Not Responding Works
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: July 13, 2009
I’ve invested in Microsoft Office 2007 (thank god for student discounts, cost about €50 online). Of course, as soon as I buy it I hear that MS’s website are doing a beta Office 2010 as of today? I hate technological advancement. I’ve nearly had this laptop a full year and it’s probably already out of date. All the newest models are tiny little netbooks or whatever you call them. Anyways… I hope Office will serve me well. What made me end my long-term relationship with Works is the dissertation.
Smaller essays of 7 or 8 pages, some blocks of text and a few embedded images, Works handles that fine. But if you’ve got a file thats 30+ pages of text, and more with images… Works starts playing games. It likes to forget to keep your footnotes corresponding to the page (footnote four on page four is actually on page seven?). Likes to forget to keep them aligned properly (you can find random footnotes pushed into the centre when they should run from left to right). It’s second favourite game is Not Responding.
It freezes and for those heart-attack-inducing 30 seconds while it says “Not Responding” on your 30+ paged, 10-credit nightmare of a godzilla-sized essay, you really think it’s all going to go down the sinkhole. No USB back up will save you or your sanity at this point. Countless times this Not Responding thing has happened to me in the library reading rooms and I’ve had to literally bite my tongue and shut my eyes from the screen while mentally begging it to unfreeze so I can quickly re-save whatever paragraph I had re-written. Honestly, not fun. I’m hoping Word and I will make a good tagteam from now on.
In other news, since my neighbour got robbed and broken into, I’m still sleeping with my bat by my bed. Dad insists all is fine, thieves don’t (”statistically”) strike the same area twice, and that he only got broken into because he doesn’t stay there at night a lot (spends a lot of time at his girlfriend’s) and if a thief was looking for a place to rob, he would notice that kind of thing. But it just freaks me out to think that a thief WOULD scope out this area and go, “Oh yeah, that house is always empty at night cuz the guy goes off in the evenings. Perhaps to his girlfriend’s house.” and maybe, “Oh, look at that house next to it. Yes. I can’t rob that house because it’s obviously always inhabited, or can I?”
In which case yours truly goes screaming apeshit and inflicts brain damage with a bat. My favourite phrase is “Don’t get scared, get angry.” Although I don’t always abide by it because fear can be stronger than anger. But if you’ve got something to protect, like a house… I mean, a female under threat is a powerful thing. I think most women have such a great sense of ownership and possession… a child for example, you touch a woman’s kid and you’d know about it. Maternal, lionness, this-is-mine, Beyoncé-Oprah feelings. You know? Strong. Like Beyoncé’s songs Ring The Alarm, Crazy in Love, Boyfriend.. she owns. You know Jay-Z is her man. It’s ownership and the protection of that… Hmmmm!
Thief in the night!
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: July 9, 2009
Well the day just took an interesting turn. I was about to whine about a recently-experienced poor standard of customer service.. but this is far more juicy. My neighbour’s son, who now owns the house, and who is a nice young guy, late twenties. He came around the house. I answered the door. He looked all shaken up and asked if my dad was around. I got my dad, they had a big conversation. I went up to my room thinking it was nothing. Then I went downstairs to put some music on the CD player and my dad came in all like, “His house got robbed last night.”
I know. Shock. But what makes it more oh jebus is the fact that around 2 a.m. that night (and his house is right next to ours, just over our boundary at the top of the garden) our dogs were barking like crazy last night. It woke me up, and I was like “uggghhgehg” and just fell back asleep. Apparently dad got out of bed, and went outside to see what was up and let one of the dogs off and the dog ran up to the top of the garden still barking and running in circles wanting to get over the boundary… which dad thought was weird. He called her back, she was still restless but dad thought there was nothing in our garden so whatever.
