Hieronymus Anonymous: June 2006

Right, I'm off.

I'm heading down to the South of England tomorrow for a family get-together for my granny's 80th (Shout out for the birthday girl!) and will be away about a week. I probably won't be in cyberspace during that time, but I'll bring back tiffin and photographs for all*.

* Not actual tiffin**.
** Not necessarily actual photographs.

Bye, my chickadees, and behave whilst I'm gone!

I started a joke.

I am currently listening to I Started a Joke by the BeeGees over and over again. I don't know why.

How dodgy are you? I got 26 and a half years in prison and a £2000 fine.

Geeky, and terribly un-PC. But still funny. And you can vote on whether you like them or not.

Horror movie reviews. Not the most sparkling I've ever seen, but worth a read, if that's your thing.

Quote of the day!
"Easy? Only if you're a pain master." - Football and Poker Legends' Cup.

Blibblibblibble. Indeed.

*It was nice of my friend at work to try to find me an umbrella when I was leaving work, it was raining, and I had no coat or umbrella. However, the umbrella he brought out was about the size of a two-man tent, every time the wind blew it nearly lifted me off my feet, and it kept collapsing painfully on my head.
So, A., next time I say that it's fine and I'll just get wet instead, just let me, rather than forcing my crappy middle-class-guilt to accept the huge flying tent of death. But it was a really nice thought.

*So... who wouldn't want a sushi necklace? Or a soda can bracelet? Or a neon junk food necklace? Not me. I love these things with a passion... and they ship to the UK! Yes!
Although, I just went to see how much all the stuff I liked cost - $65.93 plus $12.99 postage and packaging. Yeesh. That's nearly 43 quid.

*I actually found a way to enjoy Big Brother! Well, the American version at least. There's a website named Television Without Pity, which has some excellent recapping of rather a large number of TV shows (Check out the Dr Who ones.) I was bored, so I started reading their BB ones. I'm now onto the third series. These people, with their sarcasm and humour, fleeting affections and pinpointed snark, have made the show interesting!

I found this interesting (and so true!). They are talking about a girl who really likes a guy, despite the fact he's mean to her.

People who don't think very much of themselves don't really expect people to like them for who they are, and they don't trust anyone who does. So they hope to find people who don't actually think very much of them either, but like them anyway. People with crappy self-images are incredibly vulnerable to this particular line of bull -- "Oh, you're such a fuck-up, but I still love you." It still allows them to consider themselves fuck-ups, which keeps them within their comfort zone, while offering a weird sort of positive feedback, which they also want. Furthermore, most people's great fear is that no one really knows or understands them, and so if you think you suck, someone who also thinks you essentially suck but is still willing to be your friend has a certain unavoidable appeal -- he might not like you, but at least he gets you. Once you figure it out, you notice it's incredibly insulting, because it's basically someone telling you that they, in their overwhelming generosity, will forgive you for who you are.

I know people like both of those...

*Here's a couple of blurry pictures of Hastings. Bask in her loveliness!

Gnome-on-a-stick, man! Gnome. On. A. Stick.

I am just back from the event I was assisting at. The outdoor event. Where it rained heavily. I don't want to talk about it.

Our gnome has gone missing. We had a little two inch gnome-on-a-stick (you pushed the stick into the soil to keep the gnome upright), which we'd put in the shelter of a sage bush, and we've noticed this week that it's missing. It's either those bastard kids, or we're going to start getting ransom notes or travel pictures.

Kind of out of context thing, but there was no context (for Matt) in the first place:

*Me sitting on the bus with Matt, silently staring out the window*
Me: "Why do all the burgers have eyes?"
*Matt looks blankly at me*
Me: "The burgers! Have eyes!"
*Matt gives me a yes-dear sort of look*

Finito.

Liszt

1. I am working tomorrow. Yippedy-fucking-doodah.

2. We were walking down the road this evening and a pink limo went past with the required trollops hanging out of the window screaming and drinking. One of them shrieked at us and, when we didn't respond, came out with

"Fuck you, you smelly _____!"

Now, the saddest part of this whole exchange was that we missed the last word of the insight due to her slurring. How am I meant to know how I am to think of myself is she doesn't enunciate properly?

3. We were at Rowenna and Chris' house. We had a barbecue and watched Coneheads. Nyeh. Didn't do it for me. It's too shallow a gag (people are immersed in a culture they don't understand and make amusing errors in etiquette. Hilarity ensues.) to sustain my interest. As ever, YMMV.

4. My friend Capper randomly asked Matt and I to go shopping yesterday. We got technology and books. Capper kindly bought me a USB cup warmer for my tea. I stand by my assertation that it's the second most useless invention ever. Fun to play with, though.

