Do you know what a Chav is? I didn’t, until today, when my dear AnM educated moi.
http://www.chavscum.co.uk/ <- rather amusing - especially the photos of Chavs in the wild :hehe: Apparently I live near the epicenter of Chav activity...

* Or rather “The chances of anything coming from Mars” – War of the Worlds. There is something delightfully lethargic and almost bluesy about “Horsell Common And The Heat Ray” (you’d know it if you heard it) but the award for most emotive song goes to “Thunderchild” and “Forever Autumn”. I adore Thunderchild – it tugs at my heart strings whenever I hear it. “Come on, Thunderchild!”, the battleship lying between the steamer carrying refugees to the New World and the mighty warlords… cannon’s blazing on the deck. “The Martians released their black smoke, but the ship sped on, cutting down one of the tripod figures. Instantly, the others raised their heat rays, and melted the Thunderchild’s valiant heart.”

So many of my blog moods are “tired”.

I played in the Ladies Doubles (Drats) today – we won the Quarter Finals but lost the Semi Finals. Still – we don’t like to win – means we have to go play the Finals game somewhere else.

I have nothing to say really – I just wanted to use “Dryland peanuts are severely drought stressed.” as a title – it’s a weather report from Texas – fabulous.

Where are we *reads blog to work out what’s happened recently* ooo I’ve been busy.

A quick run down? I know you don’t really care but I rely on this blog to remind me I’m alive and not actually a recluse.

Turns out the kangaroo was a wallaby – according to my worldly friend L, loads of wild animals were released when owning them became illegal a few decades ago. So now they roam happily. Good to know.

Mon 17th – went to cinema to watch Aviator with S and friends.
Thur 20th – went to cinema (we had free tickets that week) to watch Closer with S. Thought provoking. 20th was also sister’s 21st birthday! (Yay Dingbat!)
Fri 21st – went home via Epping Forest and took about 40 photos of the forest in gorgeous winter sunshine. Lovely – expect a new web design to arrive from it. The photos are much better than the one I have around this blog now. There are some very architectural trees in Epping…
Friday evening saw the arrival of sister Ding and sister’s boyfriend (we shall call him Dong), plus meal #1 for my sister – a lovely chicken dish (yes, the vegie urges are fading though I don’t yet cook meat myself or eat it voluntarily) made by mum. Nan and Dad were also present.
Sat 22nd – Suprise Lunch out at the Brewers courtesy of G’ma. In the evening we went to the misleadingly named Covent Garden Comedy Club in Charing Cross (also a surprise), where the stand-ups for the evening included Jeff Green (one of Ding’s favourite comedians) and my ultimate favourite comedian, Tim Vine! :hehe: Fabtastic! AnM and the Spanish cousins came with us.
Sun 23rd – Sent Ding and Dong to Stapleford (aerodrome – nice clubhouse) for a surprise breakfast while we worked on her surprise party where we invited ALL the family – quite impressive. Even the usual stay-aways came.

Thus endeth the surprise weekend of Ding’s 21st! In case you hadn’t realised, she’d prefixed all mention of her birthday with “I’ve always wanted a suprise party!”.

In other news, the server was upgraded less than seemlessly this weekend, meaning that some of you may still not be able to see this subdomain. The irony in that statement amuses me muchly, yes.

This evening I went to a pub quiz with S (she needs a nickname – I shall call her Little Chef! :hehe: oh how I chortle at my own private jokes you have no way of knowing anything about!) and some friends (too many to give nicknames but one was the blokie who asked me about medieval reenactment). Good alcohol fueled fun! We didn’t win but we did do quite well.

I discovered someone elses blog – someone who appears to be very much like me in so far as her likes and dislikes. To say her blog is esoteric is putting it lightly. Every entry is highly emotive and almost poetic… Well worth a read if you find poetry stills the mind.

I think this dates back to last year when we first saw the horses in the field at college had been replaced with ostriches – we suspected then that we had unwittingly stumbled upon a parrallel dimension where the world was the same, bar a few essential differences. Like ostriches where horses should be. Tangent – if a group of geese is a gaggle, is a group of ostriches an oggle? We decided it was, and since it’s our parrallel dimension, we can say what we like.

Well, I have discovered further evidence for this theory. On driving home through Epping Forest today, I caught sight of something grey between the trees, within about 15 feet of the road. It appeared to be hunched over something – possibly feeding, it lifted it’s head (narrow, on a slim flowing neck to a pear shaped body) and then it BOUNDED away. At which point I had driven too far to see any more. I will happily swear I saw one of these. My initial response was something along the lines of “Bloody hell, what’s a X doing in Epping Forest?!”

I can’t wait to see the penguin in a hat that is usually found in dimensions such as these…

I appear to have become a vegetarian, almost against my will. It’s most odd. We’re at a point in the course where we’re dealing with animals as food and the production of them as such, so it’s probably not a surprise I’m thinking deep about various issues. However it’s not that I now find meat off-putting particularly – I’ll eat it if it’s put in front of me (or if the vegetarian options are repulsive) – but I’m just not choosing the meat option. Normally I’d only choose vegetarian over meat if the vegetarian involved spinach (am a spinach-addict) or if the meat was fish (don’t like Friday’s at college for this reason). I think I distrust where the meat has come from, or what it contains, or how it was processed. Plus there’s the slight ethical notion begging for attention in my brain, muttering something along the lines of since I can live without eating something else, maybe I should. Oddly it’s not the major cause of the switch though.

I was a militant carnivore. Maybe this passive vegetarianism is a phase – we shall see.

Dinner tonight was a hand-made shepherd’s pie – made with quorn. I had to abandon it and go to the cinema to see the Aviator (good, nice planes, but very long, and slightly sureal) which I forgot we’d arranged to see. Might have some more now – even though it is 1.20am…

Sorry – busy – passed exams Writing php happily and deleting stupid spam comments from my blog.

Almost forgot. We now have this:

Brought back with my ever mad housemate, this dog is supposed to be fully grown and 22kg. She’s 16kg now and this photo is day 6 of her new feeding regime where we take the novel approach of actually feeding her – a concept her previous owners couldn’t apparently grasp. She’s put on some weight already – a couple of days ago she would have been graded as 0.5 out of 5 in the cow body condition score. Now she’s about a 1. 2.5-3 is the ideal, 5 is very overweight. She sits on feet to avoid having to sit directly on the floor with nothing to cover her bones. She was kept in a garage.

Cute dog, incredibly intelligent, partially housetrained :plain:, ravenous and nice. There’s not a nasty bone in her body, and luckily she doesn’t seem to have any fear of humans.

The cavs are rather pissed off though. Competing for attention isn’t their aim apparently. I too was rather pissed off at 1am this morning when said housemate thought then would be a good time to play with them outside my bedroom door :plain:, complete with treats for three growling and barking dogs to fight over. 1am. I jest not. After that it was feeding time. Not to mention when she put the dalmatian away she left her keys in the door, with her key fob that beep-beep-beep–beep-beep-beep–beep-beep-beeps when she whistles. Or when a dog she just locked in the utility room whines. And whines. And whines. And yes, she knew I was in bed and had been for 1 1/2 hours.

At least I have one thing to comfort me: it just peed on her bed! :laugh:

German rock gooood.

Quick resolution update – I’ve done Yoga irregularly (better than not at all) and I’ll do some more – gonna steal the tape player from the lounge. I’m eating my way through my supplies at the moment so haven’t been shopping yet, and will cook properly after then. I went for a walk with a friend – dogs were otherwise engaged. Accounts – failing, early start – failing, declutter – not too bad, rotas – did housework myself. As for being more social – trying very hard, failing harder? Appearance – succeeding. Creativity – failing.

Results are out tomorrow. If I go very quiet, you’ll know why.

Feel niggly, not sure why – I’m achieving a lot on my to-do list and it’s not like I have loads of work to do… yet. Smurf.

*And the world counts loudly to ten

Though I do aim to fulfill at least some of them this year, and I’ve started already!

1. Do yoga regularly
2. Cook proper food – my plan is to buy lots of goats milk from Tescos and freeze it, and then refuse to go there for a month. I will have to learn where the local groceries and butchers etc. are, and will have to cook real food and not eat rubbish pre-prepared stuff.
3. Walk dogs more
4. Keep financial accounts – feeds in nicely to the food thing, I’ll have to actually take money out and be aware I’m spending it rather than relying on switch
5. Get up early – already failing on this one.
6. Declutter life – items, hobbies and responsibilities – work vs play, play vs other play. I need to prioritise my offline life with regards to college (my results will no doubt prove that), and I also need to prioritise my online lives, giving up the less important ones. And I need to practice darts, though Dad says this will mean I won’t fit in in the team anymore…
7. Rotas for house – coz it’s getting gross.
8. Improve sociability – be social with college people, online people, visit my sister and my friend who left etc. Spend weekends in PB to keep up with housemates.
9. Maintain appearance – i.e. tracksuit bottoms to the shops are not acceptable unless dog-walking.
10. Be more creative – cross-stitch and pillow case making to start with. Not together obviously – tweeness can’t be allowed to go that far.

To date, I have achieved… slight decluttering of online lives. Still, it is only day 3. I have left EVE, refused to buy Sims 2 (despite being addicted to my sister’s copy already), and I’m in the process of leaving Neopets for good (giving my neopoints away to prevent me coming back).