...way out on the corner of fucked up and evil...

Thief Lord porn! With Princess Bride references, no less. Liam Neeson loves me, yes he does.

Watched Master & Commander this evening; I'd forgotten how much I adore that film, even if it is basically Tom Pullings' wet dream. The jokes, my God, the appalling yet hysterically funny jokes. Stephen being a pissy little bitch. Ickle Midshipman Blakeney, aww! The sealion that says "Argh!" Jack slagging off whalers in front of the head whaler dude. Poor, sad Tom and his unrequited Jacklove. Killick's cantankerous mutterings. Random appearence by a hobbit. And did I mention, the jokes? I thought I was going to die during that last scene; poor Stephen is handling his disappointment remarkably well for someone who is, as previously mentioned, a pissy little bitch, and Jack has to go and make that remark about flightless birds not going anywhere - it's hil-fucking-hairy-house, as we used to say back in college,

Whelp, nothing interesting happened today, so it's time for that old fallback plan, Anecdotes of the Family Von Froodle.

Some of you may already know that I suffer from what Ranma 1/2 fans call "Azusa Complex", the desire to name any inanimate objects in my possession. That's why you sometimes hear me talking about the state of Sanzo's hardrive or Yukimura's inability to perform - it just means my computer's being a bitch and my CD player is misbehaving.

So, I've just got back from uni and I'm getting changed and taking all my jewellery off in preparation for cooking dinner. Buzz and I are in my room, discussing the difficulties I'm having running Sims 2 on Sanzo. I jokingly suggest giving him a cigerrette to improve his tember. Buzz suggests naming another piece of hardware Homura, connecting them up and leaving them to "extract data" for a while. I say that I can't do that, because all my hardware has names. I then introduce them all: the scanner is called Hakkai, the printer is Gojyo, the modem is Goku, the two speakers are Merry and Pippin and the subwoofer is Boromir. At which point Buzz glances at the pile of abandoned jewellery sitting on top of the speaker system, snaps "Boromir!" reprovingly, before gathering up my rings and bracelets and moving them to the other side of the desk.

I have a pet lily. He lives in a glass vase and is covered with blue sparkles. I call him Hephestion.

I've decided, what I really need this year is a hobbit. Someone to carry all my shopping, do my cooking and cleaning, sing and dance for my edutainment, and stand around being cute when not otherwise occupied. Not Frodo, though. I can do without listening to him whine on about how he can't do my laundry because his Weathertop wound is hurting, or he can't carry my books because his gold bling is weighing him down. Maybe something in a Pippin...

Grumblegrumbleparentalunitsgrumble.

Picture this: it's after twelve on Monday night. I've been up since 8 doing boring-as-Hell uni stuff. I'm in bed, asleep. Paul McGann and Yukimura are providing background noise. I'm probably dreaming something indecent involving hobbits.

The phone rings.

A single, malevolent eye appears in the narrow gap between pillow and hair. There's some incoherent muttering and a suggestion of movement under the mountains of duvets.

The answering machine clicks on.

Ears are half-cocked, expecting the sound of whiny Bisexual Wiccan complaining about the latest dramas in her painfully uninteresting life. Instead, I'm hearing the nasal drone of my mother's Irish accent. I stumble out of my cocoon of precious warmth and over to the computer desk, just in time to hear the answerphone beep as she hangs up.

Hmm, thinks I, as I press the replay button.

Through my sleep-befuddled mind I catch the words "emergancy", "need to speak to you" and "call my mobile as soon as you get this". Oh noes! I think. Some terrible calamity hath befallen the Clan Froodle. Perhaps Buzz's gigantic head has eclipsed the sun, bringing about the second Ice Age. Perhaps Wilhelm - or indeed, Pa Froodle - has been arrested for Intense Stupidity. Perhaps Johnathan has impregnated some teenage whore and needs to know where I stashed a supply of wire coat hangers and rubbing alcohol*. Perhaps Mother has finally realised that she's Irish and plans to kill herself from the shame, in which case, this could be my only chance to say goodbye!

