attention to detail

I wanted to try to embed this here but as it's a separate url, I can't seem to. You all simple mustmustMUST check it out. It's absolutely amazing. Lots of pixel lunar art on this massive page. So much attention to detail. To find out more about it or add to it, go to www.x-panded.com/pixeldam/indexpixelmoon.html. I'm just gutted that you can't click on things and have stuff happen. That would be truly truly awesome.

Postscript: As a side note, look at me go! Nothing for weeks and now 4 entries in 2 days. So typical...

all types of crazy...

This morning there was an article on the Metro entitled 'Astronaut in a nappy attacks her love rival'. Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I want to be reading on my morning train ride. The only reference I've been able to find to it online is here and it reads a bit dry but to sum up, this woman drove about 1500km wearing a special nappy so that she didn't have to stop to use the loo, to meet a woman who she heard was interested in a man she was interested in. My fav bit was where the Metro said The 43-year-old was arrested and found to have a mallet, a 10cm knife, rubber tubing and rubbish bags......Nowak told officers she just wanted to scare Shipman into talking about her relationship with Mr. Oefelein and did not intend to hurt her. I'm sorry WHAT? In the world as I know it, you don't turn up to "chat" to someone carrying a knife, rubber tubing and rubbish bags. To me that reeks of body parts and a whole lot of not-talking. At least not nicely. Maybe Miss Astronaut Lady had some weird otherly experience in space which fried some synapses...

not knowing the meaning of small-scale

Ever since I moved in to my new flat, I've been meaning to have people around for dinner/afternoon tea/brunch/something similar and I have finally done it. Well at least the inviting part. And as a result, have encountered the problem with having a large circle of friends- there are a lot of them. I've just realised that I'm making dinner for 9 people on Saturday night- 11 if I count Sarah and Sean, which I feel I should. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. When I realised how many people it was, my first thought was, "I really must buy another shelf for our oven." Currently we only have one and I think we can all agree that there's no way you can cook for 11 people with one shelf!

new shiny goodness in my ears

Oh you faithful few who have kept checking this blog in the vain hope that I'll actually post something. Thank you. Who would have thought I could be so busy? All I can say is that doing a 40 hour a week job that only usually takes up 40 hours has made me soft. Back at Critic, I'd usually have done my 40 hours by the time I left on Thursday. Since getting back, it's been hella-crazy flat-tack all-out madness at work as I helped to put out not one but two magazines. Dude. But my dad has been asking, ever so nicely, when I'm going to blog again so here I am. Blogging again. Hoping not to let it slip again this badly although I do seem to periodically drop off the face of the cyber world.

Currently my latest news is that I got my ears pierced in the weekend. That's right folks, at the ripe old age of 27 I finally did it. In typical me fashion it is of course slightly in reverse as I've had my tracha pierced for years. I remember when I got that done, I went through this stage where it all felt a bit surreal and I really wasn't sure I wanted it there. I mean I'd had a piece of metal stabbed through my body. When you think about it, it seems a bit weird. And now, about 8 years later, I've done it again. This hurt nowhere near as much, in fact not at all- at least until yesterday. It seems that when I get changed, I pull my top off and brush my right ear. ALL THE TIME. And right about now, my right ear is more swollen than my left and a bit hot and burning whereas the left if totally fine. All because I happened to nastily jerk it a couple of times. When I get home I intend to hold ice to it until I can't feel it any more. On the bright side, it's not seeping or anything so I'm sure it'll be fine. But at the moment I'm a bit of a grumblebum about it. As you may have noticed...

