Der spring is sprung, der grass is riz.

So, after the bubble was back all week, I'm feeling a lot better now. Thankfully.
I guess I'm lucky in a way - my depression has lessened a lot over the last few years, and I seldom feel that bad any more.

I was talking to Nettie the other day, and I said that, whilst I was planning on mentioning the d-word in this week's post, I wasn't intending to write solely about it. Because... well, to address the depression directly, and to put it in words from Labyrinth:

"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me."

So, on that note - onwards!

Real psychics: Criminal profiling and the F.B.I. A fascinating read.

On Saturday, we didn't do much - we just did some grocery shopping and popped down to Portobello to go to the butcher. All their meat is amazing, but I have discovered my new favourite type of sausage (pause for childish sniggering), Pork and Lanark Blue. My parents came round for dinner, and to watch the rugby, and to play Disappointing Mr Woods (AKA: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 on the Wii). I made a slightly experimental dinner of pasta with creme fraiche, Casalingo Piccante sausage, chicken breast, mushroom and leek. It seemed to be highly popular.

Today we actually, finally, went to the exhibitions we have been meaning to visit for weeks. The Young Vermeer was very interesting, even though it was only three paintings. His use of light is fascinating to me. The Jean-Marc Bustamante one was... well, not really to my taste, although I could see where he was coming from in terms of his themes.

I think this might be my favourite restaurant sign of all time, and I had to get a picture of it before someone buys the premises and rips it down.
Fear the... STEAKBURGERMASTER!

Ok, this is just odd. Whatever shop or cafe or whatever that used to be here closed down. And now there is a raggedy door that looks like it was hacked through the security shutters. I realise it's not very clear, but all there is inside are cardboard boxes and big industrial wholesale bags of bread rolls. Some secret sandwich-making cabal, maybe?

Matt 1) is interested in the sweet shop

and 2) ain't afraid of no ghost.

*does air quotes*
For "cash".

I asked Matt to take a photo of me. He took a photo of my legs.

Maybe it's Spring. Maybe. Hopefully.
It seems like it's been a long winter.

Bacterial Culture

Our method of celebrating Valentine's Day was met with more than a few raised eyebrows when we were asked about it.
I e-mailed Matt a little picture of a zombie.

Matt responded by sending me a copy of a scientific study theorising the hypothetical real-world spread of zombieism.
I made him dinner. He surprised me with three zombie DVDs.

Of course, this was to do with the fact that Monday was also Zombie Appreciation Day.
And, as you all know, we don't take our Zombie Appreciation lightheartedly!

Bear in mind that Matt has a proper businessman-esque job in a huge (poss. evil) important corporation, yeah?

On Monday, in response to some talk about Valentine's Day during the big weekly teleconference thing, he said (to 40 or so colleagues based all over the UK) "And, if you aren't into that, today is also Zombie Appreciation Day!" Apparently he got a couple of "Oh, your poor partner" style comments, but then he said "But if she hadn't told me, I wouldn't even have known about it!"

I could not stop laughing when he told me about it. I suspect he will henceforth be treated with a certain amount of suspicion from some parties.

I was going to write today about culture. Our plan for yesterday was to go out to the Fruitmarket Gallery to see an exhibition of Jean-Marc Bustamante's work. We were going to follow that up with a visit to the National Gallery to see The Young Vermeer exhibition. Then, five minutes before we were due to leave, I realised that the freezer had managed to get unplugged (due to me tripping over the cord on Friday evening) and half our food had defrosted. So, instead of a day of art, I had a day of chucking food in the bin and cooking whatever I could save. Oh well, we've rescheduled for next week.

(I also had the delight of finding a mouldy half-bag of raw lamb mince in our kitchen bits 'n' bobs drawer. The only explanation is that, when I had used half of it, I went into the drawer to find a plastic clip to seal the bag shut, then just absent-mindedly dropped the bag into the drawer, instead of putting it in the freezer. Yay.)

