Musical...

...meme.

Make your band's album cover!

1. Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop (or something like picnik.com) to put it all together.

Here's mine:



and just in case anyone wants to know more about the Minakshisundaram-Pleijel zeta function...just click on the name. (then nod and smile like you understand it. If you do understand it...stop reading my blog and go and invent time-travel or something.)

Last night...

...I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. (A beast a little like a gnu).

I'd finished reading The Canon at lunchtime and really, really enjoyed it. This meant that I needed to pick myself a book to read in the very hot bath that I planned to take.

But what to read?

I looked through all 6 bookshelves (and all the piles on the floor) and managed to whittle myself down to a shortlist of 6 titles.





All of them, bar Mr Toppit, were just the right length for me to read in the bath. So therefore Mr Toppit got put aside for being too long. (It only made the shortlist cos it's my newest proof (although quite why we had the proof arrive in store at the same time as the book I do not know)).

Being aware that I'm on holiday in a week, I put aside The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency to take with me (and all the rest of the series too).

I put Marianne aside because she'll start me on a Sheri S. Tepper kick and I'm not quite in the mood for that at the moment.

Decider got kicked to the curb because I decided I wanted some fantasy rather than people blowing up racecourses.

That left a hard choice between The Valley of Secrets and The Pinhoe Egg.

Since by this time the bath had run I took them both in there and decided to read the first chapter of each and then choose.

By the time I remembered I was going to do this...I was already halfway through The Pinhoe Egg. I shall read Valley of Secrets tonight instead.

I'm just so...

...in love with this view of London right now.

The Monument

When I went to London back in September the Monument was one of the places I planned to go as it's where Edie gets kidnapped by the Minotaur. But alas, it was closed, which made Anthony (not so) secretly relieved as he hadn't fancied climbing all those stairs.

I've been up there once on one of my London trips with Dad and I will get up there again on my next trip to the Big Smoke.

In the meantime this view will have to do, and it's pretty damn good.

(and yes, it does look a little Eye-ish at first, but it passes...)

I really am...

...the luckiest girl in the world.

I had a really bad day at work today. We were short-staffed, every customer had an idiotic question that took ten minutes to answer/explain to them that we couldn't order them a book that went out of print in 1983. I also had to explain to three people that we didn't have any job vacancies and could they now please move along so that I can serve the queue behind them as I have no colleagues free to help.

Instead of my usual hour and 30 minute breaks, I had three 30 minute breaks. This did chop the day up amazingly well, but also meant that although I wasn't hungry on my first break, by my second and third ones I'd gone past hungry to feeling like death.

This meant that today was fuelled by chocolate and coke.

Then I came home.

I came home to my beautiful bunches of red roses and red tulips and my limited edition pack of Marmite containing a Paddington Bear.

I came home to a fridgeful of food, all the laundry put away and a load ready to start.

I came home to a house that won't have my man back in it until 2am Friday night (silly 5-1 shift), but he is here all the time in the things he does for me.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole wide world and that is why today has been a VERY GOOD DAY.

Tuesday's...

...To Do List
(red items are uncompleted)

• Clear off dining room table and polish


• Empty bins


• Empty cat litter trays


• Put black bags into wheelie-bin


• Descale kettle


• Sort bottles for recycling/Paul


• Take down Christmas/Birthday cards


• Change Ecological Wall Calendar to Winter/Spring


• Update Books Read in 2009 list


• Listen to some classical music (in an attempt to be able to name all the pieces I know by ear eg. Pachelbel's Canon or 'Pizzicata' from Sylvia)


• Play some Warcraft


• Watch some things from the V+ box (cos it's filling up!)


• Spend some time fussing the pussycats


• Work on my cross-stitch


• Do washing-up

Quite a productive day really...shame about the washing up though...just ran out of time...*whistles innocently*

Snowy morning...

...walk to work.



The Work Walk Set

I do apologise for that shot of RichieFingers...I hope no one was eating when they looked at it. ;-p

A Facebook note...

...on t'blog.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I wish snow would go away tidily. I like it when it's here and new and fresh, but when it's starting to go and has melted and refrozen then it's just very very slippy and annoying!

2. I have been meaning to take photographs of my walk to work for over a year now.

3. I did it this morning because the snow would make everything look pretty.

4. But I'm not going to upload them until tomorrow as this house is freezing so I'm going to bed early to keep warm.

5. I judge books by their covers. Only in the fact that if a book I love is available in a hideous cover for £5 or a lovely cover for £10 then I'll spend the extra and get the lovely one.

