My So-Called Life
the random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek
My So-Called Lifethe random and not-so-random musings of a twenty-something history geek |
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| Lizzie is a fully qualified history teacher having finished her course at Canterbury Christ Church University. She's also a geek who was secretary of the University of Kent Computing Society during her three year BA at the University of Kent. She is very much in love with her shiny Husband, though she is sad that he doesn't glow bloo :( More about her on her website: http://carina.org.uk |
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| Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 11:17 pm Euro and KCC elections, leaflets specifically. | |||
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This post has been brought on by two things. First, it's the Euro and County Council elections (at least for us in Kent) tomorrow (possibly today, depending on when I finish writing this). Second, we finally received a leaflet from Labour today and I really don't think they're even trying to contest this election. I was shocked by the poor quality and decided to share. Then I figured that I may as well document all the political bumf that Ben and I have had through the letter box during this process. Some were addressed to me, some were addressed to Ben. Interestingly, apart from the Greens, it was different letters/leaflets addressed to each of us (if they were addressed at all), rather than any overlap. Click on pictures to embiggen throughout.  An artfully arranged display of all our leaflets. I'll start with the shoddy leaflet that kicked all this off, which is the last one we have received. This one is courtesy of Labour. I'm not a Labour supporter, so I admit this might be rather biased of me, but this is possibly the worst political leaflet I have ever seen. Acres of blank space, poor grammar and spelling, and clearly has not been proof read before being printed off. Which is sad because I can only assume it's been/being passed around the district, and it's really not a good advert for the Labour Party. Read it and you'll see what I mean. ( Labour leaflet ) The Conservatives have tried hardest, sending round several leaflets, and the only party to send someone to Canvass us. I should mention that neither Ben nor I are currently registered with any political party, so that can't be the reason we have quite so many Conservative mailshots. I can only assume that they're trying this hard with everyone. ( This was the most recent. ) ( Ben had a 'personal' letter from the KCC candidate. ) ( Another Conservative leaflet. Can't remember when this one arrived. ) This last one is a copy of the main Conservative KCC leaflet. This one was hand delivered by the canvasser. We have two copies of this as one was in with the letter that Ben got, shown further up. The problem we had with this is that it reads like a particularly poor CV. On the upside, there was little wasted space and it did appear to have been spell checked/proof read before it was printed. On the downside, it does lie, as did the Canvasser about the John Simmonds (the Cons Candidate for Canterbury West, which is our ward) being "The Local Choice". The Canvasser told me that the candidate lived "just round the corner". This is untrue. John Simmonds lives in Whitstable, which is not "just round the corner". According to google maps it is actually 5.7 miles away from my address to his. I suppose it could be a very large corner... In fact, I believe the Canvasser was referring to the Conservative candidate for the Canterbury South-West Ward (Maureen Robinson), who does live "just round the corner" in Oaks Park (I believe). While Whiststable may be "local", it's not local in the sense the canvasser, and I believe the leaflet, were aiming at. Not impressed. Also not impressed with myself - I only remembered the questions I wanted to ask the canvasser (pot holes, Iceland[as in banks, not supermarkets]) after I closed the door, and I wasn't about to go chasing after him! ( Conservative leaflet for KCC. ) The Green Party sent us two leaflets, one addressed to each of us. Unfortunately they were both identical and both came through the post. Have to wonder about the Carbon Footprint of that. ( Green Party leaflet ) We also got a leaflet from the "No2EU" party, who appear to be endorsed only by Bob Crow of RMT Union fame. ( No2EU ) We have also received the now infamous BNP leaflet. Not sure what we'll do with it yet. Possibly shred it and then set it on fire. Ben pointed out it looked rather like a kebab menu, which is funny because it's true. I don't know where to start on the ways in which this hate filled nasty little piece of racist propaganda annoys and frustrates me, so I shan't even try. I only picture it for completeness and posterity. I hope in years to come I can look back and laugh on the fact that people ever considered voting for these cretins, especially on the basis of this. I just hope they don't win a significant share of the vote, especially a share significant enough to win a seat. ( BNP ) Given my political sympathies swing towards the Lib Dems, perhaps naturally as they were the party supported by my parents while I was growing up (I delivered my fair share of Focuses, did several shifts of telling at several elections at my local polling station, had an action room in our living room during a general election - tables and tables of addresses! - and even attended a Count as Lib Dem representative - all while I was 18 or younger) I am disappointed by the efforts of the local party. No Canvassing, at least, not round my block of flats. Only one leaflet about only one of the two elections. Given they say on their leaflet that "only the Lib Dems can beat the Conservatives here" I don't feel like they really tried at all. One leaflet specifically about the election, and then only about the Europeans, nothing at all about KCC. A Lib Dem publication was the first one we got during this cycle, I seem to remember anyway, but it was a regular quarterly Focus, nothing really to do with the election. It was also in need of a proof read as at the very least the URL at the bottom of page two was wrong - "www.cantlibdem" is no URL at all. What I'm trying to say, badly, is that I'm disappointed in the Lib Dem campaign, at least in my ward. I want to vote for them, but I feel like they've done nothing to deserve it. They've certainly not actually tried to get my vote. I hoped for more. ( Focus ) We got this leaflet, which is the Lib Dem Euro specific one, only very recently - possibly the last week or so? ( Euro specific Lib Dem leaflet ) I know campaigning in a Tory stronghold (Canterbury constituency has elected only Conservative MPs since 1874, the longest any current UK constituency has remained under the control of one party [source=wikipedia]), but really, if you don't make the effort (and I apply this to Labour, much as I dislike them atm, as much as I do to the Liberal Democrats) then they'll never be beaten here. Most elections here (Canterbury) seem to have a depressing enevitability about them. Purely on the basis of who sends out the most stuff and is the most visible (including on the doorstep), it is the Conservatives who are the most visible. Anyway, I should go to bed. I'm getting up early to vote! ETA: the election is today as I finish writing. It's gone 1am! |
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| May. 1st, 2009 @ 10:44 pm A few hours in London | |||
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Some friends and I are going to see Les Mis in July, and I went up to London to book the tickets in person at the box office at the Palace Theatre. I could have done it over the phone or the internet, but I had a theatre voucher and the easiest way to redeem it was in person, so I made an afternoon of it, and went on the train which, while not the cheapest way to travel, is by far the most relaxing (when things go right!). My trusty backpack and I started off from Canterbury West. Saw a cool new train being tested (saw loads more at Ashford, mostly unliveried, which means they must be pretty new :) They certainly looked pretty). At 10:40 the train was nice and quiet so I got a four-seat with table all to myself and spread out a little.     (Click to embiggen) I went all arty on the journey, both in to London and back to Canterbury, experimenting with my camera, getting lots of pictures of trees and things whizzing past while moving...     (Click to embiggen) ...and structures when we were stopped, or going slowly.       (Click to embiggen) I met ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} red_pill at Charing Cross, and we wandered round "Theatreland" taking some pictures and looking for the Palace Theatre so I could buy the tickets. The Priscilla, Queen of the Desert title thing and giant high heel was especially cool. The picture doesn't really do it justice - it was all sparkly!  On our way back to Charing Cross, we accidentally ran in to the May Day protests in Trafalgar Square, but we escaped without being bludgeoned by the police or the protesters :)  Headed home at 2:50pm-ish. Long way to go, but a lovely day in London and nice to be out. More importantly I was going home with what I'd come to London to get :D   All pictures. I'm getting quite excited about going now :D If only I didn't have to wait till nearly the end of July! |
