Thursday 25 December 2008

Christmas Cheer

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Feliz Navidad and Joyeux Noel as says His Lordship! Even the lizards say *clickkrrrrcklick* which pretty much means the same thing. I'll be Up North at the moment, so hello and have a great day to the folks down south, and a big Christmas Kiss to His Lordship at his mums too!

I hope you're all having a great time, and that you all enjoyed your presents! I got some really rather odd gifts, but all of them wonderful, especially our new little greenhouse! I shall be planting lots of growy-green things, some to eat and some to look nice (and no doubts the dragons will probably make off with the safe versions of both.) Thank you, and will blog an update soon! Happy New Year until then!

Love,
IBF

Wednesday 24 December 2008

Ahzez ponim! (Impudent fellow!)

Ah, sweet befuddlement retaliation! I visited my mother today to drop off presents (and have managed to get myself invited for Christmas dinner there as well - two for me tomorrow!) and tuck into some lovely salmon. After we'd finished, a little knock came on the door. My brother stuck his head out and this solitary little boy started singing. Well, my mother and I looked at each other, caught my sister along the way and stood at the door singing "Hava Nagila!" back at him, complete with little dance. Serve the little beggar right, in my opinion you should at least have two mates with you to go carol singing.

We're very proud of my brother, he's developing a wonderful Jewish nose like the rest of us. My Yiddish may be schreklech, but Bubbe doesn't mind. "Hava, hava nagila, hava nagila....!"

(Bild fun http://www.menorah.com/)

Monday 22 December 2008

I -am -going -home, I'm going home, I'm going...!

I'm coming home Mum! By now I'll probably be on the train, but I look forwards to getting home and see everyone. Mostly because the train is long, slow and awfully boring, but hey.

I'm going to miss His Lordship, but I'm proud that He's busy with his Book keeping, so keep up the good work Honey, I'll call you when I get there and I'll be coming home again soon. I hope you enjoy your Christmas present too - I picked it just for you.

Sunday 21 December 2008

Treated Tranquilly Today

Today, my friends, I went a little mad and treated myself. I mean properly. How wonderfully tranquil! (Tranquil picture a treat from Pixdaus.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANA!

I don't know if I blogged it, but last time I had my hair cut, I got lost and ended up in a salon I hadn't been to before, rather than my favourite Gallis. This salon put layers in (always a bad idea when it's short and as thick as my hair - it stands up sideways!) and the colour went a bit rusty. Ooer. Galli's dye-specialist Indio rescued my haircolour, returning my normal chocolate brown and managed to bleach in my fringe! Another of their girls cleverly cut it and vanished the layers! I got my eyebrows reshaped (because my good tweezers have vanished again) and bought myself a jumper, some mineral foundation and a good lip gloss. And pizza for tea!

I've nearly packed my case with far too much as usual and had a good laugh at His Lordship trying to bake a cake for his mum. He yelled He needed help, I came through and discovered EVERYTHING covered in a fine white layer. Somehow He'd even got it up His BACK... So I treated myself to a good laugh.

Today I treated myself to panicking a little, because Ky refused to eat any grape or come out of her hut. I fished her out, and there was a nasty brown sticky split down her side and she was trying to back off. I grabbed a clean new cloth, wet it and gently dabbed at the mess to see what the damage was and try to work out how she did it. After a few moments of dabbing I thought it must have been a small cut that bled a bit, because most of the worst had mopped off, and I couldn't see anything yet. She sat there calmly as I gently dabbed and wiped... and nothing was to be seen. I was VERY confused by now - where had all this dried blood come from? Having looked around her tank to see if she'd been for another poo that might have been bloody or something, I was further stumped. Then it slowly dawned on me. I shouted through to find out when exactly my partner had put her back in the tank. Turns out it was barbecue sauce from the pizza that had congealed in a natural crease in her side where she curls up. Oh well, no harm done. Can I have one of these for Christmas? (Image source unknown, email to link.)

