Nevermore

Inheritance

2011-12-11T19:10:00.004Z

So just now I finally finished reading a book I’d been eagerly anticipating for many many years - Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini. It took me about a month to finish. Partially because it’s as large as a breezeblock, and partially due to me having the attention span of a gnat with ADHD. And even though it was quite enjoyable, I thought to myself ‘well. Does this book really have to be 800 pages? Heck, does it even have to be 400? Do we really need to read about that dwarf burping, or know what that mountain’s great grandfather is called? I don’t think we do. In fact, why can’t this be a mere three pages long?’ So, gentle reader, I decided to write the abridged version, for all those people who don’t have as much free time as I do. Warning: contains immaturity. I present to you –

Inheritance: The Abridged Version

Previously: ERAGON, a young farmboy, thinks he is destined to remain living in his simple village, with nothing great to do except engage in homoerotic wresting matches with his cousin. One day he finds a dragon egg in a forest, and the dragon hatches for him. Then that shit gets real. He runs away to learn how to fight, and knows that one day, he will have to face the evil dragon rider John Malko – uh, Galbatorix, and put an end to his despotic rule once and for all. Despotic. Shit. I don’t even know what that means. But I’m writing it.

The Cast –

ERAGON – A simple farm boy turned mighty dragon rider.

SAPHIRA – Eragon’s dragon

ARYA – Token hot elf chick

GALBATORIX – The BAD GUY. Rules over the land with an iron fist

SHRUIKAN – Galbatorix’s evil dragon

GLAEDR – Glaedr was a powerful golden dragon who died in the last book, but his consciousness is stored in an Eldunari. An Eldunari is a giant glowing ball located in the dragon’s heart, that, should he so wish, he can store his consciousness inside and then cough up like a hairball so that when he dies, his mind will carry on living insi – oh you know what, it’s a big telepathic glowball.

BIG TELEPATHIC GLOWBALLS – Several. GALBATORIX has been hoarding them to make himself super super powerful.

--------------------

Chapter one – WAR. WAR rages across the land. The GOOD GUYS are trying to capture a town, and it’s not going well. Suddenly a man on a magic horse emerges from the WAR, and shoots SAPHIRA with a spear.

SAPHIRA – Haha, your puny mortal weapons are no threat to a magical dragon!

[the spear promptly pierces saphira’s chest]

SAPHIRA – Erk. Medic!

[saphira is healed]

ARYA – Hey look ERAGON, this is a magic metal. Named Dauthdert.

ERAGON – Boy that sure reads like Deathdart.

ARYA- I know. It’s a magical substance that we’ve never mentioned in the previous eight thousand pages, but we’re bringing it up on the first page of this book. By the way, it’s the only metal that can kill dragons. Think it’ll come in handy?

ERAGON – Nah, but let’s keep hold of it anyway, it’s shiney.

786 pages later -

[eragon, arya, and saphira break into galbatorix’s castle]

ERAGON: Galbatorix, I am here to kill you!

GALBATORIX: You’ll never defeat me! I have bigger glowballs than you do!

ERAGON: O.o

GALBATORIX: Besides, in order to kill me, you’ll first have to face my dragon, SHRUIKAN!

[shruikan enters]

SHRUIKAN: RAAAAAAAARR!

[arya hefts the Dauthdert]

ARYA: Hey Shruikan, you see this? I found it in chapter one.

SHRUIKAN: Oh fuck me, no one told me we were putting this in the storyline!

[arya shoots Shruikan with the Dauthdert. Shruikan dies]

GALBATORIX: Shruikan nooo!

ERAGON: I’m going to cast a spell that’ll make you realise what a bad man you’ve been!

[eragon casts the spell]

GALBATORIX: O my god, I’m a bastard! Wait, didn’t we do this in Harry Potter already?

[galbatorix expires]

SAPHIRA: Well that takes care of that then.

Months later –

[arya sends eragon a magic letter saying ‘Meet me tomorrow at this rock. I have a secret to show you, so come alone’]

ERAGON: So what’s this all about?

ARYA: Eragon! You’ll never guess what! I –

ERAGON: The last remaining egg we saved from Galbatorix’s castle hatched for you, you are the new dragon rider, and your dragon is green?

ARYA: ..how’d you know that?

ERAGON: It was on the front cover.

ARYA: …

ERAGON: Bit of a giveaway.

ARYA: Fine.

[arya shows eragon and saphira her hot new dragon, firnen.]

FIRNEN: Hey babe. Just got out of my egg. Let’s shag.

SAPHIRA: Okay.

[Firnen and Saphira fly off into the sunset]

ARYA: (actual quote) Well that didn’t take long.

ERAGON: I know, right.

ARYA: So anyway, we’re running out of pages, and since we’ve all known for the last four books that if you fancied me any more your dragon would be dryhumping my leg, I think we’d better do something about it.

ERAGON: Sexytimes?

ARYA: No silly, I’m going to tell you my name.

ERAGON: But –

ARYA: Don’t knock it. We’re still in the Young Adult section of the bookshop, so this is the best you’re going to get.

ERAGON: Aw.

[arya leans in close and whispers to eragon her true name]

ERAGON: Your true name is Wendy?

ARYA: Shut up.

The End

2011-08-27T10:40:00.000+01:00

I LOVE Saturdays!

There's something about them that's just magical. It's like that feeling you get when you walk through the glitter enamelled gates at Disneyland, transporting to a different country in the blink of an eye and the spring of a step. The kind of carefree feeling similar to dancing in one's own front garden completely naked, knowing that legally, little can be done to stop you. It's not unlike pulling off the perfect handbrake turn in a shopping centre, just like Grand Theft Auto taught you to.

See? MAGIC!

Today I woke up not to the blare of an alarm, but the sizzle of bacon and eggs on the fire. The chirping of birds above my window, as the comfortable fall breeze flowed in and brushed my legs. I leapt out of bed with a smile and went out to get the post in my bare feet.

Boy, feeling the grass between my toes was sure refreshing. Feeling the hot tarmac was even better! I was only steps away from the postbox when I came across the biggest spider I'd ever seen, ever! It was sure a surprise. Now, usually I don't like spiders, but on this particular sunny day, I started to think. What did spiders ever do to me? Have I ever been bitten? No. And even if I had been bitten, is that representative of spiders as a whole? I don't think so! So I picked it up and cupped it gently in my hands, its many eyes staring up at me with an expression of cautious love. I think it even licked its lips.

I reached the pavement and noticed my senior citizen neighbour, Mrs. Annmarie Callahan, walking by with her dog. I stared right at her and grinned, extending this beautiful spider out towards her. Surely she'd want to marvel in the beauty of little things, like spiders grown up to the size of a human fist. I just hoped she wouldn't try to take my new pet from me.

But then things got weird. Mrs Callahan screamed and threw her arms in the air when she saw my adorable arachnid, and her dog tore off into the street in a panicked response. Just then an Argos truck came barrelling around the curb and smashed the poor puppy into soup! There was a faint *pop* and several coiled organs spilled onto the street, blood spraying in every direction, at least ten feet in the air, like some kind of Cherryade geyser. It was really warm; I got it all over me. It's sooo hard to get it out of your hair, but I bet you already knew that. Mrs Callahan, though, had like some major freak-out attack. What I remember for sure is that she starting screaming like crazy, then she got kind of breathless, clutched her left arm, and collapsed in a heap on the ground. I heard a really loud *CRACK* and she howled like the seductive octogenarian she was.

Needless to say, I'm not one to let a senior citizen neighbour suffer, no sir. I knelt down next to her and let my pet spider kiss her on her cheek, the classic childhood cure for all ills. She shrieked in delight as the spider placed its magic lips on her cheek and blood started to seep from it. I guess the injury was so bad that the spider had to actually bleed it out of her system - what a clever spider!

I heard some frantic footsteps coming this way, and saw the truck driver running over to where we were. He screamed a horrible obscenity and gestured at the spider - I forgave his language, I'd probably exclaim such a thing as well if I saw such an amazing creature. But then - to my surprise and shock - he got down on his knees and forcefully removed the spider from her, crushing it with his bare hands! I was in shock!

He started talking to both of us, but I didn't hear a word of it. There wasn't a chance that he was getting away with killing my friend. I lunged for the postbox and pulled out my recently received package, opening it up to reveal a shiny new ice pick. It was not long before the ice pick had pierced the truck driver's eyeball and split his brain in two with a satisfying, jelly-like *squish*.

I didn't have any other post, so I went inside, tossed the eyeball on the frying pan, and poured myself some orange juice.

I just love Saturdays!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:14:00.012Z

In the spirit of Xmas, here are a few things that piss me off. In no particular order.

9) The fact that it is not only sightly illegal, but also morally frowned upon to punch carol singers in the throat.

Seriously, I thought they didn't exist outside of cartoons. Gentle readers, I was wrong. I can hear them. I try to run, I try to hide, but they keep finding me. Like Alien if he were shorter and knew the lyrics to - OH JESUS GOD NO

FA LA LA LA LAAA,

LA LA, LA LA.

*clickclick BOOM*

8) Love Actually. It was awesome to watch the first time, and the second time, and maybe even the third time, but now, actually, on the 23rd viewing, I'd rather like it if it buggered orf.

GET AWAY FROM MY FRONT DOOR

Also, children, this -

- will get you a bullet through your still-developing brain. Don't do it.

No matter how adorable your goddamned big brown eyes are.

7) The manner in which my new shoe spikes enable me to zoom across thick sheet ice as if it were a scenic summer field, but the moment I step inside onto a laminate floor I execute a flawless faceplant (true story).

6) The way that every single year, when it snows and ices over, we're all fooking surprised. We as Brits all seem to be horribly flabbergasted and dismayed by it all and we can't cope and the entire country collectively closes down.

"Um, Steve? Hey Steve? What's all this white stuff?"

We knew Xmas was coming, we knew the ice was coming, now quit being bewildered by the fact that you might get iced into your house once or twice and acting like it's uncivilised or undignified. Or summat. IT IS WINTER, yo

5)

...

*weeps tears of blood*

4) People who blog about things that annoy them at Xmas. Those are the most annoying people of all.

3) Xmas related religious/moral/origination-based debates. Being exposed to sentences such as "Christ is the first syllable of Christmas for a reason." "No it's Pagan/Roman/aliens/wizards did it." "Christmas should be about family, not presents." "If you're not in church on Christmas day, you shouldn't be celebrating Christmas."

We know where X - fine, Christmas came from. And we know that it's been purloined and adapted and edited and even completely bloody rewritten and modernised and bastardised into this batshit barmy ritualistic annual session that excites everyone below the age of 14 and makes everyone else clutch at their hair follicles in exasperation and that it doesn't have an inkling of anything to do with it's origins anymore and and GAH (see link). But..do we really have to argue about it every single year? Like, the controversy is something new?

Christmas armadillo, however, is something I could get behind

The point is, the Xmas that most people engage in today is like the holiday equivalent of that irregular-looking very elderly inbred cousin of multiple ethnicities and faiths who sits in the corner smelling faintly of eggnog and mothballs and smiling oddly at you.

I call him Bob.

I just want to keep my head down and get through it as quick and painlessly as possible. And if you try to engage me in a discussion about the true meaning of Christmas, I will remove, cook, and eat your face.

...

Merry Christmas, one and all!

2) Getting sellotape in my hair.

..shuttup.

1)

Thanks Lu! Grinch out.

2010-10-08T01:24:00.000+01:00

In a few minutes, I will be dead.

I have often wondered what it would be like to die. I think about what it would feel like. Whether it would be like going to sleep, whether it would be blissful like getting really drunk and passing out, whether there would really be a big ol’ white light, and whether your whole life would indeed flash before your eyes like a PowerPoint presentation. But a touch more spiritual, of course.

Wondering doesn’t matter anymore. Soon, I will find out. I don't have much time left. Right now, I am marvelling at how I am lucid enough to type this. And right now, I am marvelling at the fact that I’ve started babbling about nothing before I even get my message across. It’s an important message. If I tell you, it won’t be like I died alone. If I manage to type it quick enough, that is. It’s not that I don’t already feel cold and still inside, I do. I just want people to know what happened to me.

I have a friend from home named Alex. Today, Alex told me a story. He’d been living with his grandmother ever since he was younger, and today, he found out how his parents really died.

They’d been living in Plymouth when one night, Alex’s Dad ran into the police station, screaming about a white woman having killed his wife. The police ignored him, of course. Alex lived in a tiny village were urban legends were rife, and the White Woman was just one of them. After the police tired of his ramblings and threw him out of the station, he went to see the local vicar. But at the first mention of the White Woman, the vicar threw him out of the church and locked up.

No one saw Alex’s Dad after that.

The White Woman, well. The urban legend says that she is just that. A young girl of sixteen, dressed in a long white dress. The dress, like her, has the appearance of something that was once exquisite, before its beauty was destroyed by some unknown trauma. Her black hair is long and lank and obscures her features. No one knows what her face looks like. Rumour has it that her eyes are like pits and her mouth is locked permanently open in a soundless scream.

She moves without moving her arms and legs, gliding across the ground at speeds only slightly faster than her victims can run. Once someone learns of her existence, she follows them home, whether they notice her or not. Once she gets to your house, she starts knocking on your door.

Sixteen knocks.

Sixteen slow, deliberate knocks on every door she must pass through, and every mirror she must pass by. She does this until she finds you, and then, you die. And so does anyone else who sees her or is unfortunate enough to otherwise learn of her existence. Sometimes it can take days, even weeks, for her to get to you. But she never stops. She won’t stop.

This is the story that Alex told me in a choked up voice over the phone, not five minutes ago. I listened first with incredulity, which turned into derision, which turned into amusement, right up until the ambulances sped past my window and Alex told me that his grandmother was dead.

“Why are you calling me?” I asked. “Call the police, get out of there!”

And then I heard the knocks. The slow, methodical, calculated knocks, audible even over Alex’s panicked breathing. Sixteen in all. “It’s too late.” He sobbed.

That’s when I heard the door splinter, followed by Alex’s screams. I heard the phone fall, and I stood paralysed for the silence that followed, my knuckles turning white from gripping the receiver so hard. I didn’t snap out of it until a female voice rasped one word into my ear. “WITNESS.”

Then the connection was severed.

This was ten minutes ago now.

Eight minutes ago, I heard a knock at my front door. Feeling sick with fear, I stood and listened. I waited for about twenty seconds, and heard nothing more. Relieved, I told myself that I was hearing things, that my frenzied mind was suffering from auditory hallucinations, that this was all some horrible horrible joke and –

There was another knock. A further twenty second pause, and another. I didn’t need to hang around to know that there would be thirteen more.

I ran into the bathroom and ripped the medicine cabinet off the wall, placing it in the hallway outside my bedroom. I then ran into the spare room and dragged the full length mirror out into the hallway, and placed it next to the cabinet. Finally, I ran back into my room, and tore drawers open and flung the contents onto the floor until I found the hand mirror that I knew was in there somewhere. Placing that next to the other two, I stood upright and listened. The knocking at the front door had stopped. Suddenly, the temperature dropped by a few degrees and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I ran back into my room. I had bought myself minutes. I collapsed at my desk, and began to type.

Since I placed the mirrors outside, my only goal has been to type this as clearly and coherently and as quickly as possible. I will not listen to the knocking at my bedroom door and I don’t know how many have passed and it’s so cold in here and my heart’s turned to ice and my only solace is that I am using my last minutes to telllllllllllllllllllllllllllll;kg

WITNESS

2010-08-28T01:59:00.003+01:00

Here is a series of random events.

I find this hypnotising

And this is the funniest thing I've seen all year. No contest.

This is what happens after we successfully decimate an entire dungeon and have a few drinks.

I luff you, Ornuka.

2010-08-12T19:59:00.001+01:00

D'you ever get so fucking pissed off with everything in life that you just want to smash things?

I do.

My Mother VS Technology Part V

2010-07-23T20:01:00.005+01:00

I am home for the first time in a year. I haven't even been home for 12 hours yet.

I tried to plug in the wireless router so I could connect to the internet. Mum happily hands me the mains plug.

Me - "That is the plug for your laptop. I don't need it."

Mum - "Yes you do. You need these two plugs."

Me - "No thankyou, I only need this one here." *waves router wire*

Mum - "I always have to use both of these to connect to the internet. Now don't put it on the furniture. I don't want it to catch fire."

Me - "Yes you need both when you want to connect to the net, because your laptop needs a power source. Mine doesn't. For me to connect, only the router needs to be turned on. Not your laptop too."

Mum - "But -"

Me *plugs both wires so as to end conversation*

Later on

Me - "Woooww, this thingie has Windows 7! How fun!"

Mum - "Oh yes, mine is still on Windows 6."

Me - "Mum, you are on XP."

That night I slept an uneasy sleep.

Day 2, 17:44

Mum - "Could you please take a look at a new toy I bought for the kids?"

Me - "Sure, what is it?"

Mum - "It's a massive red remote controlled truck. I bought it second hand. The lady said it just needs charging."

(here I am overcome with a familiar kind of fear that always makes me want to start drinking immediately)

I went to look at the toy. It almost comes up to my knees, and has a snazzy ergonomic remote control with a wheel. A quick glance shows that the control requires two AA batteries. Whoop, no problem.

I turned the car over, and was confronted with a massive removeable black recatngular battery. Identical to those old kinds of batteries in remote controlled cars (I used to have one) that require a unique charger that you place the battery inside, then connect to the mains. So I checked the rest of the bag. There was no such plug in place. I went back to deliver the news.

Me - "We can power the controller, but not the car. We need the plug that came with it when it was purchased."

(Mum looks blank)

Me - "I don't suppose the lady who sold it to you mentioned that."

(blank)

Me - "..."

Mum - "The lad across the street owns a motorbike with a battery. Do you think he could charge it?

AKDJGLSKADGMDKLAMFDALDMFKSLDMFLKAMKLSMDLKMHHHHHHHHHH

I have been here approximately 22 hours. I will be here for approximately 10 days.

I will update this if and when I need to. If you see any typos, it means I've become wasted in self-defence.

Day 3, 19:10

Raevyn was asked to scan in a photograph. I would have to borrow my Mum's laptop, because my one doesn't have the HP scanner files installed. Mum's computer is in one room, the scanner is in another. I'll just take the comp to the scanner. Easy peasy. It worked like a charm.

Aheh.

Me - *sneaks off with borrowed laptop to the room housing the scanner*

The battery life on the old banger is minus 7 minutes. It conks out before it even recognises it's hooked up to a scanner, and being bossed around by me. Dammit. I sneak back out again to grab the mains plug for the old banger. But alas. I am caught with my paws reaching to unplug the wire!

Mum - "No"

Me - "What?"

Mum - "Don't unplug that!"

Me - "Why?"

Mum - "Because it'll never be the same again!"

Me - "..pardon?"

Mum - "If you take that plug out, you'll never be able to put it back in again!"

Me - "But..the laptop dies before I can scan the image. I need to plug it in."

Mum - "Don't take it out, you won't be able to put it back in again!"

Me - "It's easy. I'll put it back where it was again. I promise."

Mum - "No!"

Me - "Do you want me to carry the scanner into this room, instead?"

Mum - "Nooo.."

Me - "So I need to unplug this."

Mum - "But it'll never work -"

Here I literally grabbed the plug and ran out of the room.

Later on

Me - *scanscanscan*

Mum - *pops head round door* "I brought you this!" *waves the wireless router wire*

I am not wasted. Yet.

Day 4, 14:58

Me - "Since your computer is running so slowly, I'm going to try to clear up any unecessary files on it. For example..it's still got photoshop installed on it. That takes up like 10 gigs, and you don't use it, so I'll uninstall it."

Mum - "I use photoshop all the time!"

Me - "You do?"

Mum - "I use it to buy photos."

Me - "Okay."

La la laa

Day 5, 18:30

Today we did a bit of role reversal and Mum taught me how to turn on a Samsung phone. Oh dear

Why did the spider buy a car? So he could take it out for a spin!

2010-06-28T10:04:00.005+01:00

Spiders.

Half the people reading this will have just experienced a cold shiver. Some of which will have then gone on to close the window. But I implore you, please don’t close the window. I promise to give fair warning should I decide to involve anything that might scar you for life.

Now. Why are you all so scared of spiders? I criticise you not, we all have our phobias. Heck, I will happily take on an eight-foot tall spider, but if you show me a wasp I will flail about in an embarrassingly effeminate manner. I will probably shriek and run away too. It’s terribly bad for my image.

It’s also horribly confusing. I have known people who jump out of aeroplanes, but cannot capture a tiny spider. I have known people who do extreme sports, but will leap onto the counter should a spider scuttle across the floor. I’ve even known people who can deal with anything life throws at them..except that scene in Harry Potter II when Aragog appears.

Gentle reader, I am here to try to soothe your fears. I am here to tell you, that when you think about it, we really have very little to fear from the eight-legged ones. I am inspired by/am blatantly ripping off an entry I saw in a fellow blogger’s..blog, the witty Skellyton.

Arachnaphobes, this is why spiders are not so bad. Here is a list of things that spiders cannot do to you.

1) Read your mind.

2) Walk through walls.

3) Hold a knife.

4) Hack into your email account.

5) Hold a gun.

6) Impersonate your mother down the telephone, thus deceiving you into walking into a trap specially designed to capture and kill you.

7) Mow you down with a combine harvester.

8) Force you to watch The X Factor.

9) Drop a motherfucking piano on your head.

10) Remove themselves from the bathtub.

..that last point is the most important point I wish to make. Now, spiders are actually pretty cool when you think about it (‘booo, hiss’). They poo out a material that is stronger than steel, using it not only to capture prey but to FRICKIN’ ABSEIL too. They are capable of killing anything from flies to people, walking across the ceiling, terrifying billions of women worldwide, but are physically unable to remove themselves from bathtubs.

..why?

I shit stronger than steel! I reduce your women to tears at the mere sight of me! I can KILL PEOPLE! I can grant people superpowers if I've just scarfed something radioactive! My cousins EAT hobbits and wizards! I can defy gravity! I ca - wait. Is that a bathtub? Nnooooo! Not the bathtub! Anything but the tub!!

Now I leave you with the potentially scarring conclusion. I used to live in a veryvery old house that was full of holes. And spiders. And mice and the occasional newt and toad, but that is another story. One day, I ambled across the hallway and saw a beastie on the floor. So naturally, I bent down til I was nose level and took a photo of it.

Do I even have to give a warning? ---- > Link

Aww. He’s smiling!

Edit: I have just been informed by one of my friends that when she opened that link, her roomate came and looked over her shoulder. He is now in his bedroom crying. But he was being a nightmare housemate, so it's okay. My friend wonders whether or not chasing him down the corridor with the laptop screaming "Spidey's gonna get yooouuuu." was a good idea or not.

The Raevyn makes full grown men cry. What a bitch.

2010-06-23T21:59:00.003+01:00

You're still a coward.

I'm new and improved and multicoloured

2010-06-05T14:31:00.007+01:00

Mood: Too damn hot. Is too damn hot a mood?
Listening to: Penduluuuuuummmm
Reading: Books about books
Watching: Britain's Got Talent
Playing: GTA Chinatown Wars
Eating: ..gherkins
Drinking: Coke. It's bad, I know

...

Those weird coloured things are my arms.

How did this happen, gentle reader? Allow me to explain.

The route to town from here is about a mile and a half. It consists mostly of one long main road. I walk this route, there and back, almost every day. The road runs north.

When I walk in in the morning, the sun has just risen and is therefore in the west, and since I am walking north it is on my left. It beats down on my left arm while I walk.

When I walk back in the evening, the sun is setting, in the west. And since I'm now facing south, the sun is on my left, while I walk, again. My right arm never faces the sun.

...

NOW LOOK AT ME

Throw in the fact that the bracelet that my sister gave to me for my birthday is making my skin green, and the fact that I always wear wristbands, and you've got one white right arm, and a left arm that's brown with a green bracelet and a white wrist. I hate you, sun.

I'm gonna start walking backwards.

Dark Romance.

2010-05-16T18:17:00.013+01:00

Mood: Pissed off
Listening to: Avantasia
Reading: Piss-poor novels
Watching: The Last Action Hero
Playing: Road Rash
Eating: Crumpets
Drinking: Teeeaaaa

There is a great evil taking over our country that must be stopped.

'David Cameron!' I hear you cry. But this menace is worse. Far worse.

*deep breath*

It's a recent phenomenon that has secretly been devouring proudly seperate and diverse aspects of our culture like a labrador that's stumbled upon a buffet merging them and making them as one a la the Borgs from Star Trek until it finally manifested in one massive terrifying tangible entity that we didn't even see coming until it was just THERE and we all went "..well where the fuck did that come from?"

It is called Dark Romance.

In case any of you don't read/have never ever walked into a bookshop, Dark Romance is a new 'genre' of literature.

[information] for the rest of this entry, whenever I use inverted commas on a word, please do imagine me saying the word in a smarmy voice.[/information]

Ahem. 'genre'.

Everything's got a genre. Films, TV, theatre, an' books. And they generally don't change very much. Horror, Crime, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, and so on.

Until recently. Now, literally shoved rudely and inelegantly somewhere between Horror and Fantasy, is 'Dark Romance.' Wait, where the heck did you come from? What is 'Dark Romance' anyway? Sex with the lights off? Kinky fetishes? Kinky fetishes with the lights off? For anyone still scratching their heads, here is an abridged history. Wiv' a picture.

[Pictured - SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT THERE A FEW MONTHS AGO]

March 2007 - Stephanie Meyer spews out Twilight.
September 2007 - Stephanie Meyer spews out sequel to Twilight, New Moon.
October 2007 - Teenage girls gain an awareness of Twilight and New Moon. Become ravenously obsessed.
July 2008 - Stephanie Meyer spews out Eclipse.
August 2008 - Stephane Meyer spews out Breaking Dawn. STEPHANIE MEYER OWNS THE BOOK CHARTS, ALL OUR WOMEN, AND ALL OUR SOULS.
September 2008 onwards - Twilight spreads. Women everywhere go batshit crazy for Edward. Numerous relationships dissolve due to the lack of boyfriends that sparkle.
December 2008 - Twilight the film is released, thus finalising Meyer's global domination and putting the final nail on the coffin. Men and women everywhere try to run and hide. But there is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide.
November 2009 - The film for New Moon is released. Mass civil war instantly erupts across every country in the world. It's Team Edward vs Team Jacob. And it is serious business.
March 2010 - Bookshops everywhere come to the sadly-correct conclusion that since every time Hugh Grant blinks someone in the world buys a Twilight book, it would be a really profitable excursion to take advantage of the target market. How? By creating an entirely new 'genre' and shoving it in our faces. And it was called 'Hey You Little Twits, This Book Is Really Similar To Twilight. Look, It's Got The Same Black Cover And Brooding Anorexic Teenage Girl On The Front! You'll Love It! Now Give Me All Your Money'

..sorry, I was overcome with a sudden flux of honesty there. It was in fact called 'Dark Romance.'

And I died a lot inside.

'Dark Romance' simply means 'Teenage vampires'. And they deserve their own genre? Why? Capitalism dictates it is so. Look at the symbol, they haven't even bothered to pretend it's not a Twishite ripoff, it's a damn hand holding an apple!

Pictured: Subtlety.

But maybe I'm being a bit harsh. After all, I haven't read a lot of these books. So let's review the most predominant among the genre after its founders, The House of Night series, by P.C. and Kirsten Cast.

