Zachary Quinto and Milo Ventimiglia photoshoot

I realise that this will be of minimal interest to most of my readers, but Zachary Quinto and Milo Ventimiglia (Sylar / Gabriel and Peter Petrelli from Heroes, respectively) have done a photoshoot with Zink magazine. (Ages ago. Glossing over that...)

No, I've never heard of Zink either; it seems to be a fashion / lifestyle magazine. Looks interesting!






Of course, I'm merely interested from a fashion and photography perspective. Of course. And... uhhh. Hm.

Oh, go on then

I got hit with a meme! Thanks to Argentum Vulgaris,I will now for your delectation and delight complete the One Word Meme, in which all my answers must be one word or less (but not less).

1. Where is your cell phone? Here

2. Where is your significant other? Cardiff

3. Your hair color? Blonde

4. Your mother? Extrovert

5. Your father? Knowledgable

6. Your favorite thing? Hugs

7. Your dream last night? Vague

8. Your dream/goal? Writer

9. The room you’re in? Messy

11. Your fear? Depression

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy

13. Where were you last night? Home

14. What you’re not? Certain

15. One of your wish-list items? DSLR

16. Where you grew up? Cowes

17. The last thing you did? Emails

18. What are you wearing? Jeans

19. Your TV? Fuzzy

20. Your pet? Teddy

21. Your computer? Laptop

22. Your mood? Alright

23. Missing someone? #2

24. Your car? Hah

25. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes

26. Favorite store? Peacocks

27. Your summer? Hah

28. Love someone? #23

29. Your favorite color? Purple

30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday

31. Last time you cried? Recently.

Ok, so as is time-old tradition I must now tag 5 other bloggers.

So, the wonderful Innocent Loverboy,
My darling cousin John,
The lovely Juniper,
And Dan the (probably) Man,

I CHOOSE YOU!

... Shup.

Women being honest

"So last night, I totally overreacted to something my boyfriend said, cried completely irrationally, got angry at him for no reason and now I'm not talking to him until he apologises because I'm slightly embarrassed about how I was just being hormonal."

"Oh honey! I wish I could blame it on your boyfriend. That would provide a bonding experience and draw us closer together in our friendship. Instead you just seem slightly crazy, even though I've done the same thing. Well, I guess I'm slightly crazy too."

"Let us instead bond by shopping! The mindless act of consumerism provides relief from any serious introspection. It helps that there are so many so-called fashion 'experts' to tell us that all our perfectly serviceable clothes are no longer acceptable."

"Good idea! heaven forbid we stop buying shoes and makeup long enough to realise what the real problem is here!"

-fin-

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

One of my youth leaders used to say that all the time. Whenever we'd gone a bit off-course or crazy, we'd be dragged back to this proverbial ranch in order to continue with the plan. So here I am, back with my family, on the Isle of Wight, hoping to get back on track.

Before I left Cardiff, Gavin and I were lucky enough to see Wales vs. New Zealand at the Millennium Stadium. I was very excitable, pointing everything out to G as if I'd never left my little island before. Sadly my camera's batteries died very early on so I only got two or three pictures, but here followeth an account.

We found our way through the crowds to the stadium, stopping to buy hotdogs and drinks on the way. When in Rome, as they say! After finding our seats without too much trouble, we sat down and waited for half an hour or so as I got increasingly excited by everything around me.

"Whoooaahhhh it's so BIG in here! It's like really big! Gav, look! There's a hole in the roof! Oooh look a brass band. Who do you reckon those men are? Oh my gosh listen to them sing, they're singing! It's so beautiful! Whooo!"

Gav: "You don't whoooo at a rugby match."

"Why not?"

"It's not the done thing. It's embarrassing."

"But I want to whoooo...."

The stadium got more and more filled up as we watched the All-Blacks warming up on the pitch. (The Welsh side having presumably gone for a pint.) Eventually the Welsh side put on a delightful little fashion show - posing in their red kit before changing into grey for reasons unbeknownst to me - and started warming up too.

Then, the BBC Sports personality of the year, Joe Calzaghe, walked out onto the pitch to frantic applause.

Gav (standing): "YEAHHHHH WHOOOOOO"

Me: *smug grin*

G: "Shut up."

Things began with national anthems, and shooting pillars of flame, and the All-Blacks doing their awesome warrior dance. Why don't any other teams have awesome dances? The English team could do Morris dancing. It would be ace.

The game itself was as thrilling as anything can be when you don't fully understand it. I don't know why the referee stops play 95% of the time, but that didn't stop me from gasping and cheering and applauding with everyone else when things got exciting. Wales were ahead at half time, as Gav and I got another hotdog each, but by the time we got back Wales had blown it.

To be fair, the better team won: they'd been neater, better organised, throughout. Still. I was very glad to have the opportunity to see that game.



