Mostly Annoyances

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?

Sitting at my computer for 12 hours without a break.

2. What was your biggest disappointment?

Sitting at my computer for 12 hours usually hurts my ass.

3. What do you hope the new year brings?

I've already gotten a new office chair, so I guess a new ass?

4. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions? If yes, what will they be?

Of course I will! I'm still hesitating between trying to sit at my computer for more than 12 hours without a break, or try something new, like laying down in front of my computer. Mmmh...

5. What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

Sit at my computer with a bottle of sparkling grape juice (not necessarily for 12 hours, unless I bring more than one bottle, but then I'll have to pee.)

- What is your favorite type of refridgerators?

Any with a closed door.

- What is your favorite job?

One can actually have a favorite job??

- What is your favorite key?

The right one to open the safe with a million dollars.

- What is your favorite country?

Usually the one I'm not in at any given time.

- What is your favorite finger?

Now that's a stupid question. Everybody would answer the pinky, of course!

BONUS QUESTION:
- What is your favorite spoon?

My favorite spoon.

Q-Tip has become slightly -- and I insist on *SLIGHTLY* -- more sociable. I have taken her out with the Whites for their nightly play time the last couple of days. She seems to enjoy it, as she doesn't spend the whole time shaking in the depths of the deepest box she can find. Actually, tonight, she fell off the coffee table. I think Jigsaw pushed her -- Jigsaw loves to push things down (usually boxes, but rats will apparently do too if no boxes are handy) and then stares at them with interest. I think Jigsaw likes the sound of things falling down... "plunk!" :)

Anyway, Q-Tip fell, and I thought: "Ooooh shit!" I quickly got up and tried my most soothing voice on her. She was a bit lost at first and, when she saw me coming, she started running in the opposite direction, and then around the couch and back... Wherever I wasn't. I finally cornered her in front of the couch -- one arm on each side of her -- and she surprisingly (or mistakingly? Yeah, mistakingly, I'm sure) ran into my lap! Hell, that was easy! I petted her and told her that she was kind of a good girl for such a bad girl.

Bristle is a very playful and funny rat, although she tends to look for trouble after she's been out a while. When she first comes out of the cage, she does the typical thing excited and happy rats do: she hops and runs and stops dead in her tracks, just to start running in the other direction. I chase her with my hand, and she pretends to be scared and runs away, then she turns around and comes back for more :) When she's getting bored, she starts gnawing on things, like my clothes (what a pest! My clothes are full of ratty holes now!) or the bedspred that covers the couch. She also goes inside the bedspread, in which she took care of making several large all-purpose holes. She's a smart rat though -- She's always the first one to run to the milk, as soon as I say it just *once*!

Jigsaw is just too cute for her own good. She's very playful and friendly too, but she's mostly... cute beyond words :) She has that little white spot on her eye that just makes her look silly and cute (beyond words.) She's still smaller than the others. She's just not very interested in food, which is rather rare for a rat -- a rather rare rat... and I like it rare, as you know. But I digress... She's a very friendly and fun little rat. She's always on the move and it's difficult to keep her in our hands for any lentgh of time. When she's done drinking her milk on the coffee table, she usually comes to me as if asking to go back to the cage because she has to pee. So cute :) (Warning: rats *leak* when they drink too much!)

The rats have already received their Christmas gift. It's a dusting "thing", full of very thin and long bristles to tickle them and chase them with. They love it! :) Of course, they will also have a good Christmas meal on Christmas day.

Now that's real cute, and even fun! :) You can build a little city in your browser (they currently have 3 different city styles available -- and there's a snowy one for John.)

Go take a look at the City Creator by clicking the button below (opens in a new window) :

Kind of a boring Friday Five this week. Plus, they forgot to ask about my five favorite fingers, and my favorite spoon.

1. List your five favorite beverages.

- Coffee.
- Sparkling grape juice (you know, the kind sold at New Year for those who don't like alcohol? I could drink gallons of that stuff!)
- Iced tea.
- Canada Dry (I don't like other ginger ales.)
- Seven Up.

2. List your five favorite websites.

- The Adrenaline Vault (especially for their huge cheat/trainers database.)
- Happy Tree Friends
- Neopets
- LGC (Little Green Desktop) (Aaaah, nostalgia! All about the Atari ST, which was my very first computer!)
- GameSpot (pretty good site for games reviews.)

3. List your five favorite snack foods.

I'm not much of a snacker...

- Potato chips.
- Nuts.
- Things.
- Stuff.
- Rats.

4. List your five favorite board and/or card games.

I love board games! We have two floor-to-ceiling shelves full of them! :) These are just some of my favorites.

- Magic The Gathering.
- Up Word.
- Solarquest.
- Cafe International.
- Bailiwick.

5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games.

This is hard!! I have more than 5 favorites!

- Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
- Zoo Tycoon.
- Civilization 3.
- Railroad Tycoon 3.
- Traffic Giant (by the same European Publisher, I also love Industry Giant 2.)

Oh! And I have these two new games: Sid Meier's SimGolf (well, that's an old game, but I just bought it on sale for $9.95, so it's new to me. It's not a golf game, not really. It's a pure strategy game where you have to build interesting golf courses,) and Space Colony, which John bought me for Christmas. Both are quickly working their way up my list of favorites :)

Ok honeyhoo... As I'm here at home, yawning and trying to decide whether I'm going to read for a while or play Space Colony, I'm afraid the one and only theme song that'd come to anybody's mind for me would be, um... "Lazy" by Deep Purple :) Not quite as flattering as I wish it was but, as you know, I like to be bluntly truthful.

