Saturday 31 December 2011

The End is Nigh!? Nay.

I had a good hard think about 2012, what with all the rage in the news about "the end of everything." I don't believe that one bit, even the Mayans regarded it more ass the end of an era.

Now, here's a question for you folks; what are your New Year's Resolutions usually? Are they like mine each year: lose weight, buy a house, pass driving test, save enough money to go on holiday?

So, in appreciation of the new era, I thought I'd do things... a new way. Why not add some little things in, things you don't normally think about, things that are easy to do, that you'd like to do, that you've been meaning to do?

 This year, starting as soon as the year begins, I'm going to send off a message in a bottle. I'm going to do some more sketching - stream of conciousness art (anything that comes into your head, do a brief, fast sketch - an idea of the item/person and move swiftly onto the next thing, just to see what happens). And finally, I'm going to find a nice pebble on the beach - then post it to my friend in the US, just to confuse him.

 So, what about you? How will you mark the beginning of a new age? If you're stuck, this might give you some ideas: 50 things everyone should know how to do.

The Mayan tourist board have got it right: "We don't think the world will end. But come and see our culture before it's too late - just in case we're wrong."

By the way - Happy Birthday Bogle!

On a personal note, this will be the last post I make all year, as I will be otherwise occupied for the most part with excessive drinking, partying and such.

Thursday 29 December 2011

Hopefully this'll help the New Year's Eve party go with a bang!

Happy dragons - we left them tucking into some yummy melon slices whilst we nommed on some Serrano ham and peppered cream cheese with our share.

Well, it was a good shopping haul; not only did we get the yummy ham, but we got the paperwork for the gvt sorted, found both of my sibling's presents, loaded up with lemonade, juice, tins and other heavy items  - and bartered a reasonable bargain on a bagful of fireworks.

File:Southerncomfortlime.jpgThere's a nice chap I know on Freeman St who usually has a good collection of explosives, so we made a quick visit to his store. We picked up 22 mixed rockets, a 16 shot barrage box and some MAMMOTH sparklers (though I keep wanting to call them "sprinklers") for £25 - I checked online for their proper prices, and it should be closer to £40.


We also found, oh heaven of heavens! that Southern Comfort finally do Southern Comfort with LIME! No more messing around with the bottle of Rose's and getting the measure wrong - this is a ready made Steamboat in a bottle - just add lemonade.

Needless to say, I have purchased a bottle with some of the money I was given for Christmas. Thanks Nana M, it's lovely stuff!

His Lordship treated himself to a bottle of Martini Bianco with his Christmas money, having discovered both a taste for it and that it's not a "girly" drink. "Well hey, if Bond can drink Martini..." It's the soft vanilla note that appeals to him, the cream soda style flavour in lemonade, as opposed to my preference for the crisper bite of Extra Dry Martini with a nice tart twist of lemon.

It'll be interesting discovering what my sister likes best - her 18th is coming up soon...

Sunday 25 December 2011

Happy Christmas!

Christmas this year has been GREAT! It's been such a treat to actually be with family, watch them open presents and see them laugh at some of the really silly things I found.

I spent a whole week trying to perfect my practise run jelly mixers - the full run took four days to complete (mostly setting time), but they are worth every minute of it!

I had to keep the alcohol levels tame, as my siblings were also having them, however my friend LD came up with a great name for the full powered version: Traffic Light Jellies: "Because when you hit red, you gotta stop."  There's sour apple spirits, plain lemon, Glava whisky with orange and a sweet cherry liqueur.

I still have to push the extreme limits of jelly setting and beat my mother's famous vodka jelly some day.

My "Treasure Chest" of presents worked out really well, with my brother's "crap present" of a Glow-in-the-Dark Toilet Roll raising laughs, and my mother's response to her teeny weeny pink frying pan was just marvellous.

We also got some great presents - my mother bought me a HUGE box full of canned beardie foods (Sandy is DELIGHTED, and made off with most of a can of crickets). His Lordship got an awesome inflatable shark Zeppelin - it wandered off and scared the bejaysus out of me when I walked into it at head height in the utility room.

I especially like the Smelly Toes, it's a lovely perfume. His Lordship stuck his finger in the USB fan. Apparently it hurts and he won't do that again.

Dinner was fantastic too (thanks Mum!) and His Lordship has fallen in love with both cranberry/red cabbage mix and Serano ham with melon - we had to go out and buy some specially! Maybe Bogle will cook next year, now she has so many cookbooks?

Or maybe not. You know, just in case.

Saturday 24 December 2011

Stampy Claws is comin'... to Tsam!

Christmas is nearly here, or at least, that's what Tsam tells me. He's been watching for it. I've made sure that all my presents are wrapped, my jellies are made, my clothes are ready!

I do have to work out how to get the Dragon's stocking back out of Tsam's tank - he's having an early night to make Christmas get here faster. It does mean he's now SLEEPING on it though.

Hyphen knows something is up, but isn't sure what; as usual, his self-preservation instinct isn't quite up to scratch and so I found him wedged in his Christmas tree.

Thursday 22 December 2011

MmmmmmmONOPOLY!

My brother made cookies. Can you tell? To his credit, they were very tasty and had edible glitter on top.

We then went on to have a lovely evening with the boys - my new table turned up and I got it built just in time for a rough game of Monopoly - I played slow and MEAN, resulting in trashing the lads with over 11,000 in profit from just 8 strategically placed hotels.

Ah well, they can't complain, I did buy pizza.

Actually, that was even better - all the pizzas are £2 cheaper here than they are in Somerset! How is THAT for awesome! Chinese meals also seem to have bigger portions whilst being cheaper too, and the buses are half the price - all I need to do now is get my job back.

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Goddamit Gemologists!

Some of you may know I used to handle and grade minerals for a living. I still enjoy rockhounding and collecting interesting gems - but I find it hard to express how much it ANNOYS me trying to find nice samples on eBay. I wish there was a filter to source out the "metaphysical" specimens.

