I do hope that all of you are having [or have had] a good day, whatever you might be doing today. I was awoken at 7am by a somewhat tardy Santa Claus delivering the presents. I got out of bed approximately twenty minutes later to unwrap this year's haul. I now have my Diana F+, and it is just about the cutest thing that I have ever seen. ( BEHOLD, THE PINK! )

Santa also brought me: a 500GB external hard-drive, a a Sylvanian Families cat, a t-shirt declaring that "I am The Stig", two pairs of pajamas, slippers, and socks and underwear. I also got a Red Panda. Chester Zoo runs an animal adoption scheme that allows you to adopt your favourite animal from the zoo. My mother adopted a Red Panda in my name, which I thought was really sweet. I got an adoption pack which contains a certificate, a magazine for adopters, information about the scheme, and complimentary tickets for entry to the zoo which are valid for a year.

We are having a curry for dinner again this year, as we have done in previous years [with 2008 being the exception to this] since the Not So Great Turkey Disaster of 2005. We're going out for a Christmas/Boxing Day lunch at The Romper tomorrow.

I'll stop posting soon, I promise, but I have to share this as it is in equal parts lulzy, wtf-worthy, and amazing all at the same time.

( WHORE'S FOREHEAD )

I love it, guys. I seriously love it. The more I read about them, the more I become convinced that the Westboro Baptist Church are just an elaborate bunch of trolls. This is what I tell myself anyway, as the reality is just too horrific to contemplate (these people being for real).

I want to know what exactly constitutes a whore's forehead, too.

Because I couldn't not grab my camera when it started snowing again [again, we may just get a white Christmas at this rate] this morning. My hands almost froze, all in the name of photography/being arty.



I love how pale the sky goes when it snows during the day. ( +6 more )

I don't know why, but I revert to being approximately six years old when I see snow; it makes me want to make a snowman, go sledging, and throw snowballs at Buddy - he's so daft that he doesn't mind, and thinks it's fun. I prefer staying indoors, though, where it's warm.

I have requested to join ONTD. No doubt that this will soon be added to the List of Things That I Regret Doing. Why did I do it? For the lulz/wank opportunities. Which is reason enough to do anything, I think.

EDIT: "I don't see anything wrong with using the word 'gay' to describe something in a negative way, i.e. "that was gay". I think McKellen was going a little OTT by calling it horrifying." LOL, pejorative use of the word gay is liek ~sooooo cool~, you guys.

Yeah, I know I just posted, but I felt that this deserved its own post. ETAs just don't do this justice.

Refusion has Pixie Lott, Little Boots and Girls aloud in her interests...

She obviously isn't a RATM fan. Or even a music fan...

OOOH, ~SICK BURN~. I AM SO HURT BY THIS.

I would really like to know if little brothers are secretly paid to be as irritating as possible.

A little while ago, Stuart [my darling little brother] decides that, snow or no snow, he's going to go to the shop, because he wants some chocolate. He asks me and my mother if we want something, to which I reply "surprise me" because I can't think of anything that I specifically want. All chocolate is good, as far as I am concerned. Off he then goes.

He comes back about ten minutes later, and I hear my bedroom door open. I am playing a spot of Animal Crossing [gotta sell my turnips and make a snowman] so I don't look up. The next thing I know, a Mars Dark is thrown at me, which collides with my laptop on its journey from my brother in the doorway, to my bed. The screen then goes completely white and everything disappears. It's fine now, though.

I tell Stuart to be careful, to which he replies "you said surprise you". Yes, Stuart, I did. I meant surprise me with a chocolate bar. A surprise does not constitute having said chocolate bar thrown at you, and do god knows what to your laptop in the process. Honestly!

Do any of you want a paid account for $9.95, instead of the usual $19.95? Let me know and I'll send you a coupon! I might as well use them up.

The following was posted on Speak You're Branes, and it really truly is one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen in my life. It is to do with snow, and weather, and all that nonsense.

