Nico's Journal

I was just saying to executrix that I have so many DVDs piled up to watch, I haven't managed to get back to the Buffy ones I bought a while ago second hand. And we have just acquired more.

Greg bought the entire Jeeves and Wooster (Fry and Laurie! I loved that when I saw it years ago) and some classic SF like Forbidden Planet and Blade Runner (a set of five, yes, five different cuts; he's not obsessed) in the Amazon sales, and today we just got The Great Escape and--wait for it, sallymn--The Magnificent Seven collection today. Greg held it up at the video store and said, "Want this? It has an excellent cast," and I said, "Yes!"

Not sure when I'll get to it though.

While out to get lunch and food (for cats and humans) today, we bought two DVDs.

Captain's Log - another Star Trek fan collective. The previous one was time travel stories; this one has a captain's (well, actor's) pick for each series, and several other eps picked by fans. It's a nice way to buy Star Trek DVDs as they're good selections and there's too much canon for me to afford--and watch--otherwise.

Alec Guinness Comedy Collection - some of my favourites: "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (which I've been wanting to see again for years), "The Man in the White Suit" (doodlebugs!), "The Lavender Hill Mob" (which I so loved as a kid), and "The Ladykillers" (seen just last year, but hey).

Oh and Blake's Junction 7 is coming out on DVD in 6 weeks, as noted on blakes7. I've already pre-ordered it. [bounce]

OK, I'm back with the Book, a very cynical-looking plush owl to go with Athena whom I bought last year. This might also be a good time to post a link to my analysis of Half-Blood Prince because I'd lay money on being right about Dumbledore and Snape. :-)

I also bought DVDs:

• A three-film collection of Pride and Prejudice (the latest one which I haven't seen), Elizabeth, and Shakespeare in Love.
  
• Another three-film collection of Casablance, Gone with the Wind (I might finally break a lifetime habit and see it; eep), and Doctor Zhivago
  
• A doco called How William Shatner Changed the World with him holding a papier-mache rock on the cover. It's Trek-tech, about how scientists were inspired by Star Trek as kids to develop a lot of the stuff we use every day now. It's hosted and narrated by Shatner so how could I resist?
  
• The Wall (the musical)
  
• The Dark Side of the Moon (the making of)

I think appliances pick the worst time to break down, just to pay us back for taking them for granted. Mostly during the Christmas holiday when the country stops for three weeks because it's also summer.

My mother's oven broke down then so she had to use an electric frypan for meals. Our hot-water ripple meter failed the day before Greg's mother came to stay for a week, but a tech came out and fixed it in time. Then another Christmas holiday, our washing machine almost blew up, billowing smoke during its spin cycle, so we had to go out and buy a new one.

This year it's the fridge. I suspected it when the tiramisu ice cream was soft, but thought it might be the alcohol content. However the Yorkshire puds I put in the freezer are soft too, so we put a digital thermometer in and found it's only -4C instead of the -18C it's meant to be. Oh, joy. It's 14 years old though, so we just went out and bought a new fridge which is coming tomorrow. We'd better eat the rest of the ice cream today before it gets any warmer.

We also spent some Whitcoulls vouchers on DVDs (My Name is Earl and a boxed set of seven Asterix films) and bought a new dust-buster that does wet and dry, and had a very nice fish teriyaki for lunch, so it could be worse. Pity whiteware wasn't included in the 20-30% off sale though.

Oh yes, and we got a calendar of 30s - 50s 'monster movie' posters from MoMA which is very cool. I'll scan them in and post them; they're classics.

Our DVD acquisitions this weekend were:

• Lost season 2 with excelent extras are very good; lots of interesting discussion and 'how we did this' stuff which I like.
  
• Season 4 of Inspector Rex; not that we've finished watching S2 yet, we have so many DVDs stacked up waiting. [flails a bit]
  
• Star Trek Time Travel: Fan Collective. This is a collection of time travel stories voted for by fans. I'm delighted because it has some of my favourites: City on the Edge of Forever, Time's Arrow, Little Green Men, and Trials and Tribbulations. I want to watch the DS9 ones first.

executrix

peladonww

[bounce] I just got home and found the last two eps of Doctor Who (thanks to the very kind alteriel1) and season 3 of Blake's 7 waiting for me. Yay! Now I have two model Liberators (one original) and my very own B7 dome.

Oh, and I got an e-mail from Amazon telling me about various DVD specials. One link was to a page of British TV series. There's lots of Doctor Who on special including some docos. astrogirl2, if you haven't bought the House of Cards trilogy, it's there too.

I usually dread the post because it's almost always just bills and bank statements, but this week it's been full of goodies. I've got HHGTTG CDs (an ep of the tertiary phase each night as a bedtime story) and DVDs (lots of good extras too, and yay for the CGI scene of the Liberator dropping Arthur Dent off on Earth, pursued by the Tardis).

And today I got a DVD of the first 5 eps of Doctor Who from the lovely and generous altariel1--along with a block of Green & Black ginger chocolate; thank you so much! [sigh] Why is Greg out at a meeting tonight of all nights? I don't care what time he gets in, we're watching the first ep. With chocolate.

[Edit]: We've watched 'Rose'; massive thumbs up to the new Doctor, Rose herself, and the humour. I love it! And the ginger chocolate was excellent too. :-D

I ordered the Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars DVD today. It's not due to be shipped till the 18th (around the same time as Blake's 7 season 2, woo-hoo!), but then I haven't watched all of season 4 yet.

I also ordered Julius Caesar which has a great cast (except for Charlton Heston who always seems wooden to me) including a young and sexy Michael Keating and a pageboy played by Steven Pacey. I shall be getting screencaps, snowgrouse. :-)

Eep! More on the credit card. [bites knuckles in Blake-like fashion and hopes she gets a contract soon]

My Farscape season 4 DVDs just arrived! DeepDiscount are refunding me for the set ordered more than two months ago that got lost in the post, so I ordered it locally as it was released here in the meantime. With that and the LOTR extended trilogy and various other DVDs like 'Edge of Darkness' (oh, and Buffy season 1 on its way here--I've never seen Buffy) we won't be short of good viewing over the holiday break.

And I'll be able to read all the Farscape fic I've been avoiding!

Now all I want is The Peacekeeper Wars when it comes out. Oh, and Blake's 7 season 2 of course, which I've pre-ordered.

[bounce]

My Blake's 7 DVDs arrived today. They've taken longer because I ordered them off Horizon who arranged to have them signed. I got Michael Keating's signature which I'd ordered--and Gareth Thomas's!

Plus I got a beautiful picture of Vila which I've never seen before, signed "Nicola, Good luck, Michael Keating'. It's a rather sad-looking Vila in 'Rescue' I think, with what looks like a dust-buster.

"Oh, now look. I don't care if we are the Famous Five* now Blake's gone," Vila said. "I'm not bloody dusting the campsite."

* counting Orac as a perspex Timmy