Book 33 of 2013: Star Warped by A3R Roberts (Adam Roberts)

On our trip to Oban for my birthday, Mr Click spotted Star Warped in the Oxfam shop. Knowing what a geek I am he pointed it out to me and as it’s from the same range as The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit parody books I decided we should get it. Mr Click got to read it first but after listening to him chuckling through it (and refusing to actually share what was so funny most of the time) I obviously had to read it as soon as I was able.

It’s a parody version of the Star Wars films released to date; first are the longer parodies dealing with the original three films, then at the end are three shorter films which play around with the events of the most recent three films. In these films the dominant force in the universe is the Farce and Luke must go head to head with Dark Father (three guesses to work out what his relationship to Luke is).

It really was laugh out loud funny in places. I was glad to finally get to read it and see whether it really was as funny as my husband had implied. It’s obviously written for people who are fans of the films or who are at least well acquainted with them. I read it not long after watching the three original Star Wars films (for Star Wars Day) so I could kind of follow how the story was taking the mickey out of them.

One of my favourite things was the names. Especially some of the ‘extras’ who had names that were phonetic spellings of things like ‘Another British Actor’ and ‘That Guy From The Bill’. There were also the main characters like Wobbli Bent K’nobbli as well as the rebel force, called Rebelend. So it’s a little bit rude in places, but considering this is coming from the same mould as Bored of the Rings that was kind of to be expected.

I thought that the first three parodies were the best of the six, mainly because they were longer. They had actual chapters whereas everything in the prequels was sort of squished into one. Despite being a bit rushed they did help to tie everything together. I suppose there probably wasn’t enough to work with for the three prequel films, they are kind of funny on their own without even trying.

I’ll revisit this in the future, perhaps when we’ve got all of the films on blu-ray so I can have a little marathon. It’s also made me really look forward to reading the Tolkien parody books. They’re on the bookcase waiting for me, I just need to find a bit of time to actually get to them!

Gonal-F Injections

Yesterday I wrote about my appointment at the Nuffield last Wednesday when we picked up my meds.

I left off yesterday with us leaving the hospital after having had a scan and a blood test. We'd been told to expect a phone call the following day but when we got onto the ferry at about 6pm I noticed that I had a missed call and a message from G with our results from the blood test. I called back and was given the go-ahead to start the jabs on Friday morning.



I was told to give myself 150iu morning and evening for the first two days and then just once a day after that. I need to leave twelve hours (roughly) between the morning and afternoon so I settled on doing it at 8am and 8pm because that gives me time to get up on the weekend when I like to have a lie-in. So come Friday at 8am I was nervously preparing to stab myself in the belly for the first time.

It's not really that difficult. You remove the pen cap, screw on a needle, turn the dial to the right dosage (for me it's 150iu), push the needle into your skin and then press the button on the end for ten long seconds. There's even an iPhone app complete with videos to help you get it right!

I barely felt the needle going in for the first injection but there's a horrible tuggy sensation when you pull it out; kind of like taking out an earring or having stitches removed. I could've cried when I pulled it out after the first dose and saw it still said 25iu, meaning I'd not given myself the full dose. That meant I had to do it all over again!

I think it was because I didn't press the button down far enough. It kind of goes against all your natural instincts to push something sharp into your belly and then press down on the end of it. But I'm getting the hang of it now and even administered my second dose without Mr Click in the room!

I'm fairly confident with it now though and it just takes a couple of minutes to get it all set up. The photo above shows how I organise it all and usually I have Mr Click standing by with his phone to time me to make sure I'm giving myself the full dose.

I've not really noticed any massive side effects. I've had a couple of twinges in the general ovary area (for some reason it seems to happen soon after I do the jab, but in the opposite side to where I've injected and then the side I've injected into catches up after about fifteen or twenty minutes). I have also been rather more emotional; things that have made me cry, or at least well up slightly, have included people offering me sweets at work, forgetting to take a vitamin and watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony on DVD.

Today we have another scan to see how things are going. We were hoping that with my good AMH results that it wouldn't take too many days of stimulation to get me ready for the next stage. Fingers crossed!

Nuffield Appointment & Preparing For Injections

Normally I'd post my Project 52 photo post right now, but we've got family visiting so I've not really had time to get that organised. Instead I thought I'd use today and tomorrow to get caught up on where we're at with the IVF/ICSI.

