Once again, I wouldn’t trouble yourselves looking for the provenance of the roast title. This one is a pure Cas-classic. We’ve been on a bit of a Battlestar Galactica binge lately at Meadow Towers - I got season 3 for my birthday, and because it had been six months since we’d last watched season 2, Moose and I decided to go back and refresh our memories before starting on the good stuff (and it is very, very good). In one of the episodes, they show the Cylon resurrection. With one model, she wakes up in a bath of goo and all her Cylon friends are around the edge, reassuring her (it turns out that being reborn is a little traumatic). And then they show the resurrection of a different model. Again, a naked woman wakes up in a bath of goo with all her Cylon friends around the edge, murmuring nice things at her, ‘telling her it will be OK’, and then camera pans back to show that this particular Cylon has been handcuffed to the sides of the bath…

Which prompted me to go “because of course, nothing says relax like handcuffs!” Moose looked at me, I looked at Moose, and we both went “Roast title!”

So there you have it.

How has this week gone? Slowly is the only word for it. It has felt like a whole week of Fridays - hard work, tiring, and never ending. Bleck. There are times I could cheerfully knock hit certain people at work upside the head with a frying pan. Grrr. But enough of that. The week has ended well with a supreme dinner party here at Meadow Towers - luckily for me, Moose is a lovely person and a damn good cook so I got a delicious birthday meal I didn’t have to do anything for other than buy the wine and cut up the bread and make the salad. And invite people. Plus I got lots of penguin goodies so all in all, this week wasn’t too bad.

I’m not sure if the non-UK readers are going to get this story, but it tickled me pink, so here it is for all you marmite loving/hating Paddington fans out there: Paddington bear still eats marmalade. The advert is sheer genius, even though it does mess with a childhood favourite.

A man was recently refused alcohol because he refused to prove he was over 21. He was 72. There really is nothing I can add to that story to make it any better.

General Sir Richard Dannatt is growing concerned about the gulf between the army and the nation in the UK. I personally have a very ambivalent attitude to the armed forces. Members of my family have served for years (my uncle is one year shy of his half century in the TAs and has served in both Iraq conflicts, Afghanistan twice, the Balkans, and sundry other conflicts) and I am intensely proud of the work they have done. On the other hand, I find violence abhorent and vehemently disagree with armed conflict of any kind. But back to the article - what got me wasn’t the stated treatment of returning soldiers at the hands of the general public. It was the quote from the general saying “we still have a nation that, at times, seems immune to homeless and psychologically-damaged soldiers”.
Surely that is more of a stunning indictment of the armed forces that they demob soldiers without the support of finding them housing or psychological support, than that the nation is at fault?

ProBlogger recently took a poll of how long people had been blogging. The results can be seen here. What I find interesting is the really sharp drop at 3-4 years. Seemingly, that’s the make/break point for serious bloggers. Survive that year and you’re set. *counts back on Bright Meadow* Um, this could be an interesting year
Where do you stand on Smilies? Nils isn’t a fan. He does make a good point - they are ugly and far too prone to misinterpretation. But I am guilty of using them incessantly. I blame my early introduction to MSN. The conversations were fast and, between the group of us, we rapidly developed a shorthand that made full use of smilies. In the context of the IM, the people I was speaking to knew that when I typed o_O I was raising an eyebrow to signal my skepticism. Just as *plink* and *chocolate orange* became shorthand for certain in-jokes, a at the end of a sentence took the sting out of heavy British sarcasm and loving irreverence our American friends had troubles translating. Somehow I just never got rid of the use of smilies - they are part of my digital lexicon. I do try to be sparing with them, but even now there are people I speak to online with whom I can have entire conversations in L33T and emoticons. But just for you Nils, I try and keep them from littering Bright Meadow too much.

The XKCD comic is really tickling my fancy at the moment - I think the ones I like best are the ones like this one where I genuinely don’t get the joke till the last frame. Genius.

And on that note, I am going to nurse my not-quite-hangover and watch more BSG:3 Thank any god you care to mention that Apollo is no longer wearing that fat suit!