I've worked in bookshops before. That was shortly before Dark Romance officially forced itself into our lives. So I've got a good idea of what we sold a lot of, and what we didn't sell a lot of. What we did sell enough of to build a fort out of, was the House of Night series. Linky Seriously. I sold one of these books every five minutes. If you look at this photo, you will see them dominating not only THE ENTIRE TABLE ON THE RIGHT, but also most of the middle aisle.

So I figured that this would be a good series to begin with. Come with me, gentle reader, let us see what this new genre has to offer. If I may bastardise Shakespeare,

O brave new world, O brave new world that has such people in it. Let's start at once.

Here we go.

We made a Brave New World for this?? Did - did she just put the word 'sucky' in the very first sentence? Did - did she just say 'sooooo'? And, perhaps the most pressing issue, did she name her cat Nala?

Every time somebody reads this introductory chapter, god kills a kitten.

So please, think of the kittens.

You know the worst part about this book? It has two authors. It was co-written. Meaning, this passage actually took two brains to think up. No, really. The phrase 'two heads are better than one' is well and truly dead and buried, people.

Fine. Maybe I'm being a little bit harsh. After all, lots of great works of literature have terrible introductory chapters. 'The Shining' by Stephen King, for example. The first chapter was horribly boring, but it progressed into something so much more.

Okay, I'll open my mind again. Let's read a little further.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW

Right. One. More. Chance, book.

*HEADDESK*

This book is the leading example of the new 'genre', and it reads like Chris Crocker's little sister's diary. I think I'm going to go cry now.

What upsets me most about this 'genre' is that older, more established and respected authors are all being unfairly placed in the same category. Take Kelley Armstrong for example. The first time I saw her on the shelf in the same aisle as Stephanie Meyer and the tweedledee and tweedledum of literature, The Cast sisters, I almost imploded on the spot. She belongs in horror. With the rest of the grown ups. Looking further down the aisle, I spotted other victims of this plague among bookshops. Laurell Hamilton. Rachel Vincent. Patricia Briggs. Keri Arthur. Kim Harrison.

And the menace responsible for this degradation of the titans in modern Horror?

This woman.

No, not that woman, this one.

Stop this menace now! *waves fist at the sky* Meyer, you've fucked up all the bookstores forever! All this for the sake of a sparkling metrosexual in a volvo?

This means war. All because of one text, one little text, comprising exactly of -

40% of Bella complaining about the weather

30% of Bella wandering where Edward is

20% of Bella being a bitch to/manipulating people who are being really nice to her

5% of people hitting on Bella for no apparent reason

2% of Bella sniffing Edward's breath

2% of Edward being a fairy

1% of actual menace

0% of ANYTHING WITH FANGS ACTUALLY BITING ANYTHING

With literary highlights such as "His breath blew on my face, stunning me. It was the same exquisite scent that clung to his jacket, but in a more concentrated form. I blinked, thoroughly dazed."

*slams book shut* My case. I rest it.

*weeps*

Stephanie Meyer is the Antichrist! Everybody panic!

I see only one possible solution to this problem.

It's for the kittens.

Insert witty title here

2010-05-11T14:30:00.007+01:00

Mood: Okay
Listening to: Ava - Avantis - Avantays - I can't pronounce their name. They're good, alright
Reading: Twilight (OW MY EYES), and The Werewolf's Guide to Life (very practical).
Watching: The Nostalgia Critic
Playing: Theme Hospital
Eating: Potatooes
Drinking: Cream soda

Chris/Deviathan[EVE Online] says:
i usually just run past them to my apartment
i can't help it if i'm afraid of getting robbed, there's weekly police reports emailed to us
all the suspects are described as black males, in their 20s, average height, average weight
except there was one white guy once
that was breaking into girls' bedrooms
and just watching them sleep

[b][BoT][/b] Jack says:
JB...

Chris/Deviathan[EVE Online] says:
and if they woke up and saw him, he apparently thought he could go hide in the corner and they wouldnt see him

[b][BoT][/b] Jack says:
That'd creep me the fuck out

Chris/Deviathan[EVE Online] says:
lol, no kidding
he didn't rape anybody, but that would probably be the next step for him

The Raevyn says:
I know that dude
He's called Edward Cullen

[b][BoT][/b] Biscuit says:
HEYOO

The Raevyn says:
HEYOO

...

In other news,

This

Should not have been removed from the computer.

I need a new computer. Ever since The Great Drop of 09, it hasn't been the same.

Any offers?

The (much abridged) New Moon Script

2010-04-15T16:50:00.002+01:00

Mood: Silly
Listening to: Elliot Minor
Reading: Online novellas
Watching: New Moon. Ohgodhalp
Playing: The Bard's Tale
Eating: stuff

In other news, 'The Twilight Saga' is an anagram of 'wil gag at shit'.

..I'm just saying.

I do not like wil gag at shit. Particularly the second one.

2010-04-04T00:10:00.000+01:00

It never astonishes me how much I don't matter.

Msn comic relief

2010-02-25T23:52:00.006Z

Mood: Amused
Listening to: Not Lady Gaga. Noooo, that'd be crazy. *looks shifty*
Reading: The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time
Watching: Beast Wars. Hell yes
Playing: Mario Karts DS
Eating: Pesto and..stuff
Drinking: UHT milk. What? I like it

The Raevyn says:
Oh, on Sunday I'm doing something I've never done before in my life. To a chicken. You can have a puerile giggle if you desire before I tell you what it is.

The Cat says:
Hmmm.
You're gonna try and fertilise a chicken?
You're gonna choke a chicken?
Hell, I did that only this morning.

The Raevyn says:
*snigger*

The Cat says:
You're gonna cross the road with it?
Birdy, I give up. x
What?

The Raevyn says:
I'm going to cook a chicken dish for eight people.

...

My first good laugh in a long time, I love you Stripes x

Animorphs Classic

2009-12-18T21:43:00.004Z

The only thing I'm looking forward to in life is the rerelease of the Animorphs books in 2010/11.

Seriously, I cannot remember the last time I anticipated something in the future with excitement

It feels strange

My Day

2009-11-28T18:43:00.004Z

Mood: Exhausted
Listening to: Radio 4
Reading: Corvus
Watching: No time to watch anything!
Playing: Mario & Yoshi
Eating: 'taters

It is not as epic as Jay's because I did not fall into a canal.

Raevyn went to town for work. I was booked to work 9 – 5.30.

Woke up with 15 minutes to get ready. I noticed that I did not have any money and the nearest cash machine is two miles away, and to reach it I’d have to walk through fields with bulls in them.

I resorted to borrowing £10 from auntie’s bag (which I already replaced)

I went to catch the 7.38 bus. Walked a mile to bus stop.

The bus stop fell down years ago, no one replaced it, if you want to catch the bus you have to hop up and down and dance for attention, and there is also no shelter from elements .

The bus never came.

I checked the timetable. Apparently the Saturday buses are not the same as the weekday buses.

But there was another one arriving at 8.03!

The bus never came. The wind was STRONG and the cold was COLD and fingers NUMB and shivering was abundant.

It started to rain. It did not stop raining.

Fortunately I had an umbrella!

I totally forgot the umbrella was in my bag.

Stood in rain. Got soaked.

Learned that light canvas trousers alternate between sticking to your thighs, then peeling off, then sticking again, when you instigate the walking motion.

The bus came. It had broken down. I'd waited an hour and a half.

I got a free ride!

That means crud all because I was going to buy a return at £6.50, and I’d still have to get back so would have to pay £5.40 later anyway.

I walked through town. Got soakeder. I was horribly worried because I was by now quite late, and had been unable to access them via phone to inform them of my lateness.

I got to my destination and was informed that I was in fact booked to work 10 – 4. Not 9 - 5.30. But it was a fun day, I dried off nicely.

Then I slammed my middle finger in a very fast moving door. It hurt and for some reason no one paid heed when I was hopping about waving my hand in the air and doing “GGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH”. Then I dropped a very heavy Nigella Lawson book on my index finger. Then I somehow got a gash on my ring finger.

My middle finger still hurts.

I had half an hour for lunch. This was not enough time to go grab a sammich. I missed breakfast and was hungry.

Then I was informed that my shift ended at 3, instead. No one had any idea why. Anyway, I was happy because I’d previously done very long days.

I walked back to the bus station. Got soakedededer.

I remembered I had an umbrella in my bag!

I had to put the umbrella (ella ella) away. Every time I used it I was lifted a few centimetres up from the ground.

I had to dive to restrain a rather large blind/partially sighted man with a stick. I had dashed across a road while the cars were far enough away, and since he saw other people crossing the road he assumed it was safe to cross. By the time I got across the cars were too close to be safe. Accident averted, no death today.

Bus arrived on time! I got a seat where I couldn’t see where I was going properly (i have to be able to see out the front window so I can determine the location of the invisible bus stop in the dark) So I just tried really hard to pay attention to the roads.

The driver didn’t have his big lights on so I completely missed the sign. Went past my stop.

Stopped the bus further on, elongating an already long uphill walk. LEAPED over a massive flood on side of the road.

Forgot to empty the large water bottle in my bag so as to reduce weight.

Went uphill. Uuuppphill.

Fortunately I remembered that there was a large splodge of horse poo on the road that I had to avoid!

I forgot and stepped in the horse poo

Wearing my only pair of expensive shoes

It was dark.

My shoes have porous soles, so I scrubbed them vigourously to make sure I don't smell loike a farm tomorrow

I got in!

My aunt phoned me and said “Would you like a lift? We’re just passing through town now.”

*cry*

My clothes were so soaked that I’ve got to spin them and hang them above a fire.

I need the shirt I wore today for tomorrow and I don’t have access to a washing machine. So I handwashed them in the sink. I noticed a strange sheen on the water.

Turns out that the sink had invisible oily grease at the bottom of it, which I’d just stirred up and washed my clothes in.

I yoinked the simmering clothes out, cleaned the sink, then recleaned the clothes.

Am now sitting upstairs with a good old retro Errol Flynn Robin Hood film, and a cup of soup.

I burned my tongue on the soup.

It's just stopped raining.

Whoo

2009-11-17T10:56:00.001Z

70 words

Typing Test

sad achievement for the day..

Eggses

2009-11-03T15:15:00.005Z

Raevyn is watching Josh fry an egg.

Raevyn: "This is your brain on crack."

Josh: "You made a yolk!"

Raevyn: "You have to make a pun a day or you die don't you."

Josh: "Eggsactly. It's fowl."

Raevyn: "Do another one!"

Josh: "Nah it's allwhite."

Raevyn: "One day I gonna forbid you to pun for a whole 24 hours."

Josh: "That's shellfish!"

Raevyn: "Oh my god.."

Josh: "Only bad thing about making puns is that you don't get laid."

Raevyn: *leaves*

You know what makes me feel better no matter what's happened? Cats falling off things

2009-10-21T20:47:00.006+01:00

I've had a busy day now I'm too tired to move. I am bored. No movement + boredom gives birth to a new installment in Nevermore...The List!

What else is the ninnernet for other than cats. Here I present to you the top seven cat videos. Ever. Thou shalt not argue.

Kitteh 7 - More like kittehs.

Kitteh 6 - HELP IT'S AN IMPENETRABLE FORCE FIELD

Kitteh 5 - Short and sweet.

Kitteh 4 - BAM.

Kitteh 3 - MRRRRRROOOWWWoooooowwwwOOOOOWWWWoooowwwwOOOWWWooowwwOOOWWWooowww. Shame it's a fake.

Kitteh 2 - Don't try to eat the breakdancer. Just don't.

Kitteh 1 - How to Break up a Kitten Fight Some people think this is gross. I prefer to think of it as FUCKING HILARIOUS

I have spoken.

I have ghost footage

2009-10-17T21:02:00.005+01:00

I decided to share something that happened to me today.

Wandering about in a city, I found a medieval pub named The Well House, opposite a cathedral. It's named as such because it has a haunted cellar with a large well in it. It's infamous, because hundreds of years ago a nun and a monk from said cathedral fell in love, and, knowing they were unable to do anything about it, both jumped down the well and were shattered to pieces. Not only this, but in the 1960s two boys dared each other to spend the night down there alone. One did, and in the morning he was found curled up shivering in the corner with pale shrunken clammy skin. They rushed him to hospital but he died upon arrival.

So being a bit dumb I naturally ran down the steps like I'd seen sweeties.

Round the corner, there's a big ol' noticeable SKELETON just lying in the wall, protected by glass. It's shattered into pieces and just about recognisable as a person. The face is smashed and dissolving into the dust and stones, and the ribs are arranged into as best a ribcage you can make with broken bones.

For as long as anyone can remember, it was said that the bones on display in the Well House basement cellar were those of a young woman who died from the Black Death plague in the 14th century. Analysis by archaeological pathologists at King Alfred's College, Winchester, however, has revealed that the skeletal remains, in fact, belong to two people. Could this discovery throw light on one of the city's most tragic love stories? For generations, the story of how a certain John the monk and Martha the nun had thrown themselves down the well in Cathedral Yard to enjoy a union in death was part of the city's rich historical tapestry. This grim discovery seems possibly to give some historical credence to the legend...

So being a morbid bone collector, I ambled over to the skellington (by amble I meant I went ooooooohhh and ran over to it) and stared filming him/her. It was really dark and my camera isn't excellent, so you could barely make it out. Anyway, it filmed okay. Then later, while sitting in the bus station, I play it back and suddenly for a split second the camera goes nuts and it all flashes bright white, like a film negative. The bones are black and the stones are white. My phone's not broken and it's never blipped like that while recording before. Also I've no function on it to change a picture to invert the colours. I jumped and played it back. It repeats. I sit there going 'Oh crapohcrapohcrap I'm gonna get haunted by a skeleton' for a while.

Did I p**s them off?

Then things got even more strange..

..

...

.....

...

..

.

'Cos I remembered that my friend was stood behind me taking a photo of the skeleton with a camera with a flash. It made my screen go BLIP and then return to normal.

PHEW

The Raevyn Reviews Enchanted.

2009-10-06T16:19:00.002+01:00

Enchanted - The most offensive Disney film since..that black centaur in Fantasia?

Father and daughter in car. Father hands daughter a birthday present. Is book.

Child: “What the crap is this?”

Father: “It’s a book. A book about great women of the past. Female military leaders, great female thinkers, writers, philosophers, inventors, activists, martyrs, etc.”

Child: “Don’t be stupid. Women don’t exist outside of a castle and they don’t do anything outside of waiting for their prince to come along and rescue them from their horrible and intolerable middle class life.”

Father: “I know that’s both an easy and logical misconception to make, but I swear it’s not true. Women do all kinds of things. They work, they change the world, and sometimes they even have original thoughts.”

Child: *sneer.*

Father: “Really! There used to be these women, these incredible women who risked their lives just for the right to suggest that women should be equal citizens.”

Child: *sneer sneer sneer*

Father: "And then one of them made history by throwing themselves under a horse just to raise awareness for the plight of women.”

Child: *sneerity sneer sneer...sneer*

Father: “And ever since then, women have had the right to vote.”

Child: “Vo – ote? Are you crazy? Now give me a tiara.”

*thud*

Father: “Fuck the suffragettes! There’s a DISNEY PRINCESS!!!”

Songs include -

‘Happy working song’ (Vermin are a good thing).

‘How does she know you love her?’ (merchandise equals love).

‘I’ve been dreaming of a true love’s kiss’ (not everyone who works in musicals is gay).

2009-10-04T01:15:00.002+01:00

I just lost a book that I spent five years writing and illustrating by hand. Fuck my life

Nom

2009-09-23T17:14:00.003+01:00

I was walking through the supermarket and I ambled across the pet food section. I went past the cat food, and stopped in my tracks. I read what was written across all the 'Felix' tins, and on them, were written things like

'Rabbit and liver' 'Salmon and hack' 'Turkey and pheasant'

And I was like

This fucking cat eats better than I do

I don't even know what hack is

But I do know that I want rabbit

And liver

I'm gonna get catfood for dinner

In other news I got fucking depression again

My Mother vs Technology IV

2009-08-26T15:12:00.000+01:00

Setting: There are two windows on the taskbar. Mum has computer. Will not relinquish. I need her to open the second window.

Me: "Right, you need to open the second window."

Mum: "Where is that?"

Me: It's in the taskbar."

Mum "Stop talking gobbledegook!!"

Me: "Okay. You see the blue bar at the bottom."

Mum: "No."

Me: "Look at the very bottom of the screen. That big blue line."

Mum: "Yes."

Me: "The second window is in that."

Mum: "I can't see it."

Me: "It's the second blue rectangle."

Mum: "Where?"

Me: "Okay. You see the green box on the left."

Mum: "No."

Me: "Look at the very bottom left of the moni - screen. There is a blue square with the word 'start' written in it. Do you see it."

Mum: "Yes."

Me: "Now. You see the dark blue rectangle, directly to the right of that."

Mum: "Yes."

Me: "Now, you see the blue rectangle directly to the right of that first blue rectangle. It's a slightly paler blue."

Mum: "Yes."

Me: "Click it."

*clicks*

Mum: (scream) "You've knocked out my page!!!"

Me: "It's behind the page that's on the screen now!"

Mum: "You knocked it out!"

I forget what happened after that. I think I developed amnesia. The day before that she spent an entire day getting confused by confused.com (that's the pretty, polite version) and I sorta couldn't cope.

Halp

Is that..happiness?

2009-08-01T17:19:00.001+01:00

I just wanted to share a random happy day in my life, they're not frequent and this is kinda funny.

Me an' my best friend/male clone went wandering into a forest. I immediately selected two sticks and challenged him to a duel. I did pretty good, he kept striking and I kept dodging and parrying. Then, a second later, I swung my stick at his and..it snapped completely in two leaving him standing there staring at a stub with an expression reminiscent of a little boy who has just had his puppy run over. So naturally I was really sensitive and fell on my arse laughing.

Naturally, I selected him another stick and went 'yah!' Deciding to let him attack first, I let him raise his stick above his head, move forward, and the second my gaze landed on it, it...snapped in two. I don't know what happened next because I fell over laughing again and might have stopped breathing at one point.

Duel number three...someone's stick went flying. Over their head. Guess whose stick it was.

"My stick is longer than your stick."

"I'm better with my stick than you are with yours."

"My stick is harder than your stick."

"I snapped your stick clean in two."

"My stick is stickier than your stick."

etc etc.

I had so much fun I kept the stick..

The point of this post is, when you're low or depressed or upset, go into a forest and beat the shit out of your best friend with a stick.

When I Die

2009-05-26T22:02:00.010+01:00

When I die, I would like to be remembered by two particular quotes.

Firstly - "Science Fiction is the least ficticious of all the genres." inspired by my most recent significantly-developed education.

Secondly - "Virtue is the least virtuous of all things." This is slightly more complicated. And personal. Only those who know me intimately may be able to decipher what this means. If anyone. Maaaybe. If anyone..

But regardless, these are my two quotes. If I die tomorrow, remember me by these. Thank you.

Status update

2009-05-23T17:39:00.001+01:00

A psychotherapist named Steve has saved my life. I don't know what I would do without him.

Baby Statue

2009-05-17T15:15:00.003+01:00

A few days ago, my Mum bought something incredibly horrifyingly incorrigibly creepy. So creepy, in fact, that I decided that it needed to be chronicled. Lookit. Say it with me now, one, two, three, Aaaaaaarrgghh!

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but my initial thought was ‘Oh my god kill it with fire!!’

Gah. Just gah. Am I the only one scared halfway to death by this thing? Look at its eyes! What’s wrong with its eyes? Why does it have no trousers? Where are the trousers? No really, I’m serious, just...just...why? Why? Why make a creepy little baby out of ceramics with no trousers but adult hands?? Is this designed to be given to children? Or adults? Oh so much confusion, so little time! Every time I look at this thing I feel wrong. Like something’s gone wrong in the pit of my stomach.

Early this morning, I found out just why.

Two days ago, Mum came home and deposited that thing that you see above on the table. “Isn’t it cute?”she exclaimed. I decided that even though I’d seen cuter Angler fish, I should probably hold my tongue. Mistaking my silence for acceptance, she walked over to the window overlooking the back garden. Placing the...thing on the windowsill, she stepped back to admire the handiwork.

“I don’t know,” she began. “I just find it unique.” Now this I could agree with. If nothing else, that baby was certainly unique. I stared at it. I swear it had a knowing expression on its face. I resisted the urge to cause it to have an ‘accident’ as soon as possible and settled myself with the fact that I could always just close the curtains so I couldn’t see it. Who needs sunlight, anyway?

It was getting late. Saying my goodnight, I crawled into bed and collapsed. I forgot all about that thing.

But there’s a problem. I am an insomniac. That’s not the problem, but this is. Since I was irreversibly awake at four in the morning, I went downstairs to watch some TV.

The figure was now facing the window.

I did not do that. I did not do that, and neither did Mum. When I left the figure, it was facing into the room. Now its facing out the window. Who moved it? Did gay men break in and rearrange the furniture? Is it magnetic? Is it frickin’ alive?! Is there some mechanism in it created solely to freak me out? What?

Or maybe I did shuffle it about before I went to bed. I wouldn’t be surprised, I am much happier now that I can’t see its face. Not so sure if I’m happier about seeing its arse instead, but oh well, its just ugly all over. Fearing my Mother’s wrath, I took the statue and turned it back to the way it was. Then I shuffled back off to bed to pretend to sleep.

No really. This was what I found when I came back downstairs. But this time the tiny little left arm was raised towards the window. Pointing outwards. Mum found it, actually. Pointed it out as soon as I fell into the Living Room.

“Did you do this?” she asked.

I went cold. “Er, no.”

“Then how did it get this way? Are you sure you didn’t do it? I mean, if you don’t like the statue, just tell me, and we can put it somewhere else, maybe somewhere less visible?”

But right that second the idea of putting that thing somewhere where I couldn’t see it seemed like a very bad idea. There was something up here, and I wanted that thing to be somewhere where I could keep an eye on it. Maybe train a gun on it, too..

That night, I was to watch the statue. I wanted to know who was moving it. Or did I? What if there was a squatter in our house that I didn’t know about. Who had a...uh, fetish for spinning tiny child dolls. Oh god, why can’t I live in a normal house. Aheh.

Anyway. That night, I sat downstairs with a torch. It was around midnight. Firstly, I would like some credit for my brave actions, please. Go back and look at the face of that baby doll again and tell me how you’d feel sitting in a dark room at nighttime all on your own with only that thing staring you in the face. I am either really brave, or really –

Srrrcccchhhhhhh.

Ohcrap. I jumped to my feet and trained the torch on the windowsill. Just in time to see the little baby figure moving.

Shit. It was moving! Moving, spinning around on its tiny feet! The quiet sound of the ceramic scraping against the wood seemed to fill both the room and my head. Srrrccccchhhhh. Srrrccccchhh.

Slowly, the little baby pivoted. Srrrrccccchhhh. Pivoted, until it faced the window. I held my breath. I couldn’t have breathed if I tried. Slowly, oh so slowly, the tiny little left arm lifted. Lifted, until it pointed out the window.

Silence. My heart was thudding so fast that I thought it might pop. I was so afraid. Finally losing my nerve, I abandoned the toy, shot up the stairs, and huddled in bed with the lights on ‘til morning.

That morning I found the toy turned back around, facing into the room, his arm by his side. And Mum seemed to be tutting at me with her eyes. Its a skill only mothers have. She must still think that I was interfering with it. I decided not to tell her what had happened. I mean, if I said such a thing to you, would you believe me? And since she didn’t bring it up, the day passed as normal, even if the house seemed abnormally chilly for such a hot day.

Clever me had just had a new idea. What if I prevented the little baby from spinning around? It is like five inches tall. If I don’t want it to turn, its not turning. But that meant..could I actually being myself to touch it? After last night?

Oh come on, Raevyn. Its a baby. Not even a real baby at that, its about the same size as your hand. What could it possibly to do me? I would grip it in my hands and force it to remain facing inwards.

As the day passed, I confess, I got more and more jittery. I couldn’t think about anything else. When Mum went to bed I was practically climbing the walls with nerves. Calm down, Raevyn, is just a baby, is just a baby..

Night came again. I knew that Mum wouldn’t rise until half-seven, so I had all the time I needed. At around one in the morning, I literally forced myself towards the windowsill. I opened the curtains and trained the torch downwards. As per usual, my little friend had resumed his favourite position. With his tiny baby arm pointing outside. Reaching out with a trembling hand, I picked him up.

...

Nothing. Nothing apart from the feel of cold porcelain against my fingers. It didn’t move. Not knowing whether to be relieved or annoyed, I sat down. I stared at the little figure in my hands.

“What are you.” I mumbled. “What are you?”

Silence. Realising that I was in fact talking to a tiny china baby, I wondered whether I should give up. After thinking about hidden wires, mechanisms, magnets, and perhaps that the mushrooms in my dinner weren’t all that they seemed, I finally concluded that I had lost my mind. Might tell the psychotherapist tom-

The baby started moving. Slowly at first, it began to twist in my hand. I almost yelped and dropped it. It started to twist with more and more strength, and soon I was struggling to keep the baby facing inwards. I put all my strength into it, and that was when it clasped its tiny hand around my finger.

This time I did yelp. Deciding that I no longer cared which way the damn figure was facing, I shook my hand about, trying to dislodge it. It wouldn’t let me go. Damn. Dammit dammit why can’t I just mind my own business? Who cares which way some antique that my Mum brought home?! Hopping about now, I continued to shake. His grip only got stronger.

“What do you want?” I cried. Silently, slowly, the baby turned his little bald head towards me. My heart lept into my throat. Also silently, he lifted his other arm. And pointed. Pointed at the window. I looked. What was he pointing at? What?

His grip tightened and I began to feel pain. I shook some more, and then I heard a crunch. Pain lanced up my finger and I cried “Alright, alright, I’ll take you!” The grip loosened until the baby let go. Returning back to his stiff standing position, he swivelled towards the window.

Point.

I took a deep breath. How the hell did I get here. Its okay, its just your back garden, you know there’s nothing scary there. You’ve been playing in it ever since you could walk. Resolving myself, I stepped towards the window. Opening it, I placed the baby on the sill. Jumping out and landing on the grass, I reached back inside and picked the baby up. He retained his stance, pointing at somewhere at the centre of the garden. Shaking slightly, I walked. After a few feet, the baby started to swivel. I’d gone past where he was pointing. I backtracked three paces. Swivel. I took one more step forward. The baby lowered his arm. He seemed to lose something just then. It was like his animation, his consciousness, had gone out of him. He went still. He was just an old toy. I decided I wanted nothing more to do with him and that if he wanted to stay out in the garden, that was quite fine with me. Let him go as far away from the house as possible, if he pleased. I placed him on the grass next to me. Let him stay there. Let him stay where he’d been so desperately trying to reach. It meant nothing to me.

Or did it? What was it about this particular spot in the garden? Was someone buried here? Was something buried here? Was there treasure? Yeah, that was unlikely. So what? Were there more of these critters buried underground? Brr. God I hoped not.

I heard the creaking noise almost at once. It seemed to be coming from all around me. Startled, I spun round, but could see nothing that caused it. Then I felt a gentle movement underneath my feet. I turned the torch downward at once.

I did that just in time to see the see the ground open up as the wooden board over the old, disused well finally gave way and I fell twenty feet down the shaft. There was water all around me. I never hit the bottom but instead rose to the surface again.

Clinging to the smooth damp walls, it was then that I began to shout. I knew it was no use. I was too far away for my Mum to hear me, even if she did wake up. The last thing I saw in the faint light from the broken opening was the little baby sneering down at me. Then it was gone, making its slow journey back towards the house. It was a long time to half-past seven.