Here's a chunk of choice words used by "crystal" sellers that really tick me off:

 New Age! Healing. Reiki. Shamanic. Enchanted. Lemurian. Tibet. Sexuality. High. "Body and emotions". Dream. Seed. Vision. Elevated. Grounding. "Rare" (That's a favourite of mine - usually the item in question's a chunk of cheap, battered quartz, but you've given meaning to all it's dings. Oh, it's damaged and "repaired" itself - it must be good at healing people!). Energy. Fairy. Meditation. Stabilising. Unique. Quest. Confidence. "A Grade!" (It never is.) Isis. Clearing. Power! Hemimorphite! (Just kidding, that's a real stone.) Transformation. Aura. Blockages. Essence. Love. Chalice. Talisman. "True Natural". Goddess. Boost. Chakra. Ornate. "Carved Shiva Lingham" (You can't have a CARVED Lingham. It defeats the bloody point. Ask me why only if you're REALLY interested.) Spiritual. Luck. Money. Bohemian.

Seeing dyed agates also cheeses me off - trashing a lovely slice with tacky flamingo pink colourants. Yuck.

It seems that if you attach one or some of the above words to your chosen rock, you can inflate the price to incredible levels. At risk of sounding hypocritical, I am even comfortably conversant in the "magic abilities" of some of your basic minerals for the people who are actually into and believe that kind of thing and I appreciate it's very effective for boosting sales (I can sell you a crystal for that, nudge nudge...)

 But I'm sad for all the poor people out there that are being conned into buying a nasty bit of glass because someone has laser etched an angel into it and called it "Shamanic High Energy Enchanted Tibetan Meditation Quartz Lemurian".

There's a lot of fake crap comes out of a certain big country. Bad sellers. BAD!

Some good did come of today though - I found this rather handy little gidget: http://iruler.net/ It measures your screen settings and produces a true to size ruler for you! Handy!

Monday 19 December 2011

Slug it out...

Well would you look at that!

The last week, I have been hunting high and low for my motorbike keys to send to my insurers. Now, I knew I had put them somewhere very safe, visually prominent - but for the LIFE of me I haven't been able to find them.

Of course, now I have been informed that my bike is not "economically viable" to recover and repair, I have suddenly found my keys. In a very safe, visually prominent location. Sod's Law, thine victim receives your punishment with joy.

On the plus side, I MIGHT get a grand back from the insurance company. His Lordship suggested I ought to cash in my tax disk, but as I pointed out that the entire year only costs £15 and it was due for renewing... Well, it wouldn't really be worth it for all of £2.50!

His Lordship made an interesting find this evening - a little leopard spotted slug, in the middle of our bathroom floor. I'm not sure how it got there, but it certainly made me laugh.

It turns out that it's a Limax Flavus, the Yellow Slug, which explains WHY it's here - they like to come in when it's cold, enjoy climbing damp walls and they're mostly nocturnal.

Needless to say, I took it back outside.

In other news, Cousin John at FastFrames did a wonderful job with my pictures and got them all done in record time, complete with a marvellous silver box frame for Kyle's X-Ray. I'm going to get some LED units and rig up a lighting kit so that I get the best effect out of the film.

Quote of the day: "The gods too are fond of a joke!" - Aristotle.

Friday 16 December 2011

Baggain a Bargain.

Vax C91-MZ-B Mach Zen Multicyclonic Bagless Cylinder VacuumScored some good bargains this week, starting with this lovely new vacuum cleaner online at Pricelover (get yours HERE) for £30 less than Tesco.

We finally settled on the Vax Mach Zen because it's listed as 70% quieter than a conventional cylinder cleaner. It's multifloor and has a huge canister - whilst that makes it a touch bulky, it more than makes up for it with powerful suction and nippy manoeuvre-ability. I did discover that the dirt container opens a bit oddly, flipping down from underneath. This resulted in dust back on the floor again - but that's ok; I have a good vacuum cleaner to deal with the mess.

We got a nice little bargain from Tesco themselves, in the form of a simple table.

£99 all in for this rather modern oak effect and powder coated steel set - it'll go nicely with the laminated floor and provides both eating space and gaming space.

I also picked up a bunch of bargains for Christmas presents on Neopets and got them distributed early - all sorts of things, from a Black and White Scarab for a friend's black and white gallery to a Silver Gelert Candy for a dog-mad colleague.

Shortly after, I get an email off a good friend: "Just as I accepted your gifts...  Something has happened! A beautiful Fire Faerie floats down and gives you a Starry Petpet Paint Brush!!! THANKYOU!!!!" Heh, jammy mare - those are worth an absolute fortune.

Well hey, Merry Early Christmas!

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Seeing the funny side...


Well that's annoying. Someone tried to steal my motorbike last night. Now, if they had known ANYTHING about Honda NHX1, they'd have known about the immobiliser. As they didn't, they didn't get very far but they have done a fair bit of damage. Including shredding my seat in anger when they couldn't overcome said inbuilt locking mechanism.

Charmed, I'm sure. They ignored the neighbour's motorbike in exactly the same situation, physically lifted my third-of-a-ton of vehicle over the wall, lugged it down an alleyway just across the road and proceeded to try to make it go.

I woke up in the morning to the sound of a large vehicle and stuck my nose out, wondering if it was the dustbin lorry (not knowing what day they normally come. I now know it's a Wednesday) and discovered the police loading my bike onto a recovery truck. "OI!"

You have to see the funny side really...

The rest of the day didn't go much better, as I sat through the WORST screening tests of ALL time. The website doesn't work in ANYTHING other than Explorer if you want to log in, and the "assessments" were awful. No word of a lie, I had FIVE SECONDS to answer each question. This is a close and unnexaggerated replica of one.

