BIZARRE WEBCOMIC: Slightly better than nothing.

( Fotos, relatos y cosas varias... s'il vous plaît )

From Dictionary Word of the Day:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/dictionary_wotd/558217.html

legerdemain: sleight of hand.

Ledgermain: How about a magic trick?

Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

---

Mommy, I'm scared! I don't want to go to an institution!
Maybe you won't have to -
I'm an innocent man!
Oh yeah.
Ya sent me down for ten!
Not personally. I'm sure I'd remember you.

Judge Dredd "The Jock Collection"
"Ten Years" - John Wagner / Jock / David Bishop

Um... it goes:
little mutant kid
little mutant kid's mom
[cut location]
Perp
Dredd
Perp
Dredd

...maybe a comic book doesn't count?

---

A hand comes down and slaps the little boy, and the boy starts to wail.

The boy's wailing the way you cry if you've done nothing wrong but you got punished anyway. The sun's setting outside. Inside, everything's dead except this little voice screaming over and over: Why did you hit me? I didn't do anything. Why did you hit me? What did I do?

I took the turkey. I walked as fast as I could back to La Paloma Memorial Hospital. It was almost dark.

The whole time I'm hugging the turkey, I'm telling myself: turkeys. Seagulls. Magpies.
Birds.
Birds ate my face.

Italics for context, as it is MUCH funnier that way.

Invisible Monsters Chuck Palahniuk

So... I finally "discovered" ebay. Got a 2-disc Screeching Weasel CD For, like $2.75 + $3 shipping. NOT BAD.

Last week I finally made it back to my comic store, and MY GARSH! You been reading 'Tec? DINI MAKES EVERYTHING AWESOME! He even made HUSH into a GOOD CHARACTER!!!


*spoilers* he takes out Selina Kyle's heart. her fucking heart! */spoilers*


I also picked up a buttload of Judge Dredd Megazine (with some Alan Grant Tank Girl r0x0r!) and 2000AD comic mag. The Tank Girl issue of JD also came with a 22 page comic insert highlighting the work of artist Jock, stories written by John Wagner (big name, do like). VERY COOL.

I've been in a very good mood as of the last few days. This is bad 'cause I been working all alone and it gives me ants in the pants to be alone all day when I'm in a chatty mood.

This Saturday we're doing pumpkins and Mum's makin' brisket!

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

Cross-posted from linebyline

My name is David Newlyn. I’m Chief Executive Officer of Herons Quay Graphics, which is a subsidiary of Goodacre Media. We are responsible for printing 90% of the UK’s national newspapers. When I joined the company in 1997 we used inks that contained chemical dyes. One of the first things I did after being named CEO was to introduce Krill Toner as a more environmentally-friendly alternative.

Krill Toner is a bit of a misnomer – It’s actually microscopic phytoplankton in a brine solution. The species we use has the ability to absorb natural dyes. If you visit our print works on the Isle of Dogs in east London, you will see the large vats of different coloured toner that we now use as a substitute for conventional ink. The only other thing we add is a biodegradable deodoriser which is what stops your newspaper from smelling of fish.

The great thing about Krill Toner is that the printing process doesn’t kill the organism. Instead it goes into a state of hibernation. Submersing the paper in salt water revives the plankton, after which it can be reused or returned to the sea.

In fact the only problem so far has been with the Sand Motes. These are small, black and white seabirds who feed on shoals of surface-dwelling plankton by filtering it through a membrane in their beaks. It’s been six months since we started using Krill Toner and already a large colony has taken up residence in the rafters of the print works. How they got there I have no idea but they are proving very hard to get rid of. Unfortunately we need to keeper the toner vats open. There is seldom a moment in the day when one of these birds isn’t darting across the surface to feed.

While that isn’t problematic in itself, every now and then a Sand Mote will do something that interferes with the operation of the press and ends up causing us major headaches. Only the other day one of our printers came to an abrupt standstill. We had to dismantle a large part of the machine before we could determine the cause of the breakdown – in this case a little bird broken in the gears.

Now that I'm not frikkin' tired as hell, I will give a better review of the debate last night. Anyone else watch it? My lord, so so funny. Dan Rather, or whthefuckever was totally FTW! Totally put both candidates in their places, like all STFU! There's lights, with green and red and yellow... they tell you when your time is up. Or at the end with the whole "Senators, get out of the way! I can't read my prompts! I'm *trying* to do my job here." after all popping around trying to look through them.

