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!
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....!"
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.
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?"
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..."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Hurrah, it's almost December! I've got my tree all up and prettily decorated, plain white fairy lights, chocolate and gold baubles, chocolate beads and glass snowflakes, all topped with a gold wire and bead star! I'm glad we chose the gold in the end, it does go so nicely against the cream and yellow wallpaper in here! The pelmet has a swag of chocolate and gold tinsel with matching baubles, ditto the clock, and He wanted a something to hang on a spare picture hook, so I made a little wreath with more of the tinsel and little baubles. Ky has her wire and baubles tree again, and Tsam has a cone of gold loop sequins and beads. They're both sat under their trees!
I also noticed another present has mysteriously appeared under the tree - I was a little puzzled, because I hadn't put it there, but it was done in my paper with my ribbons and very much in my style: I'll give credit to His artistic side, it nearly slipped my notice! Greatly amused me anyway. (He's happy.)
Madagascar: Escape to Africa! Well, blow me over with the draft from the fibres of a coconut shell! I'm impressed! For a sequel, this was pretty damn amazing, as most follow-on movies are often dismally poor (Garfield 2 is a perfect example of sellout-letdown). I mean, I loved the first Madagascar, but the second was just spot on for me. Alright, it was a little predictable, but then with kids films that's nice - you have an idea of what's happening, so you can just sit back and enjoy it. Hank has rated it as "up there on my list of this year's funnies." His Lordship's relatively high praise: "It was definitely a good chuckle, worthwhile." So yes, this one earns a "Yeah!" out of OK.
More good news, Ky has started eating a little on her own again, munching on one of her usual favourites, morio worms. She's also taken to stalking us around the house, up to following me into the kitchen, where I have a good laugh at lack of grip with claws on vinyl flooring. Bless her, I also forgot she was out and about when we went to the cinema, but she stayed happily fast asleep in their new hut. Fortunately, I thought it'd be a good idea to put a nice new heat mat in the bottom of it - she stayed toasty in there for about nine hours.... Tsam has had a look at the hut and decided it was a threat, so bobbed at it. I think the fairy lights spooked him. (Pic: Tsam's spiny scales and rich shades of grey, cream and brown.)
We also had the first sprinkle of snow down here today. Not that it lasted long, but still. Time for winter food! We had ostrich in mushroom sauce yesterday and today I have to stretch a chicken chasseur to three boys and me...
Quote of Today: "Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it." - heelarious.com
The lizards are very pleased this week! They've got lovely wall to wall carpetting in their tanks now, which is a whole lot healthier than sand. Well, remember how sand sticks to a wet finger? Now consider that the dragons lick just about everything on a minutely basis... So they've now got brown astroturfed tanks! Ky thought the whole process was fascinating, insisting on sitting on the pile of sand whilst I tried to sweep it up and chuck it in a bucket, and then running all over the carpet as I cut it to size. She licked it about a million and one times as I slid it into place - sat on it, sliding along the tank floor. Tsam was generally confused about the whole thing and sat UNDER it whilst I tried to fit his. But apparently, it's good for digging on. It's soft enough to sleep on, tough enough to resist digging, bouncy enough to jump from the highest object in the tank onto, and firm enough to run around like a lunatic. Hurray for brown astroturf and for eBay's mats-n-floors company for finding and measuring it, and the wonderfully good value!
Quote of the Day: My Nan made me chuckle this week; she was telling me about one of her best ever prize wins: she won a film camera, projector AND screen by writing off to Macleans. "I'm glad I didn't have to send in a label or anything - I HATED Macleans' toothpaste!"
Seems we've developed an affinity for basic cooking in this house too! His Lordship and I were stumped for what to feed the Housemates on our Sunday - especially with a budget of not-what-you-might-call-a-lot-if-anything. But it seems you can make a bloody good stew out of roughly not much! We had a big chunk of cheap steak in the freezer (the butcher wanted to shut his stall for the afternoon, so we got it less than half price) and some frozen veg. A forage in the veggie cupboard revealed some slightly hairy carrots and some ought-to-be-used-so-discounted potatoes. A further dig in the big cupboard pulled up some stock cubes, half a bottle of red, some garlic bulbs, an old onion, going-cheap mushrooms and some jarred things like pepper. A quick foray into the garden pulled up some lovely thyme, rosemary and basil - chucked all in my massive bought-in-the-sales steel pot and left it for a few hours. Impressively, after a quick stir (and some more red wine, just in case) it was actually pretty good. Hank and George sufficiently impressed. I'm glad we used the wine in the stew, it was a bit vicious. Visual representation auf das Pixdaus.com.
I also make nice cake. After the lovely Lemon, we experimented with a few things, like using lime marmalade (great if the mix is a bit dry!), extra eggs and less marg (creates a souffle-ish effect, very light), and the top favourite so far: cupboard leftovers cake. Which was some Somerfield's cocoa (there hasn't been a Somerfields here for YEARS) and some old packeted ginger left over from the Days of Dan (ditto above). The remains of some old Bird's powder, the last of the "thin sugar" and some random banana-milkshake-maker-stuff, and we had a rather scrummy pud!
Quote of the Day: "I accidentally turned the devil into a hobo but I never intended to melt off a characters hand. And then they all communicate by magical toaster. I still don't know how that happened." - My mad sister, writing her new book.
I think it's one of those sort of weeks already. I called up 118 to get a number, and said " I wonder if you can help me, I'm looking for Mr Wright." Cue uncomfortable pause, until he goes "Aren't we all, honey!" I suddenly realised and fell about laughing.
His Lordship has rediscovered an old love. And I tell you, He's going to be high on Es, Fs G, H and Is before long if he keeps munching all those sweets. Hes, he's rediscovered AlphaLetters. Mum says we ought to save all the letter e's for when we go out somewhere, go up to people and start offering them out to see how long it is before we get arrested. Ah, sadly, there's a lack of them. I think they may be making a point about their E numbers. He's been writing lots of sweet messages (oh dear, bad pun, sorry) for me, ooh, and He's just written another. Oh. He's written "D O U F A R T." Oh well, He's still wonderful and makes me laugh.
Is it weird to be carpeting my vivariums? Ah well. The dragons are getting soft new flooring in a lovely brown Astroturf. Think of it like this: have you ever stuck a damp finger in dry sand? Yeah. And these Dragons go round licking it every so often - I'm worried they'll get bellies full of sand, it can't do them any good. So they're getting some nice soft fake lawn to dance around on, pull up, sleep in etc. Will keep Tsam occupied for a while, trying to tear bits off.
Ah well, at least that warm weather I was promised has arrived. By which, I don't mean it's sunny glorious skies, but that it isn't chuffing it down with snow like it is back home. This Larry. Apparently there's hail and wind too. Just not here.
The Quote: "I accidentally turned the devil into a hobo but I never intended to melt off a characters hand. And then they all communicate by magical toaster. I still don't know how that happened." - Bogle, writing her new book.
I have bought a Christmas tree! It is gold and sparkly and I'm so looking forwards to putting it up and making the room sparkle. I have got lovely chocolate and glittery baubles to go with my clear glass stars and snowflakes, and a big gold tree topper star. I look forward to getting the Dragon Trees out too, giving Ky her funky wire tree with acrylic drops again and amazing Tsam with his cone of large looped sequins. I look forwards to going home with presents and making my family smile. It's not even December yet, but I'm READY for my first PROPER Christmas. (Image: Marks and Sparks, where I got some of my baubles.)
Oh, and you'll be pleased to know I'm not likely to suffer depression and neither am I unstable in any way. A couple of months ago, work pressure was giving me panic attacks, but it's all sorted out now. I saw a councellor this week that was "surprised by the way you handle things, you've got extremely good coping methods and a lot of strength." Nice to know! Even with the risk of genetic depression (bi-polar) it seems I've got an inbuilt coping tactic - if I have a problem, I look for the answer, except at times when I can't do anything right then, like bedtime. I have my family, my Blokey, my reptiles, my health and my books - i'm happy. Alright, so I don't curl up with a cat and a book, it's a lizard, but it works for me. Well, I've tried being rebellious, it's too much like hard work, especially when Mum thinks everything is great. Red hair: cool. Motorbike: cool. Tattoo: cool. Peh!