"It must be difficult for Northerners to understand the disruption caused by the snow, because the disruption is primarily being caused to people with jobs."
Greg

Those of you who are not from the UK might not realise this, but no-one in the North of England works at all. I mean it, no-one. We all sit at home on our backsides all day watching Jeremy Kyle (on 30" plasma screens), and waiting for our dole money, which is given to us from taxes paid by hard working Southerners, to get deposited into our bank accounts so we can go down to the offy¹ to buy booze and cigarettes. Whilst we're doing this, our multiple children are out earning their 53rd ASBO, and giving birth to our grandchildren. It's a hard life, but someone's got to live it².

Despite extremely treacherous weather conditions, I managed to make it to college this morning. We watched Proof (which was quite good), and we ate our collective way through a shit-load of food brought in by ourselves and our tutor. There was a lot left at the end of the day, so I have scored three boxes of mince pies, and some popcorn.

After college I went and purchased some proper fairy lights and some balloons from Wilkinsons. I am going to photograph them both later. I think that blowing up balloons can be taken as a measure of how fit you are. I blew one up and, fuck me, it was difficult doing so.

¹ - "Offy" = Off-licence.
² This whole paragraph is facetious. This Greg fellow, he is a twat.

This time the thing I want is an iRobot Roomba; an automatic vacuum cleaning robot that can be programmed to vacuum so you don't have to. How awesome is that? I do not see it as being lazy, I see it as a good use of technology.

The fact that it is a robotic vacuum cleaner is not the main reason that I want it, though. The main reason that I want it is shown in this video I found on YouTube, posted underneath the LJ cut. ( Read more... )

It snowed yesterday afternoon. The snow has stuck and, rather predictably, the country seems to be grinding to a halt already. The news has told us to stay at home, and not go out unless it is absolutely necessary. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. The slightest icing sugar-like dusting of snow and everyone panics. We haven't even had that much snow where I live. I went outside last night to test the conditions underfoot, and it was not that bad. It was absolutely freezing, though (never have I been more grateful for my pretend Ugg boots).

I finish college for Christmas today. I can't wait.

Whilst on the way to the bus station after college yesterday I had a conversation with my friends, Sarah and Mark, which tickled me greatly. It was about why Sarah and I thought that having a vagina is better than having a penis. The reasons for its superiority that we concluded on were thus:

• We [females] do not look silly naked.
• It is not noticeable when we're sexually aroused.
• We generally do not make a mess when we orgasm.

The whole period thing is a bit of a downer, though. It was such a deep, philosophical conversation; where would any of us be without these conversations?

( Some photographs )

If there is one thing that I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about at the moment, it is the campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to #1 for Christmas instead of the X Factor lad. I do not understand it at all. Nor do I like Killing In The Name (it's utter bilge if you ask me). It seems ridiculous to me that the #1 is going to be taken by a song that is only in the charts because of an internet-orchestrated campaign to seemingly stick the boot into Simon Cowell/The X Factor. Please feel free to hate me for this.

Wouldn't it be weird and crazy if something like an actual Christmas song was #1 in time for Christmas, though?

DAILY MAIL STORY: "Drunks who force themselves on wives or girlfriends should face 'sex breathalyser' and rape charge, says government adviser".

Let's play a game now, shall we? The instructions are very simple:

01) Go to the comments section.
02) Go on "View All"
03) Find the green arrowed comments.
04) Try to keep blood pressure in check.
05) Post the worst ones you can find!

There's lots to choose from, believe me: victim blaming, comments about Baroness Stern is just upset because no drunk men have tried it on with her (obviously a dig at her appearance), the oh-so-tired "feminazi" line.

I despair, I really fucking despair.

Shall I post this to rage_free? What say you, internet?

On my tutor's suggestion, I left college some time before 11:30 yesterday so I could go into Manchester city centre to take photos at the Christmas Market. I had planned on shooting on film yesterday, but we had none (because people get it, and don't pay for it, so no more can be bought). So when this suggestion was made, I almost jumped at it. I went home briefly, as I did not have my DSLR with me, and I went out again at about 1pm, after I had had a coffee and rested for a little bit.

The photos that I took and edited yesterday are under the cut, WHICH IS NOT DIAL-UP FRIENDLY. ( As you will see, I need to go to bokeh rehab )

I do hope you enjoyed that photo spam. I certainly enjoyed taking them. I was a little sad that I did not have a lot of money on me, and thus couldn't buy much. Maybe next year. I did manage to get a Gingerbread Latte, though. I had to. It was as lovely as ever (that said, I remember being quite disappointed with one last year).