Or the zinger Obama got in, "Well, looks like the 'Straight Talk Express' lost a wheel."

LOL

Also, Boss-Man Jody had an interview with a potential new intern today. He came up to me after and told me it was one of the people I had given the tour to a month or so ago! Said the guy mentioned that the tour was why he wanted to come to the Pharm! Woo! Inspirational Me! That was a mega-boost for my confidence.

Also about the pharm, we been having this fly problem. Little flies all about. So I cleaned off the drinks counter this evening and OMG nasty. There was one coffee mug, musta been left there for MONTHS. Fulla flies and fly eggs and dehydrated coffee sludge. I had to double bag that shit. Smelled like a monkey ass. Gross. We've also implemented a new policy that if someone doesn't have their name on their drink container, it goes in the trash. Either step up to responsibility or GTFO.

September 27th 2008 - London

A persistent fog lingered over the city for most of the morning, erasing familiar skylines; returning the area to a time before human habitation when it was brackish marshland.

I ambled around the streets east of Tower Hill: Down to Spirit Quay, a broad canal, formerly an inland shipping channel, now residential and bordered with rows of houses. On one side of the canal there is a high embankment wall, crowned with railings. The opposite bank is a good 10 feet lower and staggered into a short flight of stairs leading down to shallow water, stained blue-black by chemical effluent. Avenues of small trees of either side cast dark reflections onto the surface. I stood on the bridge at the head of the quay, looking down on a tarnished mosaic of submerged autumn leaves.

( continues behind cut )

http://community.livejournal.com/smart_punx/284202.html

another debate response.

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods. You shall be as Gods.

"ON THE CALCULATION OF WORK HOURS

Dear Mr Accountant,
You probably agree that there are 60 minutes in an hour. Presumably, then, you also agree that half an hour equals 30 minutes and that a quarter of an hour equals 15 minutes. When calculating the number of work hours electronically, for example by means of a computer programme like Excel, this is a frequent source of error as the programme does not know that there are 60 minutes in an hour, but calculates according to the decimal system.

AN EXAMPLE:
I work 4 hours and thirty minutes at NOK90 per hour. One might then simply assume that a correct calculation would look like this:
4.30h x NOK90 = NOK387
However, this is incorrect. Try to work it out in your head this time: FOUR AND A HALF HOURS TIMES NOK NINETY:
(FOUR TIMES NINETY = 4 x 90)-> 360
+(A HALF TIMES NINETY = 1/2 x 90 = 0.5 x 90)-> 45
=(FOUR AND A HALF TIMES NINETY = 4 1/2 x 90 = 4.5 x 90)-> 405

To avoid miscalculations, then, the number of hours must be converted to decimal numbers. Hence:
15 MINUTES = A QUARTER OF AN HOUR = 1/4 HOUR = 0.25 HOURS
30 MINUTES = HALF AN HOUR = 1/2 HOUR = 0.5 HOURS
45 MINUTES = THREE QUARTERS OF AN HOUR = 3/4 HOUR = 0.75 HOURS

This for your information.

Yours sincerely,
Johanna S."

I can't decide whether this is too rude or not quite rude enough for somebody who's been ripping us off, however unintentionally, on both our previous paychecks.
Either way he seems to have taken the point, as my 112 AND A HALF hours for September were calculated correctly.
:)

( L'automne, I love it )

ETA: I suddenly realised that "nail polish" was on my interest list?! This is now remedied. Goodness gracious.

I is stealing bandwidth from spux, but her comic is too much WIN not to.

One of our stockists just got Bourke's parakeets again, so I'm gonna write them and order a buddy for Borkus.
I bought a bigger cage as well (1.20m long, .6m wide, 1m tall; it's "EC Setubal" on page 7 of this .pdf document if you can be arsed) and got it for roughly $125 - hurrah for special offers+employee discounts!
Finally, I'm ordering Harrison's High Potency Super Fine pellets (certified organic and all) and now I feel all smug in my perfect-pet-owner-ness. Ah.

Okay, so it doesn't really, it just feels like it.

