Monthly Archives: March 2007

In search of my Mojo

Cas Today - 26th Feb Hello all.

This is just a quick note to let you know I’m not going to be posting for a little while. Those lucky people who occasionally snaffle me on IM, the phone or *gasp* in person will know that my sparkle has been sadly missing for the past couple of weeks.

My get up and go has very definitely got up and gone.

Along with a bone crunching tiredness that has left me thinking wishfully of intravenous caffeine (or being allowed to sleep 24 hours a day!) my desire to write has pretty much lurked into hiding along with my sense of humour. The former I am on top of – yay for doctors and yet more blood tests, woot – and the later will be best served by not forcing it. Plus there’s been an excess of snark and meanness doing the rounds lately and it’s left a nasty taste in my mouth that’s really kinda put me off the whole blogging/internet/community gig. I just need to sit out on the sidelines for a bit and remind myself that it’s all just meant to be fun.

Given a week or so I am sure that I will be bursting with things to share, and my doctor is hot on the trail of my missing fizz, so worry not! Cas will return even better than before – just don’t go looking for me on the blog till the start of April.

If the thought of not having me around till then sends chills up your spine (well I am wonderful, so you can be forgiven 😉 ) I expect I will still be twittering and possibly even flickring a little bit so keep an eye on me there.

Till my return, mes amis 🙂

Sunday Roast: my music was on too loud for me to smell properly

This Sunday Roast is brought to you by a Cas who has a sore foot (look at my shiny new tattoo!) and who is also feeling monumentally crappy. As a result (of the crappyness, not the sore foot) I think I’m going to take the next week or so off from blogging. I just can’t seem to find things to write about 🙁 That being said, the last couple of times I’ve taken a short break, I’ve come over all inspired so I shouldn’t worry too much 😉

The IPPR argues that adult students should get loans. Yes, yes we should. And there endeth my reasoned argument.

Appealing to my sense of the kinky and serving no practical use whatsoever, a cable tidy.

For those of you who didn’t catch Comic Relief on TV this year, I do recommend you get the Catherine Tate DVD. Not only does the money go to charity, but it’s also very, very funny. And I’m not a Catherine Tate fan!

If you’re not going to pay your TV license, you’d better have a good excuse.

ITV is abandoning its summer reality shows. Thank any-deity-you-care-to-mention!

Poor Jane, being deemed too ugly for her own biography. If I was feeling on top form I’d be all over this as an example of how society is going to the dogs and beauty isn’t everything yada yada yada. But I’m just too tired so I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks on your own.

I don’t wear watches, but if I did, I’d wear this one because it would just so totally freak people out!

And lastly four trailers to keep you busy this Sunday afternoon 🙂 Don’t you just love trailers – saves me having to write anything!
Year of the Dog – I wasn’t sure, till Peter Sarsgaard quirked his eyebrow, then I was sold. More likely a rental than a ‘go see at the cinema’, but still one to see.
Day Watch – I loved Night Watch (though I know I didn’t get all of it, those crazy Russians) and have been eagerly awaiting Day Watch. The trailer isn’t doing a good job selling it, but I still want to see it.
Pathfinder – not sure I want to see this, but I’m linking to the trailer because I would have put money on this having gone straight to DVD over here LAST year. Clearly not…
Pirates of the Caribbean: World’s End – do I have to give a reason? I do? Ok, Johnny Depp 😛 And it looks funny 😀

The Miffy Flick

OK, you’re not going to understand this, but it is so amazing I have to share –

I’ve got the Miffy Flick back!

The school I used to go to (Millfield) was full of very rich and very beautiful people (I was there on a scholarship and was an aberration). Now the default hairstyle for the girls was long (shoulder length to mid-back) straight hair, worn loose, tucked behind the ear with maybe a hairgrip to tame any long fringe. This hairstyle dictated frequent movement of hair out of the eyes, and the best of the best did this with what my brother and his friends christened ‘the Miffy Flick’.

It’s a small, kinda sideways and up flick of the neck and head. Nothing major and done almost subconsciously. Hard to describe, but it leaves the hair falling just so. It’s not a skill you get taught – an older girl doesn’t take you to one side at orientation and say “you do the Miffy Flick like this…” It’s just something you DO. At school it was the mark of the It girls. The sexy, sassy and popular. Mary and her crowd. The ones, to be honest, who made my life not much fun.

Now I didn’t use the Miffy Flick much, because I wasn’t that confident and anyway my long straight hair was invariably in a ponytail, and I probably successfully pulled it off about twice in my entire scholastic career. I haven’t used it for years – firstly because I really wasn’t confident and then because I had short hair. Hard to flick what you don’t have!

This morning however I just naturally Flicked my hair to get it out my face whilst I brushed my teeth. Looking in the bathroom mirror I actually said out loud “My god, it’s the Miffy Flick!” then I burst out laughing. I’d have killed to ‘Flick’ like that when I was at school. It’s the action of a sublimely confident girl, secure in the knowledge that she is gorgeous and that everyone loves her.

I guess that means I’m a sublimely confident girl, secure in the knowledge that she is gorgeous and that everyone loves her.

Hang on, that can’t be right!

Time for a change

Those of you who read Bright Meadow the old fashioned way (i.e., not in an RSS reader!) might just have noticed a few changes around the place.

Yes, I’m switching themes – I was just getting heartily sick of the old K2 (quiet Rich 😛 )
Yes, I’m doing it live – I know I should sandbox it an’ all, but I really don’t have the energy. Plus this is most likely just a stop-gap on the road to a full custom design (shh, I didn’t just say that 😉 )
Yes, it’s discombobulating me too. I’d got so very used to the old design, each time I look at the new theme I go “Arg! Is that really Bright Meadow?”

The problem with having lived with K2 for the last year or so is that I’ve got so very, very used to it. I know which files to go to, to change certain aspects of the behaviour. I understand the slightly twisted logic in the Loop. And more importantly, I’d tweaked it so that it did things the way I (more or less) wanted them to be done. Little tweaks that you probably didn’t even notice, but I’d made them like that for a reason.

Now I’ve got to 1) remember what those tweaks were and then 2) work out where those changes have to be made in the new files…

So please bear with me whilst I play around some and try and make a nice new home for the penguins 🙂

*edit*
Ok, so the basic bones are in place and now I actually DO want your feedback!
A few things I’m aware of and will have to get working before I am totally happy:

  • the header image – needs work I know, but I’m woefully uninspired at the moment. It’s all very well saying “do a new header”, but it takes imagination (and skill!), neither of which I have – thanks to the divine Josh, this I now have! Look and admire the wonderfulness!
  • the text is all scrunched up – got this one sorted. 1.75 spacing is MUCH better than 1.1 which was the default!
  • lost favicon – I know it’s missing. I’ve just got to put it back! – well, it should be back now, but favicons are notoriously tricky beasties
  • borders around images in FF and IE – I hate them, got to get rid of them! – problem solved once I realised it was because they were links, and Rich supplied me the CSS 😀
  • there’s no ‘site admin’ link in the menu at the top – this is for my use only, but I do like it there…
  • pagination of the archive & category pages – this is a big one, to the point of being a deal-breaker. At the moment, the archives and categories spew out the last x number of posts in full with no option to get more. I KNOW it can be made to show title+summary and ‘next page’ links. Just got to work out how to beat it into submission
  • the Flickr badge is currently styled oddly. I need to tweak the padding
  • the styling of gravatars. Currently they’re butt-ugly, hence not being activated
  • the spacing between the content and the sidebar needs to be a little bigger
  • something’s still not right with the post titles. Perhaps they need to be a bit bigger?
  • visited links need to be styled

Anything else that’s caught your eye? I already know Moose isn’t enamored with it, so how about the rest of you?