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| May. 1st, 2009 @ 09:15 pm Shiny thing | |||
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My new laptop (Thinkpad SL500) arrived on Wednesday, which was extremely exciting for me. As always, I got a lot of pictures :) Now I've finished setting it up and moving files around I finally got around to getting the pictures off my camera and posting them here to show off :) My old laptop (Thinkpad R50e) was old...  ...and pretty busted :/ (Yes, that is micropore holding a corner on.)  When I got back from picking it up there was some post for me :)  It was my new copy of Ramona Forever! :D I'm not quite sure how I managed it, but I was patient enough to take pictures of the unwrappening:      The lid is shiny, but fingerprints silly easily.   Old vs New (click to embiggen). All pictures. The new one runs like a dream, even with Vista installed. I think I'm in love (sorry benc).I'm still trying to decide what to do with my old one, which is staying with me for a few weeks at least so I'm sure I have everything I need from it and I'm completely happy with my new one. Any ideas? Any people maybe interested in taking it? |
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| Apr. 19th, 2009 @ 02:22 pm Exciting post and geeky bear | |||
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On Friday there was some interesting post and for a change it was all for me! Usually all the postie brings me is bills and bank statements, but today I got a much better haul, which inserted some excitement my usually predictable days.  First up was the TV Licence (excellent value for money IMO). Ok, so it's not very exciting, but it was part of my haul, so I included it for completeness' sake. What that TV Licence does mean is that it is coming up for four years since we moved in to our flat and had a "putting Ikea furniture together and watching Eurovision" party (pics of that here, here and here). It really doesn't seem like that long. It's also worth saying that there is nowhere near that much space in our flat any more!  Next up was my Graze Box, which was supposed to arrive on Thursday, but got stuck in the post somewhere and actually turned up on Friday instead. It was yummy - especially the fresh apple, which appeared not to have suffered from being in the post an extra day :) If you want a free first box and half price second box (you can easily cancel after the free one has turned up), then go to graze.com and enter the following code: QV67PBDC.  Last in the stack of post, a set of 15 War films given away in editions of the Daily Mail a month or so ago. Huge thanks to no1typo, who sullied her bank account and house by buying the paper and sending off for the films. They arrived on Friday, with the rest of my exciting post and I don't own most of them. I'm looking forward to settling down and watching them over the next few weeks :) Finally for this post, I took the above today of my favourite bear Max posing with benc's eee 900A. I've made an icon out of it :) All of the pictures are here. Sometimes I think I have too much time on my hands ;)EDIT: On the theme of geekiness, my new laptop should hopefully be showing up on Tuesday. If you've not voted in my name poll, I'd appreciate it if you would :) |
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| Feb. 21st, 2009 @ 06:51 pm More on "One for the Chalet Fans" | |||
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One for the Chalet Fans (posted last night). I finally managed to sleep, and when I woke up my camera was charged, so with benc's help, I photographed the cover again, properly, in decent light (so ridding the pictures of that yellow fuzzy hue).Here's the decent version:  (There's also a huge version) Here's the cover, free of annotations:  --- Spent today doing the above, shopping and seeing my in-laws. I can tell you are all awe-inspired by the excitingness of my life right now ;) |
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| Feb. 21st, 2009 @ 02:03 am One for the Chalet fans. | |||
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I couldn't sleep, so I made this: Sorry about the picture quality, I took it with my camera phone cos I went to use my proper camera and found that the battery was flat (now on charge) and I was too impatient to wait for it to be ready. I'm very pleased with myself for working out how to stick them all together in Paint Shop though :) Might make a better quality one if I can be bothered. Picture is of the cover of my GGB copy of The Chalet School Reunion. It has been annotated according to the key on the last page of that edition. |
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| Feb. 2nd, 2009 @ 12:28 pm Bulldozers in the snow | |||
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There's still snow here today, not as much as most of you but a good inch or so, and more is falling now, meaning UKC is closing at 2pm, and a couple of schools are closing now that were open earlier due to worsening conditions. Our stairs, which have been swept and salted twice since yesterday are overwhelmed with snow again. It's all rather exciting ;) For readers elsewhere I should explain that here in the UK, especially in the South East corner (and I'm almost as south and east as you can get) we don't usually get snow, especially snow that settles enough to do stuff in due to the jet stream which keeps Britain warm, despite it being on the same longitude as Moscow (I believe). So when it does snow and settles it causes chaos ;) Our excitement this morning was doubled (or more!) by being able to have a proper play with benc's Christmas present, Lego Technic set 8275, a Motorized Bulldozer in the snow.Research suggested it would work very well in the snow, as there are videos of the Lego development team testing one of the development models in the snow, but we still wanted to have a play ourselves. This most recent (and heavy) snow has given us the perfect opportunity. So we did. Here are the videos to prove it! First benc had a go while I filmed:Then I drove it while benc filmed:( Picture of ben playing with his shiny ) I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all :) |
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| Jan. 21st, 2009 @ 08:55 am Best favicon *evar*? | |||
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The BBC have done it again. In this entry I told you all about how the BBC asked people send in Olympic logo ideas, and then they published a selection, including one that was a straight rip off of Goatse (if you don't know what it is, look here - SFW, just contains a description not the actual picture.) Well they've asked for reader contributions again in the wake of Google getting a new favicon on their magazine page, saying "You've read about Google's new favicon - now design one yourself - either a personal favicon or one to represent the Magazine, and send it to us". Once again, a goatse has slipped through the net. Scroll down the page to the bottom, the contribution in question is from "Steven, Coventry" (and is SFW). Just in case the BBC take it down, I took screenshots! SFW. ( BBC magazine page screenshot ) ( Favicon closeup ) |
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| Jan. 20th, 2009 @ 08:18 am Some things | |||||
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A meme:
As with most memes, I have no idea how true it is. Weirdest advert I've seen in a long time. Saw this while watching something on tv, and boggled. Still boggling at it a few days after inital exposure. ( So I thought I'd share ;) ) Finally, I know that Britain, nay The World, is "Credit Crunched" (*shudders* - I hate that term), but I think that ( this is going a bit far in terms of swapping products to save money ) |
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| Dec. 24th, 2008 @ 07:13 pm Christmas | |||
