Friday 29 February 2008

Ooops!

One of the hazards of the jet-set TGirl life-style (read this as: constantly having to work away as all the big projects are far away from the quiet North West idyll in which I live) is that I'm constantly lugging a rather large amount of clothes, shoes, make-up and other assorted essentials for life around the world.

This also means that, when return visits home are brief, there isn't time for a good stock check of the things in the multitude of suitcases and invariably it's often easier to simply do the laundry and then add any extra's that I know I was missing on the previous trip ... or just some new things that I want to wear ... or that I desperately need to match with another outfit ... or that may vaguely be needed on the off-chance that I buy something new ...

The result: LOTS of stuff.

Another result that I just encountered this morning: lack of any normal 'bob-mode' clothes!

That's right, I packed so much girlie wear that I don't have any boring bob-mode jeans to wear to work for the usual casual Friday attire! OOOOOooops!

Thankfully I have a pair for fairly normal coloured/styled boot-cut jeans that, don't stand out too much and are only noticeable if you look quite closely at my bum (pretty detail on the pockets) and the front zipper which is obviously the wrong (will I think it's right) way round!

So I will be on the look out today for people staring at my bum or zipper!

Thursday 28 February 2008

WOW, WOW, WOW! Update

Here's the only pic that is even mildly okay from last night - just as proof that I was actually outside and not all of my pictures have a hotel room as background ;-)


Next time, I'll take a decent camera and get some proper pictures!

WOW, WOW, WOW!

First of all, thanks to ... well you know who you are, for dinner tonight! It was fantastic! I got to be "ME" for a whole evening, in public, for the very first time! This means so much to me I can't put it into words!

Now the bad news: my phone camera is useless! So no good pics of this evening unfortunately, I have shots of me
in the outfit I wore (see below) but none of me outside that actually came out well enough to want to publish :( All I can say is; if anyone wants to see pics of me out and about I need another trip out :D

So, anyway, I got back to the hotel at about 17:00 and needed to get ready really quickly ... which I've discovered it impossible - I need to shower, sort my face out (which is terribly blotchy due to aircon, travelling, stress, and just general bad luck).

Then it was make-up time ... I was so nervous I thought I was going to make a complete mess. I actually managed to get liquid eye-liner on and discovered that this was MUCH easier when I didn't close my eyes; I got a straighter line and didn't actually blink (causing the eye-liner to go up my eye-lid) as much. I wasn't totally happy with the make-up, I think I went a bit silly with the green eye-shadow and my skin still seemed terrible :( Anyway, it could have been worse I guess.

Just as an aside, I'm walking past mirrors alot these days and thinking that I'd really like to just smash my face with a hammer and make it look better! Obviously this isn't a literal thing (it'd hurt too much for a start) but really, I want to look better, and find it frustrating that I can't.

Another thing I'll mention (which isn't in strictly chronological order, but I best say it now before I forget/fall asleep) is that I was seriously worried about not being girlie enough and doing things that I think are guy actions/feelings/thoughts. I actually worried about this most of the evening until I came to be walking home when I realised I was being quite girlie and actually am much like that (though the several drinks I had could have helped with a more positive point of view).

Anyway, what I really felt walking home was that I wanted to do this more, I wanted to get dressed up in nice clothes and go out and have fun, this was right, this was how it should be, I should try and do this as much as possible and keep doing it until I get it right and until there is no doubt that this is me, not the other me, the real me!

Back to more concrete thoughts: Had a nice dinner, lots to drink (sadly not as fast acting and effective as I'd hoped, I still feel relatively sober), a good chat and overall a fantastic evening (thanks again to ...)

Walked back without incident, trying to take photos of myself and failing - note to self: next time take a decent camera out with you to capture the evening!

Didn't really get and weird looks, certainly didn't notice any in the restuarant (Earl's in downtown Vancouver) and the staff were smart enough to say "ladies" and use female pronouns thorough-out the evening which was nice (hint to anyone reading this who fancies attempting to chat me up; good manners count for an awful lot).

