Recession, pirates, swine flu. I think it’s the world’s way of saying that it’s going to end soon. Why have the LHC people got to lessen our chances of surviving?

Anyway. Cha cha cha.

Take a listen to the new theme tune for the new James Bond movie here. I think it was ripped from a Spanish radio station.

I lost my watch this week. I was quite upset about it. Not upset like oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-die-and-ball-my-eyes-out type sad, but just oh-this-is-a-mighty-great-inconvenience type sad. And my wrist felt weird while I was at school. It felt all…floppy. No seriously, my watch isn’t that big, but any watch stops your wrist from bending that extra bit, and so without it your wrist just feels floppy. Anyway, you’ll be happy to know that I went out and bought a new one. Not a new wrist silly, a new watch. And I can now tell time again without having to get my mobile out. Life is good.

So, in case you haven’t guessed yet, school’s started up for me. I never did an official ‘Ahh it’s the end of holidays and school’s starting again’ blog, but it’s going ok thanks. I find myself eating a lot more chocolate croissants then I used to though. But that’s what you get when your college is right next to a bakery.

Digital speed painting. You know, when people make ridiculously amazing pictures on Photoshop.

Anyway, the thing is, it being back to school time and all, it proves for a boring life. Which means a boring blog. Me=boring. Blog=boring. Everything=boring. Chocolate=yummy.

Oh, and the LHC thing broke again. Something about another ‘magnet failure’. I think I might be able to help out, I’ve got a couple of fridge magnets that I’m willing to part with if they’re really in need of some. Might need to charge a small fee, but I’m sure we’ll be able to settle on something. So if you know anyone in the LHC team then you can tell them they can come and contact me here.

So before I go, what’s a blog without some life changing advice:
- Be careful of paper cuts
- Watch out for low ceilings
- When there’s free pens, take them
- If it’s dark, switch on the light
- And she doesn’t sell sea shells on the sea shore. She sells them in a corner shop next to Starbucks.

My trip to IKEA. Purpose? Brother needed to go university shopping, I wanted to ride on the big trolleys and shout ‘For Sam! For Frodo!’. And what’s an IKEA trip – or any shopping trip for that matter – without a free gift? So I got: 2 mini pencils, a paper tape measure, and a green pencil…I’m not sure if that last one was supposed to be free or not.

So me and my phone had some fun taking pictures. People were giving me weird looks wondering why I was taking pictures, but I was bored and I thought I might as well. Anyway, so the thing with IKEA is, I don’t understand any of the signs.

I mean, what on earth does ‘HAKE’ mean? Does it actually mean something in another language? Because if it does then fine. But the least they could do is give some translation dictionaries at the entrance along with the mini pencils and tape measures. The names wouldn’t be such a problem for things like beds, wardrobes, or scissors but when I see something like this:

I kinda want to know what it is in English. I can’t remember what name they gave it but it’s some kind of octopus hanger I guess. And then there’s these weird alien pod things:

Who would put these in their house I don’t know. But even if someone did, what use is it really? It hangs from the ceiling. Like floating dustbins. What would you put in there?
Then there’s the pillow section.

There’s pillows for side sleepers, back sleepers and stomach sleepers (so sorry to people who sleep in any other way, because there are no pillows at IKEA for you). My dad looked up at the signs, asked my brother ‘So…are you a side, back or stomach sleeper?’ And I shouted across the room, ‘I’m a side sleeper!’ Now everyone in IKEA knows I’m a side sleeper. Yep, all 16 of them.
And when it was time to go home, IKEA wouldn’t be IKEA if it didn’t give you some life lessons in the car park:

Everyone, it’s OK to change your mind. I thought it was an ad for something meaningful. You know, like some charity thing, because when there’s a heart with arms involved it’s gotta be something serious. But no, it was just talking about refunds. It’s OK to change your mind.

Thinking about getting a Zune after my iPod dies. Who can resist a 120GB version? All it needs to do is knock the price way down, and make it available in the UK (which shouldn’t take too long).

