Blog your handwriting
1. What’s your name/your blogger name?
2. What’s your blog’s name/URL?
3. Write “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
4. Favorite quote?
5. Your Favorite song?
6. Your favorite band/singers?
7. Anything else you want to say?

My answers:

Click to make larger.

• I finished NaNoWriMo with, as you can see from the little graphic on the post before the last, 50,001 words—just one word over
• My brother moved to Ireland in December, which was sad. But he had to move back again last month, which was great :D
• Christmas and New Year happened, but I don’t remember either. Wait, I remember some of Christmas—it was pretty good
• The weight loss I mentioned in an older post just didn’t happen. My New Year’s resolution was to lose weight/eat more healthily. Didn’t happen either. I am going to start again tomorrow, on the Dukan diet again because I need a strict diet otherwise I won’t stick to it
• There was going to be another point here, but I don’t remember it :p

And on to the titular customer service. Back in November I read a recommendation for a cheap tablet PC written by the ‘Money Saving Expert‘, Martin Lewis. So I bought one. I didn’t buy an iPad because a) I’m poor, b) I didn’t want one, and c) like most/all Apple products, they’re overpriced (I am going to buy an iPod Touch soon though :p). I couldn’t justify spending a lot of money on something I wouldn’t use that often.
So I purchased it in early November, I think it was the 7^th. I was informed that it would take about 28 days to arrive, like most things I purchase online. And like most things I purchase online, I expected it to arrive within about a week, which is fairly generous for an item being shipped from and to the same country. But obviously it didn’t.
On Dec 1^st I received an e-mail containing an ‘update’ on my order. This e-mail contained some info on my order, saying that there had been a ‘huge demand’ blah blah blah… and that it should be with me within a week. So excitedly I waited. When the week (seven working days) were up and I still hadn’t received my order I tried to read the e-mail again. Unfortunately the whole thing—images and text—was just one graphic which would no longer load. Despite my best efforts I could not get this image, so I had no information on my order.
I sent them a polite e-mail asking for information and the next day I received a reply saying my order would arrive the following day. Which, to their credit, it did.
Understandably I was very excited and loved it from the moment I opened it. There was a very slight fault on the left side of the screen, which wasn’t as responsive as the rest. But it wasn’t a huge problem—it was only a small portion of the screen and it wasn’t that noticeable. I wasn’t going to attempt to return it as it took so bloody long to get the thing in the first place. So all was well until, in January, I noticed a very thin crack along the left side and the responsiveness got worse and worse until the crack was very noticeable and eventually the whole screen wasn’t working correctly. So obviously, now the thing was completely faulty I thought maybe I could return it and hopefully get it repaired or even replaced, or even get a refund.
Also, from the same website, I ordered a ‘protective leather case’ a couple of days after Christmas. I realised it would probably take a while to arrive, but I was OK with that. Besides, it wasn’t a special offer so I thought maybe it would arrive more quickly than the tablet itself. It didn’t.
So at the end of January, a month after I received the tablet and just under a month after I bought the case, I e-mailed them about the faulty screen and missing case. I didn’t get a reply. So I tried calling them on the only phone number I could find, which was in one of the e-mails. No one answered. I called again and again but still nothing.
On February 18^th I e-mailed them once more, explaining the situation again and explaining that I had already e-mailed and tried calling them. And now, six weeks later, I have heard nothing from them. I still don’t have the case I no longer need, and I still have a broken tablet.

Another bad customer experience I had was in February. In December I decided I wanted my tragus pierced. My mum said she wanted hers done too so we went to the tattoo/piercing establishment we’d always gone to for non-ear piercings (I had my navel pierced there, and in my teens they had a service where they stuck a little gem on your tooth (remember that craze? I loved it! :p), which I also had done. We know the guy who owned and ran the place—he’s the dad of an old friend of mine.
Anyway, my mum went first and she made such a fuss about how painful it was I chickened out. But I had said beforehand that if they didn’t freeze the area before piercing I wouldn’t go through with it—which they didn’t, he said they’re not allowed to do that any more.
But in February, armed with a tube of EMLA cream, I plucked up the courage to go through with it. I spent about 20 mins in the shop waiting for him to finish with a customer (during which time I realised the cream hadn’t worked). While I was waiting three other people came in (separately) all wanting tattoos. When the piercer came out he took a look at my tragus and said “It’s too small, a bar wouldn’t go through that.” What he meant to say was “I have three people waiting for tattoos, which cost far more than a piercing. If I spend five minutes piercing your ear they might get bored and go to the tattoo parlour down the road instead. So I’m sorry but I cannot be arsed wasting my time on a five-minute procedure that will earn me £15, I’d rather earn £50+ apiece on these tattoos which could take me hours.”
I knew he was lying because while my tragus is rather small, I know someone with a smaller one who has it pierced; and when I went in December he was prepared to do it.
So we went to the tattoo parlour down the road (the only other one in this town) which I hadn’t been in before. It was quite a bit smaller but had twice as many customers, and far more people working there. I only waited a few minutes before someone came over to look at my tragus, decide it was pierce-able and ask me if I wanted a ring or a stud. Then it was only another few minutes before I was called through to a room out the back and had it pierced within about three minutes.
And here is a (terrible) pic of my newly-pierced ear:

