Trick or Treat

Have a good Halloween everyone! Here's only my second attempt at pumpkin carving ever....

Rocky Road

I meant to write about this last week when I heard that Sylvester Stallone was going to bring punch drunk boxer Rocky out of retirement for one final money-making fight. Then I read today that he is also going to make another Rambo movie. Possible tagline: He's back... and this time he's pissed (himself)

I have never liked Stallone. I have never forgiven him for the Judge Dredd movie in which he was toe-curlingly awful. He mumbles his way through all his films and I think the Stallone film I have enjoyed was Demolition Man.

But obviously, lured by the bumper payoff that Rocky 6 and Rambo 4 could in theory bring in, he's out for one last hurrah. Yet again Hollywood is going for the "Big Concept" and then looking to hang a story onto it. Listen to this for Rocky 6..

**The new movie will show Rocky as an ageing, lonely has-been in Philadelphia who is reluctant to come out of retirement. "There's a computer fight between the reigning world champion and Balboa, and Balboa wins," Stallone told Variety. "The champion's management says 'let's do this for real, for charity'. "Rocky says 'no' but decides to be true to himself even though he's going to be berated by everyone. Just to compete, not to win."**

Doesn't that just fill you with dread? So we first get the dodgy computer fight. Probably with that "Virtual Reality" that Hollywood seemed to love so much a few years ago. Then we get to go through it again for real. The big question will be will 59 year old Stallone need more CGI than the computer fight in the first place?

The last Rocky film came out in 1990, the last Rambo film in 1988. There is a whole movie watching generation who have no idea who these two characters are. And who only know Stallone from Spy Kids 3.

Here's hoping the boxing board of control step in to stop the fight.

Puddings

This is not a chocolate pudding. This is a Marks and Spencer super duper molten middle belgian chocolate pudding.

This is not cream. Its simply fabulous treble thickness Cornish clotted cream. Made by real cornish pixies. And Leprechauns, probably.

This is not an advert. Its porn.

Looks nice though, doesn't it ;)

Three Things...

I've been tagged by Jo, so here goes:

Three names I go by:

1. Joanna
2. Jo
3. She who must be obeyed

Three screen names I have had:

1. Joanna
2. Lymara
3. my boy name

Three physical things I like about myself:

1. My eyes
2. My height
3. My lips

Three physical things I don't like about myself:

1. My nose
2. My teeth
3. My feet

Three parts of my heritage:

1. English
2. Jewish
3. Scottish

Three things that scare me:

1. Wasps
2. Clowns
3. Being late for anything

Three of my everyday essentials:

1. Chocolate
2. Diet Cola
3. Being able to check my email

Three of my favorite musical artists:

1. Counting Crows
2. Garbage
3. Metallica

Three of my favorite songs:

1. Mr Jones - Counting Crows
2. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton
3. Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits

Three things I want in a relationship:

1. Love
2. Honesty
3. Respect

Three LIES:

1. I was the first tranny on the moon
2. I own 800 pairs of shoes
3. I am a perfect size 12

Three TRUTHS:

1. I am a published author
2. I am able to bite my own toenails
3. I cannot burp

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me:

1. Face
2. Smile
3. Breasts

Three of my favorite hobbies:

1. Blogging
2. Everquest2
3. Archery

Three things I want to do really badly now:

I do a lot of things really badly... oh, right I see what you mean...

1. Take my contact lenses out
2. Sort out this crick in my shoulder (ouch)
3. Have dinner

Three careers I've considered:

1. Vet
2. Pharmacist
3. Marine Biologist

Three places I want to go on vacation:

1. Australia
2. California
3. Hawaii

Three kid's names I like:

1. Jessica
2. Emily
3. Joshua

Three things I want to do before I die:

1. Swim with dolphins
2. See England win the World Cup and Arsenal win the Champions League
3. Go into space

Three ways that I am stereotypically a boy:

1. I love football
2. I love beer, especially guinness
3. I snore very loudly

Three ways that I am stereotypically a girl:

1. Spend too much on clothes
2. Constantly eyeing up what other girls are wearing
3. Have no concept of travelling light, always take far too many clothes away with me.

Three celebrity crushes

1. Keira Knightley
2. Rachel Stevens
3. Naomi Watts

Three people you want to see carry on this meme

1. Becky
2. Jane
3. Steph

TV Shows that never made it

Tatt4trannies FC

So in the news this week we hear that the TG tycoon who brought us Transformation is involved in a consortium to buy Wrexham football club.

I do hope this goes through. It will provide me with no end of new material. Would be great if they actually had "Transformation" as the shirt sponsor.

Which got me wondering about some of the new promotional material they could use to advertise their stores. Something like this perhaps....?

Many ways to scare a cat

The other week I had commented on Stephs site about the problem I had been having with neighbourhood cats continually crapping in my back garden. I'm never very good at dealing with stuff like that, and even worse when its not even my own pet thats doing it.

Anyway, Gillian emailed me and told me about a device she had bought called the Scarecrow. Apparently it detects animals in the garden and sends out a blast of water to scare them off. It was a little pricey, but I have tried other methods to keep them off and they didn't work (The best one was the granules that smelt of garlic that was supposed to deter cats, but just made the garden stink so we didn't go out either!)

Anyway, this morning.. this arrived:

A few minutes later I had it set up in the garden:


And this is it in action - check out those jets of water!:

Took a little fiddling to get the jet just right so that it didn't fire over the fence and drench the neighbours. But it fires a nice jet over the area that the cats tend to crap in.

All I need to do now is wait, and hope that the buggers stop coming into my garden. Of course, now I want to see it in action. I have this urge to go out and catch some cats and throw them into the garden and see if it detects them. Or maybe stay up all night looking out the window to make sure it works.

If nothing else, it will help water the lawn. Hope it doesn't fall foul of the sprinkler ban ;)

Anyway - thanks again Gillian.

Cracking Movie Gromit

Went to see Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit last night. I've always loved the Wallace and Gromit stuff before, but was worried whether they could drag it out over a whole movie.

I shouldn't have worried. The film was absolutely brilliant. I was laughing all the way through. There were just so many bits that I enjoyed. Little visual jokes like the Smug fridge, to the expressions on the characters faces - like the way the rabbits waved to each other were a joy. I loved all the movie references, from Hammer Horror to Tremors to King Kong.

Many movies these days are bolted together. They take an big star or stars, take several action set pieces a boomboom soundtrack, scattergun it with wisecracks and throw it all together. Job done. And it either works, or more often falls flat. W&G was something else. You can tell it was a carefully crafted movie with a lot of a care and attention put into every detail.

Despite being photorealistic, many CGI animations feel a little soulless. They are just too clean. The sets in Wallace and Gromit actually exist, and are lit like a movie. And it feels more real. You can even see fingerprints in the plasticene models sometimes. It just feels a lot more personal.

Also loved the fact that, despite even extending Bristol runway so that Jeffrey Katzenberger's jet could land there for his regular meetings with Aardman, they completely (but probably very politely) ignored his suggestions. Such as having american accents or an american star. What you have is a very British movie that, from the sounds of it, is doing very well in the US. In fact the only thing they changed in the US version is they used melon instead of marrow

I am going to have to watch it again on DVD when it comes out because I know there are loads of things in the background that I missed.

Go see it, you won't be disappointed.

The Gender Fruitcake

Recently, we have seen gender described by my good friend Laura Handbag as a washing line, and then later as a currant bun.

I like to see it more as a fruitcake.

Did you spill my pint?

Very odd conversation in Pink Punters on Saturday, I was talking to a bunch of trannies when....

