So I am now at UNI. And it is GREAT. I get to use CAPITALS for this. Most of the fears I have are gone and have met a nice group of peo­ple along my corri­dor. Arran­ging plans for the week to come. I am on a lovely 4mbit con­nec­tion, am in a YELLOW dor­mi­tory and have PURPLE chairs. I also have a SINK. Sadly I can­not play my music LOUD or watch movies really LOUD and my 5.1 spea­ker sys­tem is being a little weird (i.e. REAR is not WORKING at the moment). I have a key, a stu­dent card and I now need to sort out my doctor’s forms. I am drea­ding laundry and coo­king! I am 5 minu­tes from all the gig venues, clubs, cine­mas and thea­tres. I am gene­rally pretty happy, except the peo­ple I am with are not into “extra­va­gant” music or movies — art house stuff — they opt for the pop stuff. But they seem like peo­ple who are NICE. I’m DONE.

A final entry.
No not really.

Jour­nal adven­tu­res of the fof­fer con­ti­nue in the realm of the ‘tra­net. Yes­ter­day was a Thurs­day, on thurs­day I awoke at 10, drank some more cof­fee, made a cou­ple of tasty tuna mayo rolls and pac­ked some things. Few books, few bought items, food, cut­lery, sta­tio­nary — into two large ex-stock-McDonald’s boxes, the ones that bring in the large plas­tic toys for the happy meals. Also spent seve­ral hours bur­ning media onto the newly arri­ved cds, then pac­ka­ging them with others into tiny boxes and adding them to the McDo­nald fund. At lunch time I left avec ma mere, I was hea­ding to her friends to pick up some croc­kery. Here I spent seve­ral hours just tal­king about ran­dom things, loo­king for some stick insects, ins­pec­ting a tasty drum set and choo­sing pans and uten­sils that I need. On the way home, stop­ped at the grand­pa­rents, had a nice cup of tea and sor­ted out some insu­rance for me. Then I retur­ned home starving.

At home I was told to make myself look res­pec­ta­ble as we were “going out”. I was in fact trea­ted with a sur­prise going away meal with the family. Very nice rump steak, chips and potato boat star­ters follo­wed by a cap­pu­cino mousse. All delicious.

Today I am pre­sently pac­king more things, sor­ting clothes, cds, dvds, books, shoes and sports things. I am also ner­vous because tomo­rrow I leave home. I am lea­ving my cats and it is offi­cially time to become inde­pen­dant. Great. To cook, to clean, to work and wash clothes, to iron and manage finan­ces. Hoo­rah for the adulthood.

Currently lis­te­ning to a cer­tain shade of green.

Just because.

An old Angel fea­ture I once wrote:
Angel Sea­son 4 has finished. Well if you are Ame­ri­can or you down­load it off the net it has.

My conc­lu­sion? Bri­lliant. Not an artis­tic show, far from it in fact, nothing to the stan­dard of the movies I enjoy, but as a TV Show aimed at teens goes, it comes out pretty darn good.

I have long been a follo­wer of the Buffy Series — follo­wing it “as I have grown”. Only recently have I follo­wed the Angel series as well (sea­sons 3 & 4).

Series Four Synop­sis:
Angel res­cued from Ocean, Cor­de­lia comes back form above.
Lorne is saved from LA and then a big beasty demon shows up.
Ange­llus arri­ves, Faith comes along and things all get pretty messy.
That’s all Im saying, I don’t really like to give any spoilers.

I have just watched 4x22 Home, the last of the series. And I am rather impa­tiently wai­ting for the start of Sea­son 5 in the autumn… which looks like it could be mighty mar­ve­lous. Series Fina­les can often be pretty pants (Dark Angel :cough:) and having seen 4x21 and the events that had occu­rred I pretty much thought, “What Now” and was sure the final epi­sode would be a cop out. I was wrong (which is rare), the epi­sode was great, truly sho­wing how the cha­rac­ters have been deve­lo­ped and what lies in store for them in the future.
Angel as a whole is witty with some fan­tas­tic story­li­nes, often not fea­si­ble, but still fan­tas­tic. Any sci-fi fan should enjoy watching this after they have got­ten to know the regu­lars pretty well.

Angel: “How are you fee­ling?“
Faith: “Like I did mush­rooms and got eaten by a bear.”

“After three years of living in Sunny­dale, figh­ting along side his girl­friend Buffy, Angel moves to Los Ange­les to tell the tale of a vam­pire with a soul, see­king redemp­tion after many years of killing inno­cents. Aided by a few old friends and new, Angel must con­ti­nue to fight the dark for­ces that Los Ange­les has to offer. Only then, will he be for­gi­ven for all the pain he has cau­sed and some­day become human.

Spin the bottle (4x06) Epi­sode Review:
Gunn: “Oh, good. Sym­bols on the floor. That always goes well.” 

I loved this epi­sode so much that I didn’t even mind that it was part two of “Tabula Rasa.” I have no objec­tion to something being done again if it’s done this well. Retur­ning all of the cha­rac­ters to their tee­nage per­so­nas was ins­pi­red. Trust Joss Whe­don to think of such a thing. 

It was great seeing smart-ass Cor­de­lia back in the saddle again; couldn’t we keep her this way? She must have been six­teen or youn­ger, because Cor­de­lia met Angel at six­teen and she didn’t know him here. (Did you notice that the first thing Cor­de­lia said when she saw Angel was “Hello, salty good­ness?” That was the same thing Cor­de­lia said when she saw Angel for the first time back on BtVS.) 

It made per­fect sense, Wes figu­ring out (erro­neously) that they were being tes­ted a la Buffy’s eigh­teenth birth­day. Ale­xis Deni­sof pro­bably had a ball retur­ning to his old cha­rac­te­ri­za­tion of Wes­ley as prissy, clumsy head boy watcher-in-training (or as Cor­de­lia called him, “head cheese.”) I just loved the acci­den­tal emer­gence of his con­cea­led, um, wea­pons in particular. 

One of my abso­lute favo­rite sce­nes was when Wes­ley was duct-taping Lorne to the lobby sofa. Gunn: “I say we cut his head off.” Wes­ley: “Thank you very much, Marie Antoi­nette.” Gunn: “What you call me?” Cor­de­lia: “Hey, hey, you two wanna pause the homoe­ro­tic buddy cop ses­sion long enough to explain this? Woo­den sta­kes? A guy with horns?” 

Even Fred and Gunn were con­sis­tently delight­ful here, with Fred trying to score weed, tal­king about alien abduc­tions and govern­ment cons­pi­ra­cies, and Gunn back in his first year dis­trust­ful vampire-hunter per­sona. (It was also touching and sad in the begin­ning when grown-up Gunn was tal­king about just being the muscle. Gunn is afraid of losing Fred to Wes­ley, and I’m star­ting to think he might be right.) 

Angel’s Liam was very young and uncer­tain, pro­bably from before he began rebe­lling against his father. I thought Angel being una­ble to make him­self speak with an Irish accent was a total hoot. That morphing scene in the bath­room where he figu­red out he was the vam­pire they were all hun­ting was also pri­ce­less, and I loved the fake-out with the cross. (Although I thought the way Fred ran the cross over her­self like a metal detec­tor was even funnier.)

Wes­ley: “As far as evil plans go, it doesn’t suck.”

Lorne: “Do we fight sna­kes?” Angel: “Only if they’re giant. Or demons. Or giant demons.”