5. We have a pet rat. Hastings is an albino fancy rat. The fur on her head is thinner, so she has a pink head. Mondo cuteo. She's about 4-6 inches long, depending if she's hunched or stretched, and her tail's about 5 or 6 inches long. I did already take photos, but I think I left my camera at Rowenna's house. Bugger.

Ok, I'm off to stalk the rat. Later!

ETA: The kettle isn't working! The kettle! Surely, 'tis the end of the world!
*weeps for her lost tea, and goes to check the seas for signs of boiling blood*

Dis-jointed, de-jointed, un-jointed and sub-jointed.

Today it is warm and sunny and beautiful. I am highly suspicious.

On the way to work, the sun was beating down on my head (a little too strongly, if you must know), but now that I'm ensconsed in my office, the view out of the window (and what a view it is, ladies and gentlemen) seems a little on the grey and cloudy side.

Anyway, enough of that.
So, what's new? How are you? I love your shoes. Have you been working out?

We're going to go see the ever talented and enthusiastic Laugh Like Pa play again tonight. Should be entertaining.
Note to self: don't heckle. This time.

What else?
Well, I need to get a bigger cup for tea at work, so I don't spend the entire day boiling the kettle every three minutes like some crazed tea-monkey. Seriously, the cup I'm using at the moment is about half the size of an average mug, and y'all know I've got to drink at least three pints of tea a day (and make sure my speed doesn't drop below 50mph) so that I don't explode.

Ok, a distraction...

Here's some old pictures I found. When I say 'old', I mean they were taken at Christmas (except for the one of Matt, which was taken earlier). Bear in mind that I was coming down with flu at that point last year, so that's why the photos are fuzzy. Because of the flu. Yup.

Matt and Mouse (with blue hair) playing on toy diggers.

David hanging out.

Huw hurdling like a mofo.

Matt colouring in at the opening of one of our exhibitions.

I think everyone knows I've put 'Shoal' up on Litmocracy. Fingers crossed.

Ok, that'll do for now.

When we were very young...

I've just realised I've been writing bollocks on this page for over a year now. I've whinged, whined, complained and moaned. I've put up pictures of Dead Pigeons, people, graffiti, shoes, buildings, furniture, gardens, donkeys and many more.
Well, Happy Birthday (for last Friday) to my blog. It's put up with a lot.

Now read something of literary merit.

The Feeling Of Power by Isaac Asimov.

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke.

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

Conversationalising

I tend to have a really bad case of what Mimi Smartypants calls 'Slumber Party Syndrome', where I can be practically dead on my feet, but as soon as I'm in bed, I get all chattery and giggly.

Well, we're sleeping on the floor at the moment (don't ask - it's too long to explain, and it's uninteresting), and I was lying there last night, looking up at my bookcases.

Me: You know, I assume that one day those will fall over on me and smash my head in. [pause] Y'know, brains all coming out of my ears. That would be ironic, I suppose.
Matt: In what way ironic?
Me: Well... umm... live by the book, die by the book.
Matt: Ye-e-e-es.
Me: Or I'm going to die in that lift at my work.
Matt: Well, do you live by it?
Me: Within walking distance!
Matt: Well then. You'll die within walking distance of the lift.

Me: How come nobody ever goes for the 'live by the oxygen, die by the oxygen' quote? Because I'm pretty sure it assists my living.
Matt: Live by the electrical impulses in the brain, die by the electrical impulses in the brain?
Me: Can the body survive unaided when the brain is dead? Wait, no, of course not. Ignore that. There was that chicken, though, who got his head cut off and lived because he had just enough brains left.
Matt: He seemed like quite a happy chicken.

Me: Humans have some weird internal organs, don't they... ummm, I mean, we?
Matt: Yes. Yes they.. we do.
Me: Obviously I am 100% a human person.
Matt: A human person chock full of traditional human organs.
Me: Indeed. You should know that I feel strong affectionate emotions for you, male bonded partner.
Matt: I, too, feel strong affectionate human emotions for you, female bonded partner.
Me: Human emotions. Very important.

And then it was 2am, and now I'm virtually sleep-typing. Go me.

They deep fried the King...

I've not really been up to much over the past few days. Looking after Matt, who has the plague, working, pottering.

I don't know whether it's a downwards slump after the excitement of the visit, but the whole thing just feels like a dream now, and that in fact I spent those days at my desk, plugging away, doing the same old, same old, as I will do until I die. Nothing ever significantly changes (for the better, anyway).

Well, that was a vacuum of cheerfulness, don't you think? A tad of a pit of black despondancy? A hint of the old saturninity? (Someone prise me out of the thesaurus, please.)

Ach, I don't know.

I'm not suicidal or anything (what's the point?), just depressed.

Have some links, and just let me cry quietly here in the corner for a bit, 'k?

Illusions.

Narratives of the weird. Ye-e-e-e-es.

Box o' one thousand sporks.

Proverbs from Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac