1. work work work. i have a new part time job in a photography shop/gallery which is ace. i get to leave my house AND speak to people! i'm learning to use the colour printing machine which is exciting enough, but the thought of having all that control over the printing of my own photographs nearly makes me wet my pants. another part of the job is helping ot organise a photography festival which will be a challenge to say the least, but an exciting one that i'm looking forward to. all this plus i am still juggling freelance work in there, along with making lots of stuff for a christmas art market. not enough hours in my day!
2. i have been cycling to my new job & back. it isn't massively far but it is by myself and through the town centre [lots of scary buses] and at night and involves hills so i'm quite proud of myself. i can't believe it's taken me this long [6 months] to start riding my bicycle. i am a fool.
3. mmmm boys. for too long now my heart has been idle but finally i have a crush on someone. one of those butterflies heart pounding ones even. i'm so looking forward to bumping into him again soon.
4. fresh granary bread & butter.
5. tonight. the sky is getting dark, i'll have to switch my light on soon. i'm torn between venturing out of the house to somewhere with actual fireworks & a bonfire, or staying high up in my room and watching the whole city sparkle. hmmm. bonfire party tomorrow night, yay!
my recollections of last year's ATP remind me that many of you are fans of the immense 'total eclipse of the heart' and therefore may be highly amused by this literal version of the music video for it. happy thursday!
when i was looking up nonexistent {the negation of being}in the online dictionary it suggested that i might like to see a map of "nonexistence".
how could i not click? apparently nonexistence is located somewhere between existence and a nonentity, along with a red dot representing the state of not existing.
man, what an awesome site, i'm loving it. similar words, opposite words, different meanings, invisible connections represented by lines, language spreading out in all directions. how beautiful is touch? scrofulous is also a winner for me today but more for the word itself rather than the look of it. i can see hours being wasted here, hours.
i thought i'd missed out but no, i get surprise things made for me by at least two people, hurrah! so then, as required by the rules of the game...
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me!
My choice for you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations: - I make no guarantees that you will like what I make you. But I certainly will try. - What I create will be just for you. - It will be done this year (2009) - You have no clue what its going to be, it may be a story, it may be a painting, crochet or I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
The 'catch' is that you post this in your journal as well. Come on, we can all make something!
update: many thanks to keyl's dad who suggested a torx key... total success!
dear internets, please help! especially anyone who has ikea flatpack experience, p_dan_tic i'm looking at you?
so i got this awesome shelving unit off freecycle but they forgot to give me the allen key to put it together with. chas improvised and used... a screwdriver maybe? dunno, but whatever he used or did has ruined the hexagonal allen keyness of some of the screws and now they won't come out. i'm moving tomorrow so they need to come apart, else my amazing shelves are lost & gone forever which i do NOT want to happen. do you know any awesome trick not involving a hacksaw that might help? i have got the proper allen key this time around...
you all know bestival was muddy, i also know it was ace. despite getting arrested [wtf?] on the way in, falling over in the mud six times and leaving my phone in the car rendering me unable to reach any of my friends at all, then having to leave earlier than planned, i had a bloody good time. it did take me several hours to completely de-muddify myself & my belongings, and my pack & tent are currently out on our deck being rained on but i am showered, rested, fed & pretty much recovered.
tomorrow we go to berlin for five days, is there anything you think i need to see? we are already going to leisure system at berghain and honecker's bunker and the fleamarkets at mauerpark and boxhagenerplatz... kann ich dein gesicht lecken, bitte? ein bier bitte. do you think it matters that i don't know any other german?
speaking of beautiful men making excellent things... i went to see subtle play live a few weeks ago and oh boy were they good. all of them dressed in white, each with multiple instruments, a plinth with black & white striped skulls centrestage [which turns out to be representative of their own invented character, Hour Hero Yes], friendly mockery of the crowd at the front, plus dose one who has the honour of being my new musical crush. something about the way he moves, not to mention that low rhythmic voice of his.
since today seems to be all about the videos, go look at this animation for one of my favourite subtle songs, F.K.O, which apparently stands for 'fvck kelly osbourne'. ha! the love just keeps on growing. also you can get a free subtle song here, a free dose one track here and the subtle website has a music player with a whole bunch of songs that you can stream. go listen!