I don't know what I'm going to be doing down here this week, but I'll keep you updated. I'm going out for a meal with ma famille now, so... I'll catch you later!

Sweet Lady Fate, why dost thou piss on me so?

The other week, I was walking around with my beloved, discussing terms such as 'depressive' and 'autistic.'

I was very much of the opinion that labelling people in this manner isn't always constructive; that it can lead people to resign themselves to something that could possibly be changed.

G patiently explained that a lot of people find it helpful to be able to understand certain things about themselves; why they act, or feel, a certain way; and that these labels can be instrumental in helping them come to terms with it.

"Well, fair enough" I said in my infinite wisdom, "but I think I'm self-aware enough that I wouldn't need a label like that. I'd have more hope of improvement if I just thought of it as 'a low period' rather than full-blown DEPRESSION. Actually calling it DEPRESSION feels like it would remove any hope of recovery."

Anyway, it seems the joke's on me: I've been diagnosed with clinical depression. My status on MSN has accordingly been upgraded from "sigh" to "bugger."

By the way, the post title is from this strip of the wonderful Questionable Content. Probably one of my top three webcomics (which is saying something since I'm currently subscribed to 28). As usual, the comic will be going up on the left.

While you're here, please enjoy this amazing video of how the song Breakfast at Tiffany's would really go! I love it.

Oh lucky me!

Gav emailed me the other day asking if I wanted to go in for a raffle to win some rugby tickets. I said yes, and we won! Hooray! That means that I'm gonna see Wales play the All-Blacks at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday. This is very exciting because it's going to be the first time I've willingly witnessed a sporting event live - or seen rugby live for that matter.

Every now and then I slip back into my island-girl mindset and I'm amazed by the things I have access to that I just didn't growing up. Electricity, healthcare... no, I jest; the Isle of Wight isn't as backwards as everybody thinks, it's just smaller and safer. But there are things I didn't discover until fairly late in my youth.


A few years ago, my aunt got me a pizza with a yummy sauce instead of tomato paste for the base. I made a mental note that when I moved away from home, I'd search for this pizza, because it was most probably the best I'd ever had! Y'see we didn't have Dominoes. Nope, not even one, not on the whole island. Or a Burger King, although this was no great loss to me as I'm a McDonald's gal.

We didn't have rugby, for some reason,and we didn't have silent discos. We didn't have - (snicker) - Organised Football Violence. I only discovered the existence of this utterly bizarre concept in the past couple of days. I don't think I've laughed so hard in ages!

Here's the idea. Some people, right, get into groups based on what football team they support. And, they, like, meet up with other opposing teams. And they fight! They fight each other! Organisedly! They wear special clothes that sound like they make them look like post-apocalyptic gangs! And they fight! Ok, explaining it to you it probably doesn't sound that funny, but I was creasing up. Apparently it's surprising that I've never heard of this phenomenon before.

Anyway, other good things that happened today include buying something very nice and meeting a snake. Fell asleep during Lost round Dan's, so I should get a reasonably early night in order to *gulp* face tomorrow...

Love! x

Oh! And an interesting thing: this man can do things with a sheet of A4 that I couldn't have dreamed of. Truly incredible art.

Found on Flickr 3

Hand mark, originally uploaded by danette5.

Men of Vision

Oh man. You know what's so good? REGGAE is so good.



I was in the Post Office earlier, look at the toys section, and among the cheap plastic water-pistols and skipping ropes, there were some pink / purple mobile phone cases, clearly targetted at young girls, printed with things like 'kissable', 'attitude problem' and (my personal favourite) 'If you're rich, I'm single.' Let's all take a moment to feel morally outraged, shall we?


... Ahhhh... that's the stuff.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about was Men of Vision. Those soothsayers of modern culture who already know what's going to succeed and what's going to fail. I've decided that your life won't really be complete unless I share a few examples of these predictions.

I never knew a guitar player worth a damn
- Vernon Presley to his son, Elvis, 1954

That 'Rainbow' song is no good. It slows the picture down.
- an MGM producer, after the first screening of The Wizard of Oz

Get your feet off my desk, get out of here, you stink, and we're not going to buy your product.
- Joe Keenan, president of Atari, to Steve Jobs in 1976

But what... is it good for?
- Robert Lloyd, engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, on the microchip

Colour and stereoscopy will make the cinema into the greatest art in the world. Bad films will be impossible.
- Sir john Betjeman, Poet Laureate (who thankfully never lived to see White Chicks)

What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage coaches!
- a comment in Quarterly Review, March 1825

I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova, and in 1996 will catastrophically collapse.
- Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld, 1995

The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.
- Sir William Preece

There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
- Albert Einstein, 1932

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical, and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.
- Simon Newcombe, US astronomer, 1902

The world then to an end shall come, in eighteen hundred and eighty-one
- 'Wise' Mother Shipton

For fallen soldiers

You'll be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees
- Kaiser Wilhelm, to German troops at the start of WW1

Found on Flickr 2

, originally uploaded by BLIND MANCHE.