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Our Advent Candle has just burned out, so that can only mean one thing* - it's Christmas tomorrow! *Ok, two things - we could have left it to burn too long... but we didn't and it is Christmas tomorrow! :D  Photo courtesy of bencIn case I don't post again before Boxing day, a very merry, happy and peaceful Christmas to all of you! :) |
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| Dec. 24th, 2008 @ 06:58 pm More on Woolworths, and builders who really should spell check before having signs made up | |||
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Went in to Woolworths again the other day, had the feeling of the vultures circling, as Ben so excellently put it. He took a proper camera so I can share the sense of emptiness there.  The worst thing about our trip to town though, was this little gem that we saw at the building site in the middle of the high street - for those who know Canterbury, it's where Boots used to be (opposite LloydsTSB). It's a proper sign printed on aluminium and clearly cost more than some guy scribbling on some cardboard or something. Which leads me to wonder why during the process of producing the sign and displaying it, no one involved noticed.  All pictures in this post from benc.ETA: Have some more gratuitous gerbil pictures to finish with :D |
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| Dec. 22nd, 2008 @ 09:06 pm The state of Woolworths (and Hot Cross Buns in December?!) | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
Disclaimer: All pictures in this post taken with crappy phone camera. Apologies for the crappiness.Mostly feeling:  sadNow Playing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: S5 E1 Buffy vs Dracula To begin - why on earth is Sainsbury's stocking Hot Cross Buns in December? Before Christmas even?! There are still four months till Easter and it makes my brain hurt to have shop products commemorating His death before we've even celebrated His birth yet.  Today I was in town and (finally) applied for a Cathedral Precincts Pass (we live within four miles of the Bell Harry Tower so we're entitled to one giving us free entry). Other Canterbury-ites who are interested can download the form here. ( You're eligible if... ) It might be worth your while applying if you are eligible :) Free Stuff ++ . Also, Canterbury residents cards don't work for getting in for free at the Cathedral. While I was in town I also made a visit to Woolworths for the first time since the closing down was announced and it was very sad :( There wasn't a lot left and none of it was really stuff I wanted to buy. I guess the latter is the reason why they're now defunct. They've even started selling off the fixtures and fittings. That really is quite gutting to see. Can't work out why it is, but it is.  Got home to the news that the list of final closures has been published (list here) and Canterbury is going in the first wave - on the 27th December. Can't help feeling how crappy it is for those (soon to be un)employed by Woolworths. Also of interest to me were that Croydon's is going on 30th December and Coulsdon's is closing on 2nd January. More gapes in the high streets :( It's really all rather sad. More disturbing to me was that Woolworths has the below signs plastered everywhere. It was quiet (and almost cleared out) when I went, but what kind of chaos must have reigned for these to have to be put up? This is why I'm losing what little faith I had in humanity :(  |
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| Dec. 21st, 2008 @ 02:11 pm Christmas Decorations | |||
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Our Christmas Tree has been up for a week now (a week today :D) so I thought it was about time I wrote an entry about it. All the pictures of our Christmas Tree and decorations. Last Saturday benc and I went and got our Christmas Tree from Wyvale Garden Centre. We got last year's tree from there too, and knew they had little tiny ones that fitted in (the limited space in) our flat. It's almost unbearably sweet, only two feet or so tall, and potted so it can be planted out after Christmas. Last year's ended up with foo and rahslowe being planted out in their garden. I believe no1typo has designs on this one and her garden. It's nice to know that they go on living after Christmas :)( The tree was sodden when we brought it back... ) Once it was dry enough, on the Sunday, we decided to start decorating it. ( We started by getting out the decorations ) Next we ( tested our lights. ) These lights had been on our tree (also here with lights on)in the first Christmases we were at the flat (and first married), but as we accumulated more stuff, we could fit smaller and smaller trees in, so they don't fit round our trees now because they're so tiny. ( Instead we put them up round our window. ) Then we ( made sure the angel for the top of the tree was in good condition ) ( and put the tree in its new home ) ( Next we put the lights on the tree. ) Finally we ( put the decorations on the tree ) ( A slightly shaky picture of the tree with the main lights off, and the room only lit by the window and tree lights. ) We're pretty much ready for Christmas now. Decorations up, Presents brought, cards posted (all before the posting deadline, with the exception of one for Canada - ah well, at least I tried ;)), Advent candle mostly burned, food brought. Feeling pretty pleased with myself now ;) Have some gratuitous pictures of our Gerbils to finish :) ( A cool picture of Stan and (part of)Nibbler with the flash off, showing the movement of them, which I thought was quite cool. ) ( Stan: ) ( Nibbler: ) P.S. Happy shortest day of the year/Winter Solstice :) |
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| Dec. 10th, 2008 @ 12:13 pm Picture post (using crappy camera-phone pictures) | |||
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A bit of an update entry here, using crappy phone camera pictures to show a little of what I've been up to :) Firstly, due to a deal between mum and Pete I was the agent delivering 43 beers to Pete (and buying said beer), leading to a rather odd looking collection of goods when I made the purchase - 43 beers and a packet of naan bread for our dinner that evening. I'm fairly sure that the collection would have looked a whole lot less odd if it hadn't been for the naan bread.  The clunking of that lot in the car sounded quite dreadful as I accelerated, braked, turned corners... Luckily nothing broke :)  In other news, the Christmas Market is now in town! There's a stall that sells cool keyrings and 3D wooden puzzels. I've got some pictures of the keyrings, but not the puzzels :( Also, not the full spectrum of keyrings - there are lizards and frogs, and elephants, and giraffes and all sorts, all made from natural rubber :)   There's a stall with mulled wine and hot chocolate (regular hot chocolate and hot chocolate with rum or amaretto).  There's also a stall selling all kinds of Wurst, cooked over a barbeque. This stall is ben's favourite! :D  Finally, I took this picture of a very funny card: ( NSFW! ) Carols at the Cathedral tonight. I'm really looking forward to it :D It always feels like Christmas is really on its way when we have them. It also really enthralls the history part of me, as we stand in the Nave of the Cathedral with all the lights off, holding lit candles and singing carols, because I feel a real connection to the past - 100 years ago, 400 years ago, 1000 (or so) years ago there would have been people there doing much the same thing. It's hard to articulate, but it feels amazing. |
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| Nov. 9th, 2008 @ 04:18 pm Remembrance Sunday | |||
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I originally posted something like this when I first went on a trip to Ypres with my Special Subject class in April 2005. The original is here on my LiveJournal, and the version I'm posting now is here on my website. I'm posting it again today because I feel it's appropriate for Remembrance Sunday. ( Cut for legnth - it's very long ;) ) |
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| Sep. 9th, 2008 @ 12:58 pm A disturbing trend and the solution to the UK's economic woes | |||
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benc has just come to a startling conclusion that I feel must be shared with the world. The last time the economy crashed Norman Lamont was Chancellor.  This time, Alastair Darling is Chancellor.  ( What do they have in common? ) ( Thus, the solution to the UK's economic woes is... ) |
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| Aug. 2nd, 2008 @ 05:30 pm A trip to Greenwich Market | |||
