Members' News

Thanks, yes, they did get it, which says a lot for their culture, although admittedly I think they assumed it was a reference to that rather inferior Shakespeare bloke, from what I gather he's written a few Pratchett spoofs... irate:

Well I'm going home tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. Had a busy week so far and I'm really busy but I can't wait until I get to my boyfriends and finally get to sit down on his couch and cuddle up to him. I'm packed doing my washing and ready to go. Not sure if I will stay after the 3 months but I will see how I fell in the next couple of weeks if I'm still looking forward to going home every weekend as I am now then I will probably pack it in.

Hope everyone else is ok.

here are recent pics of the kids and my dad;

I'm getting my wisdom tooth out tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to it, especially as I only got 24hrs notice. I am not a happy bunny about that either. The receptionist rang me this morning to make sure I was coming tomorrow and I am afraid I kind of shouted at her over the phone. I only feel a little bit bad about that, though. I should have gotten at least 2 weeks notice, especially since I just had to go and ask my boss for the rest of the week off. And she was surprisingly understanding about the whole thing.

So I'll be abducted by my parents this evening and held indefinately for the rest of the week in their house, just in case I bleed to death, or go strange on them because of the anaesthetic.

Wow, a week off because of wisdom teeth extraction? My older brother and I did very well with ours. Will, my brother, actually played football (soccer) the day his were pulled. At least until he took a header on a forty yard punt. That busted his stitches open and they pulled him from the game until it stopped bleeding. Then after the bleeding stopped he went right back in.

Mine didn't slow me down much either. Not quite to the extent of my brother, but my dad made me work that afternoon as well as the rest of the week.

My sister, on the other hand, didn't handle hers so well. She had several problems with hers, so she didn't recall it with any good feelings.

Best of luck and maybe yours will be more like mine and Will's than my sister's.

When I got my 1 wisdom tooth pulled, it was over in 3 minutes including anaesthetic, no stitches and the b##tard chipped a neighbouring tooth in the process. NO time off either I am now wondering if I should pull a sicky some time to make up for that...

*hug* Hang on in there, Hsing, these things happen, bad things like to keep each other conmpany, but good things always end up gate-crashing the party sooner or later...

It sure is, I thank you too.

You'll be just fine, I'm for sure positive,Hsing

I finally figured out how to put pictures in my album here, you can now judge for yourself how much Rusty looks like Jamey Hyneman from Mythbusters and how much my brothers dog looks like a wookie, plus a picture of the littles and me from this year.

Good luck with everything Hsing. I guess the other shoe has dropped and it's somewhat of a relief rather than waiting for it to happen... Well thats what happens in Nightwatch anyway. Are you guys likely to move back to Munster or are there other plans afoot*?

*Why 'afoot'? Why not 'ahand' or my favourite 'anose'?

Sounds like the council decided to gentrify the area... Always a bad move. it just lets in Yuppies like me with no soul and a pooping dog and removes the vibe of the student/artist types...

But was the Thai beach bar still there??

And I don't think falling is planned so having the rest of your body in front of your feet would ruin the phrase... Personally I don't think my feet plan anything but then again I've never consulted them on the matter.

Whatever you do don't go to Frankfurt Hahn. Worst place ever.

I don't know a place where the only place to eat dinner is the airport has got to be up there with the lamest ever.

Good to hear I've had a victory in naming the worst German city seeming as how I've been there for no more than a week over four visits... But it seems that Ryan Air flies to the worst places ever, rather than to the place you actually wanted to go.

My news: I think I'm getting a sore throat. Bugger.

I am now the proud father of two. It happened very recently. I received a phone call at 6:15 AM two Mondays ago that I had twins. I was on my way to work when I got the call, so I quickly drove to check on them. They're markings were good and they had all of their teeth, so I took them home and put them in a cage until I got off work. I asked my mom to check in on them periodically to make sure that they didn't get too hot or thirsty.

I didn't have any cigars so I smoked half a pack of cigarettes as a celebratory gesture. After I coughed up a lung I decided I would find a better way to celebrate.

When I got home my little ones were huddled in the back of the cage and tried to bite me when I held them. So I just thumped them on the nose and told them, "No. We don't bite." It worked on my little brother so I thought I would give a try.

