Mostly lemon based

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  • What’s that you say? I’m meant to be getting rid of crap?

    Well, I saw it, see, and despite my ‘getting rid of crap’ plan I asked for it, I mean, I never thought I’d get it.

    Look! Over there! A Really damn cool video.

    Yeah, um, I might have got a 21″ monitor… that goes with the other 21″ monitor. Freakily, my room now has compaq and digital logos. I may also have, well, bought a FX 5500 dual head graphics card. I better edit some damn video now :-)

    Of course, with Pride coming up… well… It *is* traditional.

    It took me about an hour of solid pissing about to cram the monitor into the ‘space’ of my desk. When I say space. Let’s just say, it’s a little tight in here now.

    The office with two monitors of doom.

    Clicky for the big version.

    It’s a bizzare feeling to be surrounded by a mixture of anicent and modern. My main monitor is made by a company subsumed by the company who made the monitor next to it, which was again consumed by the company that made the printer to the right of them. The tech in here ranges from the 30s (the fan on the window sill) through to the printer (last year) and the keyboard (this year). A lot of it’s second user (the laser under the desk, both monitors, the fan, the light, the speakers, the camera used to take the picture, the chair, most of the folders, the mic… Anyway, so that’s my office. I can’t wait to get a graphics card with working XP drivers; and having dual head. Ooooh. I am still a geek somewhere deep down. It should make editing video that bit easier anyway :-)

  • I’ve always wanted…

    …to make a film. And I can say that honestly. When I was in my teens I laid my hands on a 8mm cine camera and made a film with my friends (no, I won’t be sharing that). And the film bug bit me. But I can’t write. I really, really have no apptitude for script writing. Well, for any kind of narritive writing, fiction, that’s the word I’m hunting for.

    Yeah, so I’ve go no talent for it, believe me I’ve tried.

    So, what I need is someone to produce a script for a nice simple short that I can make with people that I know. Of course, you’d think with the number of people I’m friends with who write this would be possible, but somehow it’s never worked out that way.

    Anyway, so I’m having a whine. I want to make a film. A short, just a short will do. For now.

  • I’d ask where my day went, but I know…

    For once I really did do stuff with the weekend.

    Yesterday I got to the stage where I’d finished to first-draft stage chapter 3 of the dissertation; which meant that today I could tackle a few other jobs, namely cleaning the bathroom (done), tidying the garage (sort of done), small jobs on Cherry (speedo drive, new chain casing, greasing and adjusting the chain, etc). I also did a run to the supermarket. It doesn’t sound like that much, but really, it was. I’ve freecycled a bunch more stuff. And now I’m really *really* tired.

    I have however remembered what it was like before I started my course, when I had a life. It was nice.

  • How did people cope before word counts?

    3988 words in Chapter three. The minimum length for chapter 3 is 4000 words (well, slightly less actually assuming I hit the 2000 word minimum for chapter 4); I’m happy. Why am I happy? Because there’s lots of leeway in this and I’ve got another couple of hundred words I want to write. Hehehe.

    Raaaaaar.

    And my 1930’s fan is wobbling away cheerily. I think it might not be perfectly balanced. Incidentally, anyone know where you can get scintered bearings made for very cheap?

  • Thing the first

    Thing the first – I have a badge; this goes on my police woman’s hat, thus making it look that bit more authentic. I need some black felt too, I think, but rarrr. Ultra-special raar because it’s a St. Petersburg Police badge, thus unlikely to be mistaken for the Met Police (although, dubiously, I note that you can buy police hatbadges for most UK policeforces on e-bay).

    Thing the second – with careful arrangement the letters P, O, L, I, C and E fit onto a sheet of A4 twice, even when the letters are 3 inches high by two and a chunk inches wide. This is good. This means that by purchasing some inkjet-cling-white-magnetic paper, Rebecca can proclaim POLICE on the boot, the doors, and the bonnet (oh, and on a roofsign, did I mention that?) and look most police-like. I can also *try* and print it (although I may have to get Nikki to do so ‘cos I think it’s straight-through-paper-path stuff which won’t go through my HP very well) with stuff wot says ‘Whipem Down Police Dept’ and “Whipping Criminals Into Shape” or whatever (and also MMLGBT – Morris Minor LGBT Group) so that people know who were are :-)

    See the ultracool?

    Thing the Third – It’s a gorgeous day, made more gorgeous by the fact that instead of saying “Kellaway (lying & theiving) Motorcycles Incorporated” on the number plate (tempting though), it now says ‘MZ – Es ist eine Lesbiche Sache’ (although spelt correctly, which that probably isn’t). Raaar.

    Thing the fourth – I’ve added a huge chunk to C3 of my dissertation, and am going to make some tea before continuing. This is goodness.

    ETA: Thing the fifth – the house in Brum that looks *perfect* for me is still available; it disappeared for a while but it’s come back. Now I just need a job there. This is *DEFINATELY* goodness

    Tinned goodness of a good variety.