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I went with no1typo today to Greenwich to have a wander around the market and we had a lovely time. We both arrived early because we did not want to be late, and had a starbucks with a pastry which was excellent (in my rush to be not late, I skipped breakfast), after which we went for a wander through the market. We saw many excellent and lovely things and I wish I could afford or have space for half of them. In the end I came home with a pair of earrings and two pairs of socks, which are just awesome:/dsc00071.jpg.html) /dsc00072.jpg.html) The giraffe ones are my absolute favourites. In the course of our wanderings we saw this shop with its retro 80s sign, had a peek at how the Cutty Sark was doing, saw low flying RAF rescue helicopter which landed near the Dome (I hope noone was hurt) and had a ride on the amusingly named "Wheel of Excellence" (here). The view was spectacular. It's there till some time in September, so if you're in the area I can recommend a trip on it. It's only £7 for an adult and I think good value for what you get :) It's no London Eye, but it doesn't really pretend to be in size, legnth of ride or price :) All pictures here. Sorry for the quality - I didn't take my lovely Panasonic to Greenwich with me, so took them with my phone's camera. |
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| Jul. 29th, 2008 @ 11:15 pm Old UKC pictures | |||
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I finally got round to photographing and uploading more pictures from "From Vision to Reality", as well as rephotographing those that were already there so they are better quality. They are here for those who want to look :) I've also made a new LJ icon. ION: I went to see The Dark Knight this evening at Ashford. Twas good. Won't say any more though in case of spoilers. |
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| Jul. 7th, 2008 @ 12:10 am Apostrophail | |||
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Mum, Phil, Ben and I went to the Cemetary today to do some general housekeeping on daddy's grave - cleaning the headstone, fresh flowers and stuff while generally remembering him and having a rather nice time. His birthday would have been tomorrow (or today! - 7th July) and even if we only go once a year we generally try and time it around his birthday. Anyway, walking the quarter of a mile or so back from daddy's grave to the main gate Ben spotted this spectacular error in grammar.  As Phil said, you would really think that people would check things are correct before going and actually etching it in to stone. It's not as if gravestones are particularly cheap. |
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| Jul. 5th, 2008 @ 09:30 pm The BBC are very special | |||
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Ben and I watched the series finale of Doctor Who earlier, but obviously have not really discussed it online yet, in deference to those who have for some reason or another not been able to watch it yet. However, the BBC seemingly have no such restraint as they have managed to completely spoiler the episode for anyone who has not seen it yet. First (and please don't click on these links unless you've seen it or don't care cos I don't want angry complaints on my journal ;)), they point out key plot points in their Ticker across the top of the front page of the news website. Secondly on the front page of the "Entertainment section" they pretty much give away the entire plot in the headline and summary. Then if you actually go in to the article the whole ending is laid bare as well as or better than any spoiler or summary site on the internet could. Nice job BBC ;) I wonder how many angry people will get in contact to complain. |
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| Jun. 13th, 2008 @ 04:04 pm Funny cartoon | |||
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Saw this, thought it was funny, decided I'd share :) From Left Handed Toons |
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| May. 23rd, 2008 @ 03:28 pm A complaint to the BBC | |||
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A good while ago now (9th April 2008) I sent in a complaint to the BBC. I was unhappy that after the redesign of their news website it didn't work properly in firefox. As you can see from my screenshots (firefox, Internet Explorer) text often appeared very small for some paragraphs, especially near photographs. It did not do this in Internet Explorer. My complaint said: "I have noticed a fairly major problem with the new bbc news website, in that it clearly has not been tested extensively in Firefox, as opposed to Internet Explorer. In Firefox there are parts of articles that appear in tiny font (see http://carina.org.uk/piccies/screenshot Two days later (11th April) I recieved back what was essentially a placeholder reply: "Dear Thank you for contacting the BBC. This is to let you know that we've received your recent complaint and will respond as soon as possible, however I hope you understand that the time taken to do so can depend on the nature of your complaint and the number of other complaints we're currently dealing with. The BBC issues public responses to issues which prompt large numbers of significant complaints and these can be read on our website at: www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. We'd be grateful if you would not reply to this email - in the meantime, we'd like to thank you for again for contacting us with your concerns and appreciate your patience in awaiting a response. Thank you again for taking the time to contact the BBC. Regards James Kelly BBC Complaints" I have to admit I was pretty annoyed but accepted that this was part of contacting a public and high profile company and it probably took time to go through the number of emails that they get. Having said that, I only got a "proper" reply to my original complaint today, 7 weeks and 1 day after my original query, and I'm a bit narked, especially given what apparently constitutes a proper reply for them. "Dear Mrs Charlton Thanks for your e-mail. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and we are sorry you have had to wait on this occasion. I understand you feel the new BBC News website has not been tested extensively in Firefox as in Firefox there are parts of articles that appear in tiny font. I also acknowledge you believe this shows an unacceptable bias towards Microsoft by the BBC which is frustrating as you have to use a browser that is more insecure than your browser of choice. I cannot guarantee this will be rectified however I have forwarded your concerns to the site owners for their attention. Please be assured that I've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers. Thank you again Mrs Charlton for taking the time to contact us. Regards Jonathan Dunlop BBC Complaints" On the upside, the final email refered to me by name rather than just Dear Blank. On the downside their response was basically a copy paste of my original email, and an original sentence saying they can't guarentee a fix. The blatanty copy-pasting as a way of trying to show that they understand my complaint makes the whole thing completely ridiculous. I would have felt more listened to if he had just said they had read my original email and understood my concerns, as it is, it feels as if the BBC complaints department are schoolchildren who copy paste whatever anyone sends them without really comprehending what the words actually mean. I am not at all impressed. On this occasion BBC--------- |
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| May. 22nd, 2008 @ 07:07 pm Link: "He took a polariod every day until the day he died" | |||
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I found this link earlier: "He Took A Polaroid Every Day Until The Day He Died". "Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found." Go look - it's well worth it. |
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| May. 22nd, 2008 @ 04:40 pm London trip, Science Museum, a giant moth and Willy Fogg | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
( London trip (including the Science Museum) )Mostly feeling:  tiredNow Playing: Around the World in 80 Days (E4: The Temple of Doom) Last night I caught a Giant Moth. Ugh. ( Giant Moth (see? I'm not exaggerating!) ) Today I've been watching Around The World With Willy Fogg (theme tune), which was one of the blockbuster dvds that turned up recently. It's such fun :D I really enjoy 80s cartoons :) In it's honour I've made a new lj icon (see the one with this post :)) Phew. That was quite an update. I daresay there won't be another proper one for months now! |
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| May. 7th, 2008 @ 08:31 pm Ouchies: Falling down stairs | |||
