Carlsberg don't do royal weddings

Wow.

That was, possibly, my favourite part of the whole day, when the Duchess (or Kate to you and me) walked out to the balcony and saw the crowds gathered below.

My other favourite part of the day was Twitter. There were some hilarious observations all day long and, sitting in my living room, made me feel like a was a part of something big.

Speaking of Twitter, two things I should have tweeted about last week when I was in London but didn't (I was still abstaining from Twitter) were these two products. I bought one and laughed at the other.

Royal Wedding Top Trumps? I did not buy this. But kind of wish I at least knew how it worked. My best guess is you get different family members (Royal and Middleton) and are awarded points on: line of succession, style and image, scandals, education and titles. Probably not though, Camilla might end up lower than would be acceptable.

Yes, we bought (as a gift for my mum!) a Royal Wedding tea towel. Unlike Top Trumps, it's a gift with class and elegance written all over it. I mean just look at that font, style itself. Bit unfortunate the flags make it look like Ginger Spice bikini top though. But something to look back on in years to come with fond memories of today.

So that's that then. The Royal Wedding is all over. And like friends' weddings I feel a bit sad it's all over. That makes me sad in more ways that one, doesn't it?!

Wedding fever

I don't think there's an easy way to say this so I'm going to just come out and say it: I'm a little bit excited about the wedding tomorrow! Phew! I feel better now! I like a national event and weddings, who doesn't like weddings?! Mum and I just made some food for the occasion: Pall Mall-teser buns, Westminster Squares and Tiara buns and we've co-ordinated wake up times to watch the build up. That said, some of the BBC presenters are my least favourite but you could hardly watch it on ITV (even with no adverts). I was remembering earlier watching Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew's wedding, which happened the day after my 6th birthday. We watched Smoky and the Bandit afterwards, probably to appease my brother who had sat through most of it too, which, if I remember rightly, is something to do with Sally Field as a runaway bride. Nice bit of scheduling there.

Last week Dad and I took a little trip to London and it was cool to see the setting up for the big day was going on nearly ten days beforehand. We walked down Pall Mall and past the Palace and later in the day saw the Abbey.

For all their 'ra ra Republic' and 'hurrah for our President', Americans do love a royal occasion.

The studios were already set up across from the Palace. Glorified portacabins.

Meanwhile the barriers were about to go up down the Mall (the green truck).

Excitingly a horse and carriage passed us when we were walking up the Mall. It may (or may not) have come out of Clarence House. By the time we got to the Victoria Monument, it was circling back around. I don't care what you say, I think they were practising for tomorrow! It stopped at some traffic lights and so we waiting for it to pass us to try to get a photo of it in front of the Palace...

Closer, getting closer, get ready, get ready...

Damn you taxi!! I shook my fist at you!

Later in the day we were walking past the Abbey and, like the Victoria Monument, some sort of staging was going up right opposite. But check out where...

Oh aye, block the Methodists' view, that's fine, don't you worry about us. You and your 'established' church! Huh! (Actually, I've read since that Sophie Raworth's station is on the roof of Methodist Central Hall so we must fine with it then.)

Looking behind as we walked down the street I turned to look back at the Abbey and wondered how different the scene will look on the day.

Tomorrow afternoon, after it's all over, I might go out on my roller skates. I probably would have done when I was 6, except Smoky and the Bandit was on. 


Best check the Radio Times then before I make any plans then.

Retro

I don't often pay to download apps. When I got my phone I consciously made that decision not to, I think I thought it would open the floodgates and you'd download loads and you might not actually use what you download.

I think I've only paid to download a few: a travel one so I didn't have to pay for mobile internet when I was away and an odd game. My most expensive app download came when I was writing my dissertation. I needed something to put the audio of my interviews in to slow them down so I could type them up. So I downloaded an app which cost a whopping £2.99! Crikey. But it was a really useful app and it made it so much easier.

But now, it seems I was right; the floodgates have opened. Something brought to my mind about the Mega Drive we had when we were teenagers and some of the class games we had. Then I took a notion to see if you could get any in the app store. And sure enough Sonic the Hedgehog was there...for £2.99.

Throwing all caution to the wind I downloaded it. Oh. My. Goodness. Childhood memories a-go-go. All the remembering of where the rings were, the best way to go, how to jump to avoid spikes. Brilliant stuff. And best of all the cheat to the level selector works!

'Up, down, left, right, hold down A and press start'. Except you can't do that because there is no A button.

I always found it weird when he died. Who dies by jumping up and then falling through the earth?

The Special Stages are rock hard with the touch screen control pad.

I completed it (well the final level using the cheat) and was duly rewarded with the em...footage...of Sonic running through the levels with all his freed furry friends.

Of course, Dr. Robotnik was keen to remind me that I didn't really complete it because I didn't get all the Chaos Emeralds. Yeah, yeah, whatevs.

While you might laugh at me for going all retro, I know I'm not the only one. Karen Marathon used Sonic as part of her uni assignment.

It's Sonic but from Apps! (Click on it to make it bigger.)

Yeah, fair enough it's a new spin on it. Take a look at her other app retro art (I'm sure that wasn't the actually title of her work!) at her K Gallery facebook page.