Today's Quote: "No. I'm going to run upstairs, marry the printer and elope. We'll have lots of little printouts." - His Lordship's quick response to my "where are you going, and are you coming back?"

Saturday 20 December 2008

Loituma Girl! Dedicated to moi Mummah!

Mum: The Leek Clock you wanted to know the words? It doesn't have any. http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=19022 Here's the link for Loituma clock, and it doesn't actually say anything - it's based on the tune of Ievan Polkka, a folksong, but most of it is gibberish with a few Finnish words to (excuse the pun) Finnish it off. The music used consists of the second half of the fifth stanza (four lines) and the complete sixth stanza (eight lines) from the song. How hypnotic! Thanks to Wiki for all the info and help - and enjoy! .... "aye ra ta tah..."

Friday 19 December 2008

ifdjhgsllvg (A random selection of letters. I shut my eyes and everything.)

I bought His Lordship a treat to make Him smile. I came home, where the lovely man had been washing up and cooking dinner, told Him to shut His eyes and hold His hands out. Poor bloke nearly fell over when I dumped a three kilo bag of his favourite lollies in His arms! It's like a pillowcase of sugar and sticks. It's keep Him quiet for a while anyway. Hank stuck his head round the door and said: "Have you got enough lollies?"

A girl at work made me laugh today, because she was complaining about her boyfriend being horrible to her. "He won't let me go out most of the time and keeps calling me unreliable." Well, I thought out loud, what reason has he to say that? Turns out that's because she cheats on him. I did point out that it might be fair to call her unreliable, given the circumstances>, to which she replied: "No it's not, I cheat on him every weekend - I'm very reliable!" I do wonder sometimes...

Mind you, we were arguing the viability of the online shops. The general consensus from the others was that there are shops already out there. I said: "Well, what about the agoraphobics?" He turned round and said: "Ah, shoot em all. Better yet, take em outside and shoot em all."

And if that wasn't random enough for you, try http://www.random.org/! The coinflipper is great. Randomised image from random.org too. Random position by mousewiggling.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

הר מגידו (Armageddon)

If Armageddon ever hits us, (Or Armegg - adon as my Deaconess grandmother pronounces it) then I know our house is safe. We were discussing what to do in case of the event and discovered that our friend who plays with his balls in public can supply us with chainsaws, flamethrowers and nailguns with 20% discount. I suppose I ought to clarify the last comment a little - he's a contact juggler with a crystal ball, not persons committing an arrestable offence. Personally, I think the Apocalypse may have started already. Let's face it, one of our greatist "mystic" cultures, the Mayans, say that the end of time should be December 21, 2012. Perhaps we're just warming up for it. Global disaster takes time, as this financial fiasco shows. (image: img252.imageshack.us/img252/4637/armageddon29zb.jpg) Looking at the Four Horsemen, and putting it into a more modern light:

We've had the white horse, with our politicians and world leaders predicting wonderful things to save the situation we're in - and then it doesn't happen. False prophets. (Or negative profits - that's funnier!) I mean, look at this ridiculous thing with No VAT. What a waste of money. I'm not seeing supermarkets knocking off the pennies. Maybe not Pestilence, but politicians are definitely pests.

Famine is probably summed up by the lack of money. All the cash seems to have vanished away somewhere, leaving us lower echelons ever poorer. Businesses are going bust, jobs are vanishing, prices are rocketing, savings are becoming worthless. How long until people are so poor we will ALL starve? Or perhaps it's due to our dependency on material things? A famine of inspiration, simple ideals...


The red horse of war comes in closely mingled with the black horse of disease. Mugabe says that the Zimbabwe cholera outbreak is down to the British in a "calculated, racist attack" bringing "a serious biological, chemical war force, a genocidal onslaught." (Image- Blackhorsedesign.com



Related Comment/Quote: "It would be very final, wouldn't it?" - Himself.