Match the details - 5 seconds remaining. CGXNCYQZ

1.CGYNCXQZ
2.CCXNGYQZ
3.CGXZCYQN
4.CGXNCYQZ

18 of those, some others and then 30 percentages based ones. I can't do percentages at the best of times, let alone work out if Oilfield Amethyst, after having dropped 75% of it's production last year, will drop another 50% next year if it produced 120 million barrels in 2001.

I kinda get the Singapore Dollar to Hong Kong Dollar exchange rate conversion question, looking at export variables from 2008 - but it's kinda mooted by a very sturdy point: the currency ordering system does the conversions for you. If the currency ordering system has broken down to the point where you're having to manually calculate the figures, you can't order it anyway.

I sincerely believe I have been to the seventh levels of hell and back. That is one of the WORST things anyone could ever do to me. I can handle just about anything... except hypodermic needles and apparently percentage/ratio/exchange questions with a ridiculously short time limit.

At least I know I can do data comparisons in less than 5 seconds now, and my percentages one can't have been toooo bad (even though I ran out of time for the last two).
.
TXZQYNBDX - five seconds to find a match...

1 TXZQYNBDX
2 TXZQYNDBX
3 YXZQTNBDX
4 TXNQYZBDX

Update: Apparently I managed to pass that psychotic test. I didn't get the job though.

Saturday 3 December 2011

Managed the move

Off to a good start - we managed to get everything in the house - even with the VERY narrow corridor and two front doors to deal with. Mario Machon's boys did a sterling job even when His Lordship's favourite green comfy chair proved to be deeply frustrating. Whichever way it was turned, it would NOT go through.

Bless their sweet hearts, they grabbed screwdrivers, took the feet off the chair, took the front doors off and managed to get to squeeze it over the hallway radiator, just before it started to rain.

If you ever get them on Shiply, ACCEPT. All the work they put in, and only two things got broken - a glass bauble I hadn't packaged properly in a box and a spare sheet of glass from my spare tanks. I'm utterly amazed - one pane of glass out of 16. Well done lads, and thank you.

We also made "Santa treat bags" for our new neighbours, full of dinky cute treats - a wee pretty bottle of wine, a teenytiny Christmas pudding, chocolate coins and Fairy Rogers - I hope they like them. It's a modern version of milk and cookies, and ideal as "thank you's".

The first one went to Pete and Dee, for lending me their pliers - His Lordship left the other toolbox in Somerset as He already brought one. I discovered the one he brought is the one full of my makeup. I can mascara anything, but I'm stumped if I need to put nails in something. The second one went to Damon and Jo-Anne for holding a rather heavy box that turned up in the hour and a half I went out...

I also had a surprisingly pleasant encounter with the tv licensing phone system. First ever "talk to me" system I have come across that actually works - I successfully updated my details!

Wednesday 30 November 2011

Driving the Dragons

It's been a tough week, scrambling to get as much as possible packed. I'm just hoping the boys are prepared for how much stuff we HAVE. The vivariums alone take more than 36 cubic feet of space, and there's my bike...

I'm being sent on ahead, folded up in the back seat of an overloaded Ford Fiesta, wedged down the side of two aquariums, a poly box containing the axolotls, a container full of gecko and waxworms (he thought it was an extra long lunch break) and a big basket full of dragons.

His Lordship would be following up tomorrow with our stuff in the vans - I was running ahead to safely transport the animals and make sure the rental property was ready to move into.

Several hours of pins and needles later (Nan likes the... uh, scenic route) we stopped off for some lunch. My confidence boosted by the fact that the dragons had happily dozed for the last few hours, I left them in the car whilst we nipped into Morrisons for 20 minutes.

On returning, I discovered little Hyphen sat ON the basket, restrained from exploring the car only by his leash tied round the handle. I opened the basket and discovered the other three dragons gazing up at me mournfully - Hyph had securely tied his travel companions with their own leashes.

I let Hyphen sit on my headrest to pull faces at the cars behind whilst I untangled the others. Sandy felt a little travel sick and promptly tucked herself back under the blankets to resume sleeping. Old hand Tsam was quite content to continue snoozing and Mocha wanted nothing more than to explore - when she has her leash on, it usually means she's going for a walk!

For more proof that lizards are smart, have a look at this cool little article: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4513/clever-lizards-surpass-expectations

11 hours of pins and needles is no fun. Is there a world record? Or just a much higher DVT risk?

Friday 25 November 2011

When a day's a good one, you know it.

It's been a very good day today. As some of you know, it was my last day at work before moving Up North - and it was a cracking good day!

For starters, my favourite author dropped back in and laughed delightedly when I asked with a great deal of awkwardness for his autograph.

Lookit! Tom Holt's autograph! Thanks Mr Holt - I got it framed by my cousin John at FastFrames, in a lovely stylish gold frame.


The lovely folks at work surprised me with this awesome cake. I felt bad about slicing it, but that lizard is really tasty! My boss's friend, Lizzy Cornelius in Yeovil, made it. Her business number is 01935 509002 and she's a very talented cake craftsperson. She used loads of butter icing under the smoothly coloured royal icing, and sculpted it round a supremely moist sponge... Bearing in mind I don't much like sponge, this lady makes a DELICIOUS cake - I want MOAR!

My favourite Customer Advisor was in charge of getting a gift it turns out and I was well impressed with his choice - a simple, elegant architectural pendant of silver and green amber. I was also bought an amber bead bracelet, a Chinese dragon for my charm bracelet and a cute little crocodile brooch.

After work, I promptly went to Razook's the hairdressers and got my freedom colours put in. After all, Boss isn't going to frown at my "inappropriate hairstyle" on Monday.

I went for magenta red, deep violet and this fabulous flamingo pink - the best bit (besides the brilliant choppy cut the stylist put in to make the colours "flash" from under my normal hair colour) is that these rather striking colours have an interesting chemical base - it's UV reactive. Stick me under a black light and I GLOW! Weehee!