On the subject of Christmas, and all things festive, I gave my mother my (very small) Christmas list this morning. I have asked for socks, a Starbucks Candy Mug, and a Diana F+ Mr Pink. I know that I am also getting some Top Gear related stuff, including an I am The Stig t-shirt, as well.

I went for a walk¹ outside of college yesterday afternoon, down the road to Stamford Park where I took some photos that I am going to use as research in the brief I mentioned here. I think it can be quite tricky to try and visually encapsulate these kinds of issues, but I gave it a go, and I am actually really pleased with the photos that I took.

( Black & white, and bokeh. )

Festive market time on Saturday, providing that it's not raining. I must take my yearly photo of this sweet stall. I am tempted to go out later on in the afternoon, as it's getting dark, so I can photograph the lights/Zippy when they come on. I'll see how I feel on Saturday itself.

This is my favourite Christmas song at the moment, because it's just lovely: Wish You Well by A Fine Frenzy

¹ - Doing so is not what you would call fun at the moment, owning to a blister on the sole of my foot.

( Cut for talk of depression/mental health issues )

Why am I choosing to mention this now? My current brief at college is to do with what is your personal Utopia and Dystopia, and I am going to do something to do with this (what is mentioned under the cut). What am I thinking of is something to do with light and dark, I just need to figure out how to portray this visually now.

I would like to include in my research other people's experiences of depression, and similar conditions; how it makes you feel, how you cope, things like that. If any of you have experience of this, then would you be so kind as to leave me a comment telling me of your experiences? Be as in-depth as you see fit. I have enabled anonymous commenting and turning IP logging in my journal off for this purpose, as I realise that this may not be an easy thing to talk about, and you might not feel comfortable doing so under your username. It would help me with my research, and I would really appreciate it.

If you do not want to comment, then perhaps you could email me. My email address is eightsecondpause at aol dot com.

Do you fancy a laugh on this Monday evening? If you do, then I am hoping that I will be able to provide it.

This thread is one of the most ~beautiful~ I have ever seen on the Digital Spy general discussion. It's a tale of oppression and hardship never before seen by man. The OP was innocently driving down some road when all of a sudden "some slim shorted haired woman" (quite how the woman's figure and hair length pertains to this story I do not know), and makes a stop sign gesture. Apparently, "about 100" children then proceed to cross the road, holding our dear OP up for about "5 to 10 minutes".

I doubt this actually happened like this in reality, but let's pretend that it did. How terrible, how dare that teacher try to ensure that the (possibly hypothetical) children cross a road with safety, right? OP says in the opening post "I think this should be stopped and that teacher brought to trial." It's basically all downhill from there on in. The thread has now run to eight pages, because having to stop for a few minutes is clearly an injustice like no other. There's some utter gems of posts from the OP littering the thread, though:

"She should be jailed for her actions as far as I am concerned, as the jumped up Hitler has no right to stop my journey even for 5 seconds"

"No because teachers and police and all such services are quite incestuous by nature. I would of had to go though higher legal channels to get any justice and get his woman struck off for good."

"Well all I can say is I hope you all experience what I did and then you will know that I have a right to be angry. Next time you are getting car jacked or having your life stopped by some school teacher who thinks she is above the law then don't come crying to me about rights."

That last post is my absolute favourite of the thread. Car jacking is now equal to children crossing a road in a safe manner, apparently.

I still don't believe that this scenario actually happened in reality, but the thread gave me a lot of lols nonetheless.

"Pinky" is back for another year. I got it out from the storage compartment under my bed a few days ago, and I decorated it earlier this morning. I don't know if mine is delicious, but it certainly is pink! ( Oh, Christmas tree )

This Digital Spy thread is funny, "why do people who "aren't religious" celebrate Christmas?" Asks someone who's obviously not totally clued up on the history of Christmas. Oh noez, guys. I didn't realise that because I am agnostic I couldn't enjoy/celebrate Christmas! On page three, the OP has this to say; "maybe all non-religious can have a different festival on a different date -say Nov 25th? And leave Dec 25th for those that understand its true meaning." I really want to know who died and made them the Christmas police.