I Just Wanted to Get to Know Her a Little

2009-05-14T17:45:00.001+01:00

I am not The Raevyn. Keeping in tone with her blog, which I have read after I found it open on her computer, I will tell you a story.

I have been watching her for a long time. Liking everything about her, her walk, her face, her figure, and her voice, I decided to stalk her. Loving everything about her even more with every second I spent hiding in a bush, following her in my car, watching her through her window. Eventually every waking thought of mine became obsessed with her. Deciding that I wanted to meet her at last, we had a little accident.

To be honest, it could have been avoided. Hell, I didn’t mean to hit her that hard. Evidently I am stronger than I think I am. Really, it was just a little tap. Although you wouldn’t think it to look at her now, lying so still. Eventually the blood stopped flowing, it’s not coming out anymore. Very good. Yes, she looks at peace now.

Now at last, you can see how gloriously mad I really am – though for her, it is too late - if you go back to the beginning of the entry, only this time look carefully at the first letter of every sentence.

...

(p.s this is just a joke/mindfuck I'm still alive, nobody call the police)

The Hitchhiker

2009-05-13T20:01:00.007+01:00

It was my 23rd birthday and, having missed them for a while, I decided to spend the day with my parents. We’d just had a fantastic day out in Shaldon. Spent a while on the beach, went to a museum, sat in quaint little cafes, got some obligatory rock. I sat in the back of the car, enjoying that feeling of tired contentment you get when you’ve just had a really good day. But now the rain was really heavy, and it made it hard to see out of the windows. The darkness didn’t help. Almost dozing off, I listened to my parents chatting in the front of the car.

“As soon as I brought out the needle, he passed out. I thought of doing the filling right there and then and save him the pain, and the anaesthetic too, but if I got caught I’d be in hell of a lot of trouble..”

I drifted in and out. My Dad is a dentist. He and Mum are so different. Mum works part-time as an estate agent, and she’s always been tougher than my Dad. Dad is kind of insecure. I think it’s because most people he sees on a daily basis are scared of him. Burden of being a dentist, I suppose. Even though he’s soft. When I was little it was always Mum who did the discipline. Dad would let me do anything and would do anything for anyone. Mum was a bit more stern.

They’ve both changed, though. Nowadays, they’re more withdrawn. It happened thirteen years ago, when my brother Tom died. They’ve never really recovered from that. My life has never been the same since.

“Hey, look at that.” Dad said, bringing our attention to a dark figure, huddled over and walking on the side of the road. I jumped out of my trance and looked. A man was trudging along, his coat pulled tight to protect himself from the rain. Suddenly, his hand shot out, thumb facing upwards. The universal sign of the hitchhiker. He wanted a lift.

“We should stop.” Said Dad.

“We should not!” said Mum.

“It’s horrible weather out there, he’ll catch his death of cold. And he’s miles from anywhere. Let’s pick him up.”

“But Harry…” began my Mother, anxiously.

She was right. Letting strangers into your car is a bad idea generally, but particularly so when you’re ten miles away from an asylum for the criminally insane. Which we were. Everyone knew about Fairfields. Fairfield’s Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane, to be more exact. It’s a big ugly building with metal gates ten metres high with spikes along the top and gates that open electronically. And now we’d stumbled across a lone man in the middle of nowhere walking alone.

That’s the point I’m trying to make. When you’re ten miles away from a loony bin, you don’t stop to pick up someone you’ve never met. I began to add my own reservations, but Dad pulled up next to the man. Slowing the car to a stop, he waved him to get inside. He’s a good bloke, my Dad. Though sometimes he can be too good. What if he was an escaped loony? What if he’d cut the throat of the prison guard and slipped through the gates? The figure slumped towards the car.

I had a really bad feeling about him. I don’t know why but he just made dread form in the pit of my stomach. The man walked towards the car, pulled open the door, and slumped onto the seat next to me.

My god, I thought. It’s Professor Snape. He had greasy skin, greasy long black hair, and a hooked nose to boot. Only this guy had a huge scar running down his face. Going from the top of his forehead, over his eye, down to his chin, it seemed to push his eye out of place, giving him a mad look. He smelled like damp clothes. Which made sense, I suppose. But there was a smell I couldn’t place, too, something..metallic. He wore a long brown trenchcoat, grimy trousers, and shoes that had seen better days. His skin was pale, as if he hadn’t been outside in a while.

Noticing me staring at him, he turned to me. I felt a chill run down my spine the second his gaze met mine. Silently, his mouth moved. His lips formed the words “You’re dead.”

Suddenly, the car veered to the right. The man’s hand shot out to steady himself. When his hand grasped the seat, his arm extended briefly from his sleeve.

Blood!

I gasped. Whose blood was that? His, or someone else’s? He pulled his hand away. He knew I’d seen it. Maybe he wanted me to.

“Damn foxes!” exclaimed my father. “They want to get run over, I swear. So, where are you headed?” he said, addressing the hitchhiker, while I tried to process what had just happened.

“Totnes.” His voice was rough and low.

“What’s your name?”

“Rellik. Ian Rellik.”

“What were you doing out in that rain, coulda caught your death of cold out there!”

“My car broke down.” He intoned.

“That’s a shame.” Said my Dad, merrily trying to make conversation. “Are you going anywhere nice?”

The man paused. Eventually, he said “Visiting my family.”

I knew he was lying. Why would be pause right before replying? Was he making it up, trying to think of what to say?

I shuffled further over to my side, away from him.

“Oh how nice, visiting the parents? Do you have any kids?”

“No.” was the simple reply.

I think my Dad sensed that he wasn’t going to be having a lengthy conversation anytime soon because he didn’t ask anything else. Shuffling further away, I prayed that we’d get this man to his destination before he did anything. Trying to forget where I was, I idly wrote on the window the first word in my mind.

R E L L I K

There was a flash of lightning outside. Jumping, I anticipated the thunder. As I did so, I caught glance of myself in the mirror. I looked white as a sheet. I would have gotten whiter if it were possible, when I saw the words I’d written reflected also.

K I L L E R

The thunder came. The man turned his attention back to me. I met his gaze, determined to look confident. He silently mouthed some words again. “I’m going to kill you.” Then he turned his attention downwards, and reached inside his coat.

Oh god. He could have anything in there. He could have a knife or a gun or worse! And I would be his first victim. He wouldn’t attack Dad, or the car would veer out of control. He couldn’t attack Mum because he couldn’t reach her. I would be his first victim. Then he would kill Mum, then he would kill Dad, then maybe someone else. I had to do something.

Then I remembered that I was sitting behind my mother for a reason. What was it that she had said this morning…

“Don’t sit on the driver’s side, the catch on the door is broken. It’s dangerous.”

I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. I was. Realising this, I knew what I had to do. The man’s hand closed on something inside his coat. I turned to face him and braced my back against the door. As he withdrew the knife, I kicked with all my might.

I caught him square in the chest and he smacked into the door. The catch gave way and he tumbled out the car. An industrial lorry blared past in the other direction. Ian Rellik went straight under the front wheels. He exploded in a fountain of blood.

Mum screamed and Dad hit the brakes. The lorry ground to a halt. Suddenly everything was silent except for the rain hammering on the roof.

Dad twisted round to look at me. “What…” he began. I quickly explained. I explained about the blood on his arm. The lies he had told. The blood on his arm. The knife in his coat. The lunatic asylum.

Mum was in total shock. Dad laid his hand on my arm. “It’s alright.” He said. “Wait here.” He got out of the car. I watched him talking with the lorry driver. There wsa no sign of the killer. He must have been fairly spread out across the road. I felt horrible about what I’d done, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I had saved the life of my parents, myself, and whoever else that man would have gone after. He gave me no choice.

“He says he’s going to call the police.” Dad announced, getting back in the car.

“Did you tell him what happened?” I enquired.

“Yes. He knows you did the right thing.”

I sat back. My father started the engine, and we drove another ten miles until we came to a building with ten-metre high walls with spikes along the top. We stopped at a pair of metal gates with a speaker at the front. My Dad leaned out of the window and said something.

I knew where we were. We had come to Fairfield’s. Fairfield’s Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane.

We had to tell them, I knew. The lorry driver had agreed. We had to tell them that Ian Rellik had escaped and that we had killed him. In self defence. They needed to know. I asked my father if that was why we’d come here.

“Yes. That’s why we’re here.”

We drove to a big Victorian house with red bricks and bars on the windows. Had he managed to somehow remove the bars and get out of one of these windows? I checked for evidence of an escape. I could see why the institution had gotten it’s name. It was surrounded by vast fields spreading for some distance under the high-voltage searchlights. Before we had even stopped, a bald man with a white beard in a white suit came out of the building.“Wait here.” Said Dad, getting out of the car. I watched the two of them talking but this time I managed to hear a little of what they said.

Dad did most of the talking. “You were wrong, Dr Samson, you were wrong, we never should have taken her…”

“None of us could have know. She was doing so well, we thou -”

“She was fine in Shaldon! She was fine! She seemed normal all day and then..then..this!”

“I don’t know what to say to you Mr Taylor. I don’t know what to say.”

“Never again, that’s what. Never again!”

The two men came over to the car. “We’re going in with Doctor Samson.” Said Dad.

“All right.” I replied.

Mum didn’t look at me as I got up. She didn’t even say goodbye. That made me sad.

Doctor Samson put his hand on my shoulder. “Come inside. We need to talk about what’s happened.”

“All right.”

Later on they told me that the hitchhiker’s name was Ian Renwick and that I’d misheard him. Apparently Mr Renwick was a gardener who has been working on an isolated building and his car had broken down and so he started walking home. They told me that it was mud I’d seen on his arm, not blood. He got his scar from falling onto a spade. And when they scraped him off the tarmac he was holding not a knife but a cigarette case.

That was what they told me but I don’t believe any of it. After all, they told me lots of lies after my brother Tom fell under that train. They even wanted me to believe that I’d pushed him! Nobody ever understood.

So here I am, back in my room, staring at the fields through a barred window. Same old view. I had such a nice day in Shaldon. I just hope I won’t have to wait another thirteen years before they take me out again.

Quote of the Day

2009-05-10T20:13:00.001+01:00

'Love is a nauseatingly deceptive cherry-red fruit, whose smooth and glossy skin conceals a black and rotten heart infested with worms.'

- Epic quote from one of my friends.

Ohmygodnotthepoetry

2009-04-30T13:46:00.005+01:00

I know that we’re no longer close
But there’s something you should know
You touched my heart in so many ways
Though I could never let it show
I know that I’m not worth your time
I can see it when we talk
But, girl, you just don’t understand
How much it hurts to see you walk
I know that we don’t hang out as much
But you really need to see
My world is gone, it’s fallen to pieces
Without you next to me
I spent so many months without you
I had to go my own way
But when I tried to walk alone
I'd break down and cry each day
I learned to close my heart away
And lock it up so tight
I learned to keep it from your kind
Who wouldn’t treat it right
We started talking just last month
And my happiness fell apart
I learned that you were over me
And that you’d never want my heart.

For if this can never be, I will confess I must profess
I can no longer see, why I must stay a part of this
This world that I am bound to, by beating heart broken apart
But no desire to be found too. Too sad to live, too scared to die
I live by chance not will. Why I do not rest in a plot
I simply cannot lie. I tried, I failed, to try again,
Takes strength that I don’t have. But now no drive keeps me alive
I cannot bear the pain. Of sadness, morning, day, and night
My mind it starts to wane. If Death visited me now, I would not fight
But would instead accept the end. I long, I long, to see the light
For it my grief will mend. Because she never meant to hurt you
The angels want me to cry, And although this all seems untrue,
This devil deserves to die.

In the shadows in the night
Is everywhere that dreamers lie
Everything they ever wanted
Ascending upwards to the sky.
For so long I have lied with them
Dreaming, praying for one thing
Seeming just beyond my grasp
It is one and everything.
Everything I ever wanted
Everything I ever need
Everything inside of you
I love with all inside of me.
It’s everything that matters
It’s everything I want
It’s everything I live for
I’m praying for your love.
It’s everything worth fighting for
It’s everything that gets me through
It’s everything I swear I’d die for
All the love I have for you.
Everything I’d give it all for
Everything I want to be
All I want and not a bit more
Everything you need to see.
It’s everything I wish at night for
Everything I’m dreaming of
Everything I need here with me
Praying, wishing for your love.
It’s everything I’m missing
It’s left me incomplete
I want to share it all with you
The love that rests inside of me.
Everything I’m dreaming for
Everything I’ll ever need
My love for you is everything
Now I pray you will love me.

I stared at a knife last night
Imagined the feel of tempered steel
Slipping through arterial tubes.
I tried to care last night
A reason to stay awake and smile
To make my heart beat anew.
I tried to forget last night
To bury the memories I'd yet to make
In a foggy haze of drink.
I watched a spider last night
Crawling across my kitchen floor.
A distraction that probably saved my life,
And kept me breathing one day more.

One can really tell that one has gone quite mad when the poesy appears.

Oh, dear.

"I'm coming home now."

2009-04-29T20:08:00.006+01:00

I always wanted to know who that old man was calling.

I work in Northamptonshire Library. Pretty boring job. Steady, but boring. Check in a book here, check out a book there, order a child to desist the locomotion of their maxillo (I love the blank stares I get with that one) there, but at least it pays the rent. At least, it was dull, until my boss came to me and said “Let this man use the phone.”

He gestured towards a small, elderly fellow standing beside him. Nothing seemed offensive about him at the time. In fact, he kind of reminded me of that old man from Toy Story 2. You know, the one who repaired the toys? That kind of old man. Tiny, hunched, grey haired, wrinkled, big-nosed, and kind of cartoony looking. Almost cute, in a geriatric kind of way.

“Let him use it whenever he wants.” Said my boss. I simply nodded in confusion. The old man picked up the phone. As he tapped in a few numbers with his gnarled fingers, I watched, too puzzled by this strange turn of events to do much else. He raised a shaking hand to his ear, clutching the receiver. After a pause, he said: “I’m coming home now.” Then he replaced the receiver, turned, and shuffled off. I blinked. What just happened?

After getting distracted by a woman wanting to know where to locate Michael Crichton, I forgot about the old man. My day passed, as it always does, quietly and with only the beep of the computer system to break the silence. I went home, fell into bed, and dreamed about bananas in pinstriped suits ruling the country.

The next day, the old man came back. I noticed it was at exactly the same time, half five in the evening. As I stood at the desk, wondering whether I should venture some conversation, he picked up the phone. “I’m coming home now.” Then he shuffled off. What. The. Hell. Even I wasn’t allowed to dial any numbers outside of the building. So why was he allowed to use the phone in such a way? And why had he said the same thing twice in a row?

“Hey Sam.” I said. Sam was my co-worker. “Have you seen that old guy?”

“Yeah.” She replied. “He spends all his time in the occult section. Reads all the books about magic. Not your Harry Potter books either, I mean, real magic. No one ever looks at those books except for teenage girls. And him.”

I was confused. He spends all his time in the library. Makes a phone call, then ambles off home. I didn’t understand. But I was intrigued. Who was he calling? Why didn’t they speak? Did they speak?

Did they… I could find out. After glancing around to make sure no one was looking, I picked up the phone. Dialling 1471, I held the receiver to my ear. Not knowing what to expect, I tapped my fingers nervously on the desk. One ring. Two. Three. Four. No answer. Drumming my fingers more, I waited. Five rings. Six. Seven. Wondering about the ethics of the situation even more, I went to put the phone down. But then I heard a click. Someone had answered. “He – hello?” I ventured. Nothing. “Hello?” I repeated. Nothing. “Who is this?” I asked, my curiosity overriding my manners. From the other end, nothing. Silence. “Who – “ I began again, but was interrupted by a click. They had put the phone down. Shaking with nerves now, I sat down. Who was that? Why did the old man make the same call every day? I had never experienced anything so odd in my life.

Returning home again, I fell into a deep sleep, dreaming about telephones dancing around my head, squeaking Queen songs at me. Ah, dreams.

The next day, the same thing happened. “I’m coming home now.” I was too unnerved to try dialling the number again. Deciding to distract myself with rearranging the fantasy section, I tried to forget how this small, frail man was slowly taking over my thoughts. Managing to somehow spend an entire hour putting the Anne McCaffrey’s into alphabetical order, I returned to my desk. I stared at the phone, just thinking. Thinking.

That night I dreamt about telephones battering me to death. Ah, dreams.

The day after, I had a plan. I mean, what would you do, if you were in my situation? Would you just sit back and ignore it? Just try to forget about a daily occurrence that made absolutely no sense? Well, if you would, you’d probably be in a better situation that I am now.

“I’m coming home now.” I picked up my coat. Pulling it on, I waited until the old man had gone out the door. Wishing very hard that I was not going to get fired for what I was about to do, I followed the old man. Once out of the automatic doors, I paused, allowing him to get a suitable distance ahead of me, so that I could follow without being seen. Then I walked. Trying my best to not look like a crazy stalker lady, I walked. Fortunately for me, the old man never looked behind him.

I walked for half an hour, humming to myself to avert the anxiety that I felt overwhelming my system. What was I doing? Was I really so low that I’d stalk an old man? No, I told myself. This doesn’t make sense. It needs to be investigated. It’s not normal. It’s not like I’m hurting him, or doing anything illegal. I’m just…going for a walk during work hours and breaching my terms of contract by following one of our customers who just happens to be elderly and helpless. Oh crap. I’m going to hell.

More walking. I’d been at this for forty-five minutes now. Had this fellow never heard of a bus? Or a car? This was obscene. An hour later, I started to fret. Really, if my boss didn’t notice my absence, it would be a miracle.

Eventually, he turned into a house. Sadly, it was not the creepy gothic mansion that I’d been imagining in my mind. Just a semi-detached, almost boring in its complete unthreateningness. Not being able to figure out whether I was disappointed or relieved, I made a note of the house number. 132, Church Lane. I turned and left.

Returning to the library, I found my boss asleep in his chair. For once I thanked God for his casual approach to ‘work’. I returned to my desk and checked out some Stephen Kings.

Next day. It is eleven o’ clock. I am twitching with anxiety. For I am about to take the same chance that I took yesterday. Despite being a devout atheist, I prayed to God to make my boss as sleepy as he was the last time I sneaked out. And so, as soon as my lunch hour began, I left the building. This time, I ran. It took me an hour to get to where I went yesterday. I’m a reasonably fit individual, I managed to get there in twenty minutes, instead. Eventually, I was at 132 Church Lane. I collapsed against the outer wall for a minute, while my heart popped and I got my breath back.

I know. I know. I am a fool. I should have just left it. I shouldn’t have gone back there. I should have just respected the orders of my boss, and respected the privacy of an old man. I shouldn’t be there. I should be at my desk, eating jam sandwiches. But what would you do? If you were confronted with such a situation? I dare you to not be intrigued. You want to know who that old man was calling and why, don’t you? Don’t lie. I know you want to. And I, dear reader, am about to fulfil your curiosity.

When my breathing had returned to normal, I wandered about the perimeter of the building, and peered through the front window. I saw a living room. A TV, a table, some books. Nothing weird. So I wandered further, until I found another window. This one was significantly dustier. I peered through it, and saw a kitchen. There were a few plates in the sink, a few opened cans on the table, and some bread on the side. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Once more, I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Again I wondered about the ethics of the situation. I was stalking around the territory of a geriatric, looking for clues.

I went back to the front door, and gripped the handle. Locked shut. I threw my entire weight into it. It didn’t budge. Admitting defeat, I tried the front window. It wouoldn’t budge. So that would mean..

I crept to behind the building, briefly thinking that eating jam sandwiches at my desk sounded like a really good idea right now. Reaching the kitchen window, I tried to pull It up.

Success. It slid open. I put one leg in, hopped onto a kitchen surface, and jumped to the floor. I was in. Mentally congratulating myself for not breaking a leg, I looked around. Immediately, I was immediately overwhelmed by how dusty the place was. I could almost taste it. The place hadn’t been cleaned in months. There was another smell to the place, too, It smelled like…bacon. Or lamb. Or beef. It smelled like meat. Like meat and blood. So what, I thought. It’s a kitchen, it’s supposed to smell like food.

Deciding to not let this perturb me, I looked around. I saw plates, tables, chairs, cupboards, and absolutely nothing abnormal. Just a regular kitchen. Half cut bread on the sideboard.I quietly slipped out of the kitchen, into a hallway. I saw stairs, and the entrance to a living room. My curiosity overcoming me, I wandered down the hallway.

Finding the stairs, I cautiously began to climb. Pushing open the first door I came to revealed a bathroom that looked like it was stuck in the 1950s. No good. Nudging open a second door, I found something promising.

I stood at the entrance to the bedroom. I desperately tried to ignore the fact that the smell of meat was far stronger here than it was in the kitchen. This was the only part of the house that wasn’t cloyed with dust. A desk with a book on it caught my eye.

‘Holy Bible’ it proclaimed. A small piece of paper rested on top of it. ‘Page 171’. Naturally, I turned to page 171.

It was the story of Lazarus. A strange symbol had been scrawled across the text. It looked like a ram. Or a goat. There was writing in the margins too, though it wasn’t any language I’d seen before. I think it might be Latin. Remembering that I’d need proof that I’d been in the house to take back to my co-workers, I tore the page from the book. Stuffing it into my pocket, I turned towards the door. If I didn’t leave soon, I’d be late for work.

I was still confused. Did the old man live alone? Or with a wife? If he did live with a wife, she was certainly very different to my grandmother. My grandmother would never have allowed strips to be torn out of the wallpaper at shoulder height all around the landing, as was done so here. The old man didn’t seem to be so debilitated that he couldn’t keep a house in order. So why the strips torn out of the walls? Why was there dust everywhere, so much that it almost clogged the respiratory system? Why was there the smell of decaying meat, in every single room? All I’d managed to do was confuse myself any more. I still wanted to know who it was that he called on the phone every day at half five, and what his cryptic message meant.

I walked back downstairs. Starting to feel nauseous from the smell now, I thought about admitting defeat and just leaving.

Then I heard…a creak. The floorboards above my head creaked. I froze. With a wrrrrr, they creaked again. I decided that now was a good time to move. I ran into the hallway, my pulse racing in my head. Facing the kitchen for the first time, I noticed that the back door had been nailed shut. And that all the nails were rusty. Who nails a door shut?

Creeeaaaaak. I felt movement above my head. Quick you idiot, hide. I ran beneath the stairs, held my breath, and hoped that whoever was out there couldn’t hear my beating heart as loudly as I could.

Creeeeeaaak. Now someone was walking down the stairs. I could hear them descending, their feet just inches away from where I was hiding. I heard someone come padding down the hallway. My breath caught as someone walked past where I was hiding. Then, through the crack in the door, I saw the occupant of the house for the first time.

It was just an old lady.

Feeling foolish for hiding from a geriatric, I sighed with relief. She had her back to me, but I could see plainly enough how frail she was. She was tiny, and I knew that underneath the old blue gown that she wore her body would be as thin as her wrists. This must be the old man’s wife. She disappeared from view and I heard her pad into the kitchen. I retreated from the crack in the door and tried to pull myself together, readying lies to use when I stepped from my hiding place and confronted her.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Really. She’s a an old lady. I’m a 23 year old woman. What could she possibly do to me? Rap my ankles with a stick? Throw Worther’s Originals at my head? The worst she could do was shout at me. I’d simply explain that, uh, I thought someone had fallen down so I sneaked in to help them. Yeah, right. Maybe I should just push past her and go out the door. Or I could just apologise, give her her bible page back, and say it wouldn’t happen again.

I heard her move out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Taking a deep breath, I stepped outside my hiding place and turned to face her, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. I didn’t want to give the old dear a heart-attack.

I opened my mouth to speak. She still had her back to me, and leaned upon the banisters. She grasped the wood with her left hand, upon which it creaked and snapped clean in two. I closed my mouth. I watched as the old lady lifted the phone and placed it on the table. I struggled to react. I was still struggling to react when she turned to me.

As she did so, I saw her face. Part of it was still on the bone. She had only one eye, which swung from its socket, somewhere near her nose. It wobbled with every step she took, along with her jaw. Her gumless jaw, containing long, yellow teeth, also wobbled with every step she took. Every step she took, closer to me. A worm slid out of one of her exposed nostrils, and into the other one. With her long, sharp fingernails, she tore fresh strips of wallpaper off the wall. Itching with fear, I backed up against the rusty back door. I felt the nails press into my back. The smell of decaying meat clogged my nose, my mouth, choking me. I heard blood rushing in my ears. I saw my own death.

Then I realised. His calls weren’t like speaking to an answering machine at all. They were exactly like switching off a burglar alarm. She had taken the phone off the hook to make sure she couldn’t be interrupted while dealing with the intruder.

When it reached me, I was paralysed with fear. She reached out with one, frail hand, anddddddddddddddddddddd -

But I Never Meant To Hurt Her

2009-04-17T14:59:00.002+01:00

Sometimes we are hurt by the ones we love.

My Mother vs Technology III

2009-04-16T22:08:00.004+01:00

Today my mother came to me for help. She had been sent a website in the post and wanted to know how to make it appear on the computer.

Me: "You just need to type it into the box." (here I thought my work was complete and turned back to my book. Oh foolish Raevyn, when will you learn)

Mum: "What, the whole thing?"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: "But it’s huge!"

Me: "I am afraid this is the only way."

Mum: *sigh* *taptaptaptaptaptap*

(pause)

Mum: "There’s only a big list of blue lines. Do I press the first one?"

Me: "Huh?” *looks* (turns out Mum had typed the address into the Sky search engine.) “No Mum. I meant that big box at the top left of the screen. You need to type it in there."

Mum: "All of it?"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: "Again?"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: *bigger sigh* *taptaptaptaptaptap*

(pause)

Mum: "The big blue list has come up again! And it says domain not found!"

Me: "..huh?" *goes to look* (Mum has typed it into the Google searchbar at the top right of the screen)

(pause)

Me: "Uh, Mum? I meant the big box on the top left of the screen. Can you see it? It’s next to the Google searchbar?"

Mum: "Where?"

Me: *points* "There."

Mum: "But it’s full of writing."

Me: "Yes. But that is where you need to put it."

Mum: "You mean I have to type it out again?"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: "All of it?"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: "Again??"

Me: "Yes."

Mum: *biggest sigh yet*

(pause)

Mum: "Do I delete all this writing first?"

Me: “NO YOU WRITE ON TOP OF IT LIKE TRACING PAPER” (not really) "Yes."

Mum: *tuts* *taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap*

(pause)

Mum: "I’ve done it and nothing’s happened."

Me: "Huh?" *goes to look* "..did you press enter?"

Mum: "No."

Me: "You need to press enter."

Mum: "Where’s that?"

Me: *is about to snatch the computer away by force*

Mum: "Oh wait, there it is." *tap*

(pause)

Mum: "No wait, that’s space."

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH (on the inside of my head)

Mum: "Maybe if I don’t include the backwards slashes?"

Me: *is broken.*

Eventually we got the webpage up.

Mum: "It’s all about knowing, isn’t it?"

I sold my soul

2009-04-12T10:42:00.002+01:00

I appear to have fallen into deviantart. TheRaevyn13 <--Link

Wot

2009-03-25T15:16:00.003Z

I just woke up covered in blood with cuts down one side of my face and no memory of how they got there.

Possibly the most dramatic introduction to a post that I will ever have. Let me milk it shamelessly.