They are now off of milk and eating wet foods pretty well. I'm sure they get lonely with me being gone for so much of the day, but I keep the fan on them to keep them cool and fill up their water bottle every morning.

PS: Did I mention that they were a pair of baby raccoons? That might be helpful to know. They're around two months old or so. Thought I would mention that as it might be relevant.

Yes knowing that they are raccoons is very helpful. Are these pets? Can you have raccoons as pets?

Yes, Spiky, they are kinda pets. One of them is taming pretty well, but the other, while it has stopped trying to take a finger off every time I open the door, does not respond well to touch.

I've got to separate them to get them more docile. They react very strongly to each other's emotions. If one of them gets tense or hostile they both get tense or hostile. That's not very good to have two hostile raccoons in a cage. Especially if your hand is in it with them.

When they are being held, they just find a corner in the crook of your arm and get very still. They get very relaxed, their heartbeat slows, and their ears shift to an at rest/inquisitive position.

I keep meaning to post pictures of them, but I don't have a camera and I always forget to ask my brother to send me the pictures he has taken.

Something else interesting happened today. My dad and I were driving to a job and noticed something lying in the road. It was only about a half mile from my house and there are many deer in the area. I thought that it might be a dead fawn that had been run over.

When we got closer I noticed that it was a cat. A BIG cat. As we were passing it we knew it wasn't any house cat, so we turned around and went back to investigate. It wound up being a bobcat. I moved it out of the road after diligently checking to make sure it was dead by nudging its feet and legs with my work boot. I'm not too scared of many things, but I'm not a great big idiot* either. I know how much damage a pissed off house cat can do and don't want to see a magnification of that brought against myself.

*Maybe just a medium sized idiot.

::hugs Hsing::

:ours virtual tea for Spiky:: (with lemon and hibiscus)

::sits still for a moment, trying to wrap brain around an image of Redneck cradling a baby racoon while fighting off a bobcat:: For some reason, in that image Redneck is wearing furry Robinson Crusoe clothes, complete with a furry cone-shaped hat.

**Laughs at image of Redneck in furry coone-shaped hat**

Thanks for the tea but it turned into a false alarm. Hate it when that happens. Have remained healthy no matter how many freezing mornings I have to get up and walk the dog through the frost. It's the least pleasant aspect of owning Jackson. Owe and we got a set of scales on the weekend and since getting Jackson and doing two walks a day I've managed to put on weight. The universe is just cruel.

4 years compacted into one post...

Since I haven't been around for a while (your understatement radar should be pinging...) i guess i should update you all.

I joined the old boards a naive 18 year old, and stopped posting perhaps when i was a naive 20 year old... (I have since discovered the reason but it's a tad embarrassing so i will only divulge with pestering). I am now a slightly less naive quasi-24 year old, and still a PTerry fan (of course!).

Back in the day I was an aspiring Psychology student, with some Philosophy thrown in for good measure. Now i'm a perspiring teacher living in the countryside of Japan, and expriencing my first hot and humid rainy season. I gratuated from Psychology, did a Diploma of Education, and a CELTA, and have been teaching my version of English to people of all ages for over a year now.

Now that i'm back, i'm kicking myself for not having been here all that time. This is great community full of like minded (read: insane) people. Feels like home.

xx
Gypsy

How did you know I dress like that? HAVE YOU BEEN SPYING ON ME?! That's why you sent me a "care package", so I would voluntarily send my home address. Now you have installed spy equipment around my once safe domicile. Well I'll show you. I'll walk around outside in my skivvies and natures own. That'll teach you to spy on me anymore. And don't *even* try to send me the bill for the psych treatments. I'll use this as fair proof of warning.

PS: Welcome Gypsy. Now stop looking at me, you're making me nervous.

Spiky m'dear, you may just have put on muscle, it does weigh more than fat for the same volume, so weight doesn't mean all that much.

Today, just before I got on the train in to work a cloud of what looked like dust wafted up accross the nearby field and accross the platform. I got on the train and then realised it must have been pollen. And I'm allergic. One hour of train and no water to wash away the stuff, constant itching.

I now have to wear my sunglasses at work or people run away screaming. I'm thinking I may change my much-repeated explanation to "vampire attack". It just sounds more exciting.

