The Force Awakens Funko figures

So for those of you wondering why I wasn't posting all over the shop about buying new Star Wars toys last week as part of what was known as Force Friday it was because I already had things on pre-order :). OK I had to wait but phase one arrived today in the form of my first set of The Force Awakens figures from Funko. Well worth the wait!

Captain Phasma:

First Order Snowtrooper:

Poe Dameron:

C-3PO

Rey:

Finn:

Plenty more to come and pics will be posted as soon as they arrive :)

That's no moon.....

We had a large meeting today for which I booked our main posh conference room. Popped in early to make sure all of the tech was working as there were wires all over the place earlier in the week. All was good, brand new display screens were in place and PC connectivity was good. Then I noticed the ceiling. That's no moon!

Shamanic workshop

It was off to Giselle's for the next part of our shamanic workshop this evening. There was drumming, there was storytelling with a meditation style session. The best part however was doing some dream work. That was really exciting and will hopefully start to yield some positive results.

Forever bikes

...take forever to get ready. The work in progress is progressing SLOWLY. These pictures don't look much different to yesterdays but there are more bikes there and the monstrosity is starting to get higher.

This is all part of Sculpture In The City and is supposed to run from 4th - 13th September. At the rate they are going they'll be taking down again before it's even finished LOL.

I've got a bike.......

..you can ride it if you like! Actually we have many bikes appearing outside the Gherkin. This appears to be the latest modern art monstrosity that we are forced to suffer on a regular basis.  It's a work in progress at the moment:

Paul Wild said that he has seen something similar on his travels LOL:

Apparently it is a homage to the Forever Bicycle by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The name of the sculpture refers to the Forever cycle brand that has been mass-manufacturing bicycles in Shanghai since 1940. It is intended as a play on the concepts of assembling and copying in China. So there you have it. I'll be sure to update the blog with more pictures.

Dolmen Grove Essex Moot

It was off to Grays today for our Dolmen Grove Essex Moot. It's been a while since I've been as I have had to cover Pam for the last couple of meet ups. En route we saw this wonderful car sticker:

Icthus Car Sales - for a deal built on trust. So amusing to see something like this. The logo on the left is supposed to be a wheel but actually looks like a pentagram!

Here's the logo from their website:

EPIC FAIL Ichthus Car Sales!

We had a brilliant time at the moot. Helen did an excellent talk on crystals which included some practical exercises too. I came away with some tiger's eye gold:

...and also a brand new pendulum that called out to me. It's made of sodalite:

Toni ended up with some rose quartz.

She was also drawn to a nice piece of orange calcite

...and this wand style clear quartz:

It was a brilliant day and so great to catch up with everyone again as well as see some new people that have started attending :)

Funky shoes and pistachio ice cream

It was a funky shoes day today. I love these:

Toni and I took Pam out to Ziyafet to meet Jamie and Jade to have a meal together. I kept things light and had lamb ribs for a starter, sea bass with rice for my main and was delighted to find that they had pistachio ice cream on the dessert menu. Rishta stopped doing it a while back and I was craving some so this meant a very happy KT! Here's a picture just for mum as she loves it too *grin*

It was delicious with lovely large bits of pistachio in it too just as it should be.

As the hockey season has started again here in the UK I decided to watch the Capitals v Giants webcast. It wasn't a bad game by any means and despite losing 3 - 5 the Capitals at least seemed to have the potential to be a reasonable squad this season.

Last.FM manage to completely blow it

You might remember my recent post complaining about the disaster that is the Last.FM website update. Well things haven't got any better. I raised a support ticket to find our when they were going to bring back the weekly charts widget so that I could continue to blog. After two days I did get a reply and I was not best pleased.

This is the reply in an easier to read format:

Last.fm widgets and imagegen charts have been unofficially deprecated for over 4 years.  We're very sorry but this site update makes that deprecation official now.   In the future we may bring image-based charts and widgets back in some shape or form, but there are no immediate plans to do so at this time.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this.

Well that was an interesting response and also full of slight untruths. Unofficially deprecated for over 4 years? They are having a laugh surely? They continued to fix and support them when they went wrong, why would they do that then if they were deprecated as it makes no sense. It's complete cobblers as there were numerous complaints and fixes in the last couple of years some even raised by me. I have two reasons for using Last.FM and they have now told me that my number one reason is dead! Way to go in continuing to fail your users and make people walk away. Is Last.FM now just a coders playground with no regard for the functionality that they used to offer or the needs of their users? Remember what that sort of attitude did to MySpace!

Seriously unimpressed with you Last.FM!

Mission Impossible so we had food instead

Our plan after work tonight had been to go and have a meal and watch Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Unfortunately there were really bad traffic problems en route which left us with the choice of either having a meal or seeing the film. Unfortunately for Mr Cruise we took the food option.

Eventually we made it to Bella Italia in Bexleyheath where we indulged in gluten free garlic and mozzarella bread, chicken wings and then surf and turf goodness. This was all finished off with some delicious desserts. We'll arrange to go and see Mr Cruise another day LOL

Back to work, new door, workmen and Shamanic Workshop

First day back at work today which was just delightful LOL. No it was fine but I'd rather have been off still.

Highlight of the day was coming home to find that we have a new door (finally). It's very nice:

On the downside we've had the council's contractors come and dig up the pavement across our drive which has caused a fair bit of chaos. This is the result of about an hours worth of work.....

According to Toni the rest of the day was spent either talking or at Richard's Cafe. No doubt they'll have billed the council a full day multiplied by the number of workmen!

A chilled evening followed as Toni, Zoe and I went to Giselle's for the next part of our Shamanic Workshop. Meditation and dream work was the order of the day here with some tasks to take forward.

Last day off and making a medicine pouch

It was my final day off today. Most of it was spent chilling. We also had to wait in to take delivery of a new chair for Pam which didn't come much to our disgust! Annoyed phone calls in the morning methinks!

Even though I missed the Shamanic Workshop last week (due to having to Pam sit so Toni and Zoe could go) I still had homework to do that Toni brought home so it was time to catch up. We were all tasked with making our own medicine pouches. I was a bit stumped at first but with some excellent guidance from Toni I got my sewing head on and made this:

I have to confess that I was very proud of myself and it came out much better than I had expected :)

However, mine looked very insignificant when compared to these.....

Toni's:

Zoe's: