Scattered thoughts

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my wedding to Ben. In honour of that momentous occasion, I give you a picspam of wedding pictures.

( Wedding pics. Cut to save your friends page. There are a lot of pictures under here )

Ben's cousin got married yesterday, so we attended the wedding. It was at a posh hotel, so we spent a couple of nights there as an anniversary gift to ourselves. It was very pleasant, though it was really nice to come home. Sometimes I think that's the best reason to go away - so you can be grateful to come home.

( The wedding yesterday - how I did my hair )

The wedding we attended yesterday was lovely. The hotel staff were amazing and very helpful, and it was nice to see Ben's family. My sister-in-law was particularly lovely. When I couldn't eat the pudding that was served at dinner cos it had almonds in it, I wasn't going to say anything but she did and got me ice cream instead :) She also made a song request towards the end of the reception - Annie's Song by John Denver, which was the song Ben and I had our first dance to at our our wedding so I got a dance with Ben after all. It was lovely, felt for me very much like time had stopped and I was floating on air. A beautiful end to a gorgeous day.

I was watching Law and Order: UK a couple of weeks ago when I suddenly shouted out in surprise, because I recognised the location they had been shooting at. I knew they filmed in and around Sutton (and no, this story isn't nearly as cool as angelicalangie's - I didn't meet anyone, or even see them filming). What I didn't know was that they had also filmed only a couple of hundred yards from the house I grew up in from the time I was 7, and also only a couple of hundred yards from the flat we lived in before that.



This map illustrates just how close they were. Point A is my old house (where I lived till I was 21 [2005]), Point B is where they filmed.

( cut for image heavy post )

I exclaimed in excitement to Phil about somewhere so close featuring and bemoaning that I wasn't around to get an autograph and got a "oh yeah, I knew they filmed there. I watched them do it!"

He didn't collect any autographs :(

This is what happens when I get overtired:

On Monday's DPP over at no_takebacks we played at making our own Texts from Galactica (these are based on Texts from Last Night. Thanks to pressdbtwnpages for the awesome idea :D

( I went a bit crazy ;) Here are my Pilots themed Texts from Galactica: )

I voted at about 7:35 this morning which felt veeeeeeeeery early. Still, it's done now and I'm feeling rather Meh about the whole thing. I voted because it's my civic duty and I believe very strongly that I should be exercising it because of all the people in the past who couldn't and campaigned for my right to do it.



But...

I had to hold my nose and vote for the least-worst option and that left me feeling rather dirty. I shouldn't come out of the polling booth feeling dirty because I had to vote and all the choices were pretty much equally dire. Let's take these decisions one at a time.

( Local council elections )

( AV referendum )

ETA: This is an example of what I mean. How could one not vote against a campaign that has posters like this?
( The last No to AV poster from Conservative HQ. No, really. WTF? )

We went on holiday to Norfolk this year, to this beautiful cottage called "Remus" in Larling, through this brilliant company who let holiday cottages in five locales, despite being called "Best of Suffolk" ;)

I was pretty excited about going, but didn't realise how much I really needed to get away from everything after the year we've had so far. And I really did need to get away, and feel miles better for having done so.

( Day One - Friday 3rd September - Travelling and settling in )

( Day Two - Saturday 4th September - Relaxing in the cottage )

( Day Three - Sunday 5th September - Bure Valley Railway and Great Yarmouth )

( Day Four - Monday 6th September - Banham Zoo (featuring Giraffes) )

( Day Five - Tuesday 7th September - The world's most disappointing Toy and Model Expo and England's only Whisky distillery )

( Day Six - Wednesday 8th September - IWM Duxford )

( Day Seven - Thursday 9th September - Norwich )

( Day Eight - Friday 10th September - Home again (with a stop at Bluewater en-route) )

It was really good to be away, but it was quite nice to get home again.

