I'm back from the shops. And one thing I certainly DON'T want to do is scream.

Personally, I think that if a shopping centre has and advertises late night Christmas opening hours, it should make ALL of the shops in it stay open until for those hours. Or at least give you a helpful list of which ones close when.

Another thing I hate about shops? Stock rotation. What is the point of that? Why can't shops just keep things until you can afford to buy them? Or for more than a few months at a time? WHY NOT?

Growl.

Positive things about December:

• Ability to use Christmas whale icon.



• Can sing Christmas carols without a little voice in my head (my mother's, really) saying it's bad luck to sing them outside of December. Although I haven't really had the urge so far, unlike every other month.



• Christmas market back in Nottingham.

Christmas shopping has begun though. I'm going to get my sister some soaps from Etsy/America which probably won't arrive in time, and I'm going to get my dad a CD from Play.com. I don't really know about my mother or grandmother. My nephews probably won't mind - I was looking at some nice music boxes for them in Muji, but unfortunately they seem like the kind of things that will either end up with pieces missing or get broken. There's also a nice book called the Snow Princess with some beautiful illustrations that I'd like to get, but I'm not sure my nephews will be into princesses, and it's a bit expensive to just get on a whim. Hmm.

And now I'm going to nip out and possibly get something for me from my mum. Bye.

Dudes, Christmas is CLOSE! I realised over the weekend. A few weeks ago I was talking to my mum about maybe going to my parents for a weekend before Christmas, but I didn't want to go the weekend before last because I wanted to prepare for my interview, really, and I didn't want to go last weekend because I didn't want to plan anything alongside my interview, like travelling to Yorkshire just after it. But now if I want to go, my options are this weekend, or the weekend after. And the weekend after is the weekend I'm meant to be going anyway TO SPEND THE WEEK FOR CHRISTMAS!

I hope I'm not freaking anyone out, but god dudes. I need to make a start on Christmas shopping, really. And perhaps put up some Christmas decorations. Of which I have 8.

A few other things:

• So. For the last few - well, for about a year really my computer has been having memory space issues, and for the last few weeks my Norton Antivirus has been saying it's not up-to-date with its virus definitions, but saying it was something to do with a corrupted catalogue or something. Last night I wanted to order something online and realised I'd have to put my debit card number in. I messed about trying to fix the error, but not getting very far, and called my dad to ask what he thought - he said it would probably be fine and if I got some new software or the problem fixed it would probably take care of any viruses or anything any way. I tried again to do fix the problem, but in the end couldn't and ordered the stuff anyway.
  
  Today I decided to clear some space and see if that helped, and I deleted a bunch of music from my hard disk, then ran the update thing again, and what do you know, it worked. So I ran a scan of my computer to check there hadn't been any viruses on it - and it picks up and resolves a heuristic virus which turns out to be a trojan-style virus, which on further research can be used to steal data. Like say credit or debit card numbers. It's all resolved now, but does anyone have any tips on what to do? Should I cancel my card? Or just keep an eye on things?



• In unrelated news, but still somewhat important, I'd like to say that as well as (still) not receiving LJ comments by email, the site now seems to not always been sending comments to my LJ inbox when I click to track things. So if you reply to a comment of mine and I don't reply, or don't reply for a long while, it could well be something to do with that, and I'm sorry.

Re tonight's Strictly results: Oh well.

I had my second interview yesterday. And I don't to my knowledge have another one coming up, so I can now think about other things while waiting to hear back about them. Things like Christmas shopping, which I haven't done much of yet. I'm in the usual I can't think of anything/the things I like are too expensive bind, but hopefully I can get something sorted in the next couple of weeks. At least I've got plenty of time free, although then again not that much money. Hopefully there'll be some nice not-too-expensive stuff around.

