bricks are done, trees are done....working on the clouds....

Or... how to make sure I block you the moment I see your face popping up on AIM:

- Message me in an appropriate way. Don't just say "Hi!" or "Are you there?". No, start right off with intimate remarks or comments about our long lasting friendship and stuff. Feel free to ignore the fact that we never met in real life.

- Don't just send one message. If I don't reply within 2 seconds, feel free to repeat the same line. Varying lines are also allowed, such as "Hi!" - "Hello!!" - "I know you're there!" - "I can hear you breathe!"

- Toss messages at me the moment I sign in. Yes, don't wait for at least 10 seconds, send them right away. You know, I only log on to serve you. Heck, I -live- to serve you. KEep me busy!

- Don't forget to ask "Are you there?". again if you don't get a response within 2 seconds. You know, I'm always sitting in front of my computer. Even on the loo.

- Don't bother>

- writing

- whole lines. It's

- actually very enter

- taining to have

- AIM go "Bling!!" 30 times

- in a row because you think the space bar and the enter key do the same job.

- Toss smileys in. They're paid for! Lots of sad faces encourage me to please you more.

- Remember? 2 second rule. "Are you there?"

- If you actually dare showing some common sense by asking "Are you busy", ignore the answer. Because I know, it's all about you.

- If the answer to questions like these are "Yes, I'm busy", you may want to go on asking "Oh, nice, what are you doing?". Obviously, being busy doesn't neccessarily mean I cannot talk about the reasons for being busy. Meanwhile, the work finishes itself. It's magic!

- And since I can't stress it often enough: Remember the 2 second rule.



Disclaimer: I've collected annoyances for one year before making this posting. It's not aimed at anyone in particular.

First of all: Thanks to all who sent me a X-mas card. I really appreciate the gesture, even though I stink at sending them myself (in defense: I *did* send out a whole bunch of cards from Namibia ;)) As you might have guessed, my holiday in Africa was wonderful, everything I hoped for. I petted a cheetah, fed 52 of em, worked with Anatolian Shepherds, goats, and visited Etosha National Park, Windhoek and its township.

That was last month. Now I'm lying on the couch at my parents' house. Yesterday I had my knee-op and received a new anterior cruciate ligament, courtesy of my hamstring. Dad dropped me off at the clinic, I slipped into one of those paper pyjama's, was put in a bed, anesthesist came to stab my back, a few minutes later everything below my belly button was numb. Next thing I know, I'm rolled into the operation room. A TV was put next to my head so I could follow some parts of it. Doc showed me the inside of my knee, was happy with the state of it, everything looked fine except for the fact that one ligament was missing. New one was drilled and hammered in, leg got glued and stiched shut and one hour later I was rolled back to the recovery room. A few checks later my bed was rolled to 'my' hospital room. I spent the rest of the day watching TV, munching painkillers, trying a few exercises and reading a book.

So my New Year's Eve is gonna be as quiet as my X-mas, just spending it at home with my folks. Kinda sucks, because it breaks the tradition of celebrating the new year with my old buddies in Maastricht. Oh well, there's always next year.

Here's hoping that everyone's 2010 will triple-surpass all the bad things that happened in 2009.

Oww. My shoulder is still hurting quite a bit; it's not as bad as it was, but still. On the other hand, I admittedly haven't taken any painkillers yet today; I'm not sure to which extent I strictly need them anymore, and I obviously can't find out when I'm still taking them.

Physical therapy also contributed to an extent, of course, but that should just be a temporary thing.

Other than that, the physical therapist said that I'd be able to start taking ff the Gilchrist next week; just for an hour or so at a time, and I'll still have to wear it when going out and at night (for safety reasons), but still.

On the other hand, she also thinks hot baths are bad ight now, as they'll cause the blood vessels to widen and make swellings more likely. I wonder if I could get away with just keeping my shoulder out of the water (which, in practice, happens anyway; my tub isn't really big enough for me).

