I Am Lost Without It

Short post again tonight.

Mainly because the moment I made an actual budget and realized I had spare cash, my previously-faithful PC gave up the ghost for the second and possibly final time.

Really, considering I'd dropped it on a tile floor four times, it was about time. When I tried that with my mac, the hard drive exploded immediately.

So, the laptop is dead - RIP Killer Tomato (and most of my files) - long live the laptop!

My new one's a Gateway as well, because they're clearly incredibly tough. And his name is Boswell.

I've done all the important laptop-breaking-in things this evening:

• Erased the unwanted junk that came standard
• Set a new desktop background to replace the delicious "charity car wash" one I used to have. This one's tasteful instead, *sigh*
  
• Set bookmark tabs for Netflix, Google Reader, my bank, Wish Upon a Hero, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger
• Watched an episode of Lie to Me. I'm trying to catch up before Hulu takes anything down. I'm a bit iffy on some of the plots this season, but will probably never get tired of watching Tim Roth strut around and piss people off.
  

Snaaaaaaaillllllllll

This is the most fascinatingly adorable thing I've seen in a while:

Giant African Land Snail Eating

Found via Daily Squee.

No, I Didn't Post Yesterday

It seemed like an inappropriate time to post ridiculous photos.

Here, have a photo of my Saturday night/Sunday morning:

Charades!

I'm spending the night at a friend's house, celebrating her 25th. As she's in theatre and taking an improv class, we decided to play charades.

Even better than the ones we get right (whoo, 1776!) or wrong (CASABLANCA, really?) are the guesses that happen before getting it:

The Gentleman Cat = The Aristocats

Rain Makes Grass Grow / Wings Back Wings = Fern Gully

Car Heaven = Van Helsing

Five Men Go To Washington = Mr. Smith, etc etc.

Something Here and Gone = Gone With the Wind

Cow Dick = Cowboy Bebop

Ratatouille = Hamlet (don't even ask)

Are You A Mouse? = Labyrinth

Die Punch Ow = Die Hard

Queen of Australia = The African Queen

Penguin Penguin Penguin = Duck Soup

Oh, You Are A Mouse This Time = Flowers for Algernon

Paradox?

Is it a paradox to use this post to announce that I'm not posting tonight so I can prepare a few more trip photo posts?

Probably.

So in the interest of avoiding a time-space meltdown on blogger, I will ALSO share that my Turkish bath towel came in today. From Turkey.

It's soft and huge and very very thin, and I quite like it. You can get one on Etsy if you are so inclined.

Black Tie Beach

I go back and forth on how much I enjoy Improv Everywhere's newest escapades; some of them fall flat for me. However, the Black Tie Beach was just a cool idea:

For our latest mission we had several hundred agents spend a day at Coney Island / Brighton Beach wearing black tie attire. We covered a mile-long stretch of beach with a diverse group of people of all ages (from babies to sixty-somethings) laying out, playing games, and swimming in the ocean, all in formal wear.

The photos are just neat, really, so you hop on over for those at least...

It's Been Pouring All Day

I love the rain, but driving home from class is *not* supposed to be a near-death experience.

Thankfully I'm all home and warm now, and only have to go as far as the Italian restaurant up the street tomorrow afternoon.

I also restarted The Science of Sherlock Holmes this evening. It's a fascinating book, but so long since I opened it that I don't remember the first five chapters.

Now: laundry and then bed. When even the cat is asleep before me I'm definitely overdue for some z's.

Trip Photos Mark Two

Currently playing: Electric Six's "Down at McDonnelzzz" (on repeat, of course)

You know the drill. I will now present you with images and the occasional series of words.

Day two of the trip involved a tour to Buckingham Palace and the Royal Mews:
The Mews - surprisingly not where the royal cats are kept.

This trip was followed by a walk over to the London Eye. I'd heard the ride wasn't worth it - this is a total lie. The view is nearly literally breathtaking.





We also saw our hotel:
And a giant Dalek:
Finally, a story that might help explain my family to the uninitiated. Alek and I both spotted a great shot at the same time; this of course turned into a competition over who could get the "best" shot of the exact same thing. As Alek doesn't have a blog and I do, I'm publicly declaring that I Win at Pictures:





More to come! We did, in fact, eventually leave London.

What I Have to Show For My Weekend

This is Bernard, and he is my new best friend:

Trips to Terra Toys are always a lovely way to spend an hour or so on a Sunday, but this time around I got horribly distracted by the plastic action figures. The kickass Maid Marian caught my eye, and then - the anthropomorphic pirates!

This guy was the winner, because there's nothing about him that fails to be ridiculous, amazing, or ridiculously amazing. He's a left-handed walrus, right? Who is also a pirate. Who has a peg leg and a hook hand but both tusks intact.

