LemonBella

06:53 pm: In Celebration
I can't do fancy picture posts, and I haven't been able to find Neil McKenzie to poke him until he thwacks me, but I did get to be quite stern in a meeting.

And now I'm spending the eving watching Graeme score 154*.

Tags: graeme smith's fantasticness, national graeme day

08:17 pm: National Graeme Day
This is the kind of national holiday I can get behind.

Some suggestions for what you can do to observe National Graeme Day:

(BTW, just because you may not know who Graeme Smith is, it doesn't mean you can;t make an effort; This is an inclusive celebration)

1) Hit things really far
2) Get angry at administrators and have to be restrained by a colleague
3) Clean a cricket bat with nail varnish whilst half naked
4) Encourage your pretty young work colleagues to text you when they miss you
5) Injure both your arms and still insist on doing something that requires the use of both arms.
6) Eat a taco really quickly before anyone else notices
7) Be much larger in real life than people expect
8) Tell the truth even when it pisses off important people
9) Be svelte
10) get a huge crowd of Australians to cheer at you
11) Be statuesque
12) Covet other people's chips
13) Complete the to do list you have pinned to your fridge
14) Look suprisngly good in pink
15) Cheat on your fitness test
16) Have captainly hair
17) Point at people until they move
18) Be much better and significantly less whiny than KP
19) Covet shiny things
20) Try to touch your nose with your tongue when you're bored

If you're wanting to celebrate the day from a different angle, (or you've done all the above things by lunchtime and want to challenge yourself) you could also choose from the following options:

A) Celebrate National Ashwell Prince Day by being really, really annoyed about things
B) Celebrate National AB Day by videoing everything, even when the people you're filming are getting a bit annoyed
C) Celebrate National Dale Day by catching a small, naive crocodile
D) Celebrate National Paul Harris Day by being good natured whilst everyone tells you you're not terribly good at what you do, despite the fact that you are.
E) Celebrate National Morne Morkel Day by walking in the wrong direction
F) Celebrate National Makhaya Day by yelling and whooping all day
G) Celebrate National JP Day by being incredibly cool
H) Celebrate National Albie Morkel Day by being a lot shorter than your brother
I) Celebrate National Neil McKenzie Day by turning a light switch on and off
J) Celebrate National Hashim Amla Day by growing an excellent beard
K)Celebrate National Wayne Parnell Day by being much more attractive than a nineteen year old has any right to be
L) Celebrate National Roelof Van De Merve Day by letting people call you Rudolph
K) Celebrate National Mark Boucher Day by picking a fight with a phone box

Tags: cricket, graeme smith's fantasticness, national graeme day, south africans being exactly like they a, south africans being excellent

08:20 pm: Twenty20 India v South Africa Live! (rather than via the TV)
( Twenty20 South Africa v India, Trent Bridge in which I saw Graeme runs, Herschelle drank juice and South Africans were awesome yet again )

On another note: If you're going to turn up at a cricket match with 8 overs left, quite drunk and then attempt to chat me up, asking a stupid question ("so what brings you here?") and touching my leg repeatedly until I kick you in the ankle is not the way to do it.

Tags: cricket, graeme smith being fantastic, herschelle and cookies, men being stupid, roelof vandemerwe's own special tag, south africans being excellent, twenty20

09:25 pm: Dilemma
I had a job interview on Friday and, despite it being quite a bizarre interview, I was offered the position. It's at a freelance training company with a very innovative approach to training which I could certainly sink my teeth into and would be quite exciting. However:

It's freelance, which means whilst I would have a verbal guarantee of hours, and the wages for freelance are high, it's not the same as a fulltime job with guaranteed wage packet.

I was orginally hoping I'd be able to sign on to do 10 days a year - which I currently devote annual leave days for - but they want 2-3 days a month or full time 10 days a month, so annual leave isn't an option.

So I have choices:

1) Attempt to negotiate with my current employers to be released for 3-4 days a month. This isn't really an option as I already end up working evenings and weekends to get the job done. And I would like some sort of a life

2) Resign from my current post and take up the new one, with a gamble that a) I'll like it and b) I'll actualy get sufficient work. This isn't really a possibility either, as I'm still a bit too much of a coward to be entirely freelance. I hate the idea of not having a regular wage, even though the freelancing wages would be higher.

3) Contact the new company and explain that whilst I can't take up the position now, I would be very interested in working for them in a year when I plan to start my PhD. It's exactly what I want then, but obviously there's no guarantee that it will be available.

Okay, it's clear I've made that choice already isn't it? Graeme's penguin is impressed by my ability to ramble on and on and then discover I knew the answer already.

In other news:

Geraint lightened up my week by appearing with sheep in a magazine and being funny and geraint-like on TV

Graeme has been fabulous

I see my first cricket of the season on Tuesday: About bloody time

The butterpecan latte recipe did not work. Attention Mysterious Canadian Commentator/International Man of Mystery: You have failed me again. We should have spotted the flaw in this plan, owing to the recipe clearly being based on the concept that pecans can be made by mixing hazlenuts and almonds.

Tags: bizarre job interviews, flavoured lattes, international man of mystery, random stuff, work

09:20 pm: Since when was 2020 actually this exciting?
Thank God for Graeme Smith not being Stuart Broad.

Tags: cricket, graeme smith being fantastic, south africans being excellent, twenty20

09:26 pm: *snigger*
I...it's....I..... Well, that's the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time. Also, none of it can be blamed on Rob Key because they sent him in so low down the order.

Graeme's penguin is of Dutch ancestry.

Tags: england being humiliated, giant dutch cricketers, things that aren't rob key's fault, things that make me laugh

07:40 pm: It hurts me to have to say this....
but Stargate, you've let me down.

I have an entire shelf of Stargate. It's my prized possession and the thing I would save first if there was a fire, (providing the cats had escaped by themselves and managed to take my west wing box set with them). It's a beautiful shelf, containing nine series of SG1 in their excellent box sets, all lined up in a nice neat row - Reminding me that at any point in my life I have 147 hours worth of Stargate SG1 I can watch. It's comforting and soothing. Until Today.

Today my season 10 box set arrived. Today I had to add to my wonderful, wonderful shelf a stupid, plastic boxset that's only a 3rd of the size, half an inch shorter and doesn't contain the individual release disks in seperate cool boxes like the others. That *hurt* damnit.

It's sat there, staring at me at the moment. Mocking me.

Tags: proof that the world hates me, stargate, things that will never be the same

04:28 pm: Damn Angels
I've been successfully resisting twitter. I have hated it to my very soul and vowed I would not get into it, much as I used to approach blogging, mailing lists, the internet and mobile phones: Now those were successful boycotts.

Then Misha Barton Collins appeared on it and I'm hooked. Also, so far the only funny person I've found on twitter. Everyone else is kinda dull. ("I have eaten toast and been shopping" - really not information I care about whether you're my friend or an attractive famous person). Misha Collins, however, is clearly absolutely and totally nuts.

Tags: angels, twitter

07:46 pm: Help Wanted, Bribery Offered
I need to do a data collection and analysis exercise for the Ethnography component of my MSc. For this I need willing victims people to be interviewed. In particular, anyone who has worked as a carer/support worker. (Sadly, I'm far too responsible and focussed to be able to use this as an excuse to chat about Graeme Smith, Dean Winchester or KentCCC, hence the genuine research topic.)

Requirements:

1) You are or have been employed as a care worker/support worker.
2) You are willing to be interviewed by me about your experiences. Your data will be completely anonymous and seen only by my OU tutor and me.
3) You are happy to meet with me. I will travel wherever is most convenient for you.
4) You will be easily bribed by free coffee and pastries

I promise I'm not an axe murderer.

Tags: d844

08:16 pm: Dear Supernatural.....
That's mean. really, really mean. You can't leave it like that. That's almost as bad as the car crash.

I need an icon that conveys the simultaneous anger, frustration and utter joy of a good quality finale.

That's definitely in the top ten all time finales, possibly the top five.* Yes, I keep that sort of list


(*)For those of you who are interested:
11)Smallville: S4 - Commencement (A patchy season followed by an even patchier one, but this finale was phenomenal and had the added bonus of suprise Jensen Ackles)
10)SG1: S3 - Nemesis (You can't really beat little metallic bugs for suspense)
9)WW:S3 - Two Cathedrals (It's not suspense-laded, but it is a superb culmination of a season)
8) Angel:S3 - Tomorrow (I remember having conversations with two previously unknown colleagues about the way this ended: I loved darkAngel, and this was it.
7)BSG: S1 - Kobol's last Gleaming (Succeeded in bringing together three diverse storylines and left you hanging for the next season)
6)Grey's Anatomy:S5 - Here's to Future Days (An odd one for me, but I've just watched it and it made me shout out the revelation in surprise)
5) Justice League: S2 - Starcrossed (Flash holding a goat and many more significant things)
4) Smallville:S2 - Exodus(In true Smallville style everyone's in jepoardy, but this time we get Red!Clark)
3) BtVS: S2 - Becoming Part 2 (Not an explosion ridden one, but had me crying)
2) SPN:S2 - Devil's Trap (Will the car survive?)
1) WW:S1 - What Kind of Day Has it Been? ("Who's been hit, who's been hit?")