We've just had the auditors around at work. There's nothing like official people for emptying a room quickly. Any excuse to be legitimately elsewhere in the building just so we don't get asked any questions.

Hope you recover soon Kat. Perhaps you need to find an environmental hazard suit to travel in for the next few months!:smile:

Gypsy welcome back. I joined the boards when I was a very young 17 year old and was off and on for the past year and a bit and now I’m 20 living part time in fife and trying to get my boyfriend from the Scottish borders to pop the question so I can quit my job and find a better paid easer job but hey I only have 2 moths and a bit to finish my trial period up here but who cares.

Well my office moves in 6 days to temporary accommodation somewhere else in the campus and then we move to our new permanent home 2 weeks latter. 2 of the lady’s I work with go on holiday the day after we move and don’t get back until we move into our new permanent home I however get to work in the temporary accommodation for a week then on holiday until we move to the new place the Monday I get back.

We know that we will be in temporary accommodation longer than two weeks due to my work not being able to organise a booze up in a Scottish brewery with Scots.

Gypsy you are so lucky living in Japan that’s one place I want to go but I probably wont be able to afford it .

Welcome back, Gypsy!

Kat, sweetheart, I don't think Ireland likes you...first the seafood and now the flora...I think it's time to lay off the potato jokes. The very countryside is fighting back

Well, on a good note, I returned to work today after my very minor dental surgery (which got me 7 days off work - woohoo) and got even better news. I got the job I was interviewed for! I am so happy you would not believe it. Ok, you probably would, but you didn't see me jumping up and down outside the HR office. Or skipping down the hall...probably a good thing, really. But...::jumps up and punches the air:: YES! It's a couple of thousand more than I'm on now and I'm really, really, really happy because I don't have to rent out one of my bedrooms now. And I have the job title of Journal Manager. I'm a manager hee hee! I hereby promise to use my powers for good. And be nice to others. And not let this go to my head.

Congratulations to all who've been having good things happen. I have had a most wonderful time just lately, Tuesday a week ago a very sweet gentleman asked me for a dance and we hit it off to say the least, Adam says I am now the Lady Steele. He has his own newspaper, he's Edtior and writer, photographer and layout artist and delivery person so if you want to know how he thinks it is fairly easy to find out, just check out Northern Herald newspaper - revised 03/16/08 and you can even find a picture of him. I got to go to a country music festival with him last Thursday, and If I am lucky enough to be asked I'll probably get to go to a rock music festival in a couple weeks.

Last Saturday my brother had a party celebrating his older son Mike and Dani's marriage. They had a ton of food and about 130 guests out in my dad's rice shed, they cooked two 220pound hogs and I cooked 8 packages of chicken breasts and maybe 10 pounds of hot dogs, it was a lot of fun though I missed being with Adam for the last day of the festival. This Tuesday Dani had the ultrasound that told them the sex of the baby and the 3-D ultrasound that showed what he looks like, Ethan will be born around Halloween. I think he is quite an attractive fetus.

Now I am on pins and needles wondering if I'll be able to do what I want for my vacation-go to the citites for CONvergence, I'm awfully short of money what with one thing and another but there is still hope and if I have to stay home I have Adam to comfort me. Tonight I'm going out with a herd of friends to celebrate my friend Erika's 21st birthday, she was dying her hair pink in honor of the big day when i stopped at their place this afternoon, I'll try to get a picture of that tonight. I hope she isn't too dissappointed by what goes on in bars, they don't seem all that exciting to me when I go to them, but then I have been allowed to go nearly 30 years already and i don't drink much.

In the words of Strong Bad, "Are you going to use your powers for good or for awesome?"

Just good. I save the awesome for when I get home :smile:

It looks like I'm finally going to get my honeymoon. Its only over a year after the wedding but at this point it seems I'll be spending 10 nights in Phuket soaking up sun and cocktails in coconuts... I can't wait

Congratulations and Bon Voyage!