At my last Nuffield appointment I was given the instruction to call on the first day of my next period to book an appointment for Cycle Day Three. I duly went away and waited and waited and waited for what seemed like the longest time ever. Of course it wasn't really that long but after dreading every period for almost four years actually looking forward to one was going to feel like a lifetime.

And it was slightly late which did not help matters at all. Though having spoken to people online I've discovered that it's not uncommon for your period to be a little shy after a Prostap injection.

After waiting a while to establish this was indeed what I'd been waiting for I called up and made our Day 3 appointment for last Wednesday.

As it was a little later in the day than previous appointments I made the decision to go into work for a couple of hours first thing; no sense using up holiday hours unnecessarily. This meant I missed a phone call from the hospital asking us about changing our appointment time but I got through when we were on the boat and arranged that if we could get there for 2:30pm we'd go for that but if not we'd go for the original time.

We did actually make it for the earlier appointment and didn't have long to wait before we were called through for our scan. This time we met a new nurse, G, who is pretty familiar with the island where we live so we chatted a while about the best restaurants and places to eat locally.

The scan was slightly more uncomfortable than the last one, which I put down to the time of the month rather than the nurse. Again, it was the scan that I had been most concerned about on this appointment because a Day 3 scan seemed kind of unpleasant.

It's never going to be the highlight of my calendar but it really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The thickness of my womb lining was checked as well as my ovaries. My right ovary was hiding again but this time I was actually able to make out what G pointed to when she looked at my left ovary. That was pretty cool.

And with that all done it was time to get all cleaned up and get some blood taken before I learned how to give myself injections. I forget exactly what the blood test was for but the results would determine when I would start the injections.

As for the injections, I'd been given the choice between a solution which you had to mix up yourself before injection or one which came in a preloaded pen. As much as I enjoyed science at school, with something as big as this I wanted to leave as little room for error as possible, so I opted for the preloaded pen, known as Gonal-F.

I know plenty of women do just fine with making up the medication and injecting it, but the thought of doing something wrong scares me and I'm really grateful the Nuffield gives you a choice.

Before demonstrating how the pen worked, G asked who would be doing the injections. Without hesitating I said 'me!' I mean, I love Mr Click but if anyone's going to stab me with something sharp and pointy, it's going to be me.

 The pens really do seem to be foolproof and after a demonstration I felt pretty confident about doing it myself. We were given a snazzy bag for the boxes of pens and needles, and the sharps bucket, as well as a big A3 sheet with step-by-step instructions (including coloured blocks showing where to put the sharps bucket and needle). After restocking my metformin, we were good to go and just had to wait for a phone call to tell us when we could start the injections.

And I'll share more about how I got on with those tomorrow.

Film Review: Tangled

I realise that I've already done a film review this week but that was a cinema film review, whereas this is a DVD review. I think that's different enough to post them one after another.

Tangled is another Disney film. One which I've wanted to see for ages but never got around to getting. Part of this is because at Christmas I buy CG animated films for Mr Click and he buys classic animated films for me; as Tangled looked like kind of a girly film so I didn't feel right buying it for him. Thankfully my team leader at work shares my obsession with all things Disney and when I mentioned that I wanted to see Tangled she leant me the DVD and Mr Click and I were finally able to watch it.

It's the story of Rapunzel; a girl with magic hair, the result of her ill and pregnant mother drinking special cure containing a magic flower which provides eternal youth (if you know a particular song). Annoyed at losing the flower, an enchantress named Mother Gothel steals the baby away and raises her as her own, trapped in a tower to keep her from the outside world. This works quite well until the thieve, Flynn Rider stumbles onto the tower whilst trying to escape with the crown he has stolen...

Rapunzel is a wonderfully naïve character, wracked with doubt about her desire to see the world and her fear of what the outside world holds, according to what her 'mother' has told her. It's fun to see how the character grows and changes throughout the film.

On the other hand there's Flynn, a tough guy criminal who kind of softens as the film progresses. He's the butt of so many jokes and is pretty much indestructible, which is just as well because his introduction to Rapunzel involves her pretty much beating the crap out of him. He's also not too bad looking (for an animated character).

Of course, being a film involving a Disney Princess it's pretty much a given that she's going to end up with the lead male in the film. And she does. And it's done in a very sweet way as they gradually grow together and come to see each other differently. I think I like the newer way that Disney girls end up with their handsome princes; the girls seem to be a lot more pro-active than they used to be.