So obviously that’s what was upsetting the dog. They took tv sets… computers… general expensive stuff. He was upset over it. And weird stuff has been happening recently, last night he got robbed… the night before at 2 a.m. the dogs were barking as well, and our other neighbour’s dog Molly was sounding off too. And then yesterday a man in a car (who dad said he recognised as a man who lived around here so it’s not too suspicious, but I’m still not trusting it) came up our driveway and was all “Hey, I’ve lost a cow, I was wondering if you’ve seen it.” to my dad. And my dad’s all, “Do I look like I’m a farmer?” Which is weird because we can’t even SEE cow fields from our house. We’re surrounded by trees and a forest to the back. And what’s MORE weird is that who would see a cow and go “Oh, that belongs to X”. All cows look the same. So a lost cow, who would recognise it from any other you might see? So why come up my goddamn drive asking?
So! The neighbourhood is all on watch, which is rather fun. Our gate is padlocked is staying padlocked for a while, along with the garage and shed. I just think how bad it’d feel to get robbed, so it’s better not to take a chance. So while dad was off spreading the word, I went around the house looking for heavy objects. All I’m saying is I’m keeping my softball bat in my room at night. Along with a frying pan. It’s scary that it happened to the house right next to ours. Which is too close for comfort.
It’s silly, but it’s been weird around here the last few nights and now this has happened. So it’s a good thing to be prepared, just in case the necessary occurs.
France and Lady Gaga
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: July 2, 2009
The neighbour’s dog is barking… it’s so annoying.
Anyways! Back from a month in France. It was interesting. For a quick recap, these things happened/came to my notice:
We drove from Roscoff to Toulouse during the first day.
I had 3 McDonalds in the one month I was there. This is surprising because McDonalds at home is a once every six months – if that – kind of thing.
I went to Paris… in Paris I saw the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre, went to go see the Mona Lisa again too, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, the Pompidou. The Pompidou is crap, there’s only one thing in there of any consequence and that’s the Guerrilla Girls thing, but once you’ve read it and agreed with it, it’s a nod-and-walk-on thingy.
Went to Leonardo da Vinci’s house.
Went to a MoMA in Ceret which is where Picasso was for a while.
Went to the beach. Went swimming in the sea and in the swimming pool.
Went canoeing, nearly died doing it. Was saved by a very nice German.
French tv is crap, but after a month I was starting to follow it, watching their Secret Story (their version of Big Brother, I think) and Un Diner Presque Parfait, which is our Come Dine With Me. And their version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Desperate Housewives with dubbed French.
We rented bikes for a day and went cycling for aaaaaages in the countryside. It was lovely though, for some reason the countryside there has a ton of butterflies and if you go cycle along the hedge rows really fast, they fly out all startled and it is quite beautiful to see. Also that day, I learned how to ride a bike with no hands Then later my dad and I came across someone selling fruit, so we bought apples and cherries and ate them. Then we found a lake with some swans on it.
Went to see Chartres cathedral.
Saw this little place where monks lived, its a fortress thingy thats on built on a hill which is a peninsula out in the ocean and there’s only one road out to it.
Saw a German war base thingy on the coast too.
I’ll put pictures up of it soon.
Last night saw Lady Gaga. This was an interesting concert. Chris Brown was very… hip hop. More bass and DJ and dancing than lights and smoke. Lady Gaga was lights and smoke. I mean last night would have been bad for anyone suffering from epilepsy, I’m surprised there wasn’t a warning. There were lights that just lit the whole place up, big white flood lights that flashed down over the audience so hard that the stage went into shadow. Lady Gaga herself was good… she can sing, dance. Although she’s definitely crazy. And said the fuck/fucking a couple of times on stage, I’ve never heard swearing at a concert before. It started with her shouting “Are you ready to fucking party?” and… I thought, “Jebus… I’ve seen a lot of young girls coming in here with their mothers/parents.” And there were other F words about… but the most memorable thing was her talking about the female clitoris. And she actually said the word. And likened her audience’s applause to orgasms and then asked us to clap more… which I didn’t. But the songs were good, she can sing and it was a good performance.
anything to not study.
