WHEN you google "cute dog" you tend to get something like this... but my idea of a cute dog is the Disneyfied mutt version as shown below:
Though the one on the left looks like he could do with a good doggie-bath, the one on the right is just like the friendly mutt I was raving about in yesterday's Rosetta Stone video. Does anyone know what breed it is? To see the dog just click play and watch till about 1 minute 15, then you see the amazingness:
And what breed is this one (left)?
And what is this one (right)? A long-haired Airedale?
This, the old English sheepdog (how did they ever see the sheep?) were used here in the UK to advertise Dulux paint.
getting a shot at their dearest dream than half-dead celebrities dancing their lives away in the hope of resurrection if you know what I mean and that Alicia Dixon reminds me of an over-friendly ostrich. Also she sounds like she has smoked far too many Marlboros and I much prefer a bell-like voice over hoarse. But the song, which was written by Gary Barlow of Take That Fame is really quite an accomplishment:
HERE is a blast from the past ~ the only picture I could find online of the Sharp Fontwriter all-in-one wordprocessor I used to use. Which is still in storage at a friend's house... but utterly old and incompatible ~} though it does, apparently, convert 
wordprocessing files into ASCII, which can (somehow, and I've no idea how) be transferred to computer via oldfashioned disk.
I HAD a dream last night about a kindly gerbil, who was running about our house looking cute. Then the gerbil ran into the garden, got lost, and vanished into the great green leafy yonder. Oh well. When I woke up I felt depressed because my life is still down the sewer. But full of hope, because every new day gives a chance of hauling oneself out...
Talking of gerbils, I have always envied Richard Gere. With his piggy eyes and not-particularly-distinguished appearance, I have always been left bemused as to why female breakfast TV presenters seem to find him so attractive.
And if I were an actor, the roles he's played are exactly the same as I would want to play. Very interesting career.
TODAY I've an appointment with the evil council who are suing me, taking me to court, sending bailiffs round (I'm surprised a pickup truck sporting mobile guillotine and blood-proof basket with Head-Right Technology (TM) hasn't arrived at my door...
ALL THIS TALK OF COMPUTERS has reminded me...
I SLEPT FOR ABOUT 100 YEARS last night... like this collection of mediaeval opium addicts...
PS: "actress" Lindsay Lohan has been revealed, on reality television, to be an obsessive hoarder... at last, one characteristic (apart from roaring heroin addiction) that I share with the rich and famous. Not that I'm suggesting Lindsay Lohan is a smackhead.
HERE THERE... I am all over the place... Here, there, everywhere... this/that... counselling... retail parks... group therapy (late ~ haha so turned away, pretended not to look glad)... Looking at computers yet again... found one I really liked... (again)... another one I "really liked" turned out not to have the inbuilt DVD-writer the write-up suggested it did... so back to weighing up portability vs practicality ~ again! (If you're going to have a computer that takes external DVDs, it might as well be truly light and small ~ but not TOO small ~ that would be impracticle for the opposite reason!
I went up Tottenham Court Road, where you can stroll for five minutes passing nothing but electronics shops on both sides. The prices weren't as bargainacious as I remember (Argos, a shop that stocks almost everything and you pick from a colour catalogue and collect from local stores where I buy nearly everything in the toasters/kettles/lighting/non-computer electronics league, still beat most of them ~ but Argos only started stocking computers last year) and I tested about 280,000 laptops. I also closed their lids to get a proper idea of how big or small they were, and gently lifted them up ~ which made the Indian assistant in one shop nearly have a coronary. She got straight on her phone. I am sure she took me for a would-be shoplifter. Anyway I found a machine I wanted. But I refuse to fall in love with anything electronic. I suppose at least electronics though they do break down and dislike getting wet are more reliable than most human beings, so at least that is something...
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I saw my Mum and Branzie (my stepfather). We had high tea near De Beers' diamond shop (extremely unimpressive display, considering they MINE the things ~ can't they affort proper bulletproof windows? Endless pavé-set sparkly-covered gold and platinum in every window ~ nothing so big as even one single carat to be seen anywhere!
Today I went to the council offices. No wonder I couldn't find them before ~ nobody knew where they were even when they were right round the corner, and they were MILES away. Though I DID like the suburban shopping centre ~ bigger than Reading's shops ~ just round the corner. Anyway, the lady I saw rolled her eyes when she saw me trundling up with documents sprouting from every orifice, made SOME sort of sense of them and got me an appointment on Monday with the bod who actually presses "APPROVE" on the computer that pays. THEN, so she says, the thugs can be kept at bay.
And my solicitor telephoned this morning, saying she is faxing everybody left right and centre. She hasn't faxed the prime minister or the queen, but she appears to have faxed everybody else...
A Northern Saltwater Croc ~ the biggest in the world (unlike the Nile, as stated on Saturday...) Be careful of those riverbanks in Australian Northern Territory... (The one part of Aus, apart from Sydney and Brisbane and Cairns, that I'd really like to go!)... knowing my luck it's full of mouse spiders too!
I HAD the humiliating yet truthful experience today of having to see a free lawyer at the druggieservice, who phoned my "creditor" (ie the nasty local council), who put her in touch with the bailiffs (the poor girl answering the bailiffs' phone sounds really nice ~ what on earth is a delicate flower like that doing working for scarface heavies like "them"?... and the lawyer told the evil council tax people (thanks a lot Margaret Thatcher) how badly in need of help I was and unable to deal with their ridiculously high demands for proof of identity, address, income/etc etc etc. They needed at least three things I haven't even got. Like heating bills. Because the landlord pays the bills. I have an out of date passport and that is about that.