The fantastic news, and a good way to round off our holiday, is this was our last holiday in which I had to do all the driving, because on Monday, Ben passed his driving test first time \o/ (though this does mean I now have to share the car ;))

This entry was originally posted at http://lizziec.dreamwidth.org/414937.html. There are currently comments on the original entry.

I mentioned here that Phil and I spent hours cleaning out the spare room at mum's place so that I could have my own space here. The bed arrived on Saturday and is now all together and covered with bed clothes. I brought some things back from Canterbury this morning to make it more my own space, so I thought I would post the pictures of how it looks now (please excuse the quality, I used my phone camera).

I'm still trying to think of ways to improve the walls. Maybe I need some postcards or something to stick up?

( Pictures of my little corner of mum's house. Cut to save your friends page :) )

In other news, still waiting to hear when the MRI will be. I also called mum's council this morning and they're sending forms to register for postal voting, then I called my council who are sending me forms for both a postal and a proxy vote so I can pick which one I want to use. Then I'm hopefully covered should I be here on election day.

ETA: 12/07/11 No longer filtered

This post has been brought on by two things. First, it's the Euro and County Council elections (at least for us in Kent) tomorrow (possibly today, depending on when I finish writing this). Second, we finally received a leaflet from Labour today and I really don't think they're even trying to contest this election. I was shocked by the poor quality and decided to share. Then I figured that I may as well document all the political bumf that Ben and I have had through the letter box during this process.

Some were addressed to me, some were addressed to Ben. Interestingly, apart from the Greens, it was different letters/leaflets addressed to each of us (if they were addressed at all), rather than any overlap.

Click on pictures to embiggen throughout.


An artfully arranged display of all our leaflets.

I'll start with the shoddy leaflet that kicked all this off, which is the last one we have received.

This one is courtesy of Labour. I'm not a Labour supporter, so I admit this might be rather biased of me, but this is possibly the worst political leaflet I have ever seen. Acres of blank space, poor grammar and spelling, and clearly has not been proof read before being printed off. Which is sad because I can only assume it's been/being passed around the district, and it's really not a good advert for the Labour Party. Read it and you'll see what I mean.

( Labour leaflet )

The Conservatives have tried hardest, sending round several leaflets, and the only party to send someone to Canvass us. I should mention that neither Ben nor I are currently registered with any political party, so that can't be the reason we have quite so many Conservative mailshots. I can only assume that they're trying this hard with everyone.

( This was the most recent. )

( Ben had a 'personal' letter from the KCC candidate. )

( Another Conservative leaflet. Can't remember when this one arrived. )

This last one is a copy of the main Conservative KCC leaflet. This one was hand delivered by the canvasser. We have two copies of this as one was in with the letter that Ben got, shown further up.

The problem we had with this is that it reads like a particularly poor CV. On the upside, there was little wasted space and it did appear to have been spell checked/proof read before it was printed.

On the downside, it does lie, as did the Canvasser about the John Simmonds (the Cons Candidate for Canterbury West, which is our ward) being "The Local Choice". The Canvasser told me that the candidate lived "just round the corner". This is untrue. John Simmonds lives in Whitstable, which is not "just round the corner". According to google maps it is actually 5.7 miles away from my address to his. I suppose it could be a very large corner...

In fact, I believe the Canvasser was referring to the Conservative candidate for the Canterbury South-West Ward (Maureen Robinson), who does live "just round the corner" in Oaks Park (I believe).

While Whiststable may be "local", it's not local in the sense the canvasser, and I believe the leaflet, were aiming at.

Not impressed.

Also not impressed with myself - I only remembered the questions I wanted to ask the canvasser (pot holes, Iceland[as in banks, not supermarkets]) after I closed the door, and I wasn't about to go chasing after him!

( Conservative leaflet for KCC. )

The Green Party sent us two leaflets, one addressed to each of us. Unfortunately they were both identical and both came through the post. Have to wonder about the Carbon Footprint of that.

