Monday, December 26, 2005

The 25th comes and goes

Seeing as I haven't updated this blog in well over a month, I might as well dish the dirt about how my Christmas and Boxing day went.

There I was, waiting patiently during the last hour of the 24th. I was on the computer, and I whacked on a VHS of the Muppets Christmas Carol for about 20 minutes. Then I just had a more-than-one-person conversation on MSN until midnight arrived. I signed out and went straight downstairs, shaking, waiting to get though the opening of presents. I didn't get much though...

  • A new digital camera and printing dock
  • A dressing gown
  • The X Factor: The Greatest Auditions Ever on DVD
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights Camera Pants on GBA
  • A tin of marshmellows
  • Photo inkjet paper
  • And socks
I wasn't really happy with the marshmellows, because I don't eat them (I'm vegetarian) so I can't really enjoy them. However, I loved the printing dock that came with my camera, it produces a real Kodak photo in a few minutes by just the touch of a button! I've used up the sample pack though so I'll have to buy some tomorrow...if I can find a stockist somewhere in Romford.

The camera itself is a LOT better than my old one. It has 4.0 megapixels, lots of settings, the abilty to record movies with sound, and it has an optical zoom - when I turn it on the lens pokes out! Trouble is though that some of my photos come out wrong depending on the kind of light in where I'm taking a photo. This going to take a LOT of getting used to.

So after we all opened up our presents, it was time to take them upstairs. I put them all in my camera's cardboard box and carried it by the handle, but as I got to the top of the stairs, the box broke and everything fell down the stairs! I was in a right panic, but thankfully everything, camera and printing dock, which only had a few marks on the outside, was fine.

My sister wanted to try out her new iPod mini, and she was really desperate to listen to a song on it. We were having trouble with it though as she just plugged it in without installing the software, so I had to do that. My computer was being unresponsive after this, so I had to turn it off by the plug, turn it back on and shut it down again.

In the morning, I was about to set my Internet connection up again when my sister took my computer over and started it up without me setting the Internet, and I wasn't very happy. It took us ages to learn how to turn the iPod on and off and how to disconnect it. Then I learned that we had to use iTunes to put songs onto it. When I loaded it up it was transfering all of MY songs that were in the library! All of my songs from Clubland X-Treme Hardcore... I told her to reset the iPod and I had to clear my songs from the library and add all the music she wanted t have on it. Everything turned out fine in the end.

Later on the family arrived - my aunts and uncle, cousins, my grandparents, my cousin's girlfriend and his sister's baby. All 14 of us had the Christmas dinner and did the 'traditional' stuff like pulling crackers and putting on those stupid paper hats. During this my cousin's baby wouldn't stop crying! My sister and I were the only ones who didn't have turkey since we are vegetarian, instead we had quorn roast. And lucky me, I didn't have brussels!

When we had the table cleared from the front room we all opened up more presents:

  • a puppy calender
  • 2 sudoku books
  • a SpongeBob mug and tin full of marshmellows
  • a shower puff
  • and a SpongeBob lightup furry top pen.
I also got £30 from family and friends.

Again, the bloody marshmellows got me feeling disappointed. The family knows I'm vegetarian, but they only got me those so I can keep the mug and the tin, which I've already got from last Chistmas and Easter. But I'm guessing that I'll have to use one and keep another for display. I was really hoping I'd get chocolates because I would have enjoyed eating them (who doesn't?). All wasn't lost though, for I found one of three Lindt reindeers hidden in the Christmas tree.

Then I just spent the rest of the night on my computer.

The next morning, I was just waiting for us all to get ready to go round my other grandparent's house. This was a lucky time to have, because my older sister was about to go to work on Boxing day, but she took the day off. We didn't do much round there though, but it was good to see Nanny Eve again.

I spent an amount of time doing some sudoku puzzles in the bedroom, until I came out and had egg and chips for dinner. My nan's not as good a cook as my Nanny Shirley, but she did a really nice egg that she fried with olive oil. I thought that was what the weird smell I could smell in the kitchen is, but it wasn't. It made the egg taste no different.

After that we opened out a present and card each - I got a box of Thorntons chocolates with vegetarian gummies - they tastes horrible though so I didn't eat them - a pair of really thick gloves, and £50! In the card, which was from my uncle who wasn't even there - he came and went in fears of snow on the way home - there was another £20, so that plus what I got yesterday adds up to £100! I must use it wisely!

