Monday 31 August 2015

Dogs, herbs, Infinity and The King's Speech

The cafe was open today being closed so that Richard could have a well deserved holiday. We were absolutely delighted! Maybe we'll try not to visit quite as much though *grin*

Toni and I headed over to see Giselle today for our continued herbal consultations for various ailments. There was a chance to play with doggies:

When we got home I was delighted to find that some more Disney Infinity figures to boost my collection and playing options.

Tonto

Jack Skellington

Yoda

Obi Wan Kenobi

I haven't had a chance to try them all yet but playing with Tonto was great fun.

The day finished off with us watch the most excellent The King's Speech. We hadn't seen it before but boy were we glad that we finally caught up with it. Wow is all I have to say, Colin Firth was superb, one of his best performance ever!

Sunday 30 August 2015

Chillax, back to being girly and a Star Wars trailer (just because)

Today was a nice day full of chillax. Things kicked off with a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon and some salmon. Nice and light but filling at the same time.

Having been in a bit of a mental slump for the last few days I managed to snap out of it this morning which felt wonderful. Back to feeling and dressing a bit more girly (well apart from the Jushin 'Thunder' Liger t-shirt anyway LOL :)

Modelling a work in progress hat that Toni is making me:

Going super kawaii with hair bow and goth n roll Hello Kitty

Expect to see more pics of me soon adopting a more Harajuku style alongside just being back my good old girly self. Glad to be out of that slump as it was no fun for me and probably not much better for those around me either :)

I spent the afternoon watching X Japan's The Last Live DVD which was both entertaining and emotional. I can't begin to express how excited I am to be going to see them live in March 2016 as they launch their new album and documentary. We Are X!

Oh and here's the latest Star Wars teaser trailer that was quietly dropped in on Instagram the other day:


Saturday 29 August 2015

A welcome getaway

Due to our holiday plans being cancelled Leanne very kindly offered to spend a good chunk of time with Pam so that Toni and I could go our and do something together. It was great to be able to do that without having to ask the kids to cover for us.

We started out with a gorgeous meal at the Toby Carvery. The only problem with this plan was that we then just wanted to go to sleep afterwards as we were so full. We then drove out to Aylesford in Kent to investigate some pagan sites of interest in preparation for when Mel and Pinkie come to stay as we plan to have a trip out there with them.

It was lovely to just be able to get away from everything for a few hours and not worry about anything. It was lovely so a big thank you has to go to Leanne.

On our return we finished things off with a bit of 80s nostalgia and watched Beverley Hills Cop. Ah the memories!

Friday 28 August 2015

Green tea and Disney Infinity 3.0: Star Wars

Toni hasn't been sleeping well since Pam's downturn so I let her catch up on some sleep this morning and went and made sure that Pam was fed and watered etc. I took the opportunity to catch up on some Sword Art Online while drinking sencha and matcha teas. I've now decided that sencha is not for me and I much prefer the matcha.

Excitement reigned supreme when there was a knock on the door and I got to unwrap this little delight:

 It's a brilliant game. I actually spent the first couple of hours not playing the game but just exploring all the options and sub-games. This is Disney doing a game very right! After a while I did actually get down to playing the actual Star Wars game. It's very well done, not too difficult (for an old fart like me) and it's Star Wars. I was really impressed and played it most of the night. I also like the interchangeable figures option that you get on the base, it's a bit of a licence to print money but adding a collectible element makes a change from the usual DLC option.

Thursday 27 August 2015

Cancelled time away and Inside Out

So, today was supposed to be pack up and head off to Weymouth for holiday. Unfortunately due to Pam taking a real downturn we have decided to cancel those plans and stay at home. It's put a bit of a downer on things that's for sure but it was the right decision for us to make. We'll just have to find some ways to have fun at home LOL.

It's been a bit of a hard week so we were pleased when a volunteer from Carer's Support came round today and we had a chance to escape for a while. Toni, Zoe and I went to Bexleyheath and had lunch at Bella Italia and then went to see Inside Out.

It was a fun spin on the voices in our heads and how memories work. The only downside was I kept equating it with Pam and her dementia and alzheimers. That aside it was an enjoyable Disney Pixar yarn with some great characters and bright colourful visuals. Well worth a watch if you like animated films!