Anyone is welcome but its main demographic is girls/women aged 13-30. Feel free to join, we’re a friendly bunch.

This has been keeping me busy for most of this calendar year, so I have neglected the rest of my websites, fail. I will try to blog more (and write more interesting posts—not likely though ) soon.

So, I had a birthday just over a week ago. It was fun—I got some nice things, my favourite being a pearl bracelet from my parents. I also received a fair amount of money from various relatives and bought a mirror and a beautiful necklace.
And how did I celebrate? Clubbing with a bunch of mates? A nice meal at a fancy restaurant? No. I had a meal from Burger King with my family at home. Why? Because I am currently on the Dukan Diet, and for the past month or so I’ve eaten pretty much just chicken, turkey and eggs. So for my birthday I decided to have the ‘day off’ my diet, and I fancied a nice burger and chips. And yes, I could have gone out to a restaurant and had a ‘proper’ 1/4 pound beef burger or whatever, but I didn’t want that. I wanted just a bit of fast food. And I stayed at home for two reasons: having fatty, greasy, red meat after a month of not having it may have played havoc with my stomach (luckily it didn’t, but I wasn’t going to take the chance); and actually going out to eat inside the Burger King restaurant, on my 23^rd birthday, would just have been too tragic.

The diet is going well though, in just a week I lost eight pounds, and my total so far is ten. I would like to lose more though. Unfortunately, due to a lifestyle of eating too much and not exercising enough, I am a bit of a fattie. Two years ago I reached a weight that I deemed ridiculous, so I started exercising a bit and managed to lose a stone (14lb). But then last year my mum was ill and I comfort ate, and I was put on medication for migraines which is known for causing weight gain (I searched online and one woman gained a whole stone in six weeks ) and I piled it all back on again.

I am, of course, participating in NaNoWriMo again. This is my fourth year now. I enjoy it because a) it doesn’t have to be good writing—it’s quantity over quality, and b) no one gets to read it, so it doesn’t matter that what I write is a pile of shite (and trust me, it is ). Here is my current word count:

And finally, I am studying another Open Uni course, this time a ‘proper’ one. Previously I have only studied short ’starter’ courses because I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to study. I’m doing creative writing at the moment, which is pretty fun.

So now I have no idea what will be happening. I don’t think either my brother’s ex or I will be able to afford to live there without a third person, unless she decides to move another friend in—if she even has another one who needs/wants somewhere to live and is willing to share a bedroom. It looks like I may be staying put after all. *sigh*

So that’s about it, nothing much to update. Hopefully I’ll have more to blog about soon.

Dreams are so weird. A few weeks ago I had a dream about this touch screen computer. It was just the touch screen screen, nothing else. The next day information about the iPad was published all over the web and I kind of got goosebumps when I remembered the dream. It was the same concept, although being dream land, mine was so much better. It was a few inches bigger, a little thinner and although it looked nothing like an iPod, it was clear it was made by Apple. It was white or a light silver—kind of like a Macbook—and the border was smaller except with a slightly bigger one at the bottom or right (depending on which way you were holding it). And it was actually a computer, rather than a glorified iPod/ebook reader—but it ran on Windows. It was kind of like a netbook, but flat… more like netpaper*. It was so strange. The last time I remember a dream that “came true” the next day was when I was 7 or 8 years old. There was this supply teacher we sometimes had who had a really shiny face, and this dream was just random things appearing around this whirlpool type thing. She was one of the things that appeared and she stayed longer than the other things. The next day at school our teacher was away and, lo and behold, she was our supply teacher. It was really weird and kind of creepy.
Have you ever had a dream that “came true” in some way?

*Bill Gates, if you’re reading this, get in touch about the Netpaper.

