The weekend cometh

Ah, is there anything more delightful than waking up on a Saturday? It's so full of promise, two whole days without work. And the sun is shining! You're young and it's summer and for the next 48 hours you don't have anything to worry about!

Then you remember, you're in your 30's. You need to sort the washing out. And get a haircut today. The rabbits need to be cleaned out. As does the fishtank. Also some shopping will need doing

Weekends aren't what they were when I were a kid!

My lovely Fiance and I spent the first part of the morning sorting a few details about the wedding out. We picked our songs and vows, ready for our meeting with the registrar. We'd ummed and ahhed about a second reading for months now, we finally decided we did want it. Both our readings are pretty awesome, being both beautiful while capturing essential elements of us. Had to call up a friend to see if she'd be amenable to reading the reading for us, she seemed happy to. At least I hope she is...

And I've got a few nerd surprises in the music choices too! Those should be good. I've been a bit torn on how openly nerdy some aspects should be. We are considering an 'Order of Service' type sheet for the guests, which would name some of the music tracks, but a part of me wants to see who can spot them. Another part doesn't want older uncool relatives rolling their eyes in tired tolerance of my silly ways, but as MLF pointed out, they're getting a free meal out of our day, so they can damn well like our silly ways!

After this we went into town for our haircuts. Me for a general cut, MLF for a trial run for her wedding style. I had my usual hairdresser, which is good, as if I have one I don't know, I clam up and can't carry a conversation. But I know Gemma, and like how she cuts my hair and pretends to like my stories, so I entertained her with the tale of the woman at the tailors. The one who measured me for my wedding suit and said, 'You're a 32 inch waist...in your dreams!'

Which I thought is quite funny, but also cruel and unbecoming of someone in a customer facing role. And you know what? At the beginning of this year, I was a 38 inch waist. When she said that I was a 36. I'm now in a pair of 34 inch waist jeans. So actually, by the wedding I might be 32! Yeah, eat that tailor bitch!! Though I'm happy at 34, but it depends where I am at Kyle Rayner weight I guess.

Once I was done entertaining my hairdresser (who seemed to really enjoy my stories today, I imagine she has a crush on me!) and was satisfied with my cut, I thought it's a beautiful day, I shall walk home. Which I did, my walk home was aided by the Ben Folds albums on my iPod. And I had a couple of those horrible moments where I'm at a pedestrian crossing alongside a family with a young child. I hate this because I'm always aware that the parents are trying to teach their child safe and responsible road crossing, but I always see a point where I can cross long before that green man appears. But if I do, am I condemning those parents to an afternoon of the child asking why they couldn't cross when that other man could. It's an odd paranoia that at certain points I would be an unwilling influence on a child and, without malice, accidentally interfere with the important lessons that parents are trying to impart. But it's an irrational thought that occurs to me every time!

I tried to have a start at writing my speech after that. I got a few key lines down, but it's a struggle. As I'd said, I'm writing a blogpost daily to try to keep my writing juices going, (try not to dwell to long on the phrase 'writing juices', or just pretend it's ink) to aid my speechwriting, but there's a lotta difference between being able to look back at my day and pick out the bits that mean I'm a nerd and summing up everything I think and feel about marrying MLF. Oh and also thanking the various people etc.

It's as well I'm starting 2 months before the day!

Later in the afternoon we visited our friend Stevie for a while. MLF had found a newspaper item about an old school friend of theirs being found with a rape kit and having an attempt at attacking a girl. We also just like to see him every so often, before you think that we only visit him on such occasions, or that such occasions are frequent! Stevie has nerf guns, so we had fun times shooting each other and diving around his living room. I've rarely seen such a look of pure joy in MLF's eyes as when she's lining up a shot at me. I don't know if I should be concerned about that...

Also, Stevie has some excellent toys, I was admiring his Doctor Who figures. He has the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th Doctor's! And an awesome set of Daleks and Davros.

