The lights are on but there's nobody home (Part One)
So it's a little on the quiet side here now but I'm not as bothered by it as I thought I'd be. Tonight Jackie's having a party in her flat and on Wednesday its the BBQ, before that I need to go into town and get a few odds and ends and there's lots of stuff around the flat for me to be doing along the packing/cleaning/sorting out lines. But right now I've finally got around to uploading the pictures from my phone that I took when we were out and about at the end of last week.
Trains, Da Vinci and Mancunian Egyptians (aka Laura's non-birthday).
Having proclaimed this Laura-bell's non-birthday simply because we could (and because it isn't her birthday until 12th June) the birthday girl opened her pressies from us before we headed down into town to meet a rather large gaggle of LAS folks (wonder what the plural for anime geeks should be?) at the station. Stage one of our journey was to get from Liverpool to Manchester
This was done with much singing, giggling and doodling on Marianne's hat. Alas Jackie missed the train we got but met up with us at Manchester Piccadilly because there's hardly a shortage of trains going between the two at that time of day. Despite leading us out of the back entrance of the station, the boys (Simon and Kev) did get us to the right tram stop for stage two of the journey.
Because myself and the other three can't be trusted to do anything normally, we opted to sit in the seats in the connecting bit on the tram, that swivelled whenever it turned corners. Naturally we found this very funny because we are that easily amused.
Stage three of the journey was made by bus because the tram (for some stupid reason) doesn't take you all the way to the Trafford Centre (our eventual destination). While waiting at the bus stop the oh-so mature members of LAS (aka Becs, Laura-hat, myself and some of the others) launched a very loud game of "I Spy!" and insisted we were very much capable of seeing Belgium, Africa and a bunch of other places from the bus shelter. Once we got to the Trafford Centre (following a round of the Seigaku Game played very loudly on the bus) we headed off to the cinema to book our tickets for The DaVinci Code and some people ate before we went into battle at the LaserQuest place next door.
So. LaserQuest. *grins* Personally I can't think of many ways I'd rather spend my time than running around in the near-dark shooting people so I had a great time! There were eleven of us playing in the first game (Kev, Simon, me, Becci, Laura-bell, Sazzie, Laura-hat, Maya, Nick, Izzy and Jackie) and the team pitted against us were a terrifying bunch of truly fearsome warriors... ok, they were a group of eight boys with their two teachers and the average age of the kids was somewhere between seven and nine at the absolute most. The kids were really funny because while they were outside picking names for the scoresheets like 'Kill Kong', 'Gladiator' and so on they were telling us how we were all going to die. Then we got inside and they ran around in little packs making them extremely easy to pick off. One of their teachers was pretty good and calmly walked around shooting our team but in hindsight I do wonder whether we should have asked the marshalls to split the groups up a bit. Ok, so the kids had an advantage because they didn't have to duck to keep the targets on their packs out of our sight like we had to do (and even then our shoulders were always visible) but then again they couldn't see over the barriers on the upper level so they were incapable of shooting us from above while it was all too easy for us to lean over and pick them off without them realising (which was a lot of fun). Funnily enough we won that game - 3,660 points to 147.
Round two was a little different because this time we were split up, our teams bulked up by two mums and the four small boys they were looking after. Unfortuneatly not a lot of thought went into the way the other group were divided up because the other team ended up with three of the boys and the team I was on had the two women and one of the boys. Understandably he didn't particularly want to run around on his own (or worse, with his mother) so he stuck with his friends and made life difficult for those on the other team. However they did manage to do one thing right, they split up the Fangirl Four! Laura-bell and I were on one team while Becci and Sarah were on the other and we enjoyed shooting each other at every available opportunity ^__^ Maya was the best shot in that round (Simon had come top in the first game with a personal score of 800) and my name was entered wrong so it came up as 'Drip' instead of 'Dria' (yeah I don't understand how they made that mistake either). In the end mine and Laura's team won by just 10 points (that's a difference of one shot so it was really, really close!) and we staggered back out hot, tired and sweaty to eat ice cream and kill a little time before the film started.
The food court was on the floor below and down there we found what can only be described as the grumpiest Egyptians I've ever seen.
Quite why there was so much random fake Egyptian architecture around I don't know, but Becci and I spent a good ten minutes pretending to translate the hieroglyphs (something that was made harder by how awfully they were drawn, I could have done better with my eyes closed). We found an Egyptian lift
Royally endorsed cookies (the hieroglyph above the sign is a "bity" which forms half the title "nsw bity" or "Dual King/Lord of the Two Lands", you usually see it before a royal cartouche rather than in relation to cookies)
Ugly gods covered the walls, including this awful example of Sekhmet (lion-headed goddess of war, the bringer and curer of plagues, wife of Ptah of Memphis and mother of Nefertum)
But nothing could beat the Osirian statues outside Pizza Hut. Or this particularly hideous "royal" statue which Becci suspected was supposed to be Ramesses II (poor guy would be spinning in his case in the Cairo museum if he knew he was connected with this monstrosity).
