A Mixed Bag of Lost Things

[i_kender]

1) Are you lost, sir?

I saw a pelican this morning on the way to the train station. That was kind of cool, and also bizarre... I'm far from any large bodies of water. (The Thames doesn't count - just as KFC had to change their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because their products were legally determined not to contain a high enough percentage of chicken to merit the name, the Thames can loosely be described as a river but I'm sure that water is pretty low on the list of its constituent parts) For those who care, it wasn't one of those pelicans with the large dangling orange water-trough of a beak, but the more streamlined version with a slimline grey beak and racing stripes. Still cool.

2) Dead lines and lost jobs

I spoke to my HR Manager and she confirmed what I had already guessed. Everyone at my office is being made redundant. Unfortunately I don't get any kind of severance package or redundancy money - any other names for this? The Door/Ass Kiss Off? - but unlike many others, I have a confirmed leaving date. At least now I have a firm date to plan around - I am working until Christmas and then my services are no longer required etc. Chief among my stew of emotions is relief. It is always better to know than to not know (or so I have always thought anyway - I'd rather be cursed with too much knowledge than blessed by ignorance).

3) Lost Girls found

MY COPY OF ALAN MOORE'S LOST GIRLS ARRIVED!! Woot! I'm so excited to have it my grubby immaculately-manicured paws. I had to order it from Amazon .com rather than co.uk  in the end as it has been withdrawn from the UK market until Jan 08 for copyright reasons. (The amusing thing? It worked out cheaper, even including postage. Go figure.) It is huge, the size of an A4 hard file folder and as heavy as a handbag full of bricks. Uh, not that I would know how heavy that is *cough cough*. It comes in three large hardback volumes in a slipcase, and it looks very pretty even still encased in the plastic. And I can't wait to read it *drools*

4) More lost girls

Vicky and Laura, the two girls I shared with, have now both moved out and on. So now it's just spintrian and myself. Reason?: well, my paretns are selling the house. So as soon as I'm done finding myself another job, it'll be time to find somewhere else to live. Oy vey and salmon sandwiches. No mayo.

5) Lost?

And while I'm on a roll (no butter, just a little salt) I've been watching Lost Season Three and I'm all caught up. While I'm still enjoying it, it has lost (ba-dum-DUM-tish) some of the urgency and excitement of the last two seasons. This is the problem with filming a show that revolves around secrets and mysteries - it is hard to maintain the suspense when you're witholding all the best stuff. I suppose part of the problem - the slow reveal- is never knowing how long you've got to tell the story. (Just look at how many shows cobbled together a last-minute climax when they found out they were being cancelled - Angel Season Five, I hate you and will never forgive *sobs*) Still watching, still interested, but not staying up all night to prod my download machine to cough up the last few bites so I can watch it instantly. While other shows - Battlestar Galacitca, say, or Heroes, or Supernatural - are still thrilling and must-see-at-once TV .

6) And Found

I'm pleased that a very good friend of mine has just moved into the area and looks likely to be here for a while (at least until April... which, considering the migratory nature of his job - he's in the Navy - constitutes a fair old while). It's been great seeing him again and hanging out, and he lives very close by. Since I live in the middle of nowhere in an airfield (a slight exaggeration but not by much) and most of my (few) friends in London live far away, this makes it even better. He came round last night and we played a bit of competitive ( ie shoot-each-other-in-the-head-and-make-mocking-comments) X-Box. It was enormous fun, even if I did have my bullet-riddled ass handed to me on a silver serving platter. Clearly I need practice. (Victory will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. Even if I have to poison his Coke before we start the next contest. Muhuahhahahahhaha!!)

This week I will be mostly eating celery (yeah right!) and tonight I'm going to see The Prestige with buddleia. Then over the weekend I'm going to meet up with apple_crumble and his man-wife and the Evil Non-Orange Nomi for dinner and drinks and some light spanking. Unfortunately this is taking place in Leeds. (I am hideously allergic to certain towns... Leeds makes my fingertips grow warts the size of pomegranates) Why oh why oh why do you all live so far North?  Come down to London: Not Currently Exploding...

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

1) Cool, is that the one that ate a pidgeon do you think?

2) Remember to start planning who gets what office supplies now.

3) Copyright reasons... do we think that's the truth? Or there was a hint that the tabloids had gottena hold of it, and the publishers got cold feet?

5) *hates Angel S5 with a fiery passion*

[i_kender]

1) After consulting with My Bird, I think it might have actually been some kind of heron. Or possibly crane. Still unusual though.

2) I'll have the printer/copier!

3) Oh, sorry, I thought I'd posted about this but clearly I haven't: When I went to see the talk with Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie (cute couple, btw) last month, they coughed up the full story to the fans. There was a challenge from Great Ormond St Hospital, who as you know own the rights to Peter Pan. Rather than get embroiled in an uncomfortable legal dispute (with what is, after all, a Children's Hospital) Alan and Melinda decided to do something very decent; viz. volunteered to wait a year before releasing the book in the UK (Jan 2008, which is when the Peter Pan rights expire). Annoying for fans, but morally very admirable. And that is the full story, and why the book is not available on Amazon UK or indeed any other UK supplier.

5) Grr. Arg.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

2) Don't forget the furniture or the carpets. Waste not want not.

3) Oh, wait, yes. I did know this.

... I think think the tabloids have gotten ahold of it though.

5) Connor. Oh geezus. Connor.

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

pelicans: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=pelican&btnG=Search

heron: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=heron&btnG=Search

crane: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=crane+bird&btnG=Search

(i put crane bird because otherwise you would have landed up with pictures of fucking great chunks of metal. :) )

[i_kender]

Hey, aren't you the little star! ;) Thanks for posting links... I was actually trawling Goggle Images earier trying to work it out, but it wasn't easy. It looked most like a Great Blue Heron (see halfway down the heron page). But I'm still not sure!

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

here, was it this:
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=grey+heron&btnG=Search

this is the grey heron, which lives in london, although, apparantly, only breeds in the zoo now.

[i_kender]

Hmmmmm... more like this

http://www.russellwatergardens.com/Photos%20Misc/Heron-flying.jpg

(as in, it was all grey. The one I saw was more gangly and awkward looking, though)

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

probably was the blue heron, then. they *are* in london. maybe he was hungry because of the lack of edible fish in the toxic quagmire that is now the thames...?!

there's a lot of blue herons in florida and most of them are gangly and lanky-looking. you'd think they'd be all fat from all the fish, but they're not. i think they're just skinny scraggly birds by design haha.

[nightxade.livejournal.com]

What did you think of The Prestige?

1) That's why they changed the name? How do you fake a chicken leg, thigh or breast? I thought it was changed because of the whole health conscious business, which the term "fried" really doesn't fit. Nor do those greasy pile'o'fries they used to have that kind of came up in a bundle when you tried to pick up just one. I miss those days.

Aha! Wiki reveals the truth! And we all know that Wiki never lies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC#Name

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

i'm glad they included the cruelty issue, although they seriously downplayed it.

[nightxade.livejournal.com]

You can always edit it and add more information. I like Wiki for including many sides to an issue, even though the information can be skewed due to the nature of the medium and its ease of accessibility.

[i_kender]

Ah. Ok. You see, I heard a different version of the "urban legend": namely that KFC's chicken could not legally be classed as chicken because it contained too much injected salt, starch, water, protein etc and the actual chicken content fell below legal guidelines as a result (eg. to illustrate: it had to be, say, 75% chicken to be called that, and the additives made up more than 25%)

It's still funny.

[apple-crumble.livejournal.com]

Roll on the weekend baby! xxx