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Today I fell down half a flight of stairs from our flat. I mis-stepped on the top step and fell until the halfway break and its railings stopped my fall. It hurt. Anyone thinking of falling down stairs (especially concrete ones with sharp edges) take my advice. Don't. I was checked out at the hospital, and didn't break anything luckily (and rather miraculously). I have scraped most of the skin off my left shin though, and have grazes on my left shin, right thigh, left forearm and right upper arm, and an enormous bump on my forehead. And I'm black and blue in a way that ben's pictures (see below for link) don't show (mostly because they've been coming up since he took the pictures at the minor injuries unit at the K&C). Pictures here. It really hurt when the nurse cleaned the grazes up, because underneith is all bruised and there was grit and stuff in wounds that had mostly scabbed over. Apparently all colour drained from my face. Anyway, now you all know how stupid I can be. On the upside neither my glasses nor my phone were destroyed, despite falling twice as far as me. In fact, the phone didn't even disconnect the call I had going at the time. Talk about impressive (and lucky). Yay! Again, I reiterate, if you're thinking of falling down stairs, don't ;) |
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| Apr. 29th, 2008 @ 11:25 pm New shiny and old pictures | |||
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My new phone arrived today. See here for pictures of it as I unpacked it. Here it is next to my old phone: /p1020604.jpg.html) Mmm, shiny. While moving stuff from my old phone to my new one, I grabbed a whole load of pictures off it and uploaded them. They are nyah. They include: * a picture of the roof in the * A picture taken at the last BNL concert I went to. See why I took such a crappy picture here. * Dalek Operation found in ASDA a while ago. Enjoy! P.S. Go comment on ben's journal here. He says it's "vitally important". |
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| Apr. 27th, 2008 @ 12:24 pm Wildwood, and a Phone upggrade | |||
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I went to Wildwood (again) the other day (this time with rahslowe and her sister, Hannah) and got some more animal pictures, quite different from the ones last time because most of the Animals weren't co-operating. Pictures here. Best picture was of an American Bullfrog, I'm quite pleased with it. Pity about the grass that kind of got in the way of my shot. The other thing that happened to me recently was a mobile phone upgrade. I was due for my upgrade a couple of weeks ago but put it off till yesterday, and had the weirdest and easiest upgrade ever (which is why I'm writing about something so mundane :p) My current phone is a Sony Ericsson W300i and I've been very happy with it for the most part, but it's 18 months old, scratched and generally looking and starting to behave like a phone that's 18 months old (unimportant bits falling off it and such). Anyway, I decided to pull my finger out yesterday and call T-Mobile (who I've been with for nearly 6 years now on contract, and four years before that on PAYG, and part of that was when they were still One2One). What can I say, I'm really happy with them, always had excellent customer service from them, and not had any problems with coverage - when I was first with them they were the only ones with signal covering my mum's house (necessary since I was living there at the time). I got through to customer services very quickly and asked about an upgrade. A very chirpy scotsman confirmed I was due, and said I was a high value customer to them, and as such he wasn't going to offer me any deals - I should just say what I wanted and he would make it happen. So I said I was after the Sony Ericsson W890i, which according to T-Mobile's website should cost me about £50. He said I could have it for free, then gave me a discount off my bill (£4 a month) without me asking. Win :D I was really surprised, but very impressed with their customer service, which for me was impeccable. So I'm writing this all down, to act as a record for just how pleased I am with them and why. My new phone should arrive on Tuesday morning. Mmm, shiny :) |
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| Apr. 14th, 2008 @ 09:40 pm Mum's birthday and Wildwood | |||
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On mum's birthday we went to Hampton Court Palace (click for pictures). It was a lovely day :) This week is part of the Easter Holidays for schools, and Sue asked me if I would like to go with her and three of her children to Wildwood. It seemed like a nice way to spend my afternoon so I agreed. Here are the pictures of what I did my afternoon :)  Wild Boar Piglets  Badgers  Polecat It was a lovely day :) |
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| Mar. 24th, 2008 @ 01:15 pm Science Tattoos | |||
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| Through a blog I read, I had my attention drawn to this site showing various science tattoos. It's really cool, and I really recommend that you spend a few minutes having a look :) |
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| Feb. 20th, 2008 @ 11:08 pm Judas. And quizzes. | |||
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A random though occurred to me while in the bath tonight. I should point out before I write this thought down that it was conjured up by random musings while humming Jesus Christ, Superstar songs to myself. I have no idea what the bible says about this or anything. Anyway, it occurred to me that Judas really got a raw deal. Assuming that the whole thing is real (and I really don't know where I stand on that at the moment, so please don't ask or try to convince me either way), Jesus had to die so the whole resurrection thing could happen. The whole thing was pre ordained. Therefore someone would always have had to have turned Jesus in. Judas is very badly thought of for doing it and the word today generally means a betrayer. Really, sucks to have been him. Talk about a no win situation. If he hadn't dobbed Jesus in then he wouldn't have died on the cross and been resurrected and then ascended in to heaven and so Jesus could not have taken on everyone's sins and allowed for repentence and whatever. But if he had then he would have been branded forever and presumably sent to hell. I almost feel sorry for the guy. If he existed. Hmm. That was all rather heavy and brain dumpy. Have some quizzes to take your minds off it. ( My brain sex and which Austen Heroine I am ) Finally, I want to draw your attention to the Photomeme which only one person (hi mum!) seems to want to do. Please participate? :) |
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| Feb. 10th, 2008 @ 09:55 pm Pictures | |||
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In honour of my new camera I'm going to do a Photomeme again. I last did this in 2005 (see here). Post a comment and ask me to post a picture of anything in my life - our gerbils, a bookshelf, my desk, whatever. It will hopefully help you to get an insight of my life! Feel free to post this yourselves if you feel like it. I'd be interested to see elements of your lives too :) Gogogo! To inspire you, here are the pictures I took over the last few days with new shiny - quite a lot of them are me playing around to see what it can do ;) Prezzos - We went and tried Prezzos for the first time on Thursday. Was pleasantly surprised. Their mains were nice, but it was the honeycomb cheesecake that really made it :D Herne Bay - We went to Herne Bay today and I played with my camera. There are a couple of shots I'm really pleased with: here, here and here. After boggling at the sheer amount of rust on the pier I'm thinking about starting a series of photos on Herne Bay called "Herne Bay - A Study in Rust". I have also discovered that either Herne Bay is on a lean or I take all my pictures wonky ;) More Gerbils - more pictures of the gerbils! :D Them's so cute! |
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| Feb. 5th, 2008 @ 11:35 pm New camera! (also, Shrove Tuesday) | |||
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I am currently suffering from pancake overdose, having had a three course pancake meal (started with pancakes with OJ and sugar, main was pancakes with cheddar cheese, pudding was pancakes with chocolate sauce and ice cream!) After that I doubt I'll be eating them again much before next Shrove Tuesday ;) I spent the afternoon playing with my new camera, and took the opportunity to take lots of pictures of our two gerbils which we've had for about four months now but which I have not blogged about before. Pictures of our gerbils, Stan and Nibbler. Stan is the caramel one, and named after a Canadian folk singer called Stan Rogers. Nibbler is the grey (and he does have red eyes - it's not just my crappy photography! ;)) and I named him. Which is possibly why he isn't named after a Canadian folk singer! I don't think they loved me very much for taking pictures though - after a while they went and hid in the back corner of their tank! ( Stan and Nibbler ) By the way, before anyone else pastes me the URL - I have seen the BBC's "Mormon" story about the Preston Temple/MTC. My response is at the bottom of this LJ entry for anyone who is interested. Finally, a meme, stolen from hopeful_rose. You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes. It's great because it talks about Pancakes. On pancake day! Hurrah! |