I really must try and get to the festive market in Manchester some time soon (in the next week or two). I'll be upset if I don't get my yearly photo of the sweet stall.

There is an article posted on The Daily Mail's (yes, I know, I was looking at it for work purposes, believe it or not) website entitled "One in five new brides puts on a stone and a half in weight after just a year of marriage. Some of the comments are just ... HOLY FUCKING SHIT is the best way of describing them. Here's a screengrab of some of the worst rated ones. A choice few are under the cut. ( Read more... )

The poorly disguised misogyny is absolutely sickening. No man cheats because his wife puts on weight; they cheat because they're assholes. Period.

Also making my blood pressure boil was a letter in yesterday's Sun, written in relation to the 4 year old killed by a dog in Liverpool:

"It just shows how badly we need a change to the Dangerous Dogs Act, making it illegal to keep pitbulls, rottweilers, mastiffs and all other potential killers as family pets"

NO, NO, NO, and for a fourth time NO. If we want to go down that road then we might as well go the whole way and ban people from owning dogs outright, because all dogs have the potential to kill if they're improperly raised. It doesn't matter if it's a rottweiler, labrador, or a stupid little rat-like thing. As tragic as what happened to the little boy is, this demonisation of certain dog breeds saddens me even more. I am of the firm belief that there is no such thing as a bad breed of dog; there are only crappy, ineffectual owners who don't deserve to own so much as a house plant, let alone another living, breathing animal. They are the problem, they are what need to be outlawed, not the dogs.

As mentioned in the subject line, I went to the doctor again this morning, about my (never-ending) sore throat. He was going to give me some more Trimethoprim, but I mentioned that I thought it was making my sore throat worse, so he gave me something called Difflam instead. Difflam is an "oral rinse", to be gargled three times a day. I tried it when I got home; it seems to have had something of an effect already. It's got a bit of a funny after-taste, though. It is a fantastic lurid green colour, too.

Look at Lucky, internet, she is S-M-R-T:



Total hurr durr face if I ever saw one. The lighting in our front room is appallingly bad. I had to use a Color Balance layer and cooling filter to get rid of the orange tint on that photo, and I still don't think it looks right.

The digital TV box in my room is now working properly; my dad connected it up this morning. It still has Dave, and Dave Ja Vue on it, which means that I will never again be too far away from a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of Top Gear. The box also has a channel called Gay Rabbit on it, and as far as I am concerned, this is the greatest name for a TV channel ever.

I left college early today, there was hardly anyone in as the majority of the group had gone to an open day at MMU. I am still coughing and spluttering, and I just did not want to be sat there doing that. I asked my tutor if I could leave, and she was fine with that.

Before going home I went to my local Sainsbury's, as I wanted to get some honey and some lemon juice. I found myself in the clothing department to begin with and I noticed some Ugg style boots on display, costing £25. I tried a pair on, and they fitted perfectly, so I decided to buy them with the remainder of my birthday money. I then got the honey and the lemon juice, as well as a £5 Neopets Neocash card. When I paid for everything the total came to just over £26, which I thought was a little peculiar considering the fact that the boots were meant to cost £25. I checked my receipt and it said 25% off all Tu clothing. EPIC WIN.

This rather nice and unexpected win was met with a small instance of fail, too. I suppose something had to balance it out. My brother is unemployed at the moment, and is thus at home most of the time. I don't always carry my keys with me because of this, and I sometimes forget to put them in my bag. When I left college today I remembered that he would be going out this morning, to our grandparents' house to re-tune their television set. I sent him a text, and he was indeed out. So I had to sit on the step waiting for him when I eventually got home. I only had to wait ten minutes, but I still felt slightly foolish. Note to self: always take your keys with you, in future. Put them in your bag and leave them there.

Prior to this morning, I had not updated my Flickr account for over a month. This is perhaps the longest amount of time that I have gone without uploading something in the past two years. This probably does not make a lot of sense, but I have found that when you are a photography student, sometimes the last thing that you want to do when you come home (or on your days off) is take more photos. I am not losing my enthusiasm for it, though.

When I woke up this morning I noticed that it was frosty outside. I thought that it looked quite pretty, so I decided to take a few photos before the frost melted away. I found myself becoming rather critical of my editing skills, and I ended up deleting most of the photographs that I took and then edited. The ones that I did upload are located behind the LJ cut.