Tsam and Kyle have gone temporarily (I hope) insane, because thanks to Hank turning off the heating in the coldest point of this year so far, they think winter has been and done already and now they think it's breeding season. Tsam is pretty normal, but very confused that Ky no longer runs away when he bobs and dashes at her. He's also very baffled that she thumps him back, and will pointedly ignore him and breezily walk straight past him back into her tank. She seems to know what she's doing, even if she has no appetite. I don't mind syringing her chicken babyfood with calcium. Tsam'll eat anything. He especially likes chocolate cookie. (NOT recommended.)
Relevant QOTD: "I'm medicated. I cannot freak out." - Mum.
His Lordship really makes me laugh sometimes. We were walking home from town and stopped into Monties to pick up some Swizzells lollies for Him and noticed the girl in front of us was buying two big bottles and four cans of cola. I was amused to notice they keep the coffee in the same lockup as the JDs she wanted and commented to Him on this; it's one of the most commonly stolen items from convenience stores - bacon, cheese and coffee. The till chappy nodded and I explained to His Lordship that the coffee was most stolen, because sniffer dogs can't pick up a scent through it. He laughed and said "Well, you don't need to tell him, he's a coke dealer! Look at the load he just shifted!" After a moment of befuddlement I realised. Coke. Coca cola. Oh dear. (Image: Corner. Corner Shop? Oh yeah, I made that joke.)
I have just been informed that a local store was actually done for dealing behind the scenes! There's one to go with the Dalmation burgers on Take Away Alley. Oh NASTY, I've just found out that the Dalmation burger place used to top up the mayonnaise. I won't explain for fear of truly grossing. Safe to say someone enjoyed it at least.
I HAD got 100 codestones. I sold them for a tidy 355k! We did see the new James Bond, Quantum of Solace. If I'm being nice, I'd say it wasn't so much "Bond, James Bond!" as "Bland, very Bland." The girls were a little mediocre, the ripoffs just a little too obvious, the product placement too blatant, the effects just a little too much and the story just a little too bland.
I'm in a bit of a way with a nasty cold. I can taste four things: warm, sweet, sour or snot - which is pretty much comprised of the first three I note. Hurray for the variety of flavours in modern day cardboard. It's got to the point where, when blowing my nose, the tissue is just spreading snot around my face. Not pretty.
It's a bit better on Day Three. Like two european eagle owls have gots stuck up my nose. It's that fluffy, stuffed, tickly feeling with nasty scratchinessess... just like two owls.
His Lordship has been laughing at me. I got fed up of sneezing all over and went for a shower - reached out and pressed the button - for the button to come off. Do you remember ever playing with Smarties, licking your finger and trying to get them to your mouth before they fell off? It was one of those moments, realising it was stuck to my finger - and then it fell off. Oh dear.
And there's a bizarre movie on that I just DON'T get. There's a man painted metallic green with jewels stuck to him and silver glittered eyes in a white paper house tying rubber dolls in knots, with a another man in purple velvet platforms and lilac velvet leggings peeping in the window, short pink hair fluttering over grey-green eyeshadow... Let's just say it has quite a ZIggy Stardust feel to it. Thanks to Velvet Goldmine on Myspace for providing a somewhat rare image of Johnathan Rhys Meyers in glorious glitter!
We've also discovered Tesco do their own Cheapest, No Frills box of chocolates - for 98p! I have to say, there were quite a lot for under a pound - but they all needed altering slightly to make them properly good. The hazelnut praline was oddly lacking, it needed smashed hazel peices in to be convincing, there were too many yicky coffee ones and the "caramels" were far closer to fudges. Rename them Fudge and I'll believe you. The caramel cluster would have been good, but it needed a soft caramel, like the middle of a Rolo, whilst the hazelnut trio needed whole hazelnuts in. The apricot cream was good, if the flavour a bit too strong and still needed proper bits of dried apricot in for extra whumph. The nougat duo needed a proper SNAP to the chocolate, a simple treatment of cooling it so it cracks properly, whilst the chocolate coconut needed more coconut, less filler. But oh GOD, please, PLEASE fix the so called raspberry and orange creams. They're definitely FONDANTS, and I don't know WHAT you did to the raspberry, but it tastes like... perfumed ARSE. I shudder to recall.