Sunday Roast: go and play with the flounder

To start with, massive *huggles* to illyna – because she’s worth it 🙂

This week can only be described as having been a little bit pants (that’s ‘not very good’ to those not familiar with Brit slang). I’ve definitely seen the dark side of project work this week and, whilst it’s made me even more convinced the work we’re doing is worthwhile, the day-to-day hasn’t been so much fun. Luckily I’ve got Monday and Tuesday off as I’ve been a very good girl, so that should give me time to find my fizz once more (contrary to one suggestion, it wasn’t down the back of the sofa).

In other news, I seem to be being sucked back into the whirling blackhole that is research, archaeological computing, and online publication… Whilst I’m enjoying it immensely to be truthful here, it has somewhat coloured the things I’ve been bookmarking lately. Yes, the Roast not only serves as entertainment for you all, but as a repository of things I want to go back to later myself. Bless the person who invented the search function, that’s all I have to say!

And enjoy the Roast of course 🙂

Wikipedia is going to be checking credentials of its contributors. Since writing the Demon Thesis, I’ve started to come around to thinking that verification of people is important if you want to have a trusted resource. That’s not to say that people with PhD’s are more trustworthy than those without, but you do need to be able to prove that Person X really is Person X and not Person Y pretending to be Person X, and that what Person X is saying about themselves is true. Credibility online is something that is very hard to build and, if you’re basing part of your credibility on your qualifications, well, it does help if those qualifications can be verified.

Yeah, there’s an argument in there somewhere if you care to look. My ideas are currently very nebulous and based more on a gut feeling than reasoned argument. I’ll get back to you when I have something more coherent to say on the matter!

This week the ‘Net proved it can cope with non-English characters. Which is good news for all of those who use a character set other than the Roman one.

9rules, the Old Skool way.

Following on from last week where a piece of Banksy art was sold with a free house attached, this week some fool painted over a Banksy piece by mistake. Er, oops?

What’s it like to visit the offices of a major publishing house? wonder no more.

Has anyone made any Flickr Collections yet?

I’ve been writing snapshots lately, but they are veritable novels compared to these ficlets.

I’ve been Twittering like a fool this past week, despite saying only LAST week that I’d never Twitter (I know, I know). I’ve got some Twitter friends already (yay me!) and am slightly scared at how well it’s fitted into my life. But all that aside, I’m really crap when it comes to explaining to people why I Twitter. I’m working on a post, but in the mean time read this because it explains things really rather well.

My all-time favourite Web academic danah has been on a roll this past week with articles on web sociality and narcissim on the web. Lots to ponder in there 🙂

And what is becoming a standing feature once again, some movie trailers that caught my eye:
Resident Evil: Extinction – so I’m a sucker for Oded Fehr in all his marvelous forms. That, and some mindless action always go down a treat.
Slow Burn – it took me two watches of this to work out why the female lead looked so familiar…
Lonely Hearts – Mmmmm, Jared Leto. Plus, the cinematography looks quite funky and different, and the story intrigues me.

The Story Of A Girl

I’m not right sure how I can possibly go about writing the love that I feel. Or to express to the gratitude. Is that the word? I don’t know. I don’t feel like I should be thanking her for getting me to the train station on time (though she’s done that), or for lending me some music (though, again, she’s done that time out of count). It’s more a peaceful sense of thanks that she came into my life when she did. I honestly don’t know what I would be without her — less of a person in many ways, I do know that. Without her I wouldn’t be, well, me, though some could argue that that would have been a good thing. But I’m not here to trace through a path of might-have-beens. I don’t have the skill, the self-awareness, or the will, to figure out what I would have been like if things had been different. I am having issues enough deciding what I am like with the way things actually happened.

Fate. No, I don’t really like that particular word, that idea. Life made sure that I met her long before I knew her (and yes I know I am being ridiculously convoluted and cryptic), two years, in fact. Two years of sitting within touching distance and barely a word spoken between us. Me, shy, and not fitting in. Her, not fitting in, and shy. Yeah, I’m thick; moronic might even be a more accurate description. You think I don’t beat myself repeatedly over the head with the knowledge that I wasted two years? Huh? But that’s done with, I finally plucked up the courage and I don’t know what it is was, but something just clicked, and suddenly I knew. She was the one. I could willingly tie my life to this girl, and I wouldn’t regret it.