When I came back into the hotel I even said "hi" to the girl on the desk (wonder if she knew who I was), I was half tempted to go back and really have a good talk to her as I was feeling that happy that things had gone well (or at least hadn't gone badly).

Another bizarre twist to the evening, which was unexpected and quite pleasant was the very brief chat that I had to the guy that rushed into the lift just after me; he was very pleasant and respectful and I was actually touched by just how normal and chatty he was to me when he could probably clearly see that there was something different about me.

So, overall I feel slightly drunk, happy, less confused (though this may change in the morning) and ready to go out more (I'll probably also be more nervous about this in the morning). And I really do feel that this is "me" ... some people may not understand this, I can't claim that I fully do, but I feel much happier being this "me" than anything else ... well apart from the fact that I'd like to make "me" more "me" but that's getting complicated!

Time for bed as I'm clearly typing fast but not making any sense anymore!

Love to all reading this!

Saturday 23 February 2008

I must not watch tear-jerker chick-flicks!

Flicking through the channels while trying to rest in the hotel room and I came across "Beaches" which I haven't watched in ages (I have the soundtrack on CD somewhere and use to play it endlessly ... ooo, I actually have it on the mp3 player as well :D )

So started watching from about 1/2 through and towards the time I had to go down and get some food it was getting to the end and I remembered why I don't watch films like this too much; they make me cry my heart out!

It's even worse when I can even predict some of the dialogue

CC Bloom: "I know everything about you, and my memory is long" (CC walks away)
Hilary: "I'm counting on it"

Even more moving; Hilary is admitted to hospital, with little time left and, when CC arrives, says she doesn't want to be seen like this, she wants to leave ... CC goes and gives the hospital staff hell and gets her out and back to the beach house.

Thankfully at the point when "Wind beneath your wings" started to play I turned the TV off and went for some food otherwise I would have been a blubbering wreck!

Don't get my started on Titanic either! I've never dared watch that again after crying so much I thought my (female) friend was going to walk out and leave me in the cinema!

So now I prefer to stick to things with a happy ending ... I still cry at those anyway :D

"Made here!"

"Freshness", "Quality", "Choice" the video proclaims while showing things like
  • Peppers being thrown into clear water
  • Ham being sliced from a joint of meat
  • Salads items (still glistening from a quick dip in the water) being tossed/chopped/prepared
  • Posh jam tarlets being prepared and cooked
  • etc ...
First off, I wish they'd give me the nice LCD monitors from the food court in T2 at Manchester airport, I can think of much more useful things to be doing with them than running this pretty amateur, and frankly pointless video!

Second, I'd like to know how where all the nice lettuce was when they made the rather costly Tuna baggette that I ate. Okay, we're not talking the manky brown lettuce here, but what I got certainly wasn't as as full of life as I'd hoped having being rammed into the tiny baggette to hide the pitiful amount of tuna!

"Quality" - interesting term that, will have to look it up but I'm sure I've seen a definition before where you can refer to anything having "quality" or "qualities", i.e. characteristics. So for the tuna, it had an almost non-existant quality about it!

"Choice" .... at this point I had to smile to myself. There is really little choice; there are no other eatery places around in T2 (well okay, WHSmiths have a few bits and pieces but not much - the one after security is good but the little one before is a bit limited) so you're kinda stuck with the "Food Village". The selection there is pretty limited as well - didn't see an awful lot of veggies (not that this bothers me) and the sandwiches were pretty uninspiring.

I mean, call be a snob (a fair accusation actually) but I'm kinda comparing to M&S here - now they have a pretty good "choice" in terms of food, even for a picky eater like me (can't stand cucumber, tomato, avacado or similar and I can *still* find nice things to eat).

So, in a literal sense, yes "choice", but not much.

But* that's okay really, it's what you expect from a UK airport, train station, or service station; low quality, limited choice, and astronomical prices. What's ironic is the little video campaign trying to convince you otherwise!

[ * So what's the actual problem with starting a sentence with "But"? Must look that up as well]

Hell is ...

  • Being away from home again? Well, not fun, but hopefully the last bit of work travel this year and the destination is fun (Vancouver) so I'm sure I can grin and bear it ... oh, and all the nice clothes I bought and didn't have space to pack should (hopefully) be waiting for me in the suitcase I left at the hotel, so something to look forward to!
  • Having to go down to the airport on a Saturday for a business flight? Well, maybe but my choice so can't really complain and it means a better working week with (hopefully) a little less jet-lag.
  • Having your flight delayed by 12hours! Due to technical issues with the plane ... requiring a part from Paris no less, or so the nice, friendly Zoom rep told me when I asked whether "1300 delayed to 0130" was just a typo. Well, the way I look at it is that delays and such are fine if the journey itself is safe and uneventful! I'm just happy to arrive safely at my destination!
  • Having a room in the Radisson hotel and a meal provided, all paid for by Zoom ... well not had the meal yet but so far Zoom have been fantastic in putting all this on for us (I'm sure they had to but still, it's quite nice).

So what is hell? Hell is getting into your nice room, looking in the lovingly polished, bright, clear, and well lit mirror in the bathroom and realising that your skin looks terrible and you're frankly a mess and all those moisturisers are all packed about in the checked luggage!

Hmmm, I think I may do a quick experiment with the moisturizing affects of hand & nail stuff once I've had a shower and freshened up!

Wednesday 20 February 2008

Isn't technology wonderful!




Not only can you now pay for your high cholesterol, high salt, fast food with a credit or debit card (why has it taken so long for this to happen?) but you can also get connected to the internet for free so that you can blog about how guilty and fat you feel about it!

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Must ... not ... buy ... more gadgets

I've already bought one of those nice little Asus EEE PCs (and a fab little gadget it is too) but now there seems to be an even more affordable laptop soon to be released:

Elonex One Laptop

I've seen comments that this is in fact a re-badged version of Simple PC by Fontastic Telecom Inc but I don't have any inside information to confirm/deny this - they do appear to look awfully similar though!

The processor seems quite low-end, so I tried to have a hunt round for further specs. I managed to find the Aday Inc company website but the closest I could get to was the 5E CPU which is very interesting, being based on a 486 core!

So it's probably fair to assume that the Elonex One laptop could well be based on a high-end 486 CPU core (with all I/O on the same chip) or at best it's going to be a low-end Pentium CPU. Either way it just goes to show (assuming this new laptop actually does perform reasonably well) that you can still do an awful lot with fairly modest hardware!

Another point worth noting (just for a bit of Microsoft baiting) is that you are VERY unlikey to be able to get XP running on this machine, let alone Vista ... of course you may have a shot with something like Pocket PC/Windows Mobile/whatever it's called today - and in fairness the version of Linux on this device is likely to be extremely cut-down compared to a full distro - still, it appears to be running Pidgin which means it can handle GNOME and X-Windows.

Hmmm, I remember running a 486DX2-66 system with only 40Mb RAM and X-Windows, OLVWM, and being able to use Netscape Navigator, XEmacs, and other basic applications without any real issue .

Update: It looks as if this Aware A-Book AW-300 may be the same as the Elonex laptop. Flick through this review and there are some real revelations in terms of the OS and GUI for this device; it appears to be quite a mis-mash of applications and I even spotted some apps with Xt/CDE-style widgets rather than the more familar GTK/Qt that most modern OS's come with.

This is beginning to look like a real budget buy and nowhere near as useful, flexible, upgradable or generally polished as the Asus EEE PC or similar devices that are coming out. Then again, once hacked, a £99 device with screen, CPU, and plenty of I/O capabilities may have it's uses.

How romantic

First off I feel like poo - nasty cold and jet-lag means I'm staying at home today and trying to recover! I hate being ill, particularly with horrible colds that seem to get into every muscle and just make you feel so tired and pants!

