Saturday 31 January 2009

Wibbly and Wonderful!

We've discovered that the ketchup bottle sounds just like a creaky pirate ship when you leave it on the bedside table. It makes a funny little skeeching noise. But I'm not worried about that today, because I'm having lemon and lime jelly with custard for breakfast, out of my Party-In-A-Box! It wibbles in wonderful circles when you empty it out of the pot. (image: Heinz.com)

We also had a spectacular pizza dinner. His Lordship's turned up lovely. Mine turned up on the wrong base, with the wrong sauce, with the wrong dippers and with the wrong toppings. It was quite spectacular, but at least they got the cheese and pepperoni on it. Ah well! My lovely bloke quickly did up some mushrooms to go on it. He also did a magnificent starter of garlic and herb crunchy topped mushrooms with cheese. It was as good as the ones they serve in my favourite restaurant - thank you honey! So my pizza was all fixed up - AND classy. One Million Bonus Points.

Quote of the day:
"Violets are red,
Roses are green.
There's something wrong
with my TV screen..." - from a random TV show.

With slightly more taste to the arts, I have found myself entranced by Robert Tiso's magic. The particular clip posted here is Bedřich Smetana "Moldeau", but Tiso also pulls off amazing feats such as Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Faerie", as well as Bach, Strauss and Beethoven. Bearing in mind these are played on drinking glasses, I'm extremely impressed. Bravissimo Mr Tiso, Bravo.

Thursday 29 January 2009

Party In A Box!

If I fiddled with the new teev, I could have a NIB HD LCD LG TV. With 3G, DVD, CD, MP3 and HDMI. Tinker a bit more to add AC. Mmmm. Acronymy. Also, our nice teev plays lovely patterns like this.

Today I stuck a brown peanut M&M up His Lordship's left nostril. He sat there with it for a while until it fell out. Then he ate it. I should have picked a green one...

Talking of chocolate, I got a Party In A Box this morning! I have to say, it is awesemo. Packing chocolate makes a lovely change from packing peanuts and Jellytot cakes are a huge thumbs up by the way. I spent hours playing with the bubbles, jiggling my new frog brooch, playing with a variety of sticky geckoes and we've balloons scattered here and there (His Lordship blew one up with a "hfffffff" then twoinked it off the end of the bed). I have a pack of party hats! I've got party clothes, party food, party decorations... it's a proper party in a box. Mmm, pine fresh and balloon tennis!

Awww. My article for Neopets was rejected this week, but I have to try again later. It's a food guide to Neopia, whipping you around the virtual planet to try dishes in every country and speciality bistro, restaurant and diner.

It's a big QOTD today, so linkied: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/11975/

Friday 23 January 2009

Mystifying Mould?

I have finally cured Kyle's phobia of water - I put BOTH lizards in the bath at the same time. She's too busy watching how Tsam deals with it to worry about it too much. She watches him powering happily up and down the length of the bath and next thing I know she's having a go herself! Poor Tsam though, he got stood on plenty of times as she used him as a diving board. Thankfully he enjoys swimming underwater, otherwise he'd be quite upset each time she stomps on his head! They're both sleepy little babies as the weather is cold and glum, but they do so like their locusts. (Pic: "Yeahhh sexy man-reptile!)
We now officially have crazy huge teev, and it looks lovely. I'd forgotten it has Freeview AND HD built in! Teev doesn't like Tax adverts - it seems to deliberately wait for those to go bleupbleupbleup over the woman speaking! It seems to be happier with the old digibox in - even though the old box isn't feeding signal, just providing a powered aerial. But at least it's not like the rest of the house.

As you already know, the freezer is dodgy, the shower is broken, and as a rule there's black mouldy stuff in a large percentage of the house. I also recently discovered there's a hole in Georges ceiling from the flat roof and water coming in has made a pair of his trainers go mouldy! It seems the true cause of the mould has been discovered - our dodgy bathroom fan is dodgier than we thought. We had the electrician in to put a hygrometer switch in (to turn the fan on automatically when it gets too damp in the bathroom) - when he told us he couldn't. Why not? Because apparently someone cut corners fitting it. In fairness, I hadn't thought to ever look up at the bathroom wall outside, but come to think of it - I've never seen the outlet to the fan vent. Thus the truth is revealed - there IS no outlet to the vent. The fan powers the moisture into the cavity wall where the waste pipe for the plumbing runs which then seeps through the cavities making the insulation in the roof damp. Ergo, a losing battle to the mould! Hurray!

