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My ideology, it is dead and gone.
Sunday, March 1st, 2009 05:17am - keyboard broken
Sorry if this post ends up hard to read - instead of hitting the spacebar I have to hit "ctrl+V" to paste spaces into my text! I spilled beer all over my keyboard earlier tonight and every key except my spacebar works! So please excuse words.that.run.into.eachother. I "bid" on a USB keyboard tonight which should be shipped tomorrow. You have no idea how hard it is to hit CTRL+V instead of the spacebar.
You take it for granted.
But my personal budget for this month sees me 200 euro up on expected. I can afford a new (necessary) keyboard.
4 black eyes - hit me! Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 21:04pm - Today's laugh
Today's funny moment came curtesy of Robert, my course co-ordinator and also my Payroll, Accounting and Business Calculations teacher.
I imagine if I keep totting up daily "funny moments" a lot of them will come from Robert.
We're in Business Calcs, when this girl walks in and shouts "Excuse me, what class is this?" Robert replies "Business calculations". She stares at him with her mouth hanging open and goes "Is it?" Robert says "Oh yes, I'm quite sure".... and as she's backing out the door he follows up with "This is Roselyn Park College?" We all cracked up, which I admit wasn't very fair. Robert's a joker, never cruel, but being laughed at by a class full of fellow students is always humiliating.
Whatever. I laughed a lot.
2 black eyes - hit me! Monday, February 9th, 2009 01:08am - Words cannot express
UK: Foster parent removed from foster care rolls after Muslim girl in her care becomes Christian
I do not agree always with the extreme anti-Islamic views of the people on this site, but in this case I cannot voice my distaste loudly enough.
4 black eyes - hit me! Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 19:54pm - the house that jack built
This is the cat that ate the fax that lay in the house that Jack built.
We found out why the fax wasn't working. The cat chewed up the cable connecting it to the phone line. My parents were anrgy at her. When I got up (because of a lot of phone activity) they were glaring at her, lying huddled up and peaceful in the middle of the kitchen floor. I thought it was hilarious. I gave my parents a replacement phone cable and they stopped yelling at the cat, who hadn't moved a hair in the whole time she was being yelled at.
Crown is the cat who ate the mouse, ate the fax and scratched the dog that live in the house that Matty built.
hit me! 18:26pm - Writer's Block: Tricky Questions
Very quick mental itinery of everything I've done wrong in the last week, outright panic, followed by blatant curiousity.
hit me! 17:55pm - things I did today
Today, I installed Photoshop on my parents' PC. They asked me ages ago to take an electric fence out of a very nice photo of Will and Harv, so I did it, plus extra. Photo heavy post behind the ( cut )
After all the editing, we remembered we hadn't bought a card for my father's birthday. Today. The 15th. My father is exactly like me when it comes to birthdays - I did wonder where I'd inherited it from, this jubilation for three weeks, yelling "My birthday! My birthday! It's coming!" And the joy and excitement when the day comes within a week of approaching. Me and my da are the same like that. We LOVE birthdays. So forgetting to buy him a card was a MASSIVE faux pas for my mother. So I told her we should make him a card. It's easier than buying one. We got a photo of Sonny, printed it on the right side of an A4 sheet, glued it onto a piece of card, and hey - birthday card! My parents and brother were n awe and kept telling me I could make cards for a living.
Thing is, what I did was very basic. I took a photo of Sonny and resized it. Yes, you would buy cards in the shop that are similiar. It isn't that my editing standards are at professional level (although I would hope they are, the amount of college time I put into them), it's that Sonny is such a cute dog. Cute dogs, cute cats, make it onto cards and calenders, it's not the editor that makes it, it's the photographer!
Here is the picture of Sonny that we used, you can see what I mean.
So cute!
hit me! Sunday, January 4th, 2009 18:50pm - animals misbehave installment #2 - the puppy
Sonny is not really a puppy anymore. He was our new baby last Christmas, this year he's less than 18 months old but he's definitely a big dog. He's a Springer Spaniel. Since owning him, although we had a Springer in the past, I have noticed subtle differences in the intelligence displayed between Labradors and Springers. Springers live to hunt, seek out, fetch and do it all over again. They live by their noses. They would work until they died without even noticing exhaustion. But in their stuper, their obsession with their job, they don't even notice when they are being praised, being given orders or even being told to get the f**k back into the house. They have one mind, a brilliant mind at that, of hunting out the thing you told them to get, and will not rest.
