mother whose love knows no bounds or boundaries. She is the proud mom of three daughters: who, when it comes to men, is like psychotic flypaper. In order to prevent her youngest from making the same mistakes she did, Daphne decides to set Milly up with the perfect man.

Starring: Diane Keating, Mandy Moore, Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham & Piper Perabo
A truly funny romantic comedy, a story about a single mother (Diane Keating - Daphne) who tries to do her best for her three daughters in particularly her youngest played by Mandy Moore (Milly). In order to find her the perfect man she places an ad on the Internet and vets them all before settling on a very wealthy architect. Meanwhile a musician (Johnny) who had been watching Daphne's vetting sweeps into Milly's life and proves the better choice. Through a battle between mother and daughter love prevails and the right man gets the girl, along with Daphne picking up a love interest in the form of Johnny's father. The only downside to this movie was the need to incorporate a song, I know Mandy Moore is a singer but she makes a better actress, I didn't think it warranted a sing-a-long.

My rating:


Music: Take That - Shine, The Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby, Mika - Grace Kelly

Friday, February 16, 2007

Valentines Day

I've not got a great fondness for Valentines Day, I just think it's just another day to spend x amount of money, saying that though I do like receiving presents.

This year I bought my fiance Da Vinci's Secret as he loves puzzle things. I got 2 Bad Taste Bear figurines the Red Hot Pussys, which I've been wanting for a while now, so now I only need the last 2 top complete the mini set.

I asked my Fiance what he was cooking me for a Valentines meal at home, the reply I got was did I want to be ill the next day? my answer was no I didn't, this is the reason why I do all the cooking in our house. Never mind, so then my next question was well if your not cooking, then where are you taking me? This then meant he had to find a table for 2 on Valentines day, which he did, The Boardwalk at Valley Centertainment in Sheffield at 9:15pm. So at 8:30 that evening we arrived and drove round for a while to find a car parking space, no luck it was all full, even the little bits of pavement had cars on them, it looked like it does when someone is playing at Sheffield Arena as people tend to park in the centertainment to avoid paying £5 parking in the arena.

So we had to abandon the Boardwalk and find somewhere else, luckily just down the road is a TGI Friday's, a place where I've not been before. So we tried there, they had loads of tables and space to park. I had a Cheese Burger and the fiance had a BBQ Burger, plus we shared Garlic Bread. The meal and service was very nice and the same price range as the Boardwalk.

You might be thinking that we could have got a burger anywhere but we aren't the type of people who order something they have never had for the fun of it, we tend to stick to things we know we like that isn't going to make us ill.

So a nice Valentines meal was had by all.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sims 2 Life Stories

I know I've not really been updating this as often as I would like, but since Xmas I've not really had time to do anything. Apart from sort of catching up with the washing and ironing.

I'm totally addicted to the Sims 2, I have all the expansion packs and the ones for my Nintendo DS plus on Friday a new stand alone Sims package called Sims Life Stories came out, and as it is Laptop friendly I thought great have to buy that, which I did and it is laptop friendly. What it does is go through the life of two characters and you have to achieve certain goals and aspirations, which is like what you do in Sims but this has chapters that you follow what the story is about, as well as having the function of being able to play your own stories on endless play.

So I've not really been keeping to the new years resolution of buying stuff that I don't really need, but I do enjoying playing Sims, so I get my money's worth out of it, so in my book it's worth the £27.95 I paid for it.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Flickr

I just love Flickr, if you don't know what Flickr is, it is the best online photo management and sharing application in the world, what you can do is register for free and upload your photos and share them with the rest of the world. If you want more out of Flickr then you can subscribe for a year, which I have done and it's the best £13 i've spent this year. Check out my Photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_pics/

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

The Year 2007

I just wanted to wish all the people that read my blog a Happy New Year and I hope that 2007 is a great year for achieving all your goals and wishes.

I have a tendency to not make new year resolutions as I can't keep them, but this year I would like to try, so my new years resolutions are as follows

  1. To eat more healthy and not to snack on rubbish throughout the day
  2. To not buy unnecessary items to try and save money, as I buy too many things that I don't really need.
  3. To be more assertive both at work and at home

I will hopefully try and keep these, I've managed the first one so far, but we are only on day 3.