Worked on my computer game, though progress was slow. While the command "ask bartender for double entendre" now results in "She gives you one", "ask cloakroom attendant for jacket" still causes a "You can't see any such thing".
I also got distracted playing an incredibly pointless game, about a high school senior who - ohmygawd! - wants to be Prom Queen. It's a choose-your-own-adventure thing, but no matter what I try, I can't seem to get the popular guy to go with me so I can become queen. Curses! And there I was, thinking I'd never have to worry about this sort of thing, by the virtues of growing up in England and favouring freaks!
Int evening, I went to what really was my last goth night in York. (Actually, I've got to go back there for a few days in September to take some exams, so I suppose I might go to one then too.) A band called Rome Burns played, who were pretty good, but did a somewhat inferior cover version of "Your Woman" by White Town. But their equipment kept failing, which is usually a good thing, as it's often a source of impromptu silliness. This lot's singer kept singing "The Dog Song" which was most weird and disturbing and also belted out a few ancient folk songs.
Sunday 2 May 2004
Spent the morning doing some more work on my computer game. It now understands the command "Sheila, take a bow", which, as anyone with a working knowledge of The Smiths will agree, is an essential addition to any self-respecting text adventure.
In the afternoon, my parents (who are taking me home tomorrow) appeared and took me to look round the nearby Castle Howard, as it's owned by the same family who own the castle we used to live in. The grounds were breathtakingly beautiful and several times larger than those of ours, but our building itself was more aesthetically pleasing and our museum bit was laid out more betterly. So shan!
We saw a couple of peacocks. I don't think I've ever seen one before and they were dead worrying. That average-sized bird becomes taller than I am and wider than . . . everything else on earth, surely, and it appears to stare at me with hundreds of eyes, seemingly not entirely attached to the feathers.
In the gift shop there were loads of dead bizarre books, so, to compensate for Ibid's disappointment yesterday over not being able to justify the purchase of a series of volumes called "Practical Coal Mining" published in 1910 she found in a charity shop, I bought a volume called "Firegrates and Kitchen Ranges" which I shall send to her. As soon as I've read it.
Int evening, my parents and I walked around the city walls of York. Among other things, we discussed obesity, linguistics, guns and "The Great Egg Race", a weird TV program my Dad was on in 1985.
Tuesday 4 May 2004
Oh happy day! Someone is going to pay me to spend three years investigating the life history of the noble orchid! To Kent I shall return! Doctor Zed I shall become! w00t!
Provided I actually start doing some work again, that is. Yesterday solely involved packing, being taken home via Reeeeeeepon cathedral and Richmond castle, and unpacking. Today consisted of further unpacking, reading books three and four of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and playing t'Sims. Well, I'm only allowing myself to take two books to Australia, and I can't install t'Sims on my laptop (which is just as well), so these things had to be done.
In other news, since I'll turn 23 in Australia, I asked my Mum to make me a birthday cake before I left. On my request she spelled out "22.75" with Smarties on it.