I asked the woman in the bookstore where I could find the self-help books and she said that would defeat the purpose! -astraya

Wednesday 21 January 2009

Crummy Cracker...

I forgot about the cracker. As we were taking down the various decorations, we also packed away some crackers I had bought. I had only bought them for decorative purposes (they're creamy with gold swirls - go lovely in the living room) and not for actual pulling. Well - they were £1 for 6. His Lordship wanted to pull one though, and so we won the extremely generous prize of (I kid you not) an inch square, carefully perforated to create four little craptastic stickers! Hurray - just what we always wanted!

I was cooking Him a quick cake in the kitchen (He likes cake) when He complained about an item on the wrong shelf in the cupboard. I came over to see what the matter was when He suggested I ought to vacate the area. "Jayz!" I gagged. "Quick, shuttit in the g'damn cupboard!" Then it struck me. When poor Hank comes to get his chocolate, he'll be hit with a faceful of guff. His Lordship said that it wouldn't be in the cupboard, upon which He opened it and pulled a vile face. "Ough, it IS in the cupboard!" I ran off laughing. (Pic: Gross enough to make a lion go pale.)

"Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate." - e1234, cynical as ever.

Sunday 18 January 2009

Dreams, Driving, Dismay and Derision!

I had a dream that His Lordship was stuck under an exploded rocket, and 999 told me to ring Domino's Pizzas for their 555 deal - they'd give him a lift faster than the ambulance. "I'm sorry, you're just in a really bad area." Little bit puzzled by that one.

Driving to work was interesting - the wind has been significantly more blustery than it has been. It got to the point where I was just bombing along with blind hope. Consider how hanging on to the wing of an in-flight aeroplane must feel. It's kind of like that when you hit a hard headwind - and the lorries create a massive, damp sideblast somewhat akin to being hit with a queensized mattress. Also, I stand by what I have said MANY a time - I have been conned conned I tell you into moving Down South by the promise of warmer climates. Yeah blocks! I will not be so naive in the future, as it has been down to minus 10 on several occasions here. My hometown hasn't been that cold all year. The ice has been interesting; I was driving down the dual carriageway when I spotted my visor was freezing over. I wiped it - and realised the frost was INSIDE. By the time I got to work, I had frost in my visor, on my carbon-fibred knuckles, on my knees and all over my seat - so much so my bag slid off and the sudden sun caused my helmet to steam.

Our BBC license fee is paying for a wonderful new sport to be shown on TV: Walking. Impressed? Me neither. I really don't mind advert breaks, when you bear in mind that BBC put advert of their own between their programmes. I often find myself looking at the clock, see it nearing one of the quarters and think "ooh, I'll put the kettle on/I'll go to the loo/I'll grab the ironing etc" - only to discover that 10 mins after that, the programme is STILL going and I'm busting for a wee.

B&Q's plans came back and I shan't be doing the bathroom until the argumentative housemate goes. I'm fed up with the fight, and B&Q are trying to charge £1,800 to install the damn thing. I don't think so somehow. It's very pretty, but that doesn't justify an install that costs more than 3 times as much as the suite! Talking of arguments though, we've won one against him. Our freezer is gradually getting dodgier, for example my diced chicken wasn't actually frozen after a night in there, and the bread was soft. I happened to mention a very pretty freezer I'd spotted (NOT that I was intending on buying it, I just said it looked nice, an LG something) and George went off on one that it was fine. Hehehehe. I really can't believe he rummaged around in our stuff to prove me wrong. He found His Lordship's crappy Skinny Cow "Creamy Dessert" that I refused to eat on the point that it tastes AWFUL and discovered it to be liquidy. He quietly replaced it and retreated wordlessly to his domain. I've been laughing all week! (Pic: Pixdaus.com.The small things can be important, take each little win as a great prize!)
Quote of the Day: "I am no longer at risk of being called a bloody nuisance. I am a bloody nuisance." - The Prince of Wales

Friday 16 January 2009

Happy Birthday To Me!