So then we went to watch The DaVinci Code. Hmmm... well, on the plus side Ian McKellen is always worth watching and Paul Bettany did (in my opinion) a very good job of Silas. Ok so I've never read the book (and don't intend to either) but I enjoyed both their performances for different reasons. Audrey Tatou is beautiful so watching her wasn't a problem even if she did have a fairly 2D role. Tom Hanks however... well he was okay I suppose, but if Silas had managed to beat him over the head with a bible then I wouldn't have been very bothered (or noticed). It made for a perfectly competent film (being directed by Ron Howard you'd expect so) if a little overlong but there was nothing to really grab hold of you and as with most conspiracy theories, it was all just a little too neat and convienenant for my liking. As for the actual content which seems to be getting so many sections of the wider Christian community up in arms... I have to admit I wish they'd focus their energy on objecting to something else. Its a work of fiction for crying out loud, a very popular one for some daft reason, but anyone who actually believes in the Priory of Scion (exposed as a pretty pathetic con back in the '50s I believe) or that Mary Magdelene travelled to France in the space of just a few months (err... how exactly? By alien spaceship?) is going to believe just about anything. But then this is just a symptom of the wider problems that seem to be affecting the church (not just the Catholics but pretty much everyone), everyone's so damn quick to defend themselves, to shout things down and criticise. It's a reaction of fear and for something that's supposed to be based on love that's pretty stupid.
Personally I don't care if Jesus did get married, or even if someone was able to conclusively prove that he did have children. Jesus was the Son of God and his divinity, his power and his message isn't something you can distill down into DNA. Yes I believe in the miracle of the virgin birth, but the man was capable of hunger and thirst, he bled when they plunged the spear into his side and he's shown as exhibiting almost all of the other human emotions during his short life, the question is simply where do you draw the line. Even if (and lets face it, it's a huge, huge if) Jesus loved a woman, the Bible also says that he knew from an early age who he was and what his end would be. He knew, even if he wanted to change it, that he would be brought to the cross and nothing was ever going to change that because there is no greater sign of love, of God's love for everyone, than the death of Jesus on the cross and the hope of the resurrection. Sometimes I just wish people would remember that the entirety of Jesus's message comes down to that one word, it doesn't get much simpler than that, there's no line, no exclusions and no conditions.
And I seem to have wandered away from what I was originally talking about. Sorry!
So yeah, the film was ok but I'm in no rush to watch it again. Afterwards a few of us (myself included) got a little stressed making sure we got back to Liverpool ok without losing anyone or missing any of our relevant buses, trams or trains. It didn't help that we were all cold and tired and if I snapped at anyone then I'm sorry ^^; We made it back to the flat eventually between 12 and 1am and all promptly fell into bed.
Oh and remember me mentioning that Becci got us all a little book for people to write goodbye messages in? Well this is mine.
And that was Wednesday, photos from Thursday and the weekend will follow once I've had some lunch and done some cleaning.
Trains, Da Vinci and Mancunian Egyptians (aka Laura's non-birthday).
Having proclaimed this Laura-bell's non-birthday simply because we could (and because it isn't her birthday until 12th June) the birthday girl opened her pressies from us before we headed down into town to meet a rather large gaggle of LAS folks (wonder what the plural for anime geeks should be?) at the station. Stage one of our journey was to get from Liverpool to Manchester
This was done with much singing, giggling and doodling on Marianne's hat. Alas Jackie missed the train we got but met up with us at Manchester Piccadilly because there's hardly a shortage of trains going between the two at that time of day. Despite leading us out of the back entrance of the station, the boys (Simon and Kev) did get us to the right tram stop for stage two of the journey.
Because myself and the other three can't be trusted to do anything normally, we opted to sit in the seats in the connecting bit on the tram, that swivelled whenever it turned corners. Naturally we found this very funny because we are that easily amused.
Stage three of the journey was made by bus because the tram (for some stupid reason) doesn't take you all the way to the Trafford Centre (our eventual destination). While waiting at the bus stop the oh-so mature members of LAS (aka Becs, Laura-hat, myself and some of the others) launched a very loud game of "I Spy!" and insisted we were very much capable of seeing Belgium, Africa and a bunch of other places from the bus shelter. Once we got to the Trafford Centre (following a round of the Seigaku Game played very loudly on the bus) we headed off to the cinema to book our tickets for The DaVinci Code and some people ate before we went into battle at the LaserQuest place next door.
So. LaserQuest. *grins* Personally I can't think of many ways I'd rather spend my time than running around in the near-dark shooting people so I had a great time! There were eleven of us playing in the first game (Kev, Simon, me, Becci, Laura-bell, Sazzie, Laura-hat, Maya, Nick, Izzy and Jackie) and the team pitted against us were a terrifying bunch of truly fearsome warriors... ok, they were a group of eight boys with their two teachers and the average age of the kids was somewhere between seven and nine at the absolute most. The kids were really funny because while they were outside picking names for the scoresheets like 'Kill Kong', 'Gladiator' and so on they were telling us how we were all going to die. Then we got inside and they ran around in little packs making them extremely easy to pick off. One of their teachers was pretty good and calmly walked around shooting our team but in hindsight I do wonder whether we should have asked the marshalls to split the groups up a bit. Ok, so the kids had an advantage because they didn't have to duck to keep the targets on their packs out of our sight like we had to do (and even then our shoulders were always visible) but then again they couldn't see over the barriers on the upper level so they were incapable of shooting us from above while it was all too easy for us to lean over and pick them off without them realising (which was a lot of fun). Funnily enough we won that game - 3,660 points to 147.