the other part of today's internet procrastination revolves around the Codex Alimentarius. nothing to do with any music making people we know, it's actually a bunch of laws due to pass in December 2009. this article explains it much better than i can but it basically means that 'nutritional supplements' like vitamins, homeopathic remedies, and even some herbs will become illegal, lots of food will have to be irradiated before it gets to us, and dairy cows have to be treated with some monsanto growth hormone. it sounds totally hideous to me, and i'm really not very happy about the idea that it might go ahead. i'm not entrely sure what actions i can take about it right now other than to TELL EVERYONE I KNOW about it, and keep an eye on the alliance for natural health's campaign against it. you can sign up for their newsletter thing here which i'm hoping will keep me informed of any action i can involve myself with. anyway, now you should go off and tell everyone you know about it too, so that maybe we have a chance of stopping these crazy laws from being passed.
no need for stewarding it seems as my friends are the best ever. they've gone in together and got me a real proper ticket of my own for my birthday, how awesome is that?!
don't suppose any of you lot have got a space in your car for me then?
contrary to my previous knowledge, i've just discovered that there are still stewarding places left for SGP! i've just applied cos i badly want to go this year since half of you lot are, and a whole bunch of my other friends too. fingers crossed they say yes! yay, they said yes! SGP here i come!
anyway, if you know anyone who wants to go for free [though there is a £160 refundable deposit payable before you go] then go to http://peopleandplanet.org/festivals/ to sign up, and when it asks for your shift group select 'the scruffbags' if you want to hang with me.
i live in bristol now, it's only been two days but i've already racked up three pub outings and one hideous hangover. still, i think i'm going to have fun here. i'm most excited about the live music really - unfortunately i have to miss ove naxx tomorrow night but i get to see subtle next tuesday, and i saw one of my best friends singing last night.
speaking of which, my friends the Trans Fatty Acids are doing two shows in london this weekend. friday night on the battersea barge and saturday night at the comedy pub, you should go. i'll be at the saturday night show cos i think i'm going to rock steady on friday. will you be there? are there any other exciting london events on this weekend that you think i should know about?
in other news: i just cooked an amazing chili vegetable risotto, it always amazes me how just dumping loads of things into a big pot and leaving it to simmer for ages can produce such spectacularly tasty results!
i've just made miniature feta, spinach, pinenut & tomato pasties. also whipped up some basil pesto while i was waiting for the pasties to cook, check my mad cooking skillz yo.
birthday shopping was successful, charl will be sporting a silver cyberman backpack which announces 'you will be deleted. delete. delete. deleeeeete.' when you push on cyberman's crotch region. classy.
i bagged myself a new client today, got another big project off my old boss, delivered 100 badges to recycled records, and found out that i'll actually finally be training someone for sure next friday which means...
...another trip to london! i might make an appearance at rocksteady, but saturday night i'll definitely be at the comedy club watching some of my oldest friends get funky on stage, you should come.
caravan holiday on the welsh coast tomorrow, rain be damned. bring on the absinthe!
+ the blaen was brilliant yet again. i do love my manchester crew, they're all complete wreckheads and they have no shame at all. plus they give good hugs. special mentions go to caleb's newly constructed yurt & the absolute stunningness of the valley we were in.
+ i'm moving to bristol in less than two weeks! are you excited?
- i guess that means i'll have to start paying rent. i have no money. whoops! i love my current landlord, i don't want a new one.
+ on friday i'm going to climb a mountain with my favourite boy in the entire world, then possibly go to a street party where the entire town gets closed off to traffic & everyone takes to the streets in ridiculous costumes to rock it all night long.
+ sonar was awesome in case you were wondering. my best was ove naxx [haha, the internet says he is a breakcore MONSTER] but i can't find any recordings online that accurately convey how brilliant he was live. oh look, he's playing in bristol soon, i might have to go.
+ tron & went harvesting this morning: fresh raspberries & broad beans!
+ i thought the rob zombie remake of halloween was rather good.