The animation in this film is beautiful. There is so much detail in everything. Just looking at the clothes and you can see seams, actual seams on clothes that have been animated! Rapunzel's hair is incredible too, the way it moves and everything. And the backgrounds as well, they're just beautiful. It's like something out of a painting. I definitely need to get this film on Blu-ray purely so I can just watch it again and marvel at the beauty of it all, particularly now we have the fancy new TV screen.

There's also songs in this one as well. Proper old-fashioned Disney songs. In fact, I kept on getting the feeling that these wouldn't feel out of place in a stage production of the film. I kept on day dreaming while I was watching it about how bits might be staged if it was to be adapted for the stage. particularly the way that Mother Gothel sings her songs is very theatrical, as you can see:

I'm going to have to get a copy of the soundtrack at some point because several of these songs are earworms. In the meantime I'll leave you with another of my favourite songs (in fact I love this whole bit of the film):

Film Review: Monsters University

As much as I love all of the Disney Pixar films, my favourite is Monsters, Inc. I think I saw it in the cinema twice and I just loved the magic of it. Plus Boo is utterly adorable. It's so clever. So when I heard that they were making Monsters University as a prequel to the original film I knew that I had to see it, and I really wanted to see it in the cinema. Luckily Mr Click managed to get last minute tickets at our local cinema and we saw it two weeks ago.

This film follows Mike as he starts University to train for what he has dreamed of his whole life; to become a world class scarer. Once there he meets Sully, his rival. Whereas Mike spends all his time studying, Sully comes from a family of scarers so doesn't really feel that he has to put any effort into his studies. And then their competitive streaks cause an accident which results in them getting thrown off the scare programme, which prompts Mike to enter the Scare Games to try to win back his place on the course, but to have a chance at winning he needs Sully on his team.

And it was everything I expected from this film and more. Whereas during the first film I was a firm fan of Sully, this film had me rooting for Mike from the start (even though I knew it couldn't be that simple given the events of the original). It's really clever how they made the familiar characters appear slightly younger as well as other subtle little changes (like the technology you see) to hint at this being set at a slightly earlier time period.

It was fun to see characters like Randall in their youth, as well as getting to know new characters. I especially liked the Oozma Kappa crew. They were all kind of cute in an unfortunate sort of way. It was also cool to see a little bit more of the Monster World as well as where some of Mike's little tics seemed to have come from.

I think it's one of those films which I'm going to need to see more than once to actually formulate a proper opinion on. There was so much going on that I was trying to watch both the background and foreground of every scene as well as keeping a look out for little bits and pieces like the Pizza Planet truck and Pixar ball. You really need to see it more than once to take it all in. Luckily Mr Click has got it pre-ordered with Amazon, so hopefully I'll not have to wait too long before I get to see it again.

 

I love how vibrant it is as well as all the clever little modifications to buildings. The monsters themselves are interesting and I bet it must have been really fun coming up with all the different designs. I think I'd rather watch them the way round that they were made, particularly if I'm watching it with someone who's never seen them before. Though it's a bit of a problem because no matter which way round you watch them, one is going to spoil the other.

 

Again it's got that standard Disney Pixar message of being yourself and doing your best at whatever you do. And I think it's got plenty that will appeal to both adults and children. There's the visual gags and remarks which kids will get, then there are bits which will go completely over their heads but which mums and dads and other grown-ups will enjoy.

 

On the way out of the cinema kids were being handed posters (the one at the top of this post). I was thrilled when the woman handing them out said 'grown-ups can have one too'. It's pinned up on the cupboard door in the living room and I can't help but smile every time I go past it.

 

I can't wait to see the film again!

Day Zero Project: Buy & Watch Every Series of ER

ER is one of my favourite TV series. I remember I always used to change channel after Friends but one night I was staying up a bit late, I guess I didn't have school the next day or maybe I did and I was doing some last minute homework, so I just left it on E4. There was a heavily pregnant woman getting married. I didn't pay it too much attention, but the longer it went on, the more I found myself watching it.

It was an episode from series seven, somewhere near the end, where Drs Corday and Greene get married. And that sucked me in. They later repeated the whole series in the run up to series eight and so I was able to get caught up to speed. I watched almost every episode after that.

While I was off school for my exam leave I got into a routine for my revision where I would revise until lunchtime and then stop. This worked out perfectly for watching the old episodes of ER they were showing. In this way I managed to watch most of series five and six (though they were edited for the daytime audience so the really gorey bits were edited out).