Labradors on the other hand have much more human minds. In all honesty, I loved Lady and love Sonny but I would prefer a Lab. They understand whole sentences. They know what you want when you explain it to them. You can speak to them. They also will speak back. Not just in a whining "I need to go out to pee!" or "Xsara bit me again" that the Springers give, they can actually tell you what they want. They will bring you and show you. They also feel embarrassment, a truly human experience and emotion, and can be very disdainful when laughed at.
But yes, this is about our Sonny. Well, Sonny has an OBSESSION with a toy called Ball. It is a small yellow rubber ball. It is a welcome change, after twelve months of Stick, and then Stone, both of which he thought it was ok to bring into the house and eat in front of the TV. Especially Stone we were relieved to replace, since slate is the primary rock of this area, and in abundance, we had so much flintered slate lying around the house that we feared the dog had no teeth left.
But Sonny's obsession with retrieving his toy leaves us wanting to throw the bloody thing in the fire. We confiscate it sometimes to give ourselves peace. But that doesn't work cause he tears around the house searching for Ball, until eventually settling instead for Bone. Equally annoying.
The other day I invited Sonny, who way practically baying, so intense was his howl, to come and lie on my bed with me. He did so, with great delight. Xsara came in and wanted to join in, but she's too old to jump that high, and Sonny is a sliver of a dog, not a six stone pounder that would take up the whole single bed alone. Just as I was ushering Xsara away, the cat ran in. I thought she was outside. She ran in and stared at my birdcage. I yelled at her but she didn't notice. So I grabbed her and carried her out to the hall. She made a growl at me so I slapped her on the side and dumped her down. She shot up the hall. The whole event had not gone unnoticed by Sonny, who thought he should help me. He tore off after the cat, a cat who thorougherly dislikes him. The cat stopped. Wooden floors are not so kind to dogs, so Sonny did not stop as abruptly. He splayed out his legs in attempt, but kept sliding, and ploughed straight into the cat. The two of them slid up the hall for a few feet, the cat screaming her annoyance and her claws dug into his poor little puppy face.
Strangely Sonny didn't care and still chases the cat. He has daily scratchings but it doesn't seem to unnerve or even teach him.
The nieghbours across the road from us have a HUGE Mastiff. It's pretty young but also pretty harmless. It comes over to play with Xsara, but Xsara is too old to be long interested in playing. The Mastiff came over to play with Sonny. We always thought Sonny was cowardly. He crawles along the floor on his belly if you show him a towel. When I come out of my bedroom in the morning, he pisses all over the floor. This dog has never had a hand raised to him in his entire life - we know the people we bought him from. He is nervous, and when the postman arrives, hides behind us.
The Mastiff wasn't even inside our garden, he was on the road, although it was OUR side of the road. When Sonny saw the Mastiff, he launched himself at it. This dog, about eight times his size. Sonny snarled and barked and chased. The Mastiff ran. He caught up with it. Instead of stopping at our gate, Sonny leaped and gripped like a lion, his teeth in the Mastiff's backside, running on hind legs and clinging on with his front legs. The Mastiff started yelping and crying. Sonny help grip and kept snarling. It continued well into the dog's own garden. My mother was trying to call Sonny back, but in a fit of hysterics it's very hard to shout, even harder to get a dog to listen. The poor mastiff had his telling off. I saw him today, staring waryily up our driveway. Xsara barked at him and he ran.
Sonny is only a year and two months, but already has his first pheasant. Most gundogs boast two years as best. Sonny put the pheasant up (that may have just been chance, he still doesn't know what he's hunting). My father shot it. The bird was still alive. My father said there are times that shot birds do escape into the undergrowth and you never see them again. Sonny held the bird. He pinned it down. When my father got to them Sonny had his two front paws holding the bird down and was jabbing at it with his mouth.