Oh, and I told Him I brought Him home a present in my bag. He went to go get it and came charging back - "YAY! I LIKE BUNS." He was so enthusiastic about the bread rolls, I hadn't the heart to tell him I meant the cookies...
"All that glitters - is gay!" - headline quote from Velvet Goldmine.
Well, since time of last typage, my family have been down to visit again. All hell broke loose as per usual once my mother tried to combine a dubious concoction of Snekeh and Stepfather - but at least it stopped him using that annoying megadeathflashofdoom! It goes "kchkchkchkch-kuh-CHOOM" you know, if light was in an audiable form.
The dragons were perfectly happy once they'd discovered that my little brother had brought along his extensive range of electronic toy gadgetry. (Only joking, this is someone else's shot, but the resemblance to my two is stunning! Contact me for reference, not sure where it came from.) He was amazed at just how HUGE Tsam has grown, having confused him with Ky at first. But then he is a whopping 19 inches or so. Ought to measure him...
Shortly after wrestling Snekeh back into her tank (we never have all the animals out at the same time), we threw her in a defrosted mousey to yomp down. Mum was quite surprised when, having voraciously vanished said mouse, Snekeh charged round the tank looking for more. "Poor Snekeh!" - Stupid Snekeh more like, she only tried to attack the wiggling fingers and smacked her head on the glass. But then she always does that. Snekeh had her lunch, so we went out for ours. We headed into town somewhat late, and met His Lordship whom had gone before us to pay in a cheque. Except the silly man had forgotten his wallet, so we had to do that anyway.
So after a slight detour, we ended up in Mocha cafe. I know, I know, I've mentioned it on a few occasions, but their hazelnut hot chocolate is the BEST! Mum was a little apprehensive (not many things meet her high standards) but I was confident, and rightly so. The owner's loud and cheerful South African manners and impeccably swirled cream toppings won her over. Even picky brother ate most of his dinner! My sister and I split two paninis half and half, salami and mustard in one, ham and cheese in the other - we all dined well. Just as well really, as we all hared off into Nine Springs to hide from my Stepdad! ( -50 points if you spot Mum!)
We spent some considerable time amusing the locals by going "under cover" in our best disguises. Mostly so that my Stepdad wouldn't get a good photo with his insane megayougettheideaflash. My sister definitely had the best, His Lordship had a similar oak twig and a maple leaf on his head, my brother had three large leaves of various species attached around his glasses, Mum was hiding in some lovely spiny chestnut and laurel leaves, I wandered round for some time oblivious of the nut-leaf Mum deposited in my hair and a large ... bouquet isn't quite the right word (or the right spelling I fear) of various colourful Autumn leaves. Stepdad was boring, just blasting us with high levels of light pollution from his large camera.
Nine Springs is truly quite beautiful, even at this time of the year, when the water has turned a chilly crystal clear and the spiralling bracken waves damp curls amongst the colourful leaflitter. The fish had converged in the main lake in a large, slowly shifting mass, something akin to watching a silver lava lamp. The smaller pond had a group of fish leaping out to snatch the small flies skittering across the surface - it kept us quite distracted for a while. Even when the kids threw in little pebbles, the big group of gently shifting fish paid it little heed, barring a slow, almost un-noticable slide further to the depths.
It was at this point the youngsters pegging in the pebbles noticed our "disguises", but sadly my brother had already wiped off his pen moustache. Talking of moustaches, the presentation of the fruit still continues; we were the proud owners of a large green watermelon called Sanchez. With a moustache. Of course.
I have been really good - I haven't opened my early Christmas presents yet!
Finally, I am a NeoMillionaire! Still a long way to go before I reach the best bank account, but then I am enjoying spending some of my hard earned neopoints! I've only been playing this game for the last seven and a half years... Selling off some of those codestones helped.