Hellooo. I have reopened, but have not switched to Wordpress (I couldn’t be bothered in the end). Though that wasn’t the actual reason I closed. A family member found my blog through Google and I just didn’t want my offline friends/family knowing about it. I deleted the offending entry and now I don’t appear in the search engine results for those words. I just hope they didn’t bookmark or remember the name of the site.

Anyway, so an update on my failure of a life. My birthday was pretty good. I can;t actually remember what happened on the day but I remember it was nice. I had my party with my brother’s girlfriend, it was a nice evening but I ended up not feeling too good.

I completed NaNoWriMo, yay! Here’s my winner’s badge:

My courses are going pretty well, one actually finishes in a couple of days—I can’t believe how quick the time has gone. They weren’t actually a week apart (see last blog), but a day. I have three essays due in within the next week, which is a little overwhelming when you go from nothing to that. But I think I’m on top of it.

I might be moving in with my brother and his girlfriend, as their ‘roomie’. They only live down the road so it would be ideal. I just hope I can afford the rent, I don’t know if I can yet.

I have opened two new fanlistings and a new site. I say ’site’, but it’s a directory—for doll tutorials: Doll Tutorial Directory. The fanlistings are Read All About It for Mock the Week, and Three Talents for Mr. G, a character from Summer Heights High.

Anyway, at the end of this month I will be starting my first Open University course, then on November 7^th I will be starting the other two. I just looked back through my entries and I haven’t actually blogged about them yet. </idiot>
OK, so I’m going to do three starter/openings courses, just to get me used to studying again, and to get an idea of what they’re like. The first is one to help me with essays, because I was terrible at them at school. That one starts on Oct 31^st. The other two (starting on Nov) are starter courses for law and psychology, so I know which of them I’d like to study further (if at all).
I could have started them all in October, but I thought I’d start one a month earlier so I had a month to get used to doing it. But the actual start dates are just a week apart, so that’s that out of the window.
So they will keep me busy over the next twelve weeks.

I’m also doing NaNoWriMo again this year—my third year. I don’t think I’ll manage to complete the 50k this time around though, but I’ll give it a go.

Oh, and it’s my birthday in November. I may be having a joint “party” (meal) with my brother’s girlfriend, whose birthday is also in November. She suggested it, though really I need to ask her if she still wants to do it.

I’ve started looking for a flat again. Everywhere I’ve found is either a) too expensive, or b) too far. I want to live as close to here as possible so I can still pop round to see my family (though mainly the cats ). I found a perfect place a while ago: quite below my price range but really nice—but I hesitated a bit because it was kind of far, but looking back it wasn’t really. By the time I arranged to view it it had gone.

I wanted to do a black and white “sketch” type layout for a while but never actually got around to do it. Then I was doodling a few weeks ago and drew this cat peering over a bowl, and I thought, “Perfect!” Not only was it a sketch but it was of a cat, and I love cats (zomg really?!). So I copied it, as best I could, in Photoshop and voila!
Admittedly, the actual drawing is miles better. And the title is kind of crappy—I wanted it to look “sketched” but honestly: must try harder. At first I wanted it to be quite neat, but after failing to get it right I settled on going for something rougher. It actually turned out neater when I didn’t try so hard.
I am fairly pleased with the whole thing though.

I have now been approved for three of the fanlistings I applied for, and they’re all up:
ICE FISHING!—for Scottish stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle.
MY Sandwich?!—for series five of Friends.
You BUMDER!—for the sitcom The Inbetweeners.

The whole time they were here, our cats didn’t come in the house. They would come in for food and go back out again, sulking in the garden. Why? Because he was cruel to them. He would push them off things—chairs, walls (in the garden), whatever they were on. He grabbed them and squeezed them, he stamped on them, and he “stroked” them so hard it hurt. He did the same to the dogs but they couldn’t get out so had to suffer. When Diego (the only cat brave enough to come in while they were here) laid near him while he was colouring, he coloured his paw blue—OK, that one is quite funny.
We went to my brother’s house to see his nine-week-old kittens, and he stroked them too hard and chased them about. They were scared to death and stayed under the couch, shaking.
Did his mother tell him off? Of course not. She gently asked him not to do things, and that was it. I told him off more in the week he was here than he had ever been told off in his life.

He also continuously drew on the walls and furniture, and had further tantrums when pens/pencils were taken off him. If anything didn’t go his way, he screamed and my sister would instantly give in to him, no matter what it was.
She “had to” eat her breakfast in the kitchen, because if he saw it he would want some. My mum told her to say “No, you’ve had yours. This is Mummy’s.”, but she said she couldn’t because she’d never said anything like that before and she couldn’t start here.
He played with a soft toy of my (other) sister’s for one day out of the eight they were here, and she decided that he “loved it” and actually bought him one.
She gives him everything he wants, never says no to him, and never tells him off for anything. And thus he is a spoilt brat.

