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Wednesday 27 October 2010

Bedroom Inspiration

I’ve spent the past week and a bit revamping my bedroom. I haven’t given the walls a fresh lick of paint or anything for it to take so long… don’t ask. Wallpapering wardrobes and…urgh. ANYWAY. Almost done now – I’ll spare you the gripe about having far too much stuff and moving piles around.

This was all inspired by a trip to IKEA (You have no idea how much I love that shop) – seeing all the mock-up rooms made me basically want to burn my carpet and paint everything white. I’ve also had nothing but issues with storage in my house. We have a LOT of furniture here but not really any that is useful for keeping stuff in. My quest for storage solutions led me to browsing the internet looking for ideas on how to do that and I ended up ogling lots of pictures and wishing that my room wasn’t quite so old fashioned. Mismatched furniture is quirky, yes, but if it’s badly mismatched it can only look bad, hence the revamp.. It’s all a jumble still at the moment but it’s gradually coming together – I’m in the ‘putting things away’ stage now, which is my favourite stage, and it’s looking really good! I have a feeling that it’s going to always feel like summer in here – it’s so bright and breezy and lovely!… if it wasn’t for that damn carpet in here… (I detest carpets passionately)

Thought I’d share a slideshow of the pictures which inspired me – it’s all fairly similar in style, obviously because I was looking for ideas for things that were to my taste, but maybe something in there will inspire you. When this thing eventually gets finished, I’ll post up before/after pictures so you can see what miracles a tin of white paint, several black bin liners full of junk and a big tin of elbow grease can work!

It won’t look quite as pretty as these photos– until I have a house of my own, my bedroom will never just be a bedroom.. it will always be bedroom/study/living room/giantbathroomcabinet/library/airing cupboard/cloakroom/gym.

 

Enjoy!

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Sunday 24 October 2010

Irony

There was a wasp in my room this morning - you know the kind of idiotic insect that insists on bashing itself repeatedly against the one bit of glass that doesn't open. Couldn't find its way out with FOUR open windows on either side of it, so I hit it with a Lonely Planet travel guide, as it was the biggest book I had to hand. I didn't realise the irony til afterwards. It helped to take a little of the sting out of the fact I’d just killed something.

 

image

Sunday 17 October 2010

Ten Things about the Internet That Really Irritate Me

 

Twitter/YouTube/MySpace/Deviantart/Blogcatalog:

1. SPAM MESSAGES:

“I just subbed to your blog!!! sub me back!!!” – Hey, I didn’t tell you to subscribe to me – that was your choice, I have no interest in discount boilers, why on earth would I sub to you?

 

“Hey! Awesome site!! here’s a really cool link to get more followers! www.iamanannoyingtwatthrowstonesatme.com”. Really? Thanks! do you actually even know what my site is about? Coz you have the addresses of at least 20 other people in your ‘to’ bar.

 

“Hey! I really love your site! If you put a link to my site about pest control, I’ll promote you on my site too!”. Funny, some form of pest control could come in handy right about now, I think..

 

“Hey I just subbed! sub4sub!”  Thanks, but I only subscribe to people I’m interested in. I’m not interested in German death metal and penile tattoos. If you want to unsubscribe on that basis, go right ahead. No skin off my nose.

 

“I unsubscribed to you because you were not active enough on my channel”… hang on, back up…you subscribed to me. I don’t have to do anything on your channel. Since when does subscribing to someone mean they have to even look at your channel?

 

2. COMMENTS:

 On a drag queen’s YouTube video: “ur gay” How observant.

 “your video is sh*t” and you just wasted 15 seconds of your life to tell me that because…

 “I want to cum in your mouth” great…good for you.

 “die, you fat ugly ****” clearly, someone was not hugged enough as a child.

“ how u a gangsta n yu ask for a doublee shot frappe w soy millk at starrubucks” once more, and lets try it in English this time, hmm?