Think about it. What song describes you? More times than not, you'll come up with two answers. One as a gut reaction and usually related to what you are doing at the moment, a totally different one after you have had time to think. This is not necessarily your favorite song, or even from a band you like. Just the song that sums you up best.
My first reaction was "Working Man" from RUSH (of course I was at work at the time). After thinking for a while, I came up with "Green Tinted '60s Mind" by Mr. Big.

So who's singing you?

1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays?

I don't like the cold, but I love snow. I used to hate snow though, because I was so terrified to drive on snow-covered roads to go to work when I was in Switzerland.

2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect?

I don't like "celebrations" -- it's so fake. However, given the fact that I haven't seen my family for years, I would love to spend the holidays with them in Switzerland. Then I could eat fondue and raclette until I burst! :)

3. Do you have any holiday traditions?

No. I don't like traditions either :) If anything, a Christmas tree may be allowed to enter my home, because I like the pretty lights and glitter. I could hang chocolate rats on it too, and stick Q-Tip at the very top.

4. Do you do anything to help the needy?

Oh yes! I save all the money that I can to buy computer games, books, etc. I'm very needy.

5. What one gift would you like for yourself?

A few million dollars? Oh... no that, huh?... Mmmh... A cabin in Oregon? What? Something "reasonable"? Oh... well... mmmh... bah...

I have a new neopet besides my lovely Tramplewoods! His name is Bidiroo and he's a Blumaroo. I paid a hefty 530K neopoints to buy a pirate paint brush for him. So now, at my great expense (it can never be said enough,) Bidiroo is a lovely pirate Blumaroo.



Isn't he just adorable? :) (well, he better be with how much he cost me! Come on, tell me he's *beyond* cute!) He's now working as a clerk in my Neoshop to pay me back.

Something's wrong with my alarm clock... very wrong! I use a radio alarm clock. I set the sound volume rather loud and the clock is located right next to the bed. When it starts, and unless someone turns it off, it will play for a full hour before it automatically shuts off.

Okay so, now, how is it that I keep sleeping soundly through the whole hour it is blasting right next to me, and then I wake up with a start the second if turns off?? This is weird, huh? Weird but true :) (doesn't happen everyday, thankfully -- I guess I have a moody clock...)

And how can I be disturbed by the slightest sound (like John's breathing) when I try to fall asleep? Drives me crazy. Same effect as the sound of a drop of water falling at regular intervals... plick... plick... plick... CRAZY!!

Oh, I know what you're thinking: "Something wrong with YOU, you stupid bitch! Your alarm clock's just fine!" Well, I don't think so!!

:)

You know what madlibs are, right? Those stories with blanks you fill out by typing specific words into a form, which basically change the story itself. They can be fun, although many are not -- they have to be carefully thought out in order to be fun.

Anyway, I have made two madlibs, which I hope are of the first kind (the funny one.)

The links below open in a separate window. Check them out :)

- Possible Side Effects

- Recipe For Disaster

My baby rats (well, the Whites, because Q-Tip isn't necessarily participating in any social ratty events) have learned another word besides their names! They know the word "milk."

Every night, when they're out playing on the couch/coffee table, I bring a bowl of soy milk for them. A few days ago, I started saying "Milk! Milk! Milk!" as I put the milk down on the table, and I showed them where it was the first couple times. The next day, they already knew what "milk" meant and what to do! :) Now, as soon as I say "Milk!" once or twice, they run right to where the milk is on the table, from wherever they are on the couch! So cute, and so smart! :)

And yet more idioms translations! Are you bored yet? :)

English: To make a mountain out of a molehill.
French: Se noyer dans un verre d'eau.
Literal translation from French: To drown in a glass of water.

English: When hell freezes over.
French: Quand les poules auront des dents.
Literal translation from French: When chickens have teeth.

English: To get up on the wrong side of the bed.
French: Se lever du pied gauche.
Literal translation from French: To get up on the left foot.

Well, well, well... Seems like we've been awfully lazy this past week. Not a single blog. I'm usually more productive than that (blogwise, that is. I'm quite useless otherwise.)

I thought about posting my Friday Five questions yesterday, but would you believe that there were no Friday Five this week?? Damn. For once I hadn't forgotten about them.

There's a story: two days after I put Q-Tip back in the large cage with the Whites, she fell off the cage during the night. Even though the witnesses (the Whites) refused to talk, my investigation indicated that she fell while playing (with said witnesses.) We found her inside the couch, and had to tip it vertically to get her to slide down to one side! (I had already cut the bottom of the couch open two weeks ago, when we were looking for her in the entire house.) Q-Tip was found not guilty by way of playful insanity.

Q-Tip is annoying though. Last night, I took her out with the Whites for an hour in their playground (which, basically, is half of our couch and the coffee table, which are linked together with a large "bridge", all covered with ratty toys.) That was her first time out of the cage since her "vacation." She seemed happy enough, running around and discovering the new layout and junk I put on the couch and table. But, after about a half hour, she disappeared. I looked everywhere in the boxes and pipes on the couch, under and inside the bedspread that covers the couch (the rats love to go under -- I hate it,) but she wasn't there. Finally, we saw her on the floor, in the corner of the living-room, hiding behind a stand. Wasn't easy at all to catch her! Of this, she was found guilty -- unanimously (John and I being the only jurors, as the Whites were seemingly innocent witnesses again) -- and the sentence is that The Brown Rat will no longer be allowed to come out of the cage with the Whites for their nightly play time. At least for now.