And the final bit of grand news to really wrap the day up? I found an update from Taunton Crown Court regarding the case I sat as juror on. Obviously I can't name names (at least, not on here) for public data privacy issues, but the man in question not only abused his stepdaughters and young son, but also had over 50,000 images of child abuse on his computer. Or at least, that's as far as the tech lab got before they got sick of cataloguing them all. The actual figure of videos, pictures and more is much closer to 140,000. I won't go into detail about the video they showed us as an evidential piece, but it was highly, highly disturbing and involved a two year old.

He's been made to sign the register for life and has been given a minimum 13 year prison sentence.

Monday 21 November 2011

Boil in a bag? Kinda...

I came home and promptly fell over two large boxes on my doorstep - two fatass boxes, full of MREs. For those not in the know, those are ready to eat rations as used by the Army - in this specific case, the US army.

They're kinda nifty actually; it's all ready cooked, the packs will survive for YEARS without any special care and they come with their own heating packs as they're designed to be eaten on the go. They're also rammed full of vitamin and mineral supplements.

They're not cheap, but the US ones are much nicer than the British versions - and the pound cake alone totally makes it worthwhile. Mmmmm, almond and poppyseed... His Lordship likes the peanut butter packs, and the jalapeño cheese spreads you get with the packets of wheatbread. (Which is actually really nice too.) 

On a related note, I was checking out some US military statistics, and this fact made me laugh - the maority of troops use full auto weaponry, usually for suppression tactics (to make the bad guys keep down whilst your troops scuttle to the next position). Now, for each insurgent killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, two hundred and fifty thousand bullets hit... absolutely nothing.

Yeah. That's nearly three tons of ammunition for one bad guy, each time.

Friday 18 November 2011

Yer money or yer confidential details get handed to spammers!

"Come up with a theme for Children In Need!" They said to me.

Hmm. Pretty tricky - most of my things are already in boxes, and His Lordship's Fancy Bag of Costumes (TM) is right under all of it. So I put my thinkin' cap on. I still have some scurfty clothes I'm using whilst redecorating - what can I do with that...? Yarr, I know! Pirates!

I found an ancient velvet and satin corset that has fallen to bits in the junk room, recommissioned an ancient white polyester shirt, some old bright filmy scarves, fixed my old leather coat and reshaped a battered old leather hat into a tricorn. Raided the charity shops for a bargain waistcoat and found some piratey earrings and some lovely gold eye shadow (that I know I will use again) in Superdrug. And y'know what? That's not bad. Most motley!

Gosh, I'm wonderfully comfortable in this outfit - I may well have to reuse it. Arrr, hand over yer loot. It's going I'm the charity box matey!

Ah. Whoops. I got to work, and realised I wasn't wearing my work jacket. My keys are in my work jacket. So, here we are, all dressed as pirates - breaking into the safe. Hehe... Plunder all the gold! Or, um, not. But on the plus side, Raised £107 on the Rum Raffle for Children in Need today!

Monday 14 November 2011

I'd headbutt the walls but...


I'd end up with more of this paper all over it. Ugh, sticky swatches of horrid, plasticky wallpaper all up my arms, legs, in my hair, on my face - AUGH!

Three rooms are like this - and it is all the same kind of plastic coated "easy clean" paper that is a real b!tch to get off. In fact, this is a beautiful example of the idiocy of the cowboys - rather than measuring before applying, they've  just sort of thrown it at the walls and hoped for the best. There are bits that go on to the ceiling, other strips that don't meet the ceiling, ditto both for skirting boards, sheets that overlap, some with bubbles, wrinkles, rips...  I'm pretty sure they used industrial superglue rather than wallpaper paste.

It is a nightmare to get off the walls (the steamer can't get through the top coating, and scoring doesn't help much) and sets solid when it hits a people; my shirt is crisp with wallpaper glue and plastic coated paper shreds., and these cowboys have double papered edges rather than measured. Including adding thick strips where they cut it short.

Thankfully an online friend (LD, I'm lookin' at you!) recommended using sandpaper to scrub off the top layer of coating - which really helped! He also recommended a good dinner to recover from the trauma. Luckily I did extra as it turns out my friend Rob was in the area, so we fed him gammon and jacket potatoes as he was dropping by. It saves eating canteen food!

Thursday 10 November 2011

Just crossed a ford in a Ford

Flaming hell, thank god for Crabbies - I was saving it for when I needed it, but I need it now. It's been a bit of a day!

To start with, we got stuck in another traffic collision, the third in ten days. There was a car slewed across the reservation, what looks like an old style black Golf. It seems it was trying to overtake, lost control and then ploughed into a car coming in the opposite direction - in fact, it looks like the eejit that nearly cobbled me over a few weeks back. Still, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Police shut the road down, told us it would be closed for at least the next two hours, so we followed one of the cars to get us to the town. First in the queue leading a huge line of traffic, we tentatively crawled down a very steep, very muddy incline before winding up in the middle of a small river - the road the coppers chose to go down has a nice big blue sign reading "Track unsuitable for vehicles."

That's reassuring!

Once I got home this evening, I put a bunch of my uniforms in to wash... At which point the washing machine  jammed itself on "spin" for four hours. With tomorrows work uniform in it. AUGH! Thankfully my lovely man bludgeoned it into electronic submission and retrieved my (impressively) still wet clothes.

Quote of the Day: "man make MASHeen wurk Ugh... scratches furrowed brow - ook. Man done good?"  Yes, yes you did.

Sunday 6 November 2011

Sticky's Story

Hurray! My article made it onto today's "Petpet Spotlight Award!"

I went a little out of my comfort zone to write this mini-article, aiming for a tabloid expose style - which seems to have worked beautifully.

We've all seen the Neopian Fresh Foods Shop, and we've all wondered why it looks like a giant burger. Most of us have even bought burgers from there. At what cost, though?

Today, we dig into the hidden past of one of the most famous retail corporations in Neopia Central, to tell you the story of Sticky and reveal the dark secret behind our favourite shop.

