I hate cleaning!

I hate cleaning with a vengeance. Heck, I hate cleaning with anything! It seems such a horrible waste of a day. I mean, why spend time cleaning that could be spent lounging around on the beach instead? Oh yeah, that's right. No cleaning equals a dirty home and nasty pongs. Not good.

My biggest objection to cleaning is the fact that most of the mess isn't mine, but caused by my two naughty cats. Leo throws his food around everywhere, especially his biscuits. He likes to evict the green, vegetable-flavoured ones from his bowl. Liberty feels obliged to tunnel towards Australia every time she uses her litter, leaving mounds of it all over the floor. Of course, they sometimes help with the cleaning, too, by licking up anything tasty that gets spilled on the kitchen floor.

This morning was no different. I got up to the usual hideous mess. I used to have one of those little handheld vacuum cleaner things, which made light work of the cleaning up. Sadly, I made the mistake of buying a cheap brand. It conked out. So, I now have to do it the good old-fashioned way, with a pan and brush. Ugh! Too much like hard work. But not for much longer. I have my eye on a lovely, sparkly new Dirt Devil. I can't decide between the Accucharge Stick Vac or the Accucharge Hand Vac. What do you reckon?



Whichever one I get, not only will it save me a lot of time and energy, but it will also lower my carbon footprint, as the Dirt Devil Accucharge cleaners are the first handheld ones to earn Energy Star approval. They use 70% less energy than standard handheld cleaners, and I'm sure I'll be expending at least 70% less personal energy using one of them, instead of the pan and brush. Now, if only cats could be trained to use a Dirt Devil...

Reader's Digest Laughs

Life wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs for me when I was a kid (cue violins playing a sad refrain). But one bright spot I used to look forward to, was the arrival of my mother's monthly copy of the Reader's Digest. When she first subscribed, I was only about nine. Although I had excellent reading skills for my age, the longer articles just didn't appeal to me. What I did enjoy were the humour pages. I remember there was a page of jokes, and another section called 'Life's Like That' - real-life funny stories. Also, at the end of almost every long article, there would be a short joke or witticism. So I couldn't wait to get my hands on the monthly Reader's Digest.

Alas, there was no Internet in those days (how did we cope?). However, much to my delight, I recently discovered that the Reader's Digest now has a website, with a humour section located at RD Laughs Main. What I like about the RD Laughs site is that it's good, clean humour - something you'd be happy for your kids or your granny to view.

So what can you find over at RD Laughs? Well, there are Funny Cartoons, jokes, as well funny photos and videos. You might also like to check out the Stand-up Videos. By the way, you can also submit your own funny photos, videos and jokes. In fact, if you submit a joke of your own - you could win $100. Not bad, eh?

You can also subscribe to the Jokes RSS feed, so you receive new jokes as they're posted. Or you can subscribe to the weekly Laughs newsletter - the choice is yours. I'm glad I've found this site - I'm sick of looking around for humour sites, only to find obscene and offensive material. The RD Laughs site is 100% clean - yay! Anyway, if you're curious to see a sample of what's on offer at RD Laughs, click here to see one of my favourite funny cartoons.

Post number 667!

Aaaarrrggghh! I just logged on to Blogger to publish some comments, and saw that I had 666 posts. Nooooo! The number of the beast! So, I had to post something just to get rid of that number from my dashboard. Not that I'm superstitious or anything ...

Diet woes!

I know how she feels!

More cat pictures

Extraterrestrial hippies!

Remember the 'aliens' who kept me awake the other night? Well, I finally caught sight of them, about an hour after I posted. It turns out the strange flying machine wasn't a flying machine at all. It was some dilapidated old ambulance, being driven by a dreadlocked crusty type. He seemed to be having difficulty trying to find somewhere to park it, due to lack of space and a permit holders only parking policy in place. What I took to be the noise of an aircraft of some kind, was really one very messed-up engine. Unless aliens have taken to disguising themselves as hippies, and their space ships as dilapidated old ambulances, hand-painted with what looked suspiciously like blue household gloss paint - we can all rest easy in our beds. Mind you, it might have been aliens after all. I mean - who the heck hand-paints their ambulance with gloss paint?

Awwwww!

Isn't this little kitten gorgeous? Anyone who says 'no' - be warned. I'll make a voodoo dolly of you and stick pins in it!