+ i think i've finally managed to get my hard drive make sweet love to my computer, but in order to retain balance in the world i had to kill o's blue lego hard drive. feel bad. action scruff strikes again! [i also knocked a whole cup of tea over the tron, i really shouldn't be let out in public, i'm dangerous to be around.]
we got very lazy in chiang mai, though we didn't spend ALL of our time lying around reading, or drinking, we spread ourselves around a variety of timewasting activities!
our thai cookery course was cool, we made loads of food and tried [but failed] to eat it all... spring rolls, pad thai, green curry, papaya salad & fried bananas in coconut caramel with icecream... spring rolls & bananas were the best for sure. a recipe book was included so i'll be attempting to recreate some of the above dishes in the near future!
decided we'd had enough of thailand so headed north for the laos border where i was promptly struck with an attack of the ills. fortunately it was a brief attack so we only lost a day which we made up for by jumping on a speedboat down the mekong [instead of a 2 day slowboat]. a good idea it seems, the scenery was gorgeous but we'd have been bored silly after 18 hours of it, 6 was plenty enough. saw lots of fishermen, little naked kids splashing about, and several bloated carcasses of unknown species, plus some little rainbows in the spray from the boat, pretty!
laos is pretty chilled, everyone is rather smily... smilier than thailand, supposed 'land of smiles'. luang prabang was all fancy cafes, pretty silk scarves, river & old people! we walked over a rickety old communist bridge, visited some gorgeous waterfalls with a turquoise swimming hole & rope swing, and drank SNAKE WHISKEY which came from a huge glass jar full of snakes, lizards, centipedes & other insects, and did actually taste of snakes. puts hairs on your chest apparently, i can't wait for mine to start sprouting!
arrived in vang vieng today after a looong bus ride. was cool though, we went high high up into the mountians, so high we were in the clouds, it was freezing! saw lots of little mountain villages, waved to many small dirty children, saw an elephant wandering along the road. this town is backpacker central, and activity packed. tomorrow we're going to float down the river on an inner tube, and swing off some vines!
so we went to ko phangan, did a bit of snorkelling which was cool, met an lovely welsh girl called hannah who's been loads of different places & eaten spiders & snakes an all sorts of weird things... she & i went for a thai massage which feelis a bit like being beaten up & mine was done by a ladyboy which amused us greatly.
decided we'd had enough of the island thing so jumped an overnight bus to bangkok. missed out on a seat so got to curl up on a couch thing in the VIP area, quite snug only to be turfed out onto the khao san rd at 5am, quite a rude awakening!
bangkok wasn't quite what i'd expected, though i'm not entirely sure what i was expecting? all we did was a lot of shopping really... pirate dvds, brightly coloured tshirts, headphones. oh yeah, we saw sweeney todd at the cinema, you have to stand up for the national anthem and a photo montage of the king, plus they fuzzed out all the good gory throatslitting parts & the label on the bottle when the boy is drinking gin... i guess childhood alcoholism isn't encouraged in thailand?!
other highlights included: - the little boy pooing on the pedestrian overpass - the cabbages & condoms restaurant - tasty foods AND a free condom with your bill at the end plus lots of things made from condoms, lamps, dresses, pirate ships - fortune telling buddha slot machines... mine was the best, lots of good things coming my way apparently, yay! - high speed local buses that career along the roads, take all corners on only two wheels, screech to a halt to let you off & start driving away before your feet have even touched the ground. very efficient indeed. - weird lady from northern england who accosted us on a traffic island, foaming at the mouth & babbling about missing her nephew's wedding. when i said i was from nz she complimented me on how fluently i spoke english!
now we are in chiang mai after our train bunk beds adventure. i had freaky dreams which included someone stealing all our peanut butter but i didn't fall out of the bed which was my main fear.
it's ncie up here, cooler, quieter & much less hassle than bangkok. have seen lots of shiny gold buddhas & temples, watched some kids skateboarding, seen loads of monks in their orange & yellow gears. tomorrow we're learning thai cookery, productive! no guarantees that i'll be able to recreate any of it later but some of you might get lucky!
i want to go to the explosions ATP! if you or anyone you know or anyone on your friends list or the man who lives over the road or someone you are eavesdropping on at the pub has a spare ticket will you tell them i want it, then tell me about it? that would be ace.