Anyway, while messaging work to let them know I wouldn't be in today I also had a check on my Facebook messages (to see if anyone was saying nice, complimentary things about me :D ) and I had a new Kiss from someone (which was nice) ... went to see the list of kisses and the page proudly showed the following MOTD (Message of the Day):

Tip KISS Fortune cookie: Did you know Kissme runs on 100s of powerful 32GB servers will never fail your love life

which of course is nice to know if somewhat less than romantic! Maybe that's what you need though, instead of flowers that die or chocolates that melt, or even sexy lingerie that costs the earth and is only worn for the briefest (pun intended) of time ... what you need is 100s of powerful servers to keep your loved one happy!

Hmmm, I wish they'd said what *sort* of servers they were using!

Monday 18 February 2008

Can' keep my head up!

I really shouldn't have gone into a long training course as my head, and in fact my whole body, wants to fall asleep and I don't think I can stay awake all afternoon. This jet-lag really is no fun at all and I wonder if I'm taking in anything ,that we are being taught! Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake and not actually hit my head on table! Goodness, now I've really lost where we are up to on the course! ZZzzzzzz

Update: Even writing this above I was falling asleep and losing track of what I was writing!

Damn jet-lag

So, 3am this morning!

Flew in yesterday and, as ever, didn't sleep much on the plane (even after a couple of glasses of wine - yay, free drinks in premium class) so was totally shattered yesterday. Tried to leave it until 10pm to go to sleep but then woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep!

There was nothing interesting on the internet either at this silly time of morning, boring!

Anyway, go look at my pictures on Flickr and leave nice comments please :D

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fionasboots

Friday 15 February 2008

A quick slow walk out

Since I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence at the moment I didn't actually think I would get anything done tonight. I *wanted* to quickly go out on my bike; feeling bad that a) I spent alot of money on it and haven't used it much (at all) this week, and b) that I'm putting on weight and losing what figure I had hoped (in vain likely) that I was getting. I also wanted to go an have a wander around in one of my new outfits.

I didn't think I'd get anything done.

But I did :D


Only a quick walk out; actually went to La Senza as I noticed that they had an offer on valentine lingerie, sadly there was nothing left by the time I got there - maybe for the best, the credit card is still smoking from the weekends shopping!

Anyway, time for bed.

Wednesday 13 February 2008

Rant/confession

Well, I've been out for a nice meal and a bit of alcohol so I'm feeling a little fuzzy at the moment and felt like writing something quick and snappy to prove that I can keep up this blog writing thing in the face of a apparent non-readership (if anyone is reading this garbage, leave a comment ... I know there are so many blogs to comment on these days but mine is more important, okay! ;-) )

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I've uploaded new pics of my outfits. I have mixed feelings about these; on the one hand I think some of the pics came out okay and the outfits look pretty cool, on the other I can see flaws, mistakes, things I don't like, things I wish I could change, things that detract from the "wow" factor I wish I could achieve.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sometimes happy/proud of how good I can make myself look and I know I'm getting better but it is alot of effort and I guess that the more you achieve the more there is to do. This is something I've already mentioned, the fact that I can get to feeling quite bad about what I've failed to achieve even when people are kind enough to say I look good.

So here's the confession bit: when it comes to clothes/shoes/outfits, I'm turning into quite a snob (okay, not really a surprise there, and certainly not for anyone that knows me in real life) but I also feel the same way when it comes to other TGirls; really I expect people to look as good or better looking than me, if not, I don't think they are trying hard enough!

I know that really people should be themselves whatever that is and however that looks, and I do stand by that view in life, but when it comes to to the whole TGirl thing I have standards that may seem too high to some.

Okay, now the rant bit: again, I can understand why people do this but it does kind of hit a nerve with me. All of my pictures are public and show all of me in my full glory (or lack thereof), I haven't re-tocuhed or scanned anything, what you see is what you get (sadly). I see lots of cases where pics don't include everything (or concentrate on a particular area to the exclusion of all others) or are actually someone elses pics, or scans or similar.

I try so hard to look good and find it annoying that people waste time with junk pics and show no real effort! And don't get me started on pics of CDs with hairy legs - that is just yuck for a start and annoying - I use an epilator and have to scrub my legs every single day and still they don't look/feel right!