Okay, it wasn't MY first football match but it was Wolfie's and it was my first match for about two years. It was also my first away match for over four and it was good to be back amongst the fans again (about five years ago I went to 16 out of our 19 matches away from home in a grand tour of the British Isles).

The atmosphere was great, with constant singing throughout, and there was a great sense of tribal camaraderie that you often get at a football game. I had forgotten just how loyal and passionate our fans are and the sense of community and local pride that is often fostered at such events.

We walked around the ground whilst sampling hot dogs, chips and a goregous meat and potato pie. *noms* There's nothing better (and poorer quality) than football food whilst soaking up the matchday experience. People were selling programmes and Half Time Lucky Draw tickets in broad Barnsley accents. We were told to avoid the black ice by one Barnsley lady whilst my accent brought inquisitive stares from some of the younger Tykes fans. Unfortunately, there was no alcohol being served in or around the ground - a sad and increasingly common situation presumedly done to stop crowd trouble. It's always good to have two or three pints before an afternoon of raucous singing I find and it's a sad case of the minority spoiling it for the rest of us. Still, never mind.

Barnsley's ground is a combination of traditional Victorian and new all-seater stadia. It's set in a valley which had nice views over part of the town. This trapped the noise of the crowd and added to the atmosphere (I say noise of the crowd, the home fans were typically quiet whereas we were extremely noisy).

Before the game, we goaded the Barnsley mascot, a cute sassy brown dog called Toby Tyke. He had a bright black nose. Toby was up for some verbal sparring and darted from the centre circle with the ball before burying it in the empty net. He then celebrated in front of our fans to chants of "Who are ya?!". He turned around, wiggled his bum at the crowd and pointed to the name on the back of his shirt. It was unbelievably cute. He also tried to shake paws with some of our fans but he took his paw away at the last minute. He was such a scamp. All good natured fun.

The match itself was pretty rubbish but then Middlesbrough (my team) have fallen so far in the last four years that I wasn't expecting much. And football is often more about the occasion than the sport so we both still had a really great time - despite us freezing our knackers (and feet - trainers are far from appropriate attire in December) for three hours. Without getting into tactics, we played a 4-5-1 formation and were overrun in midfield against an average Barnsley side. We need to buy and buy well when the January transfer window opens.

We took the lead through a Justin Hoyte cross-cum-shot in the first half that was intended for the penalty area but somehow found the top corner of the net. Cue pandamonium at our end, with strangers hugging each other and dancing on the terraces (terraces in which we stood up for the whole match - something that is now discouraged at the more sanitised stadia in the country. This only added to the atmosphere). At half-time we were 1-0 up, having had the better of the play. In fact, we looked comfortable.

Unfortunately, Boro are a team of two halves and decided to gift Barnsley two goals early in the second period of play. Both came from poor crosses down the left which were deflected around the box before falling to an unmarked player who had the simple task of nodding the ball home. Poor marking, poor defending, typical Boro. After that, we didn't really look like getting into the game and the away crowd got more and more nasty as the game went on. By the end, we had just given up and slumped to a 2-1 defeat. The familar feeling of resignation and disappointment as we trudged out of the stadium was somewhat comforting.

After the game, we took the opportunity to look around the delightful town of Barnsley. There are a lot of pubs there (and very little else) so we settled in one and had a post-match drink (as is tradition) as we waited for the crowd of 18,000 to disperse (the train station was typically busy and there is never any real need to battle through the crowds when an hour later, everyone has gone home). An hour later and after another brief look around - we saw the beautiful town hall building and the fact that the level crossing outside the station makes Barnsley a little like Lincoln - we headed home for pizza and doner meat. Seriously, the amount of crap food I ate yesterday was somewhat unprecedented, even for me.

We both had a good time though - even Wolfie enjoyed it, despite admitting it wasn't really his thing. Still, he got to goad me about our glorious defeat for the entire ride home...