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 27, 2009
So I was packing up my room and found this buried deep in my sock drawer… I did have dreams of swimming around in a pool in France, or paddling in the sea. But my recent fears of my white, white, snow, paper, raw chicken paleness could prevent this. Coupled with THIS, pictured below, i really don’t think the coupling of pale skin and anything that would show a lot of pale skin and is going to work.
Yes, it screams, “Don’t try!!!” doesn’t it. Especially amidst a population of beautifully tanned, delicate, French girls who have that natual glow/pretty thing. Like this…
Unless I fill a vat with brown tanning oil and heedlessly fling myself into it and then sculpt myself a prominent rib cage, pelvic bone outlines and all the rest of it, I really stand very little chance, as you’ll see, here’s a picture of me taken this morning:
(lol!)
But all is not lost. Being mildly satisfied with my God given bodily upper half, I may venture with the above upper piece of the set and couple with it shorts. Maybe blue ones. So that is a possibility. There might be an empty beach where this could be experimented. Or, my final Plan C is this happy, most likely, option…
A stylish, giant, body swamping, suit! The face on this guy looks like he’s really enjoying it too.
thea-tar, dahling
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 25, 2009
Nearly finished second year, 3 more exams left then DONE. Packing up my room this Wednesday because Thursday will be busy with study, 2 final exams, then evening celebrations. Can’t pack Friday morning before my dad picks me up because I will need this time to recover from Thursday celebrations. Friday I just want everythign in bags ready to be carried down3 flights of stairs. I’m only on the second floor so it shouldn’t be too hard. Then France on Saturday. Should be back after 2 and a bit weeks. I’m excited to go, sort of. But the French lack everything… good department stores, good stores in general (it’s all supermarkets), they lack sincere manners, internet, amenities… I dunno. They eat bread for breakfast. Bread bread bread and coffee. I don’t mind bread-based foods for breakfast, but maybe once a week I want bacon. Not their only variation: cold ham. Ew.
And I haven’t been there in 2ish years, but I bet they still don’t have Subway. It’s all McDonalds for some reason and no other chain whatsoever.
Anyways, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, is coming out this summer. Actually very excited about this. I went to see Star Trek last week and a preview for it came on during the commercials and I got that child-at-christmas type excitement. I’d love to see it in an empty cinema theatre so there won’t be any 5 year olds around me – who didn’t even exist when most of the books were printed anyway and are too young to even read them now – leaning forward on their seats or worse – standing – and/or tapping their mothers and asking questions, or how badly they need to pee, or Jake spilt his drink, or what have you.
Sometimes it’s 1 adult to 8 kids… as in 1 adult has her/his own children with them, plus their children’s friends so the 1 adult is swamped with more children than they can really take care of. And when you get behind this anarchical flock in the line for tickets/food, they have to take 8 orders, plus their own, plus 9 tickets. Then shepherd everyone into the theatre and struggles to find 9 consecutive seats all in one row, so the troop has to be divided into sub-flock groups of three, and they’re dispursed to all four corners of the theatre. It does happen.
!
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 22, 2009
So… I felt like this this morning:
But then I perked up, but went back down again because everyone is finishing their exams while I’m still on til Thursday with three more to go. It feels like it won’t end!
Love him.
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 19, 2009
So this is my dog Rusty…
So named because when we got him his fur was the colour of rust and orange-y. And since we got him 10 years ago when he was a puppy, I was about 9 and was an fan of a cartoon which involved the adventures of a fox, which was also called Rusty. And so the rust coloured dog became Rusty, like my favourite fox who was in a cartoon. Basically he’s an amazing dog. Simple tastes… like his food, loves getting petted, doesn’t bother me with barking, panting, jumping up at me. Let’s me pay attention to him when I feel like paying attention to him. But he’s getting old now and I’ve just found out that he’s gone deaf =(
Which is unfair because he’s one of those stupid, tubby dogs who doesn’t do anything except sleep and laze around. He doesn’t even like running. I think out of 10 years I’ve seen him run less than five times. It sounds bad, but when I’ve had to get him to run (like if I need to get him back to the house and he’s taking forever) I have to give him a little push my with my foot to get him to pick up any pace whatsoever. He’s adorable. Like… cart-horse-slow adorable. If you give him a slice of bread to eat, he lies down and has a way of holding the bread slice upwards between his two paws so he can eat it without getting it all on the floor. He’s that cool. Other dogs would just push it all over the floor with their noses getting it all dirty until they finished eating it.