All this retroness was enough to make me download Sonic 2. Yup, those floodgates are open alright.

The name's Nadhaswaram?

I had a solid week there of not doing very much. I've fallen in the trap of thinking I don't have very much to do, when actually when I think about it there's loads to do. But instead of working through my to-do list, I worked through The Good Wife.

I've started working through my iTunes because it was in a state. I don't really know why. It started because I was at the points of not having the music I wanted on there because I was running out of space. Then I discovered that the genres were all over the show. [One of my last days in uni I saw this flyer for student elections. This girl wanted different band nights in the Union.

She was also proposing a different spelling of genre. Not really surprised, different spelling has clearly been in Johanna's breeding.]

Anyway, back to my iTunes genres. I discovered I had Electronica & Dance and Electronica/Dance. Now, I don't really know much about the Electronica and/or Dance world, but I think I could safely say they could be put under the same genre. Also, with Hip hop/Rap and Hip-hop/Rap, I didn't think the Hip hop fraternity would mind if I amalgamated them with their hyphened counterparts. I did struggle over Pop/Rock and Rock/Pop, but haven't changed it just yet because a track might just be more rock than pop, but have important pop undertones which must be recognised, or indeed vice versa. But is it too much to ask for a consistent spelling of Soundtrack. One or two words I'm sure is fine, consistency is the key.

iTunes seems to choose genres all by itself too. Like, Coldplay seem to straddle a lot of different genres. That's ok, I get that. I can see how a band might produce albums that are Rock, Pop, Live, Christmas, Alternative & Punk, and just plain Alternative. Biffy Clyro are the same: Indie, Alternative Rock, Alternative & Punk and Alternative. That's fine, I can see that. Far be it from me to confine your musical greatness to one genre. I did get the biggest laugh of all though when I got to Savage Garden (oh come on, what girl growing up in the late 1990s didn't love a bit of 'I Knew I Loved You'?!). A pop classic surely? No, iTunes put them firmly in the Rock camp. I think not. But then iTunes had also marked Abba and a-Ha as Rock, so if that's your yardstick, then Savage Garden would also come under that umbrella.

Then there are times when iTunes just got lazy and marked an artist as 'Other'. Like the Foo Fighters. Really iTunes? And Gwen Stefani? Yeah, ok, fair enough, if ever an artist was to be labelled 'other' it's probably her. I did find iTunes' definition of the MTV Unplugged album as '0' interesting. But then it was clear to me: zero plugs, therefore the genre zero. Duh.

And of course I had the same problem my mum had back in the summer of iTunes finding album artwork. Just look at this one.

I didn't even know there was a Best Of.

I'm back!

As you might have gathered from my previous post a few weeks ago I took a little break from technology. It was nice actually. So nice that I still haven't tweeted anything since I started reading tweets again. I kind of feel like I have nothing to say now. I think once I tweet something though, that'll be it, the flood gates will have opened and I'll be back tweeting all the time again! But for now it's Twitter silence from Tinaarena22.

I found it too hard to be at my computer most of the day and not to check all those sorts of things. So I went cold turkey for a while. Why was I at my computer most of the day? Well, I finishing off my dissertation, silly! It was long. 75,000 words long. 180 pages long. See, long. Now, don't get too impressed there, only 20,000 words were mine, the rest were interviews and appendices and what not. 

According to my supervisor they 'added weight to my argument'. Yeah, no kidding.

As is the rule with anything to do with Methodism and their relation with anyone else I was obliged to use the 'Friends of all' motto in my title. No, seriously, it's a rule. 

There'll be more of my research findings in the coming blogs. Oh, not serious stuff! Stuff that might make you laugh!

Since I finished it I have:

1. Got my hair cut. This was an important part of my week of celebration.

2. Started back to walking, with a view to starting to run again. In the latter half of last year I ran twice. Twice! What with getting a bike and then a knee injury (doesn't that make me sound sporty?!) I didn't do any real exercise towards the end of last year. In 2011, unless we're counting skiing, I have done nothing. The infamous 'Golden Steps' currently have me beat. Honestly I sound like a smoker going up them. Not for long, I will beat you Golden Steps!

3. Tried to sort out my iTunes. This was prompted by Ruth getting a new computer. She joined the Mac Club and so has now realised how much fun computers are! She's even started her own blog, with a nod towards her new addiction!

4. Watched The Good Wife. Well not all of it, but a lot of season 1. Bethem sent me a message when I was skiing asking if I'd ever seen Miranda. I said no, she said I would love it and she'd lend me the boxset. So ever keen for a new TV show I reminded her to lend me and I got given The Good Wife instead, something to do with her sister already lending to someone else or something, not that I'm complaining, I love it! And all of season 2 is 4OD. So once I finish this I'll be able to catch up on recent developments! Win.

Next I'm supposed to be doing the job that I put off last summer: tidying my roofspace. That'll be a major piece of work and it'll be a trip down memory lane because I have thrown nothing out. Since we moved, when I was ten, I have barely thrown out so much as a cardboard box. Everything in the eaves beside my room. Well not everything, the rest is in David's old room. It's going to be painful. 

Maybe I'll go for a run just to avoid it?