Sunday 14 December 2008

Office Ownage (or - Daily Drudgery)

Finally it's starting to get cold down South - whilst they've had storms and blizzards and snowmen up North home, it's just dropping below freezing, sprinkling a little frost here and there. (Image of "fire rainbow - light catching on atmospheric ice crystals. All over Google.) Which has actually made the pedestrian bridge over by Tesco's into a deathtrap of slippery proportions! It's turned into something reminiscent of the Doncaster Dome Ice Skating rink. For those not familiar with this bizarre beauty of cold, this is two seperate rinks on different levels, joined at either side by steep, icy slopes.

Great fun, if you're either a good skater or don't mind risking your neck. But not great fun when it's a pedestrian bridge. I'm embarrassed to tell you I slipped over with a thump and gave myself a stiff hip for the last three days. But then again, I was reading (I know, I read and walk very successfully normally) and didn't see the black ice. The council put me on hold and put me through to highways, the highways put me on hold... and put me to the council. Hmm.

I think it may be looking like one of those weeks - work has gone chaos as well. We've just had the new targets released and they're all insane. They want us to reduce our lending from 31% to 10% - but they want 15% of the diary to be lending. What? This could be interesting. They've also upped my savings targets 50% and savings material isn't easy to find at the best of times. You see, we're now supposed to open 29 savings accounts. "No problem!" I hear you say - yeah, but that's not weekly, this is DAILY.

I see several problems with this (and have passed them up the chain of command) including some rather astronomical problems. We don't get enough non-savings customers to do that many. Nor do we have enough staff to do that many. Or enough stationary to last us more than a few days if we DID do it. I'm sorry, but in the current financial climate, people aren't much fussed by the UK-wide poor savings rates, prefering to pay off their bills as it's more economical. What do you want - the equivalent of 2%, or 18.5%? Methinks I have been Office Pwnd. (image unknown)

Related Quote: "Six hundred million pounds spent on knobs and knockers. Oh, and doornumbers as well!" - The home show.

Friday 12 December 2008

Brainy Beardies...?

Wow, I've just read back from the beginning of my blog - and how different things were. I genuinely forgot how much I liked working at Thorntons. I have to admit, I've missed home a lot, but then I've always been distracted by other things, like this Gvt fiasco. How much is so different, and how much is so, so the same. Reading back, I see how much my writing style has changed - but I also see WHY it has changed. Most days are pretty samey-samey as opposed to at the very beginning, just the one job is less insane and the sensitivity of a lot of it's nature means I can't blog most of the few and far between funnies, more's the pity.

But then this isn't an exciting industry as chocolate was. I have a "responsible, grown-up" job now. And frankly, it's a bit boring. I either walk or bike to work every day, so I'm never late - the buses were a wonderful source of entertainment and frustration I note. I can only apologise for supposedly maturing, and I hope it doesn't mean I got boring along the way. I know there was a few months of: "Did this. Watched this. Read this." where I seemed to have ended up in a blender with a newspaper, and for this I apologise and hope I sprinkled it with some chuckles along the way. I'll work past that stage, if I haven't already! Yay Tin Foil!

Oooh... Oh! Hurray! Ky worked out the Dragon Hut on her own! For the last few days, every time she's dug in a corner, I've popped her into the hut. Repeatedly she's shot out of it and tried to go back to sleep in a corner, but I've put her back in it again. I deliberately put it in her favourite sleepy spot, and I think Ky's got the idea. She was thinking about going to sleep under the fire and spent some minutes digging at the chickenwire until she realised she couldn't dig under, over, around or through it and mooched off. As she wandered past the hut, she paused and looked at it. Wandered over. Licked it, licked it again for good measure and then climbed in on her own! A quick turn in a circle, a few digs in the sides and on the heatmat... And she's curled up to go to sleep. It's a miracle! Tsam was also amazing today, he didn't fight me when I needed to clip his claws. He was too busy trying to bob at Kyle and watch what His Lordship was doing on the computer at the same time to take much notice.