6. I still have all my birthday cards up because I can't bear to take them down yet.

7. I have hardly any feeling in my right hand at the moment because it's so bloody cold.

8. I really need to buy some fingerless gloves to type in. (The pair I had last year were normal gloves with the fingers hacked off and they unravelled).

9. I buy books the way some people buy clothes.

10. If I'm happy, I buy a book. If I'm sad, I buy a book. If I really really want to kill one of my co-workers...I buy a book and then read it at lunchtime with my iPod on so she can't natter at me.

11. I have issues with suppressed rage. (and one of my co-workers).

12. I spent a whole hour on Saturday choosing which audiobook I should download next from Audible. It was a tough decision!

13. I eventually decided on The Borrowers by Mary Norton. (and if you click to play the sample, you'll hear her talk about me).

14. I do love books that have a Kate in. You don't get many of them, they all tend to be Katie instead.

15. One of the best ones was a little girl called Mary Kate. (Mary is my middle name). She was a well behaved, neat and tidy little girl. My exact opposite!

16. I wish I could be tidier. I do try. I'm just not very good at picking up after myself.

17. I also remain terribly bad at washing up.

18. One day I shall have a dishwasher! (and be terribly bad about emptying it)

19. I follow the random article link on Wikipedia every day to see if I'll learn something fascinating.

20. Today I learnt about the King's Pawn Game.

21. I am terrible at chess.

22. I got a personalised Monopoly game for Christmas that includes Chance cards where Lewis Hamilton retires, the cats win an advertising contract and my letting agent finds me a "large, cheap house - with library".

23. I don't know how I'm going to cope in the future without a dedicated book room. Eep.

24. But I'd like to point out that I'm NOT going to throw loads of them out! (Would be no good anyway, see #9)

25. I'm now going to bed with a) the electric blanket turned up high, b) Easy Italian on my iPod, c) Stolen by Kelley Armstrong and d) dinner = burger and chips.

I have tagged you on the book of face. And no, I don't think tagging people who have already done it is cheating!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

...oh look, it did.

Reading through my Google Reader I notice an awful lot of people who have been off work/college today because of the snow.

Jammy buggers.

I must admit that work was ok today because it was so flipping quiet as anyone with any sense has stayed at home/gone sledding. This did mean that the customers we did have were as mad as a bag of snakes. Oh, and Gavin popped in. But it was his birthday (25) so we'll let him off.

Today I wished I was between the ages of 6-11 again. In fact we could stretch that slightly to 6-18 as my senior school would have shut due to the snow too.

But my memories of playing in the snow are from 6-11. Building igloos in Melanie and Lauren's back garden (proper high walls and everything). Building forts in the front garden and engaging in snowball fights with Calvin and Martin.

Instead I pulled a few returns, informed people that the cookery book published by "someone named Marjorie, used to live next door to me, it was about Black Country recipes" was out of print ("so how long will it take you to order it?") and was generally rather bored.

Sometimes I wish I lived further away from work so I could say I couldn't get in. Sometimes I wish I was 6-11 again. Sometimes I wish I had kids so that they'd be off school so I couldn't go in.

Here's hoping for two out of three (since I ain't gonna get younger).

One Day.

Lazy Sunday...

...Afternoon.

Well lazy entire weekend to be honest. But oh my goodness I NEEDED it!

Last week was one of those weeks where nothing is simple and every task takes 15 times longer than it was supposed to.

Anthony was back on the 5-1 shift for the first time in ages which meant that up until Thursday night I only got to see him at 3am when he came up to bed, and at 7am when I got up. The whole balance between wanting to see him and wanting an unbroken night of sleep made me rather ratty I must confess.

At work everything was very stop-start. By Friday I reduced my To-Do list to one thing - Rearrange the 3 for 2 tables. It took me all flipping day!

(and I didn't blog in the week because I didn't want it to turn into one big moan...oops!)

So, a Saturday with Anthony sleeping in (his night shift meant he got in at 8.30am) and me pottering about doing laundry and ptootling. Saturday evening spent sewing and watching CSI:NY while Anthony kicked ass on WoW.

Today I have been kicking ass on WoW (haven't played for ages) and got myself up to level 75. Anthony has been in charge of the TV remote and also prodded me into tidying up the bathroom and throwing out all sorts of bottles of stuff that were never gonna get used.

This weekend was very much needed. Now it's February and that's always a better month. Plus, it's only four weeks until I'm off to Center Parcs again for a week family holidayness.

Ohhh, and I'm managing to keep my list of books read in 2009 up to date - last week was a real slow reading week!