“you cant sgin!” And you can’t spell. Congratulations.

“ur hot” …marvellous.. You do realise the video was of a bear scratching its arse on a rock, right?

 

3. POPUPS:

“Talk to hot girls in your area”I live in chavsville. There are no hot girls in chavsville… unless you’re into fake tan, tracksuits and hoop earrings in a really BIG way. And why would I want to talk to them..? I have real friends. Who are actually girls. Not some fat guy called Dwayne with saggy underpants, broadband internet connection and no discernable life skills who goes by the alias ‘Tiffany, blonde, 19, 34-24-34’  on Thursday afternoons?

Hot Russian girls are waiting for you” well they’ll be waiting a long time.

Carly wants to chat" Good for her. I don’t.

Amy says ‘didn’t we used to date in high school?” Seeing as I went to an all girls school and I’m not a lesbian.. probably not.

 

 

4a. ANNOYING ADVERTS:

One simple rule to a flat stomach! before and after photos showing one  blonde woman who is very clearly pregnant and not fat vs. a girl who very clearly has a  severe eating disorder, black hair and a tattoo. 

EARN MONEY!!! with some random company I’ve never heard of and a dodgy looking website? I’ll..er.. pass… thanks though…

Learn One Mom’s Secret to WHITE TEETH for under $10! which involves mixing two types of teeth whitener…look mummy.. no teeth! :S… I think it’s best to leave the mixing of chemicals and bleaching agents to the scientists who actually know what they’re doing, don’t you?

SCRATCH! dumdumdumdumdum SCRATCH CARDS…  *throws computer out of window*

Those random adverts that sneak up on you and make you go through about 20 open windows trying to figure out where on earth that ‘epic battle’ music is coming from and turn it the hell off! – Usually from some form of online RPG World of Warcraft type thing. Or Evony (whatever the heck that is)

Live Poker I hate gambling. It is the downfall of many a good, gullible, easily influenced person. I think it’s morally wrong that suddenly adverts for all sorts of gambling things have started springing up during the middle of a recession where vulnerable and stupid people are easy targets.

 

If these adverts were actually USEFUL then I wouldn’t complain half so much.

 

4b. STUPID ADVERTS

stupid advert3

And a test for colour-blindness is reflective of your intelligence how?

 

5. LOLCATZ. 99.9% of the time they’re not even funny, they’re just highlighting the fact that many people are not only illiterate but also demonstrate a very limited capacity for creating humour. Leave it to the experts. You know… the ones that get paid for going on stage with a microphone and don’t get things thrown at them.

 

6. LOADING TIMES

buffering

2 hours later… still at 0% … sometimes when it’s feeling energetic, it goes to 5%

image

Impeccably times it so that it’s just getting to the good bit. Oh yes, and then, because I was actually watching the video and not the progress bar at the bottom, I don’t know the exact time it decided to block me, so 54 mins later I can’t just pick up where I left off. Which is annoying.

 

7. I have a love/hate relationship with SAFARI. I love the way it looks, and it’ is QUICK.

BUT it is also one of the most unstable things I’ve ever used.

 notconnect  When I’ve written a really long email/post and haven’t done my usual thing of copying the entire thing just in case something happens so I can simply paste it: Every time I forget to ctrl+c, I get an error message… often like the one above. Firstly Oh FFS!!!! *resists the urge to hit the computer*. Secondly – it’s not even true – because the little bar on the bottom right tells me I’m connected and have full signal so ONE of them is lying to me.. and I don’t think there are prizes for guessing which.

 

Safari_crash

 

 

Usually, I don’t even get the courtesy of an apology or an explanation. I couldn’t find a screencap of the error message I usually get, which is basically - ‘Safari has experienced a problem and needs to close’ end of. I can click ok, but what if it’s not ok with me!? I don’t care what your so-called problem is, I’m in the middle of something – you can rodding well wait until I tell you I’m ready to close. Thank you very much.