A crazy old woman came into the shop today and made a horrible fuss about the macaw flying around. She claimed it was "scared to death" by being out in the shop and said I should put it back in the cage immediately or she'd call the authorities. This was in the afternoon with lots of customers standing around, and she wouldn't shut up, but went on and on about how this was animal abuse. Awesome.
(Note that she had observed the bird for all of maybe two minutes before starting her rant, this unfortunately just as it was trying to get down from a shelf to talk to its favourite customer who had just entered the shop. This was a shelf it had just discovered and hadn't yet figured out how to get down from, so it jumped over to another shelf, knocking a few things over and of course not getting any less scared when t'old hag started waving and shouting.)
A middle-aged couple watched the whole affair bemusedly, and eventually the man shouted at her that she had no business telling me what to do and that she oughta just shut up. It was most heartwarming, though not exactly of much help as it just made her more irate.
Sheesh.

Personally, I would have thought that flying freely around in the shop (as opposed to being stuck in a cage) would be the lesser of two evils, but clearly she didn't share my opinion. She also disagreed with how the cage was placed (directly facing the door), and that I can agree with - in fact Miriam and I pointed this and other things out to Tommy when he brought up his plans of getting a macaw. Also, the relevant authorities demand that a) at least two walls in the cage should be covered so that the bird cannot be "surrounded" by people and thereby stressed, and b) the bird should not be left alone in the shop overnight, but taken to a private home. The shop is clearly in breach of both these requirements, and Miriam and myself have actually planned on reporting us to the authorities anonymously - both because the bird deserves better, and because we're (or at least I am) sick to death of having it there.

Seriously, do any of you have any idea of what parrots are like? Denis Leary once likened having children to having drunk midgets around the house. Parrots... are like drunk, FLYING, NOISY midgets. That chew on things. And poop everywhere. And want attention all the bloody time. Typically, my interaction with the currently gender- and nameless bird goes as follows:
Bird: "Braap?"
Me: "Hello!" (Aww, look. It's tilting its head all cute, like. Pretty bird. Poor thing can't help that Tommy's an asshole and placed it here.)
Bird: "BRAAP!"
Me: "Yes, I heard you the first time." (... s'kinda noisy, though.)
Bird: "WHIIINE, YELP!!!"
Me (grumbling): "Ah, shut up!" (I wonder, does grilled macaw taste like chicken?)
Bird: "SCHREEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHH WAAAAAAAHHHHH RAAAAHHHH!!!!!"
Me (shutting up so as not to reinforce undesired behaviour, blah blah): (ARGH FUCKING SONUVABITCH SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I'LL FEED YOU TO THE ELECTRIC EEL DAMNIT)


Does this entry sound whiny? It is actually not intended to. I'm giggling here, typing it up. I should probably go to bed. Meh.

I have started a thread about the Vice Presidential debate here:

http://community.livejournal.com/smart_punx/284093.html

Just in case anyone was curious about my thoughts. Also, so I can have record of them for myself later.

*edit to add a link to someone trying to diagram Palin's sentences:
http://www.slate.com/id/2201158/
/edit*

ALSO! PLEASE REPLY HERE. Unless you are a member of the community I linked, please do not post in it. It is a rated community and, while everyone there is pretty cool and probably won't make a big fuss, it would be much preferable to respect the rules of not posting/replying unless you are an approved member of the community.

Help Rickroll the MTV Awards

http://ema.mtv.co.uk/vote/

1. Choose "Best Act Ever"
2. Vote for Rick Astley
3. Yes

La verdad, bastante agotada. No se por qué, pero me vino un bajón energético pesado. Antes estaba tan bien y ahora parezco una viejecilla... al final no iré a NIN, porque me dio la weá. Creo que no ando con ánimos como de descargar energía en un concierto, debo buscar alguna manera más creativa y menos agotadora de hacerlo.

Supongo que todo esto es a causa del ciclo, que me bajó hoy... malditooooo T_T
Espero recuperar ánimos cuando se me pase.

Bueno, cambiando el tema, me han pasado un par de cosas dignas de contar. Primero, el lunes tuvimos reunión de la corporación cultural. La exposición va bastante bien, ya tenemos fecha y todo y espero que todo salga excelente. La cosa es que entre todos me escogieron para hacer el afiche, el díptico y el flyer de propaganda... WTF! D:
De pronto se enteran de que garabateo cosas que yo llamo dibujos y ya asumen que soy experta en diseño... jamás había hecho un afiche en mi prostituta vida, así que tendré que apechugar.
Igual ya les mandé un par de ideas y mañana debo buscar un par de piezas de la exposición para sacarles fotos y usarlas como imagenes.

Crap, y yo que quería dedicarme a dibujar este mes, ya que debo entregar un par de dibujos para la Itaii Itaii que me comprometí a hacer.
Para eso, estuve viendo unos cuantos capítulos de Ouran Host Club, para rememorar aquellos tiempos fangirleros que tuve con Kyoya y Tamaki, a los que quiero dibujar. Ojalá se me ocurra algo luego...