I seem to have developed a rather nice recipe for lemon cake. I'd give you the recipe, but it doesn't have one. I take a big glass pyrex dish, marg it up. Throw about a mug and a half of selfraising in a bowl, three eggs, a splash of milk, some lemon zest, about half a mug of marg and equivalent of sugar in, and mix. Splat some lemon curd in margy dish, throw in mix. Bung dish in microwave, give it about 10 mins or so, and mix some lemon juice, water, syrup and cornflour in a hot pan until it turns slightly jellyish. "I loved your cake. I like cake!" Pretty much the best review one could want. Hurray! We also tried a syrup version, and I intend to do a raspberry one next year. Thanks to Himself for the raspberry tree sketch.
Film: Mirrors. Quote: "ding ding ding ding ding" I liked it, especially the first boo. I can't believe everyone else fell for the second boo. You all should be embarrassed - I laugh at you.
HouseBunny: Sadly, not as funny as some previous Happy Madison films, and draws the attention of large groups of noisy, rustly women. "Better than I expected, quite humorous. Wasn't quite the normal thing I'd go and see." Well, it was a girly film. A case of, rather than stick it in the fruity, gamble your money on the film. It might be worth it, or alternatively, you've just lost a couple of quid.
Dragon Update: Tsammy Dragon is 18.5" long now, and loves his baths. I did him a fresh, slightly warm bath and he threw himself in. Sloshed water everywhere, scooching about with his head underwater, happily blinking and coming up to blow bubbles. Kuleana is her usual demure self, lounging comfortably in the soft dig of sand she's made in her tunnel, quietly observing the world. She can be tempted out with morios, but if she's in a real sulk, all a morio will do is tempt out a nose and a long sticky tongue... BLAT!
His "word" of the week: "Ucluxium - the stalky bit that snaps off a leaf." Disclaimer: NOT a real word. Yet.
Quote of the Day: "summon the seven dragons of reggae" - scientology quote from an IAB clip.
I'm technically a civil servant now! My company is heavily owned by the gvt, and we hit an all time low of 50p per share. Just to think, it was at 189p just before I left for holidays. I don't know, I take a week's holiday to do nothing, and the whole industry falls apart without me! My nan says "Serves you right for taking holidays!" Never mind, a nut doughnut is enough to make it better for me! (Image not actually my building, but a very cool building in London nearby my company HQ. They do the world window cleaning championships at this site by the way!)
I had to laugh when I went to visit my local petstore; I stopped to look at the adverts in the window, the usual puppies, kittens, small furry animals, when I noticed there was one proclaiming the merits of a rabbit. An Anne Summers rabbit! Another personal favourite when it comes to local shop signs has to be at the "Real China", a big Chinese style buffet house, with a slightly modified sign outside reading: "We Hop To See You!"
Word of the week: Gratisfaction. Self explanatory.
I also have an impressive collection of 59 codestones now!
Quote of the Day: "Oh, this looks quite good. Oh, that was quite good. Length of review directionally proportional to game." His Review of Jericho the Game.
Sods law for you, I get a weeks worth of holiday to relax and do little to nothing, and I get His cold. Oh well. I'm just glad not to be at work this week - the financial sector are in a bit of a flap. D'ya think this will be the "recession age"? I mean, we've had "Roaring Twenties, Turbulent Thirties, Swinging Forties, Nifty Fifties, Swinging Sixties, Super Seventies, Big Eighties, the Decade of Decadence"... Is this the "Niggling Noughties"? M'fishies have got a nice new tank layout - someone was getting rid of some tunnels for hamsters, so I bagsied them. The fish have now got a funky, brightly coloured pair of joined, slopy tubes and bends to swish around, sit on and sleep in. Erwin thinks they're great and has being going round and round and round as is his wont. He likes going in circles! Snekeh has a shiny new heatbulb (which I promptly burnt myself on "psssssht!") and is sleeping under her waterbowl. The dragons are just getting bigger.
Films: Taken: "About as scary as hiccups" sums it up nicely in His Lordship's words. Everybody was raving about it, I didn't think much to it. A bit too James-Bondey for me. Don't get me wrong, I like 007, but this was a bit... meh. An action flick with a predictable outcome. I liked the outfits in the sales scene though.