Where are you going to Phuket from Spiky? (That is if you don't mind sharing your point of origin)... I only say it because I'm from Australia (Australasia) and it's considered our backyard because it's near. Will you have a long flight? Or a happily brief one to get to those coconuts and cocktails? I could do with one of those right about now....(cocktails that is, not flights, though I love that booze is free on the international ones. Nothing like 5-15 mini bottles of vodka/bourbon to make the hours just fly by-though I expect they still would without the booze...fly, that is.)

-What would we do without puns? Or punes for that matter?


My news is that 3 months after moving into my very first Japartment, I will have a fridge and a washing machine! (Hand washing clothes in the tub is not nearly so fun as it looks.) Also, now that the weather has gotten warmer, I can't store my milk on the balcony anymore....so woohoo! Beers all around!

I'll be out of central Phuket on a small beach to the south called Rawai. I've been to Phuket before and thought that central Phuket was a hell hole. We got a good deal where we got 10 nights for the price of 5... On the down side to afford it at all we have to fly the cut priced JetStar... The booze isn't free and we have to pay extra to get food and entertainment but the truely annoying this is that it's extra for a blanket. A blanket for christs sake!!!

Oh and Gypsy I know about the hand washing, I spent a year with no washing machine. This was in the tropics so the washing piled up very quickly. The biggest pain is the sheets. Wringing out sheets by hand is ugly.

Hey everyone!

I am still working for the NHS, but not for very long now. I am doing nights this week and on Saturday I will go to Greece for my week off, see the family and move some stuff down.

I was asked about a month ago whether I would be interested in working for a couple of months more, I said yes, but i haven't heard from the Staffing Department yet.

I may just hop on a plane and come to America again. My next job is in Greece, in a paediatric hospital for a year. And I am really looking forward to it.

What I am also looking forward to is going home and having a good, solid broadband connection.

Congratulations, Doc. Just remember the people down south* on your next American tour.

*that probably just includes me, but hey, I'm somebody.

Well it was my department’s big move today. We where in our office and down to work by midday thanks to all the work 3 members of the team put in, I was one of them. We moved up stairs so I was in the lift (yes we have a lift) carting the computer chairs up so all you saw on the next floor up for 20 minutes where chairs appearing out of the lift. But we have to stay in our temporary accommodation an extra week so it means that I have to work there for 2 weeks instead of the one as I’m off on holiday for a week. Well that’s it back down to the borders tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it.

There is a possibility of a London visit in 2 weeks. If we can get a cheap flight. :shock:

yay

And I am off to see the wizar... err, no off to a wedding, in-laws side. Oh joy. The only thing about the coming weekend that I'm looking forward to is an indian meal with my mates. Mmm, cheese naan...

I have the gravy chips and as the people said: It is good

My little brother went to work with my dad and me today. He had a dentist appointment at one. My mom was going to pick him up. I called her around 12:30 to see where she was and to make sure she knew where to get him. She told me that Smudge, our cat that we had for eleven to twelve years, had been hit and killed a few houses down from the house.

Smudge was mom's cat. She would wait until dad left and would hop in bed with mom and curl up at her back. Mom was pretty devastated. She took the cat back to the house and then took John on to the appointment. I went by to bury Smudge around 6:30 this afternoon.

She showed me where she wanted her buried, so I dug a hole nice and big as well as pretty deep to keep other animals from digging her back up. It was extremely hot with no wind. The whole ground was covered in poison ivy. My shirt was soaked with sweat, as were my socks and my boxers (yes, I'm a boxers kinda guy).

I finally got everything finished a quarter after seven. Mom fed me some very good chicken and rice and I headed home.

I had only been home a short while when mom called. She then asked me, "Guess who just showed up?" Of course, Smudge. I had just buried someone else's cat in the back yard. Some poor soul is mourning the cat that ran away. They may be staying awake all night looking for the cat. But I seriously doubt that they find it.

These two cats were identical. The marking on both of them were so similar that one would have to see them side by side to tell the difference. Smudge does have a distinctive black mark across her nose that is not widely seen in many cats, but the cat that I buried had been hit in the face by a car, so I couldn't see if that cat had it or not. Oh well, I just sweated my ass off to bury someone's cat and they aren't even grateful for it. So typical.

Well, I'm sure the cat went to...wherever cats go (I always imagine that cats go to an egyptian heaven and are worshipped for eternity...i think they know it too, and that's why they're so smug).