Por otro lado, hoy terminé de ver Natsume Yuujinchou... que linda serie, aunque quedé con gusto a poco. Puede parecer sosilla en un principio y el protagonista siempre anda como con cara adormilada, pero las historias son muy bonitas :)
Y también me vi el famoso último capítulo de Code Geass R2 del cual todos hablan, pero que yo no mencionaré, fufufu.

Ah, volviendo a lo de la corporación, también comenzamos a planear lo que haremos el próximo año. Tenemos pensado hacer talleres para los mortales comunes y corrientes y ¡Tate!, me pidieron que hiciera un taller de comics... ¡¡Y yo acepté, por la mierda!! D: *corre de pánico*
No sé por qué chucha me puse tan complaciente... ah, esperen, generalmente soy así, aunque mi yo interior grite desesperado "¡¡Noooo!! ¡¡No lo hagas!!". Y yo nunca le hago caso.
Así que eso, tendré que comenzar a investigar y a reconstruir mi alicaída autoestima para pararme frente a un grupo de cabros chicos y enseñarles alguna cosa, aunque me da una paja enorme en estos momentos de solo pensarlo =___=

He descubierto el magnífico Google Reader. No sé por qué no había sabido antes de él, pero a través de esta aplicación, puedes inscribirte en todos los blogs que sueles leer y leerlos todos desde ahí. Es genial y me ahorro un montón de tiempo ^v^
Lo único que hay que tener, es una cuenta en gmail y suscribirse a las "entradas Atom" que hay al final de cada blog. Es genial, todavía estoy maravillada de lo fácil que es. Aunque creo que los blogs en inglés tienen una opción parecida, pero se pueden leer desde el panel de control de la cuenta.

En fin, supongo que ese es mi reporte por ahora. La próxima vez les subiré alguna que otra foto del Runrun :3

[EDIT] Olvidé decir que me salió una espinilla del porte de la Unión Soviética (si, de ella, no de Rusia, que conste) y eso me hace sentir peooorrrr... ¿¿¡¡cuándo, por jesusito, cuáaaaandoooo dejaré de ser prepúber, por san blas!!??

Monday 22^nd September

On my way to the hospital this morning, I paused by a set of railings overlooking the aqueduct that carries Prittle Brook under the dual carriageway. At present the brook is a shallow dribble of braided water that doesn’t even cover the flat base of the concrete channel. A bright yellow, child’s BMX was lying in the middle of it, looking rusted and unloved.

Later, in one of the consultancy rooms, a junior doctor brought the results of my liver functions tests up on the computer screen: 15 months of bloodwork expressed as columns of red numbers - red indicating abnormal results. I’m used to coming in and getting these results piecemeal. This was the first time I had seen them all at once. Even though my numbers were down slightly on last time, which is good and also rather unexpected, I walked back home feeling defeated by the big picture.

It wasn’t all that long ago that my patient folder was a single sheet of paper inside a cardboard binder. Every time I go back to the hospital it’s a bit thicker and bares a closer resemblance to the folders that I come into contact with on Fridays when I work in the Radiotherapy department. Some of these are so immense that the notes are spread out over separate volumes, like sets of encyclopaedias. Last week one came into reception that was five-binders thick and bound together with string. It took up most of the top shelf on the trolley.

 

Friday 26^th September

Laura and I were sitting behind the open part of Radiotherapy reception. We were both watching a beaming middle-aged woman, who was slowly making her way across the waiting area towards us. I’ve noticed that people approaching our desk generally look either confused or pissed off. Being smiled at is a novelty.  Finally she arrived at the counter.

“They don’t want to see me for a year.” she said.

The department was busy today. Vicky had lost her voice and couldn’t answer the telephone. Irena left at midday. In a couple of weeks she will emigrate to New Zealand. She embraced her co-workers but wouldn’t look at them afterwards or say goodbye to them.

There’s  a new robot in the hospital pharmacy that automatically dispenses prescriptions. It’s supposed to cut down on mistakes and patient waiting times. Hopefully it won’t go berserk and run amok on the wards.

In Prittle Brook, a collage of dead leaves, twigs, crisp packets and sweet wrappers has started to accumulate around the frame of the BMX. It’s like watching decomposition in reverse -  the water putting flesh back onto bones.