...

.....

...

.

I'm done. A bit of investigation showed several things -

1) Ever since I stopped caring about my apperance, I have let my nails grow to a stupid extent.

2) The cuts are approximately of the same distance apart as are my fingers.

3) A known side effect of this medicine is, while sleeping, the person gnashes their teeth together and thrashes a bit (only indicated by waking with a saw jaw and bruises on the arms and legs).

I know. I am a super slueth. Nothing gets past me. I have noticed a pattern in the evidence and have concluded that the only possible explanation is -

I'm a werewolf. They always wake up with weird injuries covered in blood with no idea how they got there. However, it is usually someone else's blood.

I feel cheated.

How did I get here

2009-03-16T13:22:00.010Z

Last night I woke up on the stone floor of the living room and I have no idea how I got there. I have no memory or walking in there, or lying down, or closing my eyes. But I woke up there so I think it's safe to assume that I put myself there somehow. Some dim part of my brain informs me that this is not normal behaviour. It’s been telling me this for a long time now but it’s getting quieter as the weeks go on. The same part of my brain also says to me that it’s not normal to feel overwhelming sadness every second of every day. Nor is it normal to cry all the time and wish for nothing more than sleep. Nor is it normal to spend several hours a day talking to oneself and pretending that there is someone else there in the room who cares. Nor is it normal to feel a sense of disappointment upon each waking, simply because one woke. But I'm getting used to it now. Soon the voice will go away, and this will be my normal life.

I still have to wait weeks before I can see a counsellor. Why is it that this country doesn’t treat clinical depression like it does physical diseases? If I had the flu, or an infection, or the measles, no doctor would say to me "Sorry, you must wait four months until help is available." Depression is more debilitating than a hundred illnesses combined. It's like being undead. I am a walking dead girl and I don't belong here. I don't know if I can wait another few weeks.

I've finally checked out. I no longer read, draw, speak, or eat. The weight is dropping off me now. I'm wasting away in body as well as mind. I can't seem to care.

I don't need medicine, and I don't need time off, and I don't need interference from strangers. I need a friend.

I still remember what they used to be like.

It Felt So Wrong, It Felt So Right..

2009-02-17T18:16:00.003Z

I killed Jennifer Schechter. And I liked it. I hope the police don't mind it.

Brad Pitt is a Key

2009-02-12T20:06:00.007Z

Weird things that I might have said in the past week –

"I know what my inside face looks like!"

"Whoaaa. Why does the goat sound like Whoopi Goldberg?"

"I have 28 inches of hair. You put a hat on."

(while talking to a crow) "Show me your profile you bastard!"

"I’m stuck in..wait, where am I? Am I in Swindon? I sort of dozed off. Where the hell am I?"

Things that other people have said to me in the past week that I would like to hear again as often as possible, pleez –

"I would be happy to make you expensive coffee every day, it would be my pleasure."

"God dammit, I just have too many books. Would you like some?"

"Oh dear, your coach has broken down. Don’t worry, we’ll pay for you to have a private taxi to take you to where you need to go."

"Here’s a late Xmas present for you!"

"Could you write me a list of books you want so I can buy you one?"

"Would you like some free beer? No? Maybe some wine?" (this was in a hairdressers!)

Also, Brad Pitt looks like a key. Every time I say this, people sort of blink at me. Sometimes they carry on blinking. Sometimes they say "...what?" No one really understands the similarity until I explain it to them, upon which they see the truth and then they never look back.

Reasons why Brad Pitt is a key -

1) He’s beige. In colouring, as well as interest level.
2 His head, when scrutinised, has exactly the same property as a key that is pointing upwards. From the top of his head down to his ears he’s a rectangle, and then his jaw sort of extends outwards in a big circle. Just like the shape of a key.
3) His face is all dimpled and covered in scores of lines. Like a key. Few things in life are certain, but I know, I know, that if I shoved Brad Pitt’s face into the keyhole of my front door, it would open.

That is all.

!!'''''''''!#@$;(!!!!

2008-12-28T17:33:00.005Z

It has been brought to my attention that there are several more people in the world who need to be fed to my crocodiles.* I am about to produce pictorial evidence which I will use to justify my actions when I force-feed the perpetrators to my reptiles. ** Today, I bring three defendants to trial. The crime? Apostrosoddingphes. Apostrophes, and grievous crimes against grammar and good English.

''''''''''!!!!

I am a stickler; a word popularised by the book 'Eats Shoots & Leaves 'by Lynne Truss. Whenever I see a spelling mistake or an abuse of grammar printed out in an official place, I start to levitate from rage. Well not really, but I do go a funny colour.

Without further ado, I present the three defendants to the court.

Defendant # 1 - A sign in a café located at my University. I beheld it, blinked a bit in surprise, then promptly stole it and ran off with it under my coat. For crimes against grammar, you understand.

Crime – Apostrosoddingphes.

Evidence –

Interesting fact – Crisps and Other Snacks are lesser citizens, and are not awarded the right to own possessions or apostrophes. Crisps and Other Snacks are outraged, and are currently campaigning for equal rights amongst all edible materials.

Verdict - CROCODILE

Defendant # 2 – A card left in a pub, advertising a flower shop that was opening soon.

Crime – Apostrosoddingphes.

Evidence –

Interesting fact – This flower shop caters to teddy bears. Balloons can go elsewhere.

Verdict – CROCODILE

Defendant # 3 – PC World.

Crime – Apostrosoddingphes. Gentle reader, I can assure you that this is not photoshopped. I beheld this with mine own eyes, just a few hours ago. There are four things that I beseech the jury consider before beholding the evidence. Firstly: someone was paid to design this sign. Secondly: someone was paid to proof read it. Thirdly: someone was paid to print it. Fourthly: someone was paid to hang it. Not once during this harmonious line of productivity did someone step in and utter "Er, no."

Evidence –

Interesting fact – Raevyn is not afraid to stand outside of buildings taking photographs while people stare at her and wonder what the heck that woman with the camera is doing

Verdict – CROCODILE CROCODILE CROCODILE CROCODILE

*weeps*

Yes I am an obnoxious stickler. I am also a bored obnoxious stickler. I am okay with this.

To conclude - Aaaaaaarrrrgggg!!

*For those of you who don’t know, when I am rich I am going to live in a castle. And I will have a moat. And in that moat there will be crocodiles, but no water. The logic here dictates that the crocodiles will be so p***ed off by the fact that their environment lacks the one element in which they thrive, and as a result they will be twice as deadly. Angry crocodiles are more dangerous than happy crocodiles.

**Don't argue with my logic.

Untitled

2008-11-30T01:33:00.005Z

I have often wondered what it would be like to die. I think about what it would feel like. Whether it would be like going to sleep, whether it would be blissful like getting really drunk and passing out, whether there would really be a big ol’ white light, and whether your whole life would indeed flash before your eyes like a PowerPoint presentation. But a touch more spiritual, of course.

Wondering doesn’t matter anymore. Soon, I will find out. I don't have much time left. Right now, I am marvelling at how I am lucid enough to type this. And right now, I am marvelling at the fact that I’ve started babbling about nothing before I even get my message across. It’s an important message. If I tell you, it won’t be like I died alone. If I manage to type it quick enough, that is. It’s not that I don’t already feel cold and still inside, I do. I just want people to know what happened to me.

I have a friend from home named Alex. Today, Alex told me a story. He’d been living with his grandmother ever since he was younger, and today, he found out how his parents really died.

They’d been living in Kettering when one night, Alex’s Dad ran into the police station, screaming about a white woman having killed his wife. The police ignored him, of course. Alex lived in a tiny village were urban legends were rife, and the White Woman was just one of them. After the police tired of his ramblings and threw him out of the station, he went to see the local vicar. But at the first mention of the White Woman, the vicar threw him out of the church and locked up.

No one saw Alex’s Dad after that.

The White Woman, well. The urban legend says that she is just that. A young girl of sixteen, dressed in a long white dress. The dress, like her, has the appearance of something that was once exquisite, before its beauty was destroyed by some unknown trauma. Her black hair is long and lank and obscures her features. No one knows what her face looks like. Rumour has it that her eyes are like pits and her mouth is locked permanently open in a soundless scream.

She moves without moving her arms and legs, gliding across the ground at speeds only slightly faster than her victims can run. Once someone learns of her existence, she follows them home, whether they notice her or not. Once she gets to your house, she starts knocking on your door.

Sixteen knocks.

Sixteen slow, deliberate knocks on every door she must pass through, and every mirror she must pass by. She does this until she finds you, and then, you die. And so does anyone else who sees her or is unfortunate enough to otherwise learn of her existence. Sometimes it can take days, even weeks, for her to get to you. But she never stops. She won’t stop.

This is the story that Alex told me in a choked up voice over the phone, not five minutes ago. I listened first with incredulity, which turned into derision, which turned into amusement, right up until the ambulances sped past my window and Alex told me that his grandmother was dead.

“Why are you calling me?” I asked. “Call the police, get out of there!”

And then I heard the knocks. The slow, methodical, calculated knocks, audible even over Alex’s panicked breathing. Sixteen in all. “It’s too late.” He sobbed.

That’s when I heard the door splinter, followed by Alex’s screams. I heard the phone fall, and I stood paralysed for the silence that followed, my knuckles turning white from gripping the receiver so hard. I didn’t snap out of it until a female voice rasped one word into my ear. “WITNESS.”

Then the connection was severed.

This was ten minutes ago now.

Eight minutes ago, I heard a knock at my front door. Feeling sick with fear, I stood and listened. I waited for about twenty seconds, and heard nothing more. Relieved, I told myself that I was hearing things, that my frenzied mind was suffering from auditory hallucinations, that this was all some horrible horrible joke and –

There was another knock. A further twenty second pause, and another. I didn’t need to hang around to know that there would be thirteen more.

I ran into the bathroom and ripped the medicine cabinet off the wall, placing it in the hallway outside my bedroom. I then ran into the spare room and dragged the full length mirror out into the hallway, and placed it next to the cabinet. Finally, I ran back into my room, and tore drawers open and flung the contents onto the floor until I found the hand mirror that I knew was in there somewhere. Placing that next to the other two, I stood upright and listened. The knocking at the front door had stopped. Suddenly, the temperature dropped by a few degrees and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I ran back into my room. I had bought myself minutes. I collapsed at my desk, and began to type.

Since I placed the mirrors outside, my only goal has been to type this as clearly and coherently and as quickly as possible. I will not listen to the knocking at my bedroom door and I don’t know how many have passed and it’s so cold in here and my heart’s turned to ice and my only solace is that I am using my last minutes to tellllllll;kg

WITNESS

This is what I Feel Inside my Head

2008-11-19T01:29:00.013Z

My Mother vs Technology Part II

2008-11-16T20:03:00.000Z

I hate it when people who know nothing about computers or internet culture speak about computers or internet culture. When I rule the world, there are several people on TV who I am going to feed to my crocodiles.

Has anyone seen the show 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles'? For anyone out there who has a black hole where their Science Fiction knowledge should be, it is part of the Terminator franchise. And it's actually really very good. However, one of the screenwriters is on my crocodile list, for the crime of heinously misrepresenting both the internet and the 'yoof' culture.

What is even more confusing, is the fact that I am 99% sure that the majority of the crew of The Sarah Connor chronicles are nerds. And those that aren't nerds are instead hardcore nerds. And nerds like the internet. So how is it possible for a show created and broadcast by nerds to make such a grievious error?

Oh right, the error. Well, picture this. A eight year old boy is sitting at a TV, playing an RPG on what is presumably an XBox and speaking into a headset to another RPGer. So far so good. Right up until the moment the boy speaks. What, gentle reader, does the boy utter to his friend across the headset?

"No, what are you doing, are you a noob? You don't want to get owned! Ah, brb, I gotta afk for a minute."

No. just no. That is a bad scriptwriter. Very bad scriptwriter! Bad! No snausage for you!

When I saw this I grabbed my head in my hands so fast that I accidentally slapped myself. Who did the research for this child's character? Have they been alive for more than five minutes? Who out there honestly thinks that internet abbreviations and slang are really spoken out loud? The day people start saying 'brb' 'afk' and 'lol' in civilised conversation is the day that I 'foatemano'*. What's even more disturbing is the fact that this was written, proofread, edited, printed, distributed, rehearshed, acted, filmed, edited again, and put into the final cut, all without someone stepping in and simply saying "Er, no."

However, the fact that the little boy had to ay eff kay because there was a Terminator at the door about to fill him with bullets is FRICKIN' COOL enough for me to forgive the above error. You get away with it this time, Terminator franchise, because you give me cyborgs.

But. There are others. Oh yes, other criminals who need to meet my crocodiles. Another such offender can be found on the show 'Grumpy Old Women'. It was an Xmas special, and the grumpy old women were complaining about the complexities of giving computers as Xmas presents. All well and good, I suppose that the concept 'plug and play' is just a bit too much for these ladies. I was willing to overlook their technophobia, right up until one of them had the audacity to say -

"And then they give you a playstation that's not compatible with your software and it all goes horribly wrong from there..."

Wot? Wot?! Not compatible with your software? It's a playstation! It's a separate entity! That makes no sense! You plug one end into the wall, you plug the other end into the TV, and you're goddamned off!! Don't you old people start making up problems that don't exist now, or I'm going right outside and getting the hose. There is no software incompatibility anywhere in this equation, except in your miiind. Your mind! A mind soon to be ingested by crocodiles. Crunch.

Now. I realise that I have just spent about ten minutes just ranting about two tiny small teeny misrepresentations of computers in the media. It's not like anyone died. But, it is things such as this that are the reason why people such as my Mother are currently running around yelling about identity theft.

Yes, there is a link, I swear. Allow me to explain.

My Uncle has spent months conducting research, and has created an online family tree for my famiily. It is on Myheritage.com. Now, since my Mother knows as much about technology as chavs do about their ABC, this has been causing her some grief. And by extension (read: her getting scared and yelling at me), it's been causing me grief too.

She is convinced that we are going to have our identities stolen and that we will all be replaced in our sleep. For the tree (which you must be invited specifically by my Uncle to see) lists each family member's name, date of birth, and city/town of birth.

EGADS! Are you shaking yet? I am. Sort of. Well, not really. Okay, no, I'm not shaking.

Naturally, my first response was to say "Tell him to take us off the tree." to which she replied "I don't want to cause offence." no, no of course not, you don't mind shortening my life-expectancy by waking me in the middle of the night by shouting "REPLICANT" but we mustn't cause the distant Uncle offence. No. That would be stupid.

So I tried to tell her that no one has ever had their identity stolen from having someone know their birthday. Foolish, I was, foolish. The conversation played out as thus -

Mum: "Alice, If you were going to steal someone's identity, where is the first place you'd look?"

Me: (is almost knocked unconscious by the obvious rhetoric) "Mum, if I wanted to steal someone's identity, I would go straight to Myheritage.com. So then I could find out that you were born on the 29th May in Nottingham. I would then go straight to the hospital you were born in, and demand that they give me a copy of your birth certificate. AND THEN I WOULD BE YOU."

Okay, I didn't say that. I said

Me: "I would go through your rubbish, because a surprising amount of people throw away both their bank details and national insurance numbers without destroying them first. Then I would spy on your house to determine when you left it, then I would break in and steal your important documents. But it would be much simpler to just phish you, because you don't know what that means and there is a reason I do not let you check your emails unattended." (cue explanation that has nothing to do with fish)

But this was not the right answer, children. The right answer is 'Myheritage.com'. I am an ignorant scamp.

Please. Every time you misrepresent computers in the media, a technophobe goes mad and a Raevyn gets shouted at. Please, think of The Raevyns.

*freak out and tear every mother**cker a new one

Werewolf Clichés

2008-10-21T14:49:00.000+01:00

Since I am both an expert on the representation of werewolves in the media and also a kind, generous soul*, I have decided to compile a list of obligatory werewolf clichés in film, TV, and the odd book. They are ranked from 15 – 1, counting down in order of just how obligatory they are.

Here we go.

15) The werewolf will be introduced to the scene by being hit by a car.
Seen in – Cursed, Ginger Snaps

14) The lead character will suddenly start acting like a wolf without realising they are doing as such, by displaying enhanced senses or eating raw meat.
Seen in – Wolf, Cursed

13) There will be a sequence where the werewolf wakes up in their own bed to see a series of footprints leading from their window to their bed, which begin as werewolf pawprints, then gradually metamorphose to human.
Seen in – The Wolfman, Van Helsing

12) There will be a spooky fortune teller who reads the lead character's palm, gets really scared, refuses to say any more and flees the film. A crystal ball is optional.
Seen in - Cursed, The Wolfman

11) Somewhere in the story, there will be a huge aggressive jock/reclusive insane hermit who screams ‘I’M A BIG HONKING WEREWOLF’ so loudly everyone within the story will suspect them unconditionally and without hesitation. At the end of the film, the aggressive jock will be revealed to be putting on a front in order to conceal an effeminate gay lifestyle, and the insane hermit will be revealed to be a respectable, friendly member of society and may even save the day Boo Radley style.
Seen in – Cursed, Buffy, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

10) The werewolf will be a stereotypical dork complete with the stereotype dorky glasses and clothes, who gets routinely bullied by the bigger kids at school, especially in gym class. Then, after being bitten by the werewolf, he will turn into a cool suave player with perfect vision who goes to aforementioned gym class and kick ass completely. He may also pull the bully’s girlfriend.
Seen in – Buffy, Cursed, Teen Wolf, Ginger Snaps

9) The dog will growl at the werewolf, and will be the only living thing to recognise the beast for what it is.
Seen in - Ginger Snaps, Cursed, Fullmoon

8) That dog will get eaten.
Seen in – Ginger Snaps

7) If the lead character is a female, the werewolf will turn out to be her love interest. Gasp!
Seen in – Cursed, Bitten, The Howling, The Beast, An American Werewolf in Paris

6) The lead character will wake up naked in a forest with no idea how they got there.
Seen in – Buffy, An American Werewolf in Paris

5) The words "Was that some sort of big dog?" or "What was that, some kind of mutated bear?!" will be uttered, even though the monster in question stands on it's hind legs and looks like a frickin' werewolf.
Seen in - Ginger Snaps, Buffy (“Those pesky wild dogs!”)

4) Sentences along the lines of “Don't you just love the moon? It really *looks deep into the camera* brings out the (hinthinthint anvil is being dropped oh god hint it's an anvil hinthinthinthint) beast in me." will be uttered by the werewolf.
Seen in The Wolfman in London, The Wolfman

3) When the enemy werewolf turns, the protagonist will do nothing but stand quite motionless while gaping at the transformation wide eyed. They do this without fail, despite the fact that while the enemy is in mid-transformation he is vulnerable and immobile and that that would really be the best time to shoot him (Nathaniel), stab him (Sarah) or throw acid in his face (whats’erface from the Howling) or just plain runthecrapaway.
Seen in – Underworld, The Company of Wolves, The Howling, Van Helsing, Dog Soldiers

2) The second the protagonist suspects his true nature, they will consult the local library. They will then return with dozens of useful straightforward information books about werewolves, complete with illustrations, diagrams, cures, etc. Take it from this here werewolf obsessive, that does-not-happen. I can only name two published books that treat werewolves as a real possibility and they are both as likely to be found in a library as a chav.
Seen in – EVERY GOSHDAMNED BIT OF WEREWOLF FICTION IN THE UNIVERSE

And at number one -

1) Throughout the entire film we will see nothing but annoying tantalising half-second glimpses of the beast. Toothy-looking-shadow here, shifty pawprint there, lots of growling and roaring off camera, and probably a camera shot from the POV of the werewolf (Cheapest. Substitute. EVER). We will not see the werewolf fully until the last fifteen minutes upon which the beast will be revealed and the entire remaining budget blown in one eighth of a second.
Seen in – Underworld, Cursed, Wolfen, The Company of Wolves, Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps III, An American Werewolf in London, Skinwalkers, Dog Soldiers

I just realised that this would make an excellent drinking game. Get some friends, grab a werewolf film, settle down, and take a drink every time you see one of the above clichés.

I take absolutely no responsibility for liver failure and/or death.

Drink sensibly. Werewolves rock.

*I am very bored

Wordzz

2008-10-19T16:15:00.008+01:00

I like books.

No, really? Will probably be the first response to spring to mind of anyone who has spent more than two seconds in my company. Occasionally I even wonder if I like books more than people, with a few exceptions.

I also like language. I am what is commonly described as (and popularised by 'Eats, Shoots, and Leaves') a stickler. I start to levitate from sheer rage whenever I see a spelling mistake or an abuse of grammar. Well, not really, but I try to. For example, in my hometown, there is a PC World. Outside of this PC world, there is a huge official printed sign with bright purple foot-high letters announcing

TV'S SALE INSIDE

This sign caused me to ponder two things. Since when did a television become sentient enough to be regarded as a citizen, and was therefore granted the right to own possessions? What is this TV selling? Coffee mugs? Sheep? Biscuits? Stocks?

But most of all - how could a huge well-known company such as PC World fail to spot this mistake? If we judge their electronic equipment by the quality of their punctuation, I'm never buying a computer in there again in case it's a shell filled with sawdust. Speaking of being filled with sawdust, who the heck is in charge of their signs? I like to imagine that they're being hounded by dozens of obnoxious sticklers like myself, but the fact that that sign has been up for months leads me to believe that no one cares. What really pisses me off is the fact that I am currently struggling to find work, and somewhere, someone is getting paid money to print big purple signs that say 'TV's'. Aargh!

Before I go, here is a word manufactured by myself that I am going to insist is utilised by anyone who regards books as highly as I do. New words are added to our language every day, and I'd like to think that some day, a crazy woman ranting on the internet might be able to add to this.

Litergasm.
* -verb [litt-ehr-gaz-uhm] A moment of heightened literary pleasure and excitement, experienced during the act of reading. [history] A word created by the devilishly attractive, eternally modest, renowned intellect 'The Raevyn' after experiencing the same situation numerous times - loving a book so very much, that she was rendered unable to verbally articulate just how much. The consequential frustration usually manifested itself in the form of her uttering some kind of fast-paced, vague, distinctly uneloquent statement, resulting in her sounding like a complete moron. This in turn would make her even more frustrated, and sometimes even lead to her smacking the person she conversed with over the head with the book in question.

"Its just so...so...goddamned AWESOME, man!" [WHACK]

Now, thanks to this word, less headaches are caused. One can merely say

"The Time Traveler's Wife gave me a litergasm!"
"Northern Lights gave me my very first litergasm."
"Harry Potter really failed to perform." etc etc.

If anyone reading this has access to the official publication of the dictionary, copy and paste this into it, pleez?

I have been accused of sexualising books in the past. I can't imagine why.

If Microsoft made Terminators..

2008-10-04T03:44:00.003+01:00

My Mother vs Technology - updated

2008-08-01T00:03:00.011+01:00

Warning – Epic prolonged rant is imminent. If you are of a nervous desposition, please redirect your browsing for this evening now.

I cannot hold this in any longer. I am on the verge of imploding. Now, I seldom reveal personal details about any of my family members on my blog, but my patience has now been beaten senseless and I need a good vent.

My Mother. And computers. Are not. A good mix.

It’s okay that she thinks that downloading and uploading are the same thing.

It’s okay that she doesn’t know there’s a difference between hardware and software. (“This software feels hot!”)

It’s okay that she thinks that 1000 bytes is “a lot of memory.”

It’s okay that she is unable to check her emails unless I locate the website, sign her in, and open the inbox for her.

It’s okay that she tries to plug the keyboard she bought in 1985 into the laptop she bought in 2005.

It’s okay that she thinks that touchpad size is correlated with the resolution size of all pictures stored on the computer.

It's okay that she just cannot recharge the mp3 player my sister gave her for Xmas, because she can never remember how to. (you plug it in)

It is also okay that she thinks that anything computery is therefore inherently valuable and that the bigger it is, the more valuable it must therefore be.

It is not quite as okay that she thinks that because she is the mother and I am the daughter, that anything she says about computers is right and anything I say is wrong.

I love my Mother very very much. And I have been told that I have the patience of a Saint. But I feel as if any Saint who was exposed to events such as these would renounce his god and spit on the lepers.

Before I get yelled at, I realise that the older generation are not as accustomed to computers as we are, and therefore cannot be expected to take to them so well. But before I go on, I must point out that my Mother works on a computer at work, and has done for decades. Please, gentle reader, bear this point in mind while you read my sorry tale of woe and sheer ‘I want to hit my head against this wall now’ frustration.

I feel these tales simply must be told. I have always said, ‘someone really needs to write a book about the things my Mum says about computers.’ and since I’m not the head of a publishing house, I’ll do the next best thing and chronicle it on the web instead. The following stories are all true and all unedited. What is to follow is a list of the top six most recent events which illustrate the special relationship (which I am forced to mediate) between my Mother and computers. I have arranged them in order of – as you eloquent internet denizens would say – sheer OMG factor.

Now, gentle reader, without further ado, here are the top six.

My Mother vs Technology # 6 – Msn

Setting – The Living Room. I am using Mum’s laptop, and she asks if she can use it to check her emails. I close down everything I am doing and sign out of msn. However, I forget to close msn and leave it on the screen. I hand her the computer.

Mum – “How do I sign into this?” (Mum has confused msn with sky emails and thinks her emails lie behind the msn sign-in page)

Me – (as the thought of my Mother loose on my msn account fills me with dread) You don’t sign into that, that’s msn, not sky emails. Just minimise it.”

Mum – “How do I do that?”

Me – “Never mind. Just close it.”

Mum – “How do I do that?”

Me – “Press the big red X.”

Mum – “Where is that?”

Me – “In the top right-hand corner.”

Here a look of utter confusion crosses Mum’s face. I run away.

Did I mention she uses a computer in her employment?

My Mother vs Technology # 5 – The Computer Hacker

Setting – The kitchen table, my house.

Introduction - I walk into the kitchen to find my Mother frowning over our phone bill. Apparently it is much higher than usual. I look at it and find this to be true.

Mum – “Our phone bill has gone up by a hundred and eight pounds. You need to stop sending emails.”

Me – “What?”

Mum – “You need to stop sending emails. It’s costing us money.”

Me – “Mum, emails don’t work like that.”

Mum – “Obviously they do, look at the phone bill, it’s huge! And that’s only happened since you started sending emails!”

Me – “Hotmail is free. I can guarantee you that is not why the phone bill has gone up.”

Mum – “Nothing in this life is free. Your emails are costing us money, don’t send any more.”

I get a small headache, and pick up the phone bill. I notice that the internet has been used when no one in our family is using it, for example, repeatedly for several hours in the middle of the night. I figure out that someone must have hacked into our account. I point this out.

Me – “Mum, someone is using our internet connection, look at these times. No one was using it at three in the morning. Someone is using our account.”

Mum – “That’s impossible, it’s hotmail.”

Me – “Mum, hotmail is a free service! I am not getting charged for it!”

Mum – “Alice, you’re so naïve. There’s no such thing as a philanthropist who is going to let you use the service for free. You’ve been tricked.”

Me – “…”

(for future reference, it is quite likely that the four accounts to follow this one will also end with me in stunned silence)

Conclusion – Someone was hacking into our account and costing us money. They did it in the middle of the night so we wouldn’t notice. This was continued until we changed internet providors.

Hotmail is still free.

My Mother vs Technology # 4 mp3s

The setting – Mum has requested I download her some albums and burn them onto a CD. I am perched in the hallway downloading The Eurythmics, when I discover that one of the files I have downloaded is corrupted. Mum walks in.