I’m going to attempt to watch a regular TV show again. It’s called Spooks. Season 7 is supposedly starting up soon, but I don’t know when that is. But since the DVDs are cheaper then other TV shows, I’m going to go buy Season 1 and see if I like it.

Alice Pieszecki is the chosen character for The L Word spin-off. Apparently. I’m still not 100% convinved. More like 90-95%. The only place it’s been announced is on this so called ‘Variety’ website, but no word from Showtime or OurChart (Edit: Oops OurChart have said something) Either way this crazy idea of a spin-off is still happening. I just hope they have a better theme tune this time round.

Tennis talk: US Open. Federer’s in the finals. Murray vs. Nadal semi-final has yet to be finished. But Murray leads 2-0. It carries on tonight Sky Sports 1 at 9. Along with the Women’s Final with Serena Williams vs. Jankovic. I wonder if Murray will beat Nadal. I wonder what happens to all the ‘old’ tennis rackets that the players use that just get chucked to the side. I wonder what happens when you mix purple paint with green paint.

Look who’s all good and tagged all her blogs. Yep, me. See. Me. Good. It ain’t easy you know. And I had to fight the temptation of tagging them with completely irrelevent tags like, monkey, toast on wheels, jacuzzi, cheetos!, idontlikespoons and evil potato head. You know things like that. So yes, the tags are all relevant, in a way. It’s a miracle I know. But I hope I haven’t messed up the whole tagging system. Someone should buy me a ‘Congratulations on your 25th anniversary’ cake though (because blatently they don’t have cakes that say ‘Congratulations on tagging all your blogs’). You bring that and I’ll get the drinks. And by drinks I mean juice because it’s oh so much better. Unless it’s pineapple. Then it’s not.
Anyway so visiting back to my first blog I started to think ‘Man, that first blog must’ve been years ago.’ When really it turned out to be earlier this year. Close enough. 25th February 2008 at 22:47.

There’s this computing magazine that has a free subscription. And to get it you have to fill out his long ass form (it’s not that long really). But I’m now the ‘IT manager’ of my dad’s company. My turnover is less then £1 million a year, and I have 1-49 people working with me. So I thought that was fine and dandy and that I’d get my free magazine easy peasy. But I got an email saying that before I get it they have to make sure I meet their ‘criteria’. Whatever that means. I better meet their effing criteria because I worked hard on trying to make my job sound real. Especially since at first I insisted on putting ‘CEO of Microsoft’ as my job title, but then decided against it as, well, I don’t think they would’ve believed me. And then I chose ‘Leader of the world’ but that didn’t seem like a good idea either. So I had to settle on IT Manager.

This was taken ever so discreetly on my travels by my handy ol’ phone. Or at least I tried to be discreet but the guy next to me wasn’t trying to be discreet and was obviously looking at what picture I was taking. Anyway, I’m just confirming that it does indeed exist in the real world. 10 points to whoever can guess what line I was on.

The Simpsons Movie really is like one long Simpsons episode. A really really long Simpsons episode.
There’s a Toy Story 3! I guess that’s old news though, but I only found out just now. And according to IMDb it’s about ‘Woody, Buzz, and the rest of their toy-box friends are dumped in a day-care center after their owner, Andy, departs for college. Meanwhile, Hamm, Rex and Mr. Potato Head begin a quest to find their long lost twin brothers.’ I’m willing to go along with whatever Pixar want to do. Andy all grown up…twin brothers…3 headed cyclops. Anything.
The L Word Season 5 Living TV 2 on Tuesday 23rd September at wait for it. Wait for it…wait for it. 10pm. Miracle, I know. Who knew it would show so early.

How to draw a panda.
Sometimes a bunny is smarter then the magician.
Photoshop makes aliens.

