The explosing dinosaur

So I had just been forced to give two young scallywags a minor bollocking for breaking out into a full on game of handball in the shop- there are a few things that can not be politely ignored and was feeling a little worked up. I picked up a squashy, palm-sized brontosaurus and stated to give it a bit of a squeeze.

No sooner had I begun than a jet of the dinosaur’s gelatinous inner fluid shot two metres through the air, narrowly missing a customer (who was casually choosing a birthday card) and landing in a series of splats just centimetres from her feet.

The sheer comedy of the event made it a little difficult to apologize, but I managed to get out some form of sorry and all ended well. She had a "the shop girl very nearly covered me in the slime from a squashy dinosaur" story to tell, and I got to finally find out just exactly what it was that made them so squashy. :o)

Blow stuff up and smash shit

The big bits:

Do you ever have those days when you're so statically charged you actually see a blue spark every time you hit a light switch? Last Wednesday was one of those days.

Unfortunately, it was also one of those unco days and I kicked things off in the morning by somehow knocking a glass whilst brushing my teeth, sending it hurtling into the bathtub and smashing it into a thousand minute lethal shards which were, I must say, very hard to distinguish from drops of water on the tubs ceramic surface. There goes half an hour.

But the doosey:

When I came home from work (still slightly traumatized from the huge shock I received turning off the TV after vacuuming the shop) and flicked on my light (wunna dem multi-bulbed brassy, floral retro numbers). There was a mighty bang reminiscent of a gunshot, only higher pitched as one of the light bulbs exploded. Poor Yahtzee crapped himself, having just been subjected to a small sonic boom and a shower of strange white powder, and was off under the bed like a shot while I just stood there dazed, staring up at my smoking light fitting.

A thousand more tiny pieces of glass to clean up, this time spanning a radius of pretty much my entire room.

For those of you who know me well will know my tendency to keep most of my possessions scattered randomly on my bedroom floor. This makes it all the more difficult to clean up the aftermath of an exploding light bulb.

A good two hours was spent picking up every sock, pattern, duvet, magazine, paintbrush (the list goes on...) and carefully shaking it individually to remove the tiny glass fragments before vacuuming them up. Another half hour was spent extracting the cat from under my bed and calming the poor little guy till he stopped shaking.

At least my room got tidied, I guess.

It's hereditary

...accidental self-mutilation, that is. Not so long ago my mother struck herself in the forehead with the sharp end of a hammer whilst trying to remove a nail, it resulted in lots of blood and the following pronounced bump.

The boxing day squish

As you can see, one of these fingers is substantially larger than the other one [even when taking into account that that hand is a little closer to the camera], that's because I had just squished it in a bad-ass old hinge under the weight of the metal foot-rest of an old barber's chair (don't ask).

However, the damage was no where near as bad as I'd initially assumed.

The downside- was it really funkin' hurt, but on the upside- my nail did't go black and fall off in a disgusting fashion as I'd expected it to (been there done that before).

For such squishes I highly recommend an extended period of icepack compression, which is never fun, followed by smothering in Rawleigh's ointment
(the one in the blue tin). Works wonders my dears.

Whoops

spelt cherub wrong there didn't I, Oh well, guess it doesn't matter given the nature of this blog

Meet Yahtzee

When someone has been through the traumas of an undesirable upbringing, estrangement from their family, the painful effects of numerous attacks of feline violence and a recent operation to the testicles, we do our best to be loving and accepting of the fact that such circumstances may lead to undesirable behavioral characteristics...

...but it still sucks when you get bitten in the face on a regular basis.

This little man is a charmer who both loves and needs to sit on you and snuggle, but suddenly a flash-back of god-knows-what makes him lash out in a brutal facial or limb attack. This happens between 1 and 9 times a day.

Yahtzee's only been with us a week, and we can only but hope he'll grow out of biting the hand that feeds (that and the habit perfectly synchronizing his toileting with our meal-times).

In the meantime I'll just have to go on loving him like the schmuck that I am and get used to walking round with a face peppered with fang punctures.

~sigh~

Mysterious Affliction

The top photo there is a close up of the front of my stand in work-shirt which is soon to be returned to my employers to be replaced with a chambray shirt, which is, I must say a SERIOUS misfortune in itself.

Despite my hatred of chambray, I'm not really looking forward to the upgrade as it entails returning my delightful purple polo in the above discoloured state.

I am one of the apparently not so uncommon mutants who actually perspires bleach.

In my case, the only garments effected by this are cotton, in particular low-quality t-shirts. Blues and greens cop it the most, but now I can also add purple to the list of susceptible colours. The bleaching usually takes place around the neckline of a garment, but it can basically happen anywhere it comes into contact with my skin.

I did a bit of web research about this and nobody seems to know for sure why this happens. There are a few probably bollocky speculations made such as:
- a high sodium diet
- over-exercising
- high levels of chlorine in drinking water
- chemicals in deodorant reacting with those in your sweat
- a low protein diet
but I'd definitely like to get my mitts on some more scientifically based information. I read about one extreme case where a woman would leave an entire bleached-out body shape after just one night.

Although it's mildly frustrating when my t-shirts fade so quickly and unevenly, I guess I should be grateful I'm not at the same level as the woman referred to above.

Will be conducting my own research into this. In the meantime, respect going out to my fellow acid-sweating massive.

Professor Pop xxx

Hey, cool, I'm a parakeet!

Did the ~what animal are you~ test and it could've been a whole lot worse, close call with being a monkey (funnily enough I don't really fancy myself as louse-munching primate with a luminous bottom as my redeeming feature) so was quite relieved. Parakeet, hmmm can see a few correlations there...

You Are A: Parakeet!

This popular bird is kept as a pet in homes all over the world. Originating from Australia, parakeets like warm weather and lots of seeds and fruit. They are also known for being messy and quite loud! But you cannot look at one without falling in love.

You were almost a: Monkey or a Pony
You are least like a: Groundhog or a LambTake the Cute Animal Test!