For my birthday, I received:

- "The Sims Deluxe Edition" (I promised myself I wouldn't acquire it until after my first novel was published, in the belief that if I owned it I'd never get round to writing again, but then I read this entry and could resist no longer)
- "Life Is Killing Me" - Type O Negative (I've only heard their first album but this one got good reviews and rightly so)
- "The Golden Age Of Grotesque" - Marilyn Manson (curiosity got the better of me)
- "Over The Hills And Far Away" - Nightwish (was meant to be seeing them at the end of the month, but noooo, tickets sold out just before I could buy one)
- "The Height Of Callousness" - Spineshank (I always liked "New Disease" for some reason (since it's rubbish - luckily it's the worst track and I like the rest) and was impressed enough by the third album to indulge in this one. Mindless nu metal: Zed's equivalent of chill out music.)
- Money
- "Cries Unheard" by Gita Sereny (the Mary Bell story, though it hasn't arrived yet)
- "The Twelfth Day Of July" and "Hostages To Fortune" by Joan Lingard (which I took out of the library when I was twelve, but still like now)
- More books, whose identities I am not yet aware of.
- Much PINKness and blackness.
- And various chocolatey thangs.

That morning went into Carlisle to buy train tickets for my trip to Canterbury at the end of September. And, since I was there, and I'd just been given some money, I thought I'd have a look around the shops . . . I ended up with:

- "The Sexual Life Of Catherine M" (which is rubbish so far) and "Prozac Nation" (despite being exactly the right age and in exactly the right environment [Webpage Avec Angsty Journal Land] and mindset to have read this five years ago, as everyone I knew was doing, I didn't. I only bought it now because it was going cheap and I was sufficiently interested, but it's still a pretty good read.)
- More PINK!ness and blackness!
- Some padded envelopes in which to send out the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley books I'm currently selling on Amazon.
- Greenness! In the form of a t-shirt. It is quite incredible: Top Shop, once the bane of my existence due to their refusal to make anything other than unflattering skintight clothes, have started selling what I've been longing for for quite some time: cheap plain solid-coloured t-shirts. Though I don't wear green much, I had to make the most of such an opportunity!

They also had some other rather funchie punkygoth (read: truly Zeddic) stuff. The two skirts I tried on were badly cut, but they had some most excellent cyber/punk trousers. The only problem was, they only had them in size 14 (British) and I'm a size 11. I tried them on anyway - nothing a belt can't fix, I thought - but alas! Even trousers that fit at the waist are too baggy around the thighs, but these were ridiculous. A few years ago, all girls had to be "ickle" to find clothes that fit; now it seems you need to have thighs the thize of tree trunks.

They had similar items in my size - trousers without the same pleasing quantity of pointless zips, *shudder* three quarter length ones (even though I wear big boots, no no no no no no no!) - but the excellency was not to be mine. Oh well - I'll take this to mean that loads of geens have bought a pair; I'll buy someone's off eBay when they've gone out of fashion again.

Speaking of which, I have employed the most successful marketting strategy ever. At work, every now and again, I need to spend a couple of seconds in the warehouse where they have the radio on. During one of those brief missions, I happened to hear that all the Robbie Williams albums are selling ridiculously well at present.

Aha! thought I. For I have no wish to listen to mine ever again and am ashamed to own them. So I shall flog them on Amazon and someone will surely buy them off me.

And indeed, within the next three days, they'd both been sold.

Some f00l bought my Skee-Lo single too. w00t, for my CD collection is, at long last rapless once more.

To celebrate my birthday, thrillingness of thrillingness, I went to see "Pirates Of The Caribbean" avec mes parents.

Gah. When I saw the first "Lord Of The Rings" film at the cinema, I spent half of it feeling too seasick to watch, on account of the camera angles. When the same happened upon seeing the second one, I vowed I'd wait until the third one came out on video before attempting to view it. So, when I made this promise, could I have, like, vowed also to avoid seeing actual, you know, sea-related films at the cinema too?

Nonetheless, I thought it was all right, but bah! Tis but a more expensive imitation of "Monkey Island"!

Since my birthday, predictably, I have done nothing but play "The Sims". Ok, I still went to work, spoke to a few folk on the phone, read a bit and watched "Time Bandits" on DVD. (My Dad has just acquired a DVD player, and since "Time Bandits" is his favourite film ever, Mum bought it for him as a 25th wedding anniversary present. Not ones for making a fuss over these occasions are my parents. I am rather baffled as to why my Dad bought a DVD player, since he hasn't been one to watch videos in all the time I've known him, after work he tends to partake in his "moneymaking hobby" (rebuilding and delivering pianos) every day until 10pm, we have Every Television Channel Under The Sun, and recently he's taken up all these new hobbies. Visiting churches? Rewriting musicals? Building harpsicords? Not to mention the fact that he's going to Sweden in September to give two lectures to university students about music and running a business. I suppose this is what being about to turn sixty and having most of your piano sales stolen by an evil geen in Paisley does to you though.)

Nonetheless, though my fun level is at a permanent high, my energy and hunger levels have gone haywire, I've only managed to sustain my comfort level by adding a pillow to my plastic computer chair, I allow my bladder level to drop into the red area, and my hygiene, social and room levels are minimal. When I sleep, most of my thought bubbles contain Sims (although, recently, I also seem to dream about Anna The Goth every other night, for no obvious reason. I also dreamed I was being held hostage in a hole, but I suspect this is due to shutting my useless Sim in a room with no door in order to kill her. At first it was quite a thrill, but her crying for two days straight made me feel terribly guilty). And I keep wanting to redecorate my parents' office and every time I see two people talking in the street, I wonder how many relationship points they're gaining.

Still, probably thanks to having overcome Angband addiction, I'm not totally lost to it. I may have not even glanced at my friends page for two weeks, but although the game has no end I have a specific goal in mind, which, once I've achieve will mark the end of my regular playing; I checked out the various add-ons that are available, but they all sounded too boring, badly designed or buggy; I haven't touched the character designer - that can wait until I can get some social points out of it too (although naturally I had to give characters names like "Brynza Geen", "River Trent" and "Extreme Foolface" (who later married Bella Goth, thus becoming the first "Extreme Goth" to walk about a yellow dressing-gowny Thing); I never play it before work; and I've only stayed up past 12.30 playing it once, on the first day I got it working, when I didn't have to work until three days later. And, see? I'm writing this. Albeit only because it crashed, and I wasn't ready to relive eight unsaved Sim-hours (in my seven-Sim household) straight away.

And my playing it is quite deliberate. Often, I don't even want to play it beforehand, but I feel the need to use this summer to recharge my batteries. In October, I'll begin a year of muchos muchos study, a likely large amount of social activity, learning some martial art or other (I want some self-defence ability, fitness and also to do something completely out of character) and working on The Great Novel / Album / Animation. Right now, to compensate for the fact that I'm working, I need something that's very good fun.

Back to other people's lives now.