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| Feb. 5th, 2008 @ 11:31 am Darwin award candidates (if only they had died) and a shiny new camera | |||
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I was having a bad day a few days ago when ben cheered me up by pointing out to me this story in the local free rag, which clearly shows some students at CCCU who, if they had died in the fire, would have been candidates for the Darwin Awards. ( The article ) For those who CBA to read the article themselves, basically there was a fire in an empty house next door to where the students lived. The students, Dan Fowler and Elliot Preston, originally did the clever thing and evacuated their own house - "There was a loud bang at the door. It was someone telling us to get out because the house next door was on fire." Elliot took his laptop and alerted his housemate and they got out. So far, so clever. But then: "We got outside but then I sent Dan back in to get the XBox. Unfortunately we broke Pro-Evolution Soccer in the process, which was not cool." It would have been even less cool if the fire had spread and they'd died in the process, although then they would have removed themselves from the gene pool, which after doing something so monumentally stupid may not have been a bad thing. In other news, these are the final pictures to be taken with my old camera, a Fuji Finepix A210, which has done stirling service for over four years - it was purchased for me as a joint present from everyone when I turned 20. The other day I purchased a Panasonic Lumix fz8, which was on manager's special for about £80 less than RRP because it was lacking a manual and a charger ;) The real shininess of the Lumix is the Leica lens. Before ben upgraded to a proper D-SLR he had a Panasonic Lumix fz30 and said that the lens was what really made the camera. I suspect that will be the case with this one too. The new charger arrived this morning, so in the next few days I will go out and take some test shots with it to show everyone :) Then I can tell you just how shiny (or not) the fz8 turns out to be :) |
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| Jan. 27th, 2008 @ 05:34 pm Exmormon LJ icons | |||
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I was bored today, so I made some LJ icons based on some mormon icon templates (except one - can you guess which? :P) Shared in case any of you are interested :) (plus, I am proud of my handiwork ;)) ( Exmormon LJ icons ) |
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| Jan. 22nd, 2008 @ 05:22 pm Latest on Cane Hill Hospital | |||
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For previous posts mentioning see: here, here, and here (the latter includes all good links on the site). My brother red_pill saw the following in the Coulsdon and Purley Advertiser back in November and asked mum (no1typo) to save it for me when I came at Christmas. I have finally got around to not only taking pictures of the spread and uploading them, but also blogging about them ;) The feature is mainly about the future of the site, with a couple of things thrown in about the past.( Cane Hill feature in the Coulsdon and Purley Advertiser ) By the way, I still own canehill.co.uk, which I really want to get some actual content up on. Suggestions about what to put up? At the moment I'm considering just a list of links, like the ones in the third LJ post I mention at the top. |
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| Jan. 22nd, 2008 @ 05:03 pm On evil children | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
I read Nurse Ratched's blog through Bloglines and the one that popped up today Evil Children amused me greatly, so I thought I would share it. It isn't the entry so much as the picture included in it, from the Des Moines Register:Mostly feeling:  amusedNow Playing: Air Crash Investigation Special Report: Ripped Apart  For those of you who cba to read the text off the picture it says: OLDS 1999 Intrigue, Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet. [number removed to protect the innocent] *giggle* |
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| Jan. 22nd, 2008 @ 03:02 pm Various ramblings (including my take on the news at the moment and a quiz) | |||
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Watching the news today I'm shocked that the economy hasn't completely collapsed. As The Daily Mash said this morning: "STOCKBROKERS are preparing for a third day of running around and waving their hands in the air, shouting 'nooooooooooooooooooo!!!'." The amount of doom and gloom has been amusing, but possibly because right now I have nothing to lose. In a fantastic scheduling coincidence, True Movies has the whole of this afternoon taken up with The Day The Bubble Burst, a film about the 1929 Stock Market crash. Seems rather apt ;) On the local news there was no Kaddy doing the weather to keep the boys amused and hanging onto every second of the bulletin, instead, there was Michael Fish with a rather strange (but cool) tank top with weather symbols covering his nipples. I don't think benc will think it a good enough substitute.( Michael Fish's Jumper ) My new meds are kicking in now, and instead of feeling very fuzzy, dizzy and somewhat stoned while also sleeping for about 18 hours each day I woke up before midday (a first since Saturday) and have felt relatively with it. A pity I have to up the dose tonight when I expect the aforementioned side effects to come back. At least I know they won't continue forever. On the upside, I am now sleeping through the night :) Spent friday night playing GH1, 2 and 3 at Adam's house. There was also curry eaten. I'm much better at GH than I was the last time we had such an evening, which resulted in me being practically banned from playing on medium. Damn! I'll just have to get really good at Hard then ;) Pity hard is *so* hard. I'm stuck on the Kaiju Megadome set, so I've started on Expert to see if it will help me along with the last of the hard lot. I've recently uploaded some new icons, which include some Third Watch ones (a series I'm very into at the moment) and the one I'm using today, the Epstein-Barr virus (also mononucleosis or Glandular Fever) which I had a few years back and ben got me for Christmas :) ( Which old language am I? ) |
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| Jan. 1st, 2008 @ 07:54 pm Weighted Companion Cube Cake | |||
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Ever since Portal came out in Mid October last year, my husband benc has been more or less obsessed with Moist Delicious Cake and The Weighted Companion Cube which are both "components" of the game. His Weighted Companion Cube Plushie arrived just before Christmas and he fell in love with it. I decided to make him a cake for his birthday on Friday. I'd been toying with the idea since the game had first come out in October, but with the arrival of the plushie version I had a 3D model I could copy. Today me and my friend rahslowe got down to work and spent the day making a Weighted Companion Cube Cake. First we went shopping for the necessary articles with which to make cake. No mean feat, given today was new years' day and only Sainsbury's was open (Morrisons and Asda being shut) and even Sainsbury's had very little in the way of what we needed. Luckily we just got more expensive stuff and managed to get everything we wanted.  The cake ingredients  and the icing ingredients. First we made two basic sponge cakes. The recipe we used was simple and easily scalable- 1 egg to 2 ounces of everything else. We used three eggs so the quantities were: 3 eggs 6oz Caster Sugar 6oz Butter 6oz Flour We chose to be masochists and mixed the cake by hand, then cooked it in Rah's rectangular Lasagne dish as we felt it was a suitable size. While the first cake was cooling we made the second cake. As the second cake was cooling we began to construct the cube. First we cut the first cake in half and stuck the halves together with Jam (strawberry, but you could use any that took your fancy). We used the second cake to continue the construction, also cutting it in half and sticking all the bits together with strawberry jam. Then we trimmed the sides to a greater or lesser extent to make a cube shape of what was left.  