Image: I Can Has Cheezburger

Insomnia, sports cars and aliens

I can't sleep. It's just another one of the fun aspects of arthritis. To make matters even worse, I think my house is being buzzed by aliens. Well, by aliens, I mean someone I don't know, carrying out incomprehensible aerial manoeuvres in a strange-sounding aircraft. It's not the police helicopter - I know the noise of that thing. But it doesn't sound like a light aircraft, either. It makes a hell of a racket when it swoops over. Kind of like a rattling, roaring, droning, God-knows-what. It goes away for a while, and I then hear it hovering somewhere in the distance. Then it comes back and does the rattle-roary-droney thing over the house again. I am NOT going with you, ya Martians! It's weird, it sounds like a badly maintained truck - except it's flying. Perhaps it's that new police drone I heard something about a few weeks ago. Except drones are little and whiney, not rattle-roary-droney. I'm too scared to look out and see what it is!

Anyway, annoying aerial intruders aside, I've been bloghopping, and found the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz over at Liz's blog. Apparently, I'm a Porsche 911!


This is what the site says about me:

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

And there was me thinking I was more of a bubble car!

Too cute!

Aren't they gorgeous? If you're not going 'aaaaawwwwww' right now, you're a mean, horrid, nasty critter!

Image: I Can Has Cheezburger

The dangers of cosmetic surgery

Have you ever wished someone could just take away those age lines, and make you look young again? Well, folks, make sure you choose your surgeon wisely!

Pic: I Can Haz Cheezburger?

Hey there!

Apologies for not posting much here lately. My time has been taken up with other things, mainly personal stuff, research, etc. Anyway, as you all know, I'm a big fan of all that's weird and wonderful. Well, maybe not all, but that's another story! On the subject of stories, I've come across this rather amusing one, from the Irish Republic.

The Irish parliament will be debating a bill tomorrow - the Nuclear Test Ban Bill. It seems a number of Irish members of parliament are a little irked by one of the clauses in the bill, and want it removed. Which clause would that be? Well, it's a clause that says if someone detonates a nuclear bomb, and that explosion is only of a minor nature, the maximum penalty that could be imposed on them by law is 12 months in jail, or a €5,000 fine. Now, then - can someone please define a minor nuclear explosion? Thought not :).


Source

The latest Wayne-ism

My cousin, Wayne, is an endless source of misquotes, malapropism and general verbal madness. His latest one had me in stitches. As all my regular readers will know - I've had to return to using my ancient desktop PC, after the sudden demise of my laptop. I have names for my computer. The laptop is Lucretia, the desktop, Godzilla - because it's a lumbering, prehistoric and cranky beast. I said to Wayne, when he called me a few nights ago:
'oh well, I finally got all my security updated, so Godzilla is now up and running safely'.
'Oh yeah', he said, 'I used that, too'.
'Eh?' I said, 'you've lost me'.
'At the Internet cafe', he said. 'I used Godzilla'.
'Er, no you didn't. Godzilla is my old PC'.
'But they had it at the Internet cafe, too. Google Godzilla'.
WTF? Google Godzilla? I was bewildered.
'What do you mean?'
'Y'know, Google Godzilla. It's a thing like Internet Explorer. Y'know, an Interweb browser'.
'Ah. Do you mean Mozilla Firefox?'
'Yes. That's it.'
I'm going to have to keep a score of Wayne-isms as they happen. There have been so many over the years, I could have filled a huge tome with them by now.

One lump or two?

Are you bored with what your local Starbucks, Coffee Republic or Costa Coffee has on offer? Never fear. A wonderful new brand of coffee is now available at the Peter Jones department store. Head to the Peter Jones Espresso bar, and for a mere £50 you can purchase a shot of the very exclusive Caffé Raro. It contains a special ingredient - cat poo. I kid ye not. Check it out for yourself. It leaves me with just one question. Can I have mine with frothy milk and chocolate topping? If so, would that version be known as the Caffé Raro Catpooccino?

Thursday Thirteen

I have two Thursday Thirteen lists for you this week, to make up for missing last week. Here we go!


Thirteen Signs of Alien Abduction


1…. Missing time - a period of time, which can be just minutes, several hours or a number of days. You have no recollection of where you were or what you did at the time.

2.... You find unusual and inexplicable scars, marks or wounds on your body. You have no idea how they got there.

3.... Sleepwalking - you wake up somewhere other than where you went to sleep.