( Green Party leaflet )

We also got a leaflet from the "No2EU" party, who appear to be endorsed only by Bob Crow of RMT Union fame.

( No2EU )

We have also received the now infamous BNP leaflet. Not sure what we'll do with it yet. Possibly shred it and then set it on fire. Ben pointed out it looked rather like a kebab menu, which is funny because it's true.

I don't know where to start on the ways in which this hate filled nasty little piece of racist propaganda annoys and frustrates me, so I shan't even try. I only picture it for completeness and posterity. I hope in years to come I can look back and laugh on the fact that people ever considered voting for these cretins, especially on the basis of this.

I just hope they don't win a significant share of the vote, especially a share significant enough to win a seat.

( BNP )

Given my political sympathies swing towards the Lib Dems, perhaps naturally as they were the party supported by my parents while I was growing up (I delivered my fair share of Focuses, did several shifts of telling at several elections at my local polling station, had an action room in our living room during a general election - tables and tables of addresses! - and even attended a Count as Lib Dem representative - all while I was 18 or younger) I am disappointed by the efforts of the local party.

No Canvassing, at least, not round my block of flats. Only one leaflet about only one of the two elections. Given they say on their leaflet that "only the Lib Dems can beat the Conservatives here" I don't feel like they really tried at all. One leaflet specifically about the election, and then only about the Europeans, nothing at all about KCC.

A Lib Dem publication was the first one we got during this cycle, I seem to remember anyway, but it was a regular quarterly Focus, nothing really to do with the election. It was also in need of a proof read as at the very least the URL at the bottom of page two was wrong - "www.cantlibdem" is no URL at all.

What I'm trying to say, badly, is that I'm disappointed in the Lib Dem campaign, at least in my ward. I want to vote for them, but I feel like they've done nothing to deserve it. They've certainly not actually tried to get my vote.

I hoped for more.

( Focus )

We got this leaflet, which is the Lib Dem Euro specific one, only very recently - possibly the last week or so?

( Euro specific Lib Dem leaflet )

I know campaigning in a Tory stronghold (Canterbury constituency has elected only Conservative MPs since 1874, the longest any current UK constituency has remained under the control of one party [source=wikipedia]), but really, if you don't make the effort (and I apply this to Labour, much as I dislike them atm, as much as I do to the Liberal Democrats) then they'll never be beaten here. Most elections here (Canterbury) seem to have a depressing enevitability about them. Purely on the basis of who sends out the most stuff and is the most visible (including on the doorstep), it is the Conservatives who are the most visible.

Anyway, I should go to bed. I'm getting up early to vote!

ETA: the election is today as I finish writing. It's gone 1am!

My new laptop (Thinkpad SL500) arrived on Wednesday, which was extremely exciting for me. As always, I got a lot of pictures :) Now I've finished setting it up and moving files around I finally got around to getting the pictures off my camera and posting them here to show off :)


My old laptop (Thinkpad R50e) was old...


...and pretty busted :/ (Yes, that is micropore holding a corner on.)


When I got back from picking it up there was some post for me :)


It was my new copy of Ramona Forever! :D

I'm not quite sure how I managed it, but I was patient enough to take pictures of the unwrappening:



The lid is shiny, but fingerprints silly easily.


Old vs New (click to embiggen).

All pictures.

The new one runs like a dream, even with Vista installed. I think I'm in love (sorry benc).

I'm still trying to decide what to do with my old one, which is staying with me for a few weeks at least so I'm sure I have everything I need from it and I'm completely happy with my new one. Any ideas? Any people maybe interested in taking it?

Last Monday red_pill was down for a visit, so we did the touristy thing and went to Wildwood to see all the cute animals.

We started off at Canterbury Asda, where Phil got some new jeans and I went all arty on the place with my camera.

