IT’S ALIVE!!!!!
IT’S ALIVE!!!!!

No, you haven’t stumbled by accident into a reproduction of Frakenstein’s Monster.

I am, in fact, talking about my wiki. Those in the know will know that getting the damn thing running properly has been… to say not easy would be a vast understatement. I’ve had it up and running for a good month or so now, but our computer services people kept refusing to press the button that would make it visible if you weren’t sitting in the lab. And as the whole point of the wiki was that people outside of the lab could use it, this was proving to be a slight problem.

Just when I thought the godhead was in danger of having exploding with anger, it suddenly went live as of (checks watch, then checks wiki to make sure she isn’t dreaming it) five minutes ago.

So I’m a happy bunny!

Sadly, I now have no excuse not to get on with the writing of the thesis itself now. But I’m not going to think on that today – for today is my day of jubilee.

Yipee!!!!

(I challenge you not to be happy and grinning like a fool by the end of this post ^*1*.)

I would like to bring to your attention a piece of sheer television genius on BBC2 at the moment: “How To Start Your Own Country” (Wednesday evenings, 10 pm). The man really is starting his own country. In his flat. In London. All I can say is, go to the site, watch the series if you can, and try not to pee your pants laughing.

Watch the National Anthem. Please. You have been warned though, the tune is probably as catchy as the jingle from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, or the “Hate Something” Honda advert. I was humming it all through dinner.

We watched the show last night even though it meant missing most of the pilot for “Lost” on C4. That is how good it is.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to take my oath of citizenship. ^*2*.

The following post is aimed toward the female readers of the blog. Male readers, well, you’re going to enjoy the subject matter I suppose, just keep the sniggering down at the back, ok?

I have an ambivalent attitude toward my breasts. I am happy that I have them and I’d rather have them than the alternative, but there is no getting around the fact that, at times, I wish they were just… different. I am pretty much sure that most women feel the same way toward their breasts – bigger, smaller, different conformation, you name it – none of us are happy with what we’ve got.

For my own, I wish there were just that bit smaller. I’m not approaching Jordan, sorry Katie Price, in proportions, but I am certainly larger in that department than is average. It’s lucky I’ve got a naturally stocky build, or I would be in danger of looking all out of proportion. Most times this does not, shall we say, put me at a disadvantage? But then there come the days when I have to go clothes shopping.

That’s when the wheels fall off the wagon.

I can’t remember where I read the stats, but the ‘average’ woman is a size 12 or 14, and a size 36 B or C, so I’m nudging the upper range of normal. Clothes, on the other hand, are designed for Kirstin Dunst who probably approximates a size 6 and is a 32 A or something. For many years this was fine with me. You shop in the 18 plus and you get inured, if not contented, with voluminous clothes that most definitely weren’t designed with Kirstin Dunst in mind. But I’ve been working hard this past year or so on taming my recalcitrant body, and I’ve finally got to the point where I can wear (and look halfway decent) in clothes designed for normal people. Oh, the pleasure of taking a size 14 into the changing room and knowing that, even if it looks ugly, it won’t be the fit that is to blame! So I am finally able to wear trousers again after about five years of clown-pants and long skirts, and… now I can’t find tops that fit me.

Maybe my proportions are all wrong, but clothes just don’t seem designed for people with breasts. Any breasts, not just slightly-larger-than-average breasts. I tried on one of those looks-great-on-the-models silky camisole thingumies in H&M today. You know that moment when you’ve got the top over your shoulders, but it won’t go over your breasts, and you start to panic thinking “Oh my god, they’re going to have to cut me out of this, and it was the cute male assistant on duty today…“? Well, I had that moment and then some today. Fortunately I remembered some breathing exercises I picked up when playing the oboe that had the side effect of minimizing the bust. Managed to wriggle out of the top, with my dignity (and hairstyle) ruffled but more or less intact. Just hope they’ve not taken to putting cameras in the H&M changing rooms…

Even when I do find tops that fit, which is no easy matter, short of wearing a polo-neck I always end up exposing more cleavage than a nice girl should. I can wear vests underneath tops (fortunately the layered look is in right now), but I still catch more than a few men looking at my breasts instead of my face. As for when I want to wear that nice strapless or backless dress, well, something things are just never going to happen no matter how much we might want them to. I’m never going to be a world-class athlete. Nor, do I think, is au naturelle an option darlings.

