The Perfect U.F.O.

1. The definition of lalochezia is?:
a) Using foul language to relieve stress.
b) Addiction to citrus flavoured vodka.
c) Inability to think before speaking.
d) Compulsion to take photographs of dead avians.

Guesses please (no googling or suchlike)...

2. Thing that was shouted at me by workmen:
"Without those boots I bet you're about 4 foot 5 tall!" Made me laugh, and that's all I ask from my random encounters with labourers (not encounter encounters, obviously. Because I don't do that, good girl that I am. That didn't need explaining, did it? Oh well.)

3. I miss you guys.
That is all.

4. Photos.
Silly version: just to stymie you, here's some photos that aren't of the trip.

Serious version: I'm having a few problems with my home computer, and it's taking me an age to resize the ones from the visit, so here's a bunch of graffiti and stuff to hopefully keep you occupied whilst I get the other photos done. Look! Shiny things!

Feet.


Edinburgh doesn't really have a large Polish population. Maybe they meant 'polish'.


A torn piece of cigarette paper that looked like a ghost...


I think this may be the 'leet speak' of graffiti.


Ummm... this was under the BDP a while back.


On the pedestal of one of the Cow Parade cows.


I just think this one's pretty.


SuperMoist.


No takers for such a suave chat-up line?


Punctuation is for conformos! Not for the children of the revolution!


I'll be back in black soon.

Smile, nod and back away.

Oh gosh, how to start this?
Well, firstly, I was hesitant to even post about the gathering. Not because it sucked; quite the opposite. I had an absolute blast and I am worried I'll miss bits out.

Oh well.
What did we do? It's easier to tell you what we didn't, to be honest. Under the 'what we didn't' category comes 'finding any proof of anything paranormal', for a start. No Nessie, no poltergeists, no ghosts, no nothing. Shame, really.

What we did includes: Going to a goth club; visiting pirates; going on ghost tours (including taunting the ghosts and many members of our group being used as props for the tour guides to demonstrate methods of murder and torture); having a Mongolian Feast; whisky tasting (some of us); going to museums; climbing the 'Big Hill'; wandering around graveyards; playing with a Victorian electro-shock machine (so, so cool); watching a lot of Aussie and Brit comedy; visiting Loch Ness*; getting pointed at by a man with a fabulous beard in the 3D Loch Ness experience; watching the scary clock; eating a hell of a lot of pizza; getting a talk from Gordon Rutter; going to Starbucks (blech!); cow-spotting (the Cow Parade is on at the moment); walking up a lot of hills; and probably a lot of other things that have slipped my mind for the moment.

*We had the most wonderfully charming tour guide when we went on a cruise round the Loch. His name was George Edwards, and he sounded like Sean Connery. He was also the guy who discovered the deepest part of the Loch. So, the monologue went something like:

Yesh, when I dishcovered the deepesht part of the loch, they named it after me. That'sh becaushe I dishcovered it, you shee. It'sh called the Edwardsh Deep, becaushe my name ish George Edwardsh, and I dishcovered it.

He also may have mentioned once or twice (or three or four or five times) that he doesn't like to call them Nessies, or the Loch Ness monsters, because that's not their real name. They're the Eioch Uisge, or Water Horse (Horshe?).

So, we all bonded pretty much instantly, which was good, and now I think of Sarah, Nettie, Amber, Rowenna and I as 'The Coven'. I'm making sure I have a mental post-it telling me not to drop too many of the incredible number of in-jokes into general conversation (The Line, anyone?), but I can't make any promises.

We had an absolutely fantastic time, and I can't even begin to describe how much I enjoyed it. I'm so very, very glad that I got to meet all these wonderfully cool and quirky people, but it's going to be difficult to get used to them all being on different continents again. It's all so quiet round our way now, what with it only being Matt and I. Matt was very brave and tolerant of us all, and I must commend him on his patience.

I'm a bit down currently, due to the weirdness of it all being over, but I'll survive. Photos will follow, I promise.

Hello again, all you otherkin.

I shall cry doom, and you shall dance on my grave.

This time tomorrow.
This time tomorrow.
This time tomorrow.
This time tomorrow.

Nettie will be here.

I know everyone knows that I'm going to be busy this next week and a half or so.
Mostly because 90%* of my viewing public will be here. Physically.
Shit, I'm terrified.

*Not an actual statistic.

Anyway, for anyone else, I pledge this.
I promise to attempt a couple of updates. Possibly even with photos. Oh, the excitement.

I'll be back as per usual in a short while.

Love, hugs, and smoochie boochies,
Me.
XXX

Faceblind.

