Sunday 31 October 2010

I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.

Trick or treating was forbidden in my house growing up, my mum went on about how it was worshipping the occult and all that pa lava, according to the google-gods the Vatican stance on Halloween is as follows:
"if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."

Bravo! Exactly it is just a bit of fun! Just because we they dress up does not mean we've all begun eating babies and sacrificing livestock in some dark ritual.
What I discovered today about hallowed eve traditions were really nice, how tonight is a time to honour the spirits of your ancestors and the jack-o-lanterns were made to ward other spirits off from also entering the home.
(So I made mine extra creepy - just in case)

Edward the V-umpkin

I've also decided that once I'm rich I am going to be the house which gives out entire large candy bars to each caller and has a jam-packed front lawn of entertainment... yeah, I'm gonna be the coolest house.
I've also decided that if I ever have kids to take trick-or-treating we're going to drive around the entire town stopping at every Halloween decked house we see....we'll be eating candy for months!

Now I'm off to turn the lights out and pretend no-ones home and cosy on down with the rest of the candy and toffee apples - cause it's all MINE!

Saturday 30 October 2010

undo .... dammit .... UNDO

Well today the war with electronics continued, I had a "hilarious" two hours of trying desperately to save the last four months of my businesses inventory from complete deletion.

Not. Funny.

I had just finished work for the day and decided to sort everything alphabetically (it's necessary, don't ask why.) Now I REALLY don't understand the sorting process but having been shown it around twenty times by D I'd decided I really probably could sort it by myself....maybe. It's not hard or time consuming but I do find it confusing. First you auto filter then click the column you want alphabetising and ta-da done. Easy!
Of course knowing my own "genius" prowess at this I did double check my work before I saved.

Loaded it later and OMG the blood literally drained out of my face, yes some items were correct (more luck than skill) but almost everything else was in the wrong place with the wrong details, prices, costs, weights etc. FOUR MONTHS OF INPUTTING IMPORTANT DATA GONE AND NO HOPE TO RE-DO IT. Apparently I'd clicked the whole column rather than the column header??? I'm sorry but D should have totally idiot proofed this method if it was going to be that easy for me to destroy everything.

I'm smacking the inactive undo button screaming undo UNDO! at the top of my voice and blaming D for not having written specific instructions of how to fix something once I've tampered with it.

Let me give you a bit of background...I'm the girl who bribed my computer with doughnuts to get it to unfreeze (this did work for a bit then the computer having probably realised no doughnuts had appeared in it's disc drive promptly and perpetually died again.) I'm also the girl who threatened work's old computer with a hammer just before it committed suicide. I'm the girl who glued the disc drive shut because it kept opening and shutting for no reason, the girl who panics every time clicking backspace changes the page I'm viewing rather than deleting a word, and I'm the girl who bashes the keyboard or keeps clicking something whenever the computer takes a few seconds to load up.

So it's totally his fault for not having planned for this eventuality, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Okay so it is possibly also a lot bit my own fault but since my computer system doesn't allow loading from a previous version I'm also blaming that too. Now I'm looking to protect against future stupidity (mine) and want a new laptop, and maybe a supervisor and big red "FIX IT" button too.

Friday 29 October 2010

Homes Under The Hammer

I don't know if any of you watch this program but it's my 10am-11am addiction! (and some times it's on in the afternoon too!) YAY!
Basically it's a programme in which experts laugh at morons with more money than sense uncover the tricks of the property auction trade.
Don't get me wrong, most of the show is clever and shows savvy people renovating properties they buy at auction and creating a nice profit for themselves...but occasionally there are morons who bid like crazy and have never even seen the property.....and some of these "houses" have no roofs, are collapsing or even infested. (Yeah bet you're loving your 60k purchase now!)
I sometimes think people who HAVE viewed it, bid on it at auction just to drive the price up for the idiots who haven't - I love that idea it's probably the cornerstone of the programme.
Each time the presenters say "So did you view this property beforehand?" and you hear the purchaser answer "no", you just KNOW it's going to be a good one!
"OMG I had noes idea I had like purchased a rat infested turnip in a tee-pee, I fought it was a haus, I has bin conned."