Yesterday, I was watching an episode of Friends with my sister. Rachel, trying to bargain with Chandler over something, said “You give me back my Walkman!”
My sister, who is 13, turned to me and asked “What’s a Walkman?”

I just can’t believe someone—someone who is only eight years younger than me—doesn’t know what a Walkman is. When I was younger a Walkman was amazing. The cassette version. I always wanted one but could never afford one (my parents were a little tight on pocket money). I got one when they were being sold cheap because the CD version had come out.
But my sister knows nothing of this. For her, music is not a physical thing like a CD or cassette, it’s just something you can just download from the Internet and transfer from PC to MP3 player, using a cable. She owns about four CDs.
I own God knows how many (though I do know that they are stacked neatly in alphabetical order by artist, then by order of release :p). I have them all on my MP3 player too, but if it were to ever break I would lose them all if I didn’t own the physical copy.

She makes me feel ancient

My sister is coming to stay with us for a week next month. This means I will get to see my baby niece for the first time, yay! And of course, see my little nephew again. I can’t wait.

I have completely revamped my hand drawn doll site. I’m now using Wordpress, I’ve re-shaded my bases, it’s all just so much better.
I have also opened a new site, a pixel one. Please visit and comment.

My unborn niece I blogged about in my last entry (wow, it’s been over a month) was born today. She was born at 6:10 AM this morning and my brother-in-law had to deliver her in the back of the car on the way to the hospital. She was 6lb 6oz, I think.
My mum, dad and sister were supposed to be going down there to visit so my mum could be at the birth, but it’s a little late now. They’re still going down to visit though. I’ll be staying here alone—five glorious days to myself! I’m gutted I won’t be seeing my niece though.

Yes, it’s true, I’m still alive. Sorry I haven’t updated (she says, like she has disappointed regular visitors ). I’ve had some stuff going on in my personal life and everything’s kind of been put on hold, I doubt I’ll even be moving out this year.
However, I do plan to start studying at the Open University. I can’t go to a “normal” college/university, so this is the best I can do right now. I know I mention going to college, but I only go for one hour a week (although that has currently stopped due to the aforementioned personal issues). I want to study English (though I’d rather learn about the actual English language and creative writing as opposed to literature (me + essays = -_-)). I also want to study maths and psychology or law. I don’t know which I’d like to do out of the two. I’ve always been interested in psychology, but more recently law has started to interest me. Maybe I could end up doing both.
I also would quite like to do Greek and Latin, and I considered web design. But I don’t really want to learn to use Dreamweaver, when I’m used to just typing out codes.

I’m running the Race for Life marathon this year. Well, when I say “run”, I actually mean “walk”. It’s on my dad’s birthday, so he’ll be spending that cheering me and a few other family members on. It starts at 11am and you have to be there at least an hour early. I don’t get up ’til between 10-11.

I don’t know if I already mentioned this, but my sister is pregnant again. She’s expecting a little girl at the end of May. She had a 4D ultrasound scan in February, which she took us all to. And I have some pics:

My little niece, as a six-month-old foetus. She’s sticking her tongue out in the second one. She wouldn’t move her arm from the side of her head the whole time.
I just remembered I did blog about the pregnancy. I was due to be there at the birth. But that’s gone out the window now too.

That is the question.

I always confuse myself when it comes to blogging. I have something I want to blog about, feel it’s not worthy of an entry of its own, so wait until I have something else to blog about. Then I find another thing I want to write about, forget about the first thing, and decide it’s not worth writing about on its own. This goes on until I have about five different topics and I think that it’s too many so don’t bother. Then I feel that so much time has passed since I last blogged I must write something then blog about everything, causing a big nonsensical mess.
Then I remember something I meant to write in that entry but think it’s not worth writing such a short entry about. So it all starts again.

I’ve just realised that my coding isn’t valid. Well, technically not my coding, but there appear to be a lot of errors in the FanUpdate coding (which weren’t there when I first installed the script), and now with the Social Vibe widget in the sidebar. ->
I can’t be arsed to do anything about it at the moment. I might have a look later, but to be honest I’m not that bothered about validation any more. I mainly did it to see if I could, and I can. And the site looks OK in most browsers, I think. Or at least it did.