( A rather cold, but pretty, day )

OMG HI, to my new friends from S!YYY; I hope y'all enjoy reading my journal.

I am probably going to go to the doctor again on Thursday, as my cough is not getting better at all. I have a constant tickly feeling in my throat, and it also feels as though there is something stuck in there. The cough itself is very deep and hurts my stomach and tongue (seriously, wtf). It is not what you would call pleasant.

"It's not your moral right, it's your legal right. By eating meat I would suggest your morals are far from right.

I hope the killing of animals for pleasure is soon banned like slavery, racism and other forms of prejudices practised by the morally bankrupt. It's all ways the slowest in our society that keep us from advancing as a species."

The more you know, internet, the more you know. I am not one hundred per cent certain what killing animals for pleasure means in this instance, but, judging by some of the posts that I have seen this particular forum member make in the past (their shtick is one of a militant, and incredibly rude, vegan), I would think that eating meat falls under "pleasure". Who knew knew that eating meat could be compared, in a roundabout way, to racism, and slavery? Which of these things is really not all that much like the other?

Why is it that some¹ vegans are complete assholes, and are unwilling to consider any view points other than their own? As far as I am concerned, you have lost the debate when you call someone a "corpse muncher", and think that this is okay.

Did two people seriously give the answer "Tony Blair" to this question? #1, which politician would you do? Whatever floats your boat, as the saying goes, but Teflon Tony and his teeth? There must be something that I am missing here.


¹ Some, not all.

To be jolly, as the song goes.

I am feeling ever-so-slightly festive at the moment, although I could be confusing this with still feeling ill. To amuse myself for a little while earlier this morning, and to distract myself from the mess in sf_d at the moment, I photoshopped Santa hats on to some of the many icons that I have made. It is one way of making your LJ just that little bit more jolly, and is also a fun way of procrastinating.



Personally, I think I am most pleased with the one of The Residents. The Residents! Wearing Santa hats! LOLZ.

Do any of you have an icon (or icons) that you would like a hat photoshopped on to? Let me know if you do. I need something to do this afternoon that does not involve getting overly frustrated at Neopets' Games Master Challenge. Make me do something semi-useful, internets!

I am feeling slightly under the weather at the moment, internet.

At around this time yesterday evening, I noticed that I had a sore throat, which I thought would be the precursor to a cold. It usually is with me. However, although my throat is still sore at the moment, my nose is not blocked and I can still breathe through it. When I get a cold this is usually the next thing that happens to me. Thank heavens for small mercies, right?

Instead of getting a blocked nose, I appear to be aching almost literally all over. My back hurts, which is nothing out of the ordinary for me, but so does my head, neck, shoulders, fingers, knees, and legs. What on earth is this all about? I would honestly take not being able to breathe through my nose over this, especially as it hurt just to lie down in bed earlier. That was not fun, believe me. Also, I accidentally banged my right leg into the kitchen table after I had made myself a coffee, which hurt more than it normally would. Urgh. I am hoping that by taking painkillers and Lemsip at regular intervals, this aching feeling will go away on its own. If not I shall go to the doctors on Monday morning. I really hope that it will not last that long, though.

To cheer myself up today, I have been looking at pictures of puppies on weheartit. It works quite well, as a method of cheering oneself up. These are just a few of my favourites: ( Read more... )

Please feel free to post pictures of puppies (or kittens, I'm not biased) if you so wish. It'll make me feel better.

Surprised by my ability to not recklessly spend my money on things that I don't particularly need.

After a brief spell at college today, and a visit to my grand-parents' house, I walked back into town with the intention of spending a bit of my birthday money. My grandma had given me £25, so I had £75 in total. I wanted another pair of boots and I tried a few pairs on in New Look, before eventually settling on a nice, grey pair from the wide fit range. I can't seem to find them on the website, but they look a bit like these ones, and have a couple of buckles on them. Mine were £25, too. I also bought some earrings and chocolate cherry liqueurs from M&S.;

These were the only things I bought, and I still have £50 left. I looked at jewellery in New Look and nice smelly things in The Body Shop, and I kept thinking to myself, "do you really need this?" And I didn't, I am waiting for something that I really want to come along.