The second interview, as it turned out, was not with the same woman as before - I was waiting in the waiting room (a bit early, yay!) and a woman walked by asking if I'd seen a guy walk past me, and I told her I'd seen a few, and she laughed and then said "Oh, are you here for the interview? We'll be with you in just a second". Which was unexpected. It turned out that the woman who was meant to be interviewing me couldn't be there that day (not because she'd interviewed me before, as I'd possibly thought) and it was actually her senior who was doing the interview, along with a clerical officer from the actual health centre. And I thought "fine", but wasn't sure if I should say something about being interviewed before. Early on in the interview though she asked, when I said I'd been applying for a few NHS positions, if I'd had any interviews lately and I mentioned I'd had one the other week with the woman who was meant to be there that day. And she said fine and didn't say anything about it.

The interview went on, and most of the questions were ones I'd had in the interview before, except for one, I think, and then just near the end the woman said "actually, can I ask you - ". She broke off and said she'd finish what she'd been talking about, and then said "Can I ask you, you said you'd had an interview last week with [the woman I was meant to be being interviewed by]. Have you had these questions before?". And I had to say yes. But she was laughing and smiling about it, so I don't think it was that big a deal. She asked if I'd thought it was odd having the same questions again, and I said because it was basically the same post I'd thought they might have standard questions to ask in the interview. Apparently I was meant to have had different questions, but they don't get the names of people on their applications until the day before the interviews happen, which is probably why no-one realised I was having another one. But as I say, she was laughing and smiling about it, so I don't think it was too big a problem. And she'd said the reason she'd suddenly thought I might have had the questions before was because she'd been thinking my answers were "a bit good", which is a hopefully good sign. I won't hear anything until some references come back from the preferred candidate, but hopefully I should hear about both jobs shortly.

The only problem is - I applied for both jobs at the same time, on the same night, and because they were the same post and had the same job description, I got a bit confused between them. When I got the message asking me to come to an interview for the first one I had a feeling it was part-time, but it turned out to be full-time. During yesterday's interview, however, they mentioned that that post was only 20 hours. Which isn't really enough for the money I need, at present. So if they don't offer me the full-time one and offer me the part-time one, I don't know if I'll be able to take it, unless I get another part-time job. But I can't make any decisions till I hear back about either job, so there's no point getting worried about it now, I guess.

Anyway. I watched Misfits yesterday. ( Spoilers for Misfits 1.04, and the preview for next week )

( True Blood 1.09 )

Things I have been singing tonight: 1) "It's vampire night" to the tune of "Ladies Night", after realising I was going to see New Moon on the same night new True Blood would be on, and 2) "Mr Wolf Pants", after a rather cunning plot device used for the werewolves in New Moon. You should go see New Moon, dudes. GO SEE THEIR AMAZING WOLF PANTS.

I have a confession to make. I've not read Twilight the book, aside from the dramatic reading katemonkey did at Connotations this year, and the time years ago when I saw it on the shelf at Waterstones, liked the cover so had a flick through, read some and thought, "oh, this is the worst book in the world". But I think I quite like the movie. I know that Edward and Bella are quite mad. But I sort of like the storyline. I like that it is emo and weird. I like a bunch of the Cullens. I like that Edward sparkles. And New Moon was, actually, sort of good. I mean, not brilliant, but quite good. Taylor Lautner (who plays Jake) can really act, and I really liked Bella this time around. In Twilight I liked Edward more, possibly due to seeing Robert Pattinson doing a bunch of interviews for the movie and being great. This time I liked Bella more, possibly due to having seen her in Adventureland, and her being basically the best thing in it, which really suprised me. And Michael Sheen was in it! Which was a bit great. I don't know how it compares to the book, and I'm not exactly getting fannish about it, but yeah. I quite like it.

In other news, a note to myself: staying up all night may be incredibly useful in not sleeping through appointments, but it still unlikely to be a pleasant experience. I'm going to bed soon.

In other news, a new Tony Gordon video! It's in the first post at the top of the page. It's pretty much all just stills, but it's still pretty great. I think I could have been in love by now if it wasn't for Tony.