Righteous Kill: Al Pacino and Whatsisname - very good. It was a good laugh, a little predictable, but a worthy watcher. Considering it was free, it was nice for a bit of escapism, however His Lordship sums it up well: "It was... highly forgettable really. The kind of movie that I've watched, forgotten and not going to start raving to Joe Bloggs down the pub - it's just not worth the effort. It was a well directed, well acted peice of movistry, just something to watch."
Death Race: WooYEAH, NOW you're talking. Crammed full of special effects and enough C4 to knock me sideways (visually speaking) this was a proper treat. I was expecting something a bit cheesy, a bit 1980s, but this stomps all over such expectations and leaves you breathless. Please, please don't try to compare it to the original movie "Death Race 2000" - it's nothing as poor, nothing as tame. I was suitably marvelled and gobsmacked. Kudos. "Although there were more boobies in Death Race 2000. Just a statement of fact in comparison of the two." HL.
I have however prepared some of my Christmas presents and have started to design some cards; yes folks, this year you're getting home made ones! Talking of Christmas, I also started shopping for presents - so family, email me and let me know what you/who wants. I have a nice stack of things, but nowhere near finished. That includes you Mum! Whilst shopping, I did have a nice surprise however; I nipped into a charity shop to look for books and discovered a brooch identical to the one I already own. Bearing in mind I bought mine at an antiques store a year ago in Bath for £4, I thought it quite extraordinary to find the exact same design for the same price!
We got a reputed five years worth of good luck today, as returning on the boat, we waved up at the London Bridge and people waved back. (He and I were the only ones to try, so we get luck! Woot!) I did think the bridge sign was just a little obvious all considering, but then I suppose if you're not paying much attention to your surroundings or you're a disaster at directions like me, it could be handy. He thought the tour was quite cool, and came up with a lot of good facts. He does say: "London Bridge. Well, the sign's just a statement really. Why else would you need two bricks that tell you what it is? London. Almost a shame you have to spend money to actually get there."
The Aquarium has a lot of weird and wonderful animals to show, His Lordship discovered Indian Leaf fish and miniature bumblebee shrimp, jellyfish tumbler tanks and adored the rays as usual. I loved the big river tanks, complete with Stone Loaches (one of the Dojo family line). We had to agree, our joint favourite is the Heteroconger cobra. These sweet little fish are very nervous - we had to wait quite some time for them to be relaxed enough to come right out. When they are worried, they hide in their little tunnels, so it's very funny to see these little fish sliding up and down out of the sand!
Some fish clearly didn't appreciate their photo being taken, as these fellas prove; resolutely turning their backs to the camera and quietly focussing on the opposite direction. Although you can't tell from this direction, these guys are quite a metallic green and have big blue spots down their sides... "Oh, the sulky fish! I suppose they were quite nice, but they were just big fish. Big fish that ignored me." They're probably far too used to putting up with tourists with flash cameras. I don't use them round animals if I can help it, either that or I use a constant light so it doesn't scare them.
Quote of the Day: "YOU! Lizard with the beard! I seeeee you!" - Hank and the dragons.
We did go on the London Eye (and pay £8 for the privilege of owning a mass produced "personal memory" photo), then went to explore the London Aquarium (where they tried the same thing.)
Once you reach the vantagepoint at the top, the view from the Eye is quite spectacular: a grubby sprawl of buildings, hiding the treasures of ancient monuments and the diamond flashes of the tourist cameras, jewel moments among the kimberlite if you will... But I'm still disappointed that it isn't like it is on TV; the News and Documentaries show everything as so polished, so shiny, so close together - look here at St Pauls, here at Ben, here at yaddayaddayou get it. But it's not, it's scattered amongst grotty grey hulks of concrete and glass, even the greatest towers are subdued and overshadowed by scaffold and crane.