**tap on my back**

**Joanna turns to look at slightly drunk bloke sitting on sofa with very damp table**

(slightly drunk bloke) Someone knocked over my pint.
(me) Erm.. right... And?
(sdb)My drink was knocked over. It was a pint of Kronenbourg.
(me) Right. OK... and you are telling me because?
(sdb) I have no drink.
(me) Well I didn't knock it over. Sorry.

**turns back to conversation with group**

1 minute later

**tap on back**

(me) Yes?
(sdb) I know you didn't knock it over, and I didn't knock it over, but my drink has been spilt.
(me) It's a really busy club, people have been walking past your table all night. Any one of them could have spilt it.
(sdb) I'd like a new drink.
(me) Well go and talk to the bar staff, I am sure they'd be happy to get you a drink.
(sdb) mumbles something incoherantly about the barstaff.

**Joanna makes swift move to other side of group away from drunk blokes table**

How very odd. Luckily after that he left me alone. But for a minute I was worried he was going to make a scene. Then I was rather intrigued why he felt I was now responsible for the drink-spilling actions of the entire Pink Punters clientele. Did I somehow have a sign saying - Harass me for free drinks?

He looked very straight, and was sitting with someone who was either his wife or his girlfriend. That was my one big problem with Pink Punters in that there seemed to be many more straight couples in there than normal. And drunk straight blokes seem to be a little more aggresive than drunk gay guys. Maybe it was just me, but I had someone else say something similar.

The new toilets at PP were a much needed improvement on the old ones, but there seemed to be such a queue at the ladies on Saturday. There never used to be quite such a queue on previous nights I've been there. So on one occasion I did something I have never had to do on any other tranny night out. I used the Gents cos there was no queue! And it felt really wrong to be doing that whilst in girly mode.... ;)

Had a good time at Club Angelic anyway. Always nice to meet Kim (thanks for putting me up for the night babe) and always a pleasure to meet Becky. Also met the lovely Jane for the first time, which was really nice. Plus Connie, Gillian and a few others who I've not seen for a while. Also made my peace with a Tgirl who sent me a rather drunken rant after the whole Angels Moderation affair. Got a few drinks out if it, which was nice.

As usual I took no photos. But there may well be one or two of me that other girls took. I know there is a pretty awful one of me that Netty took... grr.

Next tranny nights will probably be Laura Handbags birthday in November, followed by the Tranniesphere Blogging gathering in Brum later that month. Hopefully neither will coincide with an Arsenal away game as both times this season I have been trannying while they play away they have lost. So not happy at that!

Bird Flu Too

In the news today, supermarkets have been frantically clearing the shelves of all their bottled water.

A spokesman said it was to prevent the spread of Evian Flu.

((Now I will really get my coat))

Bird Flu

Anyone else think its ironic that the first place in Europe to register cases of bird flu is Turkey? Does this show some kind of intelligence on the part of the virus?

So I am guessing that should it spread further around the world, the following people should be very worried:

Russell Crowe
Alan Partridge
Dickie Bird
Robin Williams
Captain Peacock

OK. I'll get my coat.....

School Dinners

Jumping into the debate on healthier school dinners and the removal of vending machines in schools. Listening to a discussion on the radio recently I was hit with one thought.

"What the hell am I going to eat then?"

When I was a teacher I used to say a small prayer for the "Bigboxytakecoingivechocolate" machine at the end of a bad day. And (diet) Coke helped me stay awake through the endless tedious staff meetings.

So please, when considering the removal of junk food and vendors... won't someone think of the staff?

Aliens

(In which Joanna tries to inject a little science into this blog)

During my time at University, as part of a Evolutionary Biology module, we had a special lecture from Professor Jack Cohen, something he did every year. It was called "What does an Alien look like?". At that time the only time I had heard of Jack Cohen was that he was one of the authors of a set text on Embryology. (and not to be confused with the other Jack Cohen who founded Tescos). It turned out that he was also well respected amongst the Science Fiction community as an advisor on Alien design. He has also since co-written the Science of Discworld books with Terry Pratchett and Ian Stewart.