Many ages ago, Neopia was a truly different world. Brave adventurers have since conquered vast regions of the continents, but there are still mysterious land masses waiting to be explored -- and places that are on no map, hidden from the eye of the average Neopet.

Many of you are unaware that at least 80% of the developed world's diet originated in the forests -- fruits like Twirly Fruit, Doughnutfruit, ErgyFruit, Cocolatte Fruit, and even burgers. Oh, you didn't know burgers were fruit?

Well, if you were to venture into the deepest, darkest depths of the jungles, way off of any map, you would be haunted by the memory of a smell -- a faint tickle that makes your mouth water, your heart quicken, and your eyes widen.

Your feet would start to increase their pace, running along a path led purely by instinct through the foliage, until your burst into a heavenly scented clearing: tangs of tomato and spice, the gift of warm bread, the sweetness of gently melting cheese and more caress your olefactory senses.

This is the BURGER FOREST, and it hides a shameful secret.

For years, Neopian Fresh Foods has been clearing huge swathes of the forest, to create produce for the shop at an immense profit. The swamps are being tapped right at the spring for the valuable red ketchup that bubbles up from the ground; the fruit from the trees is harvested and the wood used in massive ovens onsite to cook them before being boxed and shipped out. Easy to harvest, the burgers grow on trees in clusters -- ideal for fast, ready-to-eat meals.

That yellow Chia was only too happy to shout: "Now we restock 3 times as much!!!" as the forests burned and grilled.

A hamburger is cheap food that is a enjoyed all over the world. Is it worth losing a rare and wonderful part of our world, though?

I'm glad to inform you, however, that it is not all bad news.

In fact, a gherkin picker was collecting some of the windfall from around an unusually large gherkin bush when one pickle decided not to be picked -- and bit him. The Chia made a baffled grab for the feisty fruit, but then it scurried back to hide amongst the roots. You could say he was in a real sticky pickle...

Further investigation revealed it to not be a moving gherkin, but rather to be a peculiar little reptile, using the pattern of the gherkin as a clever defensive disguise -- after all, few animals like the taste of raw pickles!

Neopian Fresh Foods promptly realised the damage being caused to the little creature's habitat and (thankfully, before it was too late) they have been putting conservation methods into place over the last couple of years. They have since successfully restored 75% of the forest previously used for food manufacture.

Since the forest redevelopment started, a road was cleared through some of the undergrowth, which has encouraged adventurous beasties to occasionally crawl out of the Burger Forest and Tomato Sauce Swamp. Most discovered that the outside world was big and scary, without a pickle tree for a home. Some of the little guys, however, headed for the GIGANTIC burger that they could see far off in the distance.

As soon as the little Pickles were spotted wandering Neopia Central, conservation workers hurried to return the Pickulsaurs to their original homes, though a few got away... and that's how Meglos came to find Sticky -- who revealed the truth.

"I love Sticky, my Pickulsaur!"
"Brrrflp..."

Friday 4 November 2011

Aaaaaand breathe!

Sorry for the delayed updates, it has been a bit manic this week! So far we have been trying to find:

A house to buy, a house to rent, a removal firm that will handle the reptile tanks, quotes for painting and decorating at a reasonable price. I've been amused by "someone" spreading vicious rumours to my friends (unsuccessfully, I might add.) and I have been trying to secure a transfer, resulting sort-of temporarily resigning.

This is due to work's "budget restrictions". I may have a job up North almost immediately, but more likely not until the new budget hits in January - but actually, that suits me quite well. I have some savings set aside to manage a little while unpaid, and it gives me time to sort all the house moving and associated problems, as well as some time to relax. It also gives me an ideal opportunity to have a scout around for a possible new career direction, as I'm fed up of permanently being a cashier - I have many, better talents that aren't being put to good use. Quite frankly, I'm an awful cashier. I'm a good seller though, with years of experience.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Marvellous Mocha - the fire breathing dragon!

Well, a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce really helps.

This week's been a tough one for the little madam, as I've been pushing her comfort boundaries hard. She still has a finicky thing about having her hands touched, but the reward and treat system has been working wonders, as you can see - she'll do most things for a handful of American Nature Zone Beardie Bites.

She's becoming a brave little dragon, with a very laid-back nature, even to the extent of standing up to Sandy in the food queue. It seems that tinned dragon fly larvae are much too nice to let anyone chase our tough young rescue away from!

That's not to say she doesn't have bad days; I tried to retrieve her from the Tiki Hut the other day and tapped her tail first so as not to scare her too much. Well, she soon told me she didn't like that, hunkering and husking. So I laughed at her until she stopped and blinked at me indignantly.

She was very happy when I did return her to her tank though, as I recarpeted her tank in a good Wimbledon green Astroturf. A bit concerned about stepping on the weird green stuff at first, though has since found it to be very comfortable.

She also discovered that her favourite thing now is to push her food bowl along the slippery "grass", stuff it into her log hide and then sit on her platform sniggering as I try to fish it out - every day without fail.

So I found some cute little tennis balls to keep her occupied, instead of wedging her bowl. It kind of worked. She still likes wedging her dinner in the hut, but she is also enjoying jamming the balls into corners and pushing them around her tank.

I found her last night, wedged between the wall and the leg of her table, happily asleep with the yellow ball... I'd have taken a picture, but I didn't want to disturb her.

For someone with few facial muscles, Mocha sure knows how to smile, because she LOVES bathtime. It's water bowl to the power of 10 - and warm!

I snapped this picture because she was making me laugh, running up and down the bath sampling the water from different locations - here she's annoying Hyphen by drinking the water right next to his tail. There were LOTS of different tasty waters to try; by my hand, by Sandy's feet, next to the bath plug...

She even knows the colour of her towel now too - she's got Kyle's fuchsia pink one and is learning that when her towel appears it's the end of bath time - she can scramble up it and out of the bath to get dried and warm in time for lunch.