  • Summer has arrived…

    …and brought with it blue skys, little fluffy clouds, and hayfever. Bugger. Let’s dispose of nervous happy Kate and leap to runny nose’d, sore eye’d, pissed off Kate. I want my hayfever to, and i say this with quite deliberate malice, I want it to fuck right off and die. It’s not even that bad yet, my eyes are just ‘itchy’ and the toilet roll is rapidly disappearing. Hopefully my Neoloritadine will knock this idea on the head quickly, but it always takes my body a while to react to it.

    It also meant that the computer room got ‘hot’. To be fair, it’s a tiny room and it’s got a Sempron and 21″ CRT monitor in it. It got hot enough yesterday, even with the window open, that I was forced to use the fan. Now, there are sensible people in this world, they’d probably have gone downstairs and dug out the 2 year old desk fan; not me; oh no. I connected up my 1930’s desk fan – partially repaired – okay, Bodged. It worked though and is shockingly effective at shifting air (if somewhat noisy). It really needs me to spend some time on it though.

    So today is, hopefully, finishing Chapter 3 of my Dissertation (the Critical Evaluation of the Literature). I’ve read through the last few papers this morning to make more notes (as if I didn’t have enough notes) which should be enough knowledge to get that section written up. Anyway, I suppose I should get on.

  • So, tell me, how do you feel?

    Your best friend from when you were a kid mails you – you’re trying to keep in touch, and enjoy each other’s company, but just are very bad at actually keeping in touch – and says… his dad has bowel cancer.

    It sounds like they’ve caught it early; and it sounds like he’ll be okay; which is good. But it’s left me feeling very strange. Very strange. I can’t place any specific emotion. It’s all blurry and confused. I kind of feel like I’ve stepped outside my emotions and that in a bit it’ll all become more something, but I don’t yet know what the something is.

  • There’s no mistaking human error

    I’d say my bike let me down today, but it’d be a lie. My brain let me down today. I had the best day I’ve had on this ward so far. I didn’t do anything stupid, I looked after a patient of my own and started to grasp what I was looking for while looking after him, and when the end of the day came I left in gorgeous cool sunlight.

    I walked to my bike and realised, having loaded my bike up, that I was a moron. I’d left the lights on; see, it’s a zed, a zed with the ignition switch based lights, and it goes:

    Parking lights & Steering lock | Steering lock | OFF | IGN | Lights and IGN

    And as I’d struggled to wiggle it past Off to Steering lock I’d managed to wiggle it one step too far, and not noticed this morning (Although I remember thinking it looked a bit wrong. But was more thinking about work. Anyway, after an hour the AA turned up (I’ve not needed ’em for a year, and then twice in 1 week… :-/ ). And I headed home. Sadly, because I was leaving at 4:30, not 3:30 the traffic was *terrible* by the time I got to Brizzy. Awful. Appauling. They’re digging up the A4174 – as far as I can tell, this is a permanent process – this time they appear to be digging up the barriers and central reservation to replace it with… more barriers and a new central reservation… that’s the same size as the old one.

    I did see something saying they were going to tarmac it to make the road wider while they re-lay the tarmac on the section that they widened (but didn’t relay the road surface on) because obviously, partially closing the road to make it  three lanes, then closing a lane to tarmac the middle, then closing the new lanes makes perfect sense to someone…

    Anyway, the narrow road-works lanes were so thin that I couldn’t filter through great chunks, and I managed to smack my hand-protector against a BMW – I was astounded when the guy just waved me off, although it was probably at 1mph – and at worst he’s got a bit of red to rub off.

    Still I was glad to make it home and get my contact lenses off….

  • Having a quick break…

    Last night I laid in bed thinking, not for long ‘cos I was quite tired, but I thought. It’s very odd, being single. I don’t object to being single any more, it’s a bit hard work sometimes because most of the people I hang around with are couples, and I like being in a couple, I like having someone to share life with. But, in general I’m happier single than I’ve ever been being single.

    I thought about it, because I miss having someone to curl up with at night, but for the most part I’m quite happy plodding along on my own; I think perhaps this is something to do with the way Trey and I split up; there wasn’t that… long drawn out death of the relationship. Trey just stopped loving me, and it was over. But I wasn’t in that ‘struggling relationship’ phase, where things aren’t good, but you can’t or don’t have the guts to end it – or you just keep thinking it’ll get better.

    I think it’s left me in a better headspace, where I’m much better able to look at the world and look at myself – I can’t blame her for the end of the relationship, I can’t really be bitter. She wasn’t in love anymore, and it ended because of that. Hrm, I don’t quite know where I’m going with this. I think it’s just that I’m startlingly happy with my lot in life at the moment. I know I’m tired, and I could really have done without the Mog’s starter deciding it needs to come out and be cleaned (I might also replace the starter relay, ‘cos it’s been looking grotty as hell for a while, and it got very hot with the starter being stuck); and I am constantly tired and scared about money, but… overall, things are pretty okay. And it’s kinda nice.

    I’ve got my little routines, and my little life, and that’s just fine for me at the moment.

    Of course, talking about the future isn’t so good, the university aren’t sure what’s going to happen about the degree students qualifiying, on the basis that you can’t let them qualify without marking; so I’m not sure about jobs. And I’ve not heard anything back from Birmingham or Manchester, which is scary shit. I really do need a job. Really. And would quite like one in either of those hospitals, so if anyone wants to put in a good word for me :-)

    Incidentally, if anyone knows people in B’ham or M’chester who wouldn’t mind giving me advice on GLBT friendly areas in which to live; that’d be handy.

  • Arrogant Worms…

    So, yesterday we headed down to Dorset (Bournmouth, specifically) to watch the Arrogant Worms. Unless you’re an avid watcher of the LJ ‘what music am I listening to’ thing, know me personally and thus have had it inflicted on you, or are Canadian, then you quite possibly haven’t heard of the Arrogant Worms. They are fantastic, okay, and you should get some stuff and listen and uh, yeah. I’m a bit tired right now, incidentally (yeah, yeah, shut up) for reasons that’ll become apparent.

    So, we took the scenic route to Bournemouth, me, Chrissy and Lauren in the Mog and John, Kate and Nikki in the Honda, them leading, me following, Me, Nikki and Kate in my design of teeshirt, and with my little GPS going ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!’. The route TomTom 5 had was somewhat different to the route that TomTom 3 believed in, not aided by us traveling through ‘The Void’ for a while (new roads built since my GPS’s map data was created…).  We stopped off in an exLittle Thief for lunch (better than a little thief) and finally rolled into Bournemouth around 1530. We mooched, making it to ‘ShakeAway’ (see Liz, I’ve tried them both now, and you’re right, it is better) – who do an absolutely stunning Strawberry Cheesecake / Oreo / Flake / Marshmallow milkshake that is just so unhealthy as to warrant an entire new foodgroup.

    (I’m getting to the gig, okay?). Then we mooched, definately mooched, down to the seashore / beach (incidentally, what’s with Bournemouth; where’s the faded glory? British beach town == Faded glory. It was all ‘nice’ and ‘clean’ and ‘pleasant’. It’s not right); where John / Lauren / Chrissy headed down the pier and Kate / Nikki / Me went seashell hunting on the beach, Nikki discovered that she’d not brought a spare film for her camera and I discovered that my rechargable batteries were flat.

    Woot.

    So a quick run to a beachfront store and we headed up to the pub next to the club where they were performing. Me with a new pack of Duracell and Nikki with a roll of film. Pubsnacks, chatting to other Arrogant Worms fans, and generally chilling out. We nipped out to check, the doors were open at the club so we headed in and got the best table ever ever ever ever. We weren’t just close to the stage, we were virtually on it. Right in the centre. Rarrrrr.

    Then they came out to do a soundcheck, complimented us on our teeshirts (or were they scared? It’s hard to say), we chatted to a nice lass from Canada (Halifax, Nova Scotia – see, I do have a memory) and I set my camera to pretend it had extremely fast film in it. We kicked back and relaxed, the room filled and Lauren and Chrissy arrived (having visited the oceanarium). Before the Arrogant Worms the were the front-people of a group called Djambo; who were excellent. Sadly they don’t make it over Brizzle way, but I shall be buying their CD.

    Anyway, I’m not going to talk about them, ‘cos though they were very good it’s late and I need to get ready for work, and I shouldn’t be writing this now, I should be doing my dissertation. Ha.

    So, then the Arrogant Worms came on. I’ve never seen them live (what with this being their first UK tour) and I have no words for how excellent they are live. I’m sure the small venue / intimate atmosphere helped, but they were wickedly funny, and the whole evening was spent laughing and doing Rippy the Alligator actions, and singing along with the Mounted Animal Nature Trail.

    It was so good I squee’d. I don’t often Squee and bounce around like an overexhuberant 6 year old, but I did. I Arr’d and clapped and cheered and… just had a truly *awesome* time. Now, I know, I suck at writing up gigs, I suck at reviewing things, that’s because all the excitement and fun just washes over me and I want to say *IT WAS FUCKING EXCELLENT*. And that’s all I have to say, generally.

    So I got their new CD (Beige) (I was wearing Beige, specially); I got the Christmas Turkey album too; got beige signed, took (blurry, very red tinted) photos of the gig and the band (discovered what my camera thinks of normal Alkaline batteries (not a lot; the ones that ended up working through the whole night, apart from brief breaks were the NiMH ones which said they were flat)), generally had an awesome time and then came out to find my car wouldn’t start. Half an hour later the AA came, bashed the startermotor (which’d stuck, which is what I thought, but I’d not considered bashing it) and we headed home – using Lauren navigation as for about 70% of the route my GPS was going ‘all the satellites are in a line. I cannot calculate my position. Damn them’.

    All in all I had an *excellent* evening….