Anatis January 19th, 2008

Paul called to ask if I wanted some takeaway and I said yeah, sure.

We settled on Pizza because we don’t have it much.

He went to get it, since it was on the way. Tops Pizza in Ewell. (Maybe if I put it in here enough people will find it via Google, so I’ll mention Tops Pizza in Ewell, Surrey, frequently in here.)
He got in, with his and my pizza.

He had a regular pepperoni.

I had wanted a Thin Crust Ham and Pineapple.
I opened the box and saw… cheese. I’m not saying Oh noes, there was a bit of cheese on it. I’m saying 95% of the pizza (and that includes the BASE!) consisted of melted cheese.

I pulled a face and my stomach turned at the sight of it. (I hate melted cheese, ok?) I said ok, I’ll stick it in the oven a few. So I tried to lift it…. and couldn’t. The middle was so melted and soggy, it stayed in the carton.
I peeled the edges of the unappetizing thing off and dragged great big wads of cheese of it (Tops Pizza, Ewell, Surrey!) trying to rescue the 5 bits of pineapple I found. Oh there was some ham, scattered into the cheese, too. So I stuck it under the grill, removing yet more cheese and getting some ham from the fridge. Under that cheese was bare base. (Tops Pizza, Ewell) That base, in the center, was two millimeters thin, if that. The rest was cheese.
Tops Pizza, Ewell Branch - have you EVER heard of the minor fact that there is TOMATO on a pizza?

Even after burning it to a crisp, it still tasted of nothing. Nothing. (Tops Pizza, Ewell, Surrey, England)
I should have taken a photograph, but honestly, I don’t want to even look at a picture, because it would make me feel ill.

Totally and utterly revolting. Pigs would turn up their nose at this slop.

Seriously, Pizza in the UK is the most revolting thing you can find. But I’m cured now.
That was the last one I’ll ever have here unless I make it myself.

Tags: Food, Slop, Tops Pizza Ewell Surrey

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Anatis December 28th, 2007

Not.

Read my lips. Pink is NOT my favorite color.
I am not a girly-girl.
I hate pink clothes. I am NOT a pink person.
In fact, I’m the least pink kind of person you’ll ever meet.
It doesn’t suit me, I don’t like it on anything and I go out of my way to avoid that color.

Invariably I end up with something pink every christmas or birthday.

You’d think family would know - after some twenty years - that I don’t wear pink. At all. Ever.

Right. That off my chest, I’ll be in the garden, burying a pair of slippers.
No one should have to endure such an atrocity.

Tags: Christmas Presents, Pink, Slippers

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Anatis December 7th, 2007

Ever had one of those days where you REALLY should have stayed in bed?
Today was one of those.
It started off pretty harmless. I woke up after not hearing my alarm.
Luckily it wasn’t that late, but still. I should have suspected it was going to go downhill from there.
I didn’t get to finish my coffee.
The bread I use to make sandwiches with… had green spots.
Fine, I use the other loaf. No biggie.
I then get into the carpark - I actually got the car today, usually I walk to work - get in the car and reverse out of the parking space.
My neighbor comes up and knocks on my window. I thought “Damn you, I’m late!” but alas, I wound down the window.
“Unless your car can fly… you won’t be going anywhere.” she says. “There’s a tree blocking the drive.”
“Ah. Ok I guess I walk.” I say.
She laughs.
Guess what. She was right. There was a big tree down across the drive and you couldn’t even climb over it. Phone call to the boss. “Uh…”

The crappy picture I took with the mobile. At this point most of the tree was already chopped.

Okay. So we tried to get a chainsaw to the tree. No dice. Its an electric chainsaw and the multitude of extension cables was simply too much. I run and get another cable…. and manage to lock myself out of the house.

So I call my better half and tell him I’ve locked myself out.
He says he should be home around the same time I am.
Cool beans.

At 11am I finally managed to get to work - minus the car.
Which was unlocked, and in the carpark, all day.

At 3:30pm my butt starts to vibrate. (My phone is on vibrate and in my back pocket - don’t get too excited!)
I answer the phone. It’s the better half.

“Bad news,” he says. “I won’t be home before 7pm.”

It’s not my bloody day, is it?

Hopefully your day went better than mine, but I should clearly never have gotten up, much less left the house today!

Tags: Crazyness, Keys, Trees, Wind

• Life, the Universe, and Everything , Primal Screams
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Anatis December 2nd, 2007

I think it’s time the way copyrights are done is changed.
Instead of the work, we should be allowed to copyright… our brains. i.e. if you are an artist (I include writers in this, because books are simply written art) and your name is on the copyright register, then anything with your name on it… should be automatically registered.
The reason I say this is this… There is an article on the about some freelance writers and their publishers court case.
Dear Author blogged about it, a friend linked it… and I’m appalled.

Apparently their work was used without their permission. They won the case that it was copyright infringement and the publisher is removing the work from the shelves.
Yay! I hear you cry.
I’d cry Yay too — if it weren’t for the fact that the courts awarded NO DAMAGES because the works were not registered with the copyright office.
Yes, you saw this correctly. No damages.
Now, this won’t just affect literary works like books, blogs, websites etc. (Yes, all those.) It will also affect photographs, paintings, renders… you name it. Anything visually or intellectually creative, basically.
Well… I’ll be watching that case. It ought to be interesting.

Tags: Copyright, Law, Money

• Arting , Primal Screams , Writing
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Anatis November 4th, 2007

I had to blog this. Because I didn’t know.
Clearly I’ve been living under a rock. I didn’t know they were doing this.

If Everyone Cared Video - official video.

If you, like me, lived under a rock… here is the skinny for you:

Nickelback are donating 100% of the proceeds of the digital version of If Everyone Cared to Amnesty International and International Children’s Awareness Canada (ICA). So far the single and the video raised $800,000 and it’s still growing.
I’m sorry for ramming that down your throat. It made me think. What would happen?
I can’t even imagine it - and that’s sad. It is sad that as a human being I am incapable of imagining a world where there is no fighting, no hunger, no thirst. Trust me, my imagination is pretty good.

I couldn’t find anywhere to buy the download. But…
I figure I can make a difference in another way.

Well, that’s a few to look at. I’ll join one.
It’s the least I can do.

Tags: Charity, Nickelback, Song

• Life, the Universe, and Everything , Primal Screams , Zounds!
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Anatis October 26th, 2007

Life sucks.

Just when I thought I had this whole dentist malarky nailed… I bite out a crown.
I ate an apple. Next thing I knew… there was a hole where my crown used to be. Great.
Trying to get an appointment to have it cemented back in before the weekend… yeah right. Not bloody likely.

So on Monday, bright and early at 9.15… urgh. I’m so not looking forward to it. I live in terror of the Dentist…

Tags: Dentist, Phobia, Teeth

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Anatis October 20th, 2007

Firstly - I absolutely hate women being referred to as “Chicks”.

That’s a “Chick” in case you were deluding yourself into thinking it’s a female human being.
WE don’t cluck, THAT does.
So what the bloody hell is “Chick Lit”?
Someone explain it to me, because I feel totally stupid. I hear books being referred to as “Chick Lit” and I look at it and think “It’s a contemporary romance/comedy/thriller.”

If it’s because it’s written by a woman, then all of it would be “Chick Lit” regardless of genre. But no, it’s not, so obviously it’s not the main criteria.
By now, I believe it is aimed at people who meet this criteria:

Your age must fall between 20-27.
You must be female.
You must be a career woman.
You must have a “Girls night out” once a week.
You must be bitchy.

The novel must be:

Contemporary
Modern story
“Throw-away” casual style
Perceived as having no substance whatsoever
The cover must be screaming pink.
Whoever is caught with it must not be embarrassed and must be able to say it’s “Chick Lit”.
Must under no circumstances be mistaken for one of those trashy romance novels, because “Chicks” don’t read those.
Right?

Ok.

I’ll go away now. But that’s what “Chick Lit” looks like to me. If someone tells me a book falls into that genre - I guarantee you that I will not only avoid that particular book - I’ll avoid the author’s entire works. Backlist, current and everything.
Yeah, yeah. My “loss”, I know. But that’s how I feel. I feel that it is not aimed at me or people like me, or in my age group, at all. And quite frankly?

I don’t really miss a thing.

Tags: chick lit

• Books , Primal Screams , Writing
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Anatis October 4th, 2007

I hate the month October.

I dread it. Every year. I only like one day, and that’s the 31st. Samhain / Halloween. Because… it’s the last day. It’s OVER for another year.

I don’t know what it is, but October is the month where people seem to lose the will to live. My gran died in October. One of my dogs died in October. My horse died in October. A good friend of mine died in October.

This just isn’t a good time for me. It’s the month I live in fear. The month I’m filled with total dread and terror when the phone rings at unusual hours.

Tags: dread, gran, October, oma

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Anatis August 24th, 2007

Yes, I am about to become a mass murderer.

My oleander has Coccidae, a.k.a. Scales.
I hate the buggers.

Truly.

Absolutely.

Tremendously.

No matter what I do, they come back. I wash (!!) my pink oleander so it’s nice and green again… and…
They’re back.
Turning everything black again.

Bugspray doesn’t work.
Washing-up Liquid doesn’t work.
It’s time for the rape seed oil.
I’ve just spent 4 hours washing a huge oleander, leaf by damned leaf, and I am betting they’ll be back.
Originally we thought it’s aphids.
Ah no. So wrong.

But this time… this time…. I’m gonna kill the lot of the damned things!

Let the carnage begin!

Tags: Aphids, Bugs, Plants, Scales

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Anatis June 3rd, 2007

There I am, in mid scribble, going at it with ultimate abandon, while talking to a friend on Skype, when suddenly…

BANG!

And then there was… nothing.

The new PC is ordered. The old one is toast, it didn’t take a genius to work that out, when I saw the spark coming out of the side. That is one heck of a dead motherboard.
Nothing like your PC exploding to stop the creative juices from flowing, I tell ya.

It seems now that I’ve stopped smoking…. my computer picked up the habit!

So for now I’m on a laptop, all my files are on the dead machine, and I’m hoping and praying nothing is lost.

But there’s an upside to all this:

I get a new machine with:
A working DVD Writer. (HELLO BACKUP!)
Vista compatible.
A 20″ (!!!) Monitor.

I can’t wait!

Tags: computers

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