The tube experience is quite, quite unique. I had it in mind of something akin to your standard public transport train, your SouthWest Trains journey. However, even at it's busiest point, the rush-hour to Weymouth on a Friday evening, the SouthWest would still be beaten into submission in a head-to-head battle with the Underground. It's like a cattlevan, pink fleshy livestock crammed in willynilly, hurryhurry to get there fast. I'll give it that, it's a whole lot cheaper and a damn sight more efficient than the bus systems, and a lot more reliable than the black cabs (I won't even consider mentioning the charges for those!) but you really do have to take a deep breath.
Even as laid back as I am, I found myself swept up in the urgent nature of the city when trying to traverse the tube and on a couple of occasions, Himself and I almost ended up seperated by trains. It got to the point where we had to agree beforehand where we were going, and for the first one to arrive to wait for the second! His view on the whole thing: "Slow doooown!" At least you don't need to say that with the Eye.
Quote of the day: "Oh, this 3is3 si3lly!" Laptop seizures produce 3s.
I cannot believe just how BIG the place is. You couldn't do it in a couple of hours like so many people say you could. We spent about six hours there in all, and still we didn't see all of it! My feet hurt, but I didn't notice until much later, because it was just so breathtaking, so much to take in, so much to consider and converse upon. His Lordship noticed some lovely roundels set into the walls through some of the halls, and thought the silvery cubes of natural pyrite were the best, "like transformers" in its angularity. To give you an idea of the size of this rather fabulous cluster, each of those cubes are roughly... I'd say about fist-sized. So yes, it was a big, big chunk of raw, unprocessed beauty. I love the way Nature manages to give it such perfect angles and sleek, shimmery sides!
His Lordship still has a wonder for the bigger reptiles, so we spent a while peering at the marvellous remains of the dinosaurs. I never realised just how huge, or how small, the variety in general. I mean, I liked dinosaurs when I was little, but WOW! The triceratops's horns are wider than my calf, and the beak of this prehistoric bird thing we saw was longer than His arm and a about the same again deep. He liked "all the skeletons they had there and stuff in the giant rahhh section, it was cool to see all the skeletamanons and the coolness and stuff. It was cool, just all the ewrrrrr and aaaaauuuuurrrr, you know." Complete with claw-hand gesture-suggestions.
The modern day reptiles collection was a little small, and the poor old beardie they had on display wasn't the finest of it's kind, but then I suppose that's understandable. I prefer mine alive and interactive really! Talking of lizards, Kyle didn't half sulk when we got home, she doesn't like it when we leave her for a few days, even when she has Hank for company. However, the shingle skink was a nice example, it's head and tail were the same size - to confuse predators. (Sadly the camera went flat, so here's a nice Mesolite crystalform for you. He says it's a very "cute" peice.) There were all kinds of animals, birds, crustaceans... He liked the Alaskan King Crab, I felt sorry for the Griffin Hawk and we both had a chuckle when He stood next to one bird and asked "So which one's the Dodo?"
We also spent some time having a good poke about in the sparklies section, for all of you know my love of true gems. My personal favourite is Hope; the cursed dark blue diamond, she brings fever, death and destruction. At 45.52 carats, she's said to be the biggest of her kind, however the curse isn't truly accepted. Said to be stolen from a great Hindi statue, but the other eye has never been found. Sadly, the photo didn't work out as it was such a dark blue, so here's an amazing HUGE opal boulder.
Talking of colours, I recently discovered they used more C4 explosives in the Dulux paint explosion advert than they did on that "Saving Private Ryan" film, which is quite impressive! "Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde. Here's a question for Mr Wilde, would the C4 spoil the colour, or doesn't that count? In the meantime, as we wait for time travel to be developed, here's a nice little shot of some unusual pink, white and black metamorphic granite... P.S, it's about six foot tall. That's some rock!
I also adored the Pain collection of Burmese sapphires and Pigeon rubies, as shown in all their funky brights in this clip.
"Abra-ca-duh!" Amy Wong as the Cute Fairy Of The North, Futurama.
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!
We did see the new James Bond, Quantum of Solace. If I'm being nice, I'd say it wasn't so much "Bond, James Bond!" as "Bland, very Bland." The girls were a little mediocre, the ripoffs just a little too obvious, the product placement too blatant, the effects just a little too much and the story just a little too bland.