And I was right. Not one second has passed where I have regretted that decision to follow her into the Bar, or when I let myself be held to ransom for a piece of ginger cake. It is easy, when you let it be, to love someone. You just… do it. Let that person in whole-heartedly, hold nothing back, et voila, magic. Soul-mate. Friend.

I don’t let people in easily; I tend not to let people in at all, in fact. That is my fault, one of my many flaws, I know. So what about her that makes me smile at the most inopportune moments? Just thinking of her existence and I start to float. She stands for all that is good in my life, and acts as a barrier to all that is bad. When she’s in pain, my heart breaks. One girl and I would willingly die for her. And she doesn’t know. That’s the sad thing about the whole situation. She doesn’t know. God I am thick, when you think about it, I really am stupid. I am in danger of chasing away the most perfect thing in my life because I am scared. Because I think I have forgotten how to let someone in totally. Even when I am with her, I keep this tiny bit back. I wish I didn’t, it’s not like I wake up in the morning planning what I can keep secret today. I trust her implicitly, I love her more than life, yet I still can’t make that final step and tell her all that I am. Because I am scared. I am scared of the hurt that I will feel when she finally realises the truth and leaves me. I am so shit scared of that one thing happening, I think I am making it happen.

I don’t know how to live without her, and I think that is what paralyses me the most out of the entire situation. The fact that I have let someone into my life to such an extent that I am not a full person without her. I think of life without her, and I freeze. Is this what love is? To be so totally scared that the one person you care for above all others will leave one day? Is love the inability to be one hundred percent content and happy in the moment, because you are dreading that future second when you will no longer be together? Is it being jealous, because the other is finding her happiness with other people?

Or is it the knowledge, deep down, that perhaps they feel the same way. That perhaps they think the same things and that perhaps you mean just as much to them. Perhaps it’s the secret knowledge of the pretty face she hides from the world, of that smile she keeps just for you. When you can look at a blurry dog-eared photograph and treasure it more than gold, maybe that is when you know you are in love. Maybe that is when I knew.

Not a feeble girl, really

I’ve been going to the gym lately like a good girl. I enjoy it – ooh, the endorphin rush is really rather nice – and for a good 80% of the time I don’t even feel self conscious. Walking from the locker room to the water cooler (through the free weights section, lots of judgment) I feel self conscious, walking from the water cooler to the cross trainer I feel self conscious (no glasses = petrified I’m going to walk into someone), and walking back from whatever machine I used last to the locker room I feel (you guessed it) self conscious. But the rest of the time I don’t feel self conscious. Something to do with the fact that with no glasses on and my headphones in I’m in my own little bubble.

I only feel self conscious when I’m using one machine – the stomach curl/crunch thingy. It’s in the middle of a lovely semi-circle of other machines, all invariably used by big beefy toned men (who I can’t appreciate anyway because I haven’t got my glasses on). Then I have to use the machine on the lowest weight and can only manage 10 curls at a maximum before I stagger off in pain. Today I had to move the pin from the highest weight setting to the lowest. I could feel the scorn and derision in the gaze of those looking on.

I need a big flashing neon sign that says “Bad back! Stomach muscles surgically cut in two and not working any more!” so they know I’m not just a wimpy girl. On all the other machines I exhibit normal strength and prowess. It’s just that one I can’t do. And it’s just that one that is surrounded by all the others.

All I want for my birthday is a big, flashing, neon sign saying “I’m allowed to be weak on this one machine. And I should get points for trying”. But Moose says that’s a silly idea, and anyway, my birthday isn’t till September so I should be able to do at least 15 by then. She does have a point I guess, I mean – a big, flashing, neon sign. It’s hardly practical, it it?