Oh rant, rant, whinge, whinge, etc ... think it's time I went to bed and sobered up before I offend too many people! Night y'all!

Tuesday 12 February 2008

"Forgive quickly ...."

"... kiss slowly"

Well I like the sentiment but I was quite surprised to see this whole quote on the sign outside a Church that I pass on the way to work! No what I've come to expect from the usual Church signage - they usually have some rather dry quote from the bible.

Things are obviously looking up in the religious world :D

Monday 11 February 2008

Really MUST get an early night

Ended up staying awake 'till late again last night.

Feeling very tired and lethargic now. Really, really need to get an early night and a good nights sleep tonight. Planning on leaving work at a reasonable hour so I can get my chores done (ironing and such), have some food and get an early night.

Hopefully then everything will seem brighter and clearer in the morning.

New pictures finally uploaded

I spent a few fun hours getting dressed up in all the new outfits (actually I did miss out a few new items like the new shoes I got, will have to take pics of those at a later date) I bought over the weekend and I've finally managed to upload them all to Flickr - the hotel internet was unbelievably sloooooowwwww!

So, have a look at my Flickr Pics and let me know what you think!

Chickened out

Just to add to my confusion and general blue feelings at the moment, I totally chickened out about going out and about in Vancouver this afternoon. I got myself all dressed up (eventually) and even managed to get enough nerve to go down and collect my washing from the hotel laundry (but I did get spooked when someone followed me in and I just quickly threw everything into a bag and get out quick).

But I couldn't get up the nerve to go out, I just lost my confidence completely. In a mad moment I did wonder if it would be a good idea to go down Davie Street and see if I could meet some nice people to have a drink with but I'm just to shy and scared to go out alone like that.

So, I'm annoyed and disappointed with myself and I need to get my head straight and see if I can figure out how to get some confidence back, enough to ask some of my friends in the UK to help me get out and about!

Arrrghh! Annoyed and .... oh just ... f***, f***, f***ety, f***!

Time for bed I think!

Jealous, unhappy, tired, confused

Where do I start?

Well I think the late nights have finally caught up with me. I need to have a good routine and I need to have things to keep my mind occupied so that it doesn't go wandering off and start worrying about everything under the sun. So if I don't get the right amount of sleep, irregular meals and not enough things to keep me busy I start to get, for want of a better word, confused.

Add to that the general confusion that I'm feeling because I'm away from home and can think freely about the girlie stuff. Almost as soon as I got here I was thinking about what I should do in my life and seriously considering heading further down the TG path. Actually "thinking" may be too strong as it implies planning, maybe "wishing hard" might be more accurate.

So what about the unhappy bit? Well, I'm getting much more critical about myself, for example, a friend of mine mentioned that my skin wasn't ideal, this is true, but it's bothering me more and more that I can't look how I want to look.

Jealous - well that's obvious, I see other TG people who are so much better looking and confident than me, and I see GG (Genetic Girls) who I just wish I could be like - I just want that to be me!

The thing is, when I'm at home or when I'm busy in the middle of interested and distracting work I don't think these things as much, I'm more content, but I still wonder whether I really should start seriously looking at moving forward before it's too late and I end up regretting not doing something, anything to sort myself out.

Lots of thinking needed.

Saturday 9 February 2008

Shopping, shopping and yet more shopping!

I was doing so well! I hadn't spent much at all ... well, okay, I did buy a new Mountain Bike but that's a different category of shopping and nothing to do with clothes at all (well apart from it hopefully helping me to fit into my clothes better!).

Anyway, I tried on the dress I bought the other night and it simply didn't fit :( Bit depressed about that, but in the end you can't argue about it, that's not going to make the dress magically fit, so it had to go back.

You can't get a refund anymore (is this some new rule in Canada or something?) so it has to be an exchange or credit note. So my plan was to get the skirt that matches the waistcoat and trousers I got, making the full set. Don't worry this will make more sense when I post some pictures!