Vitruvian Man
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 14, 2009
I should know this because it’s my major… but Da Vinci did the Vitruvian Man, which I think was about man being of perfect proportions, and a circle within a square and all that. Well, this guy is my vitruvian man. The complete ideal.
I should be studying postmodernism for my exam tomorrow. But I figure, for the time being, this is quite important. This is Leonardo di Caprio. I don’t know anything about Darwinism and the evolution of man (monkeys and trees to men and briefcases) but if Darwin could, I’m sure he would make a full new chapter devoted to this guy. The ideal man has been defined!! … In the form of a character in Catch Me if You Can which is a great film, and I don’t know anything about its specifics. But it’s that era in America where being a con artist was glamourous, and maybe Vietnam was happening, and men were men. This is Leo as a con artist playing a pilot. Story line aside, this is manhood right here.
And again… more of what a man should be. But in a perfect world, the airhostesses would be airbrushed out and I’d be there. But the uniform, the aviator sunglasses, this is what should be on the market and isn’t. Forget the financial recession, there’s been a deficit in the male species for YEARS. Our mothers married the last good ones.
And even in the film when he is not pretending to be a pilot, the casual side is still good. Today we’ve got guys with their pants hanging around their backsides, baggy jeans, huge tshirts, unshaven. Below we have, again, the ideal. He wears a wrist watch. A wrist watch. I think a wrist watch says a lot about a man. He’s probably forward thinking, aware. Not relying on his phone for the time. It shows diligence and activity in life. Non-passive. Also, notice how although his pants fit perfectly, he still wears a belt. Belts are a plus. As is the collared shirt, tidy hair and shaven face.
Shame we can’t all revert to a time when it looked like the above and when words like “swell” were used, and “gee whizz”; and where “god damn it” was a hard swear word. Men that don’t get drunk, pull their pants down on their balconies, hold AND scream about their own genitalia, aren’t smoking pot, doesn’t get told the score by their mothers when they’re meant to be adults, doesn’t curse at you, can hold a door open, and if there isn’t enough room on the pavement for both of you to walk on, he’ll step off and walk on the road. Chivalry.
If the Bridget Jones generation (those 25 and over) out there is searching for perfect, I would say that this variation of the ideal, pictured above, is a high contender.
update
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 10, 2009
I’d like to say that the exam are going well but I’ve only had two so far so I can’t judge, but they’re getting done so that’s the main thing. Next week there is one more on Monday and another scheduled for Friday. Both are difficult ones.
It was Saturday night last night, I had the entire apartment to myself. This meant that I could watch tv without anyone nearby smoking pot or slamming doors. Roommate only has to walk out of his room and there the place is overwhelmed with a smell of ash and smoke. So it was nice for the place to be quiet and empty.
Still attempting to fix that ipod of mine. Called Streamline Solutions (the designated apple care place for here) and they just said, “Yeah, all we can do is restore it to see if that fixes it and we charge €25 for that.” and I said, “No, I really think its a physical problem.” and he said, “Well in that case we would send it back to apple for you, but for the price of delivery, fixing it and sending it back, it would nearly cost as much to just get a new one.”
>__<25 for something I could do myself. I restored the damn thing, nothing changed.
But it seems wasteful to “just get a new one”. I think I probably will though. Although, for the time being, I’ve downloaded SonicStage (… god help me) to see if I can get my Sony mp3 back in action when I’m next home. Even though I hate looking at it because all the music on it reminds me of my last two years of school of being 15, 16, 17… which were hard years!