All the exercise is working wonders too, and her little muscles are now starting to bulk up as she puts on healthy weight.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Happy Halloween!

This year, I was bored of staying in waiting for trick or treaters who never turn up. So we kitted up and went out.

I'd spent ages puzzling over what to wear, when I hit on a very easy one. I already had the long white wig (a quick haircut and some spray sorted that), silver cream eyeshadows and black liner for the triangle...

I then pinched His Lordship's sunglasses from His FoneJacker costume last year and teamed it with one of my sparklier corsets, matching fishnets, favourite strawberry red boots and my funky little tutu. His Lordship lent me the Dalmation jacket from his "pimp" costume to finish the look - he found THAT when he used to work as a recycling collector a few years back, loved it and had it dry cleaned. Peculiar bloke, but perfect for this look. One extra large Gaga to go!

In return, I lent him my professional House of Pan prosthetic daemon horns, which subtly rolled into his hair and matched deliciously with his plum maroon leather jacket. One soft black shirt and his black velvet pirate trousers (yet another costume raided) finished the rather suave look nicely.

I would have taken pictures at the party, but didn't take my phone because He was taking His... But then he did the same thing. Never mind!

The musical abilities of the DJ wasn't great, but we had a fun evening, with lots of dancing, piles of people recognised who we were supposed to be and one very drunk guy sidling up and muttering: "D'ya think I'm Judas?" I replied "Sometimes dude, sometimes." and got the best hi five. We also got given a bag of sweets by The Godfather, met a mummy, Edward Scissorhands and a wolf in a nightie.

Sadly my old red boots have finally given up the ghost - I don't think I can rescue these any further, as the pleather finish has been cracking and splitting for some time. I've been patching it with silicone polish and Sharpies, but they've had it - the toes are shot and leaking, the heels are battered... For such cheap boots, they've done me a good few years. I will miss my lovely reds, they're the most comfortable things in the world.

Oh, I'm not chucking them out though. I'm keeping them to see if I can find a good shoe maker to replicate them. Shoes that good should never die.

Monday 24 October 2011

I'm on a ROLL!

Even if today was a bit naff, over this weekend I have:
Rewritten a friend's CV to bring it up to date, punchy and snappy.
Fixed the bathroom light. (I used minty green ribbon instead of cord this time)
Written a whole new article from scratch and submitted it. (About carrot growing, before you ask)
Cooked sirloin steaks and the best damn stew I've done in AGES.
Finished my "expose newspaper" style competition article which is WAY out of my writing style comfort zone, and submitted it.
Done not one, not two, but three whole loads of washing and drying.
Nearly finished a novella that's had a writers block on it for over four months. And my goodness, I have NAILED that sucker - I expect to submit it for release within the next couple of weeks.
Played with, fed, ordered more food for and bathed the lizards, as well as negotiating discounts for friends.
Researched some more for a different article that's been on the back burner for the last year.
Scored a complete fluke, searching Kuleana's name on Neopets - I found "Kuleana" in the pound for just 87 points. Madness. I adopted her and put her on my side account with two new ones, Tsammy and MochaChoca. (Updates on those coming later. Hyphen and Ampersand names already taken.)
Oh, and I've lost three pounds. Weehee!



Sticky the Pickulsaur; story entered for Petpet Spotlight competition.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Raising the Stakes on the Steaks.

With a content sigh, I can tell you that the last two days, we have dined like kings. Nay, GODS in fact.

It started off as a plan for stew, ostrich stew to be precise, so I asked His Lordship to fish some steak out of the freezer. But when I got home on Friday evening, I discovered... well, he'd got steak out, but he'd picked the good sirloin. I'm not sure how he mistook the posh cream and green wrapped parcel for the vacuum-sealed, boldly printed with "OSTRICH" packs, but never mind.

So instead, on Saturday night, I threw some red wine with mushrooms, garlic and onion in a pan, made butter and herb sauce to go on steamed new potatoes and made him fry the perfect steaks - on the dangerous side of medium rare. Oh god, and they are ridiculously good. Put fork in meat, move fork sideways, meat falls apart. Well worth the money, it is SO tender...

I also got the correct bags of ostrich steak out to defrost, so we could have the stew tonight. With Lea and Perrins special reserve fuller flavour Worcestershire sauce...

So very simple. I can't understand how my sister professes to dislike stew. What is there not to like? Meat, vegetables, sauce. Bam! Dinner.

Update: I've been carefully mushing my icecream and eating it slowly - got to the last bit when His Lordship finally asked what I was doing. "Looking for the jalapeño" says I.

Great.

It turns out I've been squishing my favourite icecream for nothing. So I smooshed the last spoonful into and up his nose. Revenge is sweet - literally. Hehehhehee!

Best quote of the day: "It's like you've been licked all over by a panther after it's had 15 Fantas..." Russell Howard, on tangerine shower gel.

Friday 21 October 2011

Birthday Boxes and Electric Detection...

I sent my friend Hanny a box in the post, so that her beardie Noa could have a birthday party.

Apparently Han was already in Singapore mode and got the address muddled up... But thankfully the nice lady five doors down from her sent me a lovely letter to let me know she'd received it. I promptly phoned her back and she kindly dropped it down to Noa's house the next morning.

Hanny asked me to make Noa a party hat in green, so I made a lovely textured foil paper cone with a glitter thread pompom on top. I also sent his little sister Delilah a similar one in silver. I also sent him a ready made party-in-a-tin dinner of dragonflies as well as a birthday bar of dragon soap for his bath, and a glow in the dark star for bedtime - just like my spiky little angels have.