The other thing I've been aware of at the moment, apart from the throbbing pain in my right ear, is that I'm going through another 'phase' as I like to put it. Not a personal one but rather a social one. This at least is how I've chosen to term it. You know how you can look back over your life and track fads or phases of your life? Mine tend to get defined by my social circle at the time and I can get quite nostalgic about it. Life is constantly changing but every now and then you get to settle in a pocket of time for a while where everything is basically good and it's just nice. At the moment I'm fairly settled here in London, I go to work, I climb twice a week and most weekends I usually have coffee with my friend Sue on a Sat morn and the bunch of us will do something on the Sat night. The other week I was having dinner with my friends and I was laughing so hard I was crying and I looked around at a group of 8 women, all of whom I really like and I enjoy being with. And happy as I was, I was also a bit sad because I realised that this will not last. We'll leave London, move apart, life will go on. It's just a bit sad really. The nice, or at least interesting thing about being in London is that we are all at pretty much the same stage in life but it's almost a kind of stasis in a way and back home, be it NZ for me or SA for them, friends are moving on with lives and buying houses and getting married and having babies. Which we are definitely NOT doing. Is it something about being in London, the different pace of it all, the reasons we came here? I don't know. I just consider myself lucky enough to have good enough friends back home that they can go down a different path to me and we can still have a close enough bond that we don't become strangers to each other. We still hold similar values and opinions on things- at least at the moment. Part of me wonders how long it'd take with us living our different lives before we grew so different that we no longer felt that we understood the other person. I know it's happened with some of my friends when they've gone back to SA for a holiday- they just have nothing in common with people they used to consider their best friends. And I know that's just part of life but it doesn't stop it from being a bit sad too.

no time no time no time

IT SNOWED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Too busy, too much to do. Tomorrow will have more. Plus pics of snow. ooer.

brrr...........

Abandonment Issues
Kitty has left me. Don't be fooled by the fact that she may occasionally post on here. She's left me. She now mainly bogs on the greener shores of her personal blog kittyonsafari.blogspot.com. I don't feel stabbed in the back as much as pitched out of a moving car onto the side of the road in the middle of the desert. (Just joking K, you go forth a blog where you may...)

What will I not do for a photo?
Lotte came over for tea and cake yesterday afternoon and as we were looking at her photos from Prague, we came across this one which was taken when we stayed a friend's place in Devon ages ago. There was this digger on the side of the road which we walked past every day and Lotte and me being Lotte and me, of course we had to hop in to the scoop bit to have our photo taken. Look at me being all (unintentionally) calender-girl in the digger. I'm looking a smidge hoochy-mamma-esque, well as much as you can in jeans, t-shirt and a wooly hat with a bobble on it...


so this is what winter feels like
It came out of nowhere- overnight (it felt like) an almost 6 degree drop in hit us. One week we're basking in an 11˚ winter and suddenly it's 4˚. Jesus. It is C O L D. Brilliant timing on behalf of my wonderful Mummy though- I left some clothes behind in NZ (actually it was all undies and some may laugh at me getting them sent over because yes, you can buy underwear in Britain but my Mummy knows how attached I am to my sensible cotton underwear in totally non-sensible colours so she was a honey and shipped them over) and the package arrived today and even though I said I didn't need thermals, she sent me a thermal singlet anyway which was a Godsend because when I headed for the gym this morning I forgot a jersey and was freezing my bits off in my polyprop and t shirt so THANK YOU MUM YOU ARE A GODDESS. I am wearing the thermal now.

I have stuff I feel I could/should/will write in response (somewhat belated in some cases) to stuff my Dad has written in his blog but I don't have time right now so instead write this in the hope that he at least will remind me that I have to do it. Fantasy writing/ good and evil/probably something else but can't remember what....

I did a bad thing

I've updated our blog to the new blogger thingy, I'm sorry if this actually becomes a pain for you Aynia, but they kept asking so sweetly.

SO I'm in America! In Pt Reyes which is just out of San Francisco, to be specific.
So far I have:
Eaten: Big burger curly fries, cherry cola, mexian food including tamales and tacos. Lot's of goats cheese (for some reason), granola, goldfish crackers and I just had a big piece of pizza.
Been to: Some of San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge, Oakland, the pacific coast, a swing dance restaurant, an american-as-heck bar, a burger joint, a fancy japanese restaurant, and a house with heated floors and a double door fridge.
I plan to in the near future:
Go to a shooting range (awesome!), horse riding, go to a roller derby (where girls on skates fight -ha!), go to live music, Vegas, and the Grand Canyon.