 

image

 

 

 

images

Safari Web Browser has stopped working

Oh you think? You mean,the fact I was going to the task manager and repeatedly hitting ‘end programme’ wasn’t indication enough that I’d figured that little nugget of information out for myself – you give me a stupid message which I have to spend another 10 mins pressing ‘close’ ‘close’ ‘close’ repeatedly on before you actually DO SOMETHING about it!

 

You can probably tell by now I have heated one-way discussions with my laptop on a daily basis.

 

8. Another love/hate relationship, this time with GOOGLE TRANSLATE

It is an absolutely BRILLIANT programme! Long gone are the days of trying to take shortcuts on my GCSE German coursework using Babelfish… This thing is marvellous for helping me learn Swedish by translating websites and song lyrics… but sometimes I question where it gets its intelligence from.

translate

9.  “THE INTERNET IS FOR PORN” And STALKING

Words courtesy of Trekkie and Kate-Monster in Avenue-Q, but there is sadly a fair bit of truth to what they say. Everywhere you turn on the internet practically, there’s porn. I’m well over 18 so the actual content, while I still find it offensive visually and morally, does not shock me; what does disturb me is how easy it is for young people – especially kids to get access to something that is for adult eyes only. Prime example being if you’re on a website about Gossip Girl and you get confronted with this: I was going to post a link with a warning, but to be honest, I don’t want anything I publish to have anything to do with that area of.. um.. ‘industry’. But basically an advert featuring a topless girl with her hand down her knickers is not something kids need to see. I’m not sure if parental locks would even keep that out, seeing as it’s just an advert, not an actual website.

 

On one hand, social networking sites are a great idea – an easy way to keep your friends in one place, share photos with them rather than trying to get everyone over to your house at the same time and crowded round a computer screen to see the photos from the other night, and also, as many people have done in the past, let people know they’ve lost their phone and can they have everyone's numbers again please. Facebook is almost like a back-up phone directory. With a built in weird virtual farm game thing where you can buy turnips or something… I don’t know. I don’t really use Facebook anymore.

HOWEVER

People inviting/accepting people they haven’t really spoken to for years who they never even really liked in the first place, or people they don’t know just so they can look at their profile or to boost their friend count is a bit… pathetic. I said I don’t really use Facebook anymore, but I do go on it occasionally just to check my messages once a month or so, because I do realise that the rest of the world uses it as a primary form of communication… in my friend request list.. I currently have about 30 friend requests… all from hairy Arabic looking guys. Hairy Arabic looking guys I don’t know. Why on earth would I want some stranger going through my information and finding out where I went to school or which pubs I frequent?

I know people who dedicate HOURS, literally, HOURS of their lives ‘spying’ (stalking) other people they know or their exes on the internet – finding out what they’re up to, who they’re hanging out with, rifling through their photo albums, reading posts people have written on their walls, seeing where they went last night… thanks to places like Facebook it’s making creepy stalkerish behaviour socially acceptable. And frankly that actually scares me a bit.

 

10.  ACCOUNTS

The sheer number of accounts I end up with and the number of usernames and passwords in their various combinations I have to remember is not even worth thinking about. From old emails that I don’t really use, to some technobabble forum I went on once because my computer went weird, and in order to post one question asking if anyone knows why it did something, I had to sign up… and then just to be sure I’d get a response sometime this year, I’d post the same question somewhere else like ‘theanswerbank’ (which is brilliant btw), and have to create another account with a username and password too. Trying to find usernames that aren’t already in use and ones I'll actually have a hope in hell of remembering that isn't the suggested ‘yourusername_8472_lskdjf’

Then there’s twitter, tumblr, spotify (♥), blogger, Google, twitpic, imageshack… ad nauseum. All things I use on a daily basis pretty much but the accounts really do stack up!! I have trouble enough remembering my pin at the cash point.