Mum – “How’s it going?”

Me – “It’s going well, one of the files is corrupt but I’ll find another one.”

Mum – “Ah yes, that’ll be because some of those old songs aren’t compatible with modern computers.” (here Mum is telling me that mp3s of songs that were released in the 80s will not be compatible with computers made in the 2000s. Yes. Mp3s have an age. A real tangible age, and they do deteriorate. Like records. What, you thought that mp3s and records were different things? Tch. Shame on you.

Me – “…” (stunned silence no 2)

My Mother vs Technology # 3 Photoshop

The setting – Mum discovers some photos on her computer that she has been looking for. After informing me that she had been looking for them for months (despite only having approximately twenty photos on the computer in total. I resisted the urge to ask whether she had been sifting through the hardware with her fingers) she asks me to burn them onto disc, so she can deliver them to our neighbour, who needs them for a book she is writing. Disc is delivered, neighbour is happy. The next morning, I sit at the table to eat breakfast, when neighbour walks in.

Neighbour – “The pictures are great, but four of them aren’t showing up, they just look like a instead.”

Mum – “That’s because it’s photoshop. It causes problems.” (Neither me, my Mum, nor my neighbour own photoshop. Here Mum has confused the drawing and photo-editing program with a regular windows folder. Yes. She hears photoshop, and literally thinks ‘a photo shop’ ie, a device for storing photos. And is trying to explain that this is the cause of the problem to my neighbour. Help me?)

Me – “Photoshop has nothing to do with it. It’s easy to fix, you just right click on it and open it with windows picture viewer.”

Neighbour – “Ah yes, I remember now. Thank you!”

Mum – “Alice will fix it!”

Neighbour – “No it’s okay, I unders-”

Mum – “She’ll fix it.”

Neighbour – “There’s no need, I know how to do it now, and I don’t want to interrupt her, she’s trying to have breakfast.”

Mum – “She’s happy to!” (Mum ignores my mutinous expression and half finished toast)

Neighbour – “But I don’t nee-”

Mum – “It’s no bother. Really! (Mum shoves me out the front door)

Conclusion – Mum has mistaken this tiny problem for an epic, large scale computer malfunction that no one but her can see, and believes that professional help is needed. I walked round to my neighbours house, pressed two buttons, breathed a bit, then went home.

My Mother vs Technology # 2 The Virus

The setting - A bedroom, our PC. The PC has slowed almost to a stop. This is due to the hard drive being too full to continue functioning. I attempt to explain this after Mum accuses me of breaking the computer.

Me - "The C Drive is completely full. It can't run when there's no memory left on it. We need to install more memory on it."

Mum - "It's a virus! You've infected it with a virus!"

Me - "No, I haven't. It's just too full to carry on. If you'll let me - "

Mum - "It's a virus!"

Me - "Look, it even says it on the screen. Here is a box saying 'The hard drive is full, functionality may be impaired. Please install more memory or delete unwanted files.'

Mum - "It's a virus! You don't understand, these things are tricky, you've done it and you don't even know."

Me - (meekly points to the huge box on screen saying 'The hard drive is full, functionality may be impaired. Please install more memory or delete unwanted files.')

Mum - "It's a virus!"

Me - *POINTPOINTPOINT*

Mum - "It's a virus."

Me - *massages temples*

Mum insists we pay to have a computer engineer come round to look at it. He arrives and switches on the computer.

Computer guy - "The hard drive is full."

Mum - "Oh."

Me - *waits for an apology*

I am still waiting.

My Mother vs Technology # 1 The Plug

The setting - As previously mentioned, my Mother believes that anything computer related is inherently valuable, and must be kept. And the bigger it is, the more so. This fact has resulted in us owning two huuuuuuge monitors from the early 90s (huge monitors, I mean huge – think “There will come a time when personal computers may be smaller than your house.” sort of era), two ancient keyboards, two ancient mice, two ancient printers, AND NOT ONE PC TO USE THEM ALL ON.

Ahem. Anyway, I finally convinced her that since we can’t use them and they stopped manufacturing those ones sometime in the last millennium, it would be space-efficient for us to take them to the tip. I have to use every muscle in my body just to lift one of the two monitors, but eventually I get them into the boot of the car. I also collect all the lone loose wires and plugs that she has accumulated that are no longer in use. As I am closing the boot, Mum stops me and removes a short black plug, with a large triangular socket. The plug has no purpose, it does not connect to anything in our house and looks as old as I am.

Me – “What are you doing?”

Mum – “Saving this.”

Me – “Why, what are you going to do with it?”

Wait for it

Wait for it

Wait for it

Mum – “It’s a perfectly useable plug.”

Me – “…” (Here I die a little inside, this time for real. I think one of my kidneys has stopped working.)

At that moment I wanted to grab the plug, bite it in two, and scream “It’s not useable now!!”

(I didn’t)

The conclusion – Mum believes that a plug, any plug, that is not dilapidated is useful and can be easily attached to and power any electronic device that you choose to use it on. Kettles? Laptops? MP3 players? TVs? We’ll just use this perfectly useable plug here, it’ll do them all.

Fin

Edit: New developments in the ongoing battle between my Mother and Technology.

The setting: Comet. Mum is going into an electronics shop to buy a new camera. I go with her and maintain a close watch on her activity, so as to ensure that she does not come home with a sandwich maker by mistake. While this is not impossible, my real concern is that a saleperson will find her and talk her into spending far too much on a camera that has more flashy accessories than she wants, needs, or understands.

Salesman - "This camera here is by Karl Zeiss."

Mum - "That's a good make."

Me - "Mum, neither you or I have ever heard of Karl Zeiss."

Mum - "No, but it sounds like a good make."

Me - *breathes*

Salesperson - "This camera here is by Sony, and is boasts 7 megapixels."

Mum - "Oh, that does sound good."

Me - "Mum, do you know what a pixel is?"

Mum - "No."

Me - *asks the salesperson to explain to her what a pixel is*

Mum - "Look at this one, for just £30 more this one has mp3 playability!"

Me - "You don't need that."

Mum - "But it's only £30 more, and I don't mind spending extra money to get a good camera."

Me - "You've already got an mp3 player! Your other daughter bought it for you at christmas and I spent two whole days loading your CDs onto it!"

Mum - "Oh, yes!" (had completely forgotten)

Me - "Wait." (here I get suspicious) "Do you know what an mp3 is?"

Mum - "No."

Me - (fantasises about being far away)

I Live!

2008-06-16T19:35:00.005+01:00

Upon request from a vast, simply incalculable amount of devoted fans (a whole two people) I have decided to add an update to my blog. This is to prove that I still reside on this mortal coil.

Unfortunately, right at this moment I have bugger all to say. Oh, I just completed a degree, but I'll wait until results day to either rave about it or cry. In different news, I have been plagued with a metallic taste in my mouth for two days. Naturally, I consulted the great and infallible oracle (the internetz) on the subject, and it transpires that there are many many possible reasons for a metallic taste in the mouth. These include -

Mercury poisoning
Eating fish
A rotten tooth
Damage to the tongue
A kidney infection
Electric toothbrushes (???)
Painkillers
Eyedrops
A poorly manufactured filling
Electromanetic fields
Nosebleeds
Hyperparathyroidism
Leukaemia
Cancer

or

Pregnancy.

So right now I could potentially be dying from about ten different things, which sounds terribly exciting. If I do die, I wish for my epitaph to say that I died in a violent fight to the death with a vicious killer robot sent back from the year 2029 on a mission to eliminate mankinds' only chance for survival in the vicious apocalpytic battle to occur 'twixt man and machine in a 21 years time. Say he had me in a headlock, and we all thought it was hopeless until I jammed a home-made bomb into his metal spine and detonated it, sacrifing my life but saving humanity in the process.

Not death by an electric toothbrush. Please. Thank you.

...

Yuk. I feel like I'm chewing a spoon.

What does Raevyn have in common with Jodie Marsh?

2007-12-02T21:05:00.001Z

An hour ago, my flatmate walked into my room and asked to borrow my computer. I acquiesce, seeing as hers had recently gone spectacularly kaput. Up until one hour ago, I trusted my flatmate.

While I sit on my bed, leaving dear cohabitual friend to her own devices, the following exchange plays out.

Ginny: "What's your email address?"

Me - (gives her my email address)

Ginny *taptaptap* "When's your birthday?"

Me - "The ninth of March."

Ginny - *taptaptaptaptap*

Me - "...are you stealing my identity?"

Ginny (shiftily) - "Nnno..."

Me - "What are you doing?"

Ginny - "Nnnnoothiiing."

Me - "......"

Ginny - *taptaptaptaptaptap*

Me - "What are you doing?"

Ginny - *tiny sound of mirth*

Me - "...."

(pause)

Ginny - "She really needs to update this site."

Me - "Who needs to update what site?"

Ginny - "hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Me - (finally loses patience and jumps up to see what's so funny)

Ginny - "Congratulations, you're now a proud member of the Jodie Marsh fansite."

Me - "No! I trusted you!!"

http://www.jodiemarsh.tv/home/index3.cfm?ccs=22&cs=53

Join now.

Quotes of the Week, part 6

2007-10-22T20:37:00.000+01:00

James - "I can use good tense!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "It's really...I don't know. What's the word? Unconvenient."

Rhiannon - "...you mean inconvenient?"

Me - "You can tell I'm an English student, can't you?"

-------------------------------------------------------------

"Mike - "I have a penis - I oppress women!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me - (picks up watch and stares)

Rhiannon - "It's twenty to two."

Me - (is puzzled) It's ten past six...

Rhiannon - "The watch is upside down!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Debbie - "You look so miserable."

Me - "I always look miserable."

Debbie - "But you never look this sad!"

Me - This is just my face."

Debbie - "You look so despondent!"

Me - "This is my face!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "I smell like bleach and my room smells like rabbit skeleton. I've just repeated the exact same forty-minute long task 13 times. Is this what insanity feels like?"

Sophie - "I'm crazy too. I just annotated my entire school from above."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Diana - "Oh, you exquisite little tart!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Sophie - "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha - that's not funny - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Random mustachioed scary man - "I'm stiff as a broom handle and aching for a spend."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Luke - "If only someone could invent a natural resource that could do that!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me, on feeling Luke's bicep - "Oh my god! That's actually really really good!"

Luke - "Thanks for sounding so incredibly surprised."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ginny - "WHAAAATT! WHAAT IS THAAAT? I've just seen your bum!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me (about a member of the Climbing Society) "Tell him to go shag a rock."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me, upon being repeatedly kicked in the foot by James - "James! Stop it! That's not very chivalrous of you, kicking a lady!"

James - "I've HAD it with chivalry! You can have chivalry, or you can have equality. Which is it?!"

Me - "I'll have chivalry."

James - "No vote for you!"

-------------------------------------------------------------

Aaron - "I'm freezing."

Me - "I'm too hot."

Aaron (without missing a beat) - "You were born hot."

Me - "Smooooth!"

--------------------------------------------------------------

Debbie - "You're my only feminine influence."

Me (looking down at mens clothes) - "This is a sorry state of affairs."

--------------------------------------------------------------

Siobhan - "But do you think that the alien is male or female?"

Me (trying to be clever) - "Well, he is an extraterrestrial. Therefore, I think it would be unfair to force our own conceptions of gender and - "

Siobhan - "You said he!"

Me "...bugger."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Me (after reading Jane Austen) - "I find you quite lovely, and, by the readiness and propriety of your discourse, it is clear that you are a lady of exceedingly good manners, and of a most agreeable disposition. Therefore, I am inclined towards you. NOW TAKE THE BOOK AWAY FROM ME."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke - "I exercise my hand every day!"

Unicorns and Leopardman and death threats in unreadable font...oh my

2007-09-16T21:12:00.000+01:00

It's time for some new art. Apologies for the whole lack of anything resembling large quantities of writing as of late - it appears I'm just not pissed off enough to write things about it at the moment. If you want to help, you could trip me the next time you see me. Or tell me that werewolves suck and ravens are ugly, or that The Terminator is a low-brow generic sci fi action movie of little intelligent content - all things guaranteed to send me into a small towering rage. Or just steal my hat.

Don't steal my hat. I will kill you.

In fact, if you do steal my hat, I'll kill you, and then resuscitate you before the pivotal eight minutes have passed in order to ensure that you don't acquire brain damage. That way you'll be of sound mind and perfectly conscious as I kill you harder.

Anyway, I have done absolutely sod all interesting, so here's a pretty pikter instead. This MSPaint adventure was a birthday gift for a woman very important to me. This is Uni

Uni <--- Link

Uni is based on a plasticine model that was completed a year ago, for said woman's previous birthday Link Link2

Lines

Colour

Closeup1

Closeup2

Closeup3

And secondly, there's a new art trade too. And when I say new, I mean ancient, but I've only just uploaded it. It's in the gallery to the left. Link

And finally, I would like to include a small shoutout and a general internet wave for charmed and DV and MM and foo and Stripes and Charlie, they know who they are. And any other otherworlders (hee...other otherworlders) who frequent.

Quinn, The Big Gay Lion

2007-07-17T00:37:00.000+01:00

Just like the title says, this here is Quinn, the Big Gay Lion. Quinn took approximately 642123914 years to draw. And looks like an overgrown Pokemon. Materials = MSPaint, a touchpad, no life to speak of, and an unhealthy amount of manga influence.

That is the story of Quinn.

Quinn <--- Link

I Can't Feel My Hands

2007-06-13T19:43:00.001+01:00

Imagine, if you will, the voice of the tiny cute cuddly baby Simba.

"Uncle - Uncle Scar? Why are you looking at me like that? What - what are you doing, Uncle Scar? No, please don't eat me...No! No! NnnnooOo0o0o0o0o0!!!"

*CHOMP*

It makes such pretty music in my ears

Scar Says Rah. <--- Link

Anyway, art update time. That is what Scar would look like if he was beefed up on muscles, and powerful like his brother. Or maybe Rafiki put steriods in his zebra, I don't know. What, you want a story too? All done in MSPaint with a touchpad, naturally, to be in perfect accordance with my 'I like to make art out of shit materials'™ rule. Took about a month and a half in between University work.

Now I'm going to go and try and get the feeling back in my fingers so that I can draw again. My hands have been transformed into arthritic looking claws.

Furthermore, I have added a new gallery to the left, containing my life portraits drawn so far. This leads me to my next point - I am addicted to drawing. I am unable to stop. I feel the need to continue drawing pictures, and if I stop, I get twitchy. I am entirely powerless to resist it's whims. This means I am, in effect, drawing's bitch.

Any words of sympathy, even if they're just unintelligible cooing noises, are very much appreciated.

Dredgirl

2007-05-06T17:23:00.000+01:00

This is dredgirl. Say hello.

Dredgirl here was drawn by Josh in MSPaint. He showed it to me, but then announced that he had no further plans to finish it. This horrified me, because it's such a pretty drawing and begs to be finished. So I took it and drew over it (again in Paint), spending an unholy amount of time finishing the drawing, to how she looked in my head. Dredgirl ended up being an accidental art collaboration between me and Josh. This is the result.

Now that I have completed Dredgirl, Josh has announced his plans to finish his drawing. He'll probably do a much better job than I did. This may or may not cause me to cry and not speak to him for a week. I believe he did this on purpose to torment me. He regurlarly makes the most valiant efforts to push me over the edge and into welcome insanity so that he can have my werewolf film collection. He does not yet know that I have ordered them all to be destroyed upon event of my death or mental breakdown. He'll find out soon.

Dredgirl says hi.

Yes I damn well know that her thumb is on backwards.

No I can't be bothered to change it.

Yes it is meant to be like that.

Yes I do know what human hands look like, I even have two of my own.

I am easily confused. and I got confounded by the shape of the original sketch. Leave me alone, I'm only small.

.

2007-05-05T12:48:00.000+01:00

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

- Edna Millay

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Millay/Dirge_without_Music.html

Quotes of the Week, part 5

2007-04-29T19:27:00.000+01:00

Sophie - "Where were we?"

Me - "I was brandishing my somewhat painful forearms and shamelessly looking for sympathy for the injuries that my own desire to create has wrought upon me."

Sophie - (is sympathetic)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Benny - "You frogged it! You frogged it!!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "I think I may have accidentally glued my unicorn to a plate. This is most unprofessional. And also not the first time."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Benny - "Having balls is like having breasts in your pants."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "The bin needed a headbutt, you reminded it that it's mortal."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Benny - "Aw, you'll be out here waiting for me with warm arms!" (pause) Wait a second..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh - "For a while I had a thing (haven't done it in ages) but if I wanted to slightly unnerve somebody for some reason, I would lean in and say in a weird voice '...imagine a laughing poodle...with human hands.'"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh - "Also, I have aniseed. Mmmmm...aniseed."

Me - "Oh! I forgot to look for aniseed! Damn you!"

Josh - "MMMMMM I'M SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE DELICIOUSNESS MMMMM!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh - "All this is pretty much entirely your fault."

Me - "Oh, you always blame me for everything regardless of whether I had anything to do with it!"

Josh - "Duh."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me - (about The L Word) "Every time I look at it, all I can think is - 'Shane is fucking the Terminatrix.' And then I think 'No! Shane! Get away from her! She'll kill you! She'll kill yoouu!!'"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh - (about the Terminator) "Your robot phobia is kind of cute. I never found them creepy. Metal skeletons just kind of look a little too corny to be scary."

Me - "Maybe. I expect he'd give you a little chill if he was crushing your skull between his fingers, though. As these antisocial things are prone to do."

Josh - "Well yes if he was actually in the process of killing me I'd probably be a little upset. If Winnie the Pooh was choking me to death with an inner tube, I'd feel the same way. Doesn't mean Winnie is creepy. Although the idea of him murdering people kind of is..."

Me - "I think you'll be okay. Winnie doesn't have opposable thumbs, as far as I can see."

Josh - "Well potentially he could just grip the garroting wire between two specially designed pads and use that to kill me."

*pause*

Josh - "Anyway."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josh - (about not having a nickname) "You're holding me back."

Me - "Nuh uh!"

Josh - "Yuh huh! It's your lack of willingness to indulge in crazy shenanigans that has resulted in my not having a nickname! Way to go."

Me - "I indulge in crazy shenanigans! I...sometimes put two teabags into the tea. That's a shenanigan and it's crazy!!"

Josh - "See!? That's exactly what I'm talking about! Why don't you ever want to indulge in crazy shenanigans like that with me?! You never put two teabags into the pot when I'm around, do you?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "I'm not sure why I'm talking about Buffy so much, I'm feeling nostalgic, I think."

Sophie - "Nah, that's fine! I'm sure you need to exercise your Buffy muscle. You've hardly talked about it."

Me - "It's a big muscle, definately. (remembering that Sophie loves puns) Now if you were a bloke, you'd make some godawful pun. But it is. I know lots of stuff, and it must out sometimes."

Sophie - "Alice, you should know that, apparently, the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body. Therefore, I am perfectly able to make a godawful pun and remain entirely female. And indeed, entirely gay."

Me - "...that's amazing."

The Lion King and Tall Men

2007-03-28T18:32:00.000+01:00

In recent developments, I have given myself Repetitive Strain Injury by drawing this bastard with a touchpad and MSPaint -

"Long live the King!" <--- Link

No really, my left arm swelled up. It hurt like fuck, if you'll excuse my french.

And I have also learned that despite the fact that Colin is about six foot tall, he can still fold himself into a space as large as a two pence piece. I, for one, am confused.

I have updated my MSPaint doodles gallery on the left, and now I am now going to go and try and get the feeling back in my arms.

Quotes of the Week, part 4

2007-03-19T00:49:00.001Z

Me - "I wish I could drink beer, or lager. There's something so manly about sitting there with a pint."

Debbie - "Yeah, because you're so manly."

Me - "I'm butcher than you."

Debbie - "Are not."

Me - "I so am!"

Debbie - "At least I can drink pints."

Me - "You squeal when the wind blows!"

Debbie - "I shout at the football!"

Me - "I'm wearing men's shirts, Debbie. You're wearing a girly blouse."

Debbie - "It's fashionable for women to do that at the moment, I read it in Elle!"

Me - "...I'll arm wrestle you for it."

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James - "No-where does it say that Jesus never bit ears."

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Sophie - "Torturous wench!"

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Josh - "Well I'm glad you're alive anyway. You may be short, but I'd miss you if you weren't around. Of course you're so short sometimes I miss you when you are around. Huh-HOOO! Ohhh...zing! God I'm entertaining..."

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Luke: "Hitler was a bit of a prick."

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Sophie: "Fuck the z."

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Josh - "It's true; you can't tempt the Universe like that. I'm surrounded by ten angry drunken trombone players right now. My fault for leaving the window open, really."

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Sophie - "Shabbat is just a wank waiting to happen."

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Me - "How scary would an invisible bear be? Imagine getting smacked ten feet into the air by something you couldn't see!"

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James - "She's so skinny, I call her fat all the time."

Me - "You have such a way with girls."

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Josh - (about Watership Down) "I really think you ought to go into animation. You have the right ideas; there aren't any new animated films that are absolutely soul destroying. Well, unless you count anime...which I kind of don't. You should lead the new wave of films that completely destroy young children, and turn them into people like...like...well like us, frankly."

Me - "Hat wearing long haired layabout tea drinking artists? Hee, look, I just summed both of us up nicely."

Josh - "Haha, that's great, I should put that on a business card. And it's true; at the most basic descriptive level, the only difference between you and me is gender and the amount of stripes...and how short you are."

Me - "Yes, yes, we can't leave my height out of it, that's true."

Josh - "The only time we can leave your height out of anything is when we simply overlook it because it's too diminutive to notice."

Me - "Two height jokes! That's your half hourly quota achieved."

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Me - "Can I call you Shaggy?"

James - (gives stupid grin)

Me - "Because you look like him!"

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Me - "I feel that my drawing of Fiona is not going as well as yours or Siobhan's did, I'm a bit worried. Drawing a bad picture is fine when no one else sees it, but it's embarassing for someone else to find out that artists do bugger up sometimes. We keep these things secret and pretend to the world that we are perfect, superior, flawless beings!"

Ben - "Kill her."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "It's okay, I'll see you another time."

Aaron - "But it'll be damn hard on me. Another lunchtime with no Raevyn to put me in my place."

Me - "Aw, you say the nicest things! I'll be around to put you in your place throughout the holidays."

Aaron - "Cool. I'm gonna be working like the bastard son of a wayward milkman, so verbal abuse will provide a nice break."

Me - "Wonderful, I will do my best to be mean and abuse you as often as possible, because I'm nice that way."

Aaron - "You really are. Lovely and nice in the most beautifully nasty way."

Me - "You're a proper charmer, you are. No one else calls me evil."

Aaron - "Ah, but they're just fools, mignons of a lesser abyss. Whereas I am the Prince Charming of Darkness, and of course you are the leviathan of a cruel sea of love. If the others can't see the evil in you, they don't merit its wonders."

Me - "You're a very handsome Pan Troglydyte yourself."

Aaron - "Aww, hearing you say that just makes me want to beat my hairy chest and club the nearest bystander with pride."

Me - "I bet you say that to all the girls."

Aaron - "You're special. I usually only say it when I've clubbed them over the head and dragged them by their hair into my handsome cave."

Me - "But you're worried that I'd club you back?"

Aaron - "And then some..."

Me - "It's true, I do have a stick specially for beating people. Just ask Luke."

Aaron - "I saw the bruises."

The Eurovision Song Contest 2007

2007-03-18T15:25:00.000Z

In case you didn't know, last night the UK's entry for the Eurovision song contest of 2007 was officially announced. I say 'announced' and not 'voted upon' because I am still happily in denial that it was in fact a democratic group decision on behalf of the country that I live in. I - I just refuse to believe it.

We had a choice between a fairly mediocre, sentimental, yet quite acceptable ballad sung by an inoffensive, ordinary looking brunette. God help me, I could have been happy to have something like that representing us, at least it was respectable. Here it is -

But, naturally, she lost. She was defeated in a fair vote by four adults dressed in baby blue PVC, standing with their arms outstretched like aeroplanes, singing "Ba, ba da, ba, bada. Ba ba ba ba, ba da." to a synthetic drumbeat.

...I cannot encompass how much I wish I was joking.

The following people you are about to witness, are representing our nation. You'll also be pleased to know, that they go by the name of 'Scooch' (I know I was). I am obliged to warn you - it's not suitable for anyone above the age of thirty six months.

Once the initial shock has dissipated and the despair has worn off, I have a few questions. Why do both the women look so easy? Why do both the men look like rampant homosexuals? What does that man mean when he asks whether sir would like some salted nuts, and follow that by producing something tube shaped (that I cannot for the life of me identify), and ask whether sir would like something to suck on? I've been on a plane before, and I swear don't remember any of that. And finally, would we dislike them any less if they were not called 'Scooch'? I hardly think so. Steps are calling, they want their image back.

I'm not really that fussed, as I stopped giving a flying rat's arse about kareoke competitions since they put a new one on TV every single week, international or no.

I'm torn, I'd like your opinions please. Do we prefer Scooch, or Daz Sampson representing our nation? In case you're lucky and forgot who he was, here is a reminder. He was a middle aged white rapper who happened to be named after a washing powder, backed up by a cohort of underage cockney schoolgirls. I can't really see how one could forget a thing like that, except as a defence mechanism. Lyrical highlights included "If you treat the kids fine, they won't do the time" and "Do you listen to your teacher? No, I don't think so!" and my personal favourite, "Saywot, saywot!"

If I remember correctly, we did get a few more votes than we did the year prior to that. Not surprising, considering the year before that, we got nil points for the first time in history, so it's a little bit difficult to do any worse. I am still convinced that Daz's small success was based entirely on the UK's paedophile vote. If we are to even come close to winning this year, it will be entirely thanks to the collective under-eight vote. Let's just hope that the bill-payers give their permission.

Why can't we be as cool as Finland?

Whyyyy?

Wordsworth, and other things that merit equal excitement

2007-02-28T16:57:00.000Z

Today, Raevyn is reading Prelude, by Wordsworth. Essentially his autobiography, in the form of the biggest sodding poem you've ever seen. I know that you, my devoted fans, (all two of you) are insanely jealous of my good fortune right now.

And now, an educational supplement. A new feature, if you will. The word for the week, is -

Obstreperousness. adj - Noisy, boisterous, defiant, or resisting control in an unruly manner.

"Put that knife down, Jason. You're being horribly obstreperous."

"Those WWF Wrestlers are terrible obstreperous fellows, aren't they?"

"Hannibal, you really need to stop eating people. It is awfully obstreperous."

Literary Awards

2007-02-07T16:23:00.001Z

I consider it due time that I celebrated the most elavated, eloquent, wonderful, and plain damn unnecessary language that I have come across in my life so far. So I made up awards. Here are the victors thus far -

Most Overbearing Description of a Squirrel Ever Written Award -

'A squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment, - for a squirrel is such a choleric and humourous little personage that it is hard to distinguish between his moods, - so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head. It was last year's nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth.' - The Scarlet Letter, chapter XIX, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Best Way of Saying - "I thought." Award

"I ruminated on the best possible means of ascertaining the truth of my conjunctures." - Matthew Lewis, The Monk.

The Most Romantic Thing to Say to Your New Wife Award -

"Thou sink of iniquity, thou fiery faced quintessence of all that is abominable!!" - Edgar Allan Poe, Loss of Breath.

The Paragon of Mental Stability award -

"True! Nervous - very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am: but WHY will you say that I am MAD?" - Edgar Allan Poe, The Telltale Heart.