I also got some owl stickers at Terra Toys, because let's face it: it'd just be weird to check out with nothing but a plastic toy.

Things That Were Designed to Kill Me

#211: Chocovine

Text Message of the Month

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From: Dr. J. Watson

I am going to drink this bottle of absinthe

and then set it on fire

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Tonight's post brought to you by the letters "it's Friday" and "slumber party."

What Are You Doing Here? Shoo!

No photos tonight because I've been staring at the computer all day for work and I'm just squeaking in under the deadline as it is.

Instead, have some links of other places you should be on the internet instead right now:

Fake AP Stylebook's Twitter account - I don't even care if you use Twitter. It doesn't matter, because this is funny stuff.

The SuperFogeys - One of the few webcomics I actually follow regularly anymore. I've kindly linked you to the beginning so you can read the entire thing before moving on. I'll wait.

An interview with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss about the new BBC show Sherlock - Posted because I enjoy seeing people excited about things I love (also because Freeman is adorable and I require Cumberbatch's coat to stalk around in). I'm starting to sulk because my DVD hasn't arrived yet and it seems like everyone else on the internet has theirs already. *curses international shipping times*

Aaand it's bedtime. 'Night!

Let the new month start!

Someone asked if I'd be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year.

And... I'm not. However, I've decided to update this blog every day this month (unless something way more exciting comes up and I've forgotten to cheat and have something set to auto-post). You lucky, lucky readers. Be sure to tune in around week 3, when I'll be completely out of ideas and probably just start linking to Sherlock Holmes fan fiction.

But at the moment, I have plenty of material. Namely, photos from the weeklong trip I took with my brother to Southern England. I've wanted to visit England - and London specifically - for a very very long time; probably since I first started reading Sherlock Holmes stories in middle school.

My face when I arrived looked something like :D and it stayed like :D for most of the week.

Photos this evening are from the first day, which was spent getting lost in London. On foot, because I had this insane fear of getting lost on the Tube and never getting to see Stonehenge. Also, Wikipedia and the third Mummy movie tell me those double-decker buses just can't be safe.

The hotel was lovely. We didn't have much of a view, but then we didn't spend much time there.

View on the way to the British Museum, where we had all sorts of fun. You could honestly spend days in there:

Alek seemed to enjoy taking photos of me in front of very large things.

And the Rosetta Stone! It's a freakin' rock star - there was a crowd around it every time we passed by.

At the touristy store across the street. He looks quite dashing, and thankfully did not decide to purchase/wear it for the entire trip.

Did I mention the London Eye was exactly a five-minute walk from the hotel? More on that later.

The first night we opted for dinner at The Prospect of Whitby, followed by a boat tour down the Thames, where I got props for knowing who Maurice Micklewhite is. Apparently he worked in a building overlooking the river before deciding to go star in a bunch of movies I love and just generally be awesome.

Filler!

Photos from my Awesome Trip of Awesome will be up soon; I hope to be finished resizing things by tomorrow.

For now, have a text messages filler:

So, I have a friend who, while very drunk one night, changed the names of all her friends in her cell phone. A mutual friend became Pikachu, for example. Drunk geeks are the best drunk friends.

Anyway, she's changed almost all the names back, but she forgot mine. So yesterday when I was sitting around with her roomate, said friend got a message from "Sherlock Holmes" (Yes, that was her idea for me. Either because I'm brilliant and - according to the BBC - dashingly handsome, or because I'm a sociopath. Take your pick) reading I'M IN YOUR HOUSE.

Upon realizing what she was seeing, I promptly made a change in my phone, leading to the following exchange:

--------

From: Dr. J. Watson

OMG SHERLOCK HOLMES IS IN MY HOUSE TOUCHING MY THINGS

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To: Dr. J. Watson

I'M DEDUCING THINGS ABOUT YOU. DIRTY SINFUL THINGS.

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From: Dr. J. Watson

OH GOD DON'T TELL LESTRADE

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To: Dr. J. Watson

I AM SHERLOCK BLOODY HOLMES I DON'T NEED TO TELL LESTRADE ANYTHING...EVEN IF HE IS KINDA CUTE

--------

To: Dr. J. Watson

ALSO I AM IN YOUR UNDERWEAR DRAWER.

--------

From: Dr. J. Watson

YOU RAKE.

--------

From: Dr. J. Watson

AND STAY AWAY FROM MY DELICATES

--------

And she's promised not to fix my name in her address book. Excellent.

Scarborough Faire

It's been long enough that I don't actually remember when I went to the Scarborough Renaissance Festival this year. The point is that I had a great time, and I'm already looking forward to next year. (I really need to get a costume at some point). A few photos:

It seemed like a good chance to show off my new hat:

As a complete first, I also rode an elephant! Three of us went together (with someone's poor daughter squished between us) and I think we all had a blast:


Elephants, by the way? They're pretty amazing.