So a gundog needs to learned to be gentle with the teeth. This was his fifth hunting trip and he's barely over a year old. He might have found a pheasant cause we taught him to, or he might have found any old bird - pheasants are common. But he knew that my father wanted that bird and he held onto it for him. I think he da's on a winner this time. All the years he wasted on gundogs he said we useless (although he loved them, we all did) they were Labradors. Maybe he just needs a Springer!
Sonny came home covered in mud so he was treated to his first shower, which my mother swears will be his last shower. It took all three of us (dogs excluded) to clean up the muck from the bathroom, kitchen and hall. Even though he was totally exhausted and very anxious after the sight of Towel, Sonny went into the kitchen, retrieved ball and started a four hour plighted of pitiful looks and toy hunting.
hit me! 18:46pm - new year, new leaves, all that shit
I'm doing a friends list cull. If you want to stay on, please tell me. I'll contact you all anyway.
Love, Dee.
16 black eyes - hit me! Saturday, December 27th, 2008 01:51am - animal farm
Christmas is for children, and because we have no small kids in our family, it becomes more about the dogs, the cats, the horses and the fish who demand attention regardless of the time of year. The problem is, if we had children, that the dogs, cats, horses and fish would still need the same attention, so I'm glad we don't. So this is dedicated to them, the animals that amuse us and demand our love, and the way that they react to the Christmas period when their people go just a bit more crazy than normal, and they all appear at once. It must be hard to be a pet.
( Installment #1 - The Cat )
hit me! Friday, December 26th, 2008 22:19pm - 2008 survey thing
I don't feel like writing much at the moment. I am tired from a steady onslaught of alcoholic beverages and too much food for the last few days - I haven't been actually drunk even once, because the food and drink comes constantly over hours. I just fight with the cat and play with the dog and fall asleep in front of the TV.
This is my year as I feel like summing it up. There are some things too current and still to huge and too raw to look at properly. Maybe next year.
( 40 things from 2008 )
Happy Christmas folks and a happy new year.
hit me! Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 01:26am
My da got this for Christmas: 
4 black eyes - hit me! Friday, December 7th, 2007 23:58pm - New flat
I have a new address from December 21st onwards.
It's small but the location is AWESOME and it's immaculate. Rent is great for the area (but twice what I pay now).
Bit worried about what happens when the landlord finds that myself and James are not "an Irish couple" (which he thinks he let the flat to) but in fact are merely friends who intend to drag into the mix one Australian fiancee, one hamster and four budgies.
The hamster is really quite undetectable, but I'm a bit worried about the birds. Sure his cage is bigger and will probably be in the sitting room, but the birds, even when out of sight, are not inclined to be subtle about their inhabitance. "TWEET! TWEETTWEET! I'm green! Hey look, I'm green! Sebastian is blue! Hey Sebastian, you're blue! CAWCAWCAWCAW!"
I shouldn't blame Marky, I found JJ having a squawk the other day while chewing one of Yellow's wing feathers, and Sebastian causes most of the rucus by chasing the others around the cage.
hit me! Thursday, December 6th, 2007 08:39am
That was a fun morning, and it's only half eight.
I woke up at ten to seven instead of half six. Half an hour late enough for the Dalkey airport bus to have left, Eric wasn't even up yet even though he said we'd leave at half six.... so I ran out and was on a bus to Stillorgan at about quarter past seven... got to Stillorgan about seven thirty-five... already probably too late to get the Aircoach, but I tried anyway. At eight I crossed the road and waited for the bus home. The Aircoach arrived a few minutes after but it was already too late to make it to the airport for check-in.
And.... Mark eventually told Sarah, when I was already on my way home, that he isn't going to the gig tonight. And it's not like he just found out or anything, he could have told me yesterday. But didn't.
Yes Mark, I'm pissed off.
But I'm actually relieved to have missed my flight. I have too much going on here and too little money.
12 black eyes - hit me! 00:44am
I'm leaving near the crack of dawn to go to Cardiff for the last of my eight Manics gigs this year. I'm freaking out for a reason yet unfounded. I know I'm not the only one, either! Sorry for the non-updatage, when Sean and Noelle left Sean took the wrong plug for his ethernet hub and we lost the internet for a few days. The Manics gigs in Dublin were pretty good, James may have found us a place to live by the time I get back, but I'm still in serious debt.