See, this sort of thing always gets out of hand:

ETA1: BtVS - The Gift would probably have been in there if it hadn't been totally ruined by a Sky trailer revealing her tombstone the week beforehand.

ETA2: Smallville might have had more if the show wasn't so tainted by the heartbreak it's caused me over the years.

ETA3: The finale of QaF (UK) should definitely make top five, possibly even top three.

ET4: SG1: In the Sperpent's Grasp should be top ten at least. I always neglect early SG1.

ETA5: The list for all time best final, final episodes of series would be entirely different and would include WW, BSG and SG1 (Moebius or Full Circle -if the series had actually ended there).

I'm stopping this now.



Tags: dean!, lists of stuff, spn

08:19 pm: behold the wonder of the internet
This is either the most fantastically designed hoax aimed at a very particular market, or it proves the internet really does have everything.

Also, it just me, or are there other cat owners out there who really, really want one?

Tags: the wonder of the internet

09:40 pm: A Serious Post
I very rarely post about serious things and even more rarely about the work I do, but this is important.

( something I would like you to do )

Tags: serious stuff, work

12:16 pm: Procrastination stolen from beautifulworld
I don't have a crew. Technically, you are all my crew. I hereby vow to protect you from harm and ocassionally make mistakes in judgement.

I was sort of hoping I'd be Jayne. I ticked "crazy" and "likes big guns".


Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 85% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 65% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 60% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 50% River (Stowaway) 40% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 40% A Reaver (Cannibal) 20% Inara Serra (Companion) 15% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 15% Alliance 15% Wash (Ship Pilot) 10%

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

Current Mood: bored

Tags: meme

2 comments | Leave a comment

04:36 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 7
Technically, I've been home for two days, but I'm recording what I did on my final few days, as I didn't get around to doing it in Canada:

On Saturday I visited the Museum of Anthropology. It was good, (and not just because an episode of Smallville was filmed there) but it's quite hard to produce a quality museum when the civilisations and cultures it should be dedicated to have been completely wiped out.

I then wandered around some botanical gardens, saw the Bloedel Conservatory (as seen on Stargate SG1) but didn't actually get to go inside because the guidebook lied about closing times. In the evening I went to the second largest Mall in Canada, which turns out not to be a very impressive boast. I ate mall food and bought a Ben Folds Five CD. It probably wasn't worth the trip, even if I did get to experience Canadian teenagers on the skytrain (exactly the same as other teenagers, but with even more stupid hair).

There were few animals or interesting coffees on Saturday, so it wasn't as good as my other days.

Sunday contained the most ridiculous decision made by me throughout the holiday (with the exception of waiting until Vancouver to buy butter pecan coffee syrup, more on that later). It was raining. Very Hard. I decided to continue with my plan to hike up Lynn Canyon. I got wet. Very wet. Even my underwear was soaking and a bus driver and some Australians laughed at me.

However, Lynn Canyon was stunning and the downpour only contributed to the effect, There was a 10km hike around Rice Lake, the 30 ft pool, two falls and the far-more-rickety-than-the-last-one suspension bridge. There was even a sign telling me how to be "Bear Aware". I deliberately contradicted it in the hope of becoming aware of a bear, but it didn't happen.

Monday was Kitsilano beach (georgeous, I could live there), the sighting of the only domestic cat I saw on my whole trip (grey, fluffy, unsociable), Vanier Park, the Inukshuk statue (very cool, got slightly sunburnt), Bloedel Observatory (actually inside this time), The Daily Planet, and the scouring of all three known locations of second cup coffee houses which the website totally lied about. There was no butter pecan syrup.

Tuesday was another trip to Kitsilano for my last flavoured latte of the trip (a straightforward caramel one) and then a rather long trip to the airport and the frantic spending of my Canadian change on Hershey chocolate.