Ooh, I've been playing with a new little programme. I've discovered that we've currently got about 12 networks switched on around here that I can "see" at the moment - and I can walk round with the programme on my phone to "feel" the signal strengths.
Next doors DJP (in their dining room against our joining wall!)
TalkTalkk3k3aa (the Romanians the other side)
Livebox822d (I'm pretty sure is Brad, out back)
virginbroadband (which is a nickname - we don't get virgin here)

Sky71336
O2wirelessF2E7BD
Linksys
bthubb3-RX8x3x
Sky61182
PortableHotspot
Sky50679...
and our own "DragonzDen"

I also renamed my phone's portable wifi hotspot. It's now called "surveillance van 6" to spook the neighbours when I switch it on.

My comfy chair has the lowest signal in the house, sadly.(There's also a Geiger counter style version that does hot/cold beeping.) But I don't do any live streaming, so no big.


Wednesday 19 October 2011

Lizards on Leashes

We've had both Hyphen in leash training and Mocha trying on a leash for the first time. He's getting used to it slowly and she has discovered that, actually, it doesn't impede your movement AND it's made her brave too!

She's been trotting up and down the middle of the room with Hyph and having a proper look round, even to the extend where they both got comfy in the dragon travel basket. Megawin!

Mocha is slowly learning to socialise - at least that is when Sandy doesn't clip her round the ear for being impudent.

Hehehehe, I found a dragon whom is even more disturbed than guilty little Hyphen.
Can anyone else hear "MY PRECIOUS" sibilantly hissing through their head?"

Mind you, talking of pervy lizards, it turns out Tsam's got a soft spot for being dominated. He gives it all bluff and bluster, but the moment I play "bigger dragon" he goes all weak around the knees. He melts like butter when I "bite" him using my hands, nibble down his ribs and the top of his ear...

Tsammy keeps trying to get Sandy to stand up to him, but she's a bit scared - understandably so, as huge as he is! Poor boy misses Kyle - she would happily kick him in the head.

Monday 17 October 2011

Bags, Boxes, Bummer...

Awww. The house we really wanted turned out to have LOTS of problems, including improperly supported chimney breasts, damp proofing only round half the house, wiring needs ripping out, wet rot, dry rot, mould... Oh, and asbestos throughout the internal walls. Thankfully we accepted subject to survey...

After all, we had already brought the standing price down by 17k, but the surveyor says it's worth 3k less than we had offered! It's going to cost way more than we can afford to fix, and ripping asbestos out is a specialist job, so it's all the way back to square one. Nuts. I wanted to be home by Christmas, and my dining room is full of boxes...

And yes, that IS a big bag full of gift wrap. There are about thirty rolls in there; I LOVE the stuff. I even have some red silk brushed paper with black velvet flocking, in a Victorian style - it's expensive but beautiful.

My favourite ones are the Chinese double colour rolls, one side blue, one side orange, and another roll in red and yellow. Makes a great effect if you use complicated folds on your parcels.

But the real gem of my collection is THIS beauty - a matt black foam paper and gold glitter fleur-de-lis... Horribly costly even on sale price, but totally worth it. I may have to do black gifts this year and finally use my favourites. I've had some of them in my bag for years because I can't bear to use them, but on reflection, it wouldn't be right NOT to make the most of it.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Sedimentary, my dear Watson!

Hyphen is feeling very guilty, as I caught him with his forbidden love - the hearth stone. He's been bearding at "her", displaying, then jumps and pins the corner down. Bloody strange little boy - but he's really nailed this macho display bearding thing at long last!

Hyph's now sitting with His Lordship, trying not to look like he's ashamed. Poor pervy little lizard; he's going to be devastated when we move house.

I also brought out the dragon basket to start acclimatising the lizards to the idea - I don't want a car full of panicky lizards when I move house! It's second home to Tsammy, but a new experience to the other three, so Mocha's first to have a go at getting used to the dragon basket. She's a bright little dragon and quickly worked out that you can jump in and out of the drop leaf lid.

Quote of the Day: "Silly Hyphen, stone is for fiar! Dragons iz for luff!" - Hanny. Reminds me somewhat of "Silly dragons. You cannot fly internet spaceships."

Thursday 13 October 2011

We're back, babies!

His Lordship is sharing a rather disappointing minestroni soup with me, by blowing it cool first. I was hoping to be able to buy creamy tomato and basil soup, but this was all Bristol had to offer in takeaway form at 8pm. It has a lot of icky celery and not enough anything else. I wanted croutons.

When we finally got in, I discovered a very ruffled little Hyphen waiting up for us. He's now stuffed down my shirt and is very cross with us for leaving him on his own.

Tsam was deeply grumpy and resentful - he went back to sleep with a sullen black beard. He will forgive me after baths and butters tomorrow, I'm sure. He's just too sweet natured and stupid to hold a grudge.

Mocha was delighted to see us, as we brought home moths and cleaned her grubby tank, removing the grey strawberry that had prevented her getting into her tunnel - very cheery, even though it's really late. She will enjoy her bath tomorrow.

Sandy twitched in her sleep. That's good enough for me.

Wednesday 12 October 2011

What's in a name?

These... These are like chocolate hobnobs with golden crunch biscuits and honeycomb mashed together. They are the most amazing things. So hands off! These biscuits are MINE. They have my name on.

Speaking of which, I just can't believe that in the FOUR YEARS that I've used Kyle's name on FailBork, they haven't thought to mention that it's supposedly a "violation of terms". And now I've been booted from my account with no warning or notification. I had the same problem with Google at first, but they allowed me to change it to my real name.

Facebook wants me to upload government issued identification to them to prove who I am! Hah, load my passport to your site? With your security failures? I think not! It was the push I needed to leave FB permanently. No skin off my nose - I have G+ and I'm proud to be a 1st Gen User!

I then went and emptied my "facebook email" account. In just two years, I have over 3,500 bits of junk from them - EXCLUDING what had already been netted out by my junk filter. There were 16 items in today's "catch".