Excursions to the Apple store. Not the most exciting trips on earth. Hotel key On the odd occasion where I am forced to go I find myself getting bored very easily. So, me being my little immature self I have some cheap fun by playing around with the iPods and such. Changing the languages, writing little notes on the iPhone saying ‘Apple sucks’, and locking them with random passwords makes the time pass by much quicker. You should try it. Or not. I mean, only if you’re bored.

How to draw anything (in 1 step). Now, I can draw anything.

I think some congratulations are in order. I’m actually watching the Olympics closing ceremony. Live. On BBC1. Mind you, someone did remind me, but still. This has never happened before. This is history in the making. Someone owes me a medal or something.
Anyway, this is the point where the Brits do their little takeover ceremony. Beckham kicking a football on a double decker bus, Leona Lewis singing. I’ll be there in front of the TV, throwing cheese at it. Lots and lots of cheese.

I made an Amazon wish list today. I don’t know why, nobody can actually buy stuff for me from there since my address isn’t up. I can’t even buy stuff for myself from that account since I don’t have a credit card. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. It might just come in handy one day.

The closing ceremony doesn’t exactly have my undivided attention, i.e well I’m writing this aren’t I? But I don’t think it’s ever going to start. I’m here to see the flying people, so give me flying people already. They’re attempt at squishing 2 weeks worth of ’sport’ in half an hour/an hour/who-knows-how-long-really is getting a bit too boring. If I wanted to see that, then I could just watch all those highlight videos on the BBC website. That’s how my coverage of the Olympics has been anyway. They were playing Madonna a minute ago.

Altoids don’t taste very nice. Who likes cinnamon sweets?

There’s a human catapult out in the world somewhere. According to the site it says ‘It’s available to rent in Germany.’ Let’s all go to Germany people. Or, we can just make our own, then we won’t have to go to Germany, and we won’t have to rent it. So we can get some magic elves to work on that, and in the mean time, we need to decide what exactly we’ll be launching ourselves in to. The Germans use theirs to plunge into a pool or a foam pit. I’m thinking chocolate (melted obviously) pool, a ball pit (like the ones in Clown Town or the ol’ Kidstop), a trampoline, anything. But hopefully something that won’t hurt when you land.
So, anyone know any magic elves? I would use mine but their working on another project at the moment. What is that you ask? Well, that my friend I cannot tell you. The idea hasn’t been patented yet so it has to be kept under wraps for now.

Stripes.

Sometimes I check when The L Word is showing over here in the UK. Last year, they showed season 4 at around midnight/1-ish in the morning-ish on LivingTV. I didn’t bother watching it then. Maybe, sometime, in the future, I’ll actually watch it properly on a TV. But the times that they air it are getting even more ridiculous. I mean, 3am? Like I’m really going to stay up til 3am to watch a show. I don’t think so. Mind you those are just reruns so maybe the new season will get the lucky time of something like 2am.

I’ve always wanted a Polaroid camera. You take a photo, and it comes out instantly. What’s not to love about that? It’s magic. Now we have boring modern technology where you can use your fancy little USB cables and hook the camera up to the computer, then transfer the photos on to said computer, and then photoshop them or upload them on to Facebook as you please. And where’s the fun in that? It doesn’t make the same clicking and whirring noises as a Polaroid camera now does it?

I watched Juno the other day. It might just be a tad bit overrated though. It’s a good, nice little sweet movie and all, but that’s it, it’s just sweet. Candy cane pie sweet (not that I’ve ever heard of, or eaten candy cane pie. Because I haven’t).
The Harry Potter movie (whatever the next one coming out is called) is coming out next summer instead of later this year. Something about it being because of the writer’s strike. But they’ve already finished making the movie so I don’t see what it has to do with that.

Countrysides are weird places. They’re very…clean. Not as clean as places like Singapore (that’s cleaner then any country should be), but still very clean. There’s the blue skies, green grass, rolling hills, the whole shadoodle. As I stood outside and looked at this I half expected a start button to appear on the bottom left corner of my field of vision. It could happen. It could be the new Windows 3D OS. But no, the countryside wasn’t as advanced as that quite yet.