Some Jan 16th facts: I was born the very same day as Marta Domachowska: Polish professional tennis player. The only thing we have in common is that she can speak English, and she's female. And Ac-tor Mason Wilson Gamble: Played Dennis in the Dennis the Menace movie, sadly unrelated to the cartoon strip I used to love. This film wasn't that great. Sorry. The website http://www.sri.com/ was opened the day after my birthday - and still exists today! Nothing in common with me at all. Also on my birthday there was a 990 mb cyclone that swept over Southern Vancouver Island. Still nope.

Another interesting Jan 16th fact: Bandō Mitsugorō VIII was one of Japan’s most highly regarded Kabuki (a type of dance/drama) actors - so much so that he was declared a national treasure. On the 16th of January, the natural treasure decided to dine out on fugu liver (highly toxic) claiming that he was immune to it. The fugu chef who served him said that he simply could not refuse to serve the deadly livers to such an esteemed gentleman. Needless to say, Mitsugoro died within 7 hours. - thanks to listverse!

Three days after my birthday, the first PC virus, Brain, began to spread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(c)Brain

Which kinda leads me nicely to my chosen "birthday" song - the Cake is a Lie. A very sweet little song, sung by a rather wonderful, demented computer. For anyone out there that hasn't played Portal yet, I suggest you find a copy. It's not that it's not just any game, it's completely different to nearly EVERYTHING. It's not quite a puzzle game, nor is it quite a shooter game, it's not quite a platform game, but nor is it quite a survival game. It's distinctly a... thing.

Enjoy!


Thursday 15 January 2009

Broke into a Bank...

This week is one of those weeks. A colleague gave me a lift to work and on the way we encountered massive early traffic jams. Each time we turned round and tried a different route, we discovered a different obstruction or jam. In total we had: a tractor, a dustbin lorry, a broken down bus, a coach badly parked on a narrow blind corner and various queues at roundabouts. Today was an impressive variation on the above: I forgot my keys, and picked up the spares at our nearest branch to discover I had the wrong ones. On the way back out to go swap them, my colleague stepped forwards to tell a customer we wouldn't be opening just yet - and the security door clicked shut.

This doesn't sound too bad, I know. And it wouldn't be too bad, if it were a normal branch. A normal branch you key your code and you're in. However. This old and very small branch doesn't work like that. It's got a step lock, a little lever that flips up to stop the door opening that you have to stand on to release. That's fine, except for the fact that we were BOTH on the wrong side of this bizarre door. No-one to step on the lock.

So this morning I had to break into a bank. Please note, this isn't useful to anyone wanting to actually steal anything or hold up a bank - it's not fast enough or fluid enough, it'd be too easy to trap the wannabe for the cops. It's a unique feature of our weird branch that I was able to do it and the fact that I had plenty of time to do it. Basically, we have a two sided cupboard for passing through larger items; when one door is open, the other is locked. I had to take off my jacket and shoes, spend several minutes unhooking the dual door mechanism (otherwise trying to open one door means the other shuts), climb in and unscrew the locking mechanism the on OTHER door, lift it out and slide through on the rails. If there was a cashier, the first door would have been locked down and I would never have been able to open it, never mind get through. But if there WAS a cashier the other side, I would have just asked them to open the step lock. Sorry wannabe - it's just not doable if you're after cash.

Kind-of-Quote of the Week: His Lordship hasn't been having an easy ride of it either this week - his persistent cough turned out to be the symptom of a mystery allergy, so now he has to use a spray morning and night. He says "it smells like perfumed ARSE." I had to giggle, poor blokey. When He came to bed, I leaned over to give Him a g'night kiss and stopped. "Hey. Your nose smells." I go. "I know, that's what it's for." says He. "No," says I, "I mean it really smells. Your nose smells like perfumed ARSE."

Friday 9 January 2009

Sod the Sales, Buy a Bathroom?

