I'm back!

I can’t believe it’s been such a long time since I’ve blogged properly. And it’s not for lack of stuff to blog about either. That’s probably the problem actually, not enough willingness to free up some time to blog. I don’t know how Alex manages actually (perhaps it’s the fact that he hasn’t really got a full time job?).

OK, important things first, its only 18 days until Wii launches in the UK and I don’t know whether I have secured a pre-order or not. Play.com mailed me to say that they couldn’t fulfil it and I’m waiting to see if Gameplay.co.uk are going to do the same. I’m pretty sure I have a good chance with Gameplay as I was online when they started taking orders and put one in straight away. Amazon opens theirs on the 21st (no time mentioned, so I guess I’ll be up early) with a promise that they’ll deliver on the launch day.

Zelda appears to have been reviewed and seems to be doing quite well over at Metacritic. I’m trying desperately not to read in depth reviews or watch any video spoilers so I can enjoy it when it arrives but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold out.

Also on the gaming front Elite Beat Agents has us in its thrall, with K even getting in on the act.

I finally finished Jade Empire on Xbox as well. Enjoyed it quite a lot but it was pretty linear. There was a lot of optional stuff to do but once you moved onto the next Chapter you couldn’t really go back. I guess I’m too used to having to back track and do stuff that I couldn’t do earlier. The ending was a bit of a let down as well. There seemed to be a big build up with regards to “facing the consequences” of my actions but no payoff. And the fact that the epilogue was just a bunch of text screens was almost unforgivable. But a nice touch was the voice over stuff that played during the credits.

The TV dilemma is over as well. Bought a nice new 26’’ LCD and managed to find a TV stand that matches our coffee table (although that was irrevocably damaged when we moved the old TV!). The front room seems much bigger now, just in time for the new sofa and armchair/bean bag that I want. A bonus was that even though we’re not in a digital reception area the TV managed to find about 70 digital signals and so we now have the likes of BBC3 & 4 plus a load of others. My next challenge is to work out how to record them.

Christmas shopping is now well under way with me spending too much money as usual. Well, there’s bound to be a time in my life again when I don’t have any spare cash so I may as well enjoy it while I can! That’s my philosophy and I’m sticking to it.

Obviously the other big thing, for those that know me, recently has been the show. We did a double bill of Trial by Jury & HMS Pinafore and all in all it was a pretty good experience. I’ve already blogged this but you can read the BBC Radio Suffolk review here. The only other review we’ve seen is the one from the Ipswich Evening Star which said I was “very good”. The downside was that I felt drained the whole week. I had a list of things to do in the house and I don’t think I managed a single one of them. For some reason every time we put the heating on I get wheezy. I don’t know whether there’s some kind of rising dust or that our house is so well insulated the warm air has nowhere to go but we end up with the heating off and jumpers on instead! I suppose it’s cheaper but hardly what I had in mind when we installed the heating. Didn’t really have this problem last year so I’m trying to fathom what has changed.

K has berated me for blogging about boring things when I have a wealth of slightly more humourous things I could blog about.

I had my first principals rehearsal for Trial by Jury on Thursday and it was ok. I discovered that the tunes I thought I knew I'd been singing wrong for years and I'm simply rubbish at harmonising without flipping to someone else's part. I've set aside some time today to practice. Half my bits have circles round them to draw my attention to the fact they need work.

Fortunately everyone else seems to be having similar problems. What tends to happen is that everyone listens to a commercially available recording to learn their songs but frequently either the timing/rhythm is way off, they are singing something completely different or our conductor has decided to change it anyway. I'm sure it'll all work out. I just have to remember to sing Dye-lemna instead of Dee-lemna and not listen too carefully when the Counsel is singing "Far Cologne". The way she does it maes it sound like "Fark alone" and it just puts a picture, in my mind, of a posh person masturbating. (Un)Fortunately I wasn't the only one to think this at the rehearsal and we should all be grateful that the person singing the Plaintiff only has to sob uncontrollably at this point and not sing.

As I blogged yesterday I said we were going to Somersham and we did. Had a great time and managed to buy a pile of tat (most of which was stuff K had left in Yarmo anyway) from Coleen's bric-a-brac stall and won big-stylee on the tombola. And by big-stylee I mean lots rather than anything impressive (a tea pot shaped like a cottage, a flannel and soap, a bottle of cola etc). Coleen swiped most of it back to redo on a future tombola! What with the stalls and the tea/coffee (all in Christine's back garden) and donations I think they made about £275 for charity so not a bad day's work!

We also managed to finish Xmen 2 - Age of Apocolype last night. Now need to fin another game that K & I can play together.