The offcuts.  The naked Companion Cube. While various parts were cooking and cooling we made templates from cardboard to cut into the icing around so we had the right shapes to decorate the cube with.  The templates with the plushie version which we were copying. Next came the really messy bit - making the icing! We used a large box of ready to roll royal icing and icing sugar to act as "flour" and stop the icing from sticking to the work surface. We added black food colouring sparingly to make varying shades of grey and some pink food colouring to make the hearts. These got covered in white icing sugar in the process of colouring and rolling it out, but a pastry brush and water took care of that and restored them to the colours they were supposed to be. To use the templates, just lay them out on top of the icing on your worktop and use a sharp knife to cut around them (much as you would with a pastry cutter). The thin lines of pink were writing icing. The hardest bit was getting the bottom layer of icing the right shade of grey and long and wide enough to cover the entire cube. Then we used water to stick the pieces of icing which had been cut from the templates onto the bottom layer. The consistency when wet was something like wet clay. Eventually it was done, but wet so we left it to dry while we cleared up the terrifying mess we had created. Finally it was more or less dry and looked like this: ( mmm, caek ) Unfortunately we only managed to make half a companion cube out of cake, but we're already making plans for next time, one of which (suggested by Ben) is to make two half cube cakes and serve them one on an orange plate and one on a blue plate. If you have played portal you will get the reference ;) All pictures of the event can be found here. I recommend getting a friend to help you, it would have been much harder without Rah's help. Thanks Rah and Happy Birthday Ben :) [EDIT] Cross posted to my website. How to make a Weighted Companion Cube Cake. |
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| Dec. 30th, 2007 @ 11:27 pm Godmother | |||||
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Today I renounced Satan and all his works and asked various saints to pray for us at our local catholic church and I am now a Godmother! :)
(Yes, I am just as petrified as I look there)
My handsome Godson, John Andrew :) The service itself was very quick, not even any incense. Afterwards we went with the family to the local pub and had a roast dinner. Later I gave him the present I brought him for his baptism - the complete collection of Beatrix Potters. Hopefully it's something he'll still have when he has children :) I'm very tired now. It was a good day, but very long. Yay for being a Godparent though. I could just about burst with pride! :D |
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| Dec. 27th, 2007 @ 04:46 pm Christmas writeup | |||
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Since December started I have been burning my advent candle: opening my advent calendar (from Thorntons, mmm :)):  and looking at how pretty our tree is:  .Pressies were brought and wrapped and on ( Christmas Eve ) ( And so Christmas Day dawned ) ( Boxing Day started bright and early... ) ( And then the Mormons turned up ) In the evening we watched part of Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds in Concert and then I switched over to watch ( Ballet Shoes ) Phew. That was a very long update. If I updated more often then I daresay I would not post such long rambling entries. Ah well :) |
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| Dec. 10th, 2007 @ 11:03 am Inquire - journalistic powerhouse of the University of Kent | |||
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I saw the doctor today and found myself reading Kent Union's student paper "Inquire" while I waited. Two articles (the first about the library being very badly written IMO) caught my attention. First - The Templeman Library: Not Fit for Use?  For the record, the book shortages for course texts are down to lecturers often not informing the library which texts will be needed - that's a failing of the departments and lecturers, not the library or its staff. ladyicedragon - if you want to use the picture I took for your library thing then go for it :)Second - Kent ANIMEted  Again, if anyone involved with anime soc wants the article picture then go for it :) I took a picture of this one cos of all the people on my friendslist associated with it or who like anime in general. I have to admit though, the typesetting at the bottom of the second column is rather special... Enjoy. |
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| Oct. 3rd, 2007 @ 02:55 pm Haircut | |||
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Yesterday I got my hair cut. It's now the shortest it's been since I started sixth form in 2000, so the chances are that most of you have never seen me with hair this short. |
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| Sep. 30th, 2007 @ 08:43 am Comics | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
I'm sure very soon I'll write a proper update, including pictures of the beautiful bunch of flowers I had delivered yesterday. For now though you'll have to be content with a couple of webcomics that have amused me greatly over the past few days.Mostly feeling: tiredNow Playing: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe   Today I'm off for a huge family meal with my Aunt and Uncle from Canada (Lee and Brad), my Auntie Pat and Uncle Allan, mum, Phil, Ben and a whole bunch of Overal relatives I have never met before (and didn't know existed until 6 months ago) at Cafe Belge. It should be interesting if nothing else. Like I said, proper update soon ;) |
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| Sep. 10th, 2007 @ 04:02 pm Holiday in Skegness | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
As I mentioned in my last entry we went on holiday to Skegness/Chapel St. Leonards for a week in a fixed site caravan. We had a lovely time and selected photos are here and some different ones here. All photos were taken by Mostly feeling:  nervousNow Playing: Various programmes from the BBC archive trial benc (I was taking black and white pictures on a film camera which have yet to be developed).We did a fair bunch of stuff, though it was all sadly rather curtailed because the effects of my depression are such that after doing something for 3 or 4 hours I was so tired I had to come home and sleep. One of the things that we did that isn't in pictures is we drove an hour and a half to Stamford so we could see The Dam Busters (which had been cleaned up a little) on the big screen. Well worth it :D though I was dead almost all of the next day. When we went to Skegness we saw the Skegness lifeboat with its awesome tractor which pulls it down the beach to the sea and pulls it back out again:  It was sooooo cool :D I won a zippy toy at the "Hook a Duck" stall on Skegness pier and he "did" Skegness:  In Chapel St. Leonards we found possibly the most offensive building in all of the UK, the Golden Palm:  The pictures don't do it justice - the palm trees *flashed*. The shopping arcade owned by the Golden Palm also produced the worst curry I have ever had - sauce like water, sweetened with sugar and chicken so dry it had probably been sitting under lights for hours. The curry places around Skegness were all very special. None of the ones near to us did "Curry". They all did Curry/Kebabs/Pizzas/Burgers. Really we should have known better than to buy from there. On our last day we went to the beach, as it was the only day really nice enough for it. I buried Ben:  We worked on a sandcastle:  Which had a working moat :D  Thus, our work was done:  (Mine is the blue spade). Finally, ben brought me a giant Eeyore for an anniversary present:  He's pretty awesome :) Today I have called the Job Centre plus in an effort to apply for Incapacity benefit as advised to me by Payroll at UKC. It seems very complicated and I have no idea if I'll be eligable but I don't loose anything by applying. I have also been abusing the BBCs archive trial and now have about 12 tabs of things to watch. Ah well, will keep me busy! And finally, the reason I chose the icon I did: we got back from holiday to a letter from our Letting Agency saying they'll be coming to inspect the flat for the first time in two years on Thursday. It's a routine inspection but I'm bricking it and utterly convinced we'll be evicted despite saner voices telling me I'm being a muppet. I'm sure on Thursday I'll be able to come back and tell you all that they were right. Until then I suspect I'll be a bit of a nervous heap. |