I even love when the presenters "accidentally" break bits of the property while showing us round before the auction, my favourite episode was when he touched the plaster on the ceiling and pretty much the whole thing came down around him as he flippantly said "well that needs fixing" .

It's awesome televised stupidity and vandalism.

However I do like to watch this programme for more than just the laughter it provokes, I fancy myself, like most watchers- as a one day, millionaire property mogul. Brilliantly converting auction properties into luxurious houses and flats with thousand dollar price-tags. So brilliant in fact that they will create me my own house destruction property show.
I haven't quite figured out how I get the start-up capital but after that it's a money machine.
There are even some episodes where people keep throwing money at the place. One renovation spanned EIGHT YEARS as the woman brought the flat to let then spent the time making it into the flat she wanted and finally lived in it. Where do these people get their money and how do I sign up as their next-of-kin?!?
My only financial hope is that my baby business (no I don't make and sell babies, my business is only 6 weeks old which is what makes it a baby) will raise the cash to buy it's own store.
I even die-of-jealousy love when they find a commercial property and buy it for NOTHING convert it for NOTHING and then either sell or run their new business from it....*grinds teeth* just LOVE IT!

Thursday 28 October 2010

A is for Aluminium ....or is it Aluminum?

One of my most favourite past times is signing up for free crap on-line, however I am a typo queen perfectionist and everything has to follow a theme or be grammatically correct.
So imagine my HORROR when 95% through signing up for this blog (which involved making a new email address, blog address, several usernames and blog urls) when the Google Gods suddenly and "hilariously" decided to put that wavy red line under my spelling of Aluminum - AFTER I'd signed everything up.
Turns out Aluminum is spelt Aluminium in some parts of the world and apparently that part of the world is where I and my laptop live.
So I was freaking out to my friend TJ about grammar and we got into this "debate"
Me: OFGS I have mis-spelled ruddy Aluminum on EVERYTHING - I am stupid I am a MORON *headdesk* stupid difficult to spell alimimniumuni!
TJ: But Aluminum is Right - how did you mis-spell it?
Me: Aluminium is right
TJ: Uh...I don't think so

At this point we bombarded each other with proof we were both right from on-line commercials to Wikipedia articles *snort* yeah cause we all know wiki is always right. Which is when I discovered not only that "Aluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, and the third most abundant element" but also "Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, and the third most abundant element" - WOW what abundant metals! I could make me an aluminium and aluminum mine in the same spot and be twice as rich! Yup you got it wiki has the same page for BOTH spellings.

Me: It looks like an American and English spelling difference, ugh trust me to get a universally crazy spelled item.
TJ: I still say you got it right cause I always say alumi-num not alumi-nium or whatever
Me: We say Ali-mini-um
TJ: Weirdo
Me: Yup,you say alooominum and we say alley-minny-yum
TJ: Like I said weirdos!
Me: Can't figure out which spelling to use
TJ: Make it more universal
Me: Heads it's 2x I Tails it's 1x I.......erm....do you have a coin? *some time passes* They should invent a virtual coin toss App.
TJ : LMAO Invent one!

And you know what, some idiot genius already did!!

Coin Flipper

You flipped 1 coin of type British £1 Sterling:

Timestamp: 2010-10-28 16:03:55 UTC

THE COINS DO NOT LIE!!!!!

Aluminium is spelt with 2 x I

TJ: Dangitt, came up heads, wrong wrong totally wrong it's aluminum

Then of course I had to rush about setting all the account details up again (I told you, I'm anal a perfectionist)

If any of you who also are as broke as I am only carry £50 notes and need to flip a virtual coin try:http://www.random.org/coins/