Sadly they didn't have that skirt in my size :( So I wandered round and round trying to find something to get - too much choice, too tired and nothing was jumping out at me saying "buy me". Also there were some things on sale and I thought: "ooo, I can buy more things then!"

In the end I bought a black jacket ($49.99) and a black skirt ($69.99) which was in a similar style to the one I wanted in the first place. So my plan now is to mix the skirt with the waistcoat and blouses, and the jacket and skirt will go as an outfit together as well :D Not sure if the jacket will go with anything else, will have to try and mix things up!

Trip to the States tomorrow to do even more shopping - this time not for me! Well, okay, I *may* buy more for me as well!

Friday 8 February 2008

Is Linus irrelevant for Linux?

A brief break from the shopping and other TGirl pursuits; I was just reading this article:

Is Linus Torvalds even speaking for Linux anymore?


The article seems confused; on one hand the author is saying that Linux is moving far ahead of Linus's limited vision and on the other he says, pointing to NetApp stats (which is meaningless really) that it is such a niche OS that it doesn't matter.

The star quote that is used as the main thrust of the authors argument is this from Linus

"An OS should never have been something that people (in general) really care about: it should be completely invisible and nobody should give a flying [expletive] about it except the technical people."

The author says that this "makes some sense" and then goes on to say that, in actual fact OS X and Windows have been successful because the customers DO care about the OS and thus Linus is no longer in touch with what the users want and is irrelevant.

The problem here is that the author clearly doesn't understand the subject he is talking about and is drawing conclusions from incorrect assumptions. The OS that he sees is all the flashy graphics and cool animations and features which is what the marketing types want you to see, this sells, this *is* relevant to end users.

In reality the *real* operating system is the stuff in the background that does all the boring work of, essentially, moving bits and bytes around the computer. This is what Linus means by the "operating system", not the marketing version of this term used to sell Vista, OS X and even Linux distros based on flashy features.

So the article is really trying to highlight an issue that isn't there; everyone knows that what users see as an "operating system" *is* important because it has been marketed to be, and yes Linus is not really involved with a great many aspects of what makes up such a product.

However, Linus still does have alot to do with the real OS and his opinion and voice on these aspects DOES matter.

Oooooooo ... aaaaaahhhhhh

This was the sound I made when I just came back in after taking my boots off!

So here's a clever idea: stay out late with friends, drink lots, get to bed at a silly time, struggle to get out of bed, get into work (only 1hr later that my usual 7:30am), do a full day at work, come back (yawning all the way), get changed and then put on a pair of (nice Nine West) ankle boots with 3" heels, walk to Sky Train station (about 15mins), go to shopping Centre (Metrotown - only 15/20mins from Downtown), walk around for ages (buying several items from Le Chateau), then walk back to hotel.

Not bright really! Goodness, my feet ache! And my legs are pretty tired out too! I need a nice soak in the bath, which is exactly what I'm going to do now!

P.S. Pics of new outfits will be forthcoming when I get a chance to try everything on properly.

P.P.S If I keep mentioning Le Chateau and how fabulous their clothes are and how super-friendly all their staff are ... do you think I may get some discount or some free clothes? Anyone from Le Chateau reading this, please help a poor TGirl, I promise to give you lots of lovely free publicity!

Thursday 7 February 2008

Protect that data!

Just read the following article which sounds pretty scarey to me

Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches

I'd be pretty much against the idea of handing over my laptop, PDA, phone or mp3 player unless (obviously) someone was accusing me of an actual crime (in which case 'handing over' would likely be 'seized' anyhow).

I wonder what would happen if they discovered my store of mp3's downloaded from allofmp3.com? The fact that these are in a directory called 'allofmp3' might be a bit of a give-away.

Isn't the 5th amendment meant to protect against this sort of thing, i.e. you can't be asked to incriminate yourself (or have I got this confused). Surely handing over all your data could quite easily lead to all sorts of questions!