( See my arty turn )

From there we proceeded to Wildwood. We chose Wildwood on the grounds that I've been before and Phil has been dying to see the cute British animals they have there for over a year. I took loads of pictures, but lots had to be deleted as they were mostly very good pictures of fences or perspex windows ;) Some of the pictures aren't as clear as I'd like them to be, but they were all taken through fences or windows, so I don't think they're too bad, given the circumstances and my lack of skill :)

( All the signs had a badger theme: )

( We also found a sign that clearly needed fixing - the 'preferred habitat' and 'favourite food' sections had obviously become switched at some point: )

We saw lots of animals on our travels including (but not limited to):
( A red fox. )

( Water birds of various types. )

( Cranes (at least, I think this is a Crane ;)) )

( Sleeping Arctic Foxes. )

( Wild horses. )

( Various types of Deer. I think this one is Fallow Deer. )

( Tawny Owls. )

( A sleeping polecat. )

( Sleeping Badgers. )

( A weasel - at least, I'm fairly sure it's a weasel. Getting a clear picture of it was extremely difficult. It's extremely fast and agile. )

Brief comedy interlude:
What's the difference between a Stoat and a Weasel?
( I'm so funny )

( A sleeping Lynx. )

( Wolves. These were also difficult to get pictures of. I never realised how quick they were before - they all came out slightly blurry. )

( Sheep. )

( And Black Rats. I'm rather pleased with this picture, which was a complete fluke. )

Of course, there were lots of other animals we saw, but those are my best pictures. For the rest, see here.

( Here you see the Philip Overal ('reddus pillus') in his natural habitat. )

( Also on a swing... )

( ...and a mini-zipwire. )

We got told off shortly after that picture was taken by an eight year old who told us that the playground was only for children. We couldn't find any signs to say so though, so I have a clear conscience :). I also had a go on the zipwire. T'was good fun, even if my first go was with my eyes shut and I wouldn't let Phil give me a push off ;)

( This is always good advice: )

( Some camera and lens porn (SFW - not actual porn) for camera geeks: )

( Philip and Little Bunny Foo-Foo pose for a picture: )

( It turned out that he had worn his dressing gown to Wildwood. Arthur Dent's influence on his childhood and later life can not be overstated. )

We had lunch at The Parrot (the pub formerly known as Simple Simon's). Pictures here. Food was lovely :)

Finally we explored the River Stour a little.

( It was a beautiful spring day, with the sky reflecting in the river. )

( Spring is truly springing: )

( Some cool throwbacks to the time when there was a mill on this particular section of the river: )

( Phil got very close to the river in search of pictures. Unfortunately he didn't fall in. That might have been funny. )

It was a really nice day :)

Asda.
Wildwood.
The Parrot.
The River Stour.
Phil's pictures of the day.

I couldn't sleep, so I made this:



Sorry about the picture quality, I took it with my camera phone cos I went to use my proper camera and found that the battery was flat (now on charge) and I was too impatient to wait for it to be ready. I'm very pleased with myself for working out how to stick them all together in Paint Shop though :)

Might make a better quality one if I can be bothered.

Picture is of the cover of my GGB copy of The Chalet School Reunion. It has been annotated according to the key on the last page of that edition.

The BBC have done it again.

In this entry I told you all about how the BBC asked people send in Olympic logo ideas, and then they published a selection, including one that was a straight rip off of Goatse (if you don't know what it is, look here - SFW, just contains a description not the actual picture.)

Well they've asked for reader contributions again in the wake of Google getting a new favicon on their magazine page, saying "You've read about Google's new favicon - now design one yourself - either a personal favicon or one to represent the Magazine, and send it to us".

Once again, a goatse has slipped through the net.

Scroll down the page to the bottom, the contribution in question is from "Steven, Coventry" (and is SFW).

Just in case the BBC take it down, I took screenshots! SFW.

( BBC magazine page screenshot )

( Favicon closeup )

Our Advent Candle has just burned out, so that can only mean one thing* - it's Christmas tomorrow!
*Ok, two things - we could have left it to burn too long... but we didn't and it is Christmas tomorrow! :D


Photo courtesy of benc

In case I don't post again before Boxing day, a very merry, happy and peaceful Christmas to all of you! :)

Disclaimer: All pictures in this post taken with crappy phone camera. Apologies for the crappiness.