Until we went home my sister and I just pulled crackers for the fun of it and were playing with the crap toys inside while watching the Simpsons.

And that was it.

It was quite a good Christmas after all. It's not as magical or anything nowadays because we're not kids anymore and it never snows dot on. I'd love to spend just one Christmas abroad in my life, especially somewhere like the north of Finland or somewhere nice and snowy in Europe. But snow or no snow, Christmas in the United Kingdom can be just as nice.

I won't be looking forward to New Year's Eve though...

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Sometimes beautiful, sometimes insane...

There's been a lot of concern in the house regarding our pet dog, Sandy. Mum and dad took her to the vet two Mondays ago, where she was diagnosed with having arthritis in her spine. So she's been given painkillers to ease the pain, but now we have another problem. The dog has since been drinking an excessive amount of water, and as a result of forgetting to let her out to the garden to relieve herself, she has been urinating all over the carpets and rugs around the house, as many as seven times today alone. Just today my dad and I have noticed what looks like blood in the urine. Sandy will be taken to the vets this coming Monday, and lord knows what shall happen next.

Sandy's a very old dog, at an age of 15 years. That happens to be a longer life than the other family dogs, such as my aunt's German Shepard and my grandmother's Yorkshire Terrier. Both dogs didn't live beyond twelve years due to major health problems. Sandy on the other hand is a mongrel - part Border Collie, German Shepard and whippet - and apparently these dogs have a longer lifespan that many pedigree dogs. She also had an operation earlier this year where a cancerous tumour was removed from her underbelly. I remember feeling the lump so clearly, and the scar and stitches...

I can only hope for the best for her...Sandy has been a part of the family for 14 years, and the house would feel so empty should the time come...

Somehow my feelings have transformed from good to angry and envious in the space of a few hours. I watched Little Britain earlier, which was great despite the same old 'Lou and Andy', 'Computer says No' and 'I'm a lady' jokes, but there were some really funny sketches such as the Stars in Their Eyes spoof where Ann takes on Celine Dion, singing 'Eh Eh Eh!' over 'My Heart Will Go On'.

I turned envious for the reason that my sister has won a competition in which she is to attend a coffee shop in London. She could only take one person with her, and that person was Mum. I asked if I could come, but Mum refused, and now I'm not very happy. I like going out very much, and it'll be a shame to be stuck in my bedroom as usual nearly althrough the day. So yes, I'm rather pissed off by that.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

When an Atheist comes to a Baptism...

What a lovely time I had today. I had to go to my cousin's son's Christening.

Dressed in a long violet skirt, a purple-blue top and purple 'Arabian' shoes, with my hair straightened, but my face having makeup on, which I really hate, I arrived with the family to the church where the baptism was taking place at about fifteen minutes before 3 o'clock, the time of the baptism.

When we were all allowed in, after waiting a few minutes in the freezing cold rain, I was surpised about the huge number of people already inside the church. Apparently 2 other children - another baby boy and a young girl - were to be baptised at the same time as my cousin's son, Bradley.

After the speech of the priest, Bradley was baptised first, and he actually took it well, as did the girl who seemed to be at least 5 years older than him. The other boy, who seemed to be a couple of months younger than Bradley, did cry I think, we all definately heard crying while he was being baptised, but he seemed to be OK afterwards. I could barely see all this because my younger sister - Bradley's godmother - was in the way.

I don't like being involved with religious occasions. At such times, I get the feeling that as an atheist I don't belong around lots of Christians. I don't like having to read the hymn book and sing them, which fortunately we didn't do, but we still had to read the Baptism part of the services book today.

The buffet that followed was a tedious four hours. Luckily my mum cooked and took some of my special sausage rolls over which I had away, as well as a few bits of salad and quorn 'ham' deli. Eating tomatoes gave my tounge the usual burning senstation, while the piece of baguette I had near the end could have made me lose my teeth!

At the end of the buffet I was desperate to go home. My younger cousin's girlfriend was somewhat addicted to dancing to the Pussycat Dolls' song 'Don't Cha?' (one of the worst songs to top the UK charts this year), which played for about four times in a row. It was so annoying, as was my drunken dad. When we dropped off my sister's friend at her house, my dad wouldn't come out of the car, but just piss about.

So there...it wasn't THAT bad was it...

Also this week...