Which kind of brings me to part two of my breast-related rant. Bra’s. I could swear that the sizings have got smaller in the last year or so. *eyes narrow* M&S must have some conspiracy going on with small-breasted women to make them feel better, because there is no way that at the same time as LOOSING lots of weight, my breasts have gone UP a cup-size.

Also, do they have to be so fricking expensive? You’re looking at the sharp end of £20 for a nice bra, then £5 or more if you want matching knickers. That’s my weekly grocery budget. Two sets and you practically have a new copy of Mac OSX. You can be sure that if there was a piece of clothing the majority of men had to wear it would cost a lot LOT less. Or be available free from the government or something. There’s a thought – bras on the NHS. Then again as a child who was inflicted with NHS glasses, perhaps not.

We won’t go into the fact that popcorn (anything I eat in the cinema) seems to have a fascination with my cleavage giving me the option of going searching (and incurring some very scandalised looks from the little old lady at the end of the row), or having popcorn where no popcorn was designed to go for the entirety of the film. But, as I said, we won’t be going into that today. That’s more to do with my clutziness than my breasts.

Yes, I love my breasts, and one or two other people have expressed a favorable opinion of them as well, but there are days when they do bug the crap out of me. Like today. No, I am not expecting anything constructive to come of this post, I just wanted to share.

There just aren’t the words to describe how much I laughed when Aoife emailed me these pictures this morning. Definately made my day.

Go here for a Flickr set of photos from our night out the other week. The night out in question was previously described here.

I know Dixons have announced that they are no longer going to stock 35mm cameras, and this makes me sad because digital cameras just aren’t as good, but the invention of digital cameras has certainly made it easier to record nights-out and how silly everyone looks whilst drunk.

There have been some memorable moments from this year, but this has to rank at (or near) the top. Going to miss these guys come October when we scatter to the four winds 🙁

One of my favourites: (end of the night. From left to right the Nordic Ninja, Cas (yes I really am that short), Jeff, and the Cute Canadian)

A slightly spammy post this morning (with respect what I am talking about).

Firstly, I am so overwhelmingly proud that I got my first ever “I am going to leave X amount of dollars to you, if you will just send me your bank account details…” email. What made this one so wondefully special to me is that woman is dying of cancer, and, get this, she will leave me one and a half million dollars if I use the money to spread the word of god. Now, this amused me, considering how wide of the mark these people got when they hit me.

Firstly, I have been on the net since… well, a long time, and have a high level of sceptisim to start with. There really is no such thing as a free lunch, let alone lunches that are to the tune of $1.5 million. But even if I was stupid enough to believe what ‘she’ was saying, there are a few other things they missed…

Nothing is guaranteed to make me turn off faster than trying to gull me with mention of cancer. If you really are suffering from or affected in any way by cancer you have my total sympathy. I think my record stands for itself on that score – for proper charities, I raise money, buy pins, run 5 kilometres on a blazing hot July sunday morning, the works. But to use the cancer card is just plain low (even for spammers).

Thirdly, I lied on two. If there is one thing going to make me turn off faster than using the cancer-card, it is telling me it is the will of god. Hello, not Christian here folks! If you would be happy for me to spread the word about Buddhism, then perhaps we can talk. Well, ok, perhaps not, because evangelising isn’t my bag baby, but you get the idea.

All of the above does suggest that these spam attacks are organised, which of course they aren’t, but even some basic market research might have pointed out that I’m not who you should be targeting. At least not like that.