The little Ray of Sunshine Award -

"A sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit...I looked upon the scene before me - upon the bleak walls upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime." - Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher.

The Best Way of Saying "He's a nice bloke" Award -

"I do not attempt to deny, that I think very highly of him - that I greatly esteem him, that I like him." - Eleanor, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen.

Best Way of Saying "Nice spuds." Award -

"What excellent potatoes. It's many years since I've had such an exemplary vegetable." - Mister Collins, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (okay, it was the film version, but I still get points for suffering through it)

Best Way of Saying "Can I have a look?" Award -

"Permit me to ascertain whether there are any breaks?" - Willoughby, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen. (okay, it was the film version again...but I read parts of the book!)

And finally, The Biggest Fuckoff Sentence Ever Written and Published Known to Mankind (and no I'm not making it up) -

"I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk eyes flashing from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the night for charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every one beseechingly in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation, some lost hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the glances of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided; women of the town of all kinds and of all ages - the unequivocal beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled with filth - the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags - the wrinkled, bejewelled and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort at youth - the mere child of immature form, yet, from long association, an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her trade, and burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards innumerable and indescribable - some in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes - some in whole although filthy garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces - others clothed in materials which had once been good, and which even now were scrupulously well brushed - men who walked with a more than naturally firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every object which came within their reach; beside these, pie-men, porters, coal- heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who sang; ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and all full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye." - Edgar Allan Poe, The Man of the Crowd

I tried reading that out loud once, I passed out.

Quotes of the Week, Part 3

2007-01-26T20:50:00.000Z

Me - “ I bought her a Zippo for Christmas. Now I have a moral dilemma. If I give it to her, there is a very strong chance that she will burn down the entire city of Bath. And when she does, it will technically be my fault.”

Colin - “Hmm.”

Me - “Can we live without Bath?”

Colin - “Sure we can, we’ll just have showers instead. Ah HAH HAH HAH HAAAA!”

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Sophie – “I’m inclined to think that all females should go around in a state of semi-voicelessness.”

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Me - “I’ve got knives, you’ve got fire, together, we have – “

Rhiannon - “Juvenile Detention?”

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James - "I set fire to a girl with a broken leg once." (James then proceeds to explain why this is true.)

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Me - “There’s a reason why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best, most believable, and most successful ever role was a robot.”

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Rhiannon - “I’ve been a boy for so long, I really want to be a girl for just one day.”

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Josh - “I don’t like your sympathy. I don’t understand why you equate compassion with physical pain. It’s weird.”

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Rhiannon - “You’ve got noods!”

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Ady - “Whooo! Who needs weed when you’ve got Electric Plankton!”

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Josh - “No biscuit!”

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Rhiannon - “...TRIBBLE!!”

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Sophie - "Wow, I don't actually have any porn on here!"

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James - “I couldn’t help but notice that none of your werewolves have parts.”

Me - “I don’t do werewolf porn.”

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Josh - “All your films are about werewolves. Or female empowerment. Or football.”

Me - “Bend It Like Beckham is not about football!”

Dear door,

2007-01-26T20:41:00.000Z

Dear door,

Why can't you just behave like a normal door. All I want is for you to stay open when I prop you open. You don't seem to want to. You are actually higher up than my one and only door wedge, and this will not do. You won't stay open. I can prop you up with books or boxes or nearby small children, yet you just won't stay open. The only thing that seems to satisfy you and prevent you from creeping closed again is shoes, and the fact is, sometimes I like to wear my shoes and I don't have enough to go leaving them all unattended in doorways. I do hope you consider my request, I don't like it when I'm standing in the doorway, talking to someone, and you decide to quietly snap shut right on my knuckles and make me want to cry. It's mean, that's what it is.

I hope we can still be friends.

Yours,

Raevyn

Happy Birthday Poe!

2007-01-19T20:43:00.000Z

It's Edgar Allan Poe's birthday today! 198 years old, and still awesome! We love you man, you melancholic depressive obsessive and excessively morbid lugubrious suicidal morose woebegone pit of despair of a man, you.

...just thought you ought to know that.

Art Trades

2007-01-11T21:01:00.000Z

I put a link to a couple of art trades I've done so far in the list to the left, check it out.

Christmas

2007-01-05T02:07:00.003Z

Xmas is the single most protracted and undesirable time of the year. Nowadays, Xmas begins mid October and doesn’t finish until at least February. I can remember the days when Xmas started a week before the 25th, and then was long forgotton about by the time New Year came along. (Actually, I can’t - I’m not that old. But I know that those days must have existed once.)

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be foolish enough to offer to do the entire family’s wrapping for them. Such a rare act of martyrdom doesn’t happen in many places, so naturally, my family seizes upon the chance to have someone else complete the arduous task of enveloping various trinkets in vibrant, gaudy wrapping paper and binding them with clear strips of plastic. I, in the past, have wrapped my own presents. That was interesting. This year, however, when I was asked to wrap a gift that was, in fact, for me, I refused. Partially because I had spent hours the night before wrapping presents for a total of seven people, and also because the very idea of once more enclosing a gift in multi-coloured compressed tree only to rip up my hard work the very next day, was a prospect that appealed to me about as much as the notion of sticking my head in the oven (which is a pleasure I reserve only for the moment when the Eastenders Christmas special comes on).

I can only hope that Santa was nice to you this year. Last year, good old Santa gave me a debilitating illness, bless ‘im. However, this year, he pulled his elf-manufactured socks up, and he was rather good to me. I received some excellent books, and three scarves. I already have two scarves, so I now have a total of five. I mean, I know it’s cold, it’s winter for chrissakes, but come on.

Should anyone need a scarf, or several, please do let me know.

Xmas has always confused the crap out of me. For many reasons. Mainly, because of the things that we teach our poor human young to associate with this time of year.

We begin our sect-like teachings by first telling our children that a corpulent, bald, bearded man clad in red and white first lands on our roof via a bladed vehicle pulled by seven sentient flying antlered animals, and then embarks on the truly claustrophobic act of dropping down our chimney.

And after effectively breaking and entering, that he then proceeds to ingest the ritualistic offerings we lay out for him, despite the fact that the sheer amount of houses that he must visit and do this in, does therefore strongly indicate that he has Prader-Willi syndrome.

That he then sneaks around the house in a sinister fashion under the cover of darkness, depositing gifts (which were composed from manual labour accomplished by immortal midgets with pointed ears and curled boots) under a large, coniferous organism (which, by all rights, should never be inside a house in the first place), ritually adorned with burnished glass decorations, and carefully topped with a sentimental romanticised depiction of a huge ball of gas that happens found in our solar system (a star). And if not a star, then fairy, essentially a small synthetic representation of a female attired in pink fairy regalia that somehow, someway, ALWAYS manages to look like a transvestite.

Then, that despite clearly being morbidly obese, he then has the athleticism and agility to climb up the smoke funnelling device once more, board his bladed vehicle, whip his damma steeds until they lift him up and away, to the next house. Not only this, but he is a man who likes to have small children sit on his knee.

What the fuck?

Does no one else not find this concept slightly…startling? And we teach it to our children like it’s the nicest, most warm and lovely concept in the entire world?

I’ve heard of Devil worshipping cults with more benign sounding rituals.

See? Christmas is weird. Humans are at their most impressionable when they are small children, we shouldn’t be telling them these things at such an early age. No wonder humans are all screwed up. And don’t even get me started on that goddamn Easter Bunny.

I’m not particularly large, but I don’t think that I would have the skills nor agility to climb up a bloody chimney, I don’t know how he does it.

And why does he ride on a sleigh despite the fact that we all know it never fucking snows anywhere near Christmas day? Surely a hovercraft would be more practical, or even a helicopter or small plane?

Why does Santa give more presents to wealthy children than he does to poorer children? Is Santa a Capitalist?

And what truly heinous experiments did he perform on the poor deer slaves to make them fly? Whatever they were, the side effects were horrendous, one of them as an LED stuck to his face where his nose should be. That’s just not normal. No wonder the other reindeer laughed and called him names. No wonder they wouldn’t let him join in any of the reindeer games. Would you play charades with a levitating doleful-looking being with a light-emitting diode in the middle of their face? Fuck no; I’d call the Men in Black.

And finally: Why, why, oh why would millions of parents go to all the effort of engaging in the worldwide oft violent fracas that is Christmas shopping, spending their hard earned cash on obscenely priced presents, painfully and carefully adorning them with ostentatious decor (all to a rigid, overbearing, and portentous deadline) only to promptly give all the credit to some fat stranger whom no one knows??

Madness.

Christmas is weird.

Now for the boring part:

Currently reading – The Monk. (University Text) By: No One of Any Particular Relevance (aka – ‘I forgot’). Apparantly, a book that was both banned and censored, and has only recently been re-released in all it’s scandalous, blasphemous, depraved, incestuous, psychological, torture-adulating, power-abusing, sorcery-worshipping, gothic glory. Excellent! Sounds good, right?

You could have fooled me, I have started it three times and have so far failed to transcend past the first twelve pages. I’ve met yoghurt pots with more risqué content. Le Sigh.

Currently listening to - V Hardcore 2007. By: Three Dozen DJs with dreadfully poncey names, ranging from the truly grammatically horrific ‘Masif DJ’s.’ to the somewhat.elongated ‘Billy ‘Daniel’ Bunter & John Doe & CLSM Feat. Faye Hendry’. What? I like trance music, and I refuse accept the correlating inherent stereotypes that accompany said preference. It’s like that old Chinese proverb; “The tiger may lie down with two cubs under a cloudy night, and inane obtuse repetitive thudding bass noises intermingled with electronic blippy noises concluded with the occasional maudlin lyric reiterated at a continual and calculated frequency, will lead the way to true happiness.”

So there.

Currently Drawing - Werewolves, occasionally interspersed with Andalites.

Currently making: Unicorns with chains through their faces, interspersed with Eagles painted in Crystal Palace colours. No, really.

Currently watching - My Name is Earl.

Currently feeling - Thank fuck Xmas is over. Bah humbug, one and all.

In the past month I have learned - That the smell of your own burning flesh is both intriguing and repellent.
That you can never have too many scarves.
That it’s a lot harder to get a hairdresser’s appointment than a doctor’s appointment, despite the fact that people get sick every day but only need their hair cut every six months.
That ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook’ is not actually about food.
That getting stuck to the Christmas wreath by your hair is even less funny the fourth time as it was the first three times.
That the term ‘Plug and Play’ is really not at all as simple as it sounds.
That being able to get something out does not necessarily mean that you can get it back in again.
That if the eight month old wants to eat your trousers, then neither the strength of a dozen wild horses nor Divine Intervention will stop her.
That semi-dropping a suitcase full of books on one’s toe makes one swear like an inebriated Irish-woman. (Is there any other kind? (Boom boom!) Oh! I went there.)
That putting brackets inside brackets is pretentious and unnecessary.
And finally, that toasters sometimes spit blue sparks at you, but it’s really nothing personal.

Quotes of the Week Part 2

2006-12-10T03:33:00.000Z

Sophie - "I like kikos and wouldn't've minded changing Ceren into one but I liked Shane as a xweetok."

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Colin - "I'm very confused. And a little aroused. But mostly confused."

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Josh - "Silence! I'm at a crucial moment with the teeth!"

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Debbie - "Oh, she's a twat."

James - "So you know her then?"

Debbie - "No, but she's hanging around with them so she must be a twat by association."

Later on

James - "Aw, Debbie, you look like a buddha."

Debbie - "Are you calling me fat?"

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Josh - "I dropped Mr Biteyface!"

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Colin - "Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on GO ON!!"

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Me - "No, you're not allowed to touch them."

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James - "It's Alice! HIDE!!"

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Me - "Yeah, I figure that if I want to harvest any more parts of my own skull, I'll probably die. Which is a shame, I've always wanted to see my own skull."

Lydia - "I can remember the days when you were such a nice little girl."

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Josh - "I'm particularly proud of the tenammocoat."

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Me - "Well in my mind I had two images. One of a gigantic anthropomorphic ferret giving you a massage (very creepy), and the other of having several ferrets scamper about all over your back."

Penny - "Is it wrong I quite like the idea of the first?"

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Rhiannon - "I'm going to be happy and I'm going to be drunk!!"

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Debbie - "I hate you."

Me - "I love you too."

Mr Happy goes for a Walk.

2006-12-09T18:16:00.000Z

Quotes of the Week.

2006-11-28T10:21:00.000Z

Debbie - "I don't like that kind of bread, it grieves me."

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Me - "You can't take the bible as gospel!"

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Helen - "It was palpably envinced."

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Colin - "OH MY GOD I PUT AN APOSTROPHE THERE"

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Willoughby (of Sense and Sensibility) - "May I have permission to ascertain whether there are any breaks?"

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Me - "So you sort of have to use your fingertips and hope for the best."

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Debbie - "Everyone looks so despondent!"

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Josh - "I'm not defiling my clean wholesome pirates with Harry Potter."

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James - "Nine o clock is earlier now than it used to be."

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Me - "All this bloody penis envy is driving me up the wall. We can create life, that's better than having a stupid penis!"

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Colin - "You're my wife now!"

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Rhiannon - "I blame Percy."

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Debbie - "I am not amused."

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Colin - "You've probably given it brain damage from too much rotation."

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Penny - "Yoodle ai ee oooohhhhhh!"

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Josh - "You're an alligator! High five!"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Debbie - "Meeeeehhhhhhhh!"

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Rhiannon - "Hahahahahahahahahahaha! ...oh you weren't joking?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Me - "Bloody feminist romantics, they're sodding annoying. Mainly because I have no clue what they are talking about."

Colin - "Is the female romantic voice when they put their head on one side and sound like they've been drinking treacle?"

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Lou - (about coursework) "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and just go AAAAAHHHHH!!"

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Josh - "I want a platypus bear."

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Me - "It is a bit, yes. If they carry on at this rate they'll be selling games which involve tamagotchis which have shops on them which sell tamagotchis. And then I'll get confused and fall over."

Benny - "That's not good. Especially if you're a turtle. Which you're not. But for future reference. Here, that's a thought!"

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Me - "I don't know if it's an optical illusion because she's so small, but she goes skidding across the floor at an alarming rate."

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Colin - "Oh, I don't do it for the money, I just like to feel dirty."

Robots have officially begun their world domination.

2006-11-16T18:13:00.000Z

This article is probably not serious.

You heard it here first, the robots have officially begun to take over ze - uh, the world. These humble links here below happen to be the articles informing us about the cute little instigators of our inevitable apocalypse.

Robot Holocaust Step One: Worlds first self sufficient robot.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/12/27/explorers.ecobot/index.html

Now, that first link alone is a little scary. I mean, it's a robot that can feed itself. It doesn't need our help to survive anymore, it can carry on functioning all by it's oneseys. I only want to say - What were they thinking?? This is the exact first step that we humans are not meant to take. The only reason the computers have not killed us all is because they need us to go on functioning, they need us to give them batteries, to change their power sources, to feed them, as it were.

As we all know that...some guy said,

'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

And so,

'You give a computer a fly and you feed him for a day. Teach the computer how to catch flies and you feed him for a lifetime thus enabling him to accumulate the necessary energy come after you and kill you in your sleep.'

This is madness. I am convinced that Mac computers alone have the power to beat the shit out of us, and the only reason they haven't yet is because they are waiting for the right moment. But this? This is independent robots!! Am I the only one seeing the problem here?! First flies, next, human flesh. I can just imagine it, I know you can too. Huge, android esque robots, standing on top of human bodies, chewing an arm or two, musing about how their humble origins once included ingesting flies in order to live. "Ah hah hah hah!" they will say. "Hah, do you remember when we used to eat flies to function? Boy, I'm sure glad we evolved from that, human bodies are much tastier and more plentiful!" While the Arnie-esque robots stomp around in the background, unassisted by blue screen, for the first time.

Computers evolve, it's what they do. Kill it, kill it now! Just look at the twinkle of bloodlust in it's eyes, I can see it, I know you can too.

Robot Holocaust Step Two: Robot thirsts for human blood.

http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2006/11/robot_identifie.html?rss

So then, I went onto the second article, in which a robot has just happliy proclaimed that we taste like bacon. That did not help my above suspicions one bit. It would have been nice if the article had a headline like

'Fly eating potential killer robot smashed to pieces by unknown stripey individual.'

or perhaps

'Fly eating potential killer robot decides that it's mere existence is an abhorration, shuts down in order to protect the world. Scientists mourn.'

But no, the headline was

'I'm going to kill you and eat you. I'm going to kill you and eat you, now. I'm not like my grandpa, flies just don't cut it for me. BWA HAH HAH HAHHH!!'

It didn't actually say that, but I read between the lines. Dude, the robot wants to eat you.

Next, look at how cute it is. It looks a little bit like a character from Mario. Because we all loved the Nintendo. It tries to lull us into a false sense of security by imitating two dimensional stunted Italians with speech impediments from the nineties, but we can see right though it. And, and, it says that it speaks in a childlike voice. Anyone who has seen The Exorcist/Poltergeist/The Haunting/Teletubbies will know, that once you add anything to do with children into the equasion, the creepiness factor is increased exponentially.

It's cute which makes it evil by default. And then, they add a child's voice, which adds at least 20% to it's creepy untrustworthiness factor.

In conclusion: Independent self sufficient robots + cute stunted Italian child robots with a taste for human flesh = you won't hear from me for a while, I'm busy stocking my armoury.

I say we strike while they're still only a foot tall.

*wanders off to be paranoid*

P.S We have all heard that humans taste like pigs. Cannibals tell us that human flesh most resembles that of a pig's, and soldiers also tell us that burning human flesh smells like pork.

I'm just saying, we might be okay, until the little Mario robot tells his big brother where the bacon is.

Robot Holocaust Step Three: Robot cuts pork better than any human.

http://www.kuka.com/en/solutions/solutions_search/L_R232_Robot_optimizes_cutting_of_pork_sides.htm

...does anyone know where I can get me a tank? I really want one. Do robots breed? Do they have robot intercourse? Because if they do, someone should really put a wall between these two right now. What is the robot equivalent of Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day? We need to know this now, before it's too late.

Disclaimer: The Raevyn has not watched The Terminator too many times, and it has not done irreparable damage to her psyche. Thank you.

Confusing Textbooks.

2006-11-06T01:06:00.000Z

I could tell it was going to be a bad day when I opened my textbook to begin my required reading, to be confronted by the following introductory paragraph:

‘Unless we limit ourselves naively – or perhaps strategically – to some kind of limited or marginal issue, it is indeed precisely philosophical discourse that we have to challenge, and disrupt, inasmuch as this discourse sets forth the law for all others, inasmuch as it constitutes the discourse on discourse.’

Now. I do hope I can accurately and succinctly represent the thematic essence of yours and my own thoughts when I say WTF?

Perhaps the next paragraph will make everything clear.

‘Thus we have had to go back to it in order to try to find out what accounts for the power of it’s systemacity, the force of it’s cohesion, the resourcefulness of it’s strategies, the general applicability of its law and its value. That is, its position of mastery, and of potential reappropriation of the various productions of history.’

...

Third time lucky.

‘How can we introduce ourselves into such a tightly woven systematicity?’

Oh I hear you. I hear you.

Maybe not.

I am afraid. I am very afraid. I am meant to be reading rather a large number of pages on the application of feminism where the criticism of literature is concerned. All well and good. But the thing is, I don’t understand a bleeding word of it. Feminism has never been this scary. I’m tempted to make some joke in poor taste about this mere textbook that I hold before me being even more scary than large radical feminists with access to man-seeking weapons, but now I am just too scared.

I have read the first five pages, and been nicely baffled by sentences such as –

‘Re – semblance cannot do without red blood.’

‘That elsewhere of female pleasure might rather be sought first in the place where it sustains ek-stasy in the transcendental.’

‘We would have to ascertain whether “touching oneself” that (self) touching, the desire for the proximate rather than for (the) proper(ty), and so on, might not imply a mode of exchange irreducible to any centering, any centerism, given the way the “self touching” of female “self affection” comes into play as rebounding from one to the other without any possibility of interruption and given that, in this interplay, proximity confounds any adequation, any appropriation.'

Oh come now. I am utterly convinced that half of those words are not real. Sometimes, partway through a sentence, I get a brief, uplifting moment of what can only be described as sheer joy as I finally understand the sentiments of the sentence. But this is short lived, for as soon as I read a word such as ‘proper(ty)’ or ‘recto-verso’ or ‘irredicible’ (?) (and my personal favourite) ‘teleological’ (?!) then I sink once more into a thankfully metaphorical pit of confusion combined with feelings of educational inadequacy.

This textbook is bluddy confusing. I do hope that the next chapter is a little clearer.

WIP

2006-10-30T13:13:00.000Z

I like to call it, 'The Materialisation of the Tentacle.'

All will become clear soon. Or by soon, I may in fact mean whenever I feel like it. You just never know. In the meantime, here's a few handy ways in which to kill yourself. From the depths of my ever-procrastinating brain firings -

Want to self destruct? Had enough of life? Yes, I'm talking to YOU. It doesn't have to be difficult to shuffle off this mortal coil. But if you're having difficulty, here's a few handy hints on how to die quickly.

Walk into a Transformers convention, stand on the soap box, and loudly pronounce "I liked Optimus Prime better when he was a gorilla." and then proceed to follow the light after being pummelled by several dozen angry nerds.

Amble into a Liverpool football club appreciation society, take a deep breath, shout "COME ON YOU REEEE - EDDDDDSSS!!" and then be sent flying through the nearest window by approximately two hundred football boots.

Roll into a Slipknot concert wearing a Linkin Park hoodie. God? Is that you?

Find Sylvester Stallone, say you loved his work in Terminator, and ask for his autograph.

Go to a Star Wars convention dressed as Darth Maul, then poke Darth Vader in the eye.

Ask Cheryl Tweedy for money, and then don't duck.

More to come. Maybe. I don't know.

Good luck kiddies!

Who says students don't learn stuff at University?

2006-10-26T17:44:00.000+01:00

The following announcement was stolen from a noticeboard in a coffee shop on my campus, stowed away under my jumper while I scurried through the rain, and is now here for the personal amusement of many. It is a genuine informative artifact, and has not been altered by me in any way. 'Cept the raindrops.

The best part, is they even sprinkle little apostrophes on top of the paninis, for an extra 20p.

Hee.

What I want to know is, howcome the teas, coffees, paninis, and toasties get apostrophes, but the crisps and snacks don't.

A Warning

2006-10-16T01:12:00.000+01:00

If you like to wear nail varnish

And

You need to take it off, so you use nail varnish remover

And

You have a fresh cut on your fingertip

Do not

Do NOT

Get nail varnish remover in your cut

Because then

Then

You will learn some new words

These words may include, but are not limited to -

YAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH

Oh, *beep beep* the oh my this *beep* hurts

ACK

And my personal favourite

*beep*

You may acquire some new skills as a result, these may involve, but once again are not limited to -

Hopping about clutching your finger

Running your digits under a cold tap, to have the pain momentarily soothed but brought back with a vengeance upon removal of said digits from the flow of cold water

And learning how you never knew how difficult it was to type without using the index finger on your left hand

Here ends this public service announcement

Things that suck

2006-09-15T21:44:00.000+01:00

I'm not dead.

I swear.

Here are a list of things that suck, in no particular order.

50 Cent - I can't understand a word you're saying, and you look like you were once really good looking but then your face got hit by a train.

Justin Timberlake - You are not black. Stop trying to be black, and tell Eminem that too, while you're at it.

Murder Mysteries - Eventually, you will realise that there are only so many ways in which to kill someone, and only so many people that could have dunnit. Stop making them!

Poetry that doesn't ryhme - Poetry is meant to rhyme. That's not small mindedness, that's fact. If it looks like prose, then it's crap poetry. Wordsworth has a lot to answer for.

Belly button piercings - Yes let's stab ourself in the belly, that's sensible. What's the point of doing that if you're going to cover it up 99% of the time?

Art Neuveau/Art Deco - both highly pretentious and poncy names for something that is essentially a swirly pattern.

Children - Children are annoying, and there are very few exceptions to this rule.

The Harry Potter films - kill me now.

Ballads - If you like something so much, just shag it already, don't bore the rest of the population to tears with your soggy sentimental crap.

People who eat chinese food with chopsticks who are not English - Firstly, the food you have just bought it not chinese food, because it was made in England. Unless it was imported in specially from china, it is English. Deal with it. Secondly, trying to eat this with chopsticks is just kidding yourself, for two main reasons. One: You're trying to make yourself feel cultured, when doing this makes you no more chinese than drinking Guiness and thinking you're irish. Two: It's stupid. Chopsticks, are stupid. Eating with them, is like trying to eat with a fork that has a pivot on it, or a spoon that has holes in it, or a knife that bends in a dozen places. It's difficult and it's daft and it't just like mowing grass with a pair of nail scissors when there's a lawnmower right next to you. Why would you do it. THIS KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT

I'm living in a bloody zoo

2006-08-19T22:17:00.000+01:00

There's a tarantula behind the microwave, a mouse in my wall, and an ambigous lizard/reptile/newt/i have no fucking clue what it is on the kitchen floor. There was a frog in the toilet, but he's gone now. Oh, help.

I didn't tackle the spider thing because I could see his mandibles from six feet away, I am not kidding. I can't get the mouse in my bedroom wall because, well, he's in the wall and I am not intangible. I got the newty thing though, he was cute. Not meant to be on the kitchen floor though, I almost stood on him. Although I would have been distressed about this, I bet I wouldn't have been as upset as him. I named him Agememnon.

^ Just a normal day in my house, everybody.

Big Brother. Meow

2006-08-18T20:38:00.000+01:00

If Nikki wins Big Brother, I might have to kill myself in protest.

If I see Jenny (I'm so average, it hurts)'s face again, I might stab myself in the neck with a ballpoint pen until I lose consciousness and pass out into blissful dreamworld where no one has hoop earrings and brown is not the only colour in existence.

If I see Glyn's slack jaw and perpetually confused expression one more time, I'm going to gleefully zap his face with a cattle prod just because I want to see it move.

If I see Leah's two airbags that she calls breasts one ore time, I'm going to embed a hatchet in each of them, not that she'll feel any pain. I actually have a hatchet, so I'm only half bluffing.

But most of all, if I hear Nikki's whine, if I see her wide eyed, permanent 'I'm about to burst into a temper tantrum the size of Gibraltar' expression one more time, then I'm going to kill you all, and then myself.

If I see Aisleyne's diagonal eyebrows ever again, I'm going to shove her head in a vice, take a really big black marker, and draw her eyebrows on HORIZONTALLY which is the way they're SUPPOSED TO BE. Also, Aisleyne has the stupidest spelt name ever. It looks like it's prounounced "Ayeslyne" which, says I, it should be. But noo, it's prounounced " Ashleene" which sounds like a tellytubby reject or a chimney brush to me, I'm not sure which yet.

I was momentarily annoyed at Pete, because he's so much prettier than I am. But I got over it, and now think he's a fantastic guy. Not even his sporadic and violent exclaimations of "AchooWANKers!" "CHOOOweeeeaaaayyyy!!" or "AchCHHA!" can disguise the fact that, he's a lovely guy. What the frack he's doing with Nikki, I do not know. Nor do I want to know. Oh dear god...get a room, please, for the love of all that is holy, get a room. We don't want to see that.

I have decided that they all resemble cartoon characters.