In other news, what the actual fuck is this shit?"

"CHERYL COLE reveals that her routine at home is to "put a hair mask on, watch Coronation Street, wash it out during Eastenders, then apply her conditioner during the second Coronation Street, while wearing an unattractive, yet comfy, tracksuit and no make-up".

And she wonders why Ashley strays.

The smart money is on her washing that man right out of her hair before long as well."

If that is meant to be tongue in cheek, then it has failed. Spectacularly. The implication that a woman must look 'hot' for her partner the whole day long, or else it will encourage them to stray, makes me want to hit something. Ugh.

[Insert that macro of the cake eating cat here]

So, it is the 19th of November, which means that I am now another year older. I am now 24, which is nice. I am having what you might call a lazy day; I did plan on going out today, to have a look round the Christmas market in Manchester city centre and although it's not raining, I can't motivate myself to do so. Perhaps tomorrow, or Saturday/Monday depending on what I feel like.

My mother said to me yesterday evening that she and my dad would not be able to give me a lot of spending money this year, which is fair enough and I wasn't expecting a lot anyway. I did find £50 in my card this morning, though, which is about £30 more than I was expecting. My mother also informed me that she will treat me to the following gift, too:

TICKETS TO SEE LADY GAGA NEXT FEBRUARY!

OMFG, INTERNET, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME. I WAS SO EXCITED YESTERDAY THAT I COULD HAVE BOUNCED ALL ROUND THE HOUSE. One of my friends from college is going to come with me, if he can get the money for a ticket together, but I am going nonetheless!

Semi-related: I absolutely adore "The Fame Monster". It's basically all I have listened to since Sunday. "Alejandro" is an absolutely wonderful song, and "Telephone" is awesome, too.

If there is one thing that irrationally irritates me on LJ, and on the internet in general, it is users who make a post/comment that starts with "am I the only one who .." [fill in the blank here; hates/thinks that/etc]. YES, I guarantee you that you are indeed the only snowflake person, out of the millions upon millions of people on the internet, who thinks x about y/z.

Oh hai, am I the only person who felt their faith in humanity diminish just that little bit more when they read this sf_d post?

I did plan on being productive this weekend; I meant to finish off my evaluation for my current brief at college. But then Neopets turned 10, and that good intention I had flew straight out of the window when I learned that I can send my game scores 10 times a day, instead of the usual 3. On the plus side of things, I have earned over 100K in points since yesterday. This is awesome. Now if only I could decide what new pet I want.

Birthday on Thursday. It doesn't feel like it, to be honest. I think I am more excited about the fact that the Christmas Market starts in Manchester on Wednesday. The weather better be nice on Thursday (nice being not pissing down), as I will need to go and have my yearly look round. A quick glance at the pool in the Manchester group on Flickr reveals that Zippy is in place once again. Yay, I love Zippy.

Shoe•gasm
-noun

1. An emotional sensation reached when viewing a pair of really, really, really awesome shoes.

I do believe, internet, that I had one of these yesterday afternoon. The very lovely kirstya posted a link to the Schuh website, and I took a look at it. I had a look at the Irregular Choice section, and happened upon what I think are definitely the best shoes I have ever seen in my life:



Women's purple Irregular Choice Whimsical Miaow ankle boot, £99. These are just so much better than the sparkly purple M&S; shoes that I was drooling over a few weeks ago. Also catching my eye on the Schuh website were these (Cortesan Floral Bar court shoe), and these (Cortesan round-toe polka). I could honestly quite happily look at this, and the Irregular Choice website itself for hours, even though I cannot afford to buy anything. Window shopping is fun, right? Looking at these two sites is like looking at porn to me, proper hardcore filth.

So that this entry has at least some substance to it, I am very pleased to report that I have finished my magazine spread for my current brief at college. I got a few more photos of Chica in the garden yesterday afternoon to add to it. One thing that I have definitely learnt from this brief, and I have put this in the evaluation that I am in the process of writing, is that photographing animals is a lot more difficult than photographing people. You can direct people, and get them to do what you want, you cannot do that with an animal, especially a cat!

Also: man distracted by bird drives Bugatti into marsh. Ouch, just, ouch.