I'm astounded that I never knew this until mouse told me about it.

I know, I know, most of you have already been ranted to about this, but this is my daft little corner of cyberspace, and I can write what I want. So there.

I'm faceblind. Not seriously faceblind, to the extent of not recognising myself, but I can't 'see' faces.

Prosopagnosia is the medical term, and if it's adult onset ('acquired prosopagnosia') it tends to be caused by head trauma, stroke, or degenerative diseases. Did I hear a bingo! there, for that middle one? Thought so. It must have been the first stroke, now I think about it.

I'd never really thought about my complete inability to remember faces. To use the same example I have been using all weekend, if Matt went away for a week, I wouldn't be able to remember what he looked like. I would have to go by hair, clothes, gait, mannerisms, voice... I'm starting to realise that's not normal, as I'd assumed.
(You: Duh!)

So! I have been doing quite a bit of research on this, surprise surprise.
Let's see now...

We have the Prosopagnosia Research Centres.
This guy has a much more serious form of it.
A Times article.

Ach, if you're interested, I'm sure you can do your own research. The wiki article's quite interesting, if short (Like me! Ohohohoho!).

So, this is one of the major reasons I'm so scared of people visiting. We may talk online in various formats, we may talk on the phone, I may have seen pictures, I may have seen you on webcam. But I don't know what you look like.

So, do me a favour, ok guys? Look for the smallish girl dressed in black, wearing a tiara and holding a sign with your name on. And please, please don't be offended if I look at you unrecognisingly*.

*Not actually a word.

Plus, the dictionary.com thesaurus reference for 'unrecogni(z)/sing says :

1 entry found for unrecognizing.
Main Entry: oblivious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: ignorant
Synonyms: absent, absent-minded, absorbed, abstracted, amnesic, blind*, blundering, careless, deaf*, disregardful, distracted, dreamy, forgetful, forgetting, gone, heedless, inattentive, incognizant, inconversant, insensible, neglectful, negligent, overlooking, preoccupied, regardless, spacey*, strung out*, unacquainted, unaware, unconcerned, unconscious, undiscerning, unfamiliar, uninformed, uninstructed, unknowing, unmindful, unnoticing, unobservant, unrecognizing, unwitting, zonked*

Blundering? Negligent? See, this doesn't help with my worries.

I'm bored.

Somebody amuse me. There's nothing to do on this interwebby thing.

Here's a fun fact - one week from now everyone will be here except for Alex.
Ahh, now I have something to do. Hyperventilation should keep me occupied for the next hour or two.

My brain, it is sticky.

Death - Emily Dickenson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, be passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Hours of entertainment if sung to the tune of I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.

Links!

Can you stay alive?

I've never even heard of most of these programmes, but I still liked the reviews.

Woogle. Difficult to describe, but it occupied me for a couple of minutes.

Awwww! My Little Tony!

Edinburgh. (Your milage may vary.)

Tramp camp, sans tramp.


Some random things...








Graffiti!


(And this was the whole graffiti, by the way...)


BDP! Oh yes.

Now, as most of you know, the BDP was netted off beneath the girders, thus cruelly robbing the Pigeons of their chance of victory against the Seagulls. Well, two things.

1) NEW DEAD PIGEON!
This poor bugger somehow managed to get between the netting and the girders and apparently starved to death. It's now lying on the netting, and I'm being pretty damned careful not to walk beneath it, especially when it starts to moulder.




2) The Seagulls aren't looking quite so cocky, now that their warehouse (see here, here and here) is being knocked down.




And Finally...

...and just briefly... I have a little statcounter gizmo thing which gives me... well, stats on who's been visiting my page. You know, what country they're from and so on. I've been noticing a fairly large number of repeat visitors that are coming from places where I don't actually know anybody.

So, to my mysterious anonymous lurkers... Hello!
That is all.

Badly Drawn Boy

Does anyone still play that game (what is it called, anyway?) where one person draws the head of a monster, folds the paper over, the next draws a torso and folds the paper over, and the third draws the legs?

You then unfold it and hilarity ensues.

Well, I found some that Matt, one of my brothers and I did when we were bored a couple of summers back. They are below, for your delectation or mocking. Whichever.

Due to the graphic nature of this post, viewer discretion is advised.
If you are likely offended by badly drawn illustrations of genitalia, look away now.













Oh, and a diagram H. kindly drew for Matt and I showing, ummm, intimate relations between 'woman and Dobbin'.


Sorry, a better post will be along soon. Probably. Maybe. Possibly.
I wouldn't hold your breath, if I were you.