Tegan and Sara are coming out with a video for ‘Call it Off’. Didn’t expect them to choose that song to do a music video to, but meh, hopefully it’s coming out soon.

Never agree to help carry a TV (unless it’s a portable one). They are heavy. Very heavy. Especially those big 100 million inch screen ones.

I don’t know the meaning of mashed potato cakes either. I never even knew they existed until today. I don’t even know what they are. Why call them cakes? They can’t look that much different from just ordinary mashed potatoes can they? You just mould it into the shape of a cake and hey presto there you have one. Or are they completely different then that? Or is it something stupid like mud pie where it’s called ‘mud pie’ but there isn’t really any mud involved. Heck, it’s hardly a pie either. It’s a cake. What’s wrong with normal mashed potatoes anyway? You don’t have to go and make them into cakes. Chocolate cakes are just fine. It’s not like a 5 year old kid is going to say, ‘I want a mashed potato cake for my birthday!’ No, I think mashed potatoes should just stay the way they are. No need for this ‘cake’ business.’

I think this isolationa-nism is making me a tad bit loopy inside my so called cranium. Pronounced crane-ee-um. I’m sure some medical professor can correct me on my terminologoy. But moving on…

Even though my lack of communication to the outside world has been minimal, I did manage to catch the opening ceremony for the Olympics. And a thought occurred to me while people were flying around like the monkeys from The Wizard of Oz and all these fancy TV screens were popping out like daisies (daisies I tell you, daisies), I’ve never watched an opening ceremony of the Olympics before. Heck, I’ve never even watched the Olympics before. I never realise they’re happening until it’s ended. So my aim for this year, watch some of it. I’ll try and catch the tennis if I can. That’s the only thing I’m willing to watch…I think. Whether I remember or not, well, that’s up to my brain.
Like many other blogs have stated I’m sure, the opening ceremony was ‘Wow, wow. Gee whizz. Golly olly oxen. When is this going to end?’ Well, maybe that last bit was just me. I think the whole of China was in that ceremony, people were coming in left, right, and centre. It was crazy. I like how the commentators had to point out every thing that the Chinese created. They did this, and invented that. I’m surprised they didn’t mention how they were the first people on the moon, or how they started the Renaissance. There are books and websites on these things. I was told about it by my older male sibling (otherwise known as a ‘brother’, ‘hermano’, ‘bruder’ or ‘frère’ to some), he will explain it to me one day.

So since I am away on holiday, I have to watch a movie with my family basically every night. We first watched Memento. Never have I had to think so much while watching a movie before in my life. Remind me never to do that again. It’s a backwards movie. No, they don’t talk backwards. Nor do they walk, jump, or do hopscotch backwards (NB: No hopscothching in the movie). Anyway, the point is, it’s a confusing movie.

Tegan of Tegan and Sara will be on This Just Out with Liz Feldman (AfterEllen) tomorrow (Monday). I’m still hoping both of them will show up. You never know. Pigs can fly…if you put them on an aeroplane that is.

Sunshine, lollypops, and rainbows, da da da bla bla bla bla. Hmm, hmm, hmm…ok I don’t know the rest of the words. Why do I know that song? I’m thinking it was from The Simpsons.

Dinner time! Eating food. Drinking drinks. Sounds about right to me.

The hype surrounding Guitar Hero is crazy. It’s beyond crazy, it’s manical. Is there even such a word as manical? No. That’s how crazy it is. So I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I didn’t see what was so interesting about it, it’s like any other arcade game that you get. But I guess that’s what people like about it, instead of going out to the arcade. you can bring the arcade into your house. I should so be an advertising person thing. Anyway, so instead of splashing out all my non-existent money on the one for the PS3, I opted out and bought it for my DS instead since it was cheaper. Might not be as fun, but I can look like an idiot playing it wherever I am. Whether it be on a bus, a park, or on holiday. It is fun though. And it’s available for basically every games console (including PC). So if you have a chance, give it a go, and be a rockstar. Oh, and if you ever get it for DS, change the grip and make your own.