4.... A strange compulsion to walk or drive to another location, which you cannot explain.

5.... Sudden illness, e.g. fatigue, severe headache, extreme thirst.

6.... You believe you have had intercourse in the night or have had semen extracted from your body.

7.... You see flashes of light, even with your eyes closed.

8.... You find blood on your pillow with no explanation of how it got there.

9.... You wake up feeling soreness in your genitals, which you cannot explain.

10... Your back aches without cause or you awaken with unusual stiffness in any part of your body.

11... You suddenly feel as though you have obtained some degree of psychic ability without any explanation for it.

12... You develop an aversion to, or fear of, bright lights.

13... You experience weird flashbacks of being hauled into a vehicle of some kind by uniformed abductors, kicking and screaming, whilst seeing bright, flashing lights.

Thirteen signs of Alcohol Consumption

1…. Missing time - a period of time, which can be just minutes, several hours or a number of days. You have no recollection of where you were or what you did at the time.

2.... You find unusual and inexplicable scars, marks or wounds on your body. You have no idea how they got there.

3.... Sleepwalking - you wake up somewhere other than where you went to sleep.

4.... A strange compulsion to walk or drive to another location, which you cannot explain.

5.... Sudden illness, e.g. fatigue, severe headache, extreme thirst.

6.... You believe you have had intercourse in the night or have had semen extracted from your body.

7.... You see flashes of light, even with your eyes closed.

8.... You find blood on your pillow with no explanation of how it got there.

9.... You wake up feeling soreness in your genitals, which you cannot explain.

10... Your back aches without cause or you awaken with unusual stiffness in any part of your body.

11... You suddenly feel as though you have obtained some degree of psychic ability without any explanation for it.

12... You develop an aversion to, or fear of, bright lights.

13... You experience weird flashbacks of being hauled into a vehicle of some kind by uniformed abductors, kicking and screaming, whilst seeing bright, flashing lights.


Links to other Thursday Thirteens!


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Pooty-cat!

I was feeling pretty miserable, until I found this in my feed reader, a couple of minutes ago. If this doesn't make you smile - you're an even more miserable old so-and-so than I am!

Image: I Can Has Cheezeburger

Ena Sharples reincarnated!

For non-Brits, Ena Sharples was a character in the long-running British soap, Coronation Street, for many years. She was played by the late Violet Carson. This is her:



I have proof, beyond all reasonable doubt, that she has been reincarnated. Look:

more Lolcat pics

My Valentine's card to you

Okay, I guess you guys know I hate Valentine's Day by now. However, to mitigate any feelings that I may be bitter, twisted, Scrooge-like, or otherwise mean-spirited, here's my Valentine's card to you :).

Baboon butt courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger

I'm an alien!

It's official - I am not an Earthling. Look:

You Are From Jupiter

You are exuberantly curious - and you love to explore newness. Enthusiastic and optimistic, you get a kick out of stimulating intellectual discussions. Foreign cultures and languages fascinate you. You love the outdoors, animals, and freedom. Chances are you tend to exaggerate, so try to keep a lid on that. If you do, you'll continue to be known for your confidence, generosity, and sense of justice.

What Planet Are You From?

A scary thought just hit me

Please may my demon kitty, Leo, never learn to drive. And there's no way I'm letting him see this.



That cat has enough evil thoughts as it is!

I'm sorry - did I sh*t on your blog?

I have just become aware of a potentially very embarrassing situation. I may have invertently been having the occasional 'sh*t' on other people's blogs. Figuratively, of course, not literally - well, not too literally, anyway, only in an abstract sense. You see, the keys on my laptop's keyboard are very close together. Whenever I type 'shut' or 'shot', I frequently produce a very embarassing typo, due to the letter 'i' being crammed in tightly between the 'u' and the 'o'. I was about to hit the submit button on someone's comment page, when I saw, to my horror, that I'd complimented them on their wonderful 'sh*t'. Now how many more times have I typed that and NOT noticed? I dread to think. But if I have visited one of your photo posts, and left a sh*t behind - please accept my apologies. I didn't mean to do it, and I promise to be more careful with my sh*ts in future.

Wordless Wednesday on, um, Wednesday

The last two images are courtesy of I Can Has Cheeseburger. I'm hoping the weather will improve enough for me to get out and take some new pics soon. Happy Wednesday!