Round two was a little different because this time we were split up, our teams bulked up by two mums and the four small boys they were looking after. Unfortuneatly not a lot of thought went into the way the other group were divided up because the other team ended up with three of the boys and the team I was on had the two women and one of the boys. Understandably he didn't particularly want to run around on his own (or worse, with his mother) so he stuck with his friends and made life difficult for those on the other team. However they did manage to do one thing right, they split up the Fangirl Four! Laura-bell and I were on one team while Becci and Sarah were on the other and we enjoyed shooting each other at every available opportunity ^__^ Maya was the best shot in that round (Simon had come top in the first game with a personal score of 800) and my name was entered wrong so it came up as 'Drip' instead of 'Dria' (yeah I don't understand how they made that mistake either). In the end mine and Laura's team won by just 10 points (that's a difference of one shot so it was really, really close!) and we staggered back out hot, tired and sweaty to eat ice cream and kill a little time before the film started.
The food court was on the floor below and down there we found what can only be described as the grumpiest Egyptians I've ever seen.
Quite why there was so much random fake Egyptian architecture around I don't know, but Becci and I spent a good ten minutes pretending to translate the hieroglyphs (something that was made harder by how awfully they were drawn, I could have done better with my eyes closed). We found an Egyptian lift
Royally endorsed cookies (the hieroglyph above the sign is a "bity" which forms half the title "nsw bity" or "Dual King/Lord of the Two Lands", you usually see it before a royal cartouche rather than in relation to cookies)
Ugly gods covered the walls, including this awful example of Sekhmet (lion-headed goddess of war, the bringer and curer of plagues, wife of Ptah of Memphis and mother of Nefertum)
But nothing could beat the Osirian statues outside Pizza Hut. Or this particularly hideous "royal" statue which Becci suspected was supposed to be Ramesses II (poor guy would be spinning in his case in the Cairo museum if he knew he was connected with this monstrosity).
So then we went to watch The DaVinci Code. Hmmm... well, on the plus side Ian McKellen is always worth watching and Paul Bettany did (in my opinion) a very good job of Silas. Ok so I've never read the book (and don't intend to either) but I enjoyed both their performances for different reasons. Audrey Tatou is beautiful so watching her wasn't a problem even if she did have a fairly 2D role. Tom Hanks however... well he was okay I suppose, but if Silas had managed to beat him over the head with a bible then I wouldn't have been very bothered (or noticed). It made for a perfectly competent film (being directed by Ron Howard you'd expect so) if a little overlong but there was nothing to really grab hold of you and as with most conspiracy theories, it was all just a little too neat and convienenant for my liking. As for the actual content which seems to be getting so many sections of the wider Christian community up in arms... I have to admit I wish they'd focus their energy on objecting to something else. Its a work of fiction for crying out loud, a very popular one for some daft reason, but anyone who actually believes in the Priory of Scion (exposed as a pretty pathetic con back in the '50s I believe) or that Mary Magdelene travelled to France in the space of just a few months (err... how exactly? By alien spaceship?) is going to believe just about anything. But then this is just a symptom of the wider problems that seem to be affecting the church (not just the Catholics but pretty much everyone), everyone's so damn quick to defend themselves, to shout things down and criticise. It's a reaction of fear and for something that's supposed to be based on love that's pretty stupid.
Personally I don't care if Jesus did get married, or even if someone was able to conclusively prove that he did have children. Jesus was the Son of God and his divinity, his power and his message isn't something you can distill down into DNA. Yes I believe in the miracle of the virgin birth, but the man was capable of hunger and thirst, he bled when they plunged the spear into his side and he's shown as exhibiting almost all of the other human emotions during his short life, the question is simply where do you draw the line. Even if (and lets face it, it's a huge, huge if) Jesus loved a woman, the Bible also says that he knew from an early age who he was and what his end would be. He knew, even if he wanted to change it, that he would be brought to the cross and nothing was ever going to change that because there is no greater sign of love, of God's love for everyone, than the death of Jesus on the cross and the hope of the resurrection. Sometimes I just wish people would remember that the entirety of Jesus's message comes down to that one word, it doesn't get much simpler than that, there's no line, no exclusions and no conditions.
And I seem to have wandered away from what I was originally talking about. Sorry!
So yeah, the film was ok but I'm in no rush to watch it again. Afterwards a few of us (myself included) got a little stressed making sure we got back to Liverpool ok without losing anyone or missing any of our relevant buses, trams or trains. It didn't help that we were all cold and tired and if I snapped at anyone then I'm sorry ^^; We made it back to the flat eventually between 12 and 1am and all promptly fell into bed.
Oh and remember me mentioning that Becci got us all a little book for people to write goodbye messages in? Well this is mine.
And that was Wednesday, photos from Thursday and the weekend will follow once I've had some lunch and done some cleaning.