Time to encrypt all of my data I think! Oh, damn ... this of course won't be any use in the UK:

UK police can now force you to reveal decryption keys

00:39

I can't actually post anything at the moment as the hotel network seems to be down :(

However, I've been out for some food with friends and I've managed to consume a fair few glasses of red wine so I'm nicely drunk and tired at the moment so I thought I'd take the opportunity to type out a few thoughts that I hope I'll have the courage to post about in the morning.

First off; I really don't like how I look any more. Not that I ever really bothered about what I look like in non-me mode but I was never distressed about it. Now I kind of get disappointed/annoyed that the face looking back at me from the mirror isn't more girlie. Or I catch sight of all of me when I get out of the shower (are mirrors cheaper in hotel bathrooms or something? There is usually a whole wall covered in mirrored glass!) and I'm not really impressed with what I see and would certainly like the idea if sorting a few things out given half a chance and a suitable surgeon!

I'm more and more getting close to the point of wanted to just come completely out of the closet - it feels like there is a real me that is holding back and just wants to burst out and say "THIS IS ME!". Even tonight, with something simple as briefly wondering what shoes to wear (the only 'other' me choice being trainers) I really just wanted to put on some boots instead.

I guess I'm also frustrated with myself generally; I hold myself back, I'm scared, I feel insecure and really I should just get out there but I don't!

Right, I really must go to bed now as I'm falling asleep at the keyboard here.

I think I'll try and post this tomorrow and then make a start on a little background about me so anyone that cares to know will have some sort of explanation for my current life.

Hugs

Fiona xxx

Update: Managed to post this eventually after dragging myself out of bed and into work for 8:30 - not bad considering the quantity of (rather nice) red wine and (rather hot) curry consumed last night!

Wednesday 6 February 2008

Test with Drivel

Just to see if the GNOME Drivel tool can post. Doesn't look like it handles titles which is really annoying!

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Just .... well ... just annoying!

I don't like censorship. It's just plain wrong.

If someone has something to say then they should be able to say it. Okay that's a bit of an over simplification since there are obviously issues of libel, accuracy, etc to consider but these should not be dealt with by blocking or censoring the original material.

So something like the following article gets me really, really annoyed:

IFPI Forces Danish ISP to Block The Pirate Bay

The whole copyright issue is a different matter, I'm not debating (well not yet) whether it's right/wrong to offer such items for download, but as the article points out, all the Pirate Bay does is provide links to these items, they don't host them.

It's been argued in many places that simply having links is, in itself, not illegal - for all practical purposes you could never make it illegal as the whole of the web works on links! Presumably this argument also stands up in court, if not the Pirate Bay would surely have been shutdown a long time ago?

In fact, if there was enough evidence to make a good case that the Pirate Bay is operating illegally then surely you could get an injunction directly against them pending a decision along these lines.

No, it doesn't appear to be that simple, so instead we see this type of action where access is censored. Well it's censored for now, as mentioned in the article there are ways round any such measures.

So the IFPI (and by association any other such organisations like the MPAA) are now very unpopular, they've spent money on the court case, presumably alot of money since I guess lawyers specialising in this area are expensive, and they have achieved what? Well nothing really. I bet torrents will still be accessibly, P2P tools are still out there, people are still downloading movies, the only real affect has been bad publicity, a waste of money, and the start of a slippery slope into censorship.

The solution? Well, I don't know what the real solution is but I would suggest that the money and time here would be better spent in coming up with some service that will tempt people away from their 'criminal' activities by giving them something they clearly want (online download of movies) with some added value (for a cost).

You simply can't fight Piracy head on, it is totally and utterly impossible, the only way to win is to offer something easier, better and more attractive - so that probably means setting up a legal Pirate Bay equivalent that can make money through subscriptions, advertising, marketing, and many other revenue streams ... oh and of course you'd save all that money on lawyers fees as well :D

UPDATE: I spoke too soon:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/ifpi_baidu_china_yahoo/

Green eye-shadow and photos

It's incredibly hard for me to get good pictures of myself. Actually, I'll go one further; it's hard for me to get good pictures! This is not through lack of trying or even for want of a decent camera, it just is hard to get really natural and clear photos without help.