I missed you!

Right! Hello! Yes! I've been offline the past two days because my laptop charger snapped, somehow, plunging me back into another dark age. Gav found me bashing rocks on other rocks and grunting.

His parents were down today, which was brilliant - I get on really well with them, they're absolutely lovely, and we had a good time. Gav cooked for them for the first time in years, which went down very well indeed.

SO YES THAT HAS BEEN MY LIFE NOW FOR THE INTERESTING THINGS

I cannot recommend with enough enthusiasm my latest discovery, School of Comedy. It's the only genuinely hilarious comedy sketch show I've ever seen, and I was ready to hate it from my first impression because they're - well - they're children. But give it a chance. I love it.

Smiths, Geeks and Furniture

Back home on the Isle of Wight, I knew a girl, D. Smith. Her mother's maiden name was Smith, and it amused me greatly that her parents could have hyphenated their surnames into Smith-Smith when they got married.

D got engaged to a young man by the name of T Smith, thus opening up the possibility of a Smith-Smith-Smith union... an opportunity passed up by D, but not by her brother, J. J married miss C Smith, so they could have been Mr J and Mrs C Smith-Smith-Smith. However, in the interest of minimising paperwork and avoiding ridicule, they all stuck as Smith. What a waste.

Back when I was doing my Theology course, the 2 hours of travel on a Monday morning left me with a lot of time to think. My friends and I once spent a happy hour working out who I'd have to marry and divorce in order to get the name Anna Rose-Smith-Smith-Rose. I will most likely never get that name, and this saddens me.

- - -

I've recently been reading a lot by Wil Wheaton. Here's a sample of his style, as he recounts his take as an adult watching himself in Star Trek as a teenager.

Riker looks around the bridge, sees all the commissioned officers he has available to him, does a quick scan of the ship's manifest to see who's on duty . . . and decides to send Wesley Freakin' Crusher to "discreetly" sneak a peek at Data. Worf says, "Uh, excuse me, Commander, but since I'm kind of in the security department and all, and I'm a big old Klingon, shouldn't maybe I go check this out?"

Riker replies, "I'm not going to lie to you, Worf: we all know that if there's anything funky going on down there, you're just going to get your ass kicked. So I'm sending the Boy Wonder and his giant brain instead."

Wesley jumps up from his console and shouts, "Wheee! I'm in Starfleet!" as he skips to the turbolift.

Read more of his memories on the set of The Next Generation here, I thoroughly recommend it!

My recent journeys through his blog have convinced me that he's a remarkably intelligent, humble man with a keen sense of humour, so I've bought his book 'Just a Geek'. Expect a review on that soon, I'm certainly enjoying it so far!

- - -

Today's interesting thing is WebUrbanist. I've been browsing for a bit being amazed at bookshelves - sounds dull, I know, but I'm very impressed with the originality and ingenuity of the designs. This one, for example, is built into a staircase:


There's plenty more on convertible furniture and recycled art, if you're into that sort of thing.

PS. I see from the poll that you guys are ALL ABOUT the button-clicking, so expect more polls whenever I can think of something!

Found On Flickr 1

Gloucester Cathedral [ corridor ], originally uploaded by shexbeer.

An absolutely breathtaking photo.

I'm appreciated!

A big thanks to Mr. Truth for sharing four true things about me with the world! I thoroughly recommend his blog, go check it out, if only to learn why I wail for an hour a week.

In which I revisit my original method of titling posts

You know what, never mind! Sorry! The other layout was far too rough; I shouldn't have changed it until I'd reduced the eyesore factor a bit. It looks like I'll be leaving it like this unless someone comes up with something better.

On a related note, the comment form is now beneath the comments, where God intended it. Thanks Blogger for that one!

Sorry for the slight lull in activity lately; I've been unwell, which impacts my creativity (along with transforming me into a whiny 7-year-old).

/EDIT: Also, there's a poll to the left.

My God, it's full of stars!

I'm really only trying this layout on for size. Let's call it a seasonal thing. I know it's not great, and suggestions would be welcomed, but I just needed to play around with it for a bit to see what else I could do...

My coding skills are (clearly!) still very limited.

The problem is, the old rainbow design was pretty much perfect from a design and simplicity point of view, but it sent out a very clear first impression that I wasn't entirely happy with.

So... I don't know how long it will stay like this... but yes, feedback is always much appreciated!

Thanks as always for stopping by - I promise to try to be interesting soon x x

Oh PS interesting thing of the day, courtesy of Tiff: TeeFury t-shirts. Each design is only available to order for one day, so they're very very limited edition! Very cheap, even when you factor in overseas shipping and economic disaster.