Thank you very much Mum! You know we all love you too, and if there's anything we can do for you, you just say!

Quote of the Day: *click-click-click* - Dragon sat on my shoulder trying to secretly chew my hair.

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Messing with Minds.

My mother is always one for subverting the truth, and I mean that in it's literal term, to corrupt what we believe to be correct. And in fairness, I do believe she SHOULD have a reputation for it. She was telling me the just the other day how she was using the sewing machine with both hands, my brother, watching, fascinated. The foolish boy asked how it worked. And do you know what Mum told him? She told him that you had to rest your hands on the metal of the machine and concentrate really, really hard. "I got him to put his hand on the metal and think, so every time he frowned in concentration, I made it sew a few stitches." The poor boy was amazed until Mum fell about laughing and pointed out the foot pedal under the table.

If you can't trust your own mother, who can you trust? But I have to admit, it's opened our eyes and simply taught us that we must never take anything someone says for granted, for the real deal, and that we must always assess the situation ourselves. (Image thanks to http://www.sedonaobserver.com/)

Shamefully I admit, it's not just my brother; it's all of us at one point or another. My personal saga is "The Chicken Berries". Very simple concept. Chickens grow from eggs. We all know that. But Chicken Berries are planted, watered well, left for a couple of days - and lo, behold - a chicken is growing! In all fairness, my Mum did use chicken feet from the local butchers. Apparently I was convinced for quite some time - until one fell over.

Related Quote of the Day: "Plus it's so funny to mess with a child's head." - Yes, my darling Mother. Thanks.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Hundreds and Thousands...

Well, I owe nothing to anybody today! I've paid off my miniscule credit card bill (which has informed me that my credit rating has improved from good to pretty good), I've bought my colleague a bacon sandwich in return for my lunch yesterday, and I've just paid off the £1600 owing on my motorbike this afternoon, all paid in full and all mine! I don't think the recipients whom were kind enough to lend me the funds for my bike have noticed yet... Hehehe.

Oh, and I've just come home to discover that the government are trying to take another bunch of "overpaid benefits" from my partner. The best part is they say "as an alternative method of repayment, we can deduct it from your current benefits. Which has amused Himself greatly, and He encourages them to help themselves to it - all of £0.00. (Image: more Governmental Failure, thanks to Failblog!)

"I once actually collected about 1000 bottlecaps, and they filled the better part of a black bin liner. Then I realized 'wtf, am I doing, with all these bottlecaps?' It was not long after I played Fallout 2, so I was like 'woo woo bottlecaps = currency, I will save for the future!'" - Raniel

Saturday 6 December 2008

Prezzo? ... Peh.

We went out for a work dinner the other day, down to Prezzo. Pron: Pret-Zoh. I add this, because most people who live round here all it Pressohs which, frankly, drives me mad. It's like Bon Marche; Mar-shay, not March-ee. Anyway, not the point.

You may recall, if you have phenomenal powers of recollection, that we were ignored for a quarter of an hour last time we went even with the waving of cash until we went to Ask. But, no matter, the Leaving Lady liked Prezzos, so we went to Prezzos. We had to make an emergency detour to Tesco so I could suit Himself up in something a bit nicer than a faded grey fleece, holey red t-shirt and baggy trackies (He'd forgotten) and I whirled Him like a fairy godgirlfriend (with a gold card) into a rather nice pinstripe suit and charcoal shirt that he'd coveted for some time.