SALES! I will admit, I have bought more wrapping paper. I am sorry. But I do now have bright YELLOW! A roll that's red with the other side orange. Bright blues and metallic bronzes.... I did buy a couple of bits to stash away though, but a lot of the sales are pretty pants this year. The 50% off Thorntons chocolate hasn't helped my waistline any either - but who cares! I would be obsessed about my size but in honesty there are several problems with this. I'm too lazy to do anything about it or give a damn, I like sleeping and I like food. Heh!

We've got our New Year's Resolutions off to a flying start: I've already had a surveyor chappie in to have a look at our kitchen, price it up stupidly high and have a look at the bathroom with a far more decent quote. One day (not soon though) our lurid avocado green suite, broken shower, orange-cream tiles, lackadasial extractor, pink flowered peeling off wallpaper, mildew and supposed-to-be-peach carpet will be DESTROYED! MU WU Ha Ha haaaaaa. Cough. Aaaanyway. These I have planned to be replaced by a nice new white suite including a glass shower curtain, slate on the floor and halfway up the wall, silver opera rail (with matching tube brushed steel radiator!) and a rich blue top of walls. Oh and a super new shower. Mmm yummy. I may have to get rid of one of the housemates first - 7 days is too long to cope with having to use a different shower. Everybody synchronised... Raiiiisee - eyebrows! B&Q did manage to bugger up the first time round though, not only did they try to make us pay £50 for their surveyor for doing a free quote (Good try, but no.) they also managed to book us for our final deciding review the day AFTER the offers all finished. (Also good try but no.) They're going to honour it if we DO decide to do it, but we have to think about it. (See comment re: housemate. Request for solutions ideas please!) No hurry mind, just I'd like to do it in the next three years. I'm sick of the mould. And the pink carpet that's grey.

We also bought a gorgeous decanter for the bathroom to store until it's done - clear glass with black tracing a platinum pattern of triangles. That will look great filled with bubble bath, and will go lovely with the silver details and the funky Laura Ashley wall metal things I already have.

"Om Nom" - Katie Melua describing chocolate. Just as it should be.
P.S: Good heavens. I've just noticed. I'm grumbling about buying a bathroom. I must be growing up!

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Home and Thanks!

A slightly belated Happy New Year to all! I am returned to the South, and have opened my remaining presents. Thank you very much for my Present-Wreck, and the blue pots are lovely!The chicken Nan gave us is brilliant fun, as we set traps for people with it. Mandarth came round and had to move it to put his computer on the table and swore at it when it yelled "HEY!" at him. I got both the the housemates and Himself previously with much the same thing. Kyle thinks it's funny to sit on. The cuddly frog went down very well with Himself - He's spent a surprising amount of time with it on His head for some reason. Pic: Local AND National News! The Holleys sculpt two bushes into a magnificent pud.

We took down the Christmas tree on the first and packed it away safely. It took its revenge by chucking around bits of gold, so His Lordship put each collection of branches in their own Jiffy-bags. Genius I tell you! Will make rebuilding it a doddle. Then we wrapped all the delicate glass baubles in newspaper, including my brother's Cadbury's Carrot and ravelled the lights up on old pizza box pieces. Before we put my big suitcase style cardboard box in the attic, I nipped to the garden centre and bought some wicked baubles for next year with some of my Christmas money. Next year will be peacock colours. I found sequinned baubles sparkling like fish scales, kitsch feathered peacocks with embroidery bead jewellery, purple, green and blue individuals and metallic greeny-blue glass ones that look like someone stuck magic in glass globes...


Ky loves locusts, has learned to climb up and down the stairs and is still terrified of water (but improving - the bathtub seems to help.) and Tsam still loves water and is improving his swimming in the bathtub. He even took a bath with me recently and had a whale of a time swimming up and and blowing bubbles before taking a huge poo. Fortunately I got out just in time.

Since returning to work it seems I'm being shipped to South Petherton for a while. Which is nice. The hours are shorter for the same pay and being as they're still making me do Saturdays at Yeovil I'll be able to charge the petrol to expenses.

Quote of the YEAR: "We not only saved the world..." - Gordon Brown draws howls of derision from the Opposition during Prime Minster's Questions. He meant to say 'banks'.