thanks go to hotnoodle for recommending ko jum, the island before this dusty land of speedos & motorcycle taxis, it's gorgeous. i wouldn't recommend it if you want to do anything other than lay in your hammock sipping iced coconut milk & reading in between dips in the sea but if laziness is what you're after, and solitude then it's right up your proverbial alley. fun to get to as well, the ko lanta ferry stops in the middle of a bay & a longtail boat from each resort comes out to pick you up, so you jump of the back of the ferry into an oversized wooden dinghy... no chance of falling in as charl & i had worried, there's plenty of thai boys to help you off & on!
after a few days of doing nothing we carried on to ko lanta which is, as i said, a dusty land of speedos & motorcycle taxis. don't get me wrong, there are nice beaches and things but far too many leathery old paunches waddling around in tiny speedos, leaving far too little to the imagination! still, it's been fun as the first few days were spent in the company of kelli, an old friend from nz, and her boy scott [which brings our photographer tally to 3 so far, not counting me!]. they were staying in a fancy bungalow across from our much cheaper guesthouse so we just mooched about randomly, meeting up for meals on the beach & beertime.
have been spending our evenings wisely, beer chang is still our friend though we did get told off for staying up too late dancing around our room... the music in the bars here is bad, though maybe we're just snobs? the night after that we had a party going on right next door to our guesthouse so we escaped the thumping beat by making friends with the waiters in the restaurant on the other side, learning random thai words, drinking rum, eating their dinner then running away when they wanted to get cosier!
oh yeah, we ate worms! there was a lady selling fried insects... crickets, grubs, worms & grasshoppers... when we went over to take a picture she let us sample the worms for free. verdict: crunchy, salty, inoffensive. might go for grasshopper next though i'm worried the legs wil get caught between my teeth!
our little girly party has been crashed by dave & kyle... not knowing each other at all they managed to meet up in bangkok & make it all the way down here with minimal fuss, the only casualties being dave's forehead & most of kyle's body, both burnt themselves on the ferry over. kyle has so fried himself that he had to stay indoors all day today for fear of more burning!
i think we've discovered maybe the most untouristy island in all of thailand... ko tarutao... though it was our first so we can't be sure. but it is a national park, and all that is there is some cabins, a restaurant & a co-op shop so it'll be hard to beat!
to get there we took a taxi, a ferry, a saongthaew [truck with benches in the back & a canopy roof], a minivan, a motorcycle taxi then another ferry... quite a mission but well worth it. glorious golden sandy beaches, gorgeous sparkly teal blue water, palm trees, hammocks and hardly any other people at all!
shared a room with two canadians, devon & laura, who entertained us right off the mark with their response to charl's question of 'why do you have canadian flags on your backpacks?'... 'so people don't think we're f**king americans!'.
the island is big but you have to walk everywhere so as we're quite lazy we elected to walk from our hut to the beach, then back again, then to the shop for beer, then back again. then more beer of course. found a little thai karaoke party where there was dancing & whiskey... at least til the lights went out. the electricity gets turned off every night which left us stumbling around in the dark - i fell in a ditch of course - the beach seemed the obvious destination after this.
i've never seen so many stars in my entire life, it was amazing. and even better than that was the phosphorescent algae in the water, it was like being in a michael jackson video, glitter coming from your fingertips. and like the night sky was in the water with you. bonus points go to the shooting star i saw last night, it went right across the sky and ha an almost green trail to it, best one i've ever seen.
for the sunset yesterday we walked up Toe Boo cliff [rather appropriate after my post kicking incident last week] which, aside from being the tsunami shelter, is also an amazing little trek. under some crazy cliff things that looked like big drips of rock, past some giant pieces of coral [we think, looked like it anyway], up around the back of the cliff on steps carved form stone, over rickety plank bridges, past monkeys & a weird squirrelly thing, a plant that aids urination [that's what the sign said!] then out onto the clifftop where you can see several other islands in the distance, scores of squid fishing boats heading out for the night, plus the sunset of course. possibly one of the coolest hikes i've done, the whole way it looked like an indiana jones film set, or maybe something from jurassic park. winner!