I did find the bailiffs' letter amusingly overoptimistic. It said something along the lines of "please let us know a suitable time when we can bring a removals van round so your goods can go for sale at PUBLIC AUCTION ~ alternatively you may wish to pay the outstanding amount in full..." Ridiculous!
With all this in mind, I have arranged yet ANOTHER psych assessment ~ this one for tomorrow. Maple Syrup, my much loved ex-druggieworker, disbelieved that anything was wrong with me. She didn't know I had a 15 year history of "low mood"/being a weirdo (or whatever you want to call it) PRIOR to any significant drug addiction. And I never told her because she didn't ask. I think this is partly what Jesus had in mind when he talked of "casting pearls before swine"... know what I mean?
This afternoon I go back to see MORE computers. We don't have this computer shop, but we have ones like it. Back where I used to live in Nowheresville I, next door to Lidl, the fantastic discount food shop, there were no fewer than THREE stores selling laptops. So I'm going to go in there...
YES, TOO MUCH. For anyone who wants to give advice ~ what I want a computer for is to wordprocess (obviously), surf the web on mobile broadband (obviously) ~ and to be able to handle photos, audio files (e.g. a voice recording of me blabbering on) and video recordings in high quality from camera/camcorder/whatever. All I want to do is store this stuff safely on CDs or DVDs (or Blurays ~ as if!) or in the case of photos ~ as print-outs or on memory sticks.
I looked at those beautific Apple book things. Ya know ~ the ultraskinny laptops. They are said to be the size and thickness of a copy of Tatler magazine (and no other!) ~ do you like the way I made it look ultra-widescreen? They're not really that glamorous... 
Before I knew anything about the competition, this is what I thought I wanted... But they only have 2gb RAM ~ which is OK but not huge ~ and no DVD/CD drive, though the ones without them are configured to take a portable plug-in DVD. And Macs cost £700! That's more than $1000US. I have found numerous "ultra portable laptops" (ie not ridiulously tiny but very light) ones that can beat this at 2/3 the price so sorry Apple ~ not good enough. 
I looked at everything: desktop, all-in-one, laptop, notebook, powerbook, Blackberry (well they do surf the web, though I wouldn't have a hope in hell of inputting on those minuscule keys...), Apple Tablet or whatever it's called (no!). I can't live with a massive desktop ~ it has to be portable because unless you own your own home and have a laptop safe, when is a laptop ever safe? At least they can be placed inconspicuously or hidden more easily than a giant bells-and-whistles home PC. Some of the huge desktops were lovely and if I actually had a proper home I might even consider one. In about 20 years' time...). 
If anybody has any more sensible advice (and all the advice I got was sensible) I would very much like to hear it. Remember I want to do wordprocessing, internet and media.
THIS IS JUST ABOUT how I felt when I woke up this morning! Crocky and vicious and horrible. I woke at around 4:30 am feeling like death, thinking of nothing but death and wishing I was dead, or at least dead to the world. What a miserable time to awaken, and it was deathly cold as well. 
Well instead of committing suicide (if I was going to do that I'd have accomplished it years ago) I had a black coffee (early Monday a.m. ~ absolute dog end of the week ~ didn't even have pennies for a pint of milk until 9:05 when the post office finally coughed up)... so meanwhile I went back to my book and scribbled another couple of pages. The further I diverge from my original first draft, the more cheerily I can write it. I hate writing with an old draft in mind, especially if here and there choice phrases pop up ~ that might not even be relevant to the new edition ~ but because they're witty, incisive, well-put or moving I feel I have to somehow include them. And that's stressful. I like to write off the top of my head. Fluently and "effortlessly". 
Thankfully, because I'm writing PROPER (that is "pop") fiction and not "literary" crap I can just talk as I talk and hopefully make my points flowingly and naturally. As I'm sure I said before: I'd far rather write a novel people hide away from houseguests and read alone at night than sells by the cartload than one that wins prizes and gets left on coffee tables to impress friends but is never read and enjoyed. You'd be surprised how many books are bought for just that reason!
Re my computer search I've been trawling reviews till I've notebooks, laptops, tablets, monitors and wireless interfaces spewing out of my ears. I got Computer Active magazine and PC Piddlypop (ie I can't remember what it's called and I would say very informative but actually I've picked up most of the tips they espouse already... so I hope I'm doing well... Finally, I think I've learned the basics ~ how many gigs RAM I need (at least 3), minimum hard drive capacity (at least 250 "gigs" as they say, though a gig to me would be a theatre saying "you're so fascinating we will pay you to sit onstage in a blue velvet armchair under a spotlight reading the London telephone directory" ~ THAT is a gig. But it's also, of course, a gigabyte... Right, anyhow... Yeah.. dual core is good because it means your machine does 2 things at once. It can't be too tiny ~ as I say, I spent ages learning to touch type so the keyboard must be standard size and the screen readable, which means 11.6" absolute minimum... people don't use "floppy" disk drives any more... which was news to me a year ago ~ yes, that is how out of touch I really was. I need a flashdrive memory stick, because obviously you can't keep just one copy, you need backup. And blah and blah and blah... I go to the pc megastore this afternoon, so please wish me luck...
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| You Are: 50% Dog, 50% Cat |
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| You Are a Chocolate Cake |
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