And, annoyingly, as well as Gray O'Brien and Chris Fountain in Aladdin in Manchester, it turns out Roxanne Pallett, of Emmerdale and Dancing on Ice 2009, is in a pantomime in Newcastle as Cinderella. Though they are giving away free tickets for one of the shows to victims of the recent floods in Cumbria, which is quite lovely. Still. NONE OF THEM ARE PERFORMING ANYWHERE NEAR ME. Though it would probably only be a temptation to spend money on them. Oh well ::grumble::

Some other things:

• Gray O'Brien, who plays Tony Gordon on Coronation Street, is in a panto in Manchester. Starting Saturday. Wearing eyeliner, if the website is any indication. Starting next week. WITH - Chris Fountain, from Hollyoaks and Dancing On Ice! !! I could go see that panto. There are trains from Nottingham direct to Manchester. According to the website they only cost £12.00 with a railcard on the day. I COULD MAGIC UP SOME MONEY AND IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO GO SEE IT. ONSTAGE. WITH EYELINER. Maybe.



• Ahem. I love Adam and Joe. I love them most weeks I hear them, I loved them this week and I loved them the other week. Last week I missed the show when it was on so I had to listen to it on Listen Again, and I always end up doing other things and not hearing all of it when I do that, but I probably would have loved them a lot if I had. Anyway, I had a difficult time listening to their show at first, just because I hardly ever listen to the radio, and I'm not really used to listening to music I don't know and haven't picked out myself. However, I know that most of the music is picked out by the BBC 6 Music team and not by Adam and Joe, but generally speaking, I almost always hear a song on the Adam and Joe show every week that I like, and for the last few weeks they've been playing Cornerstone by the Artic Monkeys. I resisted and had no interest in the Arctic Monkeys for a long time, but I think this one is really, really lovely. So I wanted to mention it, and the Youtube link is here :)



• I'm up to date with Looking For Group! Which means that now I can read all that slash fic there isn't! Hmph.



• It's December tomorrow. That sort of snuck up on me. As per usual, now I have a bit of money I'm mostly thinking about a bunch of things I don't really need and can't really afford in most cases. But I'm going to have to start saving up for Christmas presents really. I've got a few ideas for things for nephews already though, and I'm guessing my mum, dad and sister won't be expecting much, given the state of my finances. Still, I'm going to have to start looking soon.



• On the plus side, I can start thinking about some seasonal watching before Christmas. I might watch the 10th Kingdom again. I started watching it last Christmas, watched just enough to remember how much I'd loved it and how great it was, and then stopped and forgot to watch the rest. Or I could rewatch the Hogfather at some point. Or Fred Claus, which is not a great film, but I still quite love. It's all very pleasing, really :)

Hello. I am stupid. ( Jobseeker's appointments and benefits stuff )

Anyway. On a slightly happier note, having had some money finally to spend I obviously set about spending some of it on slightly trivial things that I'd been wanting for a month or so. Including some nice new underwear from La Senza. I was going to make a post the other day starting with "They make Oscar the Grouch underwear for men but not for women, WHAT KIND OF FOUL SEXISM IS THIS???". I didn't, but I feel that my point still stands. Oscar the Grouch for all, I say. Anyway, some of my new underwear can only really be worn at Christmas, but it's still rather lovely.

And I have been watching TV:

• I missed most of the It Takes Two shows this week, due to appointments and going to the cinema and such things. However, nothing will ever be funnier than Len trying to teach Claudia how to rumba. And I did see Erin's house with it's lovely mirror. And shoe collection. And weird bug thing. And amazing rug, where she choreographs routines. I'm quite looking forward to tonight, with it's new dances. I happen to know from (Sue Perkins) experience that the Charleston is a bit great, frankly.



• ( True Blood, up to 1.08 )



• ( Coronation Street, natch )
  
  
• Also I have been reading Looking For Group, again. I love Cale. I love Richard. I love it. I'm not finished though, so don't spoil me please.



• ( Misfits, up to 1.03, and speculation )

And I believe that's all of my TV-watching for the week. I'm going to make a pizza now. Mmm, warm pizza.