Friday night was funny… but frightening too. There were probably about 20 drunk American students partying below F’s apartment and I was over watching TV with her and they were being so loud downstairs. Anyways, one thing lead to another, there were about 10 of them outside shouting about Arizona and Chicago and “I’ve been in Ireland for six months, it’s going to be so weird to go back.” and all these other things you don’t want to hear at midnight when you had to finish an exam at 6 p.m. And they were rowdy, two boys were talking about what it’d be like to hit each other or something, then the other kicked a car, and fell on it, and blah blah. Idiots really… they go crazy here because what they can do here they can’t do until they’re 21 back home.
We were watching them from the kitchen window… by the sink… there was washing up liquid. They got progressively more annoying… so the bottle was filled with water to make it squirt better, I opened the window and did it. Lots of screaming and what not. It was hilarious but when we heard them saying, “It’s coming from upstairs!” and “It’s washing up liquid!” and “Bitches! Let’s go up to their door.” and “I know those people.” we got completely panicked. Which, looking back, is funny now, but frightening then because they were drunk and rowdy. After about an hour it died down again though because we called security and said that they were all kicking cars and what not so he went in there and told them all to leave. Yay.
But lesson learned… They’re very friendly people, but don’t mess with them when there’s so many of them!
Sexceptional
Posted by: unpaintedmasterpiece on: May 6, 2009
I watched a really interesting documentary last weekend. It was about Kirsty O’Brien who was a presenter on smArt. Here on the right… Quintessentially classic, less-than-beautiful, should-be-but-isn’t “girl next door” type (and that definition has been distorted these days, now your average G-N-D has a boob jobs and collagen lips, Kirsty is none of this).
She was contemplating furthering her career because others like Fearne Cotton (and others, Myleene Klass, Angelina Bell), who are of her generation, were getting more tv jobs that she was. Kirsty put it down to the fact that female presenters who did raunchy photos shoots for men’s magazines boosted their career profiles, and so booked more presenting jobs. Kirsty was/is a a kids tv presenter, and she was saying that she wants more adult, primetime shows. Fearne Cotton, for example, did shoots like this:
… And there are more provocative ones. Taking Myleene “Klass” as an example below:
And stuff like this shed Fearne’s kids-tv image (and I’ll put my hand up and say I watched Fearne every Saturday morning on Diggit when between the ages of 7 to 10) and it shed Myleene’s PG popstar thing too. Since then, Myleene’s got her own baby clothes line: Baby K in Mothercare. I’m not maturnal, but if I wanted a baby, I wouldn’t dress it in Baby K clothes knowing its designer does pictures like this. Not really a Mothercare image is it. And certainly not one I would want to associate with a child’s clothing under the age of 4. Disgusting how sex permeates every aspect of society. Now it can be associated with your kids clothing.
On the other hand, Kirsty spent the whole 1 hour documentary asking herself if getting her clothes off for a magazine would boost her career and if she should do it for just that one reason. She was really honest, saying that she wasn’t the hottest female out there and she wasn’t naturally sexy. It was refreshing to watch a show where a woman whose in TV could admit that, and genuinely believe it. Anyways, by the end of the documentary she admitted that she didn’t want to pursue a photoshoot to boost her career and would focus on keeping her clothes on while trying a career in stand up comedy.
So its proven, there is a strand of dignity left in the word “celebrity”, on the A, B and C list. There is ONE woman out there , on TV, who is just like the rest of us. You, me and every other A and B-cup out there. Ordinary, and unexceptional. Its not what’s on the inside that counts anymore. Judging by the mammeries of Klass and Cotton, everything that counts is all on the outside. Kirsty set an example by not doing a photoshoot, realising that yes, sex sells, but at what price.
Twitter
- charly_de_toi: back from a month in france, been cleaning up and reorganising things for ages, now going to catch up on life with some english-speaking tv!
- charly_de_toi: my hair looks like king louis the fourteenth's...
- charly_de_toi: need to dig out my ghd...
- charly_de_toi: morning, still packing, absolute madhouse, can't find the shoes i want
- charly_de_toi: bet no one else got a call from the beyoncé concert tonight, i did!!! danced around my room to Single Ladies like a mofo
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