Sleepypete's Pillow

Been off work this week, I definitely needed a break from the office.

Thirteen Things about The Week Off 1…. Week off this week, definitely needed it I think. Easter is a very good excuse and time for getting away from work for a bit, it lets you get enough time to have a worthwhile relax period without using too much leave. 2…. Managed to avoid games a fair bit. However, I did really enjoy hitting the new World of Warcraft instanced dungeon with the Violence Reborn people last night. One of the best people I know was having a last thrash in the game last night and I was honoured to be wanted along by said angel. 3…. Watching cricket live from New Zealand does nasty things to the circadian rhythm. Watching England win at cricket is always worth it. The wins in New Zealand were definitely earned. 4…. Wished I had my microphone active last night, it would have let me join in with the laughing and joking that was coming over the Ventrilo voice communications. 5…. Waiting for Amazon to deliver sucks – it locks you in to the house as otherwise it’s a pain getting to the drop off place. 6…. Extended time off is a good time to catch up on things you’ve missed. House MD is an excellent series. Intensive watching could get you bored with anything, however 3 series in and House is definitely not boring. Lots of good stuff here. 7…. I never seem able to match up certain pairs of my socks together. Hey ! They look just the same 🙂 8…. You need to escape totally from work every once in a while, happily the only work I’ve thought about over the last week has surrounded what’s due to start on Sunday but I can’t actually talk about what’s happening Sunday cos work might get upset with me ;-). 9…. David Weber’s At All Costs has a very spectacular ending. Less games and a telly that’s developed an intermittent high pitched whine has led to me getting into the books heavily again. It’s The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks at the moment. 10.. For a cricket addict, I seem to have developed a distaste for watching West Indies and they’re supposed to be the most exciting to watch. Maybe 10/20 years ago but now there’s no doubt as to who will win. And it’s not West Indies. When the result’s no longer in doubt, my interest definitely scampers away. 11… My diet sucks 🙂 Biscuits, crackers and the occasional bowl of popcorn aren’t the most healthy thing around. Will have to visit the Chinese tonight 🙂 And get me some more supplies in. It’s biscuits and crackers because I haven’t been near a supermarket for over a week. 12… Atypically for a holiday period (and despite the provocation of that NZ vs England cricket!), my circadian rhythm seems to have remained intact. I usually slip into a 3/4am bedtime, 12noon waketime but I’m getting moving at the fairly sensible time of around 9am in the morning at the moment. 13… This house is in dire need of an attack by the vacuum cleaner !

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I’ve been continuing my catching up with House over the weekend, as Hallmark have been repeating season 3. I missed out on House the first time round, which is why I’m catching up now.

Trouble is, my TV has joined the list of things that don’t quite work right around here (I’m at the top of that list !). You know when TVs start making that really high pitched sound that sends cats and dogs mad ? Well, I’m surprised that the local cat (Chronos) still looks in through the back window cos my telly’s been “singing” all weekend. It’s not quite that high pitched because I can still hear it but it’s presence is almost enough to get my brain dribbling out through my nose. Hopefully the sound doesn’t mean the beginning of the end for this telly, it’s probably just complaining at being over worked.

I’m getting relief from it at the moment, as I’m taking a break from TV watching before heading back in for more later. I’m currently 99 pages into Iain M Banks’s novel The Player Of Games. Not bad so far but I warmed more to the general chaos that made Consider Phlebas come to life and the Diziet Sma character in Use of Weapons.

Enough of telly – how come I chose that title for today ? It’s because of these guys :

The top of my TV has been taken over by these draconic reprobates, led by “Another Monday”, who just happens to be the one who forces me to use him as an avatar wherever I have a web presence. One thing about potentially going for an HD telly or any telly to replace the one I have is that it won’t have a conveniently large step on the top to put my dragons on. Tellies aren’t built that way any more.

I have a couple of bookcases that I have Even More Dragons on but things I put up there aren’t quite so visible. Somehow, when I do get a flatter, thinner, shinier telly I don’t think my dwagons will be homeless for too long …

PS The cricket picture that I got in the pic has generated a fair bit of debate in the family 🙂 It’s a cross stitch done by my sister and was a present. The debate is on subjects like “what shot played”, “left hander ?”, “before hit or after hit ?” I have my idea, based on logic but I’d be curious to see more theories 🙂

In my first year at university, we had lots of snow 🙂

So we built a snowman. He was about 6 foot tall … (we rolled balls of snow up and down a hill until they were huge)

Our snowman lasted 3 weeks after the snow melted and people were using him as a meeting point 🙂

So glad that the boiler is behavin’ itself!

I think an Easter Egg Hunt in the snow would be great fun! As long as the eggs are colored.

Make a snowangel 🙂

No need to apologize: I smiled as I read this entire entry! I’ve always been fascinated at how people respond to drastic changes in weather. As a dyed-in-the-wool Canadian, I can’t deny the appeal of an impending snow.

Glad to hear you’re keeping warm. Our furnace blew a major – and expensive – part last year just as winter dawned. It took close to 2 weeks for the part to be shipped…we had to get out of town to avoid freezing at night. Not fun.

Back from Michele’s, and as always, it’s been a joy.

snow
we had that
no more now, please

Happy Easter from michele.

Addon – sorry Carmi 😉

Lol – would you believe that I was leaning out of my upstairs window, with the camera braced on the frame to mitigate the blurriness that could have come from a 1/8th shutter speed ?

Glad you like it 🙂 Definitely a case of seeing an opportunity to catch the moment before Chronos decided he didn’t want to be camera shy …

I love this pic. I remember our cat would do the same thing: wherever we were, he knew when we were looking at him.

Great geometry, color and tone.

Michele sent me back to ruminate.

The British attitude towards snow has changed a bit over the past decade or so. I think you could now sum it up by describing a series of stages :

1 – Anticipation of snowball fights.

This is where we look forward to playing in the snow and having a few innocent good fun snowball flinging matches with our friends.

2 – Thinking of time off work due to trouble moving on the roads.

Probably comes under stage 1, as I bet all of us would rather be enjoying ourselves outside of an office than being stuck inside the office. Probably depends on the job we’re doing 😉

3 – Uhoh – this snow’s going to close the roads …

… And make it really awkward to move around. I’m currently writing from home, as my sister and I decided not to travel due to anticipating trouble :
Met Office Severe Weather Page
The link is to the Met Office warnings page, currently showing “Be Prepared” for half of GB, with “Be Aware” for another 15%. It’s subject to change though – the warnings will probably be gone tomorrow.

4 – And then we remember what being snowbound can be like …

We look forward to snow over here, the influence of the Gulf Stream (and dare I say it – Global Warming) means it’s been a long time since snow was a major factor in UK weather. But when the snow comes, we rapidly remember the problems it can cause. BBC have a few pictures of the snow’s influence up on their news site.

I have to be honest and say all things considered, I prefer snow to the high winds we’ve been having lately. Snow is a tangible thing that you can see and touch. Knowing it’s there means you can see trouble coming and have a better chance of avoiding coming a cropper. Wind though, leads to trucks being blown over or cars being pushed into the next lane. At least one building will be without a roof, people get flooded. Ice is nasty but you get warned by the steering going light, high wind is another order of danger though.

Hoping we don’t get too many casualties over the holiday weekend. Wrap up warm people !

PS Think my boiler got the idea I was keeping an eye on it. Since I noted here that it was sulking on me, it’s stayed lit 🙂