And so, we finally turned up in style. Shame Prezzo didn't make the same effort really - the whole table was having a great time laughing at the horrendous air conditioning (too hot, then too cold, then too hot and then ... you get the idea. Consistency? I think they thought it was a pudding topper.) and grumbling about the medium to slow service. The place wasn't what I'd call busy, besides our table there were perhaps six other people on two tables tops. "Blase at best, they certainly didn't fawn over us in the way we've had elsewhere." And they managed to confuse lime juice with orange, which was odd. Being as the chap next to me had lime juice. Maybe I'm biased. Or maybe I'm just miffed that the Honeycomb Cheesecake was still on the specials board when it had sold out. (I bet Ask's version is nicer. I would rise from the dead for that cheesecake. Thanks to cheesecake.co.uk)

Sorry Prezzo, I think we'll stick with Ask. They may cost very slightly more, but the food is better than mediocre out of average and the service wins it every time. Pressohs, did all your tablecloths get dirty at the same time?

Today's Quote: "I have a full weaponed black emperor scorpion. Which makes cleaning the inside of the glass...interesting!"- Raniel.

Thursday 4 December 2008

Terrible ... Toothpaste?!

It was not a good morning. I dislike mornings at the best of time, and most people will tell you I tend to avoid them by staying unconcious throughout them when I am able. I almost chose to do the same today, and regretted my decision to brave the cold, not-very-new world. I don't like bicarbonate toothpaste at best, so was pulling faces when it slowly dawned on me that it tasted more... flowery than usual. It turns out that the damn soap dispenser has exploded, tipping blue gunk all over most of the sink side, including my toothbrush. Wonderful. I hate that thing, i mean, it's not like we don't have enough soap - there's about 12 bars in that room! Attempting to spit it out was interesting, it was really quite foamy and the taste hung around for HOURS.

His Lordship has just cheered me up, He hurt Himself with a clothes peg, having clipped it on his lip to make "bleuh bleuh bleuh" noises - it pinged off and nipped Him! So I bought Him a bauble specially. He thought it was brill, all shiny and sparkly and carefully put it at the top of the tree!

Kyle is much happier now the temperature has steadied it's pattern and has resumed eating normally as well as charging around like a mad thing, climbing everything. I've had to rescue her out of several corners, all cobweb strewn! Wee man has discovered he ADORES cooked green beans as well as his usual favourite of carrot and broccoli, practically chewing the floor off to pick bits up.

Long Quote of the Day: "My ex-sister-in-law visited one day, just after my cat died to make matters worse. I never really liked her too much, she always tried to go one better and was quite annoying about it. So when she came round to check out my new house (so as she could decorate hers better) and poked around, I almost let her raid the big, heavy biscuit tin by the door. But, sadly I am too kind - my dead cat was in it waiting to be buried." - Westoc

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Chuck Out Cherimoya...

Cherimoya. "The velvety flesh is a delicious, custardy blend of banana, pineapple and strawberry notes. Mark Twain once characterized the cherimoya as 'deliciousness itself!'" - http://www.calimoya.com Shame Mr Twain forgot to mention that they're also "the diet-ers fruit". It's certainly sweet and tasty, but also kinda pointless - it's 95% seeds, 4% skin and only 1% edible fruit... You'll also be pleased to know (thanks wiki) that the seeds are poisonous if crushed open and can be used as an insecticide. Oh and you ought to avoid eating the skin as it may cause paralysis for 4 to 5 hours. Nice one Mark; you didn't tell us about those either. (Image: http://www.pcfma.com/ with thanks!)

Mmm, butt-warmed blankets for my cold feet. I have a lovely man. He's been sat on it to make it all toastie! Which makes up for a pants week so far. Yesterday, a transformer blew on Watercombe Lane and took out most of our systems. Interestingly, only half of the building. Turns out we're on two circuits - but the half that went took out the servers, so we had to close for two hours. One poor bloke upstairs had his printer running, but neither his computer or phone had any power, and one poor me got stuck outside in the cold and wet serving customers.

I did have to smile though, I nipped onto Neopets to pick up my advent calendar prize, and won a metallic christmas tree and a box of baubles! Hurray!

"Maybe it would be magical if you were VIOLATED BY A MAGICIAN!" - Toot Braunstein.