I’m not quite sure what to do about a site I was going to open. I was planning a layout site, for Myspace, Bebo, Friendster etc., but also for Wordpress and general web layouts. But I don’t know if I can be bothered with another site. I have literally hundreds of backgrounds and graphics I’ve made to use but I don’t know whether I should just use them on my current Myspace/profile resource site. I could still do the layout thing, but just not on that site.
But I bought a layout and CMS for it, so I don’t really want to let all that go. I’m wondering if I should sell it or give the site to a friend to do with what they wish. *sighs*

Just a content update. I’ve added several new smilies/emoticons and reorganised the pages.

Examples:

3D smilies

Emoticon smilies

Square smilies

Word sprites

All emoticons/smilies

Yay for laptops! As the title indicates, I bought myself a new one. I ordered it on 30^th Dec and it arrived on the 5^th, I think. It’s and Acer Aspire 5920G and it has 4GB RAM and 250GB HDD, and it was only £400 ($587)—although now it has gone down to £380.
Still, it’s very pretty. The lid is kind of (very subtly) sparkly. The inside is like a grey-cream colour, which I’m not entirely sure I like but never mind. It has a webcam (I’ve always wanted a laptop with a webcam, despite actually owning cams themselves, fail), virtual surround sound, and all these handy buttons I’ll never use but look awesome.

So how was everyone’s Christmas? Mine was pretty cool. It feels like ages ago now, I can’t really remember what happened.
A few of my favourite presents:

• A hair dryer—it was the only thing I asked for, it’s one of those ones that “care” for your hair
• A ‘Tatty Teddy’ bear, key ring and cushion
• A really cute silver necklace I’ve always wanted but never got around to buying
• A gold bracelet with some charms: a handbag, a sandal, a mobile phone, and little chunk of Cadbury’s chocolate (my favourite)
• Some perfume
• A top
• Mean Girls and Clueless DVD box set
• Money
• Wii Family Trainer (joint present with my sister

I bought my mum a wine bottle holder (it’s brilliant), a Tatty Teddy bear and key ring, and a Henry the Hoover key ring; my dad a Lost series box set; my sister Friends series 1-10 box set; my brother The Inbetweeners on DVD and an electric shock game; my other brother and my other sister/brother-in-law/nephew money; and my grandparents a bottle of whisky.

We spent the morning opening presents and just talking and stuff, then my two brothers and one of their girlfriends came over for dinner. In the afternoon we all (except for the girlfriend-less brother) went to my aunt’s. In the evening my dad dropped us all (except my mum) home and my brother, his girlfriend, our sister and I played cards around my brother’s house until it got quite late and we went home.
All in all, a pretty good day.

I spent New Year’s Eve babysitting my sister while my parents went out (wow, zomg!). It was quite fun actually. She’s twelve, so old enough to be fun. We watched Night at the Museum and then played Wii Family Trainer until the new year came and she went to bed.

Last Thursday I got the flu. I never know whether to put ‘the’ in front of ‘flu’ or not, it sounds and looks weird without. Anyway, I had it, and have only just really got out of bed the past couple of days. About two days into the illness I developed six, yes six, cold sores. Four of them were absolutely massive and my lips swelled up like two sausages, seriously. Of course, I still have them, but they’re a lot smaller. But when they first came I really felt (and looked) like shit.

The first day I had the flu (Thursday), my dad had just finished redecorating my bedroom. That day he had put up my new TV. I bought it several months ago but decided not to put it up (or even open the box) until my room was finished, and I didn’t even get the chance to appreciate it because I was ill. I also had a new CD player and a new computer chair I’d bought and had saved for the same reason. I was really looking forward to using them all (yes, I’m that sad) but couldn’t. I also got a new mirror, which I love. It’s a long heart shape.
My new room is a salmony pink on two walls, and a browny-beigy-orange on the other two. The cupboard doors are white with a dark chocolate brown in the middle, and I’ve got laminated flooring. It all looks very nice. Which is a shame because I’m planning on moving out. I just want a place of my own (not actually belonging to me, of course, but living alone). I am a bit worried that my only option could be a house share, I’m a bit unsociable. What I really want is just an all-in-one bedroom and living room, with a separate bathroom/toilet area to myself. That’s it. Most places I’ve looked at are “No under 25s” though, which I think is bullshit. I would keep a flat/room as clean as someone double my age (maybe not as tidy, but as clean) and would make no noise. Still, I’ll find somewhere, I’m sure of it.

I’ve reopened my glitter generator site. I closed it temporarily because the script stopped working. I have no idea how or what happened, and Surpass didn’t have a clue, but I reinstalled and re-uploaded everything and it’s working now. Yay!