Is there any point in copying my twitter posts onto livejournal?

HahaHA, yes, we needed this shirt from today.

http://www.shirtaday.com/

Too bad they don't make dog t-shirts or Turbo would be getting one, too.

Are you really?

I know
I never do journual like this before...
but now I like to do one! D: I wanna posting art WIPS...T__T


< ( WIPS )

little journual whats happened with me :3

My Xmass and holidays totally fun and great. Madden was here, we did gift for her mom,grandma and bf. :3 (I dunno whats happened or they liked it or not)
She like one picture from me D:...allways wanna picture D: But now I like to do romantic stuff or something like that...
(Lala -the bf- is lion with goatie , Madden's fursona is "myne creation" :P blue-red wulf)

Xmass...I got my first gift from Mad, when we bought the stuff for her gifts D: (I got choclate banana 8DMMMM YUMM!!)....after I got compressor (for airbrush), socks, new photo machine (not just myne, but I use it so hooray, one normally what can I use! GRRREAT)...my 24th night was "instresting", 'cuz the lights are dead in the street D: -after in all house so lol!
After I went to my Oli <3...(O btw, happily one year together with my silly.. How fast... O__o ) He got one pipe from me with all-stuff what that need :3...I got plushies (HAHA winter huskies :3 ), and finally one great mp3 <3 I love that guy.
Next day he cooked burittos (or what),after We were in a little meet (was short, fun, and all...liked it.^^) Oho, and walked suit, my Oli too... Heh, I wanna finishing his stuff finally, cuz he wanna doin his first walking with me (originally his plan was can buy fur in Jan...but actually not rly XD...But I have one plan too: walking in pest with Beni-too:) He never walked before in his suit..just wear at home wtf) O__o . After we watched "Avatar" eh...I cannot told anything. Not bad, but not my favorite movie O__o the world is nice, characters are fine but thats all :/
Next day afternoon he was at job-.-... Nothin' intresting...and today I came home D: bloeagh...-.-
But now I know where we will 31th <3 hehe...~

thats all guys..

Now I feel a little disturbed...
http://huggableurns.com/

This is what 1978wolfie sent to me yesterday via the medium of Twitter:

"so let me get this right u don't hav iPod, don't like Dance music, don't play console games & yet hav more followers than me LoL"

I feel like this a lot of the time - in terms of common interests with the group, I don't have all that many. Still, somehow it seems to work :-)

Last night's pubbage was great fun - five people is often the perfect number for a meet. So thanks go to Patter, Aremay, Taneli and Wolfie for coming along and imbibing in some serious ales. I had six pints of Guinness so was a little worse for wear at the end. We went to McDonald's it was so bad. Their Late Night Menu is designed to... erm... make drunk people pay extortionate prices for a slightly bigger burger without thinking. Still, the taxi drive back home was fun.

Thanks all for a great evening - even if it did get a little heated during the political discussion and also our game of "name that capital city".

My shoulder's still hurting, but it's gotten slightly better, at least, and I can also breathe without problems again for the most part.

Christmas with the family was stressful for the most part, mostly thanks to my sister and (to a lesser extent) my mother — my sister worked quite hard at creating an "us women vs. everyone else" atmosphere, and my mother went along willingly, too. They took it out on my father more than me, but still... pretty low. And of course, it made everything rather stressful.

At least the restaurant we went to on the 25th (the Schloß) was very nice. I could see it becoming a favourite of mine, but I couldn't afford it if I had to pay myself, of course.

We also had a BG meeting tonight — quite productive really. And the new Main seems very nice so far, too, although I haven't really explored yet.

One-handed typing still sucks, though. I hate being unable to properly express myself — particularly in relatively fast-paced media such as chats, although the extra time it takes to write LJ posts etc. is also rather annoying.