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Facebook deactivated my profile over my name AGAIN #mynameis

So, this happened to me AGAIN on Facebook:

The really frustrating thing is that I have already been through this nonsense once and verified to them that KT Glitz is my LEGAL name. This time round though it appears that somebody has decided to make mischief and report my profile just to be a pain in the ass so I had to go through the whole proving my identity thing again. Whilst I understand why Facebook have a mechanism for people to report "fake" profiles they appear to have not yet set things up so that once an account has been verified as a valid identity it can no longer be reported as fake. All this means is that potentially a spiteful drama queen could just keep reporting a profile over and over again just to give someone the inconvenience of their account being deactivated.

So, my LEGAL documentation has once again been submitted to Facebook and now I have to wait until I get reinstated again.......

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists:

Monday 24 August 2015

Last.FM update disaster

Last.FM have just updated their website in a major way. It has been a bit of a disaster. They started off giving people BETA versions of bits of the site to play with which was fair enough as it's always good to get some serious user testing in before going live. Sadly though they appear to have gone fully live but still in BETA mode much to the disgust of the Last.FM user base.

I've have been using Last.FM since 2008 and despite having a few minor niggles from time to time it has been a relatively painless experience. When the odd thing did break they normally sorted it out fairly quickly (even if it did take a lot of griping from users). The site today is all over the shop. Lots of things don't appear to be working anymore, scrobbles are hit and miss, and the player now seems to insist that you have Spotify installed. These are just the things that I have found issues with. The list of issues raised on a daily basis is phenomenal.

The BIG one for me though is that they appear to have now completely broken the ability to publish charts. Regular readers will know that every Wednesday I post charts of my top ten tracks and artists and plus overall tracks and artists. At the moment we appear to be stuck with a snapshot from a few weeks ago.

I found an old archive, the site used to look something like this (images are missing due it being an old internet archive snapshot):

Now it looks like this:

This site update was a very good example of NOT being in touch with what your regular users want and need and instead moving into a design that does not reflect those needs. It has been a complete disaster as far as I am concerned. I really hope that they get the the developers working had and get the broken/missing functionality back ASAP before they really start to lose visitors. 


Sunday 23 August 2015

Interesting lunches ahead

I am looking forward to having some interesting lunches very soon. I've just stocked up on a few things. Who could resist a flavoured lemonade with Pokemon on it and a marble in the lid?

I shall be taking some of my lunch inspiration from here:

Authentic rice to get that perfect sticky consistency:

Sticky rice can be wrapped in nori (seaweed) to make sushi. I, however, plan on making onigiri.

Sesame seeds can be used for all sorts of things, fillings, toppings, sauces.....

That's my starter for ten and will be enhanced with the use of lots of vegetables.

Of course when making lunch it is always useful something to put it in so I am now the proud owner of an authentic bento.

Saturday 22 August 2015

DragonForce @ The Square

It was off to Harlow tonight to see DragonForce perform an intimate gig as part of The Square's closing down series called Back To Square One. This was basically getting big bands that played gigs at The Square when they were starting out to go out with a bang. Needless to say this one was sold out!

I'd never been there before so was kind of shocked to see that The Square was more like a community centre than a music venue LOL

Support band for the night was local band Distance To Fall. They were pretty good. Well received by the crowd and got everyone in the mood for what was to come next.


After a short break and a chance to cool off a little our heroes entered the fray. Wish I'd filmed the cocked up entrance as it was hilarious! After that it was down to business. There was no flash set, no trampolines, choreography was minimal and find room to stand was often a challenge but boy was this fun! Pure unadulterated raw energy from a band that didn't have to worry about 100% perfection but just had a great time in an intimate setting with some very appreciative fans.

The full setlist was:
Tomorrow's Kings
Fury Of The Storm
Three Hammers
Operation Ground And Pound
Black Winter
The Game
Symphony Of The Night
Heroes Of Our Time
Cry Thunder
Vally Of The Damned
My Spirit Will Go On
Ring Of Fire
Through The Fire And Flames

This was my third DragonForce gig and my favourite so far. I actually prefer Marc Hudon's vocals to ZP Theart (probably because he really reminds me of German metal vocalist Michael Kiske).

Valley Of The Damned (complete with hilarious disco intro)
Ring Of Fire
Through The Fire And Flames