Ok, time to calm down, stop freaking out. I don't know about sleeping yet, I might try to sleep on the couch in front of the TV for a while. I sleep best that way. Eric is supposed to be driving me to the airport at half six, but he's not even here at the moment. I can see this whole adventure looking doomed but I know myself and Sarah can pull some henious fun out of the wreckage.
Alonzi!
hit me! Friday, October 19th, 2007 02:22am
So my boyfriend is alright. For a few weeks I've been nagging and bothering him. I said he never takes me out. He doesn't, really. I said he doesn't know how to treat a girl. He doesn't, really. I asked him if we could go to the Pet Expo (we went to a pet expo) and he begrudgingly took me - I think he enjoyed it in the end, there were loads of birds there. I also asked him if we could go see Control, and he asked "Are you going to take me?"
Now, he known for ages that I desperately wanted to go see this movie, you'd think a natural boyfriend response would be "I'll take my girlfriend out for dinner and this movie". Not Ciaran. His attitude would be "I'm not into Joy Division, so she can bring me at a time that suits me". We still haven't seen Control.
But tonight he comes over, and tells me he has a surprise. He says "This is what we're doing at Halloween". He puts on a CD. It doesn't take a genius to realise we're going to a gig. But I was completely stunned. I was saying "For real? You're actually taking me out? You're actually giving me a surprise?" How amazed I was then when the CD played Foo Fighters!!!
Ciaran gets a small star on his report card this month. He's alright. Now I wonder what cinemas are still playing Control - cause he's still paying for that. One Foo Fighters gig does not a great boyfriend make.
9 black eyes - hit me! Thursday, October 18th, 2007 01:06am - Prince
Prince died today, following his long battle of improving and falling back again. We cured his skin condition and his hair grew back, soft and lovely. The bloating in his kidneys went down, but he started to eat more fussily. He just wasn't getting any stronger though. The vet gave my dad the option of giving him a few months more, on condition of giving him a blood transfusion. We do have Xsara to give blood, but she's almost ten and in absolute prime condition; none of us would have been willing to take a risk on Xsara's wellbeing just to give a few more months to a dog who has been on the way out for a long time. The blood transfusion would have given him back his strength but his failing organs would have simply sapped it from him again over time. So, we chose to have him put to sleep.
I'm not sad. I'll miss him, but he was sick for a long time and it's always more relieving to know that the dog has died before real suffering began.
R.I.P. our Prince!
18 black eyes - hit me! Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 03:00am - the irish red kite
Three weeks ago, 30 red kites were released in Co. Wicklow. The red kite was a native bird to Ireland until it was made extinct in the country. The birds were imported from Wales where reintroduction of the red kite has been massively successful. At one point, maybe ten years ago, they had but TWO breeding pairs of red kites in Wales. Now they have over 600, and they gave us here, to County Wicklow, 30 birds, to reintroduce this species to our country.
And now, one of the 30 has been shot. This is a native species long since extinct from our country, we have only thirty of them now, and someone shoots one. For crying out loud!! Put that gun away.
We had this same problem back in my own home - I mean on my very doorstep.
Many irish people wont remember that the peregrine falcon was so endangered. The only reason I remember it is because the peregrine has been a massive part of my life since childhood. A breeding pair always existed a half mile from my house. When I was a small child - about 2, maybe 3 years old, I saw it twice. Once she swooped down, stole a dead mouse from our cat Nyjinski, and flew off with it. Another day she flew down to get a budgie - my mother had a cage of fifteen birds in our kitchen window - the peregrine flew right into the glass trying to get the birds - stunned herself and sat there with her wings out. She has a wingspan over three feet. She's beautiful.
In the early 90s there were SIX, I kid you not, only SIX, breeding pairs of peregrines in the whole country. How lucky I am to have had so much access to one of those pairs!
We would go walking in the quarry near my house, which had ravens all year round. Ravens are huge, you know. But if it was spring, and a big bird came close, you'd run. You don't wait around to see if it's a peregrine or a raven, you just got out of there.
