making your own fun

So, I was googling to see if there was anything on t'interweb yet about the bmx dirt jumps mounds track thingy the local bike punks have been building near our house¹ (they have made a fab job of it, and are also trying to teach the local scrotes some skills and some manners if they want to use it too, so no doubt the council will come round and flatten their unofficial fun boo), and inadvertantly discovered a local car park is a prime d0gg1ng location. Ewwww. But then in the process of finding the explanatory linkage, searching bbc news for d0gg1ng found the news that K9 is getting his own series hurrah although this is going to provoke several months of 'when's the K9 show on?' then several more of 'but why haven't we got jetix on our tv?'. Boo.



1) please insert correct young persons' vernacular, but you get the idea.

so how was your day?

This is how O says his was:

"a shiny rainbow star, all colours of the rainbow"

And what makes a shiny rainbow star of a day? A 2 mile 'walk' in Grin Low Woods on a slightly damp day, in which he and his best friend climbed trees, looked for bugs, played with sticks, explored Gruffalo caves, ate jam sarnies and moaned about being cold; sleep on the way back in the car; get home and play cars with best friend for another couple of hours; have ice-cream for pudding. Hurrah for shiny rainbow days.

big boys do cry

Poor O was emotionally drained by tonight's Dr Who. He was alternately delighted to see K9, terrified of the BatPeople, devastated when K9 was destroyed, and finally choked with tears when K9 reappeared right at the end. Followed by rummaging in the toybox to find Teksta. Awwww.

disappointed

I know I shouldn't be surprised or even care about this, but I can't help being yet another person who'd burn my White Stripes records if I had any (threatening to delete my mp3s doesn't have the same ring). Bill Hicks put it best:

Do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you're a corporate whore and eh, end of story.

talking of procrastinating ...

... today I finished my first Gruaniad hard sudoku puzzle hurrah

you talking to me?

I found an interesting article while surfing instead of reconfiguring investment strategy. It all sounds very familiar:

Procrastination is not just an issue of time management or laziness. It's about feeling paralyzed and guilty as you channel surf, knowing you should be cracking the books or reconfiguring your investment strategy. ...

"The main reason people procrastinate is fear," says Neil Fiore, Ph.D.. ... "Procrastinators fear they'll fall short because they don't have the requisite talent or skills. "They get overwhelmed and they're afraid they'll look stupid." ...

Children of authoritarian parents are prone to procrastinate. Pychyl speculates that children with such parents postpone choices because their decisions are so frequently criticized--or made for them. Alternatively, the child may procrastinate as a form of rebellion. Refusing to study can be an angry--if self-defeating--message to Mom and Dad. ...

Several symptoms of depression feed procrastination. Decision-making is another problem. Because depressed people can't feel much pleasure, all options seem equally bleak, which makes getting started difficult and pointless.

I looked in vain for the second page telling you how to stop being a procrastinator :-(

hurrah for t'internet

everyone to whom I am related and most people with whom I work now think I am a World Expert on all things computerish. Little do they realise the Seekrit of My Awesome Geek Power comes down to 3 things

• RTFM
• push all the buttons just to see what happens
• if you don't know, google knows someone who does

Thus when R shamefacedly confessed to jamming the cd drive, I fixed it armed only with an unbent paper clip

More fun with paperclips:

• history of
• art with
• uses for

climb every mountain

well, for certain values of 'climb' and 'mountain', where 'mountain' = 'west pennine moor' and 'climb' = 'drive up to the top of hill and then walk along on the flat'. Took us over 2 hours to go 3 miles around Blackstone Edge but it was fun. O brought B along with him (for O, anything experience is better if he can bring a friend) and they ran about getting muddy in peat bogs and climbing up embankments and generally having fun. Next weekend we're visting the Nine Ladies (weather permitting).

Now I should be devoting myself to curly arrows but have distracted myself with the aid of wine and sing-a-long-a-Bill on the headphones. I really must remember not to listen to music I really like while working.

as if that wasn't enought ...

... woke up this morning to find some little scrotey b@st@rds had tried to break into my car and knackered up the door in the process. So that's going to cost me £200 and also cost me a morning sorting out it out (and another morning or two next week dealing with the garage, tho luckily garageman = very nice man so that's not too stressful). A morning I should've spent trying to get to grips with kinetics again. I read this stuff and I understand all the words but I don't understand what it means. We have a day school tomorrow, which is good, but I'd get so much more out of it if I had a grasp of the stuff already. Which I now have this afternoon and this evening to do. But this afternoon I have to work and this evening O has a friend sleeping over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh I want to cry

panic stations

Today I've been to that London & back. Tomorrow I've got to get up early again and go to sunny Brummie¹ to work, so tonight I have to get ready for that, so my studying is falling behind again, so my house is a tip, so I am panicking and fretting that I won't get everything I need to do done, so I am worrying instead of working, so I am eating to quell my fears. So this is my life pattern. I know I need to change it, but it won't be today.