Tags: canadia, the search for cofffee syrup continues

07:24 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 6
Yesterday I spent an entire day walking Stanley Park - all the way around the sea wall and through the middle (probably about 12km in total - look I am using foreign distances!). It was stunning and a fantastic mix of sea and woodland. Also, I fed a racoon my lunch in clear violation of all the warning signs telling me not to. It wanted my lunch, who am I to say no?

I visited the fantastic aquarium, the high point of which were the sea otters. Second on the list of cutest animals ever, with only the tree kangaroo beating it. And nothing will ever beat Tree Kangaroo. Tree Kangaroo has backstory.

Today, I sacrificed myself on the alter of tourist trapism, and visted Grouse Mountain, (wore snow shoes, got lost and almost fell down a ravine) and Capilano Suspension Bridge, (really, really wobbly, ate a hotdog). I failed to see any bears (they were "hibernating" - a dubious excuse if ever I heard one. I'm beginning to think canada has made up the whole bear and moose thing)

I visited Lonsdale Quay and Granville Markets, and miraculously came out with most of my money still in my wallet. I also encountered a number of Canadian Men With Ridiculously Sized Dogs. It seems to be a trend.

I found some exciting coffee syrup but a woman wouldn't sell it to me. However, my mysterious Canadian commentor has informed me there are Second Cup Coffee Houses somewhere in Vancouver. I have their addresses. I shall break in if necessary.

Tags: canadia, feeding animals my lunch, sea otters, the search for cofffee syrup continues

07:08 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 5
The train journey accross the Rockies was fantastic. There were many high points, but I must say the provision of free coffee and doughnuts at the station when the train was delayed impressed me no end. You don;t get that on WestCoast Mainline.

There were mountains, some more mountains and some extra mountains and then some elk and sheep (the tanoy woman got very excited about the sheep, in both english and french, are sheep rare in Canada?) also there was a minature tiger. I'm chooosing not to consider that it may have been a tabby house cat with a sense of adventure.

Vancouver so far is lovely, much improved on Calgary with the one great disadvantage that they don't have the butter pecan lattte shops. That's very sad. They say it's better to have loved and lost a butter pecan latte than never to have had one at all, but I'm not so sure.

Oh, and I stood outside Luthorcorp! It's not quite as impressive in real life without MR standing in a long coat, but it was exciting nonetheless

Tags: canadia

07:48 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 4
Yesterday I went up a mountain! A real mountain, not like the little ones in the Lake District. It was Sulpher Mountain in Baanf. Baanf is gorgeous and I can now see why people say Canada is lovely - Calgary hadn't realy impressed me much so far. It was made all the better because it was only my friend and I and the baby, rather than the three year old as well. It was nice to have a break.

We visited Bow Falls (all frozen up) and Lake Minnewanka (not pronounced like that) also stunning. I also bought a hat with a moose antlers on. I may wear it.

Baanf did sadly let me down on the Elk/Moose/Bear/Mountain Goat front, despite the numerous warnings saying they were about to run on the road at any minute and a sign telling me not to feed them should I come across them on the mountain.

I also tried a bluberry and white chocolate mocha, which wasn't as nice as it should have been.

Saturday was spent walking the Bow River and Princes Park, gladly free of children and with only a very friendly brown squirrel for company.

# of Wiggles DVDs watched = 4

Off to Edmonton and then the 24 hr train journey to Vancouver tomorrow, have acquired Child Flu as a leaving present.

Tags: canadia

07:50 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 3
Today I shared a packet of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with a brown squirrel.

# of moose seen = 0
# of bears seen = 0

Oh, and fringedweller and indian_skimmer, do you want me to pick you up Sports Night DVDs?

Tags: canadia

07:12 pm: Canadian Adventure Part 1
Today I drank a butter pecan latte and it was good.

Numbers of Bear and/or moose seen = 0

Graeme's penguin will serve as my holiday userpic as I forgot to make travelling Graeme and his rucksack available before I left home. Graeme's penguin looks like a well-travelled penguin.

Tags: canadia, exciting lattes i have drunk

09:35 pm: bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land
I'm done! Graeme's penguin is very impressed.

I have completed my to do list with more than a day to spare. I now have a whole spare day to sit around and fail to remember the really important thing I have forgotton and will only recall when I'm on the plane.

I've even managed to identify at least six places I can take photographs of that have appeared in episodes of Stargate.

Tags: canada, excited nervousness, nervous excitement