Ten Thousand Spoons

Did you miss me? Think I got just bored with blogging for a time. I’m definitely bored with this layout but (thanks to Vixx) hopefully it’ll be getting a bit of a makeover shortly so that’ll motivate me to update more often. But not much has been going on in the meantime, as you can see:

1. Work are are happy to let me do a job that’s above my current grade, but aren’t actually willing to promote me and pay me extra money. Gits. And we’re not having a Christmas party or getting any kind of bonus. Boooo! Scrooge!
2. My Open Uni course is going fairly well, although I didn’t realise quite how much time would need to be spent doing online projects and participating in forums. But I got a good mark for my first essay (69%) so I’m happy with it so far.
3. Still can’t afford to move out into “affordable housing”. The council said that since I’m not (a) homeless and at risk (b) a single parent or (c) an asylum seeker then they weren’t able to give me help with housing other than to suggest I rent a bedsit and claim housing benefit. Hmmm, useful. Then I spoke to a mortgage adviser who said he would look into the schemes available to people on low wages and get back to me by the end of the day. That was four days ago :\
4. All my Christmas shopping is done. Go me! I do heart the internet, got all my pressies without leaving the house.
5. Saw Paranormal Activity (the film I mean, not an actual ghost) – will review it here shortly if I ever get my arse in gear.
And lastly…
6. Got oddly annoyed by this story. I used to work at events such as this, up until I sort of lost interest in the whole convention scene a couple of years back. Anyhow, never ones to let the truth get in the way of a good story, The Sun seem to be inferring that it’s the celebrity guests who are raking in all the money by charging their fans 15-20 quid a pop for autographs when in fact that’s not always the case; many guests receive a flat fee for appearing and in turn the organisers take all the proceeds from their autograph and photo sales. I’ve even known a few guests to give the money from their autograph sales to charity (admittedly they are quite few and far between, though.) I’m not saying that it’s wrong to criticise events such as this; much as I love a good perv over John Barrowman I’m not sure I’d be willing to fork out £20 just to meet him for a few seconds. But I’m also not sure I like the way attendees are considered to be “sad” for going to this sort of event – obviously not everyone can be a sexy geek like me, but why is it considered socially acceptable for football supporters to buy season tickets, go to matches every week, spend a fortune on replica team shirts and other memorabilia, and yet it’s “sad” for a fan of, say, Dr Who or Star Wars to want to meet someone from the cast? If you think it’s sad then don’t bloody go. Simple as that.