Feeling somewhat Doctor Who'd up, we headed home to have a pizza and watch some older Doctor Who to fill that Saturday evening gap. MLF chose the opener for Series 4, Partners In Crime. There's something extra fun about a season opener, especially when the Doctor gets a new companion. And as we'd already met Donna, this one was less encumbered with introductions and makes for a very entertaining episode. What did surprise me was how odd it was to see the older TARDIS console room, which is odd as I got used to that for more than four years, but just one series with the new look and it's already become the default TARDIS room in my mind. How easily my affections are switched between TARDIS consoles!

Toy Story

Anyone whose seen my twitter feed this week may have been expecting a blog reminiscing about my gaming days playing Heroquest, Warhammer 40k and Blood Bowl. And you know what? I'm proabably going to write one fairly soon. But this isn't it! Nope, for while a huge wave of nostalgia basically mugged me this week, mugged me, dragged me to it's house and tied me in it's basement, I had already made prior plans for this weekend. And those plans had involved a little bit of toy hunting.

You may be thinking, 'a 30 year old hunting for toys? What?! This is madness!?' and if you are, then I can only assume you're severely lost and really have no business reading the blog of a nerd. If you're still here, meh, it's your time you're wasting reading my rambling nonsense...

So yes, I went toy hunting. I like my action figures. My collection is modest and basically consists of whim purchases and presents. I'm not aiming for complete sets really, just picking up odd ones that I like the look of.

My jaunt today was to a car boot sale. It's a regular and large event and on previous visits I've found a few gems.

This is today's haul

Batman and Robin are lead figures I found at a stall that had a huge bunch of them. I had some serious thinking time deciding which ones to get. Eventually I decided on these two over trying to start the Titans. They're completely awesome statues, the detailing is fantastic and it's an awesome paint job. I was quite pleased with these two and I'm hoping the same guy will be selling the next time I go there.

Shortly after that we found a stall with a bunch of random action figures dumped on some tarpaulin in front of the table. I glanced over it and there was nothing of any interest, I almost turned and carried on and suddenly I spotted a Kyle Rayner Green Lantern. Whaat? This looks to be Kyle's first costume as GL. You know how people tend to say that one particular actor who plays Doctor Who is 'their Doctor'. Often the first one they remember seeing, the one who means the most to them? Well, Kyle is my Green Lantern. Not my first as I read some Hal Jordan before he went Parallax, but Kyles the one I read most while growing up (yes, I said growing up while talking about reading comics) and the one I related to. Since Hal's return, while Kyle is still around and gets a decent role, the focus is back on Hal. I haven't seen a Kyle action figure before, so spotting this one was pretty exciting. The shame is, it's not actually a great figure. The details are off, there's no symbol on the costume, the ring is painted flesh colour and the positions are terrible. I'm not sure why it's set up so he can only be posed in ridiculous, splayed legs poses, it's a little embarassing for him I imagine. But it's a Kyle figure, and it cost 50p, so I'm happy with it.

The last couple of times I went, there was a stall with a huge amount of random out of packaging figures of many varieties, including plenty of Star Trek and Star Wars. Sadly this guy didn't seem to be about, which was a shame, as I was hoping to increase my Next Gen set. My original series new movie (has anyone come up with a better way to reference this version of trek yet?) which began with a birthday present last year is now a complete primary crew and I hope to do the same for the Next Generation crew.

Obviously I still have a little way to go! My bigger set so far is the Doctor Who toys. This started a few years back when my lovely fiancee bought me a radio controled Dalek. Soon after I was given a smaller radio controlled K9 which came with a 10th Doctor figure. And it's slowly increased a little from there, with my patient, long suffering fiancee contributing when christmas and birthday's roll around. Bless her. I hope she doesn't come to her senses before the wedding.

There's a Tardis, a tiny Dalek keyring, the 10th Doctor, Jack Harkness, a weeping Angel, the Master, Professor Yana, a Time Lord, K9, a Sontaran trooper, the sun infected guy from 42, the Moxx of Balhoon!, a Cyberman and a natural Ood. Oh and a Sonic Screwdriver.

So I end my short trundle through my toys with my favourite figure. My Hal Jordan Green Lantern! It's a brilliant figure, it has about a bazillion points of articulation, it's huge for an action figure and wonderfully detailed!

And yes, that is a Green Lantern Ring at the base, alongside a Blue Lantern ring.