And today is a down for me.

Now I know I should be all happy and smiles, being a newlywed and all that, but life, life isn’t all smiles and happiness. We still have the issue with the house. We still haven’t sold the car. I can’t find my tax slip so that I can change my address online. I don’t want to move into the damn house, yet we have to in two weeks and we need to pack and it’s horrible. I have an exam in three days that I can’t find the motivation to study for. I miss my mom. I miss my dad. I miss my brother. I miss having no worries in life except smaller stuff like having to stand outside in pouring rain, waiting for the bus.

I just need it all to work out, ok? That’s all. I need to wake up one morning and know that I have nothing to worry about. I need to be able to let me shoulders down and breathe properly. I need to not have to put on a fake smile and make small talk and pretend that everything is fine, great, super. Because it isn’t.

Being the close-to-workaholic that I am, I logged into my work e-mail from home today (I had today off to study for my upcoming exam) to see if anything exciting has happened, and there it was.

The e-mail from the union, telling me that if negotiations fail, I will have to go on strike at the end of next week. I Googled a little bit, and found that if I do go on strike, I will get paid by the union, but “somewhat less” than I’d get paid for working. Which means that if I have to go on strike, it won’t just suck for my employer, it will suck big time for me and my finances. I’m already close to tears and/or vomiting whenever I think about our financial situation from June and out because of the purchase of the House of Doom, and this certainly didn’t help.

Dear union, please realise that even though I support the cause, of course I do, making me go on strike will probably cause me and my husband to not eat in June. Also, be advised that if this does happen, I will call YOU and cry about it.

Dear state/government/whoever, GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Just comply to some or most of the changes the unions are after, and we will all be a happier lot (and I won’t have to cut hot meals from our diet).

I am by no means a web guru of any kind, nor do I claim to be an expert site designer/writer. I am, however, an avid user of the internet and frequent reader of many blogs. I surf a lot. I visit new sites every day. If I like them, I will bookmark them, or add them to my blogroll.

But then there are those sites that offend my sense of aesthetics and usability so badly that I have no choice but to leave the site. NOW. QUICK. BEFORE ZE GERMANS GET HERE.

• Music/sound that plays automatically. Please, just don’t. I know you might LOVE Kelly Clarkson or Kanye West or who-/whatever, but at least give me the option to press play myself if I love them as well.
• Flashing backgrounds. Do you surf your own website with all styles disabled? No? Then I can see no legitimate reason for you not to have noticed yourself how horrible the background is.
• Netspeak. People have said it before, and people will without a doubt say it after me. Netspeak is an abomination. I will agree that it has its uses in text messages when using a cellphone, because of the limited space, but on the internet? No.
• Huge headers/banners that take up all the space above the fold and then some. Restrain yourself!
• Bad/missing navigation. Maybe it’s me getting old, but it isn’t always clear to me that I should click somewhere on the header graphic to navigate, at least not if the navigational elements are strange Japanese signs or similar.

I’ll go be a grumpy old lady elsewhere now. HMPH.

Title: Doomsday
Tagline: Mankind has an expiration date.
Genre: Action / Science fiction
Starring: Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Craig Conway
IMDB: Doomsday (2008)
Rating:

A lethal virus dubbed the reaper virus has hit Scotland. In an attempt to contain the death and misery, a wall is built where the wall of Hadrian used to run, a wall so high that none can get out of Scotland, and none can get in, should they want to. A woman tries to save herself and her little girl, but it is too late for one of them - the little girl (who gets shot in the eye during the rioting) is finally taken out on a helicopter, as one of the soldiers trades his place for hers.
25 years later, the reaper virus resurfaces in London. Having spotted living humans in Scotland via their satellite surveillance, UK government decides to send in a team to try and obtain a cure from a scientist who was shut inside during the initial virus disaster. The team is led by the now not so little girl, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra). What they find behind the wall is complete mayhem, a new order, led by a man named Sol. The people they find are brutal, savage, even cannibals - and they do not want the London team to find a cure, if such a thing even exists…

My first thought after watching the movie? Uhm. The movie can said to be a blend of 28 Days Later and Mad Max 2, and it also reminds me somewhat of John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars. If you’ve seen those three movies, now try picturing them mixed together. Add in some knights, pretty women and an insane stage show, and you’ve got Doomsday, more or less.

Now I’m not saying this is a shitty movie. It’s not. I actually found it quite entertaining. If you’re after a quick bit of crazy action, and you don’t mind the cannibalism (the scene where they barbecued reminded me of Silent Hill), then you might like it too.

“These walls around you; they were built to last, and so shall we. What we’ve built here, from the ashes, is pure blood. Uninfected by the outside world… until now.” - Kane

These ads are the BEST EVER.

Title: Iron Man
Tagline: Heroes aren’t born - they’re built.
Genre: Action / Adventure / Superhero
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges
IMDB: Iron Man
Rating:

Iron Man is Marvel’s latest addition to the line of comic-based superhero movies we’ve seen over the past few years, and it doesn’t let the fans down. Me, I’ve never been much of a comic book kind of girl, but the movies, the movies I have to go see.

The main character, Tony Stark (portrayed by Robert Downey Jr.) is a highly successful arms manufacturer. On a marketing tour in the Middle East to show off his latest weapon to the military, his convoy is attacked by terrorists, and he is hit by shrapnel while trying to escape, while the soldiers around him are dying. The terrorists capture him, and try to force him into using his skills to make his weapons for them, the very people he is trying to battle by manufacturing weapons. He instead uses his time (and limited resources) to first make a device to put in his chest to stop the shrapnel going into his heart, after which he moves on to making a suit to aid him and his new associate in their escape from the terrorists. And thus, Iron Man is born.

Once again, I was pleasantly surprised by a movie that I really had no high expectations for. Robert Downey Jr did a very good job as Tony Stark, being all snarky and self-obsessed for larger parts of the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow has to be mentioned as well, for her part as his administrative assistant, Pepper Potts.
The action is good, but not too overdone, the comedy is good as well, and you just walk out of the theatre feeling like you did NOT just waste a couple of hours of your life. Win!

“I’m sorry. This is the fun-vee. The hum-drum-vee is back there.” - Tony Stark

Ok, so, I became a married woman some days ago, but these things take some time to sink in, you know? I only today managed to talk about myself as being married (at the tax department, I said “I would like to change the tax rates for me and my husband”). When people, for fun mostly, have called me “Mrs.” the last couple of days, it has just felt odd. I guess it takes some time getting used to. I haven’t changed my name yet either, mostly because of all the hassle it will no doubt be.

So, after a week of preparations (and a lot of Supernatural with Bre), Saturday morning arrived. I woke up, not yet feeling nervous. Had a shower, almost vomited with the thought of breakfast. We’d talked a lot the night before about the oddness it was that Bre wasn’t supposed to enter the church a few steps behind me, but half an hour before me, and why couldn’t she walk behind me to watch that the train of my dress didn’t take on a life of its own? So at 9 in the morning I called the preacher and probably woke him up (he sounded tired, but you see, I have no idea what time the church people “go to work” - aren’t they always on call, sort of?). I told him of my worries about the train (why hello, Bridezilla), and asked him if we couldn’t just change it up a bit and let Bre enter behind me. He agreed, then probably went back to sleep wondering why, WHY GOD, did he give me his cellphone number?

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