Favourite Painting of the Moment

31613503

 

by Richard Phillips

As seen on Gossip Girl.

Friday 15 October 2010

When The ‘Experts’ Get It Wrong. Very Wrong.

wrong

I’ve only been learning Swedish for a month… but even I know that this is so far removed from the correct pronunciation that it would actually be funny if this person wasn’t a published author apparently responsible for teaching the beautiful Swedish language to noobs like me. On the left is an excerpt from an e-book on ‘Elementary Swedish Grammar’ that I stumbled upon on Google, By a fella called Henri Fort. After reading the svenska alfabetet pronunciation guide and seeing how catastrophically wrong he’s got it I can safely say I’m not going to bother wasting any more of my time reading the rest of it. I’m not sure this dude has even met a Swedish person, much less set foot in Sweden himself. You can’t get much more basic than the alphabet..

Yikes.

That’s all.

 

 

 

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Shit My Dad Says is… well… shit.

http://www.watchmissedepisodes.com/shit-my-dad-says-season-1-episode-1-pilot/

Sadly nowhere near as funny as I expected/hoped it to be.

It’s just a typical tacky American sitcom like Friends or Two And A Half Men. Same tired style. I’m really disappointed with it. Canned studio laughter went out of fashion over here about 20 years ago and for an extremely good reason - it’s bad and cheapens the show. A show should be funny enough to make you laugh yourself, not have to listen to a crowd of other people’s laughter injected at random intervals to say ‘hahaha oh yes, by the way, just in case you didn’t get it yourself, he just told a joke’. Canned laughter has always been a real pet hate of mine. And to add injury to insult, William Shatner’s comedic timing is non-existent.

EPIC let down.

Which is a real shame because the posts on @shitmydadsays on twitter are absolutely hilarious and I really wanted the show to do well and to be brilliant. It’s just… really dated. You’d think that this had been filmed in the early 90s rather than 2010.

It’s not often I turn a TV show off half way through. And I was really looking forward to watching it too.

To compare, for a moment with two highly successful British family comedies One filmed within the past few years, and one filmed in the early 90s

1. Outnumbered

2. One Foot In The Grave (alas, with crowd laughter… *shudder*)

 

American comedy really needs to evolve a bit. Just to compare for a brief moment, the English ‘Office’ with the American ‘Office’…

1. UK Office 

2. US Office

 

I think you get the point.

 

the US version is so stilted and glossed.. the whole point of it was to appear like a documentary.. really missed the mark because it is so obviously acted.

FYI just because you have wobbly camerawork, it doesn’t mean that it looks like a documentary. It’s how natural the delivery of lines is that determines the extent of the viewers ability to suspend their disbelief. Not your cameraman's ability to fake having Parkinsons.

Thursday 7 October 2010

What did the Vikings ever do for us?

I will update this as I go along - if I remember, but learning Swedish (for those of you who know me outside of this blog, yes I know I'm banging on about it a LOT) is absolutely FASCINATING!!!

For those of you who know nothing about the history of the British Isles, about a thousand years ago, we got invaded by the Vikings. And where did the Vikings come from? Scandinavia: Aka Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

We didn't really want them here but they settled anyway and as I'm going along I can see SO MANY links to our Viking past in the language of today!

For example -

Grått - means Grey in Swedish. Pronounced 'Grot'. Over here, we have a saying that something is 'grotty'.. it's a 'grotty day outside'.. meaning it's grey, damp and miserable. Incidentally, Gråt with only one t, also means 'crying'.

Andra Hand -  literally means ‘other’ and ‘hand’  but used in conjunction means 'alternative' in Swedish. We say 'on the other hand' when we talk about alternatives. 'On one hand,I love coffee- but on the other hand I'm allergic to it'

I will update more when I can think of more, but right now it's late and I should be asleep, not getting excited about learning things!

 

Update: 14/10/10

Swedish ‘Barn’ = child. Scottish slang word for a child is ‘bairn’