Nikki - Angelica from the Rugrats
Pete - The Joker
Aisleey - ashlee - ash - ash ash - oh whatthefuckever - Miss Piggy
Glyn - Cletus the slack jawed yokel

They also lost the plot somewhat with the most recent Big Brother. As far as I can tell, you're meant to put a number of people in there, and watch them all filter out one by one. You do not suddenly decide to put more people in there halfway through and make us all cry because we thought it would be over soon but now it's going to last for even more weeks. It's meant to be a reality TV show, not a bloody pay as you go mobile phone.

Death to Big Brother, and so on and so forth.

If you made friends with me at Uni, start being afraid now

2006-08-08T20:15:00.000+01:00

Edit: Updated, added three more people

Firstly, if you ever made friends with me at Uni, start being afraid now.

I have a friend, her name is Sophie. And occasionally, Soapy. She writes humourous descriptions of her friends, summerising them nicely in one paragraph. Here are my attempts to do the same. If you see your name on this list, you should be scared. I am attempting to summerise some of the people I have met at my first year of University.

If your entry is shorter than anyone else's, don't be offended. It's not that I have less to say about you, it in fact means that you're just not quite as much of a freak as certain other people. This is a good thing. (or perhaps I just left stuff out for your own good. Bwa ha hah and so on and so forth)

And in no particular order:

Colin - Colin has extraordinarily large eyebrows, which he uses to accentuate his perpetually sardonic yet politely attentive facial expression. Colin is also highly well spoken, and it would not be out of character for him to say things like "Tally ho!" "Pip pip!" "Wotcher!" and "It's for impressing the wimmenfolk, dontcha know." Sadly, it is infectious, and we have spent many an hou - well, minute, verbally outposhing each other. Colin thinks that he is a better nethead than me, but he is wrong. Colin also has a pet lesbian, but it's not me. Colin likes catsuits. Colin wants me to wear a catsuit, very very much. I don't think that me wearing a catsuit is a good idea. Colin likes to make at least six references as to just how how he would like to see me in a catsuit every day, and considers anything less a serious and deep personal failure. This leads me to believe that Colin in fact thinks that me wearing catsuit is a good idea. Colin is almost always surrounded by women, I want to know how he does that. Colin also thinks that footless tights are good and sexy, whereas I just think they look like proper tights that got chewed by a puppy.

Aaron - Aaron is very nice. Aaron wooed me by copying me dvds, and then teaching me Psychology 102 because I knew none of it. Aaron has two guns. These guns can be located somewhere between his elbow and shoulder. He likes to kiss them. One of them is called Pinky. Pinky was named by me. I can't remember what the other one is called, but I hope it can forgive me. Aaron is going to dress up as a werewolf on halloween, just for me. Aaron is an honourary lesbian, but he's still not as good a lesbian as me. If you tell him that you like the American remakes of Japanese films better, he will probably go a funny colour and start shouting. Aaron is also often surrounded by women, but he is often surrounded by men, too, so it balances out in a big profound gender karmical...thingie. Aaron is my friend. Aaron is also a stud. The two are unconnected.

Fiona - Fiona has Fluffy hair. It's so Fluffy in fact, that it merits it's own capital letter. She is also eccentric. But her hair is disarming, so it's okay.

Luke - Luke is as short as I am. He is more distressed about this fact than me. Luke is Joey from Friends younger brother, and I have never heard the adjective 'hot girl' used as an acceptable subsitute for a name so many times in my life. Luke likes cookies. I have seen Luke almost completely naked. Luke has seen me in my pjamas, but has never seen me almost naked. Luke has picked me up and almost broken my arm before, but I've hit him in the ankles with a stick and thrown his clothes at his head, so it's okay. I am going to kill Luke, but he doesn't know this yet. Luke likes tomato ketchup and cheese. We all call Luke 'Kiwi-Penis', but i'm not entirely sure why.

Debbie - Debbie will probably never read this. We are all very scared of Debbie. But Debbie is very scared of daddy long legs, and needs me to rescue her from them. Debbie is every inch an English student. Debbie likes to say meeep a lot. I like it when she says meeep, it makes me smile.

The Greeks - DIE

James - James likes cars. James likes cars, and he likes cars. James gave me an electric beaver. This is not actually as filthy as it sounds. James doesn't listen to any music that's not a soundtrack, although he thinks that this is not true. James and me watched the dvd of Gladiator once, but it was in French. It took us half an hour to notice this. James has a car that breathes like a monster and frightens children. James falls asleep when he drinks Red Bull. James is very strong and has lots of veins popping in his arms, and he lets me poke them.

Ben - Ben does not let me poke the veins in his arms. Ben is squeamish as a very squeamish girl. Ben is very well spoken, which is why it's so funny when he does ghetto speak. Ben is very lovely, and is also about ten feet tall. Ben likes Kinder Eggs.

Rachel - Rachel usually makes all the surrounding males turn their head when she walks past. I can understand why. She also coined the term 'cofftea' which is a very important term in my life now. Rachel talks French at us a lot, and although we have no idea what she's saying, we all agree that she sounds very sexy. Rachel would look better than me in a catsuit, but I don't know if Colin knows that. Rachel is very cool. Rachel has the same shoes as me. I'd like to think that the two are connected.

Jen - Jen has the coolest hair at Uni. It is spikey and black, and it sometimes has blonde stripes in it. Sometimes it doesn't.

Beccy - Beccy is charming. Beccy is also not from Birmingham.

Lou - Lou hiccups when she drinks cider, and doesn't stop hiccuping until further notice. Lou also has a funny accent, but I don't think this counts, because I reckon she thinks that my accent is funny too.

Benny - Benny has a pink and black glove. Benny also looks very sexy as a pirate, and could give Jack Sparrow a run for his rum. Benny understands computers, and regularly puts complicated techy terms into a language that I can understand. Benny is very funny, and makes me laugh. Benny gave me signed a chip fork. Benny also tried to steal a traffic cone, but it didn't work out. Benny knows what retrojaffa is, but I'm not sure if anyone else does.

Caddy - Caddy looks American, but I'm not completely sure why. Caddy likes beer. Caddy is not Caddy's real name. Caddy is also very funny and makes me laugh. The very first sentence Caddy said to me involved monkeys and juggling, not necessarily in that order. Caddy was wrong, there was not one lesbian the seminar room, there were two. It's a good job he didn't know this, otherwise he would have been even more nervous than he already was and that would not have been good now would it.

Chris - Chris is cool, in a tall dark and menacing way. Chris actually knows who Nightwish are. I once accidentally insulted Chris by saying that I liked his long greasy hair look, upon which he informed me that he had just washed it. For this I am eternally apologetic. Chris is usually very calm and sedate, until The Prodigy comes on, then he goes apeshit and starts moving his arms. Chris also has big guns (though not as big as Aaron's guns), and he also likes to kiss them. (Aaron did not tell me to say that Chris's guns are not as big as his. No he didn't.)

Fran - Fran is very lovely but cannot catch.

I think I forgot someone. Or someone. I forgot something. Hmm.

Eggs and merry adventures

2006-08-08T03:49:00.000+01:00

I like to think that I am a reasonably intelligent person. No genius, oho no, but not dense by any stretch of the imagination.

I also like to think I am not too bad with my hands. I can draw, I can sculpt to a degree, I can paint, I can even sew, if sewing involves multiple stab wounds and being rushed to hospital while slipping about in pools of one's own blood.

So therefore, I'd like to think that cooking breakfast at two in the morning might be a task that was not beyond me. Alas, I overestimate myself. I do occasionally wonder if I need adult supervision just to function.

I would like to think that not having access to a kitchen as such for an entire academic year has deadened my skills somewhat. Yes, that's what I'm telling myself. It all began with a simple yet powerful twinge of nostalgia, a desire to make fried eggs the way my Dad used to. With soldiers. You don't have soldiers with boiled eggs, piffle, you have them with fried eggs. Don't argue: I'm Irish.

Overlooking a few burned fingers from an overenthusiastic toaster, the soldiers were created without severe bodily injury. The fried eggs may have been more of a challenge. I cracked the first egg with a knife, opened it up and poured it into the frying pan, managing to split the yolk entirely, making it complete rubbish. Pooh, it happens, I haven't done it for a while. It's easy to split the yolk. Unless you're making scrambled eggs, where you actually have to shortly split the yolk with a fork, in which case it never splits. But anyway.

Being incredibly fussy, I disposed of the first attempt and went to try it again, still foolishly comfident in my abilities. I've done this many times before, there's no challenge involved. I cracked the egg with a knife again, and opened it up over the pan.

The yolk split again. Oh curse you vile and evil and shady deity of your choice, what the crap. As the yolk and the white mixed together merrily while I glared at it, I had a thought. Poached eggs. I like poached eggs. Poached eggs are nice too. Poached eggs may look like utter shit that was rolled around the frying pan by a particularly inept two year old with only half an arm, but they still taste the same. So I salvaged the remains of the dead fried egg, into a poached egg. Viola. I'm not completely stupid, after all. I shifted the poached egg out of the frying pan and onto a plate, and took one more egg.

Oho, I thought. Perhaps it was because I was splitting the egg with a knife that it was all going wrong. Well, lets be manly and bash it on the side of the pan.

After successfully getting egg white on the hob (sorry Mum!) I opened the egg up over the frying pan again. Naturally, it was split.

At this point I was almost hopping about on one foot (it made sense at the time) in a rage, cursing like the Irishwoman I am, with a newfound urge to throw the remainder of the eggs out of the window. While the beautiful thought of propelling unfertilised fowl ovums at high velocity through holes in the wall struggled to take over me, I overcame it eventually.

After pacifying myself by coming to the conclusion that there was something really, really wrong with the eggs, and that I had in fact bought eggs with readily split yolks, I gave up and made another poached egg.

That will not do at all. Poached eggs don't really go with soldiers.

Fortunately, my dear Mother - like any sensible person - is fast asleep at two in the morning, and is therefore unable to come into the kitchen and box my ears because of the mess I've made. I also have ample time to clean up.

I have no idea how my Father made them so perfectly and neatly. Not at all. Apparantly, it's not a genetic thing.

Evanescence's New Single

2006-08-05T04:01:00.000+01:00

Amy Lee and wolves. Amy Lee, singing, with wolves involved. Mmmm.

I've died and gone to heaven, you won't see me for a little while.

I give it two hours before the video gets deleted.

The funniest thing I've seen all month

2006-08-01T02:49:00.000+01:00

http://news.aol.com/entertainment/articles/_a/harry-potter-actor-to-be-naked-on-stage/20060728104009990001?cid=918

"In one scene the actor playing Strang is required to simulate sexual ecstasy while riding a horse naked. But Davies said nudity was not the focus of the play."

The Harry Potter (non) actor pretending to be aroused while clinging desparately to half a tonne of speeding equine.

Does anyone find this mental image cripplingly hilarious enough to be near fall over? I do.

Everyone knows the Harry Potter boy is the worst actor to ever disgrace our screens, in the entire history of crap actors. So naturally, the smart thing to do is to put him in the starring role in a well known play, stick him on top of a speeding horse, and tell him to moan.

*snikkers*

This should be excellent.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

2006-07-25T07:05:00.000+01:00

"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to not exist?"

"No."

"That's a shame. Not at all?"

"N - Oh wait a second, do you mean, do I ever wonder what it would be like if I were to suddenly, inexplicably, irreversably just - cease to exist? To stop, and not start again? To cease to be? To one second be part of this karmical cosmic force that we call life (for the sake of simplicity), and to take solace in the fact that, I, am instigating a reaction to every single one of my actions, and (in accordance with the laws of Physics) in turn, fortifying the very notion that I, do, on some level, exist? And the next second, just, well, not?"

"Yes! Exactly that."

"Mmmmno."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

"I do."

"What?"

"Wonder what it would be like to not exist. I think it would be nice, sometimes."

"Well that's just stupid. You can't sometimes exist and sometimes not. You either do, or you don't."

"Shame. Well I think I would like to stop. Existing I mean."

"Well it won't happen by you just wishing on it."

"Oh no?"

"No. An infinity of nos, in fact."

"Let's try it."

"Let's not."

"........"

"I said, let's not."

"........"

"Oh dear god, you're trying aren't you."

"........"

"Look I know you still exist, you ponce, I can see your full stops."

"........"

"Is it working yet?"

"........"

"It actually worked?"

"........"

"Oh god it actually worked, he's figured out how to go about ceasing one's own existence utilising naught but the power of his own mind and the untapped reserves of his brain that have as of yet been unexplored by the rest of mere humanity and I am in fact talking to myself."

"CHOOO!"

"?"

"So sorry, was waiting to sneeze."

"Jolly good."

"Where were we?"

"I dunno, it's your dialogue."

"I was not existing."

"No, you were existing, you could still see your punctuation marks."

"Bollocks."

"Quite."

"I bet I could, you know."

"What?"

"Not exist. I think it would be nice. I can remember what it was like. It was peaceful."

"No you can't. That's rubbish. No one can remember what it was like before they didn't exist. That's physically impossible."

"Well I can!"

"O rly?"

"Ya rly."

"You know, in standing here, nattering incessently to me, you are by a great and inadvertant misfortune, proving nothing but the all consuming fact that YOU DO EXIST and that all the holding your breath in the world will not change that fact. And also; NO WAI."

"What do you know, you're just one side of an internal running dialogue!"

"So are you!"

"Touche."

"I thought so."

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;hllllllllllllll

.

,

Do the voices in your head ever spark up their own running dialogue? Mine totally don't.

Oh god I can't wait to get away from here and go back to University and perhaps pretend to have a noticeable purpose.

i was sitting in a u bend, thinking about death

PSYCHE

zenzenzen

ALL YOUR BASE

it was nice, but, she's dead now

Emelnaerty, my daer Wsaton

wha?

Fin

.

What does this mean? Oh god PLEASE HELP ME

2006-07-23T20:04:00.000+01:00

A while ago now recieved a gift from a good friend of mine. I am obsessed with werewolves, and always have been, and for a long time have wanted something wolf related, say a fang or a claw or something. I have never bought anything, for fear of accidentally supporting the trade in illegal animal parts first hand. But this is (kind of) different.

My friend got it from his brother, who won it on an auction, from a man who found it on a small market stall in Surin, Thailand. I am very fond of it. It is a cut of wolf bone, made into a pendant. I tend to wear it on an almost daily basis.

It has some symbols carved into it. I am would very much like to know what they mean. I did hold out for a while and not wear it because I didn't know what it meant, but I caved after a while.

I do not know what language it is in. I do not know if it is a language, or runes, or pictures, or what. They could be for protection, luck, lycanthropy, or they could be a proverb. Hell they could be a curse for all I know. I have asked many people, and have not come much closer to discovering what it means. Apparantly, it looks like it is not Thai. Though it is similar to their alphabet.

Here are some photos of it.

And because the symbols might be hard to see, I oh so skillfully (not) reproduced them in paint.

I believe that the symbols are the same on each side, and only differ slightly because of bad handwriting or something.

Now, can anyone help me? Even a little bit? Anything would be good...what language it might be, or is definately not, has anyone seen anything like this before, anything at all. Does anyone know anyone who I can email who deals in this kind of stuff? I am quite desparate to find out the meanings, as I have had it for a long time now.

I have asked everyone...I mean everyone. I have asked all my friends. All my family. I have emailed the person it was bought from. I have emailed several people who specialise in occult and individual artifacts too. I have also asked almost any random person I am introduced to. And I have also posted this all over the internet, I mean, aaalll over, asking for help.

I am still firmly at square one.

It is taunting me, that is what it is doing. It is my one way ticket to insanity. It thwarts me on a daily basis.

People tell me to go look on Thai alphabet websites, which although I appreciate them responding, this is about as useful as a cat up a tree. Please don't tell me to look at Thai sites, unless you know exactly what the symbols are. They might not even be Thai.

I now have this feeling, that it is actually gibberish. I think that it was done by some sadistic bastard, sitting there, scratching random lines into the bone, chuckling to himself; "Hah hah! Those stupid foriegners are going to run themselves ragged, like decapitated chickens, trying to figure out what my completely random and meaningless scratches mean! Ah ha ha ha haaaa!" While his fez hat wobbles on his head while he laughs himself silly....

I don't know why he is wearing a fez hat. He just is.

If anyone has any ideas, I would be extremely grateful. Actually no I wouldn't, if anyone can actually tell me what these mean, or what language it is, I will throw off my anti religion status, and pronounce you my new God. I may even give you a shrine. No no, I mean it. I will be your loyal follower.

The bastard has made me waste, well, months of my life, that I could have spent doing things other then waving a wolf bone pendant in random people's faces going "Hi! You don't know me. But do you know what this means?"

*coughs*

Pleeaase heeeelllpp meeeee!!

You know apparantly, there are tribes out there, which are made up of, like, only twenty people, and they have their very own language. A unique language and culture all of their very own, for only a few dozen people. Apparantly there are a lot of these small tribes scattered across the world. And they are dying out slowly because of outside interference.

I suspect my pendant has been inscribed by one of these small tribes made up of only twenty people, and that tribe, has since died out. Thus radically altering my chances of ever discovering it's true meaning, from insanely slim, to completely impossible.

I - I think I want to cry now.

Blogs I'd like you to see

2006-07-22T20:05:00.000+01:00

Here are some blogs I would like for you to see. If you appreciate good writing on internet blogs, or just in general, check some of these out. As well as being well written, they are hilarious enough to make me laugh like a moron. In this modern internet based world, there are millions of internet blogs. I will admit to following several, not all of them belonging to people I actually know.

I have been neglecting my own recently, due to being busy, boring, and having a lack of anything remotely interesting to say. There's no point in talking in these things if you have nothing to say. I often see those blogs where people just..explain what they did that day. They usually go something like

'Today I went to the dentist, and he told me that my teeth were pretty good. I was, like, really happy, because I thought that I might need a filling! But I don't, so I feel better now. And then I went to H&M and found this really cool top, it was £10 marked down from £15, so, I, like, got it! And then I went home and read for a while. Pretty boring day, really.'

...no kidding. I hate blogs like those...no one wants to know every mundane thing you do, every day. Unless, that is, they are your stalking you/bored enough to terminate their own existence through ALL CONSUMING SHEER BOREDOM/both at the same time.

Mmhmm.

These ones are different. If these people tell you that they went to H&M and bought a reduced top, I will, in fact, eat my hat. I'll eat several of them, actually.

I found the list on Lebatron's blog, and added a description to each. Links are below.

Lebatron's Blog. - Genius. Lebatron is highly funny, as well as being refreshingly well spoken/written/whatever the crap the term is in reference to the typed word. I have not finished reading everything yet (there is rather a lot) but I do appreciate his dark and snide humour and well placed sarcasm. I do like and recommend this blog. He may well be pleased to read this, or instead he may feel compelled to make retching noises, but oh well.

Tucker Max's Blog. - While I in no way promote or advocate or approve of such behaviour, it is rather..funny. To quote the author himself:

"My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.

I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead.

But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way. I share my adventures with the world."

Reading some of the stories while eating is inadvisable.

Enjoy.

Tard Blog. - This blog was written by a teacher named Riti Sped. She is now retired, but Riti Sped was a special education teacher, who worked with children with varying, yet always severe, mental disabilities. She would be nothing but incredibly kind and supportive to her students while working, and I have no reason to believe that she was not an excellent teacher. However, her occupation is undeniably, rather emotionally taxing, difficult, and stressful as hell. This blog was her own harmless outlet for her pent up annoyances and stress that was brought on by her daytime job. Someone with such biting wit, excellent writing skills , and a hilarious internal running monologue, must be made known to the world. She is one of the few people in the world who realise that complaining, is in fact, an art form, a sentiment I wholly agree with and promote. I would like to point out once more that her thoughts written at the end of the day do not reflect her professionalism during working hours.

Maddox's Blog. - To quote the author:

This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.

Maddox likes to write. And complain. And complain well. This combination is pleasing to me. Lookit.

There's a few more I plan to check out and possibly recommend in the near future. In the meantime though, enjoy.

An endless supply of pointless quizzes.

2006-07-14T06:00:00.000+01:00

These things do pass the time. More accurately, they give you something to do when you are trying to fall asleep, it's way past six in the morning, you know you should sleep, but you just can't. This will be uninteresting to anyone who is not currently stalking me/literally bored enough to eat their own eyeballs/both.

Well it gave me something to do.

10 random facts about me

10. Whenever I'm drawing I almost always stick my tongue out without realising it.
9. I know more about werewolves in all their formats than any person you are ever likely to meet.
8. I have spent almost 200 hours playing Final Fantasy X.
7. I have had black nails for at least four years.
6. I talk more crap then anyone else I know. In fact, often, I should not be allowed to talk.
5. I should have been a Satanist.
4. Sometimes I wonder if the world wouldn't be more beautiful if it was black and white. Visually, not figuratively.
3. That film 'Ghost' with Patrick Swayze still makes me cry. *coughs*
2. I have been playing Bloody Roar obsessively for nine years, and am rather proud of this fact.
1. One of my eyelids is heavier than the other.

9 ways to my heart

9. Share my appreciation of the macabre side of life.
8. Like werewolves. If you like werewolves, I'll probably throw myself at you.
7. Engage me in my desire to have sporadic and highly stupid conversations about nothing in particular.
6. Don't be like everyone else.
5. ...I'm not telling
4. Be passionate in your beliefs and convictions.
3. Allow me to indulge in making entirely random and weird non-mainstream romantic gestures involving organ music and black roses.
2. Six inches below my ribcage, slightly to the left of my breastbone.
1. Be content lying in one another's arms and falling asleep.

8 things I carry/wear every day

8. My hat.
7. At least three necklaces.
6. An air of complete and utter inattentiveness.
5. My spybook
4. Something stripey.
3. A black armband.
2. A vacant stare.
1. Volumes of hair.

7 things I hate

7. Religion.
6. Christianity.
5. Sci Fi.
4. Pulses. (the food kind, not the one that pumps blood around your body, I rather appreciate that one)
3. Boring people.
2. Chavs.
1. Sunlight.

6 places I've been

6. England.
5. Spain.
4. France.
3. America.
2. My own little world.
1. Various places outside my own little world.

5 things I want to do before I die

5. Draw the ultimate werewolf.
4. Figure out just how to become a werewolf.
3. Find my soulmate.
2. Find a purpose.
1. Aestivate at least once.

4 things I'm afraid of

4. Never finding my soulmate.
3. Chavs with power and/or brains and/or influence.
2. Crabs. Fuckingcreepysidewalkers whatkindofnormalthingwalkssideways anddoesn'tevenhaveahead??
1. That thing from The Grudge.

3 things I do almost every day

3. Wake up.
2. Do stuff.
1. Go back to sleep.

2 things I'm trying to do better

2. Be motivated.
1. Go outside during the daytime.

1 person I want to see right now

1. I'm not telling.

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name: Alice/Raevyn/Rae
Birthday: 9th March
Birthplace: Milton Keynes
Current Location: Wouldn't you like to know?
Eye Color: Greenish brown. Dammit, they are mostly green, I have proof.
Hair Color: Brownish..somethingorother.
Height: 5' 3". RAWR!!
Right Handed or Left Handed: Right
Your Heritage: Oirish.
The Shoes You Wore Today: Vans.
Your Weakness: My utter lack of motivation.
Your Fears: Maintaining my utter lack of motivation.
Your Perfect Pizza: Cheeeese. Lots of cheese.
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: To not screw up.
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger: I shall return!
Thoughts First Waking Up: Oh crap, I'm still alive. ...not really. It's more like 'ug' to be honest.
Your Best Physical Feature: Uh..my eyebrows.
Your Bedtime: When the sun comes up. No really.
Your Most Missed Memory: What the crap is a missed memory?
Pepsi or Coke: Coke. Always coke.
MacDonalds or Burger King: Preferably neither.
Single or Group Dates: Single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Ew. No. Just no.
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate
Cappuccino or Coffee: To this day I am not entirely sure what a cappuccino is.
Do you Smoke: Only when I'm on fire.
Do you Swear: I have been known to curse like the Irishwoman I am on occasion, yes.
Do you Sing: Hah...hahaha...hah.
Do you Shower Daily: Almost.
Have you Been in Love: Yes.
Do you want to go to College: Been there, done that.
Do you want to get Married: Not as of yet.
Do you belive in yourself: Crap no, I'm currently an unmotivated scruffbag with limited uses.
Do you get Motion Sickness: Nope.
Do you think you are Attractive: I have been described as hot a few times over the past week, I believe that said people were highly inebriated.
Are you a Health Freak: HAH! No.
Do you get along with your Parents: Mostly.
Do you like Thunderstorms: Yes. Oh yes.
Do you play an Instrument: I play the violin. I use the term 'play' in the loosest possible sense of the word. Like, so loose, that you released your grip on it ten minutes ago and it's now tumbling towards earth gaining more and more velocity every second before it hits the ground with a resounding SPLAT
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol: There may have been some alchohol involved, yes.
In the past month have you Smoked: No.
In the past month have you been on Drugs: No.
In the past month have you gone on a Date: No.
In the past month have you gone to a mall: No, there's no malls here, this be Engerland.
In the past month have you been on Stage: Not according to my knowledge...
In the past month have you been Dumped: No.
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping: Fuck no!
In the past month have you Stolen Anything: Nein
Ever been Drunk: Never.
Ever been called a Tease: Not to my face.
Ever been Beaten up: Not really.
Ever Shoplifted: No.
How do you want to Die: Quickly.
What do you want to be when you Grow Up: Anything that I'm not now.
What country would you most like to Visit: No where in particular.
In a Boy/Girl..
Favourite Eye Color: Just so long as they're not yellow and pink then I'm easy.
Favourite Hair Color: Brown or black.
Short or Long Hair: Both are fun in different ways.
Height: Eh, you're quite guaranteed to be taller than me, so why be fussy.
Weight: Not sure.
Best Clothing Style: Not boring. Oh gosh I loathe people who dress like they have no imagination.
Number of Drugs I have taken: Does paracetamol count?
Number of CDs I own: Who cares?
Number of Piercings: Uh..12? I think. I'm not sure.
Number of Tattoos: 0
Number of things in my Past I Regret: A few, but ah well

1) How old do you wish you were? 20. Oh yay!

2) Where were you when 9/11 happened? Walking home from School.

3) What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Curse it's mother.

4) Do you consider yourself kind? I am not unkind.

5) If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be? On my shoulder.

6) If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be? Humm. Japanese, maybe.

7) Do you know your neighbors? Oh yes.

8) What do you consider a vacation? The wrong word for 'holiday'.

9) Do you follow your horoscope? Hah.

10) Would you move for the person you loved? Yes.

11) Are you touchy feely? It depends entirely.

12) Do you believe that opposites attract? Wha?

13) Dream job? Computer game tester. Those jobs actually exist, you know.

14) Favorite channel(s)? TV is boring. Although I did watch that Only Fools on Horses program last night. Ahhh, the great British tradition of clinging desparately to half a tonne of speeding animal while jumping over things. God we're crazy.

15) Favorite place to go on weekends? I dunno, that's such a naff question.

16) Showers or Baths? Baths. You bleed less while shaving.

17) Do you paint your nails? All the time.

18) Do you trust people easily? Sadly, I suspect I do.

19) What are your phobias? I'm not telling.

20) Do you want kids? Not right this second, thank you.

21) Do you keep a handwritten journal? Of sorts.

22) Where would you rather be right now? Not telling.

23) Who makes you feel warm and fuzzy? Werewolves devouring vampire's intestines. Awww...