  • I checked up on the BBC New Animation webpage to sadly find that my animation, Perry the Puff which I entered 2 months ago, was not in the final 12. I was very disappointed by this at the time, because I spent a very long time working on it, and I felt like it was all for nothing. However, I learned a LOT during production. I know a lot more about Flash than I did when I started the project, and I'm willing to learn more of it. I'm thinking about producing a sequel to the Wad Bandits episode I made.
  • I had to wait till about 2AM on the other night for my parents to stop partying downstairs. It was my mum's neighbour friend's birthday that night, and I'm assuming that a LOT of alcohol was consumed between them from the hangover my parents had the following morning. As soon as I got myself into bed, they stopped their karaoke. GREAT timing!
  • Last night I was round a friend's house to watch some fireworks. But instead of the fireworks, which were too close for me to see them since they have too small a garden, I stayed inside and watched parts of a few movies - Team America, SpongeBob SquarePants movie and Watership Down - my friend was more interested in the fireworks, so I was on my own in their front room watching the movies on their HUGE plasma screen. They had a kind of digital TV that I never heard of before, and lots of different channels, including Filmfour where I watched Watership Down. And due to the other two movies being played on the Front Row channels, I got to see the vomit scene in Team America twice. There wasn't a lot for me to eat there, so my mum just gave me some bread and a bowl of beans. After the films, I had a go at WarioWare Touched on my friend's DS.
So there.

Monday, October 24, 2005

What a wonderful world...

It seems as though all I've been doing this week was watching the blue squares slowly pile up in Azureus and check on DeviantART, Livejournal, Hotmail, MSN Messenger and eBay on a regular basis while pumping Nightwish into my system at the same time. Having to clean my rat's cage out without any assistance from my younger sister didn't help, where I destoyed a pair of my pyjama pants by accident on the job. She wasn't willing to help even on her half day off, or the weekend.

Then I broke my headphones. Should I get music withdrawal, I'd either have to listen publically or borrow my sister's MP3 player plugphones. Both are problematic - my speakers are crap and crackle badly when touched, not to mention that when others are in the house they tell me to turn it down all the time. My older sister and dad are hypocrites, they play their music up really loud and I can't complain - she thinks everything I listen to is shit and has some 'epileptic fit' whenever she hears stuff like 'Pretty Green Eyes'. I think just about the same about the weird crap she listens to, except I don't go all shitty. As for the plugphones, they're too short.

Jesus Christ, it's lunch hour already and I couldn't be arsed to have breakfast, so I'm having both breakfast cereal and a sandwich. Because I'm a fat pig of carbohydrates.

Thankfully at the end of the week I had a little creativity going on. My younger sister recently aquired an MSN Messenger account and has been using it during the late evening, giving me a chance to do some drawing. I've produced for pieces of lineart which I am now colouring, and these will be submitted to my DeviantART gallery as soon as I can.

Another 'amazing' thing I did this weekend was join the family for Sunday dinner for once. This is something I barely ever did, except for Christmas and at the restaurants, and for some strange reason I didn't have a problem with anything but my cousin's 5 month old son, who wouldn't stop crying simply because he wanted his mother to hold him. I much enjoyed my vegetarian 'chicken dipper' pieces and sweetcorn, which I'd usually be eating next to my computer.

What I've been consumed with lately is this BBC New Animation scheme. The end of October is drawing near and I've been hoping and worrying at the same time about what it's going to bring. If I become a finalist, I'd be very happy, seeing as Perry the Puff is the first movie I ever animated. But if I don't, it'll be such a letdown after the hard work, tension and sacrifices I had to go through.

But whatever happens, I've gained experience, I did my best, and that's what matters the most.

Hope to get the artworks done, get a new pair of headphones and learn to take care of myself a bit more in this new week.

Until next time, take care and cheerio!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Over the hills and far away...

It seems as though life doesn't want to get too exciting for me at the moment.

All that's happened is that is that one of those little dog statues I got from eBay - the Jack Russell - came through to us on Thursday. My mum was very pleased with her new addition to her huge dog collection, but we're still waiting for the Dalmation. On Saturday my James Pond fabric transfer came, all I need for that now is to look for a time to get it ironed on a t-shirt...I don't know how to iron though, that's the thing.

My sister also got me to buy a Rude Dog t-shirt from eBay, she's payed for it with a cheque and we should be getting it very soon.

