So, FF12 eats all my time

And I still haven't finished watching my DVDs. Stupid sendit.com managed to send the wrong DVD. Quick phone call to them (so much easier than emailing), and they sent the right one and it arrived the next day. So I was wading through 4 DVDs of Ross Noble and his random ramblings (his reasons for not putting a blanket over an owl nearly caused me to wet myself).

But then FF12 arrived, and I've been engrossed in that ever since. It's certainly a big game, and definitely worth the wait. And for once, you don't mind having to wander about beating stuff up to get yourself up to a suitable level. And it's hard. I've died many times. I presume there are optional bosses lurking about somewhere that will provide even more of a challenge. I'm kind of not looking forward to being killed by them repeatedly.

By the time I've beaten it soundly, something else interesting will have appeared and my Amazon balance will be back up to something silly. Another 5 quid yesterday, making £84.49 this year. I'm getting quite impressed by the amount of free stuff I'm getting now.

Now, back to killing stuff. FF12 has taken a few things from FF Tactics. Clan hunts. Involve even more wandering about until you find something particular nasty to try and kill. And it's a lot of fun. Better go and see the moogle and see what he's got to say to me now.

How much free stuff?

First, the useful tip. If you buy something from Amazon, and they then go and drop the price the second the thing arrives, complain. They refund the difference between what you paid and what the price drops to at any point in the 30 days after it's dispatched. Very useful to know, although I could have done with knowing that earlier.

Thanks to ipoints , the total of free stuff is now £79.49. I was hoping for an Amazon voucher from them, but they've just changed their prices. 830 of their points for a 30 quid Amazon voucher? Because they post it to you, despite Amazon having quite a good system where they can email you the voucher. So I got a £20 voucher for sendit.com, who are pretty good too, I guess. For 395 points. And it looks like they give you points for buying stuff even if you use vouchers you got from points. Only an extra £1 worth of points, but can't complain.

So that's more DVDs to watch, and only a week or so before I can get my hands on FF12.

Why I can't save Amazon vouchers

Well, my plan to save up all the Amazon vouchers I seem to collect and buy something nice isn't turning out too well. Every time I get one and add it to my account, I then spot something else I'd like which I can afford and spend them all on that.

Just won £15 of vouchers last week (from telling people what I watch on TV). Brings the total of free stuff for this year to £40. But then spotted the new Frank Black CD/DVD package. So I bought that. (Lots of him playing some of his old songs on his own, including some Pixies songs. Plus a handful of new songs, including one that consists entirely of about 20 layers of vocals and nothing else. Very odd).

And I finished reading Cell, so I need a new book. (Good book, Stephen King back to his more trashy writing, which isn't a bad thing. Bit too much like The Stand, but that was one of his best books anyway. Just that this time, the virus comes through phones and not some deadly escaped 'flu. And only 500-something pages, so a quick read).

Phil also had a slight mishap with play.com. He somehow tried to buy the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2DVD+2CD fancy live box of joy. Using his old card details. So they pointed this out to him and he gave them a new, non-expired card. At which point they sent two copies of it, charged to the new card. Rather than send it back, I now have it. Which means the money I'd saved up from Ciao for answering their surveys and reviewing some DVDs had to be extracted from them. (Luckily, they just transfer it straight to your bank account, so it's easy). That's another £14.49 from them, bringing the total to £54.49 this year. Not bad going so far then. Oh, wait. 5 quid Amazon voucher for not doing much with my website. Makes £59.49 then.

It's a rather good DVD though. Must be heard in the full DTS sound, at loud volumes. Slightly odd choice of songs. 10 from Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus, which makes sense as the tour was to support that double album. And 4 others. Lacking The Mercy Seat. And several others you might expect. But you also get the second DVD, with more songs, and videos. (15 minutes of incredibly silliness for 1 of them!). And 2 CDs of more live stuff. Over 500 minutes of stuff in all. In the most stupid box ever. Why do people put DVDs in boxes that they can easily escape from? It's already annoyed a cat, by leaping from the box onto the poor thing as she wandered past at the wrong time.

You can tell there's nothing on TV...

...And I've not got anything else to do.

I now have no DVDs to watch (well, none I haven't watched already), no games entertaining me endlessly (until FF12), and I'm trying not to read books too quickly.

Lisey's Story turned out to be an excellent book in the end. One of the best things Stephen King has written in quite a while. Even if it should be called Lisey's Dead Husband's Story, really. So now I'm reading his previous book (Cell), just because I haven't read it yet and it was half price. More like his normal style, and generally zombie-tastic. Which isn't a word. But do I care?

The total of free stuff is now £25. Getting complicated though. I didn't want any of the 10 quid vouchers I could order from Pigsback, and Phil didn't want any of the stuff he could order from Lightspeed. Quickly swapped vouchers, and I've now got not enough money in my Amazon account to buy anything useful.