drawing the line

I can be pretty oblivious to 'signs' that are presented to me but the other morning when my iPod had died and I was walking to the bus I found myself with the theme song to Baywatch stuck in my head. Now call me crazy but I think that has to be a sure indication that I've been watching too much of it. Which is really only once in the weekend but I still think that is about twice as much as I should be. Especially because the last episode featured yet another soft porn montage with some girl walking along the beach in different skimpy outfits and lying in the sand stroking herself. HOW did they get away with having this on the prime-time tele?!

I also happened to stumble across Top 100 Facts for Chuck Norris the other day, in fact about an hour after my last blog entry which mentioned him. Freaky coincidence. (And I promise I wasn't searching for it, it just appeared. That's destiny.) The Chuck Norris facts are hilarious, and even better for anyone who remembers Walker: Texas Ranger. Some of my tops favs were:
• Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting implies the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
• Chuck Noris puts the "laughter" in "manslaughter".
• Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
• Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.

I could go on but I'll stop there.

And just when you think you've heard of it all
I did think that unicycle hockey pretty much took the cake on WTF things- and in fact I still do but somewhere is in the top10 would have to be a Corduroy Appreciation Club. Thanks to A Dress A Day for that link. The first meeting was held Nov. 11, 2005, and the second on January 11, 2006, since Jan. 11 is the date which, after Nov. 11, most nearly resembles corduroy. It is a delightful feature about someone who was asked to be a guest speaker at a meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Group. Before we parted, I asked Mr. Rohan what it was about my writing that had made him think I would be a good keynote speaker, and he mentioned one of my novels in which a character refers, early on, to a favorite corduroy jacket. “I was disappointed, though, that it didn’t come back the rest of the book,” he said. “I kept waiting.” Read it. It's a gem.

WTF?

I've got two words to say to you- unicycle hockey. (Oh yeah and by the way, that site is a bit nasty on the eyes, you have been warned.) Yep. You read me right. Unicycle hockey. Hockey whilst on a unicycle. I've been meaning to blog about this for just ages. Every Thursday night when I finish climbing, there are people playing unicycle hockey one on of the courts outside the gym. I derive a pure and simple joy from watching people tool around on one wheel with only a stick for balance as they chase a ball around the court. It has everything- suspense, action, coordination and, of course, humour.

What I want to know is WHY and HOW? I mean they have a FAQ page on the site which I checked but it has questions like: 1) What is Unicycle Hockey? 2) The History of Unicycle Hockey 3) The Rules of Unicycle Hockey etc etc but nowhere are the questions written in by the public: 1)WHY? 2)What in the name of God made someone decide to play hockey whilst pedaling around on one wheel? 3)How on earth do people find out about this? 4)Did I ask WHY?!

There is a little girl, I'm guessing belonging to one of the players, who usually wheels around while they're playing. I'm sure she can't be more than 10 years old and she does a pretty impressive show of keeping up on her pink unicycle. It is just cute.

so many excuses, so little time...

So.

I have finally started as designer on DIVE magazine so am both busy and challenged and oh so veryvery glad to be back doing design. But the process of learning new ropes whilst teaching my replacement the old ones takes up quite a bit of time. Hence no spare time. Hence no blogging. I'm sure you've all been pining (hahaha) so today I shall endeavour to fill in the gaps.

things that go bump in the night
The other weekend I house/cat-sat for a lady from work. I heartily indulged in long overdue quality kitty time. She's a needy kitty, I'm needy- it was a match made in heaven. On the Friday night I watched two episodes in the DVD of Supernatural that I had got from my online rental place and then decided I needed to go out and forage for essentials like milk before the shops closed. I had chosen this series because it has Alex from Dark Angel and Dean from Gilmore Girls and is by the makers of X-Files so if nothing else, I was interested. I can guarantee now that most of you out there would probably rather watch something else. But not be, oh no. I don't how I developed the penchant for trashy b-grade shows but it's definitely there. And cable TV just caters to this even more. There are different categories of course- there's Baywatch, which has to be the equivalent of a car crash. I mean it's awful but I really can't seem to look away. And then there's A-Team which I think I like because of nostalgia (same thing with MacGyver but that isn't showing here). Oh my God- and Walker: Texas Ranger. I mean that show is TRUELY awful but when I was first year at uni, I would come home from my Wed evening shift at the supermarket, grab dinner and sit in front of Walker- with headphones on (everyone else was asleep my this stage and there were super light sleepers in our house) with almost religious dedication. And then you get all the sci-fi stuff which really doesn't have to be very good at all to capture my interest. Buffy, Angel, Firelfy*, Tru Calling, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica**. I could sci-fi my day away. Patsy's house has the glory of all all Sky Channels so I even got to see Vampire High on the horror channel. I was a bit perplexed by that. I would've thought that something on the horror channel would be scary but this wasn't even b-grade enough to hold my interest for a full half hour episode. Which is just sad. But I digress. Supernatural, although not the fabbest of the fab, is by the makers of the X-Files and as such, has that same slightly creepy element which isn't all-put scary, just a slightly tense. So when I went out for milk at 7pm, when it happened to be totally dark and felt a lot later, I noticed that the moon was almost full and my brain clocked that it was just 2 days after Halloween. Patsy lives near where I work so I know the general area and saw this shortcut/lane thingy which I guessed would take me down the hill and it looked wide and well lit so I headed down it. Only to find out that it went alongside a cemetery. And not some slick, modern deal, oh no, this was a pokey little dark plot of land complete with long grass and tilting headstones. I have a vivid imagination and let me tell you, you could not have paid me enough money to walk across that grass because I know some rotten skeletal hand would have punched its way out of the ground to grab my ankle. I just knew it. I could feel it in my waters.

trying something new
There have been some rather hilarious (as in OHM WTF?!) updates in my social life but due to the public nature of the internet, I'm waiting to see how they resolve themselves before I share the car-crash comic value with the rest of the world at large, in particular the person they involve. I'll limit it now to saying that I might have a date on Tuesday. I mean I'm definitely going out for a drink with someone I have never met before (and blind dating was the one thing I had vowed never to do again (I lie, there are several things I have vowed never to do again. Work in a supermarket is one of them.) even though the only blind date I ever had was really dinner with someone I'd never met but two of my friends were there as well for safety buffers so it wasn't really a proper date at all.) but I don't know if it's a 'date' as such. Murky waters. Much room for schadenfreude for you folks. I may or may not keep you posted.

in conclusions
Apart from work and fully exploring the potential glory of cable TV, all I've really been doing is climbing which, thankfully, is going well at the moment. I feel like I'm closer to consistently climbing the same level of stuff and near the start of next year, Graeme, my climbing buddy, and I, plan to do a lead climbing course which beings us one step closer to being able to climb by ourselves outdoors which is the ultimate goal.

There were so many other tales I wanted to tell but priority goes to getting something up seeing as it's been so long since I've written anything...

*notice my Joss Whedon tendency
** I am in no way calling these shows crap, by the way. I will defend Firefly and Angel to the death (probably yours) as well as others.

Long time, no blog!

Hey! Wow! I won $2.65 on a bet in the Melbourne Cup! Best result I've ever had!!

not the gumdrop buttons!

When I was at high school, I, like most girls, would cover my A3 art folder with pictures. Unlike most girls, I would not have pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp plastered across my folder. Oh no. I got my Dad to photocopy cartoons out of his Farside books and I put those on in a tidy, OCD arrangement and then protectively cover sealed them. In the last years of high school I branched out to putting some Escher images on there as well. At the start of the school year, I would sit in the car on the way to school, bookmarking the pages I wanted Dad to photocopy for me, occasionally sniggering when I came across a particularly good one. Dad would always comment that the ones that made me laugh out loud were usually the sickest ones and to be fair, he wasn't wrong. (Although it's hard to go wrong with a good lemming suicide cartoon.) Well today I stumbled across something that reminded me of a mixture between Wylie Coyote and Farside material. Bunny suicides. They range from the simple to the very complex. I've sticking in an example of each here but check them all out.

beautiful people... running

In the famous words of Homer Simpson, "Who knew so much happiness could come in a plastic coated wire?" Yep, we now have cable at home and I'm like some 8yr old child. Or Homer, take your pick. Sean looks at me in amazed horror as I sit with my eyes glued to the set. I've told him not to worry, in a week the novelty will wear off but for now I'm overwhelmed by the choice. I can watch back-to-back Simpsons and Futuramas. I can watch The A-Team. Oh the glory!

And on Sunday morning I got to watch.... Baywatch. Oh the tacky glory! Oh the plastic breasts! Oh the high cut swimsuits! Oh the speedos!! Oh the muscley bodies! Oh the badbadBAD acting and stilted delivery! I like to think that I have good* taste but part of me has a decided penchant for the trashy and tacky. And Baywtach is all that and a bottle of fake tan. The episode I got to see (hey, did you guys know that Baywatch ran for 10 years? Holy Jesus! How did they manage that?) was one where the Aussie Iron Man team came to challenge the Baywatch Iron Man team. I spent 3 minutes staring at the TV in complete, total and utter gob-smacked amazement as they did this training montage that featured all the guys running down the beach, surfing, etc in their speedos. Those are some brave, brave men. And even more hilarious was that the Aussie team had bright red speedos with their names across both the crotch and the ass. I was laughing out loud. Loudly. And of course, there was a limo that had run into the sea (?!!WTF?! How did it get so far out that they had to swim out to deep water to rescue it?) so all the lads ran off to help and all you see is strapping man running along, shedding clothing as they speed to the rescue to finally jump in to the sea and the last thing you see as they dive under the water is their names stenciled on their shiny red speedo-clad asses. How can you top that? It was just all so bad. Bad plot, badly acted, bad bad bad but like a car crash, I just couldn't look away. In fact I may be back for more this weekend.

*it’s okay to like horrible tacky stuff if you know it’s horrible and tacky. It’s when you think it’s actually beautiful that there’s a problem.

the silver lining to a shitty shitty poo poo cloud day

Today has been a bollocks day for oh so many reasons but if ever something ridiculous were to cheer me up, it would have been this. In fact it was this. Giant pumpkins converted into boats have taken to the water for an annual charity sailing regatta. There are grown men who have carved out pumpkins and strapped on outboard motors. If this is not the height of glorious whimsy, I don't know what is. This is what life should be about folks.

sniffle snuffle snot

Well it turns out that what I had thought/hoped was just hayfever due to me getting used to dust/stuff at the new flat, is in fact a cold. It ambushed me last night and overnight I moved from the it's-not-a-cold denial to full blown oh-woe-is-me-sympathy-for-poor-widdle-Aynia-kins-the-world-is-about-to-end. I went out and bought some Satsumas at lunchtime and just about inhaled the whole lot in one sitting. They're all tangy and cold and perfect and I fill with Vitamin C just looking at them. I also have lots of lemons so it's hot lemon and honey drinks for me tonight. At any other time, I'd go home and feel sorry for myself there but we have deadline on Friday so that isn't really an option. *sob* *sniff* oh woe is me, etc etc.

damn I'm good

Last night, after a solid weekend of moving, I switched my brain off, collapsed on the sofa and watched 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. And proceeded to get excessively annoyed- not the film, (I'd wisely switched my brain off when I collapsed) but because I knew that I knew the actor playing Tom Sawyer from somewhere, I just couldn't place it. And it was KILLING me. Eventually I had to rustle up the 3rd regiment of the Denial Brigade to convince myself that I didn't really care and that it wasn't that important. SUCH a lie. But then I woke up this morning and it just popped in to my head: ER. It seems that as I was sleeping, the 3rd regiment was busy having a good old reconnoitre and ousted the culprit. Thank God. Of course I verified it on IMDB this morning. I knew he was from a TV series, not a movie and that he had shorter hair btu I couldn't pin it down. It was just hovering out of reach and taunting me. And get this, the actor, Shane West, was born exactly a year before me. He's hot and we have the same birthday. That's destiny. ;-) I mean look at that moody little pout he has going on. That's just cute.

As for the move itself? I am shattered. There are a tonne of stairs going up to our new place and my body is physically drained plus I've had late nights and early mornings and all I want to do is sleep. The whole moving in process was not helped by the fact that the flat had not been cleaned properly (which it should have been and we were under the impression it was going to be) so we had to clean as we moved in which makes things take even longer. It's also a bit weird- I mean I'm living with Sarah, who I've lived with for 1 1/2 years now and Sean, her boyf, who I get along with really well so I'm with friends and I like the vibe of the place but with boxes still stacked up in my room (as I wait for a desk to arrive- and maybe a bookshelf) and the newness of it all, it doesn't feel like 'home' yet. I'm gonna spend the rest of the afternoon convincing myself that going to climbing is the best thing for me as opposed to going home and collapsing on my bed. (Which is now a double and my old one was a single and I can starfish once again and it's comfy and in general I am rediscovering my love of The Bed.) Cable gets installed on Thurs so I will once again have a phoneline and more TV channels and broadband. Oooh the luxury. We had to buy phones for the flat and as Sean and I procrastinated, we set them up and you can even program the phones with names. For boring people this is probably meant to be according to someone's name, if it lives in their room, or by the name of the room it lives in but such humdrum naming systems are not for me and Sean. Oh no. Our phones are Bruce and Duncan (with one withering look Sean dismissed such classy combos as 'rattle and hum','bump and grind') and they have a different dial tone for internal calls (oh yes, we can call inside the house and use them like walkie-talkies) and external ones. This gonna be one supermegaübergeek household. Sweet. Although maybe I can talk Sean around to 'Ike and Tina' or 'Sonny and Cher'.... Hmmm...... But no. I like Bruce (he's my phone). Or more to the point, I like saying his name. It has to be said with an Aussie accent, there is no choice- so when I'm looking for the phone I can say, "Gidday. Have you seen Bruce?" Oh the simple pleasures in life. You wouldn't think I'm 27, would you?

Istanbul

was Constantinople but now it's Istanbul not Constantinople so if you've got a date in Constantinople she'll be waiting in Istanbul...

Oh yes. I am currently staring down the barrel of Friday but to lighten it all, I have the delightful nonsense lyrics of 'Flood' from They Might Be Giants in my ears. I love Amazon. It's like Christmas. AND I have the latest Pratchett now as well, 'Wintersmith'. Tonight is sure gonna be a battle. I'm meant to be packing and as that is happening people will be coming through looking at my room and I'm meant to be making a banana cake. (They're (the bananas) ready plus Sarah say's it'll be nice to have it (the cake) at the new flat once we've moved in (no argument here), but last night she offered to make it and I said no. As in NO. I practically barked it out. We both looked a little surprised. Sarah cooks and bakes well but my banana cake recipe is the schizzle and hers... well… it isn't as good. Which makes me sound horrible. So I told her she could make it but I like my recipe best as it was moister. (The only time it is acceptable to use the word 'moist' is in association with cakes. Otherwise it just sounds dirty/dodgey.) And I felt stink for saying even that.) Hmm... hope you guys made it through all those parenthesis okay, it was a bit of a whitewater rapid there for a while...

So here I sit, knowing that i can procrastinate and piss away my final hour of work (if God didn't want us to procrastinate, he wouldn't have invented the internet) but there seems to be this weird phenomenon whereby the list of small and insignificant jobs that you abandon on a Friday as not of immediate importance grow exponentially over the weekend and by the time you come in on Monday it's TOO LATE *stress* *stress* *panic* *panic*. And so I'd best get on to them. As for procrastinating when I get home... well as soon as I open the Pratchett it's all over so I'll just have to dangle it like a carrot in front of me: pack up your wardrobe chapter one! pack up your chest of drawers chapter two! clear out that storage space under your bed chapter three! bonus for already clearing all the stuff off your walls this morning before work go straight to chapter four! battle with that top drawer of your desk. In fact, in penance for reading two chapters in a row, do the whole desk well that's almost everything done, read another two chapters anyway.

I think you can all see how this is going to go...

T-2 days and counting

Last night I was meant to start packing because otherwise I only have tomorrow night. I say 'meant to' because, obviously, I didn't. Sean and Sarah decided to go to the movies so I decided to join them as I haven't been in AGES. We went to see The Departed. I knew ball-park what it was about but not much and it's a film packed with a whole lot of big names: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Ray Winstone, and Alec Baldwin to name the big ones recognised. And I really liked this film. I've always been somewhat anti-DiCaprio and am somewhat apathetic towards Matt Damon (Team America World Police ruined him for me) but they were both good- great even. And Jack Nicholson was, as ever, a gem. It was not a happily ever after and I think that gave it even more impact for me- it's one of those movies that is staying with me for a couple of days. It's quite violent but has moments of the ridiculous and I highly recommend it to everyone except my mum because I'm pretty sure she'll hate the ending.

Kevin, my office source for cool links sent me this today. It's a YouTube vid time-lapse thing of a hot air balloon race and is sehr gut.

back to normal(ish)

I realised today that it's been a good long while since I've directed you all towards links or the weird and wonderful. I've been so caught up in The Dramas of the Life of A Noever that I've been remiss with keeping in contact with the surreal.

And I've found some doozies. :-) Unfortunately blogger doesn't seem to want to let me post images today (boo hiss) so I'll just have to direct you the old-fashioned way.

people who look like their dogs

quirky

just plain crazy

Tonight I go home and start packing. We're moving on Saturday and have to go to the agent's on Sat morn to sign our lives away and tomorrow I'm climbing which leaves me tonight and Fri night to pack. It's not like I have a lot of stuff but I know it'll turn out to be more than I thought so I guess it's best to start now. Woot.

who needs BT anyway

Sorry to hear you're getting screwed by NZtelecom hon but I'm glad that someone feels my pain. Sometimes I seriously wonder why thye makes this stuff so hard for us. Good customer service = happy customers = more customers. *sigh*

My problems (well at least the phone one) seem to be solved though. (Hoorah!) It turns out that our new flat used to have cable so we can go through the cable company and get phone and broadband and don't have to have anything at all to do with BT. Hazzah! AND- they can come in next Thurs which is a damn sight sooner. And so justice is served.

in the cold light of day

Looking back on yesterday now, it all seems a bit surreal. In fact things seemed surreal last night when I got home from climbing. Going climbing last night was, without a doubt, the best thing I could have done. It was 2 1/2 hours where, for the first time since I woke up (ignoring the hour at the gym in the morning) that I hadn't had my body 100% filled with anger. By the time I headed home, I was slightly pumped with adrenaline, definitely floating on endorphins and thinking back on what had made me angry seemed like looking at something through frosted glass. And this morning I wake up and I think, "Was I totally unreasonable? Is this all in fact not as bad as I had imagined? Did I overreact just a smidge?" Honestly, I don't know. I'm told by those around me that I handled the accumulation of shit dumped upon me yesterday just fine. (Nobody is saying 'very well'. A couple of my friends over here have heard me rant before but never seen me with such repressed fury and were actually worried for me. Hee hee. That's cute. Just imagine if I'd actualy Hulk-ified. Mwah hah hah.)

So all I really know is that today I'm back to my normal level-headed self. Which is fine, I like it better this way. Concentrated anger for over 8 hours straight ain't fab.

I feel ya

NB:
The pictures stopeed loading after one, so I will have to update this post later....

You know aynia, I totally feel you.
I was on the phone with Telecom NZ just last night. If there was another option of broadband provider (real options) I would totally change.
Basically we've blown our monthly cap, and we are falling over ourselves to give them more money to extand our cap- just a couple gigs more! please! However, the only way to do that is to change plans completely, and if you change your plan with telecom you have to be on that new plan for at least one whole month.
Which, as rude is this is, we could feasibly do, apart from the fact that telecom is rolling out a new plan at the end of this month with no cap, and no speed limit*, which we definitely want. But if we signed onto the couple of extra gig plan in the mean time, we wouldn't be eligible for the good no limit plan for a whole nother month! WTF
So I was on the phone to one of their operators pointing out the ridiulousness that is me pleading for them to take money off me, and all the operator can say is: "yeah, it would be cool if you could just buy more gigs, eh?"
ARRRGHHHFUCKING telecom!! I hate you I hate you I hate you! No wonder there shares are plummeting, with that sort of shitty plan system and customer care!
*lots of fine print about it all depends om how fast your wire can go, and peak times and other bollocks.
I think this little speil is as boring as hell when I look back over it, but I'm just commiserating with stupid big company rules.


ASPAs:
5 of us flew to Auckland for the event. We stayed at Base backpackers in cebntral Auckland. We bought disgusting Wendys late at night, we shopped at stores we could shop at in Dunedin, we looked at the Sky Tower, and then we all got tipsy and dressed up and went to the function.
At the function, student media prroved what booze hags we all are and got drunk quickly. Then some awrads were announce (including Colin 2nd for cartoonist, John Hartevelt first for Paid News Writer, Penny Colada's Behind Bars for Best Column, Dave Taine 3rd for News Volunteer,)
Then a band played, and they had a smoke machine. Which set off the fire alarm, which meant everyone was evacuated and the fire service showed up and kept us out of the building for a good 40 mins. awesome!
Then we all got to go back in, and the rest of the awards were announced:
(Best Feature writer RBH, Best Reviewer Aaron Hawkins, Editorial 2nd= for John Ong, and then Critic Best Publication!)
So, ,yes, we won best publication for 2nd year in a row - sigh* so validating.
You'll notice a conspicuous abscence of design awards. I maintain I was robbed. But if the design judges are going to overlook a complete smorgasboard of fonts on each page from some winners, and a distinct lack of whitespace, then so be it!
So here's some pics from the night:
(Yes! Thanks forasking! My jewellery, shoes lipstick and cardy did all match!)


Birthday:
I turned 23 on Saturday - it's a whole new world already I tell ya! Anji Sami had her birthday on the same day, so we combined our powers and had one mega potluck bbq at woodhaugh gardens.
The day before, Dunedin reached an astonishing 29!!!!! degrees! Wholly bajollies it was great. Then on the day of our bbq, the weather returned to its senses and pulled out some south westerlies at a frigid 9 degrees fricken freezing!).
Here's some pictures of that: NB: birthday steks that anji and I had, and cute puppy belonging to someone I didn't know.

for the love of Jesus!

So anyone reading these posts in order should, right now, skip down to the one below and read that first. This entry is a continuation of my Day From Hell series: Part2:Why BT are Satan.

I finally got through to British Telecom, using this neat feature called 'call back' where you leave your number and you stay in the queue but they call you back. Neato. And that's about the only neato thing about them. It turns out that the line at our new place hasn't been used for a while so they need to send out an engineer for maintenance and the soonest they can do that is, get this, NOVEMBER 13!. Can you fucking believe it?!! I sure can't. When they guy told me, I said, "Jesus! I mean sorry, I know this isn't your fault but do you mean to say that I can't have a landline until Nov 13? That's 3 weeks!" [and my skin started to turn a greenish hue and my clothes started to get a bit tight as my body expanded]

3 weeks!

So I phoned my current providers but, and get this, if I want a new number at my new address (yes please, the people staying in the flat would like to have the same number) it will take up to 10 days after me moving in for them to activate my phone line (10 days?!! WTF?!!!!) and there is the possibility of me incurring £100+ in fees. Fees for what I do not know because I'm pretty sure I was through to a call centre in India and I was only just making my wishes clear to the lady I was talking to and was only just understanding what she meant. All I know is that I told her not to change anything, thanked her for her help (which was none at all) and hung up. And then promptly started swearing with all the power of my Irish ancestry. I don’t think my workmates knew that I was capable of such language.

*deep breaths* I'm off to climb now, let's hope that helps.

paper cuts & lemon juice

I am currently on hold with British Telecom and typing one-handed because, awkward and slow as this is, it's v bloody uncomfy to clamp the phone against one shoulder as I type. But I am not a patient person. I type MUCH faster with two hands. So I'm swapping [Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.] to the shoulder clamp and we'll see how long it is till my neck freezes up. [Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.] Today I'm trying to swap bills over to over to our names at the new flat. I've done the water, got to go through a [Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.] complicated menu system with British Gas only to be told that I had to call back after I moved in. [Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.] Great. I think after I get this phone done, I'm giving up for the day.

There are high dramas with getting people for our rooms [Thank you for holding. We are very busy at the moment and apologise for the delay. Your call will be answered as soon as possible.] –swap shoulder – nope – feels too awkward, swap back – Fab. Now I just have deathly silence at the end of my line. Super. Where'd the annoying voice go? Am I still connected? Bollocks to this. Sarah can do it tonight. [click]

Today sees me at the angriest I have been in a good long while. I'm not going in to details because Dad and I discovered the other day just how it easy for anyone to associate me with this blog (I mean sure, I'm not being super covert or anything but still, I had no idea) so in the spirit of fairness, I'm not going to rubbish someone behind their back. But for the reference of the family, who have seen me at all stages of anger- I'm at the deathly calm stage. For the reference of the rest of the world, that’s the stage that usually precedes my Incredible Hulk transformation. I tend to be (I think) a relatively easy-going, laid back person (with a couple of OCD tendencies) and would prefer to take the path of least resistance so will tend to take a whole lot of crap and just adapt until finally I’ve had enough and then I tend to…um… well… explode really. I yell- very loudly and am generally quite irate. It’s a very concentrated outburst of anger and negative emotion and I know isn’t that pleasant to be on the receiving end of- especially as most people don’t see it coming because I’ve been so bloody adaptable and accommodating. I’m not saying this is the best way to deal with problems and I am actually trying to change things- like if I think it matters, I’ll mention things then and there, before I go all green and monster-like but it’s a hard habit to kick and right now, it’s the calm before the storm.

I am so happy that I'm climbing tonight. I need something really hard to try to get up and distract me.

-signing off with deep breaths-

the singularly most addictive game on the internet

Forget tetris folks. You can play Battleship online. Oh yeah. Needless to say, OCD me is hooked.

single white female

So Sarah and I have started advertising for our rooms. And by 'we', I mean I have posted the ads and I have fielded the phonecalls and I have answered the emails and I have arranged the times for people to come for viewings. (Which makes me sound bitter when I'm not- Sue and Sarah can't take calls at work and I can.)

Up till today, everything was pretty humdrum normal but suddenly, the emails I'm getting are like reading personals. And I really don't mind. If they were personals, I just might be writing back. (In fact my brain is already jumping ahead to the StrongBad-styled response...) Below are my two favs, names are obviously different and some details supressed because there has to be some privacy in this world, right?

guy #1
Hi, I'm interested in the double room advertised on Gumtree.
My name's Bob, I'm 28 and work in graphic design. I'm moving to London from XXX to start my new job at XXX later this month.
I'm really laid back, and I'm tidy about the house, I like to live in a tidy house. I'd like to find a house where I can get on well with my housemates and enjoy a meal and a sociable drink when it suits. I like to keep fit and try to go running when I can be bothered! I don't smoke and I'm vegetarian.
Thanks,
Bob

Dear Bob,
I am also in graphic design, I don't smoke and am vegetarian. This is destiny! What would you like to call our first child?
I would love to meet up for a sociable drink, this evening would suit very well.
Yours not at all desparately,
Aynia

guy #2
Hi there !
I've just read your ad and am interested. A 24 year old french professionnal newly arrived in London to start a job in richmond in the wine business. I'm well organised, serious, but prefer to live in an easy going atmosphere, and of course will regularly appreciate a nice glass of wine with my flatmates.
My interests : Sports, travelling, meeting people, movies, etc...
If you're interested, I'll be happy to give you other informations concerning myself.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Froggy

Dear Froggy,
I also work in Richmond and would love to enjoy a nice glass of wine with you. I in no way hold your greeting exclamation mark against you (or the space before it) or the fact that you are French. This may previously have biased me but I met an absolutely charming Frenchman at a party the other week so am prepared to put the issue of the Rainbow Warrior behind us. Plus you guys do very good cheese.
I look forward to meeting you.
Aynia
P.S. I like red wine.

f*** you Natwest

Today was the final straw that broke this proverbial camel's back. I had to withdraw money this morning to take cash to the estate agents for our initial deposit and it was more than the ATMs will let to withdraw so at 9am I was infront of my bank to withdaw it in person and, while I was at it, apply for an overdraft. Well I waited outside with some other people and one person got let in for an appointment and then I was informed that the bank only opened at 9:30am today. Eh? It says 9am on the door... So I cleared out all the cash I can possibly withdraw from my two different cards and paid the agent. When I got to Richmond (where I work) I went to the bank to sort out the overdraft. I just KNEW it couldn't be that easy. No overdraft for Aynia because although I have a good salary going into one of my accounts, it's my savings and they won't/can't give me an overdraft on that (which I can understand) and they wouldn't give me an overdraft on my chequeing account because my salary isn't being paid in to it. Dude! It's all money at the same bank! It really felt like some sketch from Little Britain where the guy sat there at his computer and scrolled through stuff only to say, "Computer says no." AND- he asked me how much overdraft I would like- I said I didn't know what I was entitled to and he said they could maybe do £50. £50?!! I was thinking more like £500 buddy. What kind of safety net is £50?! It would apparently be easier to get an overdraft if I upgraded to an Advantage Gold account but I didn't want that as it's £10 bank fees per month and that's the account I was initially set up with but downgraded because I didn't use any of their silly services.

So I walked out extremely pissed off and decided that enough was enough with this bank and it was time to change. (There have been other minor incidents prior this and I'd put off changing banks because I'm lazy.) First Direct has been recommended to me by people at work and I checked it out online and they will give me £50 to swap to them, give me a £500 overdraft, let me withdraw £500 from an ATM and handle swapping over all my payments etc. It sounds like Heaven! And so I stick the finger to NatWest and move on to more customer friendly pastures.

You can get Trogdor baby clothes!!! Dude! If this isn't the übercutiest thing ever I don't know what is. Kitty- I thought of you immediately. ;-)