On Monday I bought a copy of a Nightwish album called 'Angels Fall First' for £8.99, and Count Duckula on DVD. Sadly I only like about 4 songs from that album, including the bonus track 'Return to the Sea', the rest were a bit much for me. That's the huge trouble with albums, you end up only buying them for at least one song and not liking many of the others. I've been meaning to try and get Nightwish's other album 'Oceanborn', but I can't find that one anywhere, neither can I find the Within Temptation album 'Mother Earth'. Wish I could pay to download music legally...

Speaking of downloading, I managed to catch an episode of Invader Zim from Limewire. I did so because I was annoyed with the amount of people on DeviantART who just can't seem to stop going on about how much a godsent the cartoon is. I certain don't think so. From the episode I saw - 'the Nightmare Begins' - I didn't find it as bad as I thought it would be, in fact, I thought it was quite good, but it certainly wasn't brilliant. The word 'doom' was overused, and it had poxy school scenes, which I don't like anymore.

I also caught two episodes of Super Mario Bros 3 cartoon through a torrent, one of them I remember seeing part of it on POP. I did have an episode called 'Reign Storm' on a videotape somewhere, but I lost it apparently. There's a number of reasons why for this cartoon and Sonic SatAM I'd rather use P2P (and possibly get in trouble) that watch it on POP.

  • This POP channel is a Sky only children's channel that is controlled by GMTV (part of ITV). At various points a animated green dragon appears - he was originally called 'Tricky' and was used in a Saturday morning TV show of the same name that dates back to 1997. This was a live broadcast, meaning that he was animated by special software while a voice actor spoke, making it a 'live realtime animation'. The same kind of thing is widely used by Cartoon Network. I have a rip of the original TV show to prove it. The POP version was renamed to 'Rorry', and a new voice actor was used to make prerecorded animations.
  • It started in 2003 with very few programmes. One of them was a dreadful cartoon about vikings. As the channel stayed on air, more cartoons were added to the schedule, including Tube Mice (a very poor cartoon that looks like it was animated by preschool children), the Raggydolls (fair cartoon from the 80's about ragdolls), White Fang, and eventually in 2004, Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons. Most recently in year the 'Snorks' was aired.
  • Super Mario's cartoons aired were the ones based on 'Super Mario Bros 3' and Super Mario World, while Sonic's were 'Adventures of Sonic' - the one where Robotnik was voiced by the late Long John Bauldry - and Sonic SatAM, the one which was set in a futuristic world.
  • When they were first aired on this channel, they were shown 3 times a day. However, more recently they are now being shown only once or twice a day, at very ridiculous times (for me at least), because during the day they play some really rubbish cartoons, such as a remake of 'the Archies', 'Cyberchase' and 'Wheel Squad', as well as a two-hour slot of pop music videos...really bad ones.
  • And the real reason why I'd rather P2P these Sonic and Mario cartoons is because...being the cheapass channel POP is, they have no synopsis of each episode, meaning that you can't tell which Sonic and Mario series is going to be played. At the moment they're playing Adventures of Sonic, a cartoon I now really hate for its sillyness.
So there, POP sucks for many reasons other that Sonic and Mario.

Last night was a little more eventful. My grandad was celebrating his birthday round his neighbour's house (who's also my nan's sister I think), and we had to pop in there and say hello and gobble up all their party food. I ate very little other than cucumber, eggs and cake since everything else was meat...they had huge sardines... I had to go in their bathroom to wash my hands from some chocolate cream...wow, their bathroom kicks ass...lovely curtains that look like curtains! To make things a little better, they had 2 pianos, and they let me use one of them. It was so cool, even though the old guys that were there were doing karaoke.

Then I was told that I could stay in my nan's house, on my own. While there, I watched the X Factor (that Chico bloke sucked so much ass) and kept stepping out into the garden to look at the moon. After X Factor finished I had a little nap before it was time to go home. On the way home we stopped for some McDonalds and I carried on torrenting.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

The Good, the Bad and the Yucky

I've had a mix of good and bad times in this weekend:

The Good
  • I have now seen every single episode of the first three seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants, excluding a bonus episode called 'Shanganaied'. The episode that made this complete was 'Christmas Who?', which I believe was never aired over here, but was released on a compilation DVD. It wasn't as brilliant as I hoped it would be, but it did have some funny bits, like when that puppet bird ate all the cookie dough.
  • I went to a boot sale this morning, and came home with a Count Duckula plush. I should have got the Terrance and Phillip (from South Park) plushes as well, damn me. I could have had a lot of fun imitating their fart jokes.
  • A friend on MSN showed me this video of the moment in Catchphrase where everyone mistook Mr Chip's swinging cane for a penis...that had made my Friday night! (If you can't get this to work, try watching it on Mucho Sucko).