Anyway, I had a go at green eye-shadow, a colour I'd never considered before and which I think actually looked quite good! Judge for yourselves:


Even more embarrassing pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fionasboots

Monday 4 February 2008

Funny things

I saw two things on the way into work this morning that made me smile just a little. One was Winnie the Pooh stickers on someone's steering wheel - and not just little stickers that had been left on there, these were obviously designed to fit the exact size and shape of a steering wheel.

Presumably stickers that cover both sides of a steering wheel need to be designed to not slip or come off in some dangerous way as well as being tested for safety generally. So I just had to wonder that there must be a significant number of people willing to buy Winnie the Pooh stickers for steering wheels to make it economically viable for a manufacturer to go to all that trouble. Of course they probably have other designs ... must find out what these are at some point.

The other thing was quite striking; a tartan truck! Pretty eye-catching in itself but the wording on the side proudly proclaimed "Men in Kilts", "North America's Premier window cleaning and guttering service". Since this really did make me smile they can have some free advertising here:

http://www.meninkilts.net

I've just followed the link and they even claim they do all the cleaning in kilts! I can't say anything to top that!

Hope it's just the tiredness

I'm confused.

I should be elated as I got a chance to do my make-up and hair, put on some lovely perfume, try on some clothes, and generally have a nice girly time. I even managed to get some liquid eye-liner on (if you've never tried doing this, trust me, it's not as easy as it looks unless the *want* it all over your eye-lids) and even managed to get some green eye-shadow that I think looks pretty good.

Still not happy though.

I keep finding things that aren't right, my weight, my figure (or lack of), the fact that it takes so much effort to look even half decent and I only get to do that every so often and I don't want it to stop ... but then again I don't think I'm getting it right enough to bother carrying on.

What I want is some miracle pill that will help me look and feel like the me I want to be, which isn't the me I have to be alot of the time.

Of course, all of the above could just be the fact that I'm tired and did more than the usual amount of exercise today (looooonnnnnggg right cycle ride) so that's making me feel low. I hope so anyway.

Sydney White

Just watched this film and I found it really charming, sweet, funny ... oh and there is even a TGirl angle as well (won't spoil that for anyone who hasn't watched it yet)!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815244/

Sunday 3 February 2008

OW!

They say that men would never be able to cope with the pain of child-birth ... I think this is true, they wouldn't but I think it's unfair to jump straight up to the maximum level of torture without at least some acclimatization first, afterall, women get to practice with their beauty routine for many years first.

For example; eye-brows, my goodness they can sting a bit! And waxing is another obvious one that I'd be lying if I said was well within my normal pain threshold. But both of these are relatively quick procedures and you can (though I've never had the pleasure myself) have someone else administer these in a professional and efficient (and presumably less painful) way.

No, for true pain you need the ultimate in torture devices: an Epilator!

I think it can take me around 20mins for a good attack at the legs and tentative attempt at the bikini-line (this involves several near misses and one direct hit after which I'm too traumatized to try again). So that is 20mins of agony, or around about 10mins of normal level agony followed by the most exquisite pain imaginable when I progress to the upper thighs!

Anyway, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do, and no pain, no gain, and similar trite sayings. This girl is off to bed now so I can be up early tomorrow and attempt to make myself presentable!

Friday 1 February 2008

Adjectives

I was just trying to put together some of the "About me" bits on the blog and it reminded me of a problem I have in this online world, particularly in respect of posting comments on my friends Flickr pictures; I don't know enough adjectives!

This is my complete list (some can be put together in combination with words like 'absolutely' and 'totally':

Fab(ulous)
Stunning
Fantastic
Beautiful
Amazing
Wonderful

Please help a poor TGirl and donate your unwanted adjectives, please wash and put in the bag provided for collection by our staff or leave at your local charity shop.

Test blog post from e-mail ...

Just playing with sending blog posts from e-mail!  Did it work?


A simple mobile phone post

Did this work?