Holy WOW. Update: The reports coming back from the new Android Facebook update are terrible! I'm glad I'm not an FBer now: FB have really screwed up. The app won't work unless your GPS is on - which chews your battery. The file is huge and doesn't transfer to SD. It doesn't update, fails to deliver notifications (still), you can't like or add to friends walls directly from the ones you DO get. The tags are broken and it has serious memory leak issues which cause it to crash. A lot. Reinstalls don't fix the problem.

Quote of the day: "No apostrophe, so unfortunately not! Hand them over, they look tasty!" - Ben, on "Ambers" biscuits. Where's my permanent marker..?

Monday 10 October 2011

Pizza, PCs and Purchases.

Today's pizzas were brought to you by Pizza Hut. King prawns, bell peppers, chicken and spinach on a bechamel sauce for him, chicken, pepperoni, mushrooms and sweetcorn on a pesto bechamel base for me. The Italians are geniuses. Plenty left for lunch tomorrow too! Custom pizza is the best.

We'd spent longer than I expected at Nana Cats before we made it to @PC computer store - His Lordship is VERY pleased with the new PSU he picked up there.

I've been trying to work out what the owl is near my mother's house. I'm pretty sure it's a tawny; Strix aluco - because I can always hear the end notes, when it goes "to-hoo". Does this sound about right Mum? Hoo. To-hoo. Apparently, there's about 75,000 pairs in the UK.

We also found our ideal house, and our second offer has been accepted (subject to survey) - saving us over £17,000! More on that later.

But check out the beautiful bathroom!

Saturday 8 October 2011

Barge, Beers and Barbecue

The lads met us in the Barge for a swift few - they're looking forwards to us coming home, and I'm looking forwards to bunging some burgers under the grill and popping some bottles for 'em. I love the Barge, but the volume level isn't exactly conducive to conversation!

I think we'll have a LAN party and make an awesome Killing Floor team. Yeah, you can do it at different addresses, but this way we wouldn't have to bother with TeamSpeak servers playing up and dodgy mikes.

Anyway, we ended up heading home a little early, as His Lordship was still suffering from cat allergy disease - but we did take a stroll down to Domino's for a quick pizza. The range is a little different up North as it is down South, but they still do the Texas Barbecue. Yomnom - tangy BBQ sauce topped with smoky bacon, succulent roast chicken, onions and green peppers.

Mind you, it was a good job that we DID come home early - we forgot the door keys! Someone changed his jeans just before we went out, and left them on his other trousers. Thankfully my grandfather was still up, and let us in. He didn't even steal my dinner.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Dodgy, Delicious, Delightful - and in that order.

Looked at a house. Summary: weird.
Well, for starters, there was an extractor fan in what used to be a set of shelves in the living room. And what was clearly a bathroom window in the corner of the main bedroom. But the real winner for me was that this place had a toilet in the shower in a giant plastic box in a cupboard. Very odd indeed. Pass. NEXT!

After the couple of disappointing viewings we had this morning, it was very much time for some refreshments. Though I'm not keen on a certain coffee house, they do supply the most amazing lemon and poppy seed muffin. Though I was baffled by my funny tasting hot chocolate (it had my hazelnut caramel sauce on the cream). It took me three sips to work out that it wasn't bitter hot chocolate, but actually a VERY nice mocha - nice enough for me to consider not swapping back with His Lordship.

Yes, I seriously considered tolerating the yicky coffee flavour (I'm not a fan of coffee, if you hadn't guessed). But sadly, the hot chocolate was also very good, so I had it back off him. I did let him keep his blueberry and cream cheesecake though.

We had a good raid on town too, where I purchased a gorgeous silver based with black enamel lizard brooch that had green gem eyes and clear crystal stripes, and in TKMaxx, we found THIS beauty.

It's a sumptuous chocolate velvet smoking jacket with a fun paisley plum lining, teamed with a delightfully retro Pierre Cardin floral shirt in darkest twilight purple and bright violet.We also picked up a natty multithread silk tie in patterned lilac and a divine red tie of Italian silk with a branched design.

Oscar Wilde would have been delighted. After all, it was he who said: "I can resist anything, except temptation."

Today's Quote: "Hey quit it! You're making the rest of us look bad." -Whitmore, on the new jacket.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Travelling by Train. Oh and Tesco's

Many a time the Sheffield Pumpkin has looked after us, whether it's in bad weather or enduring train delays and bad tempered customers, and still they do a wonderful job of serving hot food and a warm seat. And they do a lovely hazelnut hot chocolate... Thanks guys, I'll be sure to come back next trip!

Ah, the North. It was a smooth, hassle-free journey for once, and I'd move here today if I could.

For example I forgot how HUGE the Tesco's are here (and there's three of them). Heaven! I know, I know, I have but small dreams - but I do love Tesco's. I can't wait for Christmas, when they bring back the little herby cheesy nibble things. The biggest one just outside of town not only has two floors, escalators and a tech department bigger than my entire house, but it has THREE reduced sections. So of course we grabbed reduced-price lemon cheesecake slices, vegetable crisps and a big bag of chilli Hula Hoops.

Which was a revelation in itself - they made Hula Hoops bigger. Seems to me that it's a sad portrayal of modern day obesity when they deliberately have to make crisps bigger to fit on fatter fingers... Yes, that is my thumb.

Monday 3 October 2011

Baby Beardie Beard!

Hurrah! My little guy has discovered that he has cohones - now he will not tolerate nonsense from the other lizards! Check out those sooty muttonchops... STAMPBOBBOBBOB

Until Sandy stepped on him. Bless, he's still wee and insignificant to her. Hyph finally curled up to sleep on my head as he's had a busy day; skinny dipping with the ladies, a three course dinner, supervising his staff...

It's only a quick post today - I have to sort our suitcase out and get the lizards ready for a few days without us. I will miss my scaly little babies, but we will be home soon!

Quote of the Day: I suddenly looked up at the tv as the announcer said: "Now we're screwing the knob extension into the orifice." Oh phew, it's ok, they're making a gas fire.