To begin - why on earth is Sainsbury's stocking Hot Cross Buns in December? Before Christmas even?! There are still four months till Easter and it makes my brain hurt to have shop products commemorating His death before we've even celebrated His birth yet.



Today I was in town and (finally) applied for a Cathedral Precincts Pass (we live within four miles of the Bell Harry Tower so we're entitled to one giving us free entry). Other Canterbury-ites who are interested can download the form here. ( You're eligible if... ) It might be worth your while applying if you are eligible :) Free Stuff ++ . Also, Canterbury residents cards don't work for getting in for free at the Cathedral.

While I was in town I also made a visit to Woolworths for the first time since the closing down was announced and it was very sad :( There wasn't a lot left and none of it was really stuff I wanted to buy. I guess the latter is the reason why they're now defunct. They've even started selling off the fixtures and fittings. That really is quite gutting to see. Can't work out why it is, but it is.



Got home to the news that the list of final closures has been published (list here) and Canterbury is going in the first wave - on the 27th December. Can't help feeling how crappy it is for those (soon to be un)employed by Woolworths. Also of interest to me were that Croydon's is going on 30th December and Coulsdon's is closing on 2nd January. More gapes in the high streets :( It's really all rather sad.

More disturbing to me was that Woolworths has the below signs plastered everywhere. It was quiet (and almost cleared out) when I went, but what kind of chaos must have reigned for these to have to be put up? This is why I'm losing what little faith I had in humanity :(

A bit of an update entry here, using crappy phone camera pictures to show a little of what I've been up to :)

Firstly, due to a deal between mum and Pete I was the agent delivering 43 beers to Pete (and buying said beer), leading to a rather odd looking collection of goods when I made the purchase - 43 beers and a packet of naan bread for our dinner that evening. I'm fairly sure that the collection would have looked a whole lot less odd if it hadn't been for the naan bread.



The clunking of that lot in the car sounded quite dreadful as I accelerated, braked, turned corners... Luckily nothing broke :)



In other news, the Christmas Market is now in town! There's a stall that sells cool keyrings and 3D wooden puzzels. I've got some pictures of the keyrings, but not the puzzels :( Also, not the full spectrum of keyrings - there are lizards and frogs, and elephants, and giraffes and all sorts, all made from natural rubber :)





There's a stall with mulled wine and hot chocolate (regular hot chocolate and hot chocolate with rum or amaretto).



There's also a stall selling all kinds of Wurst, cooked over a barbeque. This stall is ben's favourite! :D



Finally, I took this picture of a very funny card:

( NSFW! )

Carols at the Cathedral tonight. I'm really looking forward to it :D It always feels like Christmas is really on its way when we have them. It also really enthralls the history part of me, as we stand in the Nave of the Cathedral with all the lights off, holding lit candles and singing carols, because I feel a real connection to the past - 100 years ago, 400 years ago, 1000 (or so) years ago there would have been people there doing much the same thing. It's hard to articulate, but it feels amazing.

benc has just come to a startling conclusion that I feel must be shared with the world.

The last time the economy crashed Norman Lamont was Chancellor.


This time, Alastair Darling is Chancellor.


( What do they have in common? )

( Thus, the solution to the UK's economic woes is... )

I finally got round to photographing and uploading more pictures from "From Vision to Reality", as well as rephotographing those that were already there so they are better quality. They are here for those who want to look :) I've also made a new LJ icon.

ION: I went to see The Dark Knight this evening at Ashford. Twas good. Won't say any more though in case of spoilers.

Ben and I watched the series finale of Doctor Who earlier, but obviously have not really discussed it online yet, in deference to those who have for some reason or another not been able to watch it yet. However, the BBC seemingly have no such restraint as they have managed to completely spoiler the episode for anyone who has not seen it yet.