1. noisy but highly recommended: Bostin' Birmingham

if at first you don't succeed

A couple of years ago we decided to go on regular family walks. This decision was reversed after several miserable afternoons spent coaxing and bullying a whining whinging O for a couple of miles in the great outdoors. But today being Easter, I decided we all needed to go and find a big hill to roll our eggs down, so we headed up to Darwen Tower. O loved it and wants to walk up more big hills hurrah! Edale here we come.

R & O are going out to eat later, I'd love to go too but the books need me. So I will stay in with just kinetics and my one little easter egg (from my mum) for company. I will not be distracted by the temptation to play with my new magnetic sudoku game (easter pressie from R in lieu of choc). I love these magnetic games, much fun has been had in tents with their little tins of ludo and snakes & ladders.

PS

just like my house, my car, my life, this blog badly needs a spring clean. It may make a good assignment avoidance activity in a few weeks' time ...

today I have been mostly

buying books. I :heart: charity shops¹, this morning I got a big pile of books for under a tenner. 4 assorted 'young puffins' and a Dennis and Gnasher 'Gnock Gnock' book for O - the only book he reads voluntarily at the moment is his Horrid Henry joke book, hopefully the Dennis book will be as popular. I am determined to get him reading by any means necessary. I also got '101 Cool Science Experiments' (for me and O) and 'How to get a good degree' (hopefully it'll tell me how to stop using reading study skills materials as a diversion from actually studying);


demonstrating against the destitution, detention and deportation of refugees, asylum seekers & migrants;




calming a 6 year old boy who has been waiting for the new series of Dr Who since Christmas and is in danger of bursting with exctitment within the next 2 hours (or alternatively of getting burst eardrums from me shouting "NO!" when asked for the 125th time if it's time for Dr Who yet). I am looking forward to it too, although the 10th Dr isn't a patch on the 9th


studying chemical kinetics - if the Dr is ever looking for a new assistant, I want to be ready


1. that may be'thrift store' to you

I want to believe

Watched "The Manchester Passion" this evening - an updated passion play set in Manchester, with a Madchester soundtrack. It was quite good, despite the involvement of Keith Allen (also I thought they were going to mime to the original songs, which would've been betterer IMO). In fact it was even a bit moving, made a bit of me want that kind of security of a faith again. But a bigger bit of me remains a rationalist and an atheist.


this week's feeble excuse for postlessness: I made a critical error by 'just having a go' at a sudoku puzzle. Now I am hooked. It is the opium of the geeks.

this week's feeble excuse for poor eating choices: [insert here]

I am

You Are Barney

You could have been an intellectual leader... Instead, your whole life is an homage to beer You will be remembered for: your beautiful singing voice and your burps Your life philosophy: "There's nothing like beer to give you that inflated sense of self-esteem."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Simpsons Personality Test, via this weeks New Favourite Blog. It's not very accurate, tho. I am well known for having a terrible singing voice.

want that one!

A geologist's tricorder!
I will settle for nothing less for Mother's Day (a day which I will be celebrating by leaving my child with my mother while I go on a field trip hah)

happy christmas

Last night we went to a Christmas party. My neighbour L hasn't seen her son since November. Her ex (who has residence) decided she wanted to play happy families with her new partner, so she moved 25 miles away and wouldn't let L see their son anymore - and they used to have shared care! It had to go to court but at last L has a court order giving her contact, starting this weekend. Because she didn't see her son at Christmas she decided to do Christmas now, to give him him his pressies and see his friends and family. It was one of the best Christmas parties I've been to. Why the feck do some people use their kids like that?

It's been half-term this week so we have been busy busy busy. This week O has been ice-skating, swimming 3 times, to the park twice, to the museum, to the cinema, to Pizza Hut and had two sleep-overs. Back to school and back to normal next week.

As it's just been Xmas I will make a new resolution - be a better blogger x

roses are red, violets are blue

thanks to meish.org for their rather wonderful anti-VD messages, of which this is just one

I am old (official)

Being an OU student means I can use the local university library, so I used my day off today to go and study there. Studying in the library works well for me, as I can't eat in there nor can I use their t'internet, so I am forced to look at my books instead. However it does mean I have to be around large numbers of young people. And their mobile phones.

They use their phones in the library (letting them ring and then holding loud conversations), they use them while they're on the loo, they hold a loud conversation on them in the cafe about how their alcholic mum has gone back on the game.

As I heard someone say on the wireless yesterday, the worst thing about Young People Today is that they make you feel like your parents, moaning on about Young People Today.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Manchester a Young Person is blogging about the fat old witch giving him evils in the library today.

3 years

I have not smoked for three years, 8 hours, 33 minutes
27408 cigarettes not smoked
£6,852.23 saved to spend on books instead of paid to evil death dealing tobacco companies
Life saved to spend with new books: 13 weeks, 4 days, 4 hours, 0 minutes.