So I immediately ring back, and am instantly harangued over a letter from my dissertation supervisor demanding to know why I missed my first meeting. Bear in mind that this letter is addressed to me and dated November 3rd (thus proving that the Leeds Law Dept. could not organise a prayer in a nunnery, since even on the IOM, it doesn't take 12 days for a letter to arrive), and did I mention, it's almost 1am?! What the fuck?! If you insist on invading my privacy by opening and reading my letters, and then calling me up to bitch about the contents, can you at least do it at a reasonable time?

Got very pissy and explained that combination of computer account being locked due to some fuckwittery on the part of the ISS, and being busy enjoying the throwing up and writhing around on the floor in pain aspects of life thanks to goddamn ear infection had caused me to miss not only the meeting, but the emails preceeding them. Parentals eventually placated (some time around 3am) and said goodbye, leaving me to sit up until 5am fuming about thier idiocy.

In future, shall unplug phone before going to bed.

*Fun Fact: there is nowhere to get an abortion on the Isle of Man. You have to go to Liverpool to get one.

SCANDALACIOUS!

Why is there no Nicolas/Smike slash out there, ready to display itself in wanton poses at my very feet? I am disgusted with the whole world.

I've also decided to make my own film. It'll be called Space Pope: Defender of the Faith and in it, the Pope will fly around in a Space Helmet fighting Space Sin. The part of the Pope will be played by some old guy for the first few minutes, then, after Space Captain Jack (played by Russel Crowe, or, if he's not available, Stellen Skarsgård) rejuvinates him with the power of Space Magic, James D'Arcy.

Space Pope will also have two sidekicks, one a snarky Italian with long blonde hair, played by Craig Parker, the other a manly stubbled sort, possibly with a Scottish accent, probably played by an unknown. And yes, they will be working for a Sooper Sekrit Vatican Organisation. Unfortunatly, they'll be killed by a jiggly Space Nazi called Piggysaurus approximately ten minutes into the film. Fortunatly, Craig Parker will still show up throughout the film as a Space Ghost to snark at James D'Arcy and generally be smexsome, because unlike Peter Jackson, I am not a cruel Haldir-killing whore.

I'm not sure what happens after that, but I know it involves James D'Arcy and Colin Farrel having le fun du nekkid in the shower. Dominic Monaghan and Paul Bettany shall probably also be involved, although not necessarily all at the same time, and naturally there needs to be a Space Captain Jack versus Knavishly Uncool Mitten-Wearing Twat Hornblower sequence in there somewhere. Major Edrington survives, because he's Sam West and I like him. Archie dies, because that is the curse of Jamie Bamber.

And in the "Further proof that you barely have to leave the house to have it brought home to you that people are scum" catagory, we have today's joyous experiance.

I'm a person of few needs. Comfy bed, big TV, lots of chocolate, large stack of DVDs, and I'm fairly content. However, I do have one or two minor addictions (slash is a major addiction, and one I have no intention of changing), one of which is a fixation on Lush's "Honey I Washed The Kids" soap, which is as close to being hobbit-scented as anything can be without actually kidnapping Dominic Monoghan and harvesting his bodily fluids. Which I have thought about doing, but decided it was too much effort.

The Lush shop in Leeds is about twenty minutes walk from where I live, and since I needed to tell my bank that I'd moved anyway, I decided this afternoon would be a good time to leave the sanctity of my (oh so cool) new apartment and buy myself a slice of creamy hobbit goodness.

After all, what could possibly happen in a short hour-long trip into town?

Oh, foolish, foolish Froodle. Will you never learn?

I've gotten about two hundred yards from my front door, and am waiting at the traffic lights to cross the road, when some asshole walks up behind me, puts his hand on my ass and whispers, in what I can only assume that his mother told him - during intercourse involving them and the family dog - was a sexy, lascivious whisper, rather than the out-of-breath slobbering of an inbred fuckwit: "Nice, nice. Hello Sexy."