I started getting the series on DVD, getting up to series five before I stopped getting them (because one of my favourite characters dies in series six and if I didn't own it then it couldn't happen). I'd always intended to carry on buying the following series at some point, but then it got to the point where it would be more expensive to buy each individual series than it was to buy the complete box set, so I held off until I could actually get the complete box set.

And then my wonderful husband bought me the big box set.

We've been watching it since just after my birthday and have reached series eight now. There are some episodes (like those from the first few series) which I've watched again and again, and others which I've only seen the first time they were on TV. I've even found a few which I've not seen at all which were maybe not included when there were reruns because of events happening in the world (one that springs to mind involved a train crash which I'd never seen and I guess was not shown because of something similar happening in real life).

So this is one target which I've almost achieved now. Just a few more series to go and as we average two episodes a day, I was expecting it to take us almost a year to watch them all, but we'll probably be finished within the next couple of months!

Oops, Looks Like We Need To Buy A New TV!

When I started dating Mr Click a large portion of our 'dates' involved snuggling up together and watching TV shows (and the occasional film). I quickly established that his little 4:3 26" TV was not so good for watching epic blockbusters like Lord of the Rings. He invested in a 32" flatscreen and it's seen us through engagement, marriage and our attempts to start a family.

One night before we moved in together we were watching Moulin Rouge on DVD in his room when it suddenly conked out halfway through. Attempts to use a cleaning disc were thoroughly unsuccessful and so we were prompted to invest in a Blu-ray player (a whole £99.99) which made sense at the time as my family had recently bought one so it meant we could also watch films they'd bought.

And so our Blu-ray collection began to grow.

And it's carried on growing and growing. I like to get all Disney or CG animated films, plus any which have a lot of special effects. We still buy DVDs, but we've even started getting some films on Blu-ray because those like Game of Thrones are just made for watching in higher quality. Just over a week ago we'd added another five films to our collection (thank you HMV for having nice offers when we have hospital appointments).

Saturday before last we had a first aid duty, but it wasn't until the afternoon so we settled down to watch an episode of ER while we ate our lunch. Except the Blu-ray player just said 'Load Error' and spat the disc out. We tried it again, and again. We tried the cleaning disc, and the Blu-ray player just said 'Load Error' and spat that out too. Eventually we established that after many years of faithful service our Blu-ray player had died.

I promptly ordered a new one from Amazon. We then decided that we didn't want to wait that long for it to be delivered and headed down town to see if anyone there was selling one. One of the electrical shops was (and for only £10 more than what we were paying from Amazon) so we took it home and hooked it all up.

Only to find a picture which was covered in little sparkly dots, like a mini snow-storm. We tried changing all manner of settings, we read the manual and did Google searches. And what it basically boiled down to is that although the ten-year-old HD Ready TV works with a six-year-old Blu-ray played connected through the HDMI socket, it's not HDCP compatible which is something newer Blu-ray players have. The HDCP is something to do with copy protection and is supposed to stop people from watching illegally copied films or something. Unfortunately as older TVs don't have this, it means they don't work with modern Blu-ray players.

From what I could find online the choices were to buy a new TV or buy an old Blu-ray player. I was more than a bit peeved about this because by this point we owned two Blu-ray players (neither of which we could actually use) and a perfectly good TV (apart from the fact that it wouldn't work with either of the perfectly good Blu-ray players).

To begin with I was dead against the new TV option, instead suggesting that we could just buy a cheap DVD player until the TV packing in and then buy all new equipment. Until Mr Click pointed out that doing this would render a large portion of our film collection unwatchable for some time. So we had to buy a new TV. Thank goodness for Father-in-Laws with credit cards!

I arrived home from work last Tuesday to find it all set up and looking incredible. And after saying we didn't want a TV in the bedroom, we've moved the old one into the bedroom. We used to watch an episode of a TV series in bed on my laptop before we went to sleep each night. Now we can watch it on my in-laws' old DVD player on a bigger screen.

The second Blu-ray player we have given to my in-laws because they already have a super-duper TV (and it means we can bring our films to watch with them - there are so many Disney films my Mum-in-Law has wanted to watch but which we couldn't share with her because we only have them on Blu-ray).

In a way it's all worked out pretty well. Even if it has been a bit of an unnecessary expense.