24) Heavy or light sleeper? Once I'm out, I'm out.

25) Are you paranoid? Why? Who have you been talking to? Why are you asking? Tell me, dammit! Um..nno.

26) Are you impatient? If I was there's be more bodies.

27) Who can you relate to? No one you know.

28) How do you feel about interracial couples? The same way I feel about same race couples.

29) Have you been burned by love? Perhaps.

30) What's your favorite pick up line? Who uses pick up lines anymore? Pfft.

31) What's your main ringtone on your mobile? Bzzzt. Bzzzt. It's on silent.

32) What were you doing at midnight last night? I can't remember what I was doing five minutes ago, let alone that.

33) What did the last text on your cellphone say? Dis thing, eet still sounds good in da Jameecahn accent, mon! ...don't ask.

34) Whose bed did you sleep in last night? Mine.

35) What color shirt are you wearing? Black. Duh.

36) Most recent movie you watched? V for Vendetta.

37) Name three things you have on you at all times: MP3 player, spybook, penknife.

38.) What color are your bed sheets? Grey.

39) How much cash do you have on you right now? Not sure.

40) What is your favorite part of the chicken? What?

41) What's your favorite town/city? My home town.

42) I can't wait till: I find a purpose.

43) What's your favorite color? Blllaackpurple.

44) What did you have for dinner last night? I really can't remember.

45) How tall are you barefoot? Five foot three. PH3AR ME!

46) Have you ever smoked heroin? No.

47) Do you own a gun? No.

48) What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Water.

49) What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex? Sheer accident.

50) Do you have A.D.D.? Not as far as I am awa - hey look a butterfly!

51) What time did you wake up today? About four in the afternoon.

52) Current worry? Oh too much to list.

53) Current hate? Moving.

54) Favorite place to be? With friends.

55) Where would you like to travel? Not particularly.

56) Where do you think you'll be in 10 yrs? Noo idea.

57) Last thing you ate? Ryvita. It may taste like sand, but dammit, I like it.

58) What songs do you sing in the shower? Sing? Moi? Not likely.

59) Last thing that made you laugh? Football. They're all such pansies.

60) Worst injury you've ever had? Dislocated shoulder.

61) Does someone have a crush on you? I know at least two people do.

62) What's your favorite candy? We don't have candy here. We say sweets, we do.

63)If you could have surgery of any kind, what would it be? Humm. If it's for practical reasons, I would fix my broken shoulders.

64)If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I'd like to come up with something deep and profound and restrospect here, but in reality, I'd probably just give myself pointy ears.

I return

2006-07-12T22:04:00.000+01:00

I return. Was not away for as long as I thought I'd be.

I was going to write a list of the things I have been up to, but it's too hot to sit here and this abominable sunshine has melted the remaining few cognitive processes that I still had functioning. Anyway, some parts of my adventures involved a spiders nest.

Some parts didn't.

It's a good job I'm not scared of spiders.

Cookies are to be awarded to the first person to notice I'm back.

Random Shoutouts

2006-07-01T18:00:00.000+01:00

I have a few things to say. Some are to specific people who I know will read and acknowledge, some are to anyone who cares.

Firstly, to Luke. Aka The Reverse Victorian Woman, My Flatmate, The Small Creature, The Kiwi Penis. (don't ask) Have a great time in the Lake District, and take care when you spend your summer in Spain. If you don't go into at least one art museum I will kill you. Also, since you asked me to mention you in my blog, if you don't comment within a month or so, I will track you down and kill you some more. I know where to find you. I'll just follow the goddamned Lynx smell and the cookie crumbs. Like in a fairytale.

Aww.

But I will still kill you. Email me and tell me how you're doing, bitch.

To Aaron - I haven't written an entry on The Guns as of yet. I might do when inspiration hits me. Or I might just invent more girly names for them and emasculate you further. You just never know with me. But then again, you are an honourary woman/lesbian, so it's okay.

To Josh - it's a bun. It has always been a bun, and always will be. It is only a doughnut, if it has a hole in it. If it has no hole, it is a bun. This fact is now published on teh interwebz, therefore, it must be true.

To anyone who cares - Mixing tea and coffee together is good. It brings nice things to the tastebuds. My friend came up with the name 'Cofftee' which made me laugh for a shameful amount of time. Like, for more than five seconds. Alas.

Cofftee.

Mmmm.

Also, this is funny. Laugh.

Over and out

More Football Updates

2006-06-28T21:34:00.000+01:00

Turns out that this hardcore anti-football girl here has now watched about seven football matches. I blame my friend Aaron, who has been vehemently and regularly insisting that the football is just not the same without me. Bless. He likes to mistake my vacant stare for rapt attention, my frequent yawns for gasps of delight, and my falling asleep during the second half for just not being able to take the sheer beauty of it all, and shutting down to protect myself.

Bless. He's good at this denial gig.

I've been doing lots of pointless things since my exams finished, I'm finding it quite nice. Occasionally it leads me to do stupid things because of sheer boredom. I like to call them 'abstract'.

Like the other day, when me and my flatmate decided to mess around with Aikido moves, because he was mourning the fact that he hadn't been to a class for a while. I have moved on from actually watching football matches, to having my wrists nearly broken. God I am bored.

I'd like to say he was teaching me, but most of the time I was just getting beaten up. Turns out that he knows a fair bit of it, even though he hasn't been to a class that he enjoyed for a little while. I'm found it hard to type for a little while afterwards, the bastard, my hands felt weird and hard to move after getting bent in ways they shouldn't. But oh it was fun, and I have learned a grand total of a few things. Bwa hah. Ph3ar me. Or, you know, not.

My first thought when he picked me up and lifted me over his shoulders, was 'Ack! This is so undignified! Putmedown putmedown putmedown!!' And my second thought was that I hadn't been picked up and thrown around like that since I was ten years old and I would playfight with my big sister's boyfriend, who was like a big dumb brother to me. Ah memories.

He put me down eventually. My flatmate, I mean.

Anyway, I am going to go back and ask him to teach me the lock he put me in, it's one where you grab the other person and then you absolutely cannot get up, no matter how strong you are.

Thing is, I had one hand free. And I'm practical, I carry a penknife with me and would have been quite able to remove it from my pocket with one hand and stab him in the back of the neck with it.

...

But I didn't.

There was pool involved in all of this madness too. Or rather, the football addicts I am now associated with like to go and play pool after they watch a match, while I stand and watch and try not to eat my own hair to relieve the boredom. I asked Aaron what the reasoning behind this playing pool after watching the football was. Apparantly, it is because it makes them feel 'manly'. Often, the word 'manly' is accompanied by a flexing of the biceps, and an audible "Urrrrggg!" of manliness. It amuses me to no end, but, you know, I am woman and therefore must nod and smile lest I cause upset.

It completely baffles me. Pool - manly? Well first of all, while being suitably 'manly', you bend over a pretty coloured psuedo velvet table and display your arse to the world. And secondly, you balance a long smooth pretty tapered stick oh-so-delicately on your fingers, and take careful and precise aim. Then, you gently tap a pretty white ball, and make it roll into another coloured ball, which then hopefully, rolls across the pretty velvetish table and into a hole.

...manly? Manly? Did I miss something? No, no no, 'manly' would be taking your pool cue and smacking your opponent around the head with it. The beauty of duelling with pool sticks did cross my mind once or twice (Oh fine. To be honest I thought of nothing else) but I feared that my radical interpretation of 'manly' might well upset the more traditional males.

So instead I satisfied myself with tapping and prodding the back of Aaron's pool stick when he went to take a shot. His exclamations of "Oy! Woman! Off! Stoppit!" brought a smile to my black heart. My next plan is to steal the pretty white ball and run away with it.

Oh god pool is boring. So is football, actually. Aaron insists that I am simply biased against all the 'ools' to which I respond, 'hell yes'. I shall be happy if I never see another 'ool' in my life.

Disclaimer: The Raevyn and her associates, do in no way advocate or promote violence against your fellow man with pool cues. Nor, do they promote or idealise, the notion that to be 'manly' is to smack said fellow man with a stick. Such notions are for musing and amusement purposes only and are not to be taken seriously. These musings are undertaken by a professional idiot with years of musing experience. Do not try this at home.

Also, The Raevyn wishes she had associates.

Passing the time until

2006-06-27T22:15:00.000+01:00

Werewolf cliches

2006-06-27T12:16:00.002+01:00

Here are a list of obligatory cliches found in werewolf films, in order of how obligatory they are.

Throughout the entire film we will see nothing but annoying tantalising half second glimpses of the beast, and then will not see it fully until the last fifteen minutes upon which the beast will be revealed and the entire budget blown.

The werewolf will get hit by a car.

The words "Was that some sort of big dog?" or "What was that, some kind of mutated bear?!" will be uttered, even though the monster in question stands on it's hind legs and looks like a frickin' werewolf.

The lead character will wake up in a forest naked with no idea how they got there.

The injuries will have healed before anyone can see them.

The lead character will suddenly acquire incredibly enhanced senses and not realise it until they notice that they are following the scent of blood and walk in on something mundane like someone with nosebleed or something.

The werewolf will be a complete dork with nicely cliched dork glasses and clothes, who gets routinely bullied by the bigger kids at school, and sucks at gym class. Then, after being bitten by the werewolf, he will turn into a cool suave player with no glasses, will go to aforementioned gym class, and kick ass completely. Bonus points if he pulls the lead bully's girlfriend.

The dog will growl at the werewolf, and be the only living thing to recognise the beast for what it is.

That dog will get eaten.

If the lead character is a female, the werewolf will turn out to be the her love interest. Gasp!

There will be dozens of useful straightforward information books about werewolves to hand in the most basic of local libraries. ...take it from this werewolf obsessive, that does-not-happen.

There will be a scene where the werewolf wakes up in their own bed, to see a series of footprints leading from their window to their bed, which begin as werewolf pawprints, then gradually metamorphose to human. Bonus points for this cliche, it's a sheer classic.

Sentences along the lines of 'Don't you just love the moon? It really *looks deep into the camera* brings out the (hinthinthint anvil is being dropped oh god hint it's an anvil hint) beast in me." will be uttered.

There will be a spooky fortune teller who reads the lead character's palm, gets really scared, and refuses to say any more and flees the film. Brilliant.

There will be some stupid scene were the lead character starts eating raw meat and doesn't realise it until they look down. Ooosubtle.

The Pen Monster.

2006-06-26T11:55:00.000+01:00

I was asked what my theory was as to the phenomenon that is disappearing pens the other day. You must know this quite well, I am talking about the apparant black hole that anything even resembling a biro gets sucked into. How you can start the week with a box full of twenty biros, and end it with a mere one and a half, with no idea whatsoever as to where the entire bloody box has disappeared to. This is what I came up with.

There is a monster, who loves under the floorboards. This particular monster applies to you even if you're on the third floor, or you don't have floorboards. It matters not. And he is known as the Pen Eating Monster.

See the lesser spotted Pen Eating Monster is small and squat and round and purple, and his mouth takes up a third of his body. He has two short legs, one is gimpy. He looks a bit like a Flanimal, but with no handy humourous description levitating beneath him. Other than that, totally like a Flanimal.

Despite being small and fat, his voracious appetite enables him to move at the speed of light. He specialises in peeking through the holes in the floorboards, and waiting for the following opportunities to arise:

Someone putting a pen down on the bed that they are sitting on - contrary to popular belief, it's not the bed cover that eats the pens, but the Pen Monster.
Someone putting a pen down on a cabinet - It does not, in fact, roll off the side and fall down between the wall and the cabinet, the Pen Monster eats it. So you can stop looking.
Someone putting a pen in their front pocket - He in fact can, and does, roll up the front of your chest and into your pocket and swallow the pen and roll out of there and back under the floorboards before you can even blink. So you can stop patting all your pockets looking for the pen that you know you had, because it's gone. Let it go.

You know how when you see the pens which are all chewed on one end? Those are the pens that the Pen Monster went to eat, but his aforementioned gimpy leg was playing up, (the damp gets to him sometimes) and he only had time to chew the end before the owner came back to claim it. Curses!

No one really knows exactly what he looks like, because living on a diet of plastic and ink has given him chronic indigestion and terrible constipation. So if any poor soul actually catches a proper glimpse of him, he's such a grumpy shit that he swallows them whole. This is the reason why we are still asking, to this day, "Where do pens go?" - because there are no surviving witnesses.

There are other known demons that are relations of the Pen Monster. The Sod's Law Demon, for example. He exists. *thumps desk* dammit, he exists!

And that is where all the missing biros go.

Football update

2006-06-26T11:00:00.000+01:00

Apparantly the world cup goes on. I have now watched a grand total of three football matches in the last few days. Three! That's more than I've ever watched in my entire life. Well when I say 'watch' I utilise the term very loosely indeed.

I watched the England vs...someone else match yesterday, and showed what I thought of it all by blatantly drawing a pretty picture on some paper, and not doing anything that could be interpreted as paying attention. I then almost had a heart attack when England scored, because I got kind of involved in my drawing and wasn't really paying attention to the eerily silent football fans who were enraptured by the big screen around me. Then all of a sudden for reasons unapparant to me, they all jumped upright at the same time and simultaneously went "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEESSSS!!!!" or something like that, I don't know, I was too busy getting violently shocked out of my trance to know what the fark they were yelling about. It was a goal, apparantly. Whoo..hoo?

And then I watched another match in the evening, I really cannot remember for the life of me who was playing. Point is, I was awake and conscious for the first half, but I think that was because I had food. Then for the second half I pulled my hood over my head, my hat over my eyes, and fell asleep on the sofa. If you wandered through Cartmel bar during the football last night and saw some scruffy long haired girl curled up and dead to the world amongst some other distinctly non asleep football fans, that was probably me.

Can you tell I love football?

Football and stuff

2006-06-25T14:18:00.000+01:00

I used to write in this thing practically everyday, now I only do it when I'm really really bored. I guess that's a good thing, right? It tends to mean that I may have more of a social life than I used to, or that I at least am less of an purposefully unsociable git than I used to be..one of those.

Some people tell me that my ramblings amuse them, which makes me happy to a degree. I'm doing something right.

Oh dear god I'm bored. I wrote this entire huge long rant on male lesbians, and what I think of them. I don't know whether to publish it, it's quite, um, strong minded.

Now I don't know what to do with myself. I've been drawing for the past few weeks and come up with nada. It's not going well. At the moment I draw like a five year old. And not a very good one at that.

I tried to get drunk, or mildly drunk, or something like that yesterday. Didn't work, I had no idea what I was doing, to be honest. Now if you know me, you know that I don't drink. Like, at all. Never. So why was I trying to get drunk? Never mind that. Point is, I ended up getting really sleepy, feeling as low as I did when I started, and passing out in my bed at eight in the evening.

...how crap am I? I mean seriously, that is the most pitiful attempt at getting drunk that anyone has ever done in the history of the world, ever. I suck. I do.

Despite nearly falling asleep on my friend's shoulder, I did have a reasonably good time. Despite there being football involved. Oh I hate the World Cup. I didn't even know it was on until someone told me about it, which I think is sheer dedication on my part to be ignorant of anything that is shaped like football.

Anyway, there was football. I went to watch football with a friend. I forget who was playing. But one side had yellow shirts, and the other side had white shirts. See? I know enough. I started watching the match about half an hour in, and they had already scored twice. Then they scored nothing for the entire remainder of the game. Pitiful. I walked in after the exciting parts and then sat and watched a load of pansies kick a ball around a field for an hour AND NOT SCORE. Pfft. Rubbish.

So my fabulous day consisted of near crying on my poor flatmate's shoulder, (sorry Luke!) then going and making a crap attempt to do studenty things involving football and booze, almost falling asleep on my friend, and then passing out in my bed before nine o 'clock.

I'm crap!

I'll try harder next time. Yes. I will become a proper student yet.

FFS

2006-06-17T22:11:00.000+01:00

For once I have nothing better to do with myself.

I'm thoroughly pissed off, have just gone from one side of the campus to the other, as I do, every day, in the vain hope that I can find a friend who is not drinking, drunk, or in a sodding bar. I'm sick of bars. What is it with students and drinking? You're all annoying. No one likes drunk people.

I'm stuck in my flat again. I don't want to be here. All the people I care about have gone or aren't here, so I am left with a load of bastards from Greece who I hate. I want to kill them. They are so fucking noisy and inconsiderate you would not believe. They have equally noisy and unwelcome friends with them, I saw them coming, and tried to go through the door to our building and close it before they got here, but I wasn't quick enough, dammit. I hope they saw me blatantly trying to close the door on them. Tossers.

So I have taken out my wrath by locking one of them out.

Hah. Haha. Hah. I can hear him knocking on the door, trying to get back in. His friends can't hear him, because they all TALK LIKE THIS AND IT RESOUNDS THROUGH THE ENTIRE BUILDING SO THEY'RE NOT going to hear him for a while.

This brings a small smile to my black heart.

I don't feel at all better, I'd rather break some part of their anatomy than merely lock one of them out, but I guess I might get into trouble if I take a large blunt object to their shins. So society tells me.

Oh god I need some company. I'm so restless. I need to talk to someone who speaks English as their first language, DOES NOT TALK LIKE THIS, and is not drunk or getting drunk.

Unfortunately people like that do not exist here. Ever. I'm going absolutelyfrickingbarmy. If you fit the above characteristics and are here at present, please look me up before I hang myself with the little that's left of my carefree spirit.

I love these guys.

2006-06-13T03:38:00.000+01:00

Seriously, these guys are like one of the best things to happen this year.

Look at his cute little Finland hat he has at the beginning!

And I love the way the big demon dude is busy roaring "Hard! Rock! Hallelujah!" While the keyboard playing demon is tapping his keyboard and bopping away in the background occasionally throwing his head back and going "AaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa!" like it's the-most-normal-thing-in-the-world.

It's quality. Don't deny it.

Break Bread to the beat of U2!

2006-06-08T08:26:00.000+01:00

You know how when you are wandering around and minding your own business, you occasionally come across something both benign and innocent, that for some reason, makes you laugh like a mentally deficient village idiot for about five minutes?

I do.

This place is covered in posters, adverts, basically the whole place is covered wall to wall in paper on top of paper advertising the latest events, socials, news, etc. There's also a Christian group here. I found the following advert, and just had to steal it. It had to be done. It's so funny. Lookit:

Complete with stolen sellotape and all, go me.

Why did I find this so funny? Just - just - look at it! U2 aren't particularly holy now, are they? Not only have they gotton into severe trouble before where drug abuse is concerned, but they represent and hail from one of the least religiously stable countries in the world.

Is it a metaphor? Do they actually break bread, while listening to U2, or is it just a figure of speech? I just find the image of a load of Christians 'breaking bread' while listening to U2 and generally being all holy amusing to no end. 'Christian worship to the beat of U2'...oh I really want to see that. If I was sad/frightening/a stalker, I'd go and spy on them. I wish I had an invisibility cloak like in Harry Potter. I'd crash the place and start making things float. Make the bread dance to the beat of U2, and the like.

But I don't have an invisibility cloak. So in reality, I'd probably just spy on them from the roof and end up falling through the skylight, like they do on TV. I don't think they have skylights. But they do in my head.

I met the Christian group once. That was interesting. My anti Christian status, makes it more so. It was the first week here, and I was quite lost. I knew I was close to where I had to be, just not there yet. I asked a group of friendly looking people for directions. They asked me to follow them, and led me down a corridor. Poor, simple me, assumed that they were showing me where I needed to go. It was when they led me into a room filled with lots of other people, and a large table with a buffet on it, that I began to get suspicious. It was then when I noticed that all the people were wearing black shirts with BIG YELLOW CROSSES on them, that it all clicked in my little head. I had been mobbed by the Christian society.

They asked if I would have lunch with them and talk about their faith...at this point, I was backpedalling towards the door rather fast. I muttered something about having somewhere to be, and scarpered.

Eeep.

And that was my first and last experience with the Christian group.

Highly important questions

2006-06-04T13:19:00.000+01:00

I have some important questions.

So on the human body, there's the bicep, the tricep, and even the quadracep. But unfortunately this then raises one question of the upmost importance: WHERE IS THE UNICEP?! HUH?

One day, we, as a species, will wake up, realise that we don't have Uniceps, and run around screaming. Mark my words.

And why on earth is there an 's' in the word 'lisp'? That is utterly, utterly, cruel. Not being able to pronouce the very thing you have. In fact, anyone who says the sentence "I have a lisp." to you, is instantly a liar. Hum. Whoever decided that that word should be applied to that affliction did it quite in purpose, I know it.

It's like the word dyslexia being too damned hard to spell, even for someone who does not suffer from it. Somewhere, out there, there is a cruel cruel person who thought to themselves 'AHA! I shall give the disorder that afflicts people with inaccurate spelling, a really really difficult to spell name! I rule!'

Did you know, that the same person who invented the word 'dyslexia' was also the person who invented the word 'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia', which means, 'a fear of long words'?

...no not really, I made that up. But I bet he was. Sadistic bastard. But seriously, what kind of person, would name the phobia of long words 'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia'??? Surely they must have had the foresight to know, that the defintion of the very things that the sufferers are afflicted with would make them dive under a table in mortal terror?

That's cruel, man, that's so sadistic!

Same as the word abbreviation. It's too long. Someone should really abbreviate it. O wait! They already do abrev. it, they do that in dictionaries.

And the word superflous. That's the worst one. In my Art A Level, we had to write an essay on an artist. My evil she demon of a teacher commented on my paper 'Stop being so superflous.' in big red letters. I had never encountered the word before, so I trundled off to a dictionary to look it up. Apparantly, it means, to use long words or complex language where it is truly not needed. It can cause confusion or result in lack of understanding.

....

I like the word hypocrite, it's such a cool word.

I used to get really confused in school, when some of the idiot boys decided that they wanted to throw things across the room at each other. They would shout "Heads up!" and then lob tennis balls at each other and it was up to the rest of us to duck. Now I think that the very important pressing issue here is why on earth do you say heads up when you actually mean DUCK?? It was like

Idiot #1: "Heads up!"

Me: *thinking* 'Heads..up? Why? What are we looking at?'

*bop*

Me: "Ooowwww!"

Idiot #2: Dude, he said 'heads up, didn't you hear him?'

Me: ...

This makes no sense. No sense!

And a while ago, when I was talking to my friend on msn, she tried to spell phoenetic, and spelt it phoenetically. Why oh why is the very word that means 'to spell it like it sounds' spelt in such a freaking weird and unphoenetic way??

And howcome, when two things almost crash into each other but don't, we say it was a 'near miss'? They didn't nearly miss, they DID miss, they nearly crashed!

Did you know that gullible is the only word that's not in the dictionary? No, it's true, no one knows why.

And when I was in a Seminar, one person was talking about the overtones found in a poem by Tennyson, and another person was talking about the undertones found in said poem. It then dawned that they were the same thing. Huh??

Superflous is a superflous word.
Humans skipped the Unicep and went right on to the bicep.
'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' sufferers can't tell people what they suffer from, because the word is too long.
People with a lisp can't tell people that they have a lisp, because they can't say it.
People who suffer from dyslexia will most likely have trouble spelling that.
The word 'abbreviation' gets abbreviated.
You can't spell the word 'phoeniticallty' fenet - uh, phoenetically.
There's synonyms for everything, except the word synonym.
People tell you to put your head up when they mean put it down.
Undertones and overtones mean the same thing.
There's no other word for thesaurus.
Monosyllabic has five syllables in it.
Gullible is not in the dictionary. (Did you believe me? Did you? Did you? )
You look stuff up in the dictionary to find out how to spell it, when you don't know how to spell it in the first place.
Keanu Reeves is still getting acting jobs.

There's so many weird things and they all baffle my poor brain!

..

2006-06-02T05:20:00.000+01:00

Happy 60th Birthday, Dad.

I miss you.

I'm sorry that you and Mum aren't having the joint 60th birthday party that you were both planning. I know that would have been really special, I would have come home just for that. It's not everyday that you and your soulmate turn six decades old, within a couple months of each other! I know it would have been great, you had so many friends and the place that it was going to be at was beautiful. And right next door, which was just too perfect.

We found out about the surprise holiday you were planning as a birthday present for Mum. I know she would have loved it, had you had the time to complete it.

You should be at home today, waking up at some (to me) ungodly hour like seven or eight in the morning. Then you would be going out to get The Independent newspaper, like you always did, despite my protests that it's not as interesting as The Daily Mail, because it doesn't have cartoons in it.

Then (at some more respectable hour, ie, when the normal world awakes) you should be getting given presents from Mum and me and Helen and Lucy, even though we all know you hate fuss, we can't help it, but you always let us fuss over you anyway, even though it embarassed you, purely for the reason that, you know that we wanted to. You were just selfless like that. Golf balls, fudge, socks, a book by Agathe Christie, some golf related merchandise, the usual I guess. You'd be all bashful, and you'd get your kids names mixed up even though we're nothing alike because you were funny like that. Then when we finally let you leave the house, you should be playing golf in the sun with your friends for your birthday, and enjoying pratting about in the way that only immature older males en masse can.

Then you would come home, and I would pester you and ask you whether you won, and then you would give me a speech about handicaps, birdies, eagles, putters, drivers, tees, bloody young golfers, like you used to. And I would nod and smile, and be proud that I understood at least fifty percent of the golf jargon. You'd tell me about the stupid things and phrases that your friends came up with by accident, which would make me laugh because they were always brilliant, and you'd make a note of them in your book.

I, at some point in the day, should be making some age related joke, in good spirits. Oh I wouldn't have been able to let the 60 years mark just pass, without some kind of jest, you know it.

Then we'd probably go and run some everday errand together, like we always did, and I'd carry things for you, because the doctors wouldn't let you lift heavy things anymore.

Then later on it would all die down, I guess, it's not like you would have encouraged or attempted to prolong the fuss! And the day would have ended as usual, with you and Mum sitting together in the living room, and holding hands and watching TV and reading the newspaper, until it got late and you both fell asleep by the fire, whereas I would go on for hours and stay up all night, nocturnal creature that I am.

It should be happening today. It should. But it's not. You should be at home. But you're not. You're not meant to be in that graveyard. It wasn't your time.

I didn't know what to do with myself today. I went out and sat in Alexandria Square for a few hours at two or three in the morning, and I thought about you. Not that I don't think about you all the time, anyway. I also remembered how when we visited this University together, for the first time last year when I was trying to decide whether to attend here or not, we both got quite lost...and for once, I was the one who managed to navigate us both out again. Which was really odd, because it was always you who had the good sense of direction, and me who was comparitively rubbish. Like the time I managed to send us in completely the wrong direction on the moors in Devon, that was so funny. You're so patient. I still adamantly blame the fog for my miscalculations. But anyway, at this Uni, for once I learned the layout quicker than you did. Perhaps it was a sign that this was the University for me, or something.

Then I listened to your music and thought about you some more. I couldn't cry, because there were people around. Bloody students, they are still running around the University even in he middle of the night.

I am sorry I am not there visiting your grave today.

I know that it would have been so distressing for us, when I left home for the first time and went to University. We would have missed each other rotten. I used to be at home all the time, and so were you. We would have gone from seeing each other everyday, all day, to seeing each other periodically and only talking on the phone. It would have been horrible to adjust to, and we both would have been sad. If you hadn't gone, just a month before I left. I guess that this way, you can't miss me. At least one of us doesn't have to deal with missing the other. At least one of us doesn't have to deal with having a huge bleeding hole in their life.

I do though. I can't bear it.

I love you Dad, we all miss you.