I am liking gmail’s spam filter – works measurably better than that of hotmail, or freeserve wanadoo. Even flags up when emails are coming from laundry sites ^*1* in an attempt to disguse their origin. Hence, note to spammers out there – phishing attacks pretending to be my bank won’t work either, so 😛

There is one way of getting spam to me, if you don’t care that I can’t understand a word you are saying. Send it in some unidentified asian language, possibly Japanese. Putting pictures of scantily clad ladies in the body of the email was also a nice touch. If I disable gmail’s automatic ‘block images’ function, I get a facefull of what, well, doesn’t turn me on. On the plus side, when I happen to open my emails on the LARGE dual-screen monitors in the lab, my male friends also get to see them, and I don’t hear Jeff, Spooky McDougal, or the Cute Canadian complaining, but it is mildly embarrassing.

So, my dilemma – how do I unsubscribe from this site, wherever it is, when I can’t read a fricking thing that it says? We’ll leave aside for now the fact I have NO idea how this email got on a list for an Asian language site. Whilst Gmail is being effective blocking it, I would rather I didn’t get it at all, and as I’m getting three or four A DAY it’s starting to get mildly irritating. Help?

And talking of Gmail, if anyone wants an account, I have more than enough invites to go around.

Now, seeing as how I am staring another boring day in the lab in the face, expect more posts as the day goes on. For now, sayonara.

Today was a slow day, evidenced by the fact that I started yet another blog – Blackcurrant Cheesecake. This one is being given over to the few pieces of fiction I wrote a couple of years back that seemed, on the whole, not stomach-churningly bad. All I can say is go and read, and (perhaps most importantly) tell me what you really think. Good, bad, ugly, how could I make it better, etc etc ad nauseam.

A few last things before I sign off of for the evening:

I am detecting a certain peripherals theme lately in my posts. This isn’t by itself a bad thing, but could be giving people the wrong idea about me. To them, in the fond memories of a random internet bloke I once dated, I say “Meh”.

More grist for the peripheral lovers mill –

I can think of some of my mates doing research into VR are going to get all excited about this: Toshiba develops flatbed 3D display. Not totally convinced myself. Can see some exciting sci-fi futures though 🙂

Ok, sexy, totally uncessesary, exciting… the Optimus Keyboard

And those observant ones among you might have noticed a new little link in the “Keep in Touch” section. In keeping with my own narcissistic desires to get more readership, I submitted by blog to Blogwise about a month ago, and finally got approved in the middle of the week. Did a search for fellow ‘archaeology’ bloggers, and got directed to good old Michael Shanks. Even though Traumwerk was down the last couple of times I tried to look, got to owe the man a plug. He is partly to blame responsible for my current predicament with regards wikis and my thesis. That voodoo doll on my desk is nothing to do with him. Honestly. Yep. Nothing to do with him. Nothing at all…

Now that really is me done for the evening. I think. Probably. Depends how bored I get later on.

*edit* Seems I made a bit of a boo-boo a couple of posts back with my title – In About as convincing a disguse… it should read as a Polar bears only GOLF club, not goth club. It wasn’t an intentional re-write, though a remarkably appropriate one. I genuinely thought that that was the line, though thinking about it golf does make more sense for WW1-era Blackadder. Thanks to Moose for pointing it out to me 🙂

An open letter to all drivers of public transport:

Dear sirs and madams,

If you see someone hobbling down the road, approximating the ground speed of an arthritic sloth (), about 100 meters away from the bus stop, please do not pull away just as that person is within hailing distance.

It is cruel.

And mean.

Just plain nasty.

Totally unworthy of someone of your noble calling.

Next time, please wait those few extra moments. You will make up the time somewhere else on the route, and will have earned the eternal gratitude of a member of the public – someone’s whose support might make all the difference next time you want to strike to get a pay rise.

Yours, pleadingly,
Hop-A-Long of Southampton

Thanks to this nameless driver of the 1547 U2 down the Avenue, my walk home was 20 minutes of pain, as opposed to 10 minutes. I vented my fury with some very unlady-like swearing during the walk (correction, hobble) home, hence the resigned rather than furious tone of this post.

Still, Cas is all :'( now