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| Aug. 31st, 2007 @ 11:11 pm Dalek Toy | |||
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I found Dr Who Operation in Asda (aka, shop of evil) earlier and immediately thought of bethanthepurple (who probably wants one for Birthday/Christmas/$random celebration), though I knew it may well interest any of you other Dr Who addicts out there who happen to read my LJ. Picture below. Sorry for the crappiness, I took it with my cameraphone :S  In other news, I'm off on holiday tomorrow, to that most romantic of locations*: Skegness (actually, a fixed caravan in a caravan park in a place nearby called Chapel St. Leonards. It's in this lovely location, where benc used to spend his holidays, that we will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary. Doesn't time fly!Completely gratuitous picture of the wedding below. This one isn't crappy cos it was taken with one of Jibbler's uber cameras.  Be safe while we're away. Contactable on my mobile if it's urgent. If not, sod off - second honeymoon don'cha know :P* Will be without internet till we come back, which is next Saturday at some point. Byebye for a week friendslist! *despite how I sound about this, I am actually incredibly excited...or will be, once the packing is over! *This doesn't include you, family...and certain friends, I think you can guess who you are :P |
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| Aug. 7th, 2007 @ 10:09 am Tapas at typo's, Fire, Bluewater | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
So Saturday was the second annual "Tapas at Typo's", otherwise known as "typostock". There was much too much food again (better than too little!) and it was a lot quieter than last year which was nice though I missed foo, rah, xiphi, si, bethan and lacey who all should have been there :PMostly feeling:  chipperNow Playing: Star Trek 1 (Sky Movies Sci Fi, all day Star Trek \o/) The lack of Sangria (provided by liz and si last year) led to a lack of amusing fights with bushes, getting undressed behind cushions and vomiting incidents. However, it was lovely to see kimble and barakta who weren't there last year, and the old faithfuls - mark, azz, typo, phil, sam, pao and anyone else I've forgotten. People played on ben's wii which was cool and very funny for all concerned, especially the cow racing :D In the end Phil lit an excellent fire which was built around a metal chair. It got very hot and was really cool. Pity it couldn't have continued for longer. It scares me how good Phil is at building fires. I guess I should take his threats to set me on fire more seriously in future. Pao took a photo that summed up the fire (and the pyromania shared by Ben and I) :D  On Sunday we brought Phil back to Canterbury with us and bought him his birthday present. I was weak and let him have it now, even though his birthday is not for three weeks yet. Sunday was far too hot and when we got back to the flat we all flaked out. It seems summer has actually arrived now. I don't feel like I've had any time to prepare for the temperatures, hence why I think I flaked out. Yesterday I took Phil to Greenwich and he showed me around his Uni campus (or as much as he could - they have scary security there - you need an ID card just to get into regular buildings) and I had a market related accident - I now have a new bag, hair band, toe ring and friendship bracelet that makes an excellent anklet. As the parking ran out in the Greenwich car park at 11am we decided to go to Bluewater for a wander around, some Krispy Kremes and lunch. When we got there we found that there was a bungee trampoline set up in the grounds and Phil and I went halves on a five minute stint for him and I filmed and photographed him with my crappy camera phone which was all I had.  One of the better pictures Other pictures of him doing his thing are here. I've uploaded the videos to youtube cos they were in a silly format. Apologies for my silly voice over the top. The second video is by far the funniest and I actually managed to capture the only successful forward somersault he managed: After that, which was really very funny to watch, we wandered around various shops, lusting after shinies (particularly in Game and the Lego shop) before ending up in Ed's Diner opposite Krispy Kreme for lunch:  It was very nice food and it didn't have that yellow tinge in the diner! I blame crappy camera phone. In the end, full of pie, we purchased our doughnuts and headed back to the car, but not before Phil had a play with the pirate ships just outside one of the entrances: Finally I dropped him home in Coulsdon, picking up left over serrano ham, and headed back to Canterbury. A busy few days, but very nice and fun :) I especially treasure the memories of Phil making a tit of himself on the bungee trampoline! |
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| Jun. 4th, 2007 @ 05:30 pm Best olympic logo *evar* | |||
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So after the new London 2012 logo was announced the BBC invited people to send in their ideas. Please look at number 5. It will be noted that they clearly chose someone who has never seen Goatse.cx (sfw wikipedia link) to moderate the pictures. Either that or the editor is having a huge giggle. In case the picture gets removed I have saved it to my website (screenshot of the page on BBC here and produce it below:  The explanation that goes with it states Sean Stayte: "Here is my design for the Olympic logo. It is very simple and so memorable. The hands represent Britain pulling together to reveal the Olympics." *giggle* Hands Britain pulling together my arse :P That's made my day :D Edit: They did remove it. Just as well I took the screenshot then :D |
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| May. 28th, 2007 @ 02:56 pm Bank holiday cake | |||
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Hiding out here: CT2
This weekend Mostly feeling: chipperNow Playing: Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire benc decided to do something nice and as we had spare eggs and it's rather horrible out there we chose to make cake. We shopped for chocolate chips and made a 6oz Chocolate Chip cake.It's very nice ;)  Before it went in the oven  Just cutting into it  Cross section (it's funny to see how the chocolate chips have stayed at the level they were went it went in the oven and the rest of the cake has risen. It's created a rather amusing effect - wonder if there's a way to make the chips rise with the cake?) Spending today watching Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire on UKTV History. It's very good :) |
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| Apr. 12th, 2007 @ 02:39 pm Olivetti PC-1, nostalgia and floppy disks | |||
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Once upon a time (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) there was a family with a "new" computer. To start it needed a floppy disk in its drive (built in to the keyboard) and when it did start it presented its operator with a numeric menu from which you chose options 1-*. When it started it said Hello Phillip, How is your lovely little family today? and the computer was much loved, for it came with First Choice (on a floppy - nothing on this computer ran without a floppy) to make documents on and a dot matrix printer to print the documents out. It came with a disc with games on - Tic-Tac-Toe, Chess and Frogger. It was great. It was an Olivetti PC1 with one floppy drive (like the one featured here). It was very light, much lighter than my PC now (Aragorn - as of last night the owner of two 250g disks [raid1] and a new PSU) because this is all there was to it. With its (tiny) black and white screen it looked much like this:  The reason I'm talking about all this is because today I finally got round to checking on some old floppy disks that I found when ben and I were spring cleaning last week. Much of the results are very noisy and not terribly fruitful. Alas, most of these disks and the data on them are unsalvigable it would seem. One of the disks was very old. It was called "Getting Started". I took screenshots of what I found on them. The dates show just how old they are:   ...Wow. I am of the firm believe that most of the WPK files are ones I created. Especially ones with titles like "THE_CAT" and "THE_DOG". Of course, now I'm drowning in a wave of nostalgia. And spending the rest of my day making models of the Starship Enterprise out of dead floppies. |
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thoughtful
geeky
productive
okay
mischievous
cold
relaxed
creative
grumpy
sore
full of pancakes
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