Excuse me? What possible response could these mouth-breathers be expecting other than "Here is my knee, excuse me while I aquaint it with your crotch"?!

Fucking hell, I hate people.

This was too good to keep to myself...

Messeurs Amy the wench, Izzy-chan and Miriglum present, for your amusement and pleasure:

The Angel vs vampire slayers handbags at dawn death-match
(although, technically, since vampires are *already* dead... )

It is important, though, we feel, to discuss a little why this game came about, and to apologise profusely for said incident of egotism and boredom. Chances are, you are a freind/stalkee of one of us three culprits. Thus you will know the pain of befreinding a fangirl. A deep and lingering pain. But, in any case, due to diverse circumstances (Amy living in America, thus having nobody sensible to talk to, Izzy losing her job, and Miriglum no longer being able to watch Angel), and a long, rambling conversation when we all should have been in bed (apart from Amy, and her ghey whore of a time zone) on Yahoo! messenger, the Angel-rific deathmatch has come into existance. Basic premise is, like our minds, both simple and disturbing - to prove our love of Angel, we pitch him agaist a series of other fictional charcters, and stand back to marvel at his God-like victory/anniliation. And since we have suffered, so must you - and anyone failing to make even a token effort will be sent to live in Canada/never spoken to again. So there. Simply read each deathmatch entry, taking into account the wonderous opinions of our good selves. Feel free to add comments to the strength/weakness and notes sections, then fill in the last section, drawing up an outline of the deathmatch and its conclusion. Remember, not all deathmatches have to be fought to the death. We have learned well from Angel's guidance, battling the green and icky-looking demons in the RING OF DEATH. Send back the email when you've filled in the deathmatches you can (although, like, don't feel you have to have *watched* a show to stick your oar in), and we fair three will contabulate all into an amusing Angel-rific whole. With pictures. ~nods~ And if we're still at this into the New Year, 'cause too many people decided to be lazy, and not reply, so be it. And there will be nagging. Oh, yes. So, without further ado (and hearing the merry jingling of Joss Whedon's crack lawyer brigade approaching ever-closer), enjoy the strangeness that is:

Slayers vs Angel

Slayer: Buffy

Occupation: Vampire Slayer, the. Strumpet.

Weapons: Vast supplies of wooden pointy things.

Strengths: Past experiance dealing with pesky vamps. Only has to set foot in LA to make Angel do his smacked-puppy-prominent-eyebrow face.

Weaknesses: Spectacular failure to do away with the loveable but blundering Spike indicates possible unlikelyhood of managing to defeat Angel. Only has to set foot in LA to be thrown into squished Woe!-Buffy-is-tormented-by-vampiric-ex face.

Notes: Well, none of us having ever really watched Buffy in a big way, Buffy's stats are mainly made up by us, and any resemblance to any actual vampire slayers, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Outcome:


Slayer: Vampire Hunter D

Occupation: Vampire/demon hunting in swishy cape. A man after Angel's own heart.

Weapons: None of us can actually remember. Possibly a very, very large sword.

Strengths: Cool hat. Can fall off almost anything and survive. 2dimensional, so can slide into small places to hide.

Weaknesses: Lack of Angel's chirpy side-kicks. Back-talking hand. Tendency to look like Lawrence Lwelynn-Bloody-Bowen in model-form

Notes: Human, with vampire blood - i.e. ridiculous vampire uber-stregthness, without all that pesky catching fire in daylight melarky

Outcome:


Slayer: Van Helsing

Occupation: Head fighting-wench of the vatican. Left hand of God.

Weapons: Deadly spinning-tops of doom

Strengths: Again, swishy coat/hat combo. Cute side-kick-a-mir Monk, complete with array of deadly anti-vampiric/explodey weapons.
Miriglum: Also, wasn't that Princess-type love interest a gypsy? [Ethnic slur, all people from eastern europe are gypsies] Possibly precipitive of an 'Angel boldly runs away' sort of situation.
Amy the wench: But he's not very *keen* of gypsies, is he? I mean, surely he'd be wanting revenge
Miriglum: Yes, but he's rather attached to that soul of his, isn't he? Like - entire point of series.

