30th March, 2006 (8:29 pm)
Random Rant #2 (9)
Every morning on the way to work, I pass a beauty parlour that proudly boasts in three-foot high letters on a canvas banner that it now has “new tanning unit’s”. It drives me fucking crazy. Appalling grammar of both shop owner and banner-maker aside, why the fuck hasn’t someone taken the bloody thing down? It’s been there well over a year, so surely someone at some time has commented that it’s grammatically incorrect? Aren’t they embarrassed about it? I fucking would be.
I swear, nothing turns me off a service faster than poor spelling/grammar. If they can’t be arsed to proofread something that important - a banner on the main road into town, for Christ’s Sake - how the hell can you be sure that they’ve properly read the fucking instruction manual for the tanning machines in the first place? You wouldn’t get my pale arse in there if the ‘unit’s’ were fucking free.
V xx
Comments: (9)
29th March, 2006 (7:46 pm)
The Day We Had No Bed (8)
We decided a few months ago that when my back-pay showed its face, we’d invest the money wisely. For some people, investment means doing something with banks and building societies and acronyms which, if I’m honest, are utterly meaningless to me. For us - well, me - it means doing something with, to or for the house. I love my home, and I love DIY and - somewhat surprisingly for me - I also adore cleaning and decorating and making it pretty. It’s fun and constructive and presents a useful, perfect sort of therapy - for where else in your life can you throw paint around or hammer the fuck out of something and not go to prison?
In this instance, we’re doing the whole works - new flooring, curtains and rail, bed (ours was broken)(not to mention a gorgeous orange pine circa 1996), bedside tables and to top it all, we’re ripping out the gross, cheap fitted wardrobes which were here when we moved in five years ago. We’re replacing the carpet with laminate floor which, if I’m honest, I’m not too enamoured with, but as our bedroom is roughly the same size as a family bathroom sans the taps, I think we both reached the glum realisiation that laminate would be the only way to make the room deceptively lighter and larger. We don’t have floorboards to lovingly strip and stain (how cheaply was our house built, eh? WE HAVE CONCRETE FUCKING FLOORS the TIGHT ARSES), so we’re going to have to make do with the cheapo plastic stuff instead. We’ve also bought light-wood furniture which will also - hopefully - give an impression of light and space . . . yeah, that’s right, I said light and space: yes, I bloody do watch those TV makeover shows.
Anyway, today was D-Day - D meaning destruction. With three days off work, M set to task and - after blowing a stupid amount of money in B&Q (he went in for a roller and paint and came out £100 lighter - wtf?) - he began the dismantling. As I write this, we have no wardrobe (well, no doors or frame, although he left the rails for tonight), no drapes and, most amusing of all, no bed. We do, however, still have bedside tables - although I’m wondering if we’re still allowed to call them that when there’s no bed to put them on the side of.
When S and I got home, we were ushered immediately upstairs to survey M’s handiwork. S ran into the room, stopped cold, eyes wide, and cried “Oh no!” before falling theatrically to the floor and crying plaintively, “Mum and Dad’s buh? Mum and Dad’s buh?” He took the words right out of my mouth.
So tonight we sleep on the inflatable bed (’sassa’s bed’, as S calls it) and will continue to do so for at least two evenings whilst we whip through the re-decoration and replace the flooring. The idea is that M finishes all of the paintwork tomorrow, and then - as I’ve taken Annual Leave on Friday - we both spend Friday sorting out the floor in time to construct the wardrobes and, in the very least, the new bed.
Words cannot convey how unoptimistic I am about this.
Although Ikea is the prince - no, king! - of friendly and clear DIY instructions, things never go that smoothly. For one, we’ve never laid laminate before and for two . . . well, M hates DIY. And kinda sucks at it. I’ve managed to put together Ikea furniture on my own and I think M could probably do so too if there was a gun at his head, so it’s fair to assume that it isn’t that tricky. However, put us together in a room to do it and it all goes to hell. We fight, we scream, we throw things and mutter and curse and threaten - no, promise - to divorce each other.
And the worse thing? I now don’t even have the luxury of kicking his arse out of bed and making him sleep downstairs; I’ll be using the only spare bed we have.
V xx
Comments: (8)
28th March, 2006 (9:08 pm)
Why Register & iTunes Add-On (3)
Hurray! I’ve finally found a WP plugin that simply withholds some posts from hitting the front page! This means that I can keep a separate WP category here that updates this section without manually XHTMLing to the site. No, I know that that’s not such a horrible imposition, but surely updating from the swanky confines of my WP Admin Panel is good enough? Exactly. :P
Anyway, shall I get on with it?
I’ve finally added the Why Register? section, which explains why it is I’ve implemented the User Registration/Post Levels system. I’ve also tidied the sidebars a little and added a little addition to my sidebar* which details the last three tracks I’ve played on iTunes on my PC. This has no value whatsoever, but I bloody love it - it’s soooo cool.
I’ve also added a script that will power my 2006 Book List, but at the moment it’s halfway through customisation. As soon as it’s done, I’ll let you know. :)
V xx
*This does depend upon what skin you’re using at the moment!
Comments: (3)
27th March, 2006 (10:33 am)
The Day Of The Ark (9)
If it rains any more, I’m going to have to build us a fucking ark.
V xx
Comments: (9)
27th March, 2006 (8:48 am)
The Day After Mother’s Day 2006 (9)
Comments: (9)
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