I've been hanging out with my brother Peter and his new wife, Bonnie, and her 3yo daughter, Sophia. I'm going to be doing some work for Pete - web and graphic design stuff, and hopefull will earn mega greenbacks so that I can treat Aynia when I come visit after April sometime.

check out my other kitty specific blog yo.

so happy that I'm jumping

I HAVE MY iPOD BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoppee! No more broken-record-Aynia-brain. No more enduring shit gym music. Oh the rapturous joy. Oh the happiness. Oh the dance of I've-got-my-iPod-back. Oh the funny looks from people on the office...

WARNING FOR DEADWOOD FANS- POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
I'm writing this in small print so that it's easier for Deadwood fans to skip over this bit. Like Julie. I was thinking of her last night when the episode from Season3 featured a fight between Dan and The Captain, Hurst's muscle guy. Now Dan isn't a nice guy but I was soooooooooooooooo rooting for him and had absolutely no idea who was going to win the fight. It really could have gone either way and would have had quite different plot consequences. It was tense. I was tense. I was also thinking of my sister because I was doing what she hates most and talking at the TV. There were lots of cries of "Oooh" and "NO!" and "Get him" as well as an almost constant chant of "Go for the eyes, go for the eyes, gofortheeyes, GOFORTHEEYES." Dan did. He won. But I had anticipated eye-gouging, (which is bad enough) but in true Deadwood style, it was an eye popping-out. Which was quite graphic- it was swinging around and everything. And of course it's game-over at that point. Kinda gross but so well done, as the whole show is. Ka Pai makers so Deadwood.

Ok, it's fine to read again now.
Just to bring you up to speed if you skipped the fine print, I was talking about a fight between two characters in Deadwood. This morning when I walked to the train, I was thinking about it and it made me think of how my martial arts has influenced my opinion of fights I see on TV/in the movies. So often, people are fighting nicely- I always want to yell, "Bite him!" or "rip that finger off!" or "go for the eyes". They don't, and I just sit there shaking my head in disgust. I learned a lot a fancy moves doing martial arts but there is a HUGE different between busting a move when the person is working in the same style as you and it's a training environment and busting a move in the real world. Real world people don't move or react the same way and although I consider myself competent, when faced with a big chap wanting to whale on me in some dark alley way, I would not use my training methods to deal with him as I might in sparring. I'd stay as far away as I could and if I got in close, I'd be biting anything I could and gouging eyes and pulling hair. And I feel no shame in that. Down and dirty is the way this girl would play it. Straight arm? I'll break it if I fear for my safety. Shove your head near mine as you try to strangle me? If you're stupid enough to leave my arms free I'll poke your eyes out. Oh I'm a charmer. :-)

Military Alphabet
I live with two travel agents and it has become a matter or pride to me to learn the military alphabet which they have to know because they have so many codes with letters in them. So I thought I'd drop it in here for the sake of posterity. Also I've been watching too much of The Unit...
A: Alpha
B: Bravo
C: Charlie
D: Delta
E: Echo
F: Foxtrot
G: Golf
H: Hotel
I: India
J: Juliet
K: Kilo
L: Lima
M: Mike
N: November
O: Oscar
P: Papa
Q: Quebec
R: Romeo
S: Sierra
T: Tango
U: Uniform
V: Victor
W: Whiskey
X: X-Ray
Y: Yankee
Z: Zulu
See? Don't you feel so much better for knowing that? And so much cooler?

And now work calls. I have a weekend looming and stuff to do. Ciao. xx

'fessing up

So it turns out that the real reason that I need my iPod back is that is saves me from myself. Left to my own devices, my brain will amuse itself (in a totally sadistic way) but doing endless broken-record-styled repeats of snippets of some of The Most Crap Songs Ever which I swear by everything holy to me* do not exist anywhere on my iPod or, for that matter, anywhere is my music collection. Yesterday I almost stopped walking when I realised with horror that the song snippet on endless repeat was , "It's getting hot in here so hot so take off all your clothes I am getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off." This may have been partially due to the fact that I was getting bloody hot walking along as I was layered up and tend to walk quite fast so tend to get a bit hot and sweaty. But still, I don't think that makes it forgivable... The other day I had a snippet of a Pink song (not as bad as Nelly but still less than ideal) and for days and days I had the song from The Lion King that Julie and I sing as a duet. Now a duet can be defined as "A piece for two performers" in which case yes, this is a duet. But in reality it's Julie singing and my piping up at the end. It's from near the end of The Lion King where Timon and Pumba are creating a distraction so they sing this song (Julie sings Timon, i pipe up for Pumba, in a faux bass tone):

Timon: If you're hungry for a hunk of fat and Jjuicy meat, eat my buddy Pumbaa here because he is a treat! Come on down and dine on this tasty swine, all ya gotta do is get in line! Are ya achin'...
Pumbaa: Yep Yep Yep!
Timon: ...for some bacon?
Pumbaa: Yep Yep Yep!
Timon: he's a big pig!
Pumbaa: Yep Yep.
Timon: you could be a big pig too! Oy!
Timon and Pumbaa: AAAAAAAAAAH!

Too much info on the quirks of my relationship with my sister? Maybe. But that tune's been in my head ever since we sung it when I was home. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. If only I could record us doing it and put it on here as an MP3. That would make it all so much more understandable. (? Really?! Oh the illogic of the Aynia Brain....)

Speaking of songs, my flatmate Sean has a ringtone at the moment that isn't entirely public-friendly. It's a sound bite from Southpark and I can't find it on the web (although if you want to see some quotes from the show, check this out. (Scroll down past the show listings.) So inappropriate but so hilarious. As is the Uncle Fucka song.) Anyway- Sean's ringtone has a bit where Cartman is going, "Who are you calling fat you fucking Jew?" Then Mr. Garrison tells them off for swearing and Kyle goes, "What? Fuck? Fuck fuckity fuckfuckfuck." It's the kind of ringtone where you want to answer your phone reallyREALLY quickly. It's embarrassed him a couple of times but I have no sympathy for him, I've told him he needs to change it. Hilarious? Yes. Suitable for an everyday ringtone? No.

*choccie, family, the beach at low tide when the sun is rising and I have it all to myself, the laugh of a small child**, the moment just as the plane takes off and leaves the ground

**so some of this is a bit cheesy. So sue me.

I'M LEARNING TO DIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it finally happened. My boss came in to office one day and announced that we were learning to dive. (We being me and three other girls from work.) We are being shipped off to the Red Sea for a week from March 1-8 for sand, sun, lots and water and hopefully some Nemo sightings. AWESOME! I've wanted to learn to dive for absolutely ages and having this trip in March will break up the British gloom quite nicely. So now I have 43 days (yes, I set up a new countdown widget) to stop eating and exercise lots and miraculously be able to wear a bikini. NOT. This body is a bikini-free zone. If God had intended for anyone to see my stomach he would given them a second eyelid or something similar to help reduce glare and help numb the pain.

I am also going to be going to the Outdoors Show which is cool but mainly because they're having the European Bouldering Championships there which I reallyREALLY want to see. I'm sure I'll be able to sneak away for the finals and to have a play on the wall. Hee hee.

So it looks like I have quite a few holidays and things to look forward to which is what it's all about really. At least it's part of what my being over here is meant to be all about.

I've been really good with the gym since being back but if I thought last week went slowly I was sadly mistaken. This week has crawled. Yesterday morning my alarm woke me up at 6.20am and as my hand scrabbled for it automatically, my brain was going, "Oh God no, just make it stop. It CAN'T be time to get up." Brain 2 chipped up with, "It's not that bad, you've only got one more day of this to go then you can sleep in."
brain1: Oh thank God.
pause for mental gears to actually start working
brain1: no wait a minute, this is only Tuesday. FUCK!
brain2: OH GOD! Only Tuesday?!!! Shit! [Editor's note: my language aint' at it's best first thing in the morn] How can we only have done this dragging ourself out of bed at an ungodly hour to shuffle to the train station like a zombie to then shuffle further to the gym to sweat and do exercise (at 6.30am that is rather like a dirty word) only once this week. ONCE. Jesus. I just can't do this. HELP! Argh!!!
brain1: Dude! Pull yourself together. Just get out of bed, it'll be fine.
brain2: oh fuck off *grumble* *grumble*

Thank God for auto pilot I say. Now that I've started doing this 25 min walk to Putney overland, I usually prefer it to my combo of walk, tube & walk or just taking for the bus (once it deigns to turn up) because it's good time to think and the walk is actually quite a nice one- plus it's far more reliable time-wise than the other options. But the past couple of mornings the love has been gone. I'm sure things will be better once I get my iPod back. The thought of doing cardio at the gym without my own music for motivation is a bit daunting. I get bored easily on the machines and the music at the gym is absolutely bollocks. But my baby should be returned to me by Monday, oh the joyful anticipation.

boo

It seems that since getting back from NZ I've been swamped. That and week one was pretty tough- motivationally wise. But I've made it through one whole week of work now and have even been to the gym in the mornings so, having proven to myself that I won't die doing it, I'm up for round two.

Once again though I seem slightly lacking on the whole time thing so today's entry consists of two links. This website I liked for two reasons, well maybe three. In no particular order:
1) The blue background
2) The supercutie robot animation. I was gutted that I couldn't make him move more
3) The way the pages link together. It's like you're moving around on a huge palette and I think it's quite a nice idea.

This site is totally awesome when it comes to choosing colours for web pages. If you click on the link it will take you through to a homepage. There will be a purple link near the beginning of the text which says 'spin the colour wheel'. It brings up a pop-up window (hence no direct link) and you spin the wheel and it randomly generates three colours for you and previews them in relation to each other. Hard to explain (at least for me) but very very cool. For someone who find the task of choosing colour schemes for websites quite daunting (as I do), this site is an absolute Godsend.

Oooh ooh ooh AND I have booked my flights to go to Portugal at Easter to stay with Cathy and co. This means I will get to witness Sean and Daisy doing their Easter Egg Hunt which will have to be übersupercutiepie, especially as this will be Daisy's first Easter being completely mobile so she'll be doing all the hunting herself.

what a Monday needs

I know that I need to do a decent entry. I really really do. I even have stuff to write about. Just slightly lacking on time and motivation... So instead I will leave you with this gem that was passed on to me by my buddy Dave:
a music video using treadmills
God only knows how they came out of it alive. I would have broken something.

I will however share just 2 pics from NZ. In the first I am cleaning my hiking boots in prep for waterproofing them. I really kinda let myself go in my two weeks at home. Who on earth would think that I am a designer and have any sense of what good taste might be? Red t-shirt, stripy polyprop, purple butterfly flannel pajamas, not to mention topping it all off with leopard-wannabe fluffy slippers. Dear God. I am a cacophony of colour.



This one is a big-small that Dad and I had fun setting up at Lover's Leap. A holiday, (not matter how rainy) is not complete without silly big-smalls.

what a jolly entry.

Before I left for NZ, I had a countdown widget. Basically you name an event and put in the date and everytime you looks at your widgets, there's a little message that tells you how many days it is till the big event. Mine was "HOMETIME!!!!!" so my message would read "2 days till HOMETIME!!!!!" which was all well and good but coming in to work today, I went to feed my tigergotchi widget and to my great horror, my countdown widget now reads "17 days since HOMETIME!!!!!!". All those exclamation marks leap out from the page and mock me. I must find something to replace it with as right now it's pretty bloody depressing.

Apart from widget horror, I have nothing to report apart from jetlag which seems to be manifesting itself as overwhelming apathy. I can't be bothered, not with anything. And I'm not really tired, at least not in the jet-lagged-I'm-about-to-drop-dead-RIGHT-NOW-I-need-to-sleep-so-bad was I'm used to, I just don't care.

good old Dunners

I should have known, I really really should have but the weather was so GOOD at Easter, when it is usually puss, that I foolishly thought it would do the same for me again. Ha. I doubt my 3/4 pants will ever get an airing and I am still frantically hurling clothes out of my wardrobe in search of my stripy Kathmandu polyprop goodness. If this is all the weather has I might as well have stayed in the UK, at least it has central heating. But then I wouldn't be with the whanau so I guess I'll just have to cowboy up and cope. I'm sure I'll be better once the rain clears long enough for me to walk on my beach.

*grumble* *grumble* woe is me etc... ;-)

But on the bright side- I just found out that one of my friends is pregnant which is SUPERAWESOME and when I think of that I couldn't be happier.

final missive

I HEAD HOME IN TWO DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so soon it's surreal. I'm glad I only fly out on Monday evening because it gives me the whole day to pack and clean my room etc.

Oh I can't wait.

Mum, Dad, J, see you soon. Beach here I come! Break out the jandles and the sunshine, this girl is coming home.

easy on the eyes

I have a widget that gives me a new Calvin and Hobbes comic every day. Sometimes I just have to share them.

In fact I think today shall just be a day of eye candy.


www.aoj.ca


I think this guy's drawings are amazing and I particularly like the perspective on this one. www.byroglyphics.com Look in the gallery section for more of this style of thing.


www.imphead.comI've long been a fan of fantasy art. I envy these people their imaginations.


And finally, the simple pleasure of line art should never be taken for granted. www.explodingdog.com

Möchten Sie eine Tüte damit?

I thought an entrée of Calvin and Hobbes was suitable for a Monday. There's nothing like laughing at some naked mischievous Calvin ass. Hee hee.

So this was the weekend of Berlin. Dude, if I thought Belfast was bleak, Berlin takes the cake. 'Austere' is my word for Berlin. I mean really, it shouldn't have surprised me. A lot of the city has only been rebuilt since the 90's and unification so it's a weird mix between 'new' 90's architecture and buildings that have been rebuilt in imitation of what used to be there. The whole place feels quite bleak and a bit artificial and leaves me quite cold. The other thing of architectural/arty note, at least for me, were the memorials to things from the war. They were totally different from other ones that I have seen which, once again, if my brain was working, would not have surprised me either. Usually war memorials are tributes to the soldiers who have given their lives. They've commemorative, maybe uplifting and a bit inspiring. Not the German ones- and rightfully so really. One was a large stone room, all grey concrete slabs and high ceiling and I was already weepy before I got in. I'm not really sure why, this wave of emotion just hit me. And when I got inside I was looking around this massive, bleak, grey room and was ready to bolt, it was getting a bit much. In the middle of the room was a large bronze statue of a person holding/sheltering another one half on their lap and the only light on the room was a hole in the ceiling which cast light on to the statue. It wasn't pretty and it was slightly abstract but as I made myself stand there, I could feel my distress gradually dissipating. There was a sense of peace and comfort that gradually took its place. This is not to say that peace etc radiated from it because they didn't. It just fascinated me how somehow I could stand in this grey, bleak room and gradually it felt like things weren't quite so bad. And as I came out and thought about it, it seemed totally suitable. Another one that got to me was the holocaust memorial. It's a large square of undulating ground filled with a grid of grey stone columns of varying heights. As you walk in to it, the ground drops away and the columns get higher. From the outside, it doesn't look like it takes up that much room but when you're walking through it, you're glancing down row upon row of grey columns and it seems to go on forever. It feels like a graveyard and becomes quite overwhelming, like it will never end. Again, totally appropriate. I took photos of neither because at the time, it didn't feel appropriate. These are images I will carry in my mind and feelings I will remember forever.

[On a side note, how art is used to commemorate things of war and conflict (finding this hard to articulate) fascinates me. Before coming to Europe, I was used to triumphant statues of fallen heroes and plaques with names written on them . Then I go to Belfast and they have massive murals on walls glorifying both martyrs and terrorists (sometimes the same, sometimes not) which is a totally different slant on things and now I have the sombre, almost dark, not at all glorifying memorials from Berlin. It's fascinating.]

But now for the photos, the bit people really care about:


Me in front of the Brandenburger Tor. Day one in Berlin was overcast and cold and really did nothing to create a good first impression.


The Berlin wall. This is not apparently the prettiest section, the ones in the west are better but this was the bit we got to see. The bits that aren't still standing are marked by cobblestones and you can follow the whole line of the wall, all 150km (ballpark estimate) of it.


This was taken in the most amazing chocolate shop ever. This was a huge hulking santa made of mini santas. Oh the cunning artistry.


Day 2 in Berlin was much colder, probably because it was crisp and clear. It was sunny although I still didn't find the city beautiful, it was a much better day. Lotte and I wandered around markets and had mulled wine and it was fab.


What caught my attention on this cathedral was this sign. Siehe, ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis an der Welt ende. Which I translate to be 'I will be with you all until the end of the world'. I don't know if it's a quote from something and I'm not a person for poetry and as previously demonstrated, am not religious, but I thought that in German it read very eloquently and was a very nice sentiment.


This is the ground above the bunker of Hitler where he ended his life. Apparently it's a car park because the walls of the bunker were built so thick that they couldn't be demolished and no building could be built on top of it. So it's doomed to be a carpark until the end of time in all likelihood. Part of me thought it would be nice to make it a garden but that might be falsely interpreted as a celebration or glorification of Hitler. I see it as being the complete opposite of everything he stood for. You could take it to be- here beneath us is the final resting place of one of the largest atrocities of mankind. Because of the death and destruction and intolerance (I could go on, I'll stop here) that he stood for, we choose to wipe that memory away with new growth. Come here in spring to contemplate the daffodils poking up and the buds appearing on the trees and think about new life, come here in winter and sit on a cold concrete bench and look at the bare tree branches and the grey sky and the horrible accommodation blocks that enclose the space and feel gloomy but remember that spring will be coming and soon this grey and brown patch will be green and thriving and life carries on. (Gosh, look at me being all wanky. I think those memorials had a greater impact than I thought.)

On these columns, the chipped away parts are from bullets. We're looking at history folks. Apparently there is conflict as to whether the columns should be beautified and replaced or left as they are. I say keep your history Germany, leave them where they stand.


And this is the mob who went, minus, of course, me. Because I'm taking the picture, duh.
So essentially it was a weekend of sightseeing but mainly wandering around markets and trying out my German. It’s well rusty, I haven’t spoken it in 8 years, but I still got by just fine and could translate for my friends. I felt quite a sense of achievement from that which is cool because me and German/Germany… well lets just call I a rocky relationship…

the way things work
And I'm sorry but was there something in my last entry that somehow got thrown up by Google because 55 hits? It seems a freak anomaly. But on the other hand, it's made my clustermap look a whole lot more populated so I shouldn't really complain. *slight pause* I just checked my blog for comments and it would seem that my rise in hits are in fact due to Damien. It would seem he did a massive spamming of Hi5 people and if most of them googled him or that link, they would have come across my blog (apparently) which explains my rise in hits. It's a funny world.

of puppies and ducklings and weird shit

This picture was forwarded to me by a girl at work and I don't know if it makes me a bad person but I find this bloody hilarious. Apart from teh obvious duckling-down-the-drain, there is the bewildered look of the mother in the final frame. I can just hear her going, "Wha' happen'?" Oh the slapstick of nature. It's hard to beat.

Yesterday we had a visitor to the office. One of DIVE's sales staff is now based in Manchester and when she came down this month she brought her new dog Bailey. He's even been added to the meet the team page and has his own profile. "DIVE's new advertising assistant Bailey Sturgeon joins us from the Warrington Animal Welfare rescue centre. The 18-month-old scuba dog has just started shallow water diving. His other hobbies include chasing frisbees, chewing plastic ducks, running, dribbling and playing catch in the DIVE office. 'Woof, woof!' he says." Oh we're a bunch of softies here. Being inventive, we gave him a plastic duck to play with and now poor duckie has been chewed to something almost beyond recognition. At our new offices, we are split over 2 floors and we've decided that ours is the cool floor. Bailey sure thinks so. On our floor there are toys and people who will run around with him and give him water and behave pretty much like dogs themselves. He's coming in again this afternoon and I can't wait- I was a special favourite (maybe because I was the one who sacrificed the duck in the first place...)


The weirdness of the internet
In the past month I have had a couple of Hi5 requests from people I do not know. It's a bit strange to check your email and have some random asking you to sign on to their friend list when you don't even know them. I also had no idea why these people were contacting me. I thought maybe they're blog fans? (And yes folks, it would seem that I am that egocentric) but then I realised that YEARS ago I signed up to Hi5 at the request of someone I actually knew and it turns out my profile is still on there. But has current age and location which means I did update it within the last year which is strange because I reallyREALLY don't remember doing that... Anyhue- amnesia aside, today I got my strangest Hi5-related thing yet. Apparently I had a message from a guy called Damien which read:

hey, whats up? just came across your profile at the search page and was wondering if youd wanna chat sometime?
where ya from.. things ya like to do..
if ya wanna know more about me and see more pics go to myswtpages.com/damien
hope to hear from ya
damien

It seemed innocuous enough and I'm in carpe diem mode so I checked out myswtpages.com/damien and I have only one thing to say- oh my Holy Jesus, WTF?! This is the first picture I came across so of course I had a good giggle. LOTS of buff posing shots but imagine my horror when you click on some of the pictures and get told that you have to be over 18 to access the site! OMG! You know what that means- naked pictures! Man bits on camera! Ooooo yicky. So now I am suitably repulsed and amused. Damien, if by some chance of the web you come across this, I'm sure you're a lovely guy but you're just not for me. I like to view man bits in person and not via the internet. (Although if we overcome this, I feel there may be other irreconcilable differences we will not be able to overcome. Hence "irreconcilable".) So that's my excitement for the day.

things that make you go, "BABIES!!!!!"

My latest check of what's new on with Homestar Runner brought me to this I mean oh my God how cute are these?!! A teeny tiny girl squad?!! It's just so bloody cute I'm going all gooey.





The only thing cuter than this is Josh, my friend Sam's new baby. I'm sure she'll be fine with me sharing his image with the world. I mean he's CUTE. It's always such a pleasant surprise (relief) when friends have genuinely beautiful children. I know Kitty would argue that all babies are beautiful but some just don't twinge my heart strings. But Joshy's a honey. Look at those big blue eyes.

the looming dark

It's 16:15 and it's dark already- I'm tellin' ya- that's just not right. Not one bit, not a little, not at all. The only silver lining to this nasty gloomy cloud is that I FLY HOME IN 14 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for all those exclamation marks, they may have been slightly excessive but I am quite excited about it. Never mind the sun and the sand, I get to see my family. I get Mum hugs and Dad hugs and I get to annoy Julie by limpetting on to her at any chance I get. I just tend to sit down beside her and latch on. She may complain but I know she loves it really. Heh heh heh.

This weekend I'm heading to Berlin with 8 other females to see the sights and go to the Christmas markets. (So everyone back home be warned- it's cute but kitsch Xmas decorations from Berlin for Xmas.) Eight females. I'm sure we'll be fine.... Actually we've already decided we'll split up to do whatever we want to do during the day and the make a time to meet up for dinner. I'm quite looking forward to bundling up all nice and cozy and wandering around markets and sipping mulled wine. I have to admit that nothing feels quite as festive and 'Christmas-y' as a northern hemisphere Xmas. It's just different. Not that I'm complaining about getting to see both sunshine and daylight in 2 weeks- oh no. Bring it on. Lots of sun. Please? Pretty please? Oh go on Dunedin, I know you have it in you...