"A heart of Gold stopped beating" - For Ashati

I made a Memorial website for my Ashati, including photos and all the memory artwork we received, as well as some words of comfort, like the Rainbow Bridge and a sad but very comforting story (about losing your pet) named "The little red cat" (in German and English). That story is worth reading. May it bring a little comfort to all of you out there who lost a beloved animal.

http://www.tanidareal.com/ashati/

I think I am going stir-crazy. Two days of eating, drinking and watching TV would make most people relaxed and contented. Unfortunately, I just get restless and pine for something to do. It's something that has always been incumbent in my psyche - I need to be doing things to feel I have achieved stuff and, in turn, to feel like I haven't wasted the day. I know relaxing is not necessarily wasting a day but this is something my brain just can't tune into. I can't switch off, have never been able to switch off, and I guess this is one of the roots of previous psychological problems that I've had.

All the shops were closed again yesterday so no Christmas Dinner for a second day running. Considering we live in a capitalist society, I find it odd that most places close for a festival that has pretty much lost all religious significance in this country. Ah well, not to worry. The corner shop stocked Pringles and Guinness so I was happy. And I got a packet of Custard Creams for 35p. I guess the fault is our own for not getting stuff in - I am sure if circumstances were different, I would quite like the fact that the world of retail (and the Western world in general) has taken some time out of the manic pace of modern life.

Going out for a few drinks with some furs in Leeds tonight - should be fun. Until then, the job search must resume.

Originally published at Ohnitsch Cartoons. You can comment here or there.

This christmas was awesome! Had a great and relaxing time with my family, went to church, made punch, and I got the most awesome presents and christmas cards. (I’ll make a separate post on awesome cards later since not all did arrive yet).

Here’s the best present ever, LOG! All kids love log.

I would never have expected that this actually exists, but my brother got me a log for christmas. AWESOME!

Here’s everything I got: Sempé in New York, Making Comics by Scott McCloud, a Tea Box, LOG, Ong Bak 2, Banlieu 13, a chocolate keyboard, a ceramic knife, japanese shrimp snacks, a cartoon cup, a mini tripod & USB cardreader, a Softbox for photography and a travel bag.

My hamster Nico also got alot of things, which he quickly stuffed into his cheeks!

Nico with his christmas corn on the cob

Since all the cool kids are doing it.

I thought this was a good year, not that I've ever had an "awesome" year... as they all contain ups and downs, but it definitely wasn't a "bad" year. Overall, pretty cool, some bullshit, some awesome points, definitely good.

It is Pocahontas in space. But it's Pocahontas in awesomespace.

I didn't go on the Internet at all yesterday. Shocking. And now today is Boxing Day - with the general feeling of the morning after a really wild party. Still, at least I don't have to work it, which is a change.

I hope Christmas went well for everyone - I spent most of it watching Extreme Trains on the History Channel  (all of which were based in the States for some reason) and then The Gruffalo. Did anyone see that? Delightfully furry adaptation of the book - really heartwarming and thoroughly fantastic. It was on just before Doctor Who on BBC One (which I didn't watch - have always thought the Doctor was overhyped).

We also had some gorgeous beef with frozen vegetables as we forgot to do any shopping and get food in. Our current plan, therefore, is to have Christmas Dinner today. I like bucking conventions anyway but now the shops are open again (inconsiderate bastards for shutting on the one day I actually need them - grrrr) and the food is almost certainly going to be half price of cheaper, I think tonight's meal is going to be a special one. Plus we didn't get any novelty cheeseboards in, which is unacceptable.

Apart from that, did the usual - drank loads, went to a really nice pub where we struck up a conversation about cars with some bloke we didn't know, ate Toblerone (seriously, the only time Toblerone is acceptable is Christmas) and watched hour after relentless hour of TV. I phoned my family to wish them well and they were the usual positive influence they always are. Made me glad to be with Wolfie really.

And finally, there may be a Leeds pub meet tomorrow (Sunday) if anyone is interested (Leeds Railway Station, 5pm). Would be great to see you :-)