The Bad
  • I caught a cold from my sisters late this week, and as a result I had a lot of trouble getting myself to sleep. I had some pretty bad discomfort in my nose on Friday night, that somehow eased if it was filled up with mucus. Thankfully, although I still have a little trace of it left, I'm feeling a lot better now. My poor sister however, has it worse. She works in a very smoky enviroment (she doesn't smoke herself), which I think is why she's got a very course cough. It must feel dreadful. She's OK otherwise. This cold I have isn't as bad as others I've had when I was younger.
  • This morning, after a lot of the usual tossing and turning, my dad turned his TV on. You see, he does this every single night, all night for as long as I can remember, and the noise from it drives me insane! That morning, I got so annoyed, I got up and went downstairs. My mum came down shortly and saw me sulking in the kicthen. She says that I've overreacted and blames my sleepless nights on my excessive computer usage. I tried to convince her that my dad does indeed play a part of my sleeping problems, long before I even started playing videogames. I'm going to take her advice and log off the computer at 9.00PM tonight, wind down for an hour, then go to bed, and see if it really is computers that are making me insomnic.
The Nasty
  • When I got home from the boot sale I was about to give my rat some of his food...but as I was to go about picking out the alfalfa pellets, sunflower seeds and peanuts (rats don't seem to like those pellets, and the latter two I pick out because they're bad for rats), I found a maggot among a handful of the mix! I screamed so damn loud, and threw the half empty bag away, meaning that I now had to give my rat a bowl full of fruit and cereal. He's such a greedy pig, after about ten minutes of placing the fresh food in his cage, it was all gone!
Let's pretend you never heard that ;P

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Joys of eBaying

One night, my dad decided to get me to look up some Beswick dog statues on eBay, which my mum obsessivly collects. We decided to go for a 'Dalmation' dog, and by the time it was in its last few minutes, other people were bidding like crazy for it. I managed to win it fortunately, after about 13 bids, and after a few emails my mum sent the cheque over (my parents don't like the idea of Paypal, so they have to send cheques over.

This here is the first dog I won.

Sweet, isn't it? My mum has a whole cupboard of dogs in the front room. Thing is though the bid went up to £26.50, and including postage and packaging, my dad had to pay £31 for it in total.

And just about half hour ago, I won this dog as well.

I've yet to get this one paid for, the price didn't shoot up as much as that other dog and it's going to cost us £8.50 - I don't know the full amount yet.

Oh yes, then there's this I've bid for myself, I don't think I could ever find any of that other art around on the Internet...I might as well, it was only 99p to start with, and I add just a penny to the top bid! And still, to have James Pond on a T-Shirt would be SO cool!

It'd be so nice if there were more to James Pond things on eBay than just the videogames.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Great Yarmouth 2005

Yes, for the past few days I've been doing time in Great Yarmouth, a coastal town in Norfolk, United Kingdom, over 100 miles away from where I live.

Using a 7 seater car which we borrowed from a neighbour - which was ten times better than the cramped turquiose coloured 2-door car we have, we drove all round the twists and turns thoughout the motorways and small towns. Whe we left, the sky was all cloudy and horrible...


...but when we arrived, it was actually sunny! In fact, it remained sunny until Thursday. It's a great job I took my hat with me, even though it shrunk in its last wash.


We had a 'meal' in the tavern in the camp, where I had a salad sandwich. I refused to have chips at all, and there wasn't anything else around there that I liked. My dad wasn't happy about the food there either. We were waiting for my grandparents to arrive, so I stepped out on my own to check out the gift shop, and when I got back, there were my grandparents!

Eventually we got the key to the caravan and started unpacking. Everything about that was fine, except for the toilet room - it beared one of the worst smells ever! My mum cleaned every part of it, but it still stank like vomit. There was also some dark yellow stuff around the doors which we hope wasn't vomit either...the way some people treat property that's not theirs eh?

Later on me, my sisters and grandparents went down the beach for a bit. Apparently some of those energy windmills have been placed around the horizon, so that wasn't something I've seen before. The weather was fantastic at this time, the sea was a lovely dark blue, and the sand felt just lush, not too boiling hot.

Then we all decided to go down the seafront. Firstly we were waiting for a bus, bus since there was
no sign of one coming, we had to walk all the way down to the pier, arcades and that. The sky cast a gorgeous sunset before the night arrived.