It was probably sniggering away at you while you worked you know. Glad to know you still have Smudge to lord it over you with her cat-ness. (I like cats, they don't like me. I'm bitter ok?)

Geez, that's some story Red... oh well at least the cat got a decent loving burial, it may have just been left by the roadside, so that can only be better... and if it had owners, well, they can at least think that it may just have run off to have an adventure somewhere. Maybe it was Smudge's sibling if they looked that much alike? In that case I'm sure she appreciates your care...

My sister got rear ended yesterday. Everyone was fine except for the car which is unfixable without oodles of money. It broke down last week and we were in town picking it up from the shop. She was meeting me at a friends house and waiting to turn into the driveway when a mini van came up behind her and must have seen her at the last second and swerved crunching the right rear of my sister's car around the tire and going into the ditch herself. The cop who came out calls that curve in the road the Fatal Curve because so many people have accidents on it, although I don't think anyone has actually died on it except for roadkill, and my drivers training teacher called it the longest curve in the state but he may have been making that up. My friend has lived there for five years and her mom has been rear ended there and people have to swerve and go around her on the shoulder of the road all the time. My sister is at Warped Tour today with my car and I had plans to go see my boyfriend this weekend so I get to take my dad's car.

I agree with Gypsy about the cat heaven.And it is rightly thus; cats are the love stuff

Red I'm sure the stray kitty was grateful. I bet she was looking down from cat heaven going: "Isn't that nice."

I'm glad you got your cat back though.

After six months of bumming around on my arse supposedly doing my PhD while on sabbatical I go back to teaching today. So not enthused.

Reg laughed very hard at your story, Red, and said if it had happened to him he would have been totally freaked out, but then Stephen King is one of his favourite authors it must be said...

Thanks, Hsing. That means if that ever happens to someone else in a few years that they will have "rednecked" (or "nated") a cat. I'll now have my name in the lexicon of urban language! Yee-haw!

Hey, y'all! Avgi, if you're reading this - you should TOTALLY swing by the United States :smile: - this time, we actually have a house - it's small, and cute, and has a guest bedroom! (until we actually have kids, in which case it will be the kids' bedroom, but you can just move them over - it will be a while until they'll be big enough to put up much of a fuss anyway!)

And I totally have a "reverse-Rednecking" story! (see, Nate, now you have TWO verbs named after you!)

My parents' friends had a dog; meanwhile, their next-door neighbors had a bunny rabbit. One day, the dog comes home, carrying the neighbors' bunny - very much dead! The dog's owners assume the worst, but decide to make it look like the bunny died a natural death. So they clean him off (the poor critter was covered in mud), wait until the neighbors go to bed, then sneak the bunny back into his cage, as if he passed on during the night.

The next morning, the neighbor's wife comes running over - asking if they have any heart medicine! Apparently, the bunny had died way earlier, and her husband has buried him in the backyard. When he stepped outside that morning, and saw the bunny apparently back from the grave...

(the husband was okay in the end, just very, very shaken!)

Oh My God. Haven't laughed that hard since... Well, since Nate's story

::bows modestly::

Thanks, although I like Nate's story better, because Smudge turns up alive in the end! :smile:

ooooh zombie bunny...

OMG! thanks for these stories, they are much much better then mine. on one hand I'm very happy with my fella and on the other hand my family is in a crisis, stuff happened with my nephew's kids and we are pretty sad about things just now. It involves foster care,jail and drug abuse so it is going to be a while before things get back to normal if that ever happens. And this coming weekend I get to attend my 30th class reunion, I still can't for the life of me figure out how that happened! It seems impossible that much time has passed. It is going to be fun seeing people that don't get back to town very often.

Well I was on holiday last week and enjoyed it immensely. But now I’m back at work wish I wasn’t. Just got 7 weeks and 2 days until I’m off again.

Still looking for a new job and there’s one on the trains that I would enjoy it’s pushing the trolley through the carriages as it travels from place to place. There is one at the climbing centre as well so I’m going to go for both of them but I would really enjoy the train job as I get to travel as I work.

Well that’s it and the story about the bunny had me laughing as well as the picture. Home on Friday yay.

Your two zombie stories have now been translated into French, too bad there are no royalties on urban legends...