First (and please don't click on these links unless you've seen it or don't care cos I don't want angry complaints on my journal ;)), they point out key plot points in their Ticker across the top of the front page of the news website. Secondly on the front page of the "Entertainment section" they pretty much give away the entire plot in the headline and summary. Then if you actually go in to the article the whole ending is laid bare as well as or better than any spoiler or summary site on the internet could.

Nice job BBC ;) I wonder how many angry people will get in contact to complain.

A good while ago now (9th April 2008) I sent in a complaint to the BBC. I was unhappy that after the redesign of their news website it didn't work properly in firefox. As you can see from my screenshots (firefox, Internet Explorer) text often appeared very small for some paragraphs, especially near photographs. It did not do this in Internet Explorer.

My complaint said:

"I have noticed a fairly major problem with the new bbc news website, in that it clearly has not been tested extensively in Firefox, as opposed to Internet Explorer. In Firefox there are parts of articles that appear in tiny font (see http://carina.org.uk/piccies/screenshots/BBCNews%20firefox.jpg.html) and these appear as normal text in IE (see http://carina.org.uk/piccies/screenshots/BBCNews%20IE.jpg.html). This shows an unacceptable bias towards Microsoft by the BBC, and is frustrating that to see the BBC news website properly I have to use a browser that is more insecure than my browser of choice. Please tell me what will be done to fix this?"

Two days later (11th April) I recieved back what was essentially a placeholder reply:

"Dear

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

This is to let you know that we've received your recent complaint and will respond as soon as possible, however I hope you understand that the time taken to do so can depend on the nature of your complaint and the number of other complaints we're currently dealing with. The BBC issues public responses to issues which prompt large numbers of significant complaints and these can be read on our website at:

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints.

We'd be grateful if you would not reply to this email - in the meantime, we'd like to thank you for again for contacting us with your concerns and appreciate your patience in awaiting a response.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact the BBC.

Regards

James Kelly
BBC Complaints"

I have to admit I was pretty annoyed but accepted that this was part of contacting a public and high profile company and it probably took time to go through the number of emails that they get.

Having said that, I only got a "proper" reply to my original complaint today, 7 weeks and 1 day after my original query, and I'm a bit narked, especially given what apparently constitutes a proper reply for them.

"Dear Mrs Charlton

Thanks for your e-mail.

Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and we are sorry you have had to wait on this occasion.

I understand you feel the new BBC News website has not been tested extensively in Firefox as in Firefox there are parts of articles that appear in tiny font.

I also acknowledge you believe this shows an unacceptable bias towards Microsoft by the BBC which is frustrating as you have to use a browser that is more insecure than your browser of choice.

I cannot guarantee this will be rectified however I have forwarded your concerns to the site owners for their attention.

Please be assured that I've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

Thank you again Mrs Charlton for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

Jonathan Dunlop
BBC Complaints"

On the upside, the final email refered to me by name rather than just Dear Blank. On the downside their response was basically a copy paste of my original email, and an original sentence saying they can't guarentee a fix. The blatanty copy-pasting as a way of trying to show that they understand my complaint makes the whole thing completely ridiculous. I would have felt more listened to if he had just said they had read my original email and understood my concerns, as it is, it feels as if the BBC complaints department are schoolchildren who copy paste whatever anyone sends them without really comprehending what the words actually mean.

I am not at all impressed. On this occasion BBC---------

( London trip (including the Science Museum) )

Last night I caught a Giant Moth. Ugh.

( Giant Moth (see? I'm not exaggerating!) )

Today I've been watching Around The World With Willy Fogg (theme tune), which was one of the blockbuster dvds that turned up recently. It's such fun :D I really enjoy 80s cartoons :) In it's honour I've made a new lj icon (see the one with this post :))

Phew. That was quite an update. I daresay there won't be another proper one for months now!