At one of the arcades, I put a pound in one of the crane machines, and somehow managed to win a SpongeBob plush on my first go - one where he's dressed up as a basketball player of a sort. The other times failed. I must have been really lucky to win a plush from those crafty machines, my
mum and sister tried to get it themselves but kept losing.

You see the trouble with these caravans is that the walls are so thin it gets really cold overnight, especially at these coastal holiday ca
mps. I had to wear shorts on the first night, and by morning I really didn't want to leave bed because of how cold it was.

On Tuesday, my dad took us all up to a little town 30 miles north called Cromer. It was one of those towns where all the senior citizens like to go, like Walton on the Naze, where I went to last year. Most of the shops were suited to older people, but they had wicked interiors. Like this shop that sold artworks for instance. The interior of that looked a bit like an art studio (well yeah!), and down below there was a basement that somehow reminded me of the ceramics room I worked in when I was at college. It literally had this model of some oriental misty pond thing - think the video for 'Turn Off the Lights' by Nelly Furtardo and you'll get the idea.

There was however a small shop where they sold second hand games. Nope, there weren't many Gamecube games,
but I managed to catch a copy of Worms 4 Mayhem on PS2 for £22. Elsewhere in the town my nan and I bought ourselves some raspberries, apples and peaches from a grocers, and that was about it.

Later on we had a look around the independant shops in the seafront, and stopped in one of the restaurants for a meal. There I had a mushroom omlette and some salad - it was OK I guess, I didn't eat all of it (it was fairly big), but I didn't think I was used to eating mushrooms quite yet.

I really should have taken some photos of the streets of Cromer while I was there, the weather kept on shining out its sun.


Wednesday, we were taken to a little wildlife park not far from the camp. While there I had a small photo-taking spree, taking shots of all the animals that weren't behind glass. One of the birds in particular - a pink cockatoo - was making the loudest noise you could think of...and I thought my own budgie was a noisy bugger! But I think the highlight of that was when we got to the tiger section...a tiger was sitting right at the end of the netted platforms we had to walk on. I couldn't take a shot of it unfortunately because it was way too close. But it was beautiful...it pains me to think that heartless people kill these graceful creatures so that their bones are made into medicine...

Other animals that I did take shots of included crocodiles, many birds - pelican, owl, cockatoo, peacock - a chipmunk, baboons and monkeys - one monkey in particular was carrying a bin liner around the cage and another of his kind was chasing him! I took a short movie of them with my camera.

Back at Great Yarmouth, I had a walk around the high street bit of the town, and, with the help of
my sister , I bought a copy of Paper Mario 2 on Gamecube. It was £30, and I only had twenty, so my sister lent me ten towards it.

But I still found no copy of Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. Not in one game shop.

By Thursday, the weather got really crappy. No more sunshine. Luckily it didn't rain when we were hanging around in the theme park, but when we went back to the independant shops, it did. Real hard. We had a meal in another restaurant where I had... mushrooms on toast and corn on a cob! Ac
tually, this time the mushrooms were really nice, as was the toast, though it was soggy. I wanted to have more. For dessert, there was a chocolate cake in front of me...mousse, fudge, whipped cream...it was so sweet and sickly, it was ungodly!

I wanted to check out a few more shops, so only my mum
went with me this time. She wanted to get some money out anyway. The little DVD shop around was a waste of time going, and that little game shop that was under the bridge wasn't there anymore. It shut down. Now THAT was a real waste of time. That was when the rain poured right down and we got soaked to death!

Back at the caravan, I found that my CD player wasn't working anymore, to my misfortune...I think putting in those Ni-MH batteries in it killed it, it said in the instructions that I shouldn't...well, it was a bit of a risk to take really, I didn't want to listen to the crap on the car radio.

On Friday morning as we were waiting for my dad to get back from taking my grandparents to the station, a black cat just randomly popped into our caravan! It had no collar on, but was quite friendly, all it wanted was some food. Since we cleared the fridge of everything, my sister went down the shop and got it some cat food. The cheeky bugger was trying to open up the fridge and get up on the work surface. I took a few movies of it on my camera while it was eating. I think it goes around the camp and begs for food.

So in all, I had mixed thoughts about this holiday. While some times, like when I won the SpongeBob plush, were great, some times, like the heavy rain, were quite bad. But I had a good time.

Now, I should set up my Gamecube and play Paper Mario.