Other than all that fun, we pretty much just spent the weekend playing computer games and napping. I just woke up from my second nap of the day, which means Sunday counts as a big WIN on that front!

Ok, I'm going to draw this rambly, non-cohesive blog post to an end, I think. Maybe next week I'll have something a little more... cogent to say. Have a picture of a very odd tattoo, and I'll talk to you later.

see more Ugliest Tattoos

How I hurt my shoulder. This time.

Ok, so we're all agreed that 'The Empty Child' is the scariest episode of NuWho, right?
Well, when I say 'all agreed', I mean 'I definitely think this'. It's seriously the scariest thing I've seen on TV as an adult.

So, Matt and I were watching it the other day, and then decided that of course we should watch the concluding part ('The Doctor Dances'), as then everything would be ok.
About halfway through TDD, I got up to make a cup of tea.

Matt was jokingly telling me not to leave him alone where the gas mask zombies could get him, so I thought I would go and fetch the big plastic sword we'd bought at Halloween so he had something to defend himself with if they did happen to show up. Which I did not expect them to.
So I went to dig it out from behind the bookcase in the bedroom (I have no idea why it was in the bedroom - I think it might have been a previous defending-from-monsters incident).

Unbeknownst to me, Matt had come to the door to see what I was up to. And was standing there, half hidden by the door. Silently.

Do you see where I'm going with this?
I turned round and saw someone where I hadn't expected to see someone.
I made a noise. It was sort of a cross between a scream and a battle cry. And I flailed (if you were here, I'd re-enact it, but you're not, so you'll just have to imagine it. If you've ever met me, it's not hard to imagine), and ended up with the sword pointing at Matt's head.
What the hell I was going to do if he were actually a gas mask zombie, I have no idea, seeing as it's a plastic sword.
I'm vaguely proud that my first instinct was not to curl into a ball, but to threaten the supposed monster.
All this took about a second, and then I had to have a nice sit down until my heart stopped hammering.

And then I discovered I'd strained the muscle in my shoulder again. Yay me.

Matt and I may just be nerds.

Or geeks. Or whatever.
I was making dinner this evening, and I suddenly thought "I haven't shown my friends my life-sized cardboard cutout of R2D2!"
(Photo taken from above...)

And then I got distracted by other things.

My DS with Star Wars and Doctor Who styluses.
On top of our TV.
I love that Spiderman is kissing Iron Man's shoulder.


RoboCow (MOO) lives on top of the microwave.

A pile of books that I've been reading (amongst others) over the last couple of weeks.


D&D books and playstation controller.



Cerberus guards our door.








Matt took this photo. I think he thought it was nerdy because of the dice. I love that he didn't notice it's even nerdier because we roll our dice in the lid for a Star Wars RPG.

And I thought I was exaggerating. And then Matt pointed out we were wearing these:
Me, a Dalek necklace.

Matt, a SNES t-shirt.

Just some links 'n' that.

Sam died yesterday afternoon, and I'm not really feeling like a big blah-blah-blah talky post, so I'll just leave you with some links and stuff. Hopefully I'll get something more up over the course of the week.

I've spent today, thanks to Nettie, reading all The Oatmeal's comics. I think The Bobcats is my favourite.

I'm still loving Epbot - it features all my favourite things, although Jen (on whom I have a huge internet nerd-crush) is keen on Disney memorabilia, which I am... not.

Which reminds me... some of the toys collectables that we own.
Our new shelves with my Consolidator, and Messrs Cook and Cox; and with a Dalek, Ultra-Magnus, and a Domo-kun.

Eve and Wall-E (yes, ok, they're Disney items), Sackboy and Sackbot (from LittleBigPlanet), Scuttler the Butler and Mr Head (by Doktor A.).

I'll leave you with this Cyanide and Happiness comic (which is for my good friend David, who keeps trying to persuade me to smoke a pipe):

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Talk to you soon.