Water, water everywhere...

I was in Boots today looking for some Germolene to sooth my allergies. I haven't been doing wonderfully at remembering to wear my laptop gauntlets, so I'm practically ripping my wrists off with the scratching.

I was wandering around, waiting for the assistant to finish dealing with the one other customer who was there, and I picked up their "Hot Weather Cooling Spray". It's £3.89, and the front of the bottle boasts:

• Instantly cools
• CFC free and non-toxic
• Safe to use on the skin
• Does not discolour fabrics
• Dermatologically tested and hypo-allergenic

Fair enough, thought I, and turned the bottle around to read the ingredients. Lo and behold, there was only one. Aqua.

I was chatting to the assistant, and I asked her if they were seriously selling a 125ml spray bottle of water for nearly four pounds. She tried to tell me that it was a novelty item, but at least she admitted it was ridiculously priced.

Shame on Boots!

Cafepress

I'm really wanting to move on with my cafepress shop, as so often people say of my drawings "That would look great on a t-shirt!" and that way, I could point them towards somewhere they could get one (cheeky, I know, but what the hey...)

Two problems.

Firstly, when my old computer died, it wiped all the scans I had done.

Secondly, I can only have one design per product per shop, if I don't want to upgrade to Premium. I don't want to do that because I drastically doubt that I'd make enough money to cover the charge (I'll be surprised if I make any money, to be honest.) So I'd have to set up a separate shop for each design I want to use.

So I have to scan everything again (300dpi - I'm remembering, Carlotta!), choose which ones I want to use, work out what products I want to put them on, then set up shops for each design.

This all seems like a lot of work all of a sudden.

My deviantART page is here, if anyone has any suggestions as to which designs should be put on products.

And now I'm off to hook up the scanner to the laptop, and settle down to an evening of re-scanning.

R.I.P. Whit

Whit had become swollen around the stomach and bony elsewhere. We found he had started to have diarrhea on Friday morning. Friday afternoon we took him to the vet, and he was found to have a massive lump that would have killed him slowly and painfully. We had to have him euthanised.

He had a full military funeral yesterday. He was an excellent Morale Officer / Hostage Negotiator, and everyone loved him. We'll miss him. A lot.

I found these pictures of a jaunt outside he had a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd post them.









Bye, Whit.

The Weekend - now with EXTRA BRACKETS!

We had a Eurovision party this weekend.
It was pretty good - we had alcohol and food and score cards.
Each country's entry was marked out of 10 for each of: Performance, Costume, Lyrics, Tunefulness, Dance routine, Homo-eroticism, and Cheesiness.
You then added up the points for the categories to find your final score for that country.

Almost everybody ended up with Sweden as top of their marks and, disturbingly, Scooch came quite high up on most lists, probably due to them getting very high marks in the final two categories. As it happened, Serbia won (what a shock), and Sweden came 18th. The UK came in at joint 22nd out of 24 (IN YOUR FACE, Ireland! Please note that this is a joke. Don't hurt me.)

Matt ended up winning the challenge, as his top song came highest up (I believe it was FYR Macedonia, who came 14th) ETA: Matt informs me his top marks in fact went to Finland. They came 17th.

Since (as I may have mentioned before, just once or twice) I'm annoyed that Switzerland didn't get through with their hilarious song "Vampires are Alive", here's a Sims video someone made for it...

Yesterday we (Matt, Mouse, Mouse's husband and I) went out to Lauriston Castle for the Japanese Blossom Festival. If possible, the weather was actually worse than last year. It was cold and windy, and rained pretty much the whole time. We had a wander about, then watched some Taiko drummers who (truth be told) weren't terribly good. It started raining harder around the time they finished, so we decided to go and do the 'Butterfly Trail', which was a walk around the edges of the estate, where luckily it was mostly tree-shaded. The trail was aimed at kids, but we still had fun.

Then we all came back to our house and had hot chocolate and watched TV.
It was fun.

Ok - a few pictures.

Taiko drumming in the drizzle.


All the others shivering in the rain.


Mouse and Matt being proud of their correct answer on the trail.


Oh, and for those who missed it... lolhamster.

Nigeria

Now, we all know about Nigerian (or '419') scams.

I was thinking about them today as I had a work email from someone who had fallen for it completely. He wanted to know whether it was legit, because he'd already sent them all his information, except for his bank details. I responded quite firmly that it was a classic of the genre, pointed him towards the page where snopes cover them in detail, and strongly advised him to not give them his bank details.

He had sent the original email on Friday, I had responded on Sunday, and I got an email back today. He said that since he hadn't received a response from me (I guess a day and a half is too long to wait to find out whether someone's trying to nick all your money), and although he thought it was probably a scam, he'd gone ahead and sent (and this is my favourite bit) his wife's account details (although not her SWIFT code).

And now, of course, he's freaking out because the scammers have their details, and he doesn't know what to do.

I... have mixed feelings about this issue. I'm pleased he decided to find out from a relevant source whether this was a real offer or not (although if he'd tried some googling, it might have been quicker) but then his actions after that just have me shaking my head in puzzlement.

The other reason I've been thinking about them is that... well, they have furnished my brain with a delightful mental picture of what Nigeria should be like. Filled with beautiful princesses, assassinations, nighttime smuggling runs with diamond filled small planes taking off from lush jungles, swarthy men with big moustaches, machine guns, political intrigue, rich ambassadors with dark secrets in their pasts... Indiana Jones or James Bond-like, really.

That would be fun...

Goon 1: "Well, what have you got on Wednesday?"

Goon 2: "Let me see... ok." *flicks through his diary* "Assassination, assassination, diamond run, then back home just in time for an assignation with a princess..."

Goon 1: "Damnit. I was hoping you might be able to cover for my 3.40 attempted assassination gig. Jim's wife is due on Wednesday, and I said I might be able to cover his shift at the gold mines. I've been growing my moustache especially."

Goon 2: "I might be able to fit it in on my way to the plane..."

Let's talk about health, baby...

Sorry for the lack of content. I swear I'll get around to writing a proper post one of these days. One with pictures, or descriptions of what I've been up to, or the semi-coherant rambling that you've all grown to know and cope with.

But, to be honest, that's not occupying my mind right now.

Ok, everyone knows about my pregnancy scare a couple of weeks back, yes?
A week and a half of cramps.

Y'know, I'd prefer that to this.
I had a lump. I went to the nurse and she gave me antibiotics.
They worked a bit. The lump is less swollen and painful than it was.

But since I finished the course of antibiotics, I have come up in more lumps.
A couple in my underarm, one on my pelvis, and one somewhere I shan't specify.

I saw the nurse again today, and she says that they all seem to be different things.
She doesn't know why they've all popped up (no pun intended) at the same time, and she's quite concerned about it.

I gave urine (peeing in a tube is quite difficult) and she extracted two vials of blood.

Basically, she thinks my immune system is fucked.

So, they're testing for diabetes, plus many other exciting (I'm sure) problems.

Y'know, this combined with my exciting new-found migraine trigger of citrus, my aching joints, my cramps (thanks, fucking menstruation), and my weariness...

Oh, and not to forget my racing brain that makes me unable to sleep and makes me post at this hour?

Well, it brings to you the delightful mix of manias that is this entry.

Why am I even going over this? It's not like people who aren't friends of mine read the damn thing...