It was a pretty cool lecture. It basically challenged the lazy alien design of things like Star Trek and Star Wars - every alien has two eyes above a nose above a mouth, two arms, two legs and five digits on each "hand". Easy to make on a low budget - just put different makeup on to actors, but it all gets a little samey. A Centauri? Give em big hair. A Vulcan? Pointy Ears. A Minbari? Bone head. etc.

I'm going to get a little evolutionary here, so any creationists may choose to look away now. Millions of years ago, before land animals made it onto the Earth there were many types of fish that had the potential to make it onto land. There was a great deal of variation in the body plans of these fish. Some had three bones in their fins, some had four, some had 8 or more. And some had 5 bones. It was from these 5 boned fish that all land animals are evolved. So every land animal, including us, has what is called a Pentadactyl Limb. We all have five fingers and five toes.
It was only through an evolutionary fluke on this planet that we all have five fingers. We could have just as easily had 7 or 8 on each hand. So why does nearly every other alien in every other sci fi show have five fingers? Even the brilliantly designed HR Giger alien from the Alien(s) movies has pentadactyl limbs.

There is sometimes the "higher being" cop out - some higher power seeded the universe with similar lifeforms as part of some great master plan. So we are all based on the same basic body plan and can even interbreed.

Sometimes now they try and be different and give them three or maybe four didgets. But facially too they nearly always follow the same body plan as we do. Two eyes, central nose, mouth. Like the supposed Grey Aliens of Roswell, they are just too humanlike to be real.

With CGI becoming more and more a staple part of most Sci Fi movies and shows these days, there is less reliance on the "Man in a rubber suit" and so there should be much more scope to exeriment with more "alien" aliens.

Anyway, Jack Cohen spends a lot of time working with Sci Fi authors such as Anne McCaffrey and the like, devising scientificially feasible aliens that would have evolved in very different planetary conditions. Some of the ideas he presented were very intriguing. I can't go into them here, but he did finally turn this lecture into a book, which is well worth a read.

Joanna Needs a Meme

This was inspired by a meme on Anna's website the other day, and I quite liked the idea. Anyway, you type "[yourname] needs" into Google and see what comes out.

So here are some of the ones I found.

1. My Joanna needs tuning: Which apparently is a Uriah Heep Song. Joanna being slang for Piano, natch.
2. Joanna needs to go to see her loan manager at her bank: Not yet I dont, but maybe when my Next Directory statement comes in I may just have to!
3. Joanna needs your help with outfits!: Why is it you buy loads of clothes, then never have a thing to wear?
4. Joanna needs more practice in argument: I've done enough arguing recently thankyouverymuch. And I am very good at it.
5. Joanna needs to find herself: Yup, **fumbles** I'm right here.
6. Joanna needs to postpone her forthcoming album: Which is probably for the best, all things being considered.
7. Joanna needs a break: Well, it is nearly half term ;)
8. Joanna needs a cool head and a steady trigger finger: Oh boy, do I ever.
9. Joanna needs money: Don't we all? See number 2.
10. Joanna needs you to get in touch with her. So comment away!

New Look

OK so I got my new copy of Dreamweaver 8 (shush Siobhan) that lets me play with the CSS code. And I've been meaning to tie the blog in with the look of the rest of the site (same graphic for the title, proper nav bar etc) I also wanted the main text to be wider as the default text just isn't wide enough to put photos in.. and kinda throws everything else out of kilter.

So I've been buggering about with the CSS of the blog with Dreamweaver. Kinda gone for the sleek white look for now. This is an interim until I can decide what I want to do next. I would prefer a jazzier title graphic I think. I will have to see what I can come up with sometime. Until then, hope you like the look.

Swear Words

Occasionally you get a little train of thought running and you think "I must get round to putting that down on my blog". And this is one of those.

It started when I used Frack in the post on Friday. As I've already mentioned I'd been getting into Battlestar Galactica and frack is their made up swear word of choice. Pretending to swear but getting around the censors. Because we all know that swearing isn't big and it sure ain't clever, right kids?

Made up swear words are great. I remember as a kid making up a word to describe someone who was both a twit and a pratt. My new word which I used happily for several days was Twatt. I had no knowledge that someone else had already invented that one, and that it was rather rude. My mum had to tell me not to say it anymore, and especially in front of relatives. Which of course then made me look it up in the dictionary ;) Whoops.

Anyway it got me thinking about made up swear words that I remember from the comics and TV shows I used to watch. Earliest one I could remember was Grud from the Judge Dredd comics. (and I suppose Naff from Porridge would have been one of the first)

As well as Frack from Battlestar Galactica there is Frag from Babylon 5, Frell for Farscape and Feck (which I love) from Father Ted. Red Dwarf's Smeg is also a popular one (and I still laugh at the kitchen range called Smeg to this day)

Wikipedia is rapidly becoming my alltime favourite website.. and on looking up some of these words I found this great post that lists all the different fictional swear words. Cool.

Who says blogging can't be educational and informative?

A day of ups and downs

This post has nothing to do with trannying (Thank God you all say) but it was a very up and down day for my home town of Southend yesterday.

Yesterday saw Southend United play host to Nottingham Forest in the football. Since Forest is my wifes team and Southend my home team (but I havent seen for years) we thought we'd get tickets and go. Got to be easier than driving up to Nottingham anyway. Southend are on a pretty good run of form, and needed one more win to break an 81 year old record of 8 wins on the trot, and also a win would take them to the top of the table.

Was an entertaining game. End to End stuff. We even had a streaker. The banter between the fans was always good fun. Southend fans chanting to Forest "You're not famous any more" and during a quiet spell in the game Forest fans chanting "We want the streaker back"

A late goal and Southend win. Top of the table, records broken etc etc. A good day for the town.

Then I wake up this morning and hear about Southend Pier catching fire yet again. For our American readers - Southends one claim to fame is the longest pleasure pier in the world. It's not been quite as unlucky as Brighton Pier, but Southend Pier has had its fair share of bad luck. I can remember back in '76 the pier head burnt down. Then a boat crashed through it. A few years ago the bowling alley at the coast end of the pier burnt down.. and now the pier head has gone again.

Seems like fires are in the news today with the blaze at the Aardman warehouse in Bristol destroying loads of Wallace and Gromit models and most of their archive.

Lord of the Rings

Lazy blogging today. Found these the other day. Thought I would share. Made me smile.

Lord of the Rings - alternative versions:

One does not simply walk into Mordor

What if we catapult the ring into Mordor?

Frodos Stapler

Thank Frack It's Friday

This has been one shit week. There seems to have been crap flying at me from all sides.

One one forum I am a member of, I have had a girl who has decided that I have set up a second anonymous account to flame her and have a go at her. She has decided that is me that has been doing it. All requests to explain what she means are met with cryptic responses like "You know what I am talking about" which is hardly helpful. What's worse is that this happened a year a go and was never resolved. She has now restarted it by taking comments I made about the forum on a friends blog out of context and posting it on the forum itself in a bid to stir up trouble. Thankfully the mods deleted the thread.. but I am left knowing that this girl seems to really dislike me even though I have done nothing to her and am waiting for the next problem to happen....

On the same forum another girl who did nothing to support Sparkle at any point in the planning and who never turned up.. has now piped up demanding transparency and that we post the Sparkle accounts. Why has she taken an interest, apart from making mischief I can't see any reason for her getting involved. The event actually made a loss, that Kim has taken the brunt of personally. Some people can't stop interfering and pretending that they know better...

And finally the biggy that has been pissing me off most of the week. I've made some mention of it already but I have had a absolute nightmare with the Angels mailing list this week. One member had to be removed for continually ranting against the moderators (amongst other things) determined that there was a definite anti-TS bias on the group. I hate to see anyone leave the group and only kick members as a last resort. As a rant came in, I mailed her to ask her to stop or I would remove her. And then another one came in with a similar message. Maybe she had't seen the email from me... maybe I should have given her more time. But at the end of the day I made a decision rightly or wrongly to remove her from the group. Now she wont believe me when I say that I wished I did not have to do it, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. In one of her previous rants she said that she was going to "re-examine her newsgroup memberships so I guess she was pissed off that I deleted her rather than letting her quit in a blaze of glory.

What pissed me off more was the response from one of her friends who launched a public scathing attack on me... I wont repeat it here.. but to read that from someone on the list really hurt me. Naturally she had forwarded it to her friend to show what a good girl she was...

What did lighten my mood was the many emails of encouragement, both on and off list supporting me and my decision from girls that were either sick of some of the behaviour of both girls or just supportive of me. And for those messages I an truly grateful.

The original protagonist has her own "blog".. in the very loosest use of that word. Kinda hard to read, badly formatted and awkwardly written, it clearly shows how highly strung this individual is. It's now going to end up as some MacIntyre Investigates case for the defence trying to justify her position and why I am an evil heartless bitch. I guess it is my own fault for reading it (or trying to read it without my eyes bleeding) but some of the shite she is saying just winds me up. You can just hear the I am right and everyone else is so so wrong tone in her postings.

I guess I should try and ignore her. Let her publish and be damned, burn her bridges and show herself up as being incredibly hormonal and unbalanced. Now I seem to be public enemy in her eyes and all the wrongs in her life are going to be my fault. Part of me wants to post a link so you can all see how psycho cuckoo she is, but I don't know if I should.

Oh well. hoping things will blow over and the girls on the list, bless em, are trying to recover some sense of normality. Usenet dynamics and all that permitting, things will get better... a group needs a good blow up every now and then I guess. Only two members left in the two days since I challenged all those who thought i was wrong to leave, and several more have joined so at the end of the week membership has still increased..

I just seem to be in a black hole towards the end of this week. I know I should just try and move on, but I can't seem to. Part of just wonders why I bother putting all this time into running a mailing list and a website if all I get in return is bile and vitriol from people who see me as a public figure and an easy target. Sometimes I wonder what the bloody point is...

And if you are still here after reading all that, then I thank you ;)

hatstands again

I suppose I should explain the hatstand=insane remark to those from across the pond.

Hatstand came from a character in Viz magazine called Roger Irrelevant . Viz was one of the staple reads of sixth formers and students. Roger's tagline was "Roger Irrelevant: He's completely Hatstand". The stories would usually revolve around Roger doing very stupid things while saying "wibble" a lot...

You can see one of the comic strips here..

On Naming Objects

Was reading Siobhans post today which included all the names she has for her bits of kit in her house - Erin the Server, Tara the Wifi Router and stuff like that. Which got me thinking about my office space.

I have a computer. I call it "My Computer".... I have three laptops they are called; in order of age, Sony, Advent and New teeny tiny super cool Dell ;) There is little "Laser Printer" in the corner next to "Colour Printer"oh, and Jeremy the Scanner.

I guess I don't really name inanimate objects. When I go out in my car I take my car out. I don't take Matilda out to the shops. (Actually, my mum had a car called Daisy and I did refer to it as such when I was learning to drive in it). I like my car, but it's just a means of getting from A to B in comfort.

OK - so that's not strictly true, since with a home network you have to give each computer a name.. so there is Willow, Scully and Buffy.. but they are just network names and I don't tend to refer to them as such.

Guess I have no soul ;)

Real or Fake?

Can you tell if boobs are Real or Fake? Try this online quiz and see how well you can do. (Don't open at work)

I scored 18/20... see if you can beat that...

New Products

Following a number of high level business discussions with Becky, Tatt4trannies is proud to reveal several new high-profile items to augment its already impressive range of Tranny merchandise.

We were inspired by the range of Fake Female Genitalia devices that you seem to be able to purchase on the internet. They have names like Veronica V and the like. I named our product the Ming on a String... Tasteful huh? Looking like a cross between a face hugger from Alien and William Hague, these things are supposed to be lifelike and convincing. Judge for yourself:

Ewwww... Why does that photo make me think of the Conservative Party Conference?

Apparently in real life they can be bought with a range of different "hairstyles".. this is just scary. Missing a trick on the names though.. they should be called the Robin Cook, The Billy Connolly and the Kojak (lollipop not included*)

Can't believe how awful these things look. They just seem so... wrong. Yuk. Maybe a better name would be the Sweaty Betty?

Whatever you do, dont put the damn things on back to front!

*This joke (c) Becky Enverite 2005. All rights reserved. Patent Pending.

Purging

Well not exactly, but today we decided that we really needed to clear out the loft. It was full of crap that the previous owner kindly left us (thanks for the 3 tonnes of carpet you bugger!) and then we topped it off with lots of boxes of our own shite...

So in preparation for a hopeful move, we proceeded to clear out the loft so we did not inflict too much debris on anyone who took over the house from us in the future (though in the end we relented and hid half a tonne of carpet behind a piece of MDF!)

And I found a large box of trannie stuff that had not been seen for about 5 years. I was half thinking of getting Tony Robinson and the Time Team out to carbon date it. Maybe get that old bloke out to do some kind of sketch to show the kind of early tranny that would be wearing this kind of stuff. In there was one of my early brown wigs (shudder) and two pairs of barretts court shoes (one suede one patent) that look absolutely awful several years later. A copy of a Transformation leaflet (yeah I know, but we all had to start somewhere), some TG cuttings from a Forum magazine I once bought (shudder again) and an old handbag of the wifes that I kind of rescued when she threw it away.

So all of it went to the tip today. And bloody good riddance to it.

Of Hatstands

OK huge disclaimers on this joke. Becky can testify evening I've just had sorting out a small online matter . This is something I made a while ago as a small joke but never shared... for obvious reasons.

This is not a dig at the thousands of well-adjusted T-girls and G-Girls out there that (maybe) read this blog, but I can bet you all know a few people who might fit the bill, maybe just a little. As Katya says, "Your Mileage May Vary" ...

If you want me, I'll be hiding under this bed....

Random Sunday Thoughts

Was watching the telly last night and there was an advert for an MFI sale... There always seems to be stores such as MFI that in a permanent sale mode. But legally the full price item needs to have been on sale somewhere in the UK so they can offer it as "Half price"

Which got me thinking.. is there some store, probably in the Outer Hebrides or something, that has everything full price? It probably has a sole member of staff and a hidden entrance. Within this store entire kitchen suites could, in theory, be bought for the full retail price should you so wish. But the purpose of this store is solely for the purpose of every other store in the UK being able to say "Half normal retail price" 365 days of the year? Just wondering....

Shopping

Broke out the credit card this weekend and bought one of these portable speaker things for my iPod. Sound quality is pretty cool. Although it suffers from one of those problems that a lot of electronic devices does.. the unit itself is nice and light and portable, but the power adaptor weighs a tonne! Nice neat little unit though.

Also got round to ordering the latest version of Macromedia Studio 8. I love Dreamweaver, and anything that adds to its functionality is a good thing with me.

Also in the news:

Keep an eye out tomorrow for a partial solar eclipse (will be a full further South than the UK). I missed the last eclipse because I was out in Canada at the time. I'll have to try and rig up something to see if I can see this.

Is this the worlds biggest Barbeque? Can we all go along with a packet of sausages and burgers and get them cooked for free?

Why does this talentless twat continue to get media coverage? Another example of people being famous for being famous. I saw him on the news the other day spitting at a photographer. Piece of filth. Can we have a Pete Docherty-free week please?

And is the BBC technology pages sponsored by World of Warcraft? Seems like a week doesn't go by without one correspondent or another writing an article about WoW.