My new phone arrived today. See here for pictures of it as I unpacked it.

Here it is next to my old phone:


Mmm, shiny.

While moving stuff from my old phone to my new one, I grabbed a whole load of pictures off it and uploaded them. They are nyah.

They include:
* a picture of the roof in the Physics Marlowe building after the plastic roof blew off and Estates covered the hole with tarpaulin (which then also blew off,hence why there are two tarpaulins of different colours there).
* A picture taken at the last BNL concert I went to. See why I took such a crappy picture here.
* Dalek Operation found in ASDA a while ago.

Enjoy!

P.S. Go comment on ben's journal here. He says it's "vitally important".

On mum's birthday we went to Hampton Court Palace (click for pictures). It was a lovely day :)

This week is part of the Easter Holidays for schools, and Sue asked me if I would like to go with her and three of her children to Wildwood. It seemed like a nice way to spend my afternoon so I agreed. Here are the pictures of what I did my afternoon :)


Wild Boar Piglets


Badgers


Polecat

It was a lovely day :)

A random though occurred to me while in the bath tonight. I should point out before I write this thought down that it was conjured up by random musings while humming Jesus Christ, Superstar songs to myself. I have no idea what the bible says about this or anything.

Anyway, it occurred to me that Judas really got a raw deal. Assuming that the whole thing is real (and I really don't know where I stand on that at the moment, so please don't ask or try to convince me either way), Jesus had to die so the whole resurrection thing could happen. The whole thing was pre ordained. Therefore someone would always have had to have turned Jesus in. Judas is very badly thought of for doing it and the word today generally means a betrayer. Really, sucks to have been him. Talk about a no win situation. If he hadn't dobbed Jesus in then he wouldn't have died on the cross and been resurrected and then ascended in to heaven and so Jesus could not have taken on everyone's sins and allowed for repentence and whatever. But if he had then he would have been branded forever and presumably sent to hell. I almost feel sorry for the guy. If he existed.

Hmm. That was all rather heavy and brain dumpy. Have some quizzes to take your minds off it.

( My brain sex and which Austen Heroine I am )

Finally, I want to draw your attention to the Photomeme which only one person (hi mum!) seems to want to do. Please participate? :)

I was having a bad day a few days ago when ben cheered me up by pointing out to me this story in the local free rag, which clearly shows some students at CCCU who, if they had died in the fire, would have been candidates for the Darwin Awards.

( The article )

For those who CBA to read the article themselves, basically there was a fire in an empty house next door to where the students lived. The students, Dan Fowler and Elliot Preston, originally did the clever thing and evacuated their own house - "There was a loud bang at the door. It was someone telling us to get out because the house next door was on fire."

Elliot took his laptop and alerted his housemate and they got out. So far, so clever.

But then: "We got outside but then I sent Dan back in to get the XBox. Unfortunately we broke Pro-Evolution Soccer in the process, which was not cool." It would have been even less cool if the fire had spread and they'd died in the process, although then they would have removed themselves from the gene pool, which after doing something so monumentally stupid may not have been a bad thing.

In other news, these are the final pictures to be taken with my old camera, a Fuji Finepix A210, which has done stirling service for over four years - it was purchased for me as a joint present from everyone when I turned 20.

The other day I purchased a Panasonic Lumix fz8, which was on manager's special for about £80 less than RRP because it was lacking a manual and a charger ;) The real shininess of the Lumix is the Leica lens. Before ben upgraded to a proper D-SLR he had a Panasonic Lumix fz30 and said that the lens was what really made the camera. I suspect that will be the case with this one too. The new charger arrived this morning, so in the next few days I will go out and take some test shots with it to show everyone :) Then I can tell you just how shiny (or not) the fz8 turns out to be :)

I was bored today, so I made some LJ icons based on some mormon icon templates (except one - can you guess which? :P)

Shared in case any of you are interested :) (plus, I am proud of my handiwork ;))

( Exmormon LJ icons )