Pink’s got a new, so far untitled, album coming out on 28th October. First single’s called ‘So What’ which will premiere some time this month. I only started liking her since her most recent album, ‘I’m Not Dead’, so hopefully she won’t go downhill from there for me.
Snow Patrol have also got a new album coming out called ‘A Hundred Million Suns’ some time in October as well. And in the mean time, I’m still watching Rachel Shelley’s performance of ‘Run’ and still have no idea where it’s from.

Nadal is officially going to be the World No. 1 tennis player on 18th August. Djokovic defeated Nadal, in the ATP Cincinnati semi-final match 6-1, 7-5, which means Murray will be facing him in the final. They’ve played each other 4 times now, and each time Djokovic’s won. And the last time he won, he did so in straight sets – 6-0, 6-4. So I think we all know who’s going to win.

My birthday’s soon! Ok, it’s really not that soon. It’s far. Far away. But I know what I want for once. And that is rare. Rare indeed. Ok. 2 things. Well, 3 things, but the third is stupid and I would never actually get it unless I was a millionaire. First up: Lego Agents. Saw them in a shopping centre the other day, and I want them. Not all of them. That would be weird. And expensive. But they do look pretty cool. Second present: a Stitch soft toy. Disney toys are the best. I’ve got 2 Tiggers and they’re the best. Speaking of Tiggers, third not-actually-going-to-get present: Super Giant Soft Toy Tigger. Now, before you get excited, it’s not really that ’super giant’. I mean, it’s big, but not lifesize super giant big. Unless you’re a 5 year old kid. Then it’s big. Oh, and fourth present I’ve just decided to add on: The Ultimate Hoody I wouldn’t mind having either.

I made a Leisha Hailey video.

Just getting over the horrors of my mum threatening to get me an iPhone. It was all in good humour when I was talking about my next phone that I was going to get in the far, distant future, but I didn’t find it very funny.

Beijing Olympics, starting next Friday. 8 minutes past 8, 08/08/08. Because that’s how superstitious China is. The opening ceremony should be pretty snazzy. I’ll probably miss watching it. But I’ll catch it some other time. Probably by the time the Olympics have ended. That’s the most likely time when I’ll remember.
Anyway, came across this article on the Times Online website: Girls will be girls at the Beijing Olympics – sex tests will prove it. It says ‘Suspicious-looking woman athletes’ will have to undergo ‘four sex determination tests’ after being ‘evaluated from their external appearance’. This prompted me to look up trans athletes in the Olympics. Now as far as my knowledge goes, since 2003/2004-ish the International Olympics Committee allows trans athletes to compete if they have undergone full SRS and be legally recognised of their gender (so I’m guessing something along the lines of a GRC).

But back to the article, obviously these tests are intrusive and possibly a tad bit insulting to a person, but I don’t know whether to think it’s alright or it’s completely unacceptable. On the one hand, a trans person being forced to ‘come out’ and give details about their past is, well, mean, and they should have the right to not have to disclose that kind of information. But on the other hand, I don’t know how common it is for cisgendered men to pretend to be women to compete in the Olympics, and so, that’s obviously unfair if that has happened, and therefore tests are good. So I guess I’ve just got mixed feelings about this.

An argument that has come up with trans athletes competing in the Olympics, is whether there’s an unfair advantage. And by this poll, it now stands at 77% of people saying that ‘Yes, by size alone, [trans athletes] have an edge’. I decided to vote no, because I figured that they take hormones, so…somehow…that means there’s no advantage. And my thinking was confirmed in this article, that indeed, ‘When a male-to-female transsexual undergoes hormone therapy, they are reducing their testosterone levels and taking female hormones. They lose muscle mass, which is the advantage testosterone gives you.’
You think that’s complicated, think how it would be for someone who’s intersexed.

I wonder what it’s like to live in an igloo.