Last time I saw the peregrine falcon around my place was 2003. It was trying to catch, kill and eat my pet pigeon. It was just a racing pigeon who took a liking to my house and to me (who fed him). In the glory of such an impressive bird, I should have let the falcon take him, But I scared her off instead. Poor pigeon!! (My cat ate him while I was away, in the end).
Nowadays the peregrine is obviously still a protected species but is pretty common around quarry areas. Thankfully!
About ten years ago, when the peregrine population was still growing, my parents by chance came upon a dead male peregrine. He was on the side of the road just a few hundred yards from their main nesting spot in the quarry. He had a slightly bust head, no evidence of shot in him. He'd been hit by a car.
Leaving his body was not an option. My father is a member of the local gun club, who are more concerned with repopulation of native birds, especially pheasants, than they are will shooting them. In fact they usually bring their gundogs out, and their guns.... set the dogs to putting up pheasants and applaud the bird - my dad and his friends haven't shot a pheasant in six years, because overhunting by unregistered members has led to an underpopulation of pheasants.
But yes, being a member of the gunclub, my father had an obligation to pick up the dead peregrine and bring it home. Therein lies a dilemma, because being caught with a dead falcon is very incriminating. I recall it being "hush-hush" that we had a peregrine body in our house. Within the same evening my father had contacted the wildlife authority of the village and exchanged the body of the dead peregrine for DUCK EGGS.
Duck eggs, what?!! I think my father cooked and ate one, and decided against cooking and eating any more. I recall they went bad in the fridge, cause we didn't want to throw them out, but didn't want to eat them either.
Well, hey, if you ever have on your person a protected species who you found dead - be careful - cause even if you are the one turning them in you can be suspect to killing it. And if you go the other way and use contacts to protect the animal in question, you might end up with big blue unedible eggs.
You might be glad to know that there are currently 29 surviving red kites in Ireland and thousands now of breeding peregrine couples.
I haven't seen a peregrine in my garden since 2003 but then again I haven't lived there since 2003 either!
5 black eyes - hit me! Friday, August 3rd, 2007 04:46am
I just found a very fat black cat outside my house. I recognised him, his name is Jamie and he lives with the cat lady two doors down. Her cats Murphy, Ali and Simba are forever walking through my garden and I ignore them. But Jamie was in distress. I caught up with him and went to pet him, but thanks to being so far under the influence, I fell over and rolled on my back. Jamie ran away. I wasn't hurt at all.
I got up and called him with cat calls and his name until he came out of hiding. Then I picked him up and cuddled him and petted him a lot. He had been in distress. He was actually calling for me even if he didn't know that he could trust me. I didn't know if waking his elderly owner was kind, or maybe bringing Jamie back to mine was better - but he couldn't stay in my room because of my budgies, and it wouldn't be fair to let him think that our door was part of his territory.
I rang the old lady's doorbell twice and she came down the second time. Jamie had been in my arms but I put him down and he ran indoors. I explained that I found him in my front garden in distress. She said it was odd that he went so far. We have postage stamp gardens. It's about 15 feet to her garden. But apparently Jamie never wanders, and also never goes out at night, so she wasn't angry that I woke her, she was really, really grateful.
And I'm relieved. Jamie I know is a precious cat. The reason for his distress might have been as minor as being out of his own garden, but that poor cat was really upset when I picked him up. And his owner was glad that I did so.
I always feared that I might grow up like her, but heck, if I do, what's the harm. Cats are great! I got to cuddle Jamie tonight while calming him and bringing him home. I miss cats!
hit me! Friday, July 20th, 2007 14:47pm - snape dies..... fake spoiler
I knew it was fake, sorry for upsetting everyone! Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
senatorsfan for the additional information that this was, in fact, a fake leak of the sixth book, not even a fake seventh. So we can all rest assured on that, now.
Right, I'm off. For a few days ;)
5 black eyes - hit me! Thursday, July 19th, 2007 04:50am - Three more sleeps
And if you don't know what that means, you don't deserve to!
I am going to get it five hours before you guys on the west coast. Which to me is Chell and Greg. hahaha guys, but I wont gossip, promise. I read slowly anyway so you will catch up with me.
Voldermort is going to kill Snape.
Sorry, but that is the only leak I have.
4 black eyes - hit me!
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