Weaknesses: Limited attention span causes poor brooding skills.

Notes: Can turn into a werewolf - potentially useless, unless Angel is as secretly as bloody-uselessy-vunerable to werewolves as Dracula.
Miriglum: Did I mention, Sam West should *totally* take part in this deathmatch? He has his own ship, *and* a, like, a shipful of angry Narnians. That *has* to come in handy.

Outcome:


Slayer: Bram Stoker's Ghey Leage of People Who Don't Like Dracula (BSGLOPWDLD)

Occupation: Being Victorian. Being Ghey. Being homo-erotic.

Weapons: 'Dr Van Hellsing's old-school patent vampire-slaying kit'.
Large hammer, 1
Wooden stakes (classic finish), several
Garlic, 6 of whatever the internationally agreed units of garlic measurement might happen to be
Crafty coffin-opening device, 1
Silver crusifix, 2
Handy lawyer, for rifling personal papers, gaining entrance to private property and lying to coroners about sudden deaths of 90% of secondary charecters.
Large guns, for dispatching pesky gypsies, 5

Strengths: Numbers significantly in their favour, even with Angel's full complement of minions.
Miriglum: But then, didn't Angel still not have a soul, back in the day? Plus, he had Darla (deadly killing hair) and Drusila (crazy weasel). Also, let's say Spike (pretty but useless) too, 'cause he's all shiny. In which case, they'd have all been like - bite, bite, bite - ugh, Dr Van Hellsing tastes funny - bite. Yum.
Amy the wench: No, I'm sure he was in his 'useless roaming Angel' stage.

Weaknesses: Largly too busy being Fraudian and worriting over their latent sexuality to put togeather much of deadly killing front.

Notes: Considering it took them an entire book to kill Dracula, who was, frankly, quite useless, can't see they have much chance agaist the super Angel.

Outcome:


Disclaimer: let it be recorded, we Amy the wench and Miriglum, had no part in the creation of the following deathmatch, knowing it to be wrong and disturbing, and the work of a twisted mind...


Slayer(s): Merry and Pippin

Occupation: Hobbit slayers of middle-earth.
Amy the wench: Yep. 'Cause they were just *over-run*, weren't they?!

Weapons: The One True Ring and/or the Horn of Gondor

Strengths: Small and cute. Experiance of questing. Some singing talent.

Weaknesses: Handy, snack-size vampire treats. Limited experiance slaying actual vampires. Would have to stand on each other's shoulders to stake Angel through heart.

Notes: Matching waistcoats may provide crucial assistance.

Outcome:

And on the 19th, the final day of Hexmas, we celebrate Merry and Pippin. May your tummies be ever-round.

(First one to make an Angel is Fat joke gets a kick in their big Canadian teeth. Hex, this means you.)

Previously on Froodle: I was too busy grumbling about that damn spider to mention Corey Feldman was in Big Wolf on Campus last night. Damn, he's all shades of hot. I want to watch the Lost Boys again.

Van Helsing: The London Assignment is wonderful. Gabriel being molested by the Queen is like Lindsey getting his hand cut off: just never stops being funny. Carl in drag, (hereafter refered to as 'Dragimir') whining about the shade of lip rouge and the tightness of his corset, is the stuff of legend.

Like most people who've watched it, I take issue with it only being half an hour long - I know that's all it took to tell the story, but for £10, I feel like we should have gotten another 'episode' or whatever. Still, wasn't my money, so, meh.

The CGI was pretty bad in places, but not on the scale of, say, Treasure Planet, Underworld or the Richard Roxburgh version of Hound of the Baskervilles. Or even the VH movie itself.

Now, time for me to have a bath, then curl up in bed and watch 'Return of the King'. Or more accurately, all ROTK scenes with Merry and/or Pippin in. Which means it'll be about forty minutes long.