monkeys! there are a whole family of them that live in the cliffs, they come down in the mornings to feed off the rubbish, all the bins are tied close but apparently not tied upright as this morning all the ones outside out rooms were knocked over. we let one of the monkeys have our empty peanut butter jar, he loved it, fed peanuts to some smaller monkeys, and the horrible seaweed snacks that we bought in a 'when in rome' moment. most of the monkeys thought they were disgusting too, but the smallest monkey took quite a liking to them. monkey fun time was over when the daddy monkey stole our noodles though, cheeky little so-and-so.
so out of food, and thinking we're meeting dave soon, that brings us to krabi for tomorrow's ferry to ko jum. highlights include the dusk view from our hotel room & the weird donut things from the night market which didn't taste like donuts til you dipped them in this weird grey-green jammy sauce stuff. and the mystery meat, it's everywhere!
the coolness of the cameron highlands was swapped for the oppressive sweatiness of georgetown, penang.... a decision we questioned just as soon as we arrived. i bit of a let down really so we planned our escape as soon as possible. ferry tickets procured, tummies full of curry, beer on the table. gareth2 & wade found another member for our little gang, a canadian cheerleader called valerie [the first real cheerleader i've ever met i think] & we hightailed it outta there.
[georgetown did redeem itself slightly after sunset when all the fairy lights came on & the darkness covered up the scumminess, plus there were a whole bunch of awesome chinese temples lit up with lanterns & shiny gold bits. also spied on a huge foodcourt with a really bad country singer in the middle & a whole lotta couples dancing around, amused me greatly.]
anyway, we've just spent the last 4 days on langkawi island, mostly lying under beach umbrellas, occasionally playing frisbee & swimming in the sea, it's been lush. not keen on the little lice that bite you whilst you're in there though, i'm covered in little pink bites now! we got a cute little room right on the beachfront, you literally step out onto sand from our porch. just across from us is our neighbour Pervy Thong Man who is this little japanese dude with a huuuuuuuge camera who prances about in a thong [or hotpants if you're lucky] & takes spy pictures of people.
yesterday we rented a car [which broke down of course, but not til after we'd had most of our fun] & did a bit of exploring, though our main destination was telag tuluh, the seven wells waterfall. the water has carved these pools into the rock and made the in between rocks really smooth so they're a natural waterslide, had loads of fun swooshing down & in, one of my highlights so far. spotted a few leeches but didn't suffer any bloodsucking thankfully.
i did manage to injure myself last night though, kicked a concrete post and squished my second to littlest left toe which is now purple & gross looking & makes me hobble a little bit. that plus a hangover & some pinkness from yesterday sun times has meant today has been very lazy indeed... though it wasn't meant to be! we would be in thailand now except that charl wouldn't wake up this morning despite me holding the alarm next to her head & prodding her a lot before giving up & going back to sleep. we'll try again tomorrow, fingers crossed!
haven't really sweated up here in the highlands, not til today anyway! went on a trek up around the highest peak in malaysia, into the 'mossy forest' which is something like 240 million years old? that's pretty fucking ancient if you ask me. it was ace, like a very moyst fairy wonderland, all crazy mosses & ferns & tangled roots & vines & pitcher plants which look a bit like an orchid but have a juicy sweet nectar floating in them which attracts bugs which they then EAT! but then there's these 2 kinds of spider that hang out on them stealing their dinner, and also birds that peck holes in them and drain out the nectar then eat the insects, and also some little tiny frogs that live in them too and eat the little bugs that accidentally wander in. and then the plant grows a brother which it feeds with the nutrients from the bugs, then when the brother is fully grown it sucks all the goodness out of the first plant which then dies & falls to the forest floor to return to the earth from whence it came. circle of life & food chain & man, i love this stuff!
anyway, that was easily the best part of my trip so far i reckon, i'd do it again in a second. we've also just enjoyed a tasty meal of weird snacks from the local market... sweetcorn with butter & some weird powdery substances added [maybe MSG?], rolls of coconut with crunchy brown sugar in the middle, all wrapped up in banana leaves, and two kinds of pancake - thin & crispy, fat & stodgy - with sugar, chopped peanuts & creamed sweetcorn [huh?] on them.... very tasty but the fat ones were too much for our bellies.
